Doc Trail Car

THE uniformed toll collector at the New Jersey end of the bridge stepped out to collect his fee. Directly in the path of Squint's racing car, he stood. He expected the car to halt. When it didn't, the toll collector gave a wild leap and barely got in the clear.

An instant later, Doc's roadster also rocketed past.

The toll collector must have telephoned ahead to the other end of the bridge. A cop was out to stop the car.

His shouts and gestures had as much effect as the antics of a cricket before a charging bull. Squint's car dived into New York City and whirled south.

Doc followed. He slouched low back of the wheel. He had taken a tweed cap from a door pocket and drawn it over his bronze hair. And so expertly did he handle the roadster, keeping behind other machines, that Squint and his companions did not yet know they were being followed. The killers had slowed up, thinking themselves lost in the city.

Behind them, a police siren wailed about like a stricken soul. No doubt it was a motorcycle cop summoned by the bridge watchman. But the officer did not find the trail.

Southward along Riverside Drive, the wide thoroughfare that follows the high bank of the Hudson River, the pursuit led.

Squint's touring car veered into a deserted side street. Old brick houses lined the thoroughfare. Their fronts made a wall the same height the entire length of the block. The entrance of each was exactly like all the others--a flight of steps with ornamental iron railings.

Swerving over to the curb before the tenth house from the corner, the touring car stopped. The occupants looked around. No one was in sight.

The floorboards in the rear of the touring car were lifted. Below was a secret compartment large enough to hold the machine guns. Into this went the weapons.

"Toss your roscoes in there, too!" Squint directed. "We ain't takin' no chances, see! A cop might pick us up, and we'd draw a stretch in stir if we was totin' guns."

"But what about that--that bronze ghost of a guy?" one muttered uneasily. "Gosh! He looked big as a mountain, and twice as hard!"

"Forget that bird!" Squint had recovered his nerve. He managed a sneering laugh. "He couldn't follow us here, anyway!"

At that instant, a large roadster turned into the street. Of the driver, nothing but a low-pulled tweed cap could be seen.

- The Land of Terror (1933) Chapter 2