10 Short Novels Magazine — page 68: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OS it —— = a : Se tom a — - te sl = ae Pow #2 a Sa Sk 66 * * * Ten Short \ccolatciegitiea partments. There were no dummy books in the cases; and after over an hour of thumping and measuring, he was con- vinced that the walls were solid. No chance of a concealed instrument. The blank-faced Chinaman could have removed the desk blotter Guevara had mentioned, but he certainly could not have made away with an extension set. From the living room came the tinkle of the telephone. Flint hastened to the front. McDonald was on the wire. “Your prisoner checked out.” cé What ee “Yes. A bar sawed through. Miguel Smith — the bird we thought was par- alyzed—is gone, too.” Flint swore. Valencia’s disappearance confirmed his hunch as to her importance in the tangle. “Why the hell call to tell me that?” “So you won’t be caught off guard,” explained McDonald. “Remember, that fake drunk was picked up before you brought Valencia to the station. That dead-pan Chink worked fast to have her sprung. “What luck you having?” “Just like yours!” growled Flint, and slammed the receiver. He returned to Kane’s study to think it out. He finally shook his head, slumped back in the swivel chair, and swung away from the desk. His gesture of disgust ended in a jerk. There was something odd about the finish of that little patch of baseboard between the ends of the two book cases along the left wall. A squarish blot showed beneath the varnish. In an instant he was on his knees. A fixture had been removed from the base- board of the lathe-and-plaster partition that now subdivided the original rooms of the old adobe into a more modern arrangement. Then he found puttied screw holes, and one through which wires could have been run. Flint dashed to the front. Flashlight in hand, he skirted the dobe. He traced the wires of the telephone still in service. There was no sign of tampering. A trip to the cellar gave him the next lead. Wedged in between the original dirt floor of the house and the wooden floor that had been installed in modernizing it he found three dry cells with wires that rose to the wooden floor above. They led to the left wall of the study. Then he distinguished, further back, almost be- yond the reach of his flashlight beam, a weatherproof cable which, leaving that same partition, sank at an easy angle into the thick foundation of sun-baked bricks. No doubt that that was what remained of a telephone set-up; a private, local circuit of the kind used between the apart- ments of a building, or between house and garage. He now understood the Sthoval of the telephone. It had been a connecting link between Kane’s study and the chief of the opium smuggling ring. The Silver Dragon could not be far away; three dry cells would not carry for more than two thousand feet. Flint returned to the surface. He circled the house, inch by inch, scrutinizing the hard packed earth. Whoever had buried that line could not at the time have anticipated the necessity of removing it to block an investigation; and Kane’s residence at the ’dobe had not been long enough for time to conceal the trench. Yet the flashlight glow revealed not a trace. Flint’s jaw set stubbornly. You can’t bury a cable without leaving a trace. The damn thing was there. It must lead to the Silver Dragon. , Then a white blot in the gloom at the edge of the grove caught his eye. It was the concrete lip of the underground irri- gation tiles that honeycombed the citrus grove. Far down the dusky aisle his flash beam picked up another outlet that once had gushed an eight-inch stream of water. “Got it!” LINT bounded toward the nearest outlet. But the tongue of light he flashed down the tube touched only a bare bottom. He looked again. The wall of the ver- tical riser had not been pierced near the bottom. An obliquely drilled hole, not a trench, had led the line to the long unused aqueduct. Whoever had cut and pulled the cable could not have foreseen that Ramon Guevara’s efforts to clear himself would uncover the trick. “North—toward Alvarez’ place,” mut- tered Flint as he regained his feet. Flint set out on foot for Alvarez’ house. Despite the hour, the lights were CORMICLOOOKS G (E@)