queer’s going on around here.”

“How come, Mrs. Butler?” Phil asked.

“Well, I’ll let you figure it out. This afternoon I put a blanket out on the line to air. A little while ago I went out to get it, and it was gone. I even got a flashlight to follow the line down to the barn, thinking maybe I’d put that blanket farther away from the house than I’d figured.”

“And it wasn’t there?” Phil asked.

“Nowheres about. Not even on the ground, figuring maybe the wind might have taken it—if there’d been a wind. Asked your pa, asked your grandpa if they’d taken it.”

“Golly, that is strange,” Ronnie agreed.

“Some tramp, probably,” Mrs. Butler grumbled, going to the closet to get her coat. But something in her voice told Ronnie she didn’t believe it.

25

 Chapter 4

After Mrs. Butler had left, Ronnie headed for the sunny room on the ground floor of the back wing of the house. There he found Grandfather seated in his Morris chair, working frantically at the dials of his radio transmitter. “Confounded sunspots,” the old man growled. “I just can’t seem to make contact with Donavon tonight.”

“Maybe he’s not home.”

“Now that’s as foolish an explanation as I’ve ever heard. Of course he’s home! He’s been home every night for the past two years, all ready to give me his next move and hope like the devil that he’s got me stymied.”

Ronnie looked over at the table beside the transmitter where Grandfather had his chess set. It was a beautiful board of alternating light and dark squares of imported inlaid woods. The chessmen themselves were large and ornate and handsomely carved from the best ivory.

The crackle in the loudspeaker was suddenly broken by Albert Donavon’s voice in Detroit. “W3x2Z calling W2N4L. Come in, W2N4L.”

“Why in blazes are you telling me to come in, you old fogy?” Grandfather retorted. “I’ve been trying to raise you26 for the past ten minutes. What’s the matter—you afraid I’m going to check you with my next 

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