Boy's Cinema (1935-39)

26 to superintend tho rounding up of ell the members of tho Legion. Todd telephoned to tho manager in charge of his own extensive garage and told him to provide twenty-five more taxi-cabs at once. Denton telephoned orders for all the men under his com- mand to get out on to every road leading from the city. Within a very few minutes a dis- patcher in the radio room at Police Headquarters was v sending out a message : "Calling all oars! Calling all cars! Stop and hold a black seven-passenger saloon, District of Columbia licence G-two-two-three. Two men wanted on murder charge. They may be armed." Over and over again the message was repeated, and it was picked up by patrol cars oh every highway. Dan, having -done all that could be done at tho Post, joined Finley in the radio transmitter-room at Police Head- quarters and stood beSide the switch- board there. A quarter of an hour dragged by, with only the monotonous drono of the dispatcher to break tho silence, and then the operator looked round to say : "A patrolman on Bridge Road re- ports a car answering description passed fivo minutes ago, heading north." "Call every town north of here, and order the roads blocked," urged Dan, and Finley nodded approval and barked orders at other operators. Five minutes afterward word came through that a black saloon, heading north, had been seen on highway 68. A fresh message was sent out by radio: "Calling all cars. Car heading north on highway sixty-eight—six- eight. Get up there 1" It was time for action. Dan tele- phoned to Colonel Forsythe at the Post, and oars and taxi-cabs filled with legionnaires set off for tho highway. Legionnaires already on other roads were diverted to that one as soon as they reported their whereabouts. Out- side Police Headquarters Dan scrambled into a squad car besido Riley, who took the wheel, and Finley and two other officers occupied the back seat. Twenty miles out of the city, on a highway that led to the town of West- villo, Dan shouted urgently : "Take that dirt road—it's a short cut to sixty-eight." The squad car was travelling at nearly seventy miles an hour, but Captain Riley achieved tho sharp bend into the minor road with nothing worse than a sideway skid in the dust of it, and the car raced onwards. Ninety miles north of Claremont a barricade of packing-cases and barrels had been built in haste across highway 63, and police-officers with cars and motor-cycles were waiting at a safo distance behind it. The barricade had been completed only a few minutes when the black e iloon approached it at a speed of sixty miles an hour, and the headlights shone upon the boxes and the barrels. Craig cried out in alarm; Eve caught at her breath and slid to the floor ; but Kimball did not even remove his foot from the accelerator. Straight at the barricade he charged, and broken woodwork flew in all directions as the saloon crashed through it. Startled officers fired at tho tyres as it whizzed past them, but their aim was none too good, and tho saloon held on u r . way. "Well, wo made that ono all right," gulped Craig, mopping his face with a handkerchief. September 2tth. 1933. BOY'S CINEMA "Calling all cars! Calling all cars!" droned the voice of the dispatcher from loud-speakers in patrol cars behind and ahead. "Car is still on highway sixty- eight. Passed first barricade. Head- ing for tho second one." The second barricade, five miles north of the broken one, was a more formid- able affairs of poles on trestles as well as packing-cases. A police sergeant who had been superintending its con- struction heard the wireless message as he leaned against the side of his car, and he shouted a warning: "He's liable to be along here any minute now !" He looked over the barricade, and presently he saw the glare of headlights some distance away in the darkness of the road. "Here he comes now!" he bellowed. "Come on, everybody, get out of here !" Men heaved themselves over fences, scrambled through hedges. Cars shot off with officers on their running-boards to pull- up a hundred yards or more from the obstruction. The black saloon swept onwards towards that obstruction, Kimball crouched over its steering-wheel, the speedometer registering seventy miles an hour. Eve slid to the floor again and covered her eyes with her hands. Craig yelled frantically from the back seat: "The road's blocked! We're trapped ! Stop, chief, it's suicide !" But Kimball did not even slacken speed. Just as he had charged at the first barricade so ho charged at this second and more formidable one. There followed a crashing and a rending; boxes and poles went up into the air; but, as by a miracle, the saloon cut its way through with an empty orange-box perched grotesquely upon its bonnet. A barrel rolled the full length of the car's roof and collapsed upon the con- crete as it fell; shots rang out from both sides of the highway, but without effect. But though the saloon sped on- wards it had not escaped damage. Its fender had been broken, and its front wings crumpled so that one of them scraped against a tyre. One of the headlights had been smashed; the engine laboured, and water was stream- ing down from the broken radiator. The needle of the speedometer fell away from seventy to sixty, from sixty to thirty-five. Police cars from behind the first barricade were following one another through the gap in the second THIS WEEK'S CASTS "SQUADRON OF HONOUR" Dan Blaine Don Terry Eve Rogers Mary Russell Robert Metcalf Thurston Hall Lou Tanner Arthur Loft Steve Larvlor Marc Lawrence John Blair Kimball Robert Warwick Norman Craig Dick Curtis Commander Todd .... George McKay Commander Denton Eddie Featherstone Colonel Forsythe Ed Lo Saint Chief of Police Finley... .Ivan Miller Captain Riley Hprry Strang Sid Hinklc Jimmy Hollywood "SWISS MISS" Stan Laurel Himself Oliver Hardy Himself A nna Albert Delhi Lind Victor Albert. ... Walter Woolf King Edward Eric Blore Chef Adia Kuznctzoff Luigi Ludovico Tomarchio Cheese Factory Frojrrietor Charles Judols Every Tuesday barricade, and police cars from behind the second barricade were in pursuit. Far away along the highway, to the south, the squad oar driven by Riley was tearing along at nearly eighty miles an hour, and in the rear of the squad car raced a whole procession of taxicabs and cars of every description, all of them filled with legionnaires. Twenty miles north of the second bar- ricade, where the broad highway dipped towards a wood on the left and a deep ravine on the right, Craig looked back through the rear window of the saloon because a light was shin- ing through it. '"We're being followed!" he cried. "Stop on it!" Tho saloon gathered speed on the downward slope, but Kimball was afraid that the tyre scraped by the wing might blow out at any moment, and he gripped the steering-wheel with all his might. A bend was passed, tho open woodland was reached, and momentarily the lights of the pursuing cars were lost. Eve, down on her knees on the floor, had noticed that the ignition key was in its slot. She put a hand on the dash- board as though about to rise, and she switched off tho ignition. "What are you doing there?" Kirn- ball rasped at her; but the key v.as withdrawn, and she hurled it through the broken window beside her. The saloon slowed to a standstill, and Kimball struck her violently in tho face, knocking her backwards against the seat and the door, then turned to Craig. "Come on I" he shouted. "Into the woods ! It's our only chance !" The two scrambled out from the oar and dived in amongst the trees, kneo- deep in bracken. " They wouldn't find us under this stuff," panted Craig, after they had covered a quarter of a mile. "They would!" snapped Kimball. " There'll be thousands of them here directly 1 We can't get too far from the road !" They stumbled on, and the bracken was left behind; but in the denser part of the wood brambles impeded UieiF progress, and many times they stumbled over rabbit-holes and fell over sprawl- ing roots. Eve had been knocked half-uncon- scious by Kimball's brutal blow, and it was only in a dazed sort of fashion that she heard the grinding of many brakes and the shoute of many voices. She tried to rise, but sank back upon the scat; and she was huddled ibero when Dan opened the door beside her and the light of an electric torch was in her face. "Eve I" he exclaimed, and put away tho torch to hold her hands. "Are vou all right, Eve?" His voice, using her Christian name, acted like a restorative. "Yes," she murmured faintly, "I'm alt right." Finley looked in at the other door. "Which way did they go?" he demanded. "They—they went into the woods," Eve remembered with an effort. The Chief of Police rushed off to give orders to the assembled officers. Dan instructed two legionnaires to stay with Eve and look after her, then consulted with Haynes, Todd, Denton, and Colonel Forsythe. More than a hun- dred vehicles of one sort or another had become parked at the side of the high- way, and more than a thousand legion- naires were waiting for the word of command. They were lined up in columns of fours, and Dan addressed them. (Continued on page 28)