too!" mourned the chief. "Lord, what a
mess! But keep cool, Mr. Remington; this will come out all right!"

After half an hour of such ineptitudes, Penfield Evans found it
necessary to withdraw his partner from the vicinity of the police before
his impatience reached the homicidal pitch.

"Buckley's no such fool as he sounds," Penny advised. "He probably has a
pretty good idea where the women are hidden, but you must give him time
to tip off Mike for a getaway."

But the suggestion proved ill chosen, at least so far as it involved a
hope of keeping George from the newspapers. Shocked to the core of his
young egotism as he had been, Remington was yet not so shocked that
the need of expression was not stronger in him than any more distant
consideration.

"Getaway!" he frothed. "Getaway! While a woman like my wife--" But the
bare idea was too much for him.

"They may get away, but they'll not get off--not a damned one of
them--of _us_," he corrected himself, and with face working the popular
young candidate for district attorney set off almost on a run for the
office of the Sentinel.

Reflecting that if his friend was bent upon official suicide, there was
still no reason for his being, a witness to it, Penny turned aside into
a telephone booth and called up Betty Sheridan. He heard her jump at
the sound of his voice, and the rising breath of relief running into his
name.

"O-o-oh, Penny! Yes, about twenty minutes ago. Genevieve is with her....
Oh, yes, I'm sure."

Her voice sounded strong and confident.

"They're in a house about an hour from the factory," she went on, "among
some trees. I'm sure she said trees. We were cut off. No, I couldn't get
her again.... Yes... it's a party line. In the Redfield district. Oh,
Penny, do you think they'll do her any harm?"

It was, no doubt, the length of time it took to assure Miss Sheridan on
this point that prevented Evans from getting around to the _Sentinel_,
whose editor was at that moment giving an excellent exhibition of
indecision between his obligation as a journalist and his role of
leading citizen in a town where he met his subscribers at dinner.

It was good stuff--oh, it was good! What headlines!

PROMINENT SOCIETY WOMEN KIDNAPPED

CANDIDATE REMINGTON REPUDIATES PARTY!

It was good for a double evening edition. On the other hand, there was
Norton, one of his largest advertisers. There was also the rival city
of Hamilton, which was even now basely attemp