"And what do you make of it?" Dave asked, and tapped the paper still in his hand.
"Don't just know for sure," Freddy Farmer replied with a frown. "But it certainly doesn't make me happy. The colonel's not the one to scare a chap, so I take it that the business is more than just serious. I mean, that that bloke wasn't fooled, and that he's got his eye on us. Yet—"
The English youth came to a halt and gestured helplessly.
"Just what I think, too," Dawson grunted. "If that's true, why did he let us get away out here?"
"Maybe he was forced to," Freddy Farmer murmured, and stared absently out the office window. "Maybe we were a bit too fast for the blighter. And maybe his job was turned over to some other chap!"
"Huh?" Dave blinked at him. "How's that?"
Freddy pointed a finger at the message.
"The colonel suggests we alter our route," he said. "There are still such things as secret radios, you know, Dave. But—well, it does seem a little fantastic and story-bookish, doesn't it? After all, the only thing the colonel knows is that the beggar has disappeared."
"Sure," Dawson grunted. "He could have been clipped by a New York taxi, and be in some hospital right now. I wouldn't want to bet on it, though. For my money, I think we'd better take the colonel's warning as real, and act accordingly. Frankly, it would suit me to take off from here and fly non-stop to Chungking, and get it over with."
"In what?" Farmer asked bluntly. "It's only about sixty-five hundred miles from here to the Jap-occupied coast, you know. And several more inland to Chungking!"