"What did I tell you?" griped Harper. "Fat men with fat wallets buy fat engines that guzzle a gallon of alk to the mile." He sniffed in disgust, added by Way of comfort, "You can't bust his balloons either; those Roadkings run on sorbo-centered solids."
"Car Twenty-eight at junction of Mason and Bailey."
"That's the spot," gritted Norris. "They'll stop him."
"They'll have to crash him, and it'll be a hell of a wallop by the way he's going," said Rausch, holding his mike to one side as he gazed anxiously ahead. "There's no safe way to halt him unless we follow until—"
Taking advantage of the other's preoccupation, Harper leaned forward and bawled into the conveniently held mike:
"No half measures! Shoot the bastard!"
"Hey, you!" Rausch snatched the mike away, turned his head to throw a scowl.
In that instant the listening Car Twenty-eight opened fire. The cruiser ahead of Harper's car promptly swung in to the curb, crawled cautiously forward and gave full view of the second cruiser parked half a mile farther along.
The Roadking whizzed hell for leather past Car Twenty-eight, covered a hundred and fifty yards, yawed wildly twice, made a violent turn that took it over the sidewalk and into a shopfront. The sound of the crash was like an explosion. Haberdashery sprayed the avenue on flapping arms. Two police officers scrambled out of Car Twenty-eight, raced toward the wreckage.
"That's done it," growled Norris, easing pressure on the pedal and reducing pace. He snapped over his shoulder at Harper, "Who's running this show?"
"I am. And if you didn't know it before, you know it now."
"Our orders are—"
"To blue blazes with your orders," said Harper toughly. "I appreciate your co-operation, and sometime or other you're going to appreciate mine."
He opened the door as the car stopped, got out, made for the Roadking, knowing in advance that yet again an alien spark had become extinguished within a broken body. But at least no normal human being had been killed — that was one consolation.
In the rear of the shopfront a broken show-robot sprawled over the Roadking's hood, and leered inanely at the dead driver. The robot wore a tartan hat, tilted drunkenly over one eye, and the force of the impact had filled its pants with broken parts. The driver sat bowed forward, his face rammed into the wheel, a pair of lurid socks, complete with price-tag, draped across his neck.
Two police officers waded through smashed glass, torn handkerchiefs and tattered pajamas, dragged at the car's door. They knocked display stands out of the way the better to get at it.
Harper was about to join them when a slender individual pranced out of the shop, picked on him with much gesturing of white hands and indignant fluttering of long eyelashes.
"Look at that!" shrilly insisted this apparition. "Just look at it! What am I going to do now?"
"Sue the corpse in the car," Harper told him. "He did it." Joining the police, he helped lug out the body.
The protestor shifted attention to Norris, who was following close upon Harper's heels. "Only last night I dressed that window. It's really sickening. It makes me so mad I could spit. I don't know what—" He broke off, and his large eyes went a size larger as they saw the corpse being carried past and laid on the sidewalk. "Why, Mr. Baum!"
"You know this one?" demanded Norris swiftly.
"Yes, indeed. He's Mr. Baum. Mr. Philip Baum. Only last week I sold him a most fetching line in—"
Staring down at the plump and slightly familiar features, Harper interjected, "Has he a brother?"
"Yes," said the slender man, working his eyelashes and gazing fascinatedly at the dead face. "Mr. Ambrose Baum. A little older. Three or four years, perhaps. Isn't it awful?"
"Where do the Baums live?" asked Norris.
"In Reevesboro. I'd—" He stopped, let his mouth hang open while he looked with horror at the shattered show-robot which slowly slid down from the hood and onto its knees, belched loudly, emitted a whirr and two clicks, then went cross-eyed. He shuddered at the sight. "Alexander is ruined, completely ruined. I'd like to know who's going to compensate for all this."
"Pick on your insurance company," said Norris. "Where in Reevesboro is the Baum house?"
"Somewhere on Pinewalk Avenue, I believe. I can't recall the number. It should be in the phone book."
"Bring out your phone book and let's have a look at it."
"There's no need," put in one of the police officers, searching the body. He straightened up, holding a card. "He's carrying identification. It says he is Philip Kalman Baum of 408 Pinewalk Avenue, Reevesboro. The car is registered in the name of Ambrose Baum of same address."
The other officer added, "This one is deader than a mackerel. His chest is shoved right in. The wheel did it."
Norris turned to the agent who had accompanied them from the beginning. "You take charge here. You know how to handle it. Tell the pressmen nothing. Let 'em yawp — and refer them to our field office." He beckoned to Harper. "We need you along."
Entering the cruiser, the three hustled away from the scene around which pedestrians had gathered in a murmuring semicircle.
"We may want more help than we've got," remarked Norris, driving at high speed. "You'd better cancel that Road-king call and see who's still on the turnpike. Tell them to follow us into Reevesboro."
Rausch found the mike, sent out the message and a voice came back saying, "Car Four on Mason Turnpike at Perkins Corner."
"Pick us up and tail us to Reevesboro," Rausch ordered.
After four miles, a prowl car shot off the verge and raced behind them. Another six miles and they side-tracked from the turnpike, ran into Reevesboro and found the address they were seeking. It was a small but attractive house standing in a half-acre plot.
Driving a short distance past, Norris stopped and signalled the following car to close up behind. He got out, went to the other car in which were two police and two agents.
He said to the police, "You fellows stay here in case some escapee takes a fancy to an official auto." Then to the agents, "You two get around to the back of that house. If anyone beats it that way as we go in through the front, he's your meat."
"You're wasting time," advised Harper, near enough to the house to know that nothing alien lurked within.
"I'm the judge of that," Norris retorted. He waited for the two agents to make their way round the back, then started toward the front door. "Come on!"
A gray-haired, motherly woman answered the bell. She was in her late fifties or early sixties, had toil-worn hands and meek features.
"This is the Baum house," said Norris, making it a statement rather than a question.
"That's right," she agreed. "But Mr. Philip and Mr. Ambrose aren't here just now. I don't know when they'll be back."
"They'll never be back," Norris told her.
Her wrinkled hand went to her mouth while she gazed at him in a thoroughly startled manner. "Has… something happened?"
"Unfortunately, yes. Are you a relative?"
"I'm Mrs. Clague, their housekeeper," she informed them a little dazedly. "Are they—?"
"Any relatives living here?" interrupted Norris.
"Oh, no. They're confirmed, bachelors, and have nobody related to them nearby. In this house there's only the maid and myself." She swallowed hard. "Are they hurt? — badly?"
"They're dead. We're law officers. We'd like to have a look around."
"Dead?" She whispered it as she stepped backward and let Norris enter, with Harper and Rausch following. Her mind had some difficulty in grasping the full import of the news. "Not both of them surely?"
"Both, Mrs. Clague. I'm sorry." Norris extracted three photographs from his wallet, showed them to her. "Do you recognize any of these men?"
She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, studied the pictures bemusedly. "No, I don't."
"Sure you haven't seen any of them recently?"
"I'm positive."
"Where's this maid you mentioned?"
"In the kitchen. Do you wish to speak with her?"
"Yes."
She called, "Winnie! Winnie!"
Winnie slouched in, a plump, ungainly girl with the placid eyes of a ruminating cow.
"Know these?" demanded Norris.
She ogled the photographs. "No, sir."
"If any of them had visited here recently, would you or Mrs. Clague have been sure to have seen them?"
"Uhu. I guess so."
The housekeeper put in, "Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Philip seldom had visitors. They used this house only for relaxation and sleep. And they kept late hours. Two or three o'clock in the morning they'd come home, sometimes. But always sober, I'll say that for them. I—"
"What did they do for a living?" Norris asked.
"They have three jewelry shops, somewhere or other. And a small wholesale warehouse in town. Their father started the business, I believe. He's been gone a good many years. They were two nice gentlemen, and it's terrible to think they're—"
Norris cut the garrulity with an impatient gesture. "We want to look over any papers they've left lying around. Where did they keep their correspondence?"
"All their business files will be at the office," said Mrs. Clague. "But their personal letters will be in that desk, or perhaps upstairs in their rooms."
"All right, Mrs. Clague. We're sorry to trouble you, but these things happen. If you're not too busy, how about fixing some coffee?"
Still somewhat bewildered, she agreed, retreating to the kitchen as if glad to escape their questions. Winnie slopped along behind her, but turned twice to look back with a bovine smile before she too disappeared. Norris frowned after her.
"What was that slut smirking at?" he asked.
"You," Harper informed. "She's about I.Q. 70, but that doesn't spoil her appetite for a tasty hunk of man. It's what comes of being a handsome Fed."
"Nuts!" growled Norris, looking sour. He spoke to Rausch. "We've no time for search-warrant formalities, and by the looks of it there's nobody around to bawl about the matter. I'll rake through this desk. You give the bedrooms a going-over. When we've finished we'll run into town and frisk the office. We must compile a list of all contacts they've made these last few weeks."
Rausch tramped upstairs, Norris spent five minutes trying to open the desk, failed, called in one of the two agents stationed at back.
"Finagle this lock for me, Yensen."
Examining it, Yensen went out to the garage, returned with a length of wire. "Another Roadking is stashed in there. Same model and one number higher. They must have bought them together." He fiddled with the wire, turned the lock, rolled up the lid which automatically released the drawers.
Avidly Norris pounced on the contents, pulling documents from pigeonholes, scanning them rapidly, putting them aside.-He lugged out the drawers one by one, found a dull black gun concealed in a camera carton, handed it to Yensen. ' "Hang onto that. The ballistics boys may be able to dig some data out of it."
After a while he finished reading the last of a bunch of letters, shoved them back, grunted discontentedly. "Go ask Mrs. Clague when the Baums were last here."
Yensen departed, came back. "She says they had breakfast this morning."
"That's peculiar." He turned to Harper. "All this stuff is chitchat, mostly from friends in the trade. It averages a letter a day. But there's nothing filed for the last five days. If the average was maintained, there are five letters missing."
"They may be at the office," Harper suggested. "Or—"
"Or what?"
"Maybe they destroyed them on receipt."
"Why should they do that?"
"Because the messages were devoid of interest, having become alien to the readers."
"We'll check at their office before we jump to any conclusions," Norris decided. "Either they kept them, or they didn't."
"If a search elsewhere fails to produce them, we can bet on two things," said Harper. "First, that the Baums were taken over about five days ago. Secondly, that the enemy is no longer so desperate to get established in number, and is starting to be choosy."
"How d'you make that out?"
"The Baums have been in daily contact with Mrs. Clague and Winnie; we know that much. But neither of the women were touched. They've lived with the Devil but retained their souls. Aren't they the luckiest people?"
"You give me the creeps," Norris complained. He turned to Yensen. "Make a list of names and addresses from this correspondence and bring it to H.Q. We'll have to follow up every one of them."
Rausch reappeared saying, "Nothing of any significance up there, except a couple of telephone numbers scribbled on a pad by the phone in Ambrose's room."
"We'll look into those later." Norris had a final, dissatisfied glance around, saw nothing of fresh interest. "If the fate of the Baums isn't yet known to those we're seeking, you can see what's likely to happen. Somebody's going to come along wanting to know how the brothers made out. If all of us go to their office, there'll be nobody here to make a grab. We'll have to stake this place until the news gets out and warns off possible visitors."
"I'll stay with Yensen," Rausch volunteered. "If anybody—"
Something went whirr-whirr above them.
"The phone!" yelped Norris.
He charged upstairs, taking two steps at a time. The others crowded behind him. Entering Ambrose's room, he eyed the bedside phone warily.
"Notice any other telephone here?"
They shook their heads.
"Too bad. No chance of holding the caller while we trace him." Extracting his pocket handkerchief, he draped it over the tiny scanner, then lifted the earpiece. The small visiscreen at once lit up but revealed no picture. That meant a similarly obscured scanner at the other end. "Hello!" he said.
"Var silvin, Wend?" demanded a voice bearing the sharpness of deep suspicion.
"Baum residence," said Norris frowning. "Can I help you?"
Click! The line went dead. Norris rattled the instrument, raised the operator, identified himself. "Where did that call originate? Let me know quickly — it's urgent!" He hung on for most of a minute, listened again, snorted, racked the phone and told the others, "The Baum warehouse. Evidently they had a rendezvous there with somebody who got worried and called, after they'd failed to turn up. We missed a trick by not finding out about the place and going there first."
"Get along right now," urged Rausch. "I'll stay with Yensen, just in case."
Norris nodded, signed to Harper and they hastened to the car. Ordering one of the waiting police to join them, he drove away at top speed.
"You might as well take it easy," advised Harper, with unconcealed pessimism. "There'll be nobody at the place; whoever hangs up on a call isn't going to sit around."
"That's what I think," agreed Norris, maintaining speed. "But if we fail to catch somebody, it won't be for lack of trying."
12. Every Hour Counts
The warehouse proved to be an ancient but solid red-brick building with six heavily barred and shuttered windows, and a cumbersome steel door. Two cars were lined up outside, and three police were standing defeatedly nearby.
"We've three men waiting around the back," one of them told Norris. "The place is locked. Nobody answers the bell; no sounds inside. Looks like it's empty."
"Then we'll break through the door."
It took some time to do that, but they managed without overmuch damage. Not a soul lurked within. The first floor held a number of flat glass showcases exhibiting costume jewelry arrayed on black velvet. The floor above was littered with light crates and cardboard cartons, some full, some empty. A small office of clapboard and plastiglass stood in a comer.
Entering the office, Norris moved around carefully, and said to one of the police, "Fetch the fingerprint man. Given enough luck, we may be able to discover who was waiting here." To Harper, he added, "It takes a professional criminal to wipe a place clean of prints — and the characters we're after don't fall into that category."
He went to the desk and slid out its drawers. The contents were not enlightening — mostly billheads, invoices and other business items. A metal filing cabinet proved no more informative.
"Tell you one thing," remarked Harper, sniffing the air. "The Baums and their associates seem fond of cold-cure."
"What makes you say that?" asked Norris.
"Ambrose had a faint odor. So did Philip. And I can smell it again here."
Norris twitched his nostrils a couple of times. "Your sense of smell must be a great deal sharper than mine."
"People vary that way; so do dogs. I can detect it, all right, and I know what it is."
"What is it?"
"Eucalyptus."-
"Well, that's mighty useful," commented Norris sardonically. "Now all we need do is track down somebody stinking of eucalyptus."
"You could do worse," Harper opined. "Three smellers in a row, and in one day, means something. Like tobacco. If I'm in a deep forest and smell burning tobacco, I know a man is somewhere near."
"So—?"
"Maybe somebody likes eucalyptus."
Norris frowned at him and reached for the telephone, handling it delicately so as not to spoil any latent prints. He dialled, spoke to someone.
"This is no more than a wild guess, but you'd better note it: check all suspects for an odor of eucalyptus." He racked the instrument and admitted, "It would sound silly to me if this entire business wasn't so crazy.
"Not being a full-time Sherlock," said Harper, "I tend to miss things that are obvious to you, but spot others that you may overlook. For instance, what's the scientific conclusion to be drawn from a liking for eucalyptus?"
"I don't know."
"That elsewhere the natural prey is vegetarian and feeds on aromatic shrubs, its favorite food being something akin to eucalyptus. So here the host feels a need, born of centuries of conditioning. In other words, they've found a local drug that reminds them of home."
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"Sorry; I forgot you've been told only part of the story," said Harper. "You've got to know the whole of it to guess the way I'm guessing."
"Eucalyptus isn't a drug," declared Norris, baffled.
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