Curlie Carson Listens In | Page 8

had done this merely to amuse his friends. Now the tricks stood him in good stead.
He did not attempt to rise by straightening up, as most persons would have done. When the pressure grew less, he lay still doubled up, face down upon the ground.
This gave him two advantages. It led his assailant to believe him injured in some way and at the same time left him in position for the next move.
When the pressure had been sufficiently removed for his purpose, he took a quick, strong breath, then with a rush which set every muscle in action, he thrust his head between his knees, gripped his own ankles and did a double turn over which resembled nothing so much as a boulder rolling down hill.
The next instant, finding himself free, he sprang to his feet, dodged behind a taxi, shot past three moving cars, leaped to the pavement, skirted a wall, then dodged into an alley.
Down this alley there was a doorway. Into the shadow of this doorway he threw himself. There was a hole in the wooden door. A hook could be reached through the hole. The hook quickly lifted, he found himself inside a narrow court at the back of a large apartment building. There was a driveway from this court into the street beyond.
Assuming a natural pace, he made his way down this driveway and out into the street where, with a low whistled tune, he made his way back toward the heart of the city. Five blocks farther down he paused to adjust his clothing.
"Wow! but that was a close one," he muttered. "Don't know who my heavy friend was but he sure wanted to detain me for some reason or other. But say!" he mused; "how about that girl? Hope I didn't get her in bad by flashing that light on her hand.
"But then," he thought more soberly, "perhaps she is the principal bad one. Perhaps she is whispering on 200 just to mislead me. Who knows? You've got to be wise as a serpent when you play this game, that's what you've got to be. There's just two kinds of radio detectives, the quick and the dead." He chuckled dryly.
"Well, I guess Coles Masters will think I'm one of the dead ones if I don't rush on."
Hurrying to the next street, he boarded a car to make his way back to the secret lower room.
During his absence things had been happening in the mysterious radio world that hangs like a filmy ghost-land above the sleeping world.
CHAPTER IV
A GAME FOR TWO
As Curlie slipped noiselessly through the door into the secret tower room, he was seized by the arm and dragged into his chair.
"Man! where have you been?" It was Coles Masters. He spoke in an excited whisper. "Listen to that! It's the second message. He'll repeat it again. They always do."
As Curlie listened, his face grew grave with concern. The message came from the head station of the radiophone secret service bureau. That station was located in New York. The message was a reprimand. Kindly, friendly but firmly, it told Curlie that for two nights now someone in his area had been breaking in on 600. Coast-to-ship messages had been disturbed. Once an S. O. S. from a disabled fishing schooner had barely escaped being lost. Something must be done about it at once! By Curlie! In Chicago!
With parted lips and bated breath Curlie listened to the message as it came to him in code. Then, with trembling fingers, he adjusted a lever, touched a button, turned a screw and dictated to a station in another part of the city his answering O.K. to the message.
"Of course," he said to Coles, as he lifted the receiver from his head, "that means that this fellow that races all over the map has been at it again to-night."
"About an hour ago," said Coles, wrinkling his brow.
"What did you do about it?"
"What was there to do? I tried to locate him. He danced about, first here, then there. I marked his locations. They were never the same. See," he pointed to the map. "I numbered them. He spoke from five different points."
"What did he say?"
"It's all written down there," Coles motioned to a pad. "Can't make head nor tail to it. Something about a map, an airplane, a boat and a lot of gold."
"What kind of voice?"
"Sounded young. Some boy in late teens, I'd say. Though it might have been a girl. She might have changed her voice to disguise it. You can't tell. Had two cases like that in the last three weeks. You never can tell about voices."
"No," said Curlie, thoughtfully, "you never can tell. That's about the only thing you can be sure of in this strange old world. You can always be sure