Chapter XIV

SPECIAL AGENT NINE
★

As Bob clawed his way through the dense shrubbery there was a sharp explosion behind him. Whether it was a shot or the exhaust of the sedan was something he didn’t stop to find out.

When he was finally clear of the barberry, Bob found himself in a small, open yard in front of the house, which was heavily shuttered and evidently unoccupied. But Bob wasted no time in reconnoitering the house. He kept on going, running around to the rear.

The iron fence enclosed the whole property but there was a gate and he made for this. A heavy padlock secured the gate, but Bob scrambled over without tearing his clothes and dropped into the alley.

From far behind on the other street he could hear the heavy roar of an exhaust and he ducked into a half opened garage on the other side of the alley for he had no intention of being caught out in the open.

When the noise of the exhaust finally died away, Bob went back into the alley. A walk of a block and a half brought him to a thoroughfare and he hailed a passing cab, directing that he be taken to the Department of Justice building.

Once inside the cab, Bob sat back to take stock of the damage which the thorns of the barberry had done to his hands. There were half a dozen raw angry scratches and innumerable little snags in his suit from the prickly stuff.

When he thought of what had happened in the last few minutes, Bob frankly admitted that he was at a loss to account for it. Why should he be singled out for an attack by a couple of hoodlums? Why should someone attempt to enter his room in the night? Perhaps his uncle would have the key to answers when he met him.

The cab pulled up in front of the Department of Justice building and Bob paid the driver and stepped out. Several pedestrians going by looked at him curiously and he realized that he looked strangely unkempt.

Bob stepped inside the building. His hands were smarting and he took out two clean handkerchiefs and wrapped them around his hands. There was still a little time before his appointment and he turned around and went to a nearby drug store where he explained that his hands had been scratched by barberry. A clerk recommended an antiseptic solution and Bob washed his hands thoroughly in this and then wrapped the handkerchiefs around them again.

Back in the Department of Justice building, Bob was whisked to an upper floor and a boy guided him to the room he inquired for. There was no name on the glass panel of the doorway and Bob stepped inside, wondering just what kind of a reception he was going to have. There was no one in the room when he entered and he sat down in a chair near a window to wait.

The door opened again and Tully Ross stepped in and stared at Bob. The surprise was mutual.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” exclaimed Tully, and there was no pleasure in his words.

“Guess that goes for me, too,” replied Bob.

Tully took a chair a few feet from Bob and conversation ended right then and there. For at least ten minutes no word was spoken until an inner door opened and Merritt Hughes entered.

“Hello, Bob. Hello, Tully. You’re right on time. Mr. Edgar will be here in a few minutes.”

Bob had seen Waldo Edgar, chief of the bureau of investigation of the Department of Justice several times, but he had never been introduced to him. Through the exploits of the bureau in recent months in tracking down some of the nation’s most notorious criminals, Edgar had become an almost legendary figure for it was from his office far up in the Department of Justice building, that he directed, by telephone, telegraph and radio, the great man hunts for the violators of the law.

Merritt Hughes looked at Bob’s hands.

“Hurt your hands in the fight last night?” he asked.

“Nothing like that,” replied Bob. “I got tangled up in a barberry hedge a few minutes ago and the thorns almost got the better of me. Guess I’ve ruined this suit.”

“What under the sun were you doing in a barberry hedge?” the federal agent wanted to know.

“Trying to get away from a couple of plug-uglies who seemed to want my company more than I wanted theirs.”

“No!” exclaimed his uncle incredulously.

“Yes!” retorted Bob with equal insistence. “I was taking a short-cut when a sedan pulled alongside me and one fellow got out and asked about an address. It was just a stall to get near me, but I had seen the car parked earlier just opposite the apartment. I was suspicious and when I thought he got insistent I let him have a couple. The driver started after me and when I thought he was reaching for a gun I went over the fence and dove through the barberry.”

Merritt Hughes whistled softly.

“This is serious. Have you reported it yet to the police?”

“No. I thought it was best to come right here and tell you. I didn’t get the number of the car for I was too busy trying to crash through that blamed barberry.”

“That’s not important. They’ve either abandoned the car or changed the license plates by this time. Can you describe the men who were in it?”

Bob supplied a detailed explanation and his uncle jotted the facts down on a small card.

“This will give us a lead to work on. Later we’ll go over to the bureau of identification and run through some pictures of red heads and men with scars on their foreheads. Maybe we can pick up some real clues there.”

Bob was tempted to relate the incident of the early morning at his room when someone had tried to gain access, but he hesitated to tell this in front of Tully. It sounded a little like a fairy tale or the work of an overwrought imagination.

The door to an inner suite of offices opened and a dapper, well-built man of about 38 stepped into the room. Behind him was Condon Adams.

Bob felt his pulse quicken for even before their introduction he recognized Waldo Edgar, ace of all the federal manhunters and chief of the bureau of investigation.

Edgar looked at the handkerchiefs on Bob’s hands and smiled quizzically.

“Fighting?”

“No, just plain barberry thorns,” replied Bob.

“Then I take it you weren’t strolling on the barberry just for the fun of the thing,” said the federal chief.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a stroll,” grinned Bob. “It was something like trying to do a hundred yard dash in nothing flat through half an acre of barberry. It was a good place to hide, but a poor place for running.”

Waldo Edgar’s eyebrows went up questioningly and he turned to Merritt Hughes.

“Does this tie in with what happened last night?” he asked.

“Apparently. Bob was trailed by a couple of hoodlums in a car. When he was alone on a side street they waylaid him, but he knocked one out and jumped over a fence and ran through a barberry patch to escape. He came here directly after that happened.”

“Anything else happened since last night?” The question was from the thin, straight lips of Waldo Edgar and Bob told in detail what had taken place during the early hours of the morning.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Bob?” exclaimed his uncle.

Bob flushed. “Well, it seemed like I’d been having enough excitement for the last twenty-four hours and this sounded sort of crazy.”

“I’ll say it sounds crazy,” snorted Condon Adams and Bob caught a supercilious sneer flit across the lips of Tully Ross. It was plain that neither Adams nor his nephew believed the story and Bob turned back to the federal chief.

“There’s nothing crazy about this story. It only confirms our realization that some tremendously powerful force is after these radio secrets. We know now that only a part of the secret papers were taken from the file last night. The others had not been sent over from the radio engineering division of the War Department.”

“But how could those papers get out of the office last night?” put in Condon Adams.

“That’s for you and Hughes here to determine. You’re on this case, but I’m going to add a couple of special agents to help you out. It isn’t that I think you’re not capable, but I believe several inside men in the archives division will be tremendously helpful to you and I don’t want to have outsiders go in there.”

Waldo Edgar turned toward Bob and Tully and looked at them through searching eyes. His scrutiny of Bob was fairly brief, but he appeared to be making a more careful appraisal of Tully, and Bob thought he saw just a flicker of doubt in the federal chief’s eyes.

“It is decidedly irregular for this division to take on additional men, and especially very young men, but when we feel a case merits unusual attention, we do not hesitate to cut away the red tape and employ the individuals we want to serve us. Bob, would you consider joining the bureau of investigation as a provisional agent, working directly out of my office and solely upon this radio case?”

Bob’s heart went into his throat and he choked in answering.

“I’d like that very much, sir. I’ll do my best.”

“I feel sure that you will. Tully, how about you?”

“Great stuff. Count me in.”

Waldo Edgar nodded.

“I thought you would both agree. Wait just a moment.”

The federal chief left the room and when he returned he had a Bible in one hand and several small leather cases in another.

“Place your left hands on the Bible and raise your right hands,” he directed. Then he read a brief pledge, which they repeated after him.

The pledge administered, Waldo Edgar handed one of the leather cases to Tully and the other to Bob.

“You will find your identification cards in there as well as a small gold badge. Further instructions will be given you later in the day. I’m expecting a great deal from each of you.”

After shaking hands with each of them he hurried away and Bob looked down at the identification card in the leather case. He was now Bob Houston, Special Agent Nine.