Curlie Carson Listens In | Page 8

me out of the night."
He had been crouching low. Now he rose, stretched himself, pocketed
his instrument and was about to make his way out of the yard when,
with the suddenness of a tiger, a body launched itself upon his back.
So unexpected was the assault that the boy's body closed up like a jack
knife. He fell, face down, completely doubled up, with his face between
his knees.
"Now I got yuh!" was snarled into his ear. The weight on his back was
crushing. He could scarcely breathe.
"You--you have," he managed to groan.
"You'll come along," said the voice.

Curlie did not speak nor stir. The weight was partly lifted from his back.
The man had dropped one foot to the ground.
Now Curlie, had he been properly exercised for it when he was a child,
might have turned out a fair contortionist. He was exceedingly slim and
limber and had learned many of the tricks of the contortionist. He 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