attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The victim, once released, told of imprisonment in a dank cellar, blind-folded and shackled. Once, fleetingly, he saw a captor who looked like the rogue's gallery photographs of Juney Saltz, but that person was plainly not the one in authority. In fact, he seemed to listen with supple respect to a high but masterful voice that gave orders. And the owner of that high voice once came close to the chair where the prisoner sat bound; the point from which the voice seemed to issue was very, very close to the cellar floor, as though the speaker was no more than two feet high.

An individual short and shrill! Did a child rule that desperate band? The sages of the law were more apt to consider this a clever simulation, with the order-giver crouching low and squeaking high lest he be identified. A judicious drag-netting of several unsavory drinking places brought in one of the old Dilson crowd, who was skilfully, if roughly, induced to talk.

He admitted a part in the kidnapping and ransom collection. He described the cellar hideout as being located in a shabby suburb. He implicated several of his comrades by name, including Juney Saltz. But he shut up with a snap when his interrogators touched on the subject of the Salters' real chief. No, it wasn't Juney Saltz—Juney was only a front. No, nobody on the police records but, he insisted pallidly, he wouldn't say any more. Let them kill him if they wanted to, he was through talking.

"I'd rather die in the chair this minute than get my turn with the boss," he vowed hysterically. "Don't tell me you'll take care of me, either. There's things can get between bars, through keyholes even, into the deepest hole you got. And you can smack me around all week before I'll pipe up with another word."

His captors shut him in an inside cell generally reserved for psychopathic cases—a solidly plated cubicle, with no window, grating, or other opening save a narrow ventilator in the ceiling that gave upon a ten-inch shaft leading to the roof. Then they gathered reenforcements and weapons and descended on the house with the cellar where the kidnapped director had been held for ransom.

Stealthily surrounding that house, they shouted the customary invitation to surrender. Silence for a few seconds, then a faint-hearted member of the Salters appeared at the front door with his hands up. He took a step into the open, and dropped dead to the accompaniment of a pistol-report from inside. And the besiegers heard the shrill 

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