r then directed them to precede him up the stairs. They
passed down a long hall and into a big room.

"Make yourselves comfortable," sneered Wagner. "And I might as well
tell you that you can make all the noise you want, because the
nearest house is so far away they couldn't hear a fog horn. Just try
to be nice, good little boys, and maybe we'll let you go sometime."

He backed out of the door and they heard him turn the key.

CHAPTER XX

THE FALLEN PINE

That Marsh escaped a similar fate later in the afternoon was due
solely to his individual way of arming himself. For some years Marsh
had carried a small automatic pistol, which unobtrusively rested in
the side pocket of his coat. When he was outside in weather that
required an overcoat, the automatic was temporarily transferred to
the overcoat pocket. Marsh did this because a gun was seldom needed
except in emergencies. At such times a movement toward the hip
pocket, where men usually carry their revolvers, frequently gave the
other man an opportunity to act first. Marsh had even carried his
precautions in this line a little further, for the automatic was
always placed in the left-hand pocket. A movement of the left hand
does not receive the same suspicious attention from a criminal. In
fact, as he had several times discovered, it was possible to
distract the attention by a movement of the right hand while quickly
drawing the gun with the left, and at close quarters a gun in the
left hand was just as effective as in the right.

When no word had come from Morgan by one o'clock, Marsh decided to
look the detective up. He called Morgan's home on the telephone,
then the detective bureau, and two nearby precinct stations that
Morgan might have been likely to drop into while waiting to
telephone him. Morgan's mother said he had left early, and the
detective bureau informed Marsh that they had not heard from Morgan
again after receiving a report from him early in the day. The
stations did not remember having seen the detective for a long time.
At each place Marsh left his name, and a message for Morgan to ring
up at once if he came in.

Marsh was now in a quandary. He remembered that he had not asked
Morgan to look anything up that morning and therefore knew of no
place where he might endeavor to obtain a trace of him. The case had
now reached a point where immediate action was necessary, yet he
could not act alone. Of course, he could have called upon the S