Boy's Cinema (1935-39)

22 to show their passes whether coming or going. But Watkins and his cronies were equipped with forged permits, and, taking care to keep their faces averted as they showed the watchman these permits, they were allowed to depart without question. Even as they filed out through the gatewaj- a police officer showed up near the entrance of the yard. He was Sam Malonev, and, although Pat had in- structed him to remain by the car, Sam had become weary of the inactivity of waiting, and now, after a brief hesitation, he exchanged a few words with the watchman and then strode into the works. Only a minute or two afterwards Sam Maloney was brought face to face with Pat as the latter was assisted from the interior of the mill by a group of fur- nace men and machinists, and pre- sently these were joined by none other than Wellington himself and Pinky Adams, who had his dog Irish with him. It appeared that Wellington had sent for Pinky, inviting the boy to call at his office that evening, and, concerned over the young orphan's welfare, the steel magnate had been interrogating the lad regarding his future plans when lie had received a message that some- thing was wrong over in the mill. Pat, badly shaken as he was by his fall, had now recovered sufficiently to give an account of all that had taken place in the works, and when he had told his story Wellington ordered his employees to assist Sam Maloney in carrying out a search of the whole pre- mises for the Selkirk girl and the four men who had likewise been after the late John Adams' formula. Then, left alone with the steel magnate and the murdered inventor's son, Pat spoke in a thoughtful tone. "I wonder who those guys were," he muttered. "The guys who were so dead-set on takitig that formula away from Selkirk's sister, I mean?" I'I don't know, O'Hara," Wellington rejoined. "Your description of them doesn't fit airy of the men who are in my employ, so far as I can recall. But whoever they are, I only hope they're rounded up." Pat bit his lip. "The formula's my chief concern," be said, putting his arm round John Adams' orphaned son. "It's worth a cool million dollars, and it's the right- fid property of young Pinky here. And Pinky and "I are good friends, aren't we. Pinky ?" The boy nodded, and a silence fell upon the trio, a silence that lasted until Sam Maloney finally reappeared on the scene. "It's no use," Pat's burly comrade reported. "We've searched high and low, and there ain't a trace of that Selkirk girl or the fellers you described to us, pardner." Pat O'Hara looked at him keenly. "Listen. Sam." he said, "are you suro nobody left the yard before you came in?" Maloney frowned. "Well, a bunch o' men did si mil out, come to think of it," he admitted. "I couldn't say just lion many, for I didn't take much notice of 'cm, except to satisfy myself none of 'em was the Selkirk" dame in disguise. Anyway, they all had passes." "Oh, they all had passes." Pat reiterated the words in a sarcastic vein. "Well, just the same they were prob- ably the guys that you've spent the last half hour trying to locate. Still, that doesn't account for Selkirk's sister." ",S7/c didn't leave by the gateway. anyway," Sam declared emphatically. Pebruarj 5th, loss. BOY'S CINEMA "If she had, I'd have spotted her " And then lie stopped short, a disquiet- ing possibility occurring to him, and, seeing the look of uneasiness that dawned on his moon of a face, Pat eyed him in a penetrating fashion. "What's up, Sam?" "Pat, a motor truck pulled out—that same truck she boarded so as to smuggle herself into the plant. You don't suppose " He did not finish the sentence. Pat finished it for him. "That she boarded it again to make her getaway?" he said. "Of.course she did, you sap. Aw, come on. we may as well get back to the car." "What about your head, O'Hara?" Wellington interposed. "You took a nasty bump, you know. Hadn't you better come to our plant hospital and let the doctor have a look at it?" "Thanks, Mr. Wellington," Pat re- joined, "my head's all right. But it might not be a bad idea to have Malonev's examined." Later that night, in the suite they had rented at an exotic hotel down in the Oriental quarter of Los Angeles, the two foreigners known as Tahata and Zutta received a visitor in the shape of Franklyn, that pallid-faced individual who was a slave to the will of the first-named Asiatic. Tahata stepped close to Franklyn as the latter put in an appearance, and he fixed the white man with his strangely compelling gaze. "Weil," he asked tensely, "have you done my bidding ? Did you send those four men to the Wellington Steel Plant? Have you brought the formula ?" Franklyn stared straight ahead of him, hjpnotised by the sloe-black eyes that peered into his own, his mind held captive by the influence of a stronger personality. "The men failed," he answered slowly. "They were forestalled by a girl—a girl who is Selkirk's sister, I understand. The formula is now in her possession." He went on to describe the events that had transpired at the mill, Tahata listening to him in a dis- gruntled silence the while. Then, when the white man had finished speaking, the Asiatic dismissed him with a gesture and turned to his own compatriot. "This police officer who was on the scene to-night sounds like Patrolman O'Hara, our acquaintance of the morn- ing." he said. "I gained the impression then that he was no ordinary guardian of the peace, Zutta. He struck me as being an exceptionally shrewd young man, and it seems he may be _ a dangerous one as well—from our point of view." Zutta looked at him askance. "This whole situation may become too dangerous for our liking, Excellency." he muttered. "Perhaps v.e should leave." "No." Tahata made the pronounce- ment in deliberate accents. " Xo, we are not going to leave, Zutta—at least, not without the formula." Harrison Till'] following morning a car drew up near the city dump outside Los Angeles, and, alighting from (he vehicle, a stockily-built individual made his way on foot down the road leading between the mounds of lumber thai had been tipped on to the stretch of waste ground. His objective was that shanty where John Adams and his son bad lived after the inventor had sunk every cent of Every Tuesday his capital into his project for the manufacture of flexible steel, and on reaching the crude dwelling in ques- tion the newcomer glanced about him furtively before sidling up to one of the windows of the hut. Thirty seconds later the man had satisfied himself that no one was at home and had forced an entry into the abode. Then he proceeded to carry out an intensive search of the shack, a search which ended when he came across a sheet of strong but pliable metal that was about a foot square. Thrusting this under his coat, he made a hurried exit and retraced his steps to the car in which he had arrived, and not long afterwards he might have been seen driving into town, ultimately pulling up in the vicinity of a steel company's plant. The premises were those of the Harri- son Corporation, and the man who had ransacked Pinky Adams' home had no difficulty in gaining admittance to the office of the president's secretary, a young girl of attractive appearance. That girl was known as Miss Day. and had been in Harrison's employ for several months, proving herself a highly efficient young woman. Even Harrison, who was not given to praise, and who often went out of his way to find fault with members of his staff, seemed to consider her well-fitted for the position she occupied. He would have regarded her in a very different light, however, if he had been aware of her true identity. For this girl who went under the name of Day was in reality Molly Selkirk. sister of the man who was being held in connection with the Adams murder, and that same resourceful interloper who had entered the Wellington Works the previous night, to secure, for reasons best known to herself and her brother, the formula relating to the manufacture of flexible steel. It was to Molly Selkirk, then, that the individual who had just come from the city dump now addressed himself. "You might tell your chief that a Mr. Pollard is here to see him," he said. "He's expectin* me." Molly Selkirk announced the caller, and in another moment the man was being shown into the inner sanctum tenanted by Harrison, of the Harrison Steel Works. Thin and spare, with sharp, sour- looking features, Harrison was seated at a big mahogany desk. He glanced at Pollard expectantly as the door closed behind the visitor. "Well, did you get it?" he demanded, little dreaming that his secretary had posted herself in an attentive attitude outside the door of his private office, "Sure," Pollard answered, withdraw- ing from under his coat the sheet of metal he had found in the shanty home of the late John Adams. "It v, cinch." Harrison picked up a 'phone, and asked to be connected with the com- pany's laboratory. Then, having been put through, he delivered a brusque command: "Send Stevens up here," he ordered. Within a minute or two a studious- looking individual of about forty was making his way into Harrison's private cilice by a side door. He was wearing a while laboratory-coat, and was chief research chemist of the Harrison Steel Corporation. "Stevens," Harrison said, handing over the sheet of metal Bollard li.nl produced, "lake a look at this." The chemist examined the substance closely, end an expression of awe ap- peared on his face. Presently he gave a low whistle.