The Ruby Ray Mystery Page 7

  “Not especially,” Scotty replied. “But I could drink a gallon of coffee.”

  “I could join you.”

  The policeman had given precise directions. In a few minutes, they were standing in front of the Swiss Motor Service. A sign in French, German, and English announced cars for rent, including Fiats, Renaults, Saabs,Taunus , and Mercedes. The agency was not yet open.

  There was a restaurant a few doors away, but without signs of life. The boys sat down on the front stoop and waited. It was growing daylight rapidly.Berne should soon be awakening.

  It wasfive forty-five by Rick’s watch when the restaurateur arrived. He looked at them in surprise. “Messieurs?”

  “Do you speak English?” Scotty asked.

  “Non, monsieur.”

  Rick tried his few words of French. “ Nous desirous cafe.”

  The man nodded. “Le petit dejeuner, messieurs?”

  Rick recognized the phrase, one of many he had forgotten. Breakfast! He said quickly, “Out, monsieur.”

  The proprietor unlocked the door, turned on lights, and waved them to seats. “Dix minutes, messieurs.”

  Ten minutes, Rick gathered. Well, they could wait that long.

  The estimate was optimistic. It took fifteen minutes before steaming mugs of coffee arrived. Sign language added eggs and bacon, and the proprietor included rolls automatically. He accepted French francs in payment.

  The rental agency was just opening when they arrived. The proprietor spoke minimum English, but gathered that they wanted to rent a car. He kept asking for lee- sawms , then finally Rick gathered that he wanted to see their licenses. They produced them, with passports, for a detailed examination. Satisfied, the proprietor led them out back to a shed where the rental cars were kept.

  Scotty took over. He wandered down the rows of cars, and finally beckoned to Rick, pointing atan Mercedes 300 SL roadster.

  “That’s a real bomb,” Rick said admiringly.

  “Might as well have something that will keep up with that other job.I don’t see anything faster.”

  The proprietor frowned. He searched for a word and managed to get out, “Expenseeve.”

  Rick produced his wallet.“How much?”

  In a short time the paper work was completed, the Mercedes gassed, and the oil checked. Scotty slid in behind the wheel, tossing his knapsack into the baggage well behind the seat. Rick got in on the passenger side and adjusted his knapsack to serve as a pillow.

  Scotty had already selected a spot where they could wait. He moved smoothly out into the street, drove back to the station and past it, then parked the car in the street that ran parallel to the street in front of the apartment house. The Mercedes roadster was facing in the same direction as the sedan parked a street away.

  “Now for a nap,” Scotty announced.

  “I’ll beat you to it,” Rick challenged. He made himself comfortable with the knapsack as a pillow and closed his eyes.

  He never knew whether he or Scotty had fallen asleep first; he only knew that they woke up at the same instant, jarred from their sleep by the sudden roar of an exhaust in the Megabuck earphones.

  Rick glanced at his watch. It was8:25 . They had slept almost two hours. He felt the difference. He was still groggy, but waking up fast. Scotty already had the car in gear and was moving slowly ahead. Rick took the Megabuck unit from his pocket and shifted it back and forth, trying to determine direction. At first the noise was loudest when he held the unit so the antenna was parallel to the street, broadside to the sedan in the next street. Then the angle began to change. The other Mercedes was moving! Since he knew where it was, he could tell the direction easily. It was heading toward the railroad station.

  “Toward the station,” he said.

  Scotty immediately picked up speed.

  Rick moved the unit. “They made a sharp turn to the right,” he said. “They’re coming up the cross street directly in front of us.”

  Scotty instantly pulled over so that a casual glance down their street would not show a moving car. The Mercedes sedan swept by the street, and the boys had a second’s glimpse of Keller, with Felt Hat driving. Walking Stick was not in the car.

  “We’re on our way,” Scotty announced, and pulled back into the street again.

  CHAPTER X

  A Tour ofSwitzerland

  Berne, being a small city with a population of little more than a hundred and fifty thousand people, there was no traffic congestion. Scotty was able to follow the sedan easily, keeping well back.

  Rick had taken the Swiss road map from the materials supplied by the rental agent and was trying to follow their route. It was difficult while they were in the city, because only major streets were shown on the large-scale map. But in a short time he saw they were heading generally east. The nearest large town in that direction wasLucerne .

  Scotty trailed Keller’s car to the edge of town and onto a blacktop highway. The houses had thinned out, and there was considerable open countryside. The Mercedes slowed while Scotty let the other car get completely out of sight, then asked, “Where are we heading?”

  “TowardLucerne ,” Rick answered. “There are a few turnoffs toward other cities, but this seems to be the main road. Why not let them get far ahead? If we reach a turnoff, the Megabuck units will tell us which turn they took.”

  “Far ahead?”Scotty glanced at him.“Afraid of being spotted?”

  Rick said what was on his mind. “So far, we have at least one other bunch, and maybe two, interested in following Keller. I’d be surprised if we were the only car tailing him.”

  A horn blasted behind them. Scotty was rolling along at an easy 60 kilometers an hour, and he pulled over to let the speed demon pass. It was a dark-blue Peugeot sedan, with only a driver.

  “Not much traffic,” Scotty commented.

  “That makes tailing more difficult,” Rick pointed out. The Peugeot was drawing away from them rapidly, and in a few moments it was out of sight around a curve.

  The roar of the Keller car’s exhaust in their earphones was still strong. Scotty let the roadster drift along at moderate speed. When the sound became slightly fainter, he speeded up a bit. “I’ll try to keep the sound level about where it is,” he explained. “You check me on it. If the sound gets louder, I’ll slow down. If it gets fainter, I’ll speed up.”

  “Good,” Rick agreed. He listened for a moment, then removed his earphone. “I’ll just listen in once in a while. That way, I won’t get used to the sound, and I’ll be able to check better.”

  The boys fell silent. Rick watched the scenery as they rolled through the Swiss countryside. The hills were gentle in this part of the country, green-clad and well kept.

  There were many farmhouses, and each had its woodpile. The tidy Swiss stacked their wood with mathematical precision, placing the end of each piece of firewood exactly even with the rest. No brick wall could have been more even.

  The houses and yards were equally neat. The roofs had a steep pitch, and eaves that extended far out from the walls. Rick thought they were constructed in this way to allow the heavy snows to slide off and drop some distance from the walls.

  The character of the country slowly changed. The hills grew steeper,more rocky , and gradually became mountains. The boys topped a mountain, and had to descend via a road that wound sharply around the mountainside. Rick caught a glimpse of a magnificent waterfall cascading down into a valley nearly a thousand feet below.

  He put his earphone back in place and heard the sound of Keller’s exhaust vary as the winding road made abrupt changes in the direction of the Mega-buck antenna.

  “Wonder where they’re heading?” he mused aloud.

  “And why,” Scotty added. “What do you suppose this is all about?”

  Rick shrugged. He had asked himself the same question many times. “If I find out, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Thanks,” Scotty said dryly.

  The boys fell silent as the miles ticked away.
They went through lovely little villages, past dozens of lumberyards, past herds of cows that looked likeHolsteins to Rick’s inexperienced eye. Except for the twists in the road, the exhaust sound remained constant.

  Then, as they reached a twisting road up a mountain, the Mercedes-Benz motor dropped to a faint purr. Scotty slowed quickly. “Sounds as though they stopped and the motor is idling.” He pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine.

  The boys Listened to the gentle purr, wondering why the Keller car had stopped.

  Suddenly over the sound of the purr they heard two loud bangs, like pistol shots.

  “Was that shooting?” Scotty asked quickly.

  “Sounded like it to me. Let’s get going. Keller may be in trouble!”

  As Scotty switched on their motor again, the Mercedes-Benz exhaust suddenly roared.

  Keller’s car was on the move again, at high speed!

  Scotty stepped on it. The roadster took the turns like a Grand Prix racer, climbing at high speed.

  At the top of the mountain the road leveled off, and ahead on the straight stretch they saw the Peugeot that had passed them earlier. It was pulled over to the side of the road, the driver standing alongside.

  Scotty slowed down, and Rick kept a sharp eye open as they rolled past. He saw two close-spaced holes in the Peugeot’s hood, about where the side of the motor would be.

  And he heard the driver, who apparently was swearing a blue streak in German or Swiss.

  “Two holes,” Rick reported. “Looks like Felt Hat shot through the hood.”

  “The only handgun I know of that could drive a slug through a car motor is a Magnum,”

  Scotty said grimly. “The FBI carries them, but they’re not common.”

  “These guys play rough,” Rick commented. He tried to reconstruct what had happened.

  “Keller’s car was ahead. They must have seen the Peugeot trailing them. I don’t think they jammed on the brakes and blocked the road, because we’d have heard the tires squeal. Besides, it’s hard to block a road completely. My guess is that they slowed down and forced the Peugeot to pass. We wouldn’t have noticed, because the motor noise was changing due to the twisting road and the way the antenna turned. Once they forced him to pass, Felt Hat could catch up and push him over to the side of the road and idle down long enough to slam a couple of Magnum slugs through the engine.”

  “It could have worked that way,” Scotty agreed. “Now we need to be sure it doesn’t happen to us.”

  Rick fell silent, going over every detail of the events sinceParis . The only way in which they might have attracted attention to themselves was when Scotty knocked Blue Beret out of action. But neither Keller nor Felt Hat had noticed. On this leg of the trip,their own car had not been visible except at a distance for a very brief period. They had been too far away for Keller or his friends to see faces, or license plate.

  “They can’t know we’re trailing them,” Rick said at last. “Unless there’s someone behind us we don’t know about keeping an eye on us.”

  Scotty shook his head. “No cars have been pacing us. There have been stretches where I could see behind us for one or two miles. And we can be sure this wagon isn’t bugged.”

  “It was pretty smart, knocking out the car instead of the driver,” Rick said thoughtfully.

  “He’s in no position to complain to the police, but he’s effectively out of action.”

  They passed through the town ofWolhusen , and Rick checked their position on the map. According to the map, theAlps weren’t far away. Without so much haze in the air they should be able to see them.

  Another hour passed, and Scotty said, “We’ll need gas shortly. So willthey .”

  Rick put his earphones back in place. “Then we’d better listen carefully. Do we stop when they do?”

  Scotty didn’t know. “It depends. If we’re near a gas station, we can stop. If we’re not, we’ll have to go right on by until we reach one.”

  The road hugged the side of a mountain, climbing steadily, but fairly straight. They were nearing the peak when the Mercedes-Benz exhaust noise suddenly dropped in pitch, purred for a moment, and then ceased. Scotty promptly slowed to near-crawling speed. “Unless we see a gas station before we see them, we’ll have to keep going.”

  No gas station came into sight. The car went over the highest point in the road, onto a level stretch, and then downward again. There was a village ahead, a small place. Scotty kept his speed moderate. They entered the outskirts of the village, passeda sawmill and a couple of stores, and saw a gas station sign up ahead.

  “Watch it,” Rick said quickly.

  Scotty maintained speed. They passed the gas station and saw the Mercedes-Benz pulled to one side. Attached to the gas station was a restaurant which Felt Hat was just entering.

  “Anywhere they could turn off?” Scotty asked. Rick had been keeping an eye on the map. “Not for another few miles.”

  “Okay. We’ll keep going to the next station-and maybe we can get some lunch, too.”

  “Go, boy, go! I could eat an alp.”

  Scotty stepped on it. On the far side of town, about a mile from the main section, they found a gas station with a small restaurant a hundred feet beyond it. They gassed up, then found a parking space behind the restaurant, out of sight of the highway.

  The place was small, with only four tables, and they were the only customers. The proprietress, a huge woman, served them veal stew. It was good.

  They insisted on paying in advance and then proceeded to eat slowly and with relish. If necessary, they could leave in a second. But the Mercedes-Benz motor did not start up again, and they took time for a second cup of coffee.

  Finally the exhaust noise in their ears told them Keller was on the move once more.

  They watched out the window, heard the sound increase in volume, and finally saw the car go by. Only then did they finish the last of their coffee, bid farewell to the proprietress, and continue the journey.

  The trail led through the resort city ofLucerne , and in the direction ofZurich . For a while Rick thought that might be their destination, but the Keller car took a fork in the road at the town ofCham , rounded the northern end of LakeZuger See, passed through Zug, turned north toBaar , then northeast toLakeZurich . From there the way led around the eastern end of the great lake toward theAlps .

  “Looks as if we’re in for a mountain vacation,” Scotty said.

  The road was climbing steadily now, occasionally dipping into a valley, then climbing steeply. There were so many twists and turns in the road that the Megabuck units were almost useless as direction finders. Only the sound of the exhaust, changing constantly in intensity, told them they were still on the right trail.

  They reached a section of road that curved around the base of a cliff.Ahead, the Alpine foothills-actually substantial mountains-rose peak after peak toward the trueAlps, the backbone of southernEurope.

  The Mercedes exhaust became steadily fainter, then suddenly cut off entirely. Scotty braked to a stop. “What happened?”

  Rick checked the map. “No villages for another dozen miles. The only turnoff is behind us about a mile. Maybe they stopped to admire the view.”

  “Not likely. Besides, the motor sound was becoming fainter. They weren’t getting that

  far ahead of us, I’m sure.Which means they were putting distance between us some other way. ”

  “Like taking that turn back yonder,” Rick agreed. “Only the turn leads into a dead end.

  Maybe we’d better keep going.”

  Scotty started up once more.“All right. We can check ahead a few miles, but I’ll bet we won’t find them.”

  Ten minutes later Rick gave up. “They didn’t come this far. We’d have lost their signal long before this. Better turn back.”

  Scotty maneuvered the car around and went back at the highest speed the winding road permitted. They reached the dead-end turnoff, and Scotty swung into it.

  The ro
ad climbed steeply, going up the cliff along which the main road ran.

  “This is why the signal got weaker,” Rick said. “They were putting both rock and distance between us and them.”

  Scotty shifted into a lower gear as the road turned a corner and then straightened out again. At the top of the cliff the land widened somewhat, but it was clear that they were on a shelf on the mountainside. The craggy ridge rose above them, on their left.

  The paved road ended suddenly in a wide spot, apparently a combined viewing place and picnic ground. There was no sign of the Mercedes-Benz. Scotty drove to the edge of the paving and found that a seldom-used dirt road continued onward.

  “Let’s go,” Rick said. “But keep a sharp eye open.

  The dirt road wound between fir trees for perhaps five hundred yards, then entered a gate in a fence made of iron rods with spear tops. The gate was closed. The sign on it said “Private” in four languages.

  “We have arrived,” Rick Brant announced.

  CHAPTER XI

  Dead End in theAlps

  Rick Brant studied the map, wishing he had one that showed topographic features more clearly. But even from the road map he could see the situation.

  They were on the side of a rocky mountain. It wasn’t much of a mountain compared with theAlps , of which it was only one of the foothills, but it was pretty respectable at that. It rose perhaps three thousand feet above the valley floor. The side road they were on came up a gradually ascending shelf until the shelf leveled off about one thousand feet above the valley floor.

  The shelf varied in width. At the bottom, where the road entered, it was just wide enough for the road. At the top, it was just about two hundred yards wide where the paved road ended at the picnic grounds, then it narrowed slightly until it was only about one hundred yards wide where the fence blocked it off.

  “The shelf probably widens out again inside the fence,” Rick said. Since the dirt road wound through dense fir trees, they couldn’t see very far.

  “Probably,” Scotty agreed. “There must be a house in there. Well, what do we do now?

  Crash the gate?”

  Rick shook his head. “I think we’d better go to the nearest city-that’sZurich -and phone the embassy atBerne . We can report that the fox has gone to ground, so to speak, and ask for further instructions.”