New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club

by Bertrand R. Brinley

  The next fifteen minutes seemed like one of those nightmares you have when you're trying to holler for help and no sound comes out of your mouth. All I could think about was Dinky and Freddy struggling with that big brute in the alley, and I must have sprinted the six blocks to the police station in ten seconds flat. But when I got there the door was locked and there was just one feeble light burning in a goosenecked lamp on the night desk. I could see Constable Billy Dahr's feet propped up on the desk, but his head was out of sight in the shadows.

  I rattled the door and pounded on it with my fists and hollered like bloody blazes, but his feet didn't even move. I could hear the phone ringing and I knew it must be Jeff and Henry calling in, but Billy was snoring too loud to even hear it. Finally I dashed around to a side window and threw a big rock through it. You'd have thought Armageddon had come. Billy Dahr bolted up out of the swivel chair, like a punch-drunk fighter answering the bell, and sent the goosenecked lamp flying onto the floor. The office was plunged into darkness. I could hear him cursing and stumbling around inside, trying to find the light switch.

  When he had finally gotten the lights on and unlocked the front door for me, I knew I'd have a lot of explaining to do. I decided not to answer any questions.

  "Call Chief Putney, quick!" I shouted, before Billy Dahr could open his mouth. "Some men are trying to rob the bank!"

  "What in tarnation?" Billy muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Is them the ones threw that rock through the window?"

  "Forget the rock, Constable Dahr," I said, pushing him back through the door. "I had to throw it to wake you up. Please call the chief right away. Freddy and Dinky are back there in the alley --"

  Billy Dahr was rummaging through the drawers of the desk. I picked up the phone and handed it to him. "Here's the phone. Call him, quick!"

  "That there ain't no help," mumbled Billy, pushing the phone back down on the desk. "I don't know his number. Now where's that danged phone book?" and he went on rummaging through the desk.

  I finally picked up the phone myself and dialed the operator.

  "Get me the police," I said. "It's an emergency!"

  I could hear her dialing, and then she came back on the line and said she was sorry but the number was busy.

  "Please keep trying, operator; it's urgent!"

  "OK," she said. "I'll keep trying and call you right back. Where are you calling from?"

  "From the police station," I said.

  There was a pause. Then she said, "Maybe that's why the number is busy."

  "I'm sorry, operator," I apologized. "I want Chief Putney's home."

  "Do you have the number?"

  "No!"

  "I'll connect you with Information."

  And that's the way things went. By the time we got Chief Putney out of bed and pulled up in the alley back of Jamieson's with a squad car, the place was quiet as a tomb and there was no sign of Dinky and Freddy.

  "I'll betcha they've been kidnapped!" I cried.

  "Now take it easy, son," said Chief Putney in his slow methodical voice. "Let's not jump to conclusions." Two policemen clambered into the basement of Jamieson's and came back to report that there was a hole big enough for a man to crawl through right into the vault of the Mammoth Falls Trust and Deposit Company.

  "The vault's been pretty well cleaned out," one of them said. "No telling how much they got away with!"

  "If that don't beat all!" said Billy Dahr.

  It was then I remembered that I hadn't told Henry and Jeff what had happened. When I switched on the radio, Jeff had been trying to reach me and he sounded like a fishwife.

  "Where on earth have you been for the last fifteen minutes? And what are you doing way out there west of town?"

  "I'm not way out west of town," I said, "I'm right here in the alley back of the bank."

  "Well what's going on? We're getting beeps from the radiosonde way out on White Fork Road. It's been moving west for the last ten minutes."

  "That's Dinky and Freddy," I said. "I think they've been kidnapped!

  "Kidnapped? Cut the comedy, Charlie. What's going on?"

  "Honest, Jeff!" And I told him about the big man grabbing Dinky and Freddy, and about the car backing up into the alley.

  "Is Chief Putney there?" Jeff asked. I told him he was. "Tell him we've got a fix on where that transmitter is. And if it's still on Dinky's belt, and Dinky's been kidnapped, then we know where the bank robbers are."

  I climbed down into Jamieson's basement and collared Chief Putney and told him what Henry had told me. At first he didn't seem to understand.

  "Why don't you kids mind your own business and stop interfering!" he growled. "You ought to be home in bed anyway." But then Billy Dahr reminded him that if it hadn't been for me running to the police station they wouldn't even have known the bank had been robbed.

  "I guess you're right, Billy," said the Chief. "But I never saw such a nosy bunch of kids in all my life. Some day I'm going to find out how they always seem to be around when things go wrong."

  "Henry says if you'll send the squad car up to Jeff Crocker's barn he can tell them where the transmitter signals are coming from. Then you can put it out on the police net."

  "OK, OK!" said Chief Putney, clapping one hand to his forehead. "Maybe your friend Henry would like to run the whole operation."

  "We're just trying to help out," I told him.

  Chief Putney got on the radio and sent a squad car from the county sheriff's office to Jeff Crocker's barn. Then he alerted the state Highway Patrol and asked them to set up roadblocks in a wide circle around Mammoth Falls.

  "What about the FBI?" I asked him. "This is a kidnap case."

  "Please go lie down someplace, Charlie!" the Chief groaned. "I don't want to have to arrest myself for childbeating."

  It wasn't long before a squad car from the sheriff's office pulled into the alley with its beacon light flashing and its siren screaming. An officer stuck his head out of the window.

  "Just got a call from the control car," he said. "They say that car isn't moving west any more. It's stopped somewhere up in the hills west of Strawberry Lake. How on earth can they tell where that car is?"

  "Magic!" said Chief Putney. "I just caught one of the magicians."

  "Who? That kid over there?"

  "Yeah! Put him in your car so we know where he is. If you get a chance, have someone phone his parents so they know he's all right. Let's get going."

  The Chief's car screamed off into the darkness, heading toward the White Fork Road. My head snapped back against the cushion of the rear seat of the sheriff's car as we took off after it. Two of Chief Putney's men stayed behind to guard the bank vault.

  Dinky and Freddy, meanwhile, found themselves being bound and gagged and thrust through the door of a log cabin in the hills overlooking Strawberry Lake. They had both been blindfolded back in the alley, so they didn't know where they had been taken or what for. But they knew the car had been climbing a winding road for some time, and Dinky could smell the odor of gun oil and kerosene. He guessed they might be in one of the small hunting lodges that dotted the area around the old zinc mine and the limestone quarry. The two men who pushed them through the door followed inside and tied them securely to the end posts of a double bunk against one wall of the cabin. As the door was closing behind them, Dinky drove one elbow into Freddy's ribs.

  "Ouch!" yelped Freddy.

  "I'm glad they didn't steal my transistor radio," said Dinky, in a hoarse whisper.

  "What's that about a radio?" said the big, hulking man, kicking open the door again.

  "It's just an old radio," said Dinky. "It belongs to my little sister."

  "I seen something on the back of that kid's belt when we pushed him through the door," said the other man.

  "I think we'll just take it," said the big man. "It might come in handy."

  "Please don't take it! My sister doesn't know I have it," cried Dinky, squirming to press his back against the bunk post.


  "Now ain't that just too bad!" said the gruff voice of the big man, as he whipped Dinky's belt from his trousers. "Maybe that'll teach ya to mind your own business after this."

  The big man thrust the transmitter into one of the money bags taken from the bank vault, and the two slipped out the door, slamming it closed behind them.

  "You some kind of a nut?" asked Freddy, in a terse whisper. "Now nobody will ever find us."

  "They might find the money, though. And the robbers too," Dinky snickered.

  They heard the car start again outside. It passed right behind the cabin, went a short distance, and then the sound of the engine stopped.

  "Maybe they're out of gas," said Freddy.

  "I don't think so," said Dinky. "Listen a minute."

  Suddenly they heard the sound of branches breaking, followed by a tremendous crash, more branches breaking, and the clanking and ringing sound of metal striking stone.

  "Holy mackerel! They must have driven over a cliff!" cried Freddy.

  "Shut up!" warned Dinky, digging him again in the ribs. "They'll be back here again. All they did was shove the car down the side of the hill."

  "What for? Are they nuts, or somethin'?"

  "Don't you ever watch TV?" sneered Dinky. "Robbers always get rid of the getaway car. That's the one the police would be looking for."

  "What are they gonna do? Walk?"

  "No! They probably have another car stashed away in the woods somewhere."

  Dinky and Freddy waited breathlessly for further sounds from outside the cabin, but the minutes ticked past and not a sound broke the stillness of the woods.

  But the steady beep-beep-beep of the telltale transmitter could be heard clearly by Henry and Jeff back in the Crockers' barn, as it swung to and fro in the canvas bag carried by one of the bank robbers. It was moving so slowly now that the directional finders could barely detect its progress. Henry showed the sheriffs deputies at the barn the spot on the map where he thought the beeps were coming from. They seemed to be moving toward the old abandoned zinc mine.

  "Maybe they figure on hiding out in the mine until the heat's off," said Jeff.

  "If they do, they've got a surprise coming!" said one of the deputies, and he went out to his car to get Chief Putney on the radio.

  By this time, Dinky had managed to wriggle free from the ropes that bound him to the bunk post. Very quietly, he started to untie Freddy.

  "How'd you do it?" asked Freddy, in a whisper. "My wrists are so stiff I can't move 'em."

  "It's a cinch!" said Dinky. "When somebody ties you up, just tense all your muscles and keep 'em as tight as you can. When you relax, the ropes are loose and you can get out, if you're good."

  "Where'd you learn that?"

  "I read it in a book about Houdini!"

  "About who did what?"

  "About Houdini. That's a man's name."

  "Oh! One o' them East Indians, huh?"

  "No! He was just a plain old American and a real cool magician."

  "OK! Whatta we do now?" asked Freddy.

  "Well, we don't have any radio, and it's too far to walk back to town, so we're gonna start a great big bonfire outside and let people know where we are."

  "What about the robbers?" asked Freddy. "Won't they see the fire and come back and clobber us?"

  "I don't think so," said Dinky. "They gotta keep making tracks and clear out of here. They don't have time to come back now."

  "How we gonna start a fire? We don't have any matches."

  "I've got a knife," said Dinky. "That's all we need."

  "OK, Mac! Make with the knife!" said Freddy. "Is this some more of your Houdini stuff?"

  "No," Dinky said offhandedly. "This is a good old American Indian trick."

  Dinky really is a whiz with a knife. In no time at all he had cut a good springy bow from a small birch branch and stripped a long piece of bark from a root to make a thong for it. Then he whittled a small hole in a flat piece of wood he found in the cabin and carved out a blunt-ended drill about the size of a tent peg from a piece of pine. He had Freddy strip some dry shreds of tinder from the inside of the bark on an old log lying in back of the cabin, and he was ready to start a fire.

  "C'mon, magician, let's make with the heat!" said Freddy, jumping up and down. "I'm cold." For all his blubber, Freddy gets cold quicker than anybody else in our gang. And his teeth were chattering now, from sitting on the cold cabin floor.

  Dinky knelt on the ground with one foot on the flat board and twisted the thong of the bow around the pine drill. Then he inserted the blunt end of the drill in the little hole he'd made in the board and started to rotate it rapidly back and forth, making long, sawing motions with the bow, like a bass fiddle player. Freddy watched in amazement as the end of the drill got hot and began to smoke. Pretty soon he could smell the odor of burning pine. Then, suddenly, Dinky sprang to his feet and popped a hot spark from the board into a handful of the dry tinder. He started dancing around in a circle with it, waving it in the wind and blowing on it. The smoke from the tinder got thicker and thicker, and then it suddenly burst into flame.

  "Ouch!" Dinky yelped, as the flaming tinder burnt his hand.

  He dropped the burning mass into a pile of dry leaves, and he and Freddy sprinkled wood shavings and twigs on it until they had a good blaze going. Then they built a crib of larger logs around the fire and soon had a raging inferno that threw a column of flame thirty feet into the air.

  You could see the light from the fire all the way back to Mammoth Falls. The sheriff's deputy outside Jeff Crocker's barn saw it and called Chief Putney's car on the radio.

  "Looks like a big fire up in the hills right where you're heading. Can you see it?"

  "Negative!" Chief Putney called back. "We're in the woods. Can't see anything."

  "The kid inside says it might be one of those hunting lodges up there. Better check it out. He says he's still getting radio signals pretty steady from around the old zinc mine."

  Just then the car I was riding in shot around a sharp bend in the road, and out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of light from among the trees over on the next ridge of hills. I pounded the driver on the shoulder and shouted to him to stop.

  "We're on the wrong road," I told him. "I just saw a flash of light through the trees, and it came from those hills on the other side of the creek."

  The driver slammed on his brakes. "How do we get there?"

  "Go back to the wooden bridge," I told him. "There's an old logging road that goes up to that ridge." The deputy called Chief Putney on the radio while we backed around in a clearing. Soon we were climbing through the trees up the slopes of the other ridge, with the chief's car following us. The sheriff's deputy was really gunning it up the twisting, deeply rutted road, and I was tossing around in the back seat like a sack of potatoes, trying to find something to hold on to.

  The chief's voice came over the radio. "Don't run your siren! And dim your lights when we get near the top," he said. "If the men we're looking for are up there, we want to surprise them."

  But when we rounded the last hairpin turn and pulled into the brightly lighted clearing where the fire was raging, all we could see were the figures of Dinky and Freddy, silhouetted against the flames.

  "The robbers took off into the woods!" shouted Freddy. "They pushed their car down the hill over there."

  "How long ago?" asked the chief.

  "Maybe twenty minutes, maybe more," said Dinky. "Bet they got another car stashed away somewhere."

  "If they have, they'd have to come back down this road with it," said the sheriff's deputy. "There isn't any other road leading off this ridge, is there?"

  "Not that I know of," I told him. "This is the only one."

  "Then they must be planning on hiding out somewhere until the heat's off. The last report on the net said those radio beeps were coming from up near the old zinc mine."

  "I can't figure it out," said Chief Putney. "If they plan to hide out here in the hil
ls, why did they leave these two kids behind to give us a lead on where they were? If they hole up in the mine it might take us a week to smoke 'em out, but all we have to do is blockade the entrance and they're stuck. I just can't figure it out."

  "It almost seems like they wanted us to follow them," said the deputy. Suddenly a thought struck me. "Wait a minute!" I cried, grabbing the chief's arm. "There is another road off this ridge. Only it isn't an automobile road; it's a railroad. It's the old branch line running up to Hyattsville from, the zinc mine. You know the one, Chief. It crosses Turkey Hill Road right at The Gap."

  "That's the third nutty thing you've said tonight!" said the chief. "I suppose they have the California Zephyr waiting there to take them to San Francisco!"

  "I don't know about the California Zephyr," I said, "but they could use old Leapin' Lena. That's that old handcar that's parked in the Ioading yard. It works too!"

  "Maybe the kid's right, Chief," said the sheriff's deputy. "Maybe they hoped we would follow them on foot -- and get stuck up there by the mine with no radio while they made a getaway down the railroad. It's downhill all the way to Hyattsville. They could make thirty miles an hour easy with that rusty handcar and never come near one of our roadblocks."

  Just then the radio in the squad car started squawking. It was Henry, wanting to talk to Chief Putney.

  "We've still got a fix on that transmitter," he said in a shrill voice, "and it's started moving straight north. Pretty fast too. We figure they're following that old railroad spur from the zinc mine. They're probably heading for Hyattsville."

  "You ain't telling me nothing I don't already know!" said the Chief haughtily. "We already figured that out."

  "Oh!" said Henry.

  "And by the way," said the Chief, "we found your two partners in crime and they're all right. So you can tell their folks to pick 'em up at the station in the morning."

  "You mean they're under arrest? But we didn't do anything, Chief!"

  "Let's just say I have them in protective custody."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means I'm not letting any of you kids out of my sight until we've nabbed those bank bandits."