The Case of the Vanishing Boy (7 page)

He tried to shake off the feeling, but it clung to him and grew worse with the evening. In the library, while they were waiting for Ginny's return, he caught Heron Rhodes studying him with some concern. Heron told him, “Don't let Big Doc get you down, son. We'll settle with him soon. My word on it.”

He shook his head. “It—it's not what you think,” he managed to say. “I mean, well, I—I have an awful feeling that we've missed something. It's kind of like a chess move that could get you checkmated.”

Heron's eyes sharpened on him. “Evidently you know how to play chess. Hm. Now think, son. What sort of move would it be?”

“Sort of a round-the-corner move, like you'd do with a knight. It—it has to do with Ginny.”

Hecuba gasped. “Ginny? Oh, my heavens! Otis, call your sister—see if she—”

“Aw, she's okay,” Otis said with mild disgust. “I been talking with her right along. She's just left, an' she's going over now to get in the car.” He glanced at Jan, and said aloofly, “If you're so smart, see if you can beat me at a game of chess.” Without waiting for a reply he trotted over to a gaming table beyond the piano and took a box of chessmen from a drawer.

Otis was about to dump them on the table when his small body stiffened and his owlish eyes became great marbles of fear.

“No!” he gasped. “No! No!”

The chessmen dropped from his nerveless hands and spilled upon the carpet. Suddenly he ran to Hecuba and clasped her tightly, sobbing, “They've got her! Men in the car! I can't hear her, Aunt Heck—they've got her!”

Heron Rhodes shook his head once, then sprang to his feet and snatched up the phone on the desk. His finger spun the dial once. “Operator!” he barked. “Quick—this is an emergency! Get me the Glendale police!”

7

HOSTAGE

The tall clock in the library struck a deep and somehow doomful note, then slowly it struck another, and another, and another.… Jan counted the strikes without realizing what he was doing. Ten o'clock. Four hours had passed since Ginny had been kidnapped.

He chewed on his lip and looked again over at Otis, who was huddled miserably in the recesses of one of the big leather chairs. Heron Rhodes, grimly pacing the floor in front of him, stopped and looked also, silently asking the question they had been asking for hours. The small boy shook his head.

Heron muttered, “We won't hear from her till the drug wears off. They must have given her as big a dose as they gave Angus. The stupid fools! Half would have been more than enough!”

The Glendale police had found the Rhodes' station wagon on the edge of town, with Angus, drugged and suffering from a blow on the head, lying on the floor behind the driver's seat. Angus, Jan had been told, had no idea what had happened. The farm manager had gained consciousness hardly an hour ago, and was able to say only that someone had called to him by name from a passing car, and when he turned to see who had spoken he was suddenly struck from behind.

All this seemed rather odd to Jan. How could Big Doc have known about Angus, or that Angus would drive Ginny to Glendale on Tuesday? Unless, of course, Big Doc had become familiar with the establishment of Heron Rhodes long before that chance meeting with Ginny on the train last Friday. But why would Big Doc have ever had any interest in Heron Rhodes?

Somehow it didn't make sense. Unless …

Jan shook his head and looked across the room at the desk where Jackson Lane and Bill Zorn were waiting for the first message from Big Doc. They had come immediately when Heron called, and were followed quickly by Sergeant Bricker, who had brought a recording apparatus to attach to the phone.

In their concern for Ginny, it seemed that no one had thought to tell Bricker about his return. At the sight of him the sergeant, after a shocked stare on entering, had demanded, “How the devil did you manage to get away from those people and come back here?”

“I just managed,” he'd told Bricker, and Heron Rhodes had added, “For safety's sake we thought we'd better keep it quiet. And please, Sergeant, we want to keep this quiet, too. Don't let it get out to the papers.”

“You have my word on it, Doctor. I—I'll do everything I can to make up for my blunder. All we need now is a yard full of reporters to foul things up.” Bricker frowned and said, “Er, there almost has to be a connection between what happened to this young fellow, and Ginny being snatched. Don't you think so?”

“It would appear that way, Sergeant. But so far we haven't heard a word from the kidnappers.”

“Well, I'm sure you will soon. I'll fix the phone, then I'll have to hurry back to meet Nat Martin. He's on his way out from the city now. Did Mr. Lane tell you about him?”

“Something was said about a State Bureau man you knew.”

“Mr. Lane figured we'd better call him in. It'll be unofficial. Martin's the best there is—used to be with the FBI, and they still consult him.”

Bricker had made speedy work of attaching the recorder. On the way out he'd paused uncertainly and said, “I'm sorry, young fellow, about turning you over to those guys the other day. But honestly, I thought—”

“It—it's all right, Sergeant,” he'd told Bricker. “A man has to do what he believes is his duty.”

Bricker, obviously grateful, had suddenly grinned and given him a pat on the back. “Boy, did you put up a scrap!”

That had been two hours ago.

The matronly cook, Agnus McCoy's sister Aggie, came in with a large tray of sandwiches and snacks that she placed on a table beside a stack of paper cups and plates. Behind her appeared Hecuba with a fresh pot of coffee.

Hecuba, whose eyes were looking haunted, said, “Thank you for helping, Aggie. This may be an all-night session, so maybe you'd better go home and look after Angus.”

“That I will, ma'am, though it's not Angus what worries me.” The cook shook her head, dabbed at her eye with a corner of her apron, and started away after giving Jan a quick sidelong glance full of curiosity. “You need me later, ma'am, just you call me and I'll be right over.”

“Thank you so much, Aggie.” Hecuba went around and touched Otis on the cheek. “Young man, it's long past your bedtime.”

Otis thrust out his jaw. “I ain't goin' to bed. I ain't goin' no place till I hear from Ginny.”

Heron Rhodes said, “Oh, leave him be. We may need him.”

“Of course,” Hecuba murmured. “I sometimes forget those two are telepaths. They're so quiet about it.”

Heron sank down on the sofa beside Jan. He rubbed his eyes and muttered, “You handled Bricker just right, son. He's not a bad sort, but it wouldn't do for him to know too much about us.” He was silent for a while, then his hands clenched and he said slowly, “You see what's coming, don't you?”

Jan nodded. “I—I see it. Ginny is just a hostage. They'll use her to get me back.”

Heron nodded. “It has to be that.”

“Well, I'm ready to be traded. Any time.” He tried to make his voice sound confident, but it was far from the way he felt.

“You're very brave, son.”

“I'm not brave. But I have to do it. There's no other way to get Ginny back.”

“Hm. But even, if we make the trade, they might not return Ginny. Have you thought of that?”

“Yes, sir. I've been thinking of it. I've a feeling that once Big Doc—whoever he is—gets his hands on me, he'll try to keep both of us.”

“What makes you feel that way?”

Jan chewed on his lip a moment. “Well, it's several things. If they believed Ginny was really blind and couldn't see anything, why did they bother to drug her?”

“Hm!” Heron looked startled. “Go on, son.”

“Then there's Angus. There's no reason why they should even know him, especially if they're interested only in me. But they knew him—they even called him by name—and, well, how could they possibly have learned ahead of time that he was going to drive Ginny to Glendale today? She usually takes the train. Anyway, if the extra guards had come, they would have driven her.”

“I see.”

“So, well, it sort of looks like Big Doc knew a lot about the Rhodes family before I ever came here.”

“Good lord! I hope to heaven you're wrong!”

“I sure hope I am too. But when you think about it, Ginny would be just as valuable to Big Doc as I am. I mean, what she can do is amazing. If he's found out about her, and figures he knows how to control her …”

“God forbid! But first he'd have had to learn the truth about her, and I don't see how he could have managed it. You're the only person besides the family who knows.”

“Doesn't Mr. Lane know?” Jan asked, nodding across the big room toward the lawyer and Bill Zorn in deep discussion near the recorder. “He knows about you and your sister.”

He doesn't know everything about us,” the doctor said quietly. “Jackson and I grew up together, and he realized early that what he'd learned about us had better remain a secret. Even his wife doesn't know. As for Ginny, he may suspect she has odd abilities, simply because she's a member of an odd family. But I doubt if he knows the truth—and I'm certain he'd never allow himself to mention a word about any of us to a soul.”

Heron Rhodes paused. He was grimly silent for a moment. “Of course,” he went on finally, “it's possible that Big Doc knows far more about us than I've supposed. I overlook the fact that certain countries are spending huge sums to investigate and develop people like us—we'd be worth billions to them in time of war—and that Big Doc could be over here on a search for talent. In that case I'd be high on his list as a possible source of material. The European medical fraternity certainly knows of my interest in unusual minds. We could have been watched for months.”

“Maybe that's it,” said Jan, though he was far from convinced, in spite of the doctor's logic.

Heron Rhodes sighed like a man in pain. “I—I don't know, son. I just don't know. It's hard to think right now. I'd rather be dead than lose Ginny.”

Jan swallowed. In the short time he'd known Ginny, she had come to mean more to him than he would ever have thought possible.

“You're not going to lose her,” he managed to say.

“I wish I could believe you,” the doctor muttered. “But something tells me exchanging you for her isn't going to work.”

Hecuba, restlessly pacing the library, paused before the sofa. “What isn't going to work, Heron?”

“Exchanging Jan for Ginny,” the doctor told her. “I'm sure he'll keep them both.”

She nodded. “I feel that too. So the smart thing, I believe, would be to hang on to Jan and refuse to make an exchange. That would give us time to locate Ginny. If we put our heads together, surely we can think of
something
.”

“No!” Jan protested, springing suddenly to his feet. “No! That's the wrong thing to do! If you refuse to exchange me, you'll never see Ginny again. They'll take her out of the country, and come after me later. Can't you understand?”

He stopped, looking from Hecuba to her brother, and then at Jackson Lane, who had crossed the library and was standing scowling at them.

“What's all the fuss?” the lawyer rumbled.

Heron Rhodes told him.

The burly lawyer shook his head. “Now just simmer down,” he ordered. “You're away ahead of yourselves. We don't even know for sure who took Ginny. It could be just a straight kidnapping, and have nothing at all to do with Jan. Don't forget, Heron, you're not known as a poor man. Now, until we hear from the people who took Ginny, there's nothing to do but wait. And after we hear, we'll let Nat Martin make the decisions.” He frowned at his wrist-watch. “He ought to be here any time now.”

Heron Rhodes grunted. He tapped his fingers on his knees, then impatiently heaved his lean form to his feet and began pacing the library. Presently he returned, and was about to sit down again when a small sound from Otis caused him to straighten.

Jan, still standing, looked quickly at Otis. The little boy was sitting up in his chair, eyes wide and staring into space while his mouth worked soundlessly.

Otis suddenly whispered, “She's awake.… She—she's sorta sick, an' I can't talk to her very well. She …”

The abrupt ringing of the telephone cut Otis short. It was not a shrill sound, but in the immediate stark silence of the library it sounded shrill and terribly demanding.

Heron raced toward it. Just before he reached it, Bill Zorn said quickly, “Remember, it's connected to an office speaker as well as a recorder.”

The doctor grunted and snatched up the receiver. “Yes?” he said, like a man holding his breath.

From the speaker a rough voice ordered, “Lemme talk to Johnny.”

“Eh? Johnny who?”

“Ain't this Johnny's Pizza Hut?”

“No!” snarled Heron, and slammed the receiver down.

The doctor turned away, muttering to himself. Almost on the instant the phone rang again. He whirled and caught up the receiver a second time.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Rhodes?”

“This is Heron Rhodes.”

“We have Ginny. Now listen carefully.”

“I'm listening.”

The voice that came from the speaker had a slightly foreign accent, and it was hard to tell whether it was a man's or a woman's. “This is the only call we will make to you, Doctor; it is coming from a pay station, so you can forget about tracing it. If you want Ginny back, you must leave the police entirely out of this, act immediately, and do exactly as you are told. If you fail to do so, you will never see her again. Is that perfectly clear?”

“I understand you,” Heron growled. “What's your deal?”

“Get in your white Rolls with the Riggs boy—”

“What in triple tarnation are you talking about?” Heron interrupted angrily. “I haven't anyone here named Riggs!”