The Whispering Box Mystery Page 4

  He and Rick escorted Steve to the door and out on the porch. Scotty, curiosity written in every line, looked up at them from where he had been sitting.

  “This is Scotty,” Rick said.

  Scotty got up so fast that the chair almost fell over.

  “My name is Steve Ames,” the stranger said, shaking hands. “Rick will tell you what’s happening.” His eyes twinkled.“As much as he knows.”

  The two boys fell in step as Hartson Brant walked with Steve to the pier. He got aboard and Rick cast off the lines for them. The cruiser backed out of the cove, then swung in the direction of Whiteside. Steve Ames waved, then went into the cabin.

  Scotty grabbed Rick’s arm. “Come on, give! What’s up?”

  “I don’t know anything,” Rick told him. “Except you and I are going toWashington on a special job as assistants to Weiss and Zircon.”

  “Washington!” Scotty let out a whoop.“District of Columbiaor State ofWashington?”

  “Golly,” Rick exclaimed, “I forgot to ask!”

  “Washington, D. C.,” Hartson Brant supplied, smiling. “You’re to report there-and you are to ask no questions!”

  CHAPTER V

  The Scientists Vanish

  The Hotel Elliston was a small apartment hotel onG Street a few blocks from the United States Department of State. Rick and Scotty wondered whyAmes had chosen it for a rendezvous, then decided it was probably because it was so inconspicuous. It was neither shabby nor fancy, but something halfway between.

  Rick was seated in the room’s only armchair, putting a precise crease in the crown of a new gray felt hat. He was very self-conscious about the hat, since it was the first one he had ever owned. Up to now he had resisted wearing a hat of any kind, compromising on a battered cap in bad weather.

  “Go easy on that new sky piece,” Scotty said. “You’ll wear it out.” He was sprawled on one of the twin beds, reading a copy of theWashington Post.

  Rick held up the hat and examined the crease critically. “Not bad. Makes me look distinguished, don’t you think?” He put it on and adjusted it at a slight angle.

  “Extinguished is the word,” Scotty told him. “Whatever made Barby decide to buy you a hat is beyond me. Unless she was afraid theWashington sun would make you crazier than usual.”

  Rick’s sister had got him the hat as a going-away present. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the hat had been inspired by her seeing one of her favorite movie stars wearing one just like it.

  It felt funny to be wearing the hat. Rick stood up, adjusted his brown gabardine suit, straightened his tie, and admired the effect in the mirror.

  “You know whom you look like?” Scotty exclaimed suddenly. “You look like Dad! The hat makes you look older and it covers up your hair. No kidding, I wouldn’t be able to tell you apart at a hundred yards.”

  “Fine thing,” Rick said. He took off the hat and tossed it on the bureau. “I get a new hat and you tell me it makes me look like my own father.” Secretly, though, he was flattered.

  He could do a whole lot worse than look like Hartson Brant.

  Scotty folded the newspaper with meticulous care, then heaved the neat roll into the wastebasket. “I’m sick of waiting,” he announced. “What do you suppose happened to Steve Ames? Do you think he’s forgotten all about us?”

  “Not a chance.” Rick frowned. “But I’m getting worried. It must be something serious to keep him away this long.”

  Steve Ames had specified Friday as their arrival date. Friday had come and gone without a word from him.So had Saturday and Sunday. It was now Mondaynoon and

  there had been no sign ofAmes or anyone else who seemed interested in them.

  “I’m hungry,” Scotty said.

  “I’ve been hungry for two days,” Rick told him. “I wish we could go out and get a good meal. The food here is terrible.”

  They had been afraid to leave the vicinity of the hotel without permission fromAmes , and there were no other restaurants for several blocks. They had taken turns going down to the drugstore on the corner and returning with sandwiches and milk shakes.

  Rick was worried. He couldn’t imagine anything that would keepAmes from contacting them, unless some mysterious enemy had caught up with him. But there had been no evidence of an enemy. The scientists could very well have been asked to help on some mysterious research problem that didn’t involve anyone but government personnel.

  “Where does that air pistol fit into this?” Rick wondered aloud.

  Scotty grunted. “Never mind the pistol. Where do we fit? And there’s something else.

  We’re supposed to be assistants to Weiss and Zircon. Where are they?”

  “In some other hotel,” Rick guessed. “For all we know, they might be in this one.”

  “Not a chance. We’d have heard Zircon bellowing like a wounded bull at being kept waiting for so long.” Scotty sat up. “Let’s get another couple of sandwiches.”

  Rick’s stomach turned over at the thought.“Sandwiches? Don’t flatter those padded slabs of blotting paper. I don’t know whether I can eat another one or not.

  “Okay, how about a milk shake?”

  Rick sighed. “I suppose we have to eat something.

  It’s your turn to go to the store. I’ll go down and wait for you on the steps. I need air.”

  They locked the room door behind them and went down the hall to the ancient elevator.

  It was the type that passengers operate by pushing buttons.

  “Get in,” Scotty said. “I’ll pilot this trip.”

  “You have more flying hours in this box than you have in the Cub,” Rick jibed.

  Scotty pushed the button for the lobby and the elevator shuddered into action. “Two miles an hour straight down,” he said. “Jet propelled.”

  “It’s better than walking,” Rick said.“But not much better.”

  Scotty swung the door open as they reached the lobby. “Main floor,” he announced.

  “The entrance to the drugstore lunch counter is right up the street. Ptomaine Willie will serve you with used sponges, library paste, and other delicacies.”

  “Bring your own indigestion pills,” Rick added.

  They crossed the lobby and went through the front door, pausing on the steps. “I’ll wait here,” Rick said.“Want to take my order now, waiter?”

  “I know it already. Peanut butter sandwich and chocolate milk shake. Me, I’ll have cheese.With a vanilla milk shake. I’m a rebel.”

  “When it comes to choosing between sawdust extract and library paste, it doesn’t pay to be different,” Rick said.

  “Confucius Brant, the sage ofSpindriftIsland . Well, here I go. If they had any bacon, I’d bring it home, but the short-order boys can’t cope with anything as complex as frying bacon.”

  Scotty went down the steps and started up the street toward the drugstore, but as he passed the taxi stand next to the hotel, the door of a yellow cab flew open and the driver jumped out to face him.

  Rick started down the steps in fright at the sudden move, then stopped short. The driver and Scotty were shaking hands and grinning from ear to ear.

  “Sarge!” the driver exclaimed. “I wasn’t sure it was you! Boy, you sure don’t look like the same character I watched them carry away onOky !”

  “That’s because my face is clean,” Scotty said. ‘Gizmo,it’s swell to see you. I’ve wondered a million times where you were and how you were making out.”

  “Not bad,” the driver said. “How is it with you?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” Scotty said. He beckoned to Rick. “Gizmo, meet Rick Brant.

  We’ve been buddies ever since I got paid off. Rick, this character is Gizmo McLean, the worst shot in the Marine Corps.”

  Gizmo was short and stocky, with a thatch of tousled blond hair. He wasn’t very old, perhaps twenty. He had the kind of grin that made you want to grin back. He and Rick shook hands.

  “I wasn’t even sure thesarge was still ki
cking,” Gizmo said. “The last I saw of him, corpsmen were lugging him away on a stretcher. That was onOkinawa .”

  “And the last I saw of Gizmo,” Scotty added, “hewas firing a light machine gun with one hand and eating K-rations with the other.”

  “What are you doing inWashington ?” the driver asked. “You live here?”

  Rick gave Scotty a glance of warning.

  “Just visiting,” Scotty said. “Look, Giz, give me your address, will you? Just as soon as I can, I’ll look you up. I can’t stop to talk right now.”

  Gizmo wrote down his address and phone number in a notebook, tore out the page, and handed it to Scotty. “If you’re staying at this hotel, I’ll be seeing you often. This is my regular stand. But don’t let me keep you,sarge . You weregoin ’ somewhere, weren’t you?”

  “After food,” Scotty said. “See you later, Gizmo.”

  “See you later, chow-hound,” Gizmo called after Scotty’s departing figure. He turned to Rick.“Greatest guy in the world.”

  Rick nodded. “I think so, too.”

  “I could tell you a hundred stories about him,” Gizmo said. “Some of ‘em you wouldn’t believe. Why, I remember once-this was on Tarawa-he scared me silly. We were flat on our faces in the sand, and a JapNambu gun waspeckin ’ away at us, and I could feel the slugs fanning across the seat of my pants like bees, and-“

  “Taxi”

  Gizmo stopped short and ran for the door of his cab. “See you later,” he called, then opened the door for a man who was waiting impatiently.

  Rick grinned and took a seat on the hotel steps. He liked Gizmo McLean, but he wasn’t sure meeting him right in front of the hotel was good. If the ex-marine started asking questions that Scotty couldn’t answer, it might be embarrassing. He wondered what the name “Gizmo” meant. But he had spent most of his time wondering these past few weeks. It was getting so that he couldn’t be sure of anything.

  The hotel porter came out with dustpan and broom and started sweeping the steps. Rick got out of his way and stood watching him for a moment, then he asked, “Is this really Washington, D. C.?”

  The porter stared, then he grinned. “See between the cracks there? I mean between those two buildings.” He pointed across the street. Partially visible through the narrow opening was the tall shaft of theWashingtonMonument .

  “Oh, that,” Rick said. “That’s an Egyptian obelisk.A little bigger than most, sure, but still an obelisk. How do I know I’m not inEgypt ?”

  “If you don’t know,” the porter returned, “I sure don’t know how to convince

  you.Whyn’t you try staying out of the sun for a couple of days? This sun will addle you like milk curdling.”

  “Maybe that’s my trouble,” Rick agreed. He noticed Scotty coming down the street and went to meet him.

  Scotty held up two paper bags. “The clerk said we should throw away the contents and eat the bags. They have moreflavor .”

  “I believe it,” Rick said. “Where do we eat the stuff? Here or in our room?”

  “Let’s go up. The mice are apt to tear the place down if we don’t share our food with them.”

  As the creaky elevator took them slowly upward, Rick asked, “What kind of a name is Gizmo?”

  “Marine talk.A gizmo is anything you can’t remember the right name for. Or maybe something you never heard the name of. You can use it as a synonym for ‘gadget.’ It’s a common nickname in the Marines.”

  “And what were you doing face down in the sand while slugs were fanning your

  pants?”

  Scotty chuckled. “Sounds like Gizmohas been giving you the word. He has more imagination than Barby.” He produced the room key and opened the door. “Anyway, that particular time-“

  He stopped short. Steve Ames was sitting in the room’s only chair, reading one of their magazines.

  “Come in,” Steve invited. “Make yourselves at home.”

  “Thanks,” Rick said with relief. “How did you get in here?”

  Steve tossed the magazine to the table.“Easy enough. I crawled out of the woodwork.”

  His glance switched to Scotty. “So you met an old friend of yours, eh? What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing,” Scotty said. “Only that I was visiting in the city and would look him up whenever I could.”

  “George John McLean, otherwise known as Gizmo,” Steve recited. “Ex-marine, served with the Second Division. He was awarded the Bronze Star for the same action that got you the Silver Star.Right?”

  Scotty’s jaw was on his chest. Rick swallowed. Steve Ames didn’t miss a thing!

  “Right.”Scotty scratched his head. “But how did you have time to find that out?”

  Steve smiled. “I’m disappointed to have you ask that. Isn’t he driving a cab? Can’t I read the number? Isn’t there a telephone in this room?”

  All that was true, Rick thought, but the cab company wouldn’t have all that information.

  Steve must have called Marine Headquarters after he found out Gizmo’s name. It frightened him a little to think how fast the Marines must have checked Gizmo’s record.

  Only someone important could get service like that.

  “We expected you on Friday,” Scotty said.

  “I expected to be here. Something came up. I’ll tell you about it in a minute, but first memorize this name and address: Colonel James Blythe, Room 121 Connors Building.

  Got it?”

  Both boys repeated the name and address aloud, then Rick repeated it to himself several times.Colonel? He wondered if the mystery had anything to do with the Army.

  “You’re to go see him within half an hour,” Steve said. “He’ll tell you something of what we’re working on.”

  “Will Weiss and Zircon be there?” Rick asked.

  Steve frowned. “Weiss and Zircon were to have arrived here byPullman early Friday morning. I sent a man to meet them. He came back and reported they were not on the train. I thought perhaps he had failed to recognize them from the pictures I gave him and went to find out for myself. I wasted half the morning huntingWashington hotels. There wasn’t a sign of them.”

  “Maybe they missed the train,” Scotty guessed.

  Rick thought not. Weiss and Zircon didn’t miss trains. He felt a tingle of worry.

  “They made the train,” Steve said. “I phoned Spindrift. Your father saw them to the station. I checked with the train crew and they knew nothing. The porter remembers that they went to bed just before the train reachedNew York . He didn’t see them after that. I put a crew to work checking all the places the train stopped on the way down. It took a while, but I found out where they got off.”

  He stared out of the window, his face thoughtful. “They had instructions to come direct toWashington .

  They didn’t. Now, why? What could have caused them to leave the train?Or, more important, who?”

  Rick stopped breathing.

  “They got off atBaltimore ,” Steve said. “A brake-man saw them. Strange, isn’t it? They are certainly distinctive enough in appearance. Almost anyone who saw them would remember them, yet apparently only a single brakeman saw them. They got off the train atBaltimore , and they left by the wrong side. They opened a door on the opposite side of the platform. The brakeman saw them get down and cross the tracks, and he saw them disappear into the darkness. This was early morning, remember. The last he saw of them they were climbing up the embankment a few hundred feet behind the station.”

  Steve paused, then finished quietly: “That is the last anyone has seen or heard of them.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Janig

  It was Rick who broke the silence following Steve’s last words.

  “And I was thinking just a little while ago that perhaps there wasn’t an enemy to watch out for!”

  Steve glanced up sharply. “What makes you think there is?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? You don’t know where Weiss and Zircon went, and none of your men do. Dad do
esn’t. They just vanished. They wouldn’t vanish of their own free will. I know them better than that.”

  “Yes,” Scotty agreed. “If they haven’t got in touch with anyone, it’s because they couldn’t. The only reason they couldn’t phone or write or something would be because they were being held.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”Steve rose and picked up his hat. “However, I have the

  advantage in my reasoning. You see, I know we have an enemy. Your father and the scientists are helping us to combat that enemy. It’s warfare in the dark, because we haven’t the faintest idea of who he-or they-might be.”

  A question trembled on Rick’s lips, but Steve shook his head.

  “That’s enough chatter. I’m going back to my office and start over again. There must be some clue. Meanwhile, you two hop into a cab and get over to see the colonel. He expects you. And don’t take your friend’s cab, Scotty. Walk out toPennsylvania Avenue and pick up a cruising hack. It’s safer that way.”

  Steve went out the door, Scotty right on his heels. Rick reached for his new hat and followed.

  At the elevator, Steve motioned for them to get in. “I won’t ride down with you,” he said. “Now, for ihi luvva Mike, be careful. Keep your eyes open. I don’t want you to show up missing too.”

  He said it half jokingly, but Rick sensed that he was deadly serious. As the elevator made its slow way down, he pondered on the strange disappearance ofWetes and Zircon.

  What could have lured them from the train? And were they all right?

  Scotty was thinking along the same lines, because he said, “If anyone has hurt Weiss or Zircon . . .”

  “Let’s hope they’re just being held,” Rick said. He crossed his fingers. The scientists were his good friends. It made him feel funny to think they were in the hands of an unknown enemy. “We’d better step on it,” he told Scotty.

  Out on the street, they hiked rapidly in the direction ofPennsylvania Avenue . A cruising cab passed and they hailed it. Rick knew the reason behind Steve’s suggestion. A cruising taxi was less likely to be a “plant” than one parked in front of the hotel. He gave the driver the name of theConnorsBuilding and they settled back in their seats, not talking. It wouldn’t do to discuss things in a taxi.