Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

22 tion of producing a liberal gratuity for the supposed workmen. •'I'd like you fellows to have a drink on me," he remarked pleasantly, as the four men turned towards him after having set down the compressor. "Yeah?" said the individual who had acted as the driver of the truck. "Well, have this on me!" With the words he plucked out his six- gun, and before Dick could raise a hand to defend himself, the rogue dealt him a violent blow over the head with the butt- end of the revolver. Down went Dick Norman, knocked senseless as effectively as Terry Kent and the two genuine employees of the Bell Tex Company had been, and as the young chemist pitched to the floor his antagonist barked a command at the other three gangsters. "Get the gas-bombs and stuff 'em in your pockets," he directed. "There they are—in the carton on that desk." His companions made haste to obey him. Meanwhile, the thug who had felled Dick returned his gun to his hip-pocket and bent over his prostrate victim to rip off the latter's smock. This done, he snatched a jacket that was hanging from a clothes- stand near by, and forced the unconscious scientist's arms into the sleeves of the coat. The other rogues joined him a few seconds later, and reported that the gas- bombs were in their possession, as well as all papers they had been able to find. " Okay," said the man who had laid Dick Norman low. " You know what to do." He wheeled then, strode out of the laboratory and retraced his steps to the street, adopting an agitated mien as he emerged into the view of the three police- men who were on guard there. "Say, which way is the nearest hospital?" he panted. The officers looked at him blanklv. "Why, two blocks down that side-road on the right," one of them replied. "Is anything wrong?" "Plenty," was the response. "The compressor fell, an' one o' my mates got hurt." It was at this juncture that Dick Nor- man was carried out by the accomplices of the bogus truck-driver, who bore him across the pavement so swiftly that the policemen gained only a brief impres- sion of the limp figure with which they were burdened. Moreover, one of the crooks contrived to hide the young chemist's face by pretending to dab the unconscious man's features. The scientist was lifted into the back of the truck. In the process a large car- boy of acid that happened to be in the lorry was overturned, and, its stopper becoming dislodged, the contents of the receptacle began to trickle forth. But the ruflElans who had bundled Dick into the interior of the vehicle paid no heed to the capsized carboy, and, swinging up the tail- board and bolting it securely, they scurried round to the front of the truck. The man who was acting as driver had already climbed aboard and taken his position at the wheel, and the other three rogues lost no time in scrambling up beside him. Next second the truck was on the move, and, standing on the side-walk, the policemen who had been detailed to safeguard Dick Norman watched it until it disappeared into the side turning on the right. The officers of the Law were blissfully unaware that they had witnessed a kid- napping, and none of them had been astute enough to observe that only four men had alighted from that truck and gone into the building that housed the Norman laboratory—whereas five had issued from the premises, including the imfortunate individual who had sup- posedly been injured by the compressor. BRINK OF DOOM LESS than five minutes after the Bell Tex Company's stolen motor-truck had pulled away from the building where- in Dick Norman's laboratory was situated, November 18tli, W39. BOY'S CINEMA a sedan car skidded to a halt in front of the three police officei's who were on duty there. Terry Kent was behind the steering- column of that sedan, and as he clambered out of the automobile the policemen on the side-walk saluted him. "You've got back, then, lieutenant," one of them remarked conversationally. "By the way, that compressor was delivered, but the guys that brought it had some trouble with it. One of 'em got hurt." Terry's handsome countenance was white, and his head was throbbing from the blow he had received in the yard adjoining the Bell Tex Company's estab- lishment. Yet the pain resulting from that blow had not prevented him from rousing himself into action when he and the workmen who had been laid out with him had been revived by a factory-hand who had come upon them. "Hurt?" he echoed now, his eyes riveted on the cop who had spoken. "What happened, Muldoon?" The police officer known as Muldoon proceeded to explain, but had still to complete' his story when Terry brushed past him and made tracks for Dick Nor- man's laboratory—to charge out into the street again fifteen seconds later. "I thought so!" he jerked, confronting the pei'plexed officers of the law once more. "My fiancee's brother has been taken for a ride! Those men who came here with the compressor were phoneys! Which way did that truck go when it left here?" "Why. down that side tui-ning there," Muldoon blurted in response. " Look, that stuff spilled out under its tailboard, and it's made a sort of trail." He pointed to a ribbon of liquid from which fumes were rising, and which Terry at once divined to be some kind of corrosive acid. "Muldoon," the Coastguard lieutenant rapped out, "you get to the nearest tele- phone and notify police headquarters that Dick Norman's been abducted in a truck with ' Bell Tex Supply Company ' painted on the sides of it. You two other officers follow me in your car. We'll see where that trail of acid leads us." He dived back into the sedan, and, Mul- doon's comrades entering the police car, both autos were soon swerving into the side road down which the stolen motor- truck had vanished. The thin trail of smoking acid that had seeped from the overturned carboy in the lorry proved to be an effective guide for a distance of a mile or two, and led Terry and Muldoon's colleagues towards the northern outskirts of the city. But there was a disappointment in store for the trackers, for, reaching a point where two main roads diverged, they saw that both thoroughfares had recently been sprayed by water-carts owned by the corporation, and, as a consequence, the acid trail had been completely obliterated. Terry pulled up, and the police car came to a standstill alongside him. "That truck took one of these forks," the Coastguard lieutenant sang out to the two cops, "but there's no telling which. You try the left-hand road and I'll try the one on the right." He and the police officers separated, and, driving rapidly along the right-handt ' fork, Terry was still covering ground thai had been copiously watered when he be- inought himself of a wireless set with wnich the sedan was equlppea. It occurred to him that as a result of Muldoon's telephone message to head- quarters the stolen motor-truck may have already been intercepted and he tuned-in on the radio in the hope of picking up a police broadcast to that effect. He picked up a police broadcast sure enough, and, though it did not relate to the capture of Dick Norman's kid- nappers, it nevertheless afforded Terry a clue to the direction the rogues had taken. "Calling all cars," the voice of a police Every Tuesday announcer intoned. " Calling all cars. Go to Hampton Boulevard. Pick up child burned by acid while playing in the street. Investigate occurrence with a view to tracing motor-truck mentioned in previous broadcast." Terry's eyes gleamed. Hampton Boulevard was a highway leading off the route along which he was passing, and was about a mile ahead of him. He reached it in another minute or so, turned into it, and saw a group of people about a hundred yards along it—a group which included a police officer and a little girl who was in tears, and who was obviously the child who had been burned by the acid. There was nothing Terry could have done for the girl, and in any case he had reason to believe that Dic'ic Norman was in dire peril of his life. Therefore he drove on, and, though Hampton Boulevard had also been sprayed, he presently passed a corporation water-cart and came on to a dry road surface. Then once again he beheld traces of acid. The trail of acid was no longer ribbon- like, but consisted of mere drips. These were giving off fumes that made them clearly visible, however, and they guided Terry on to a road that swerved away from Portland's outskirts and ran parallel with the coast. He had proceeded a couple of miles along this road when he espied the Bell Tex Company's truck. It had been driven on to a strip of sloping terrain that ran down to the edge of a sheer two-hundred- foot cliff overlooking the sea. and it had been halted some fifty yards from the rim of that cliff. Even as Terry caught sight of the vehicle Boroff's minions jumped from its cab. and immediately afterwards the truck commenced to roll slowly forward in the direction of the cliff-brink, the gangsters striking off to the left as it started to move. With a hoarse exclamation the Coast- guard lieutenant brought the sedan to a standstill and leapt out of the car. It was clear to him that Dick's kidnappers had left him in the truck and released the brake so that the vehicle would travel down to this edge of the precipice on its own momentum and plunge to destruc- tion, carrying to his doom the young scientist who had been abducted. Terry sprinted towards the truck, and there ensued a despei'ate race—with the lieutenant gaining swiftly on the lorry at the outset, but with each revolution of its wheels bearing it nearer and yet nearer to disaster at ever-increasing pace. Running hard, Terry succeeded in catching up with the motor-truck ere it could attain a speed exceeding his own. Bitter fumes from spilled acid that had seared into its floorboards were billowing from it, and it was now desperately close to the rim of the cliff, but without thought for himself Terry sprang at the back of the runaway lorry. He tumbled into the interior of it. and made out the figure of Dick Norman. The latter was lying near the frorrc of the truck, and as it happened he had not been touched by the acid that had escaped from the overturned carboy. But he was still unconscious, and, muscular as Terry was, the revenue officer had his work cut out to lift him when he reached his side. With an effort Terry managed to hoist him over his shoulder. Then he stumbled to the rear of the truck, intent on throw- ing himself out of it with his fiancee's brotiier. Yet before he could do so the lorry tipped crazily over the cliff-rim and dived into space! (Did that fearsome plunge cost Terry Kent and Dick Norman their lives? Did they meet death in tlie ocean waters two hundred feet below? Don't miss " The Sea Battle," next week's powerful episode of this sensational serial, published by kind permission of British Lion Film Corporation Limited.)