"You and your big ears!" Dave finally growled. "Footsteps on this street, my eye! There can't be two other dopes in London tonight. Let's go, and—"
But Dawson never finished the sentence. At that instant two shadowy figures seemed to appear by magic right out of the darkness.
"So?" a deep voice growled. "You would try to escape us?"
For a moment Dawson stood like a man struck to stone, his eyes popping, and his mouth sagging. It had stunned him to see the two shadowy figures appear out of thin night-black air. And it stunned him to feel the firm pressure of a gun muzzle against his ribs. But what stunned him most was to hear the voice speaking German!
"What, what?" he finally blurted out in English. "Hey! What's the big idea? Is this a stick-up?"
"Silence, dogs, both of you!" the voice hissed. "You are fools to try to make jokes. We have followed you all the way from the hotel. We know! You are stupid to think you could escape us!"
"But see here, you're altogether balmy!" Freddy Farmer spoke the first words that came to his lips. "We're not trying to escape anybody. We're lost, and—"
A sharp hard slap cut off the rest of Freddy Farmer's words. Dawson started to leap forward instinctively, but an arm was hooked about his neck, and the gun muzzle was practically snapping one of his ribs in two. For a brief instant colored light spun around in front of his eyes, and blind rage tempted him to risk a bullet from the gun as he attempted a Commando trick to rid himself of his attacker. But in the darkness he couldn't see how Freddy was making out, and there was the chance that Freddy might pay for the trick with his life. And so he let his coiled muscles relax, and stood perfectly still.
A moment later the hooked arm was removed from about his neck, but the pressure of the gun muzzle remained the same.
"That is good," the voice growled in his ear. "My orders are not to kill you unless I am forced to. So do not be foolish, as I do not feel patient tonight."