e, twisted idea broke through again,
staggering him, driving through his mind like icy steel. "Listen,
Mariel. I swear I'll kill you if you lie to me, so you'd better tell the
truth. Who put you on my trail? Who told you Ingersoll was dead, and
that I was scraping up Ingersoll's past?"

The little man twisted his hands, almost in tears. "Harry Dartmouth told
me--"

"And who told Harry Dartmouth?"

Mariel's voice was so weak it could hardly be heard. "The girl," he
said.

Shandor felt the chill deepen. "And where are the files now?"

"Dartmouth has them. Probably in Chicago--I expressed them. The girl
didn't dare send them direct, for fear you would check, or that she was
being watched. I was supposed to pick them up from you, and see to it
that you didn't remember--"

Shandor clenched his fist. "Where are Dartmouth's plants located?"

"The main plants are in Chicago and Newark. They've got a smaller one in
Nevada."

"And what do they make?"

"In peacetime--cars. In wartime they make tanks and shells."

"And their records? Inventories? Shipping orders, and files? Where do
they keep them?"

"I--I don't know. You aren't thinking of--"

"Never mind what I'm thinking of, just answer up. Where are they?"

"All the administration offices are in Chicago. But they'd kill you,
Shandor--you wouldn't stand a chance. They can't be fought, I tell you."

Shandor nodded to Prex, and started for the door. "Keep him here until
dawn, then go on home, and forget what you heard. If anything happens,
give me a ring at my home." He glared at Mariel. "Don't worry about me,
bud--they won't be doing anything to me when I get through with them.
They just won't be doing anything at all."

* * * * *

The idea had crystallized as he talked to Mariel. Shandor's mind was
whirling as he walked down toward the thoroughfare. Incredulously, he
tried to piece the picture together. He had known Dartmouth Bearing was
big--but that big? Mariel might have been talking nonsense, or he might
have been reading the Gospel. Shandor hailed a cab, sat back in the seat
scratching his head. How big could Dartmouth Bearing be? Could _any_
corporation be that big? He thought back, remembering the rash of
post-war scandals and profit-gouging trials, the anti-trust trials. In
wartime, bars are let down, _no one_ can look with disfavor on the
factories making the weapons. And if one corporation could buy, and
expand, and b