“Now then, Bill. Where’s Osceola?”
“Outside the window. Or he was.” Bill’s voice was little more than a whisper. “We got here more than ten minutes before you drove up—legged it fast across the grounds, without running into a soul. The windows on this side of the house are too high to see into from the ground. Luckily Osceola spied a ladder leaning against an elm, on the way here, where some tree surgeon had left it, I guess. Anyway, it was just what we wanted, so we hiked over and toted it back. I climbed it and cut a hole in the glass just above the window-catch. I couldn’t see into the room because of the shade, but I could hear, all right. That big goop over there was talking with Professor Fanely. And by the way, there’s absolutely no doubt that old Fanely is the guy we’re after. His voice is the one I heard in the cupola. Osceola recognized it, too. Of course, when I got the piece of glass out of the window, they were in the midst of a conversation. I gathered that you’d been followed to New York today. Evidently they knew nothing about your conference, but the cabinet member was spotted going into the same office where you had been trailed. So, the old bird had figured out just about what did happen in New York. Take it from me, there are no flies on that old fellow! He guessed how you would be sure that he, Fanely, was the kidnapper from Deborah’s description, and how the lad from Washington would laugh at the idea. He even had the hunch that you would show up tonight! And while they were talking, Kolinski came in and said that a phone message had come through from the lodge, and that you were on the way up.”
“But I wonder how they guessed my identity?”
“Your car license—Kolinski said so. Those things seem to be working for both sides in this business. Kolinski, the poor chap, was scared to death, apparently. The old man had it in for him because he made the initial mistake of dropping that silver cartwheel out of his car, and making it possible for the girls to identify him. But he was only in the room a couple of minutes. When he’d gone, the Professor said that as soon as you came they’d go upstairs. They planned that after Kolinski had ushered you in here, they’d put him out of the way. And the next move was for Lambert to come down here and do the same for you. Of course, old Fanely thought you’d come armed, so he cautioned the big guy to watch his step. If it hadn’t been for that,—well, I guess I’d have been too late.” Bill bit his lip. “I don’t see how the old buzzard imagined he could avoid government suspicion by doing you in, as well as Kolinski—Well, that’s about all of it. When you rang the bell, they went out of here, so I unfastened the window catch and hopped in.”
“Good work, Bill. You’re the sort of a chap a man needs on a job like this—”
Bill grinned and shook his head. “I’m all right as far as I go, but I guess—“ he motioned toward the barricaded door—“I just didn’t go far enough. But Osceola’s outside somewhere, I thought he’d better stay on watch. So maybe—”
There was a knock on the door. They looked at each other and waited.
“Well, Lambert? Is the dear Mister Ashton Sanborn, alias Davis—er—non compos—I mean hors de combat?” A pause. “So, my dear Lambert, you have failed, eh?” A fierce menace in the words now.
The bound man’s face turned a sickly gray, and Sanborn felt a momentary pity for him. Then they heard whispered instructions outside the door, and the sound of running feet. Sanborn tried a bluff.
“Hi! you!—there’s a posse of police surrounding the house!”