Chapter 11

The Paris-Berlin express thundered through the night, a gigantic ship that rode high above the Earth. Far below one could see the dim lights of eastern Europe.

Harry Wilson pressed his face against the window, staring down. There was nothing to see but the tiny lights. They were alone, he and the other occupants of the ship ... alone in the dark world that surrounded them.

But Wilson sensed some other presence in the ship, someone besides the pilot and his mechanics up ahead, the hostess and the three stodgy traveling men who were his fellow passengers.

Wilson’s hair ruffled at the base of his skull, tingling with an unknown fear that left him shaken.

A voice whispered in his ear: “Harry Wilson. So you are running away!”

Just a tiny voice that seemed hardly a voice at all, it seemed at once to come from far away and yet from very near. The voice, with an edge of coldness on it, was one he never would forget.

He cowered in his seat, whimpering.

The voice came again: “Didn’t I tell you that you couldn’t run away? That no matter where you went, I’d find you?”

“Go away,” Wilson whispered huskily. “Leave me alone. Haven’t you hounded me enough?”

“No,” answered the voice, “not enough. Not yet. You sold us out. You warned Chambers about our energy and now Chambers is sending men to kill us. But they won’t succeed, Wilson.”

“You can’t hurt me,” said Wilson defiantly. “You can’t do anything but talk to me. You’re trying to drive me mad, but you can’t. I won’t let you. I’m not going to pay any more attention to you.”

The whisper chuckled.

“You can’t,” argued Wilson wildly. “All you can do is talk to me. You’ve never done anything but that. You drove me out of New York and out of London and now you’re driving me out of Paris. But Berlin is as far as I will go. I won’t listen to you any more.”

“Wilson,” whispered the voice, “look inside your bag. The bag, Wilson, where you are carrying that money. That stack of credit certificates. Almost eleven thousand dollars, what is left of the twenty thousand Chambers paid you.”

With a wild cry Wilson clawed at his bag, snapped it open, pawed through it.

The credit certificates were gone!

“You took my money,” he shrieked. “You took everything I had. I haven’t got a cent. Nothing except a few dollars in my pocket.”

“You haven’t got that either, Wilson,” whispered the voice.

There was a sound of ripping cloth as something like a great, powerful hand flung aside Wilson’s coat, tore away the inside pocket. There was a brief flash of a wallet and a bundle of papers, which vanished.

The hostess was hurrying toward him.

“Is there something wrong?”

“They took...” Wilson began and stopped.