Queen’s Bureau of Investigation Read Free

notify the kidnapers—”
    â€œThat’s what I’m doing.” Jackman raised and lowered the windowshade rapidly several times. “You don’t think those lice gave me any phone numbers, do you? This is the signal I was told to give—they must have a man watching my window. I suppose he’ll phone them it’s okay. Well, that’s that.”
    â€œHave you actually seen any of them?” Ellery asked.
    â€œHave a heart, Queen,” grinned the newspaperman. “I gave my word I wouldn’t answer any questions. Well, now all we can do is wait for Sam Pugh’s phone call. How about a drink?”
    â€œI’ll take a raincheck.” Ellery sat down on the bed beside the ransom money. “What’s the modus operandi , Jackman? How do you get the money to them?”
    But the whitehaired man merely poured himself a drink. “Ought to be a pretty good scrap,” he murmured.
    â€œYou win,” said Ellery ruefully. “Yes, it should. How do you rate Bolo’s chances? After all this, his nerves will be shot higher than Pike’s Peak.”
    â€œThe Kid? He was born without any. And when he gets mad, the way he must be right now—”
    â€œThen you think he’s got a chance to take the Champ?”
    â€œIf those punks didn’t sap him, I make it the Kid by a K.O.”
    â€œYou’re the expert. You figure he’s got the punch to put a bull like the Champ away?”
    â€œDid you see the Kid’s last fight?” smiled the sportswriter. “Artie Starr’s nobody’s setup. Yet Bolo hit him three right hooks so fast and murderous the second and third exploded on Starr’s chin while he was still on his way to the canvas. It took his handlers ten minutes to bring him to—”
    The phone made them both jump.
    â€œThey must have had the Kid around the corner!” Ellery said.
    â€œYou better answer it.”
    Ellery raced to the phone. “Queen speaking. Who is this?”
    â€œIt’s me—Sam!” roared Sam Pugh’s voice. “Listen, son—”
    â€œHold it. What’s the password?”
    â€œOh! Solar plexus.” Ellery nodded, relieved. “The Kid’s back, Ellery,” the cattleman exulted, “and he’s all riled up and r’arin’ to go. Release the money. See you at ringside!” His phone clicked.
    â€œOkay?” smiled the whitehaired man.
    â€œYes,” Ellery smiled back, “so now I can let you have it.” And, swinging the telephone receiver, Ellery clubbed him neatly above the left ear. He was over at the clothes closet yanking the door open even before the whitehaired man bounced on the carpet. “So it was the closet he parked you in,” Ellery said cheerfully to the trussed, gagged figure on the closet floor. “Well, we’ll have you out of these ropes in a jiffy, Mr. Jackman, and then we’ll settle the hash of this doublecrossing road agent!”
    While the real Sime Jackman stood guard over the prostrate man, Ellery stuffed the money back into the briefcase. “Hijacker?” asked the newspaperman without rancor.
    â€œNo, indeed,” said Ellery. “He couldn’t have been a hijacker, because the gang released the Kid after this man gave the signal. So I knew he was one of them. When they told you I was to be the contact man, you said something about you and me not knowing each other, didn’t you? I thought so. That’s what gave this operator his big idea. He’d put you on ice, and when I handed him the ransom thinking he was you, he’d run out on his pals.”
    â€œBut how,” demanded the sportswriter, “did you know he wasn’t me?”
    â€œHe said in the Bolo-Starr fight the Kid flattened Starr with three right hooks. You could hardly have become the dean of West Coast sportswriters and a national fight expert, Jackman, without learning that in the lexicon