Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

20 BOY'S CINEMA Every Tuesday Boroff made a savagely-impatient gesture, brushing him aside. " Shut up, Rackerby ! due course ! " You'll hear what's happened in completely evaporated without causing any damage to depot and tracks, though the stacked cartons had utterly disappeared and all that-remained of their contents were small piles of broken glass. The truck from which the boxes had been unloaded had disappeared as well, for it had been enveloped by the terrible vapour that Boroff had created and, save for its windscreen and the glass of its lamps, it had been destroyed in its entirety. But what of the men-who had arrived in that motor-lorry at Pier-Port station. and who had last been seen on the road to the north of the depot? They were no longer in view, but they had not been encompassed by the fatal cloud which had been driven across the highway by the wind set up by the plane's propeller. They had made good their escape, and in point of fact they were at that moment crammed in a public tele- phone booth which was located about a mile from Pier-Port station. Black was using the phone in that booth, and, away on the coast, at the kelp plant which was his secret headquarters, Boroff was receiving from Black a descrip- tion of the incidents that had occurred at the railroad depot. Seated at a desk in a room which he had furni.shed as an office, Boroff listened to Black's narrative with mounting rage and chagrin, and the ugly look that dis- torted his pallid features was speedily dis- cerned by two individuals who were present with him in his sanctum. One of those two individuals was Rackerby, his assistant chemist, and the other was Krohn, emissary of the Moro- vanian Government; and it was with anxious mien that the former leaned towards his chief. " What is it, Boroff?" he faltered. " Bad news?" Boroff made a savagely impatient ges- ture, brushing him aside. "Shut up, Rackerby!" he snapped out. "You'll hear what's happened in due course." Rackerbv drew back, and both he and Ootober '.'Sth, i;«9. Krohn remained mute and motionless until Boroff had replaced the receiver of the telephone on his desk. Then the Moro- vanian agent spoke. "Well, Boroff," he demanded, "what's wrong?" "Kent has balked us, that's what's wrong!" came the harsh reply. "He showed up at Pier-Port railroad station and discovered that those electric light bulbs were fakes! In short, that first ship- ment of disintegration gas has been lost!" Krohn and Rackerby stared at Boroff in dismay. They seemed dumbfounded by the tidings he had disclosed, and were still eyeing him speechlessly when he raised his voice again. "Rackerby," he bit out, "find Thorg and bring him in here! Quick, man— don't stand there goggling at me!" His assistant turned and stumbled from the room, to reappear a minute or so after- wards with Boroff's gigantic servitor, and as the latter advanced humbly to his master's desk the munitions' king regarded him in an intent manner. "Thorg," he said, "it is necessary that a further shipment of the disintegration gas should be manufactured without delay. That means the task of salvaging the arnatite that went down with the Carfax must be accelerated, and from now on you will dive night and day. Is that clear?" The mute giant inclined his bullet head slowly, and then at a sign of dismissal from Boroff he made his way from the offlce with deliberate tread. THE " SEA WOLF " ONE morning, a day or two after the adventure that had befallen him at Pier-Port, Terry Kent was stepping out of his quarters at the Coast Guard station to which he was attached when he saw a car pull up close by. It was a car occupied by his fiancee, Jean Norman, and by Snapper McGee, and, as it came to a standstill before him, Terry moved towards it and set his foot on the nearside running-board. " Hallo!" he greeted Jean and Snapper "What brings you two news-hounds here?" "What do you suppose?" his fiancee rejoined. "We've dropped in to see if you've picked up any clue to Boroff's whereabouts, of course." The revAiue officer pursed his firm- lipped mouth. "No, we're no nearer to locating him," he muttered. " The guy who's being held at police headquarters in connection with Belden's murder won't talk, and the- authorities haven't been able to trace the three men I tangled with up at Pier-Port. I might mention, though, that right now I'm on my way to check up on a certain craft that may be concerned in Boroff's activities." Jean looked at him keenly. "What kind of a craft?" she wanted to know. "A trawler." was the response. "They call her the Sea Wolf." "The Sea Wolf?" Snapper McGee inter- posed. "Sav, isn't that the boat owned by Captain Slarsen—the feller that did time for smugglin' two or three years back?" Terry nodded. "That's the boat." he confirmed. "In the course of the last day or two she'.s been seen hovering near the spot where the Carfax went down, and, as Boroff was aboard the Carfax when she was wrecked and seemed mighty anxious that she shouldn't be investigated, I'm wondering if there isn't some link between that mur- derous scientist and Captain Slarsen Anyhow, I intend to have a little talk witli Slarsen, and the time's opportune, for I've just heard the Sea Wolf is tied up at the Webster Dock—a mile or so along the Portland waterfront." Jean at once offered to drive him to his destination in her car, and, accepting the invitation, Terry climbed in beside the girl and Snapper McGee. Thus it was that the Coast Guard lieutenant reached the Webster Dock within the space of a minute or two, and, soon espying the vessel whose skipper he intended to seek out. he alighted from his fiancee's automobile. Jean and Snapper emerged from the