Chapter XI

DOUBLE DANGER
★

Bob never knew just how long he was unconscious, but it must have been at least half an hour before his mind started to clear and he felt some one shaking his shoulders.

His head pounded painfully and it was difficult for him to lift his heavy-lidded eyes. Some one moistened his lips and his tongue felt better. He tried to talk, but some one cut him short.

“He’s coming around now. Lift him into a chair.”

The command was obeyed and Bob felt himself being carried into a chair. Faintly he heard the steady clack of train trucks and he knew that he was still on the Southern Limited.

When his eyes finally focused and his blurred vision cleared he saw the train conductor leaning over him. A Pullman porter was just behind and in the background another trainman could be seen.

“What happened?” It was the voice of the train conductor.

Bob shook his head. He was still too weak to answer that question, but his eyes shot toward the end of the car as though he half expected to see a hand move around the corner and grope for the light switch. In his ears the mocking laugh he had heard still echoed.

“Where are we?” asked the young federal agent, and when the conductor answered Bob knew that the Limited was far behind its usual fast schedule into the southland.

Bob looked sharply at the trainmen.

“Have you seen anything of the man in lower nine in the last hour?” The question was sharp and he saw the look of surprise that passed over their faces.

Denials were quick and emphatic. Quite definitely they had not seen Joe Hamsa on the Limited.

Bob shook his head. That was strange for he was sure that it was Hamsa’s voice he had heard in the car just before he lost consciousness.

“Tell us what happened,” urged the train conductor, who was more than a little disturbed at the misfortunes which were befalling the passengers on the Limited that night. One federal agent had been taken suddenly ill, another passenger had disappeared, the train had been flagged down at a lonely station for a telegram, and now the second federal agent had been found unconscious in the observation car. It was, admitted the trainman, too much for him to untangle.

Bob felt more like talking now, and he told his story briefly.

“I turned toward the forward end of the car just in time to see some one’s hand groping around the corner for the light switch. I jumped for the switch, but the lights were snapped out before I could reach it.”

Bob paused for a moment, then went on.

“I crashed into the steel partition at the end of the lounge section of the car and fell down. Before I could get to my feet whoever had turned off the lights snapped on a small but very brilliant flash light and focused it on my eyes. Before I could get to my feet there was a sharp impact on my face. It was just as though some one had struck me a sharp blow. After that a wave of nausea swept over me and that was the last thing I remember until a few minutes ago.”

The conductor’s worry was reflected on his frank face.

“The flagman, coming back from the head end, found the car in darkness and when he turned on the lights he almost fell over you. I was pretty worried, but the porter told me that you acted like your friend this afternoon and I knew he was coming around all right so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.”

“Just before I lost consciousness,” went on Bob, “I heard some one laugh and I would have sworn it was the voice of Hamsa, the man who has disappeared from lower nine.”

“Couldn’t have been,” declared the conductor. “I’ve been all over the train and know he isn’t aboard.”

“Then who could have turned off the lights in this car?” demanded Bob and the conductor shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.

“I’ll be glad when we’re at the end of the division,” he said. “This thing is getting my nerves. Next thing I’ll be seeing ghosts. You fellows must have eaten some tainted food.”

“No, that’s out. Neither my companion nor I had a meal together before we got on this train this afternoon and he was taken ill before the evening meal was served in the diner.”

“That’s right,” agreed the conductor. “Well, you puzzle it out. I guess that’s your profession.”

Bob got to his feet. His legs were still a little shaky and the porter hurried away for more coffee. When it was brought Bob drank two more cups of the hot liquid, then he walked up and down the car several times.

“If you can rustle up a sandwich out of the diner, I’ll feel better when I get some more food in my stomach,” said Bob, and the porter went out to fill his request.

The conductor turned to the flagman.

“Don’t leave this car again, except when you have to get off to protect the back end at flag stops,” he ordered. “I don’t want any more mysterious attacks on this train while I’m in charge of it.”

Then he looked at Bob, who was still white around the lips.

“Better get to bed and enjoy a few hours sleep, young man. You’re starting to look like a fish that’s been out of water too long.”

“I’m coming along all right,” declared Bob. “As soon as I have a sandwich I’ll feel better. I’m convinced that Hamsa is on this train some place and I’m going to find him.”

The conductor stared at Bob as though he thought the young federal agent was mentally unbalanced. Then, shaking his head and muttering to himself, he started forward to continue his greatly interrupted work on his reports.

The porter came back with a tray on which were two large, thick, meat sandwiches and a glass of milk and Bob sat down in the observation car to enjoy the late lunch.

The flagman, at the back end of the car, was inclined to be more talkative than the conductor.

“Everyone on the train’s shaky tonight,” he confided. “We got a message we picked up on the run a few minutes ago and a fast freight that’s been coming along right after us wasn’t able to find any trace of Hamsa along the stretch of road where we know he disappeared.”

“How fast were we running along that section?” asked Bob.

“Never under fifty, and most of the time between fifty-five and sixty-five.”

“Then a man wouldn’t have much chance of jumping from the train without such serious injury that he would be unable to get away?” pressed Bob.

“I should say he wouldn’t. At the very least he would get a broken leg and he wouldn’t be able to get far from the right-of-way in that condition. And remember that it’s been storming hard ever since yesterday afternoon.”

Bob knew that the trainman was right. It would have been almost sure suicide to have leaped from the speeding Limited and he was more convinced than ever that Hamsa was somewhere aboard the train.

“We’ve been over every car from head to rear and back again,” said Bob. “Have you any idea where he could hide?”

The flagman removed his cap and scratched his head.

“He didn’t go through the baggage car?” he asked.

“No,” replied Bob.

“How about under the steps in the vestibules? Did you lift all of the traps?”

Bob’s startled expression was sufficient answer to the flagman, who got hastily to his feet.

“No, we didn’t look under the traps,” admitted Bob.

“Then we’d better get busy. We can do it alone, working ahead through each car.”

The flagman started for the back end of the train, evidently intent on checking the trap doors on the observation platform when a sharp call from Bob stopped him.

“Hamsa isn’t going to be an easy man to take if he’s hiding under one of the traps. Wait until I can go forward and get a gun out of my bag.”

“I’ll wait,” agreed the flagman, who obviously had not thought that they might encounter armed resistance.

Bob, running lightly, sped through the two forward Pullmans and into car forty-three. His own Gladstone was still under the berth in which Tully was sleeping so heavily.

The young federal agent bent down and dragged it out. He knew just where he had put the gun and his hands sought it after he had opened the bag. But the weapon was not where Bob had placed it and a new feeling of anxiety gripped him.

With desperate hands he rummaged through the bag. The gun and box of cartridges he had placed there were gone!

Bob picked up the big bag and carried it to a berth further down the aisle where he snapped on the seat lights. Once more his hands ran through the clothing which filled the bag.

The revolver was gone, but the rifle he was taking south with him was intact, although the ammunition for it was missing. Some one had looted the bag and in doing so had left Bob defenseless against any armed attack.

The discovery that his own bag had been searched so disturbed Bob that for a moment he forgot the important confidential papers on the smuggling case which he had placed there.

When he recalled them, he started another search of the bag, turning clothes topsy-turvy in his search for the envelope and the precious information which it contained.

Bob searched both sides of the Gladstone with a heart that grew heavier with apprehension as each second passed. There was no question now—his own confidential papers had been stolen.

His hands went to the inner coat pocket where he had tucked the telegram warning them against Hamsa. When he drew them out his hands were empty. Even that message had disappeared and Bob knew then, without question, that Hamsa was somewhere on the train.

With the telegram from Washington in his possession and the knowledge that the federal agents were closing in on him, Hamsa would be doubly dangerous and Bob was unarmed.