The Whispering Box Mystery

by John Blaine

Rick licked dry lips and fought to keep from falling asleep. Scotty was standing a few

  feet away, lost in thoughts of his own. Hartson Brant was on the other side of the lobby with Zircon and Keppner. All of them were concealed from anyone who came through the entrance. By the time the person was far enough inside to recognize them, the trap would be sprung. Steve Ames was not to be seen.

  Rick yawned cavernously. He tried to stifle it, but it was too vast a yawn for that. Scotty chuckled.

  “Thought you were going to swallow the building.”

  “Even rough marble in my stomach wouldn’t keep me awake for very long,” Rick said.

  “Hope we don’t have to wait forever.”

  Scotty pointed to the wall clock. It lacked only a minute to11:30 . “Any time,” he said.

  “Keep awake.”

  More people were coming into the building now. That was wrong! Steve had said traffic in the building would fall off at this time. Rick watched the incoming people carefully and saw that they were confused. Most of them headed for the building directory on the wall near the elevators. Some questioned the uniformed guard at the door. Rick began to fear that Goss, Nails, and Company might slip by in the crowd, but he saw that the JANIG men were alert.

  The crowd thickened. More people were coming into the lobby. They were all men, most of them young. They stood uncertainly, as though waiting for something. Now and then one of them questioned the guard, or the clerk at the publications counter.

  There was something very strange goingonl

  Rick snapped out of his lethargy as Steve Ames came through a door in the lobby. Steve stopped short at the sight of the growing crowd. Rick ran to his side.

  “Steve, what’s up?”

  “We’ll soon find out,” Steve said. He tapped the shoulder of the nearest man. “Say, what’s all the crowd, mister?”

  The man turned. “Didn’t you see the ad?”

  “Ad?What ad?”

  The stranger drew a newspaper from his pocket.“In this morning’s Post.” He pointed to

  an advertisement he had circled in pencil.

  Rick and Steve read it quickly.

  Wanted-young men for service with the Government outside the country.Highest salaries, living quarters, and expenses guaranteed. No experience necessary, but applicant must be in good health. Apply promptly at11:30.

  The name of this building was the only address!

  Steve Ames turned white. “This ad is a phony! No one in this building placed an ad like that!” He raised his voice to a yell, warning his men.

  “Watch it! This crowd is a cover! Get them out of the building, and hurry!”

  For an instant there was shocked silence. Rick grasped what Steve meant. Goss must have placed the ad, knowing it would attract a crowd of young men that would cover his own entrance! The JANIG men couldn’t use their guns in a crowd like this!

  Then the silence was shattered by Zircon’s distinctive bellow.“Nails! Steve, watch out!”

  Rick saw one of the crowd near Zircon lift a black box, and then came the terrible, deafening blast of Susie’s scream!

  CHAPTER XXII

  The Getaway

  Susie’s hair-raising howl subsided and gave way to the pounding of shoe leather on the tile floor. The crowd in the lobby didn’t know what was happening, but no one was curious enough to wait and see. That scream had been too much! The men broke for the door.

  Rick and Steve started for Nails, but the press of people blocked their way. Steve was shouting orders that were lost in the confusion. The men at the doors got into each other’s way, effectively jamming the entrance. From somewhere in the crush of

  mencame a loud shout, and Susie wailed again.

  Rick quailed before the blast. It hurt his eardrums and almost deafened him, but he kept trying to push through. From the corner of his eye he saw Scotty, also trying to get

  through the crowd. He couldn’t tell whether or not the whispering box gang was trapped in the building. He could only hope that they were.

  Goss had pulled a master stroke this time. Suspecting that the building would be heavily guarded, the whispering box leader had placed a false ad, knowing it would give him the best protection of all-a crowd. Under cover of the crowd he and his men could have walked into the building, into the office suite where the supposed secret was kept, and out again, secure in the protection of the whispering box and in the knowledge that the officers of the law couldn’t shoot into a mob of innocent people. But Goss hadn’t thought Susie would be ready so soon!

  More men were getting out through the doors. Rick shoved and pushed and made

  headway, Steve beside him. They reached the doors and with a concerted effort broke through the crowd of men, looking for some sign of the whispering box gang.

  They were in time to see more of Goss’s careful planning. A car swept to the curb and slowed. Three men leaped from the crowd and got in. The car spurted ahead.

  “They won’t make it,” Steve said swiftly. “My men are at the corner.”

  But another car entered the scene. A maroon convertible had been parked at the curb, close to the corner. Now it raced into action, ahead of the car that held the gang.

  Rick stood petrified, watching. He didn’t even hear the rifle from the opposite rooftop as it barked away at the fleeing car, driving steel-jacketed bullets through the turret top.

  A heavy sedan swung out of the cross street to block the way. Steve’s men were waiting!

  But the maroon convertible, racing ahead of the getaway car, never slowed! It plowed at full speed into the JANIG sedan, striking shrewdly just behind the front bumper.

  The two cars, locked together, spun under the impact and left enough space for the getaway sedan to pass. Rick saw the figure of the driver leap from the shattered convertible and swing to the running board of the getaway car as it passed.

  And then the whispering box gang was speeding out of sight!

  Steve went down the building steps in long leaps, Rick close behind him. Another JANIG car was coming down the street from its post at the corner behind the action. But Gizmo McLean’s cab was there before it. Steve piled in, Rick at his heels.

  “Get going!” Steve commanded.

  The acceleration snapped Rick against the cushion. He regained his balance and turned for a look through the rear window. The JANIG car had slowed. Men were getting in, Scotty among them.

  Then Rick turned his eyes to the front and kept them there, meanwhile holding on for dear life.

  Far ahead, the gang car careened around a corner. Gizmo swung past a delivery truck, almost going up on the sidewalk to miss it. He fought the taxi to an even keel and jabbed the pedal to the floor. The corner came and they took it without slowing, the tires wailing in protest. Gizmo straightened out and kept going.

  Rick said shakily, “We banked like a plane on that corner.”

  They went through a red light as though it didn’t exist. A police whistle screeched and was lost behind them. The car ahead wasn’t gaining, but neither were they!

  The chase went acrossPennsylvania Avenue , past the upraised arms of a traffic officer.

  There was just a glimpse of his open mouth, then he, too, was gone. From somewhere in the rear came the sound of a siren. Rick tore his eyes from the scene ahead and looked back. The JANIG car was gaining slightly, and coming past it, bent over his handlebars, was a motorcycle officer.

  Gizmo leaned on the horn and kept his hand there. Cars moved out of their way, some a shade too slowly, so that Gizmo had to swing the taxi like a mammoth ballet dancer.

  Rick lost track of the close calls. Once there was even the rasp of metal as their fender kissed a slow-moving truck.

  “Where is he heading?” Rick asked breathlessly.

  “MemorialBridge, I think,” Steve replied tensely. “That’s a fast car. If he gets across the bridge, he may lose us.”

  “He won’t,” Gizmo said briefly from the front seat.

  Ahe
ad, the gang car passed an intersection, barely missing a black car. Rick choked on his heart, because it leaped into his throat. The black car was a hearse I A funeral procession was crossing in front of them, the cars close together!

  Gizmo’s horn tooted rhythmically, but he didn’t slow down. The taxi roared up at the

  line of cars. They were almost bumper to bumper. Gizmo blasted the horn at them.

  Rick could almost read the thoughts of the drivers. They had the right of way, a privilege accorded to such processions. They wouldn’t stop for a mere taxi, even a berserk one.

  They were too close to stop now! They would smash broadside right into the line!

  A horrified driver saw the juggernaut bearing down on him and jammed his brake to the floor. A space opened and the taxi shot through it.

  Rick slumped back in the seat.

  And all the while Steve Ames kept yelling, “Faster! Faster!”

  Constitution Avenue passed in a blur of cars and wheeling landscape as Gizmo weaved through the traffic, horn blaring. Ahead, the gang car sped towardMemorialBridge .

  Gizmo leaned over the wheel and coaxed the taxi to greater efforts.

  Then they were on the bridge, going so fast that the rough cobbled surface didn’t even jar them. Rick vowed later that the taxi only touched the ground on every hundredth brick.

  At the other side of the bridge, the gang car swung right. For a moment there was doubt.

  Would they head towardFalls Church , or go in the opposite direction, towardAlexandria

  ?

  The doubt was resolved as the taxi took the turn on two wheels. The gang car had taken the ramp to the south.

  They were in the open now, on a broad, concrete highway. True to Steve’s prediction, the gang car began to pull away. From behind, the siren crept up on them. Rick risked another look. The JANIG car was closer, and the motorcycle cop had almost caught up!

  The highway unrolled before them and far ahead Rick saw the broad shape of

  thePentagonBuilding . He caught a glimpse of motion from the corner of his eye and turned as the motorcycle officer, bent low over his handlebars, rolled past with siren pulsing.

  The motorcycle couldn’t be pushed to excessive speed on the city streets, but here on the broad highway it could catch almost any car!

  Rick looked at the speedometer of the cab. Almost eighty miles an hour! Yet the motorcycle officer was pulling away from them!

  The road curved in a long, slow sweep. They went past other cars that had gone to the side of the road at the sound of the siren. The JANIG car was almost at their rear bumper and the motorcycle was a good distance ahead.

  The caravan swept toward a fork in the road, and for an instant the gang car slowed in indecision. That instant was enough. Brief though the moment of slowing had been, it had given the motorcycle officer time to gain more than a hundred yards.

  Rick held his breath as the officer drew his gun from its holster, sighted across the handlebars, fired, sighted, fired, and fired again.

  It was the fourth shot that brought results.

  A rear tire on the gang car exploded. The sedan swerved, slid sideways, tires screaming and smoking on the concrete. But the driver, by sheer strength, pulled the car out of its deadly spin and held it steady.

  The taxi’s tires were smoking, too. Rick heard the spine-chilling howl of tortured rubber and felt the whole car shudder. He held on for dear life, and noticed that Steve’s hands gripped the back of the front seat so hard that the knuckles were white.

  The motorcycle officer, unable to slow as rapidly as the cars, shot on past the careening sedan to safety.

  As the taxi ground to a shuddering stop, Rick saw the doors on the gang car fly open.

  Three men leaped out and ran. Two of them were carrying black boxes.Nails was not among them.

  Rick had the door open by the time Gizmo brought the cab to a stop. He didn’t need Steve’s urging to get moving. He jumped from the cab and ran after the three men.

  The chase had come to an end a short distance past thePentagonBuilding . The men were running toward the building at top speed! They leapeda low , cementIvall and vanished from sight as the ground dropped away to the Pentagon grounds from the built-up highway.

  The JANIG sedan was unloading, too. Rick saw Scotty get out, but he couldn’t wait for his friend.

  “Hurry!”Steve Ames yelled. “If they get into the building we’ll lose them!”

  Rick stretched his legs and really ran. He went over the cement wall, Steve on his heels.

  They skidded down the rock embankment to the cement road at the bottom, and ahead, going into the vast, car-filled parking area, they saw the three men.

  Steve waved his arms in command. The JANIG men scattered, going in opposite

  directions to surround the building. The motorcycle officer had finally stopped, turned around, and was rolling down a ramp into the parking space.

  “We’ve got them,” Steve exulted. “Dave will radio, and in ten minutes we’ll have a net thrown around this area that a cockroach couldn’t crawl through.”

  Rick looked at the huge building. “I’m not so sure,” he said doubtfully. “It’s an easy place to get lost in!”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  The Box Again

  From the highway past the Pentagoncame the sound of sirens. The police were arriving, three cruisers and half a dozen motorcycles. Steve Ames paused at the sound. He turned to Rick.

  “You and Gizmo keep out of this. You’re not armed and Goss and his men are. Keep out of the way and let the police take care of things.”

  Scotty arrived, running, as Steve Ames left.

  “What’s up?” he demanded.

  “We’re supposed to keep out of it,” Rick said. He realized that what Steve said made sense, but he didn’t like it.To be on the job so long and then to stand by while others caught the criminals?

  “Well, I like that!” Scotty exclaimed. “Where did Goss go?”

  The wave of Rick’s arm took in row after row of parked cars in the great south parking area of the Pentagon. There were hundreds of cars-and Goss and his two men were in

  there somewhere.

  The sirens were screaming into life again. As Rick, Scotty, and Gizmo watched from outside the first line of cars, the police cruisers and motorcycles moved into positions evenly spaced around the parking area. Goss and his men were trapped.

  “Joe was with Goss,” Rick said. “I recognized him. I think the other one was the man who drove the van.But how about Nails and the fifth man?”

  “In the maroon convertible,” Scotty said. “Didn’t you see Steve’s man shooting from the roof back at the Government building?Nails has a smashed shoulder, and the other man has a bullet in his leg. Pete Davis is taking care of them.”

  Gizmo had been scanning the rows of cars. Now he grabbed Rick’s arm.

  “I saw one of them!”

  “Are you sure?” Rick looked where Gizmo pointed, but he couldn’t see anyone.

  “I’m sure. It looked like Joe.

  Scotty’s eyes narrowed. “What will you bet they’ve separated? They’re too smart to stay together.”

  That sounded reasonable to Rick. He had another thought. “They still have whispering boxes, too. What’s to prevent them from knocking down anyone who goes after them? If they can stay hidden until dark, they may have a chance to get away.”

  “They don’t have to stay hidden until dark,” Scotty pointed out. “If they can stay out of sight until office hours are over, there will be a mob of maybe three or four thousand people milling around. It would take an army to check all of them.”

  Rick surveyed the parking area. “I’ll bet they plan to stay hidden, too. Listen, suppose we separated? We could sneak in and out among the cars and maybe get behind them.”

  “What good would that do?” Gizmo demanded.

  “Suppose we get behind one? Do we call him names or do we throw pebbles at him?

  We don�
�t even have clubs, much less guns. And you can bet those guys have guns as well as whispering boxes.”

  “He’s right,” Scotty said sensibly. “We can’t do anything.”

  The JANIG men were gathering on the roadway. Rick pointed as Steve Ames motioned them into line. Then, spread out, they started for the parking area. All of them were armed.

  “They’re going to go right through the area,” Scotty said, his voice hushed. “There’s going to be some shooting.”

  Gizmo gestured toward the windows on their side of the building. Every available space was occupied with employees watching the drama unfolding below. They couldn’t know what was going on, but they were aware that it was something extraordinary.

  “They have box seats,” Gizmo observed.

  “And there is no reason why we shouldn’t have,” a new voice bellowed.

  The boys turned to greet Zircon, Hartson Brant, and Dr. Keppner who were coming toward them from the road.

  The three scientists had been left behind in the wild chase, but had caught up in a police cruiser. They had already been briefed on the situation.

  “I suggest we go into the building,” Keppner said. He waved a whispering box. “We can see what is going on from a window. Steve Ames is right. Since we are unarmed, it would be extremely foolish to interfere.”

  “Where did you get the box?” Rick asked.

  “From the gang car.It is empty, otherwise Goss would have taken it with him. It’s evidently the one that caused Susie to go off.” Keppner showed them the two punctured cartridges he had removed from the box.

  They fell in with his suggestion that they watch from the building and hiked toward the nearest entrance. As they went, Rick told his father about the wild ride.

  Hartson Brant smiled grimly. “We didn’t linger on the way, either.”

  At the door, a building guard stopped them. One of Steve’s men had already alerted the building guards.

  Hartson Brant identified the group and they were allowed to pass.

  “Go up to Captain O’Malley’s office,” the guard suggested. “You can look out over the whole area from there.” He pointed toward the inner door that led to a staircase. “One flight up,go past the exhibit, and turn right.”