chief wants to get at least two of ’em down as soon as possible.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but if the two who were run down were the only ones that could identify....”

“Well, you know the chief; he wants what he wants when he wants it. Even if their necks were broken he’d expect ’em to remember whether or not they saw a machine gun in that car. So that’s that.”

The girl seemed listlessly tolerant. “I’ll get in touch with them as soon as I come back from lunch. Will that do?”

The young man nodded and the door closed behind him. Skippy too departed, thoughtfully, hopefully, and with machine guns booming in his active brain. Gangsters, a stolen car! The International was on the trail of something.

The question uppermost in his mind was—how long a time would the typist remain out at lunch? He hurried down the hall, then darted into the shadow of a stairway from which vantage point he could keep his bright eyes on the International Agency’s door.

There was no doubt of it now—Skippy too was on the trail of something.