The Case of the Musical Cow

Chapter 10

Five blocks from the big frame house of Linda Carroll, the station wagon suddenly clattered into organized sounds of metallic distress and stopped abruptly. Rob Trenton tried to make an inspection. It seemed that something had torn loose in the differential and had stripped gears, then locked the whole driving mechanism. A garage with a tow car finally removed the station wagon and left Trenton with no alternative to return by bus.

He ate lunch at a little restaurant in the bus station.

A few minutes before the bus was due he walked down the street to the drugstore, called State Police Headquarters, failed to give his name, and reported the Rapidex sedan as having been stolen. He hung up in the middle of the conversation before embarrassing questions could be asked and then went back to the bus station.

A thin, nervous man who stood by the gate kept looking at his watch. He finally engaged Trenton in conversation. “Seems like that bus will never get here. Is that time right?”

He indicated a clock on the wall.

“That’s the right time,” Rob said, consulting his watch.

The man said irritably, “I’m doing a contracting job in Noonville. I have to get there. What I can’t understand is what happened to the other fellows who are working on the job with me. They were supposed to show up in their car twenty minutes ago. I told them if they didn’t get here I’d take a bus... hang it, it’s irritating.”

Rob Trenton was in no particular mood to take on anyone else’s troubles. He merely nodded.

The door opened. A squat, broad-shouldered man in overalls and jumper, a disarming grin on his face, pushed his way towards the gate. “Hello, Sam.”

The nervous man whirled round. There was relief on his face. “Gosh, it’s about time you got here. We’re going to be late.”

“We can make it,” the man said, and then added, “We had a blowout but it’s okay now. It’s a good thing we fixed it. The bus is half an hour late.”

“Half an hour late?”

“That’s the report we got. Come on, let’s go.”

The man turned to Rob Trenton apologetically. “You heard what my friend said? The bus is half an hour late. We’re going to Noonville, if you’re going in that direction.”

“Noonville is where I go,” Trenton said.

“Well, come on. Get in with us. We’ll have you there in an hour. If the bus is a half hour late it’ll take two hours running time and...”

“Have you got room?” Rob asked.

“Sure thing,” the man in overalls said. “There are only four of us in a six-passenger car. Got any baggage?”

“No baggage.”

“Well, come on. Let’s go.”

Rob didn’t stop to think until he found himself in the back seat of the big sedan between two well-dressed, quiet-spoken men. His chance acquaintance at the bus depot and the man in overalls occupied the front seat.

Then certain matters caught Rob’s attention and stirred him to vague uneasiness.

The car was too big, too powerful, too well-appointed to match the story which had been given Rob by the man at the bus terminal. The men on each side of Rob in the back seat were too competent, too quiet, too ominously unsocial.

For a moment Rob thought of the things he had heard about people who were “taken for a ride”. Then he tried to dispel the vague feeling of uneasiness by cold logic. The man was a contractor. Naturally he would have men of money with him as well as some working men to do the heavy work. It was all right. Rob tried to convince himself that he must cease letting his imagination run away with him.

And then the rushing speed of the car, the odd silence of the men who were sitting on each side of him, brought Rob to a decision.

He looked at his wristwatch, snapped his fingers and said, “By gosh, fellows, I forgot... I clean forgot...”

There were two or three seconds of silence.

“What did you forget?” the driver asked.

“I forgot a telephone call that I’ve simply got to make,” Trenton said. “I knew there was something. I know you’re in a hurry, so just let me out here and I’ll put in the call and take a taxi back to the bus station. I can make it if the bus is going to be half an hour late.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” the driver said. “We’ll take him to a phone, eh, boys?”

“Sure,” one of the men in the back seat said.

The car sped on, smoothly gliding through traffic.

“There’s a telephone in that service station,” Rob said.

“So there is,” one of the men said. “Turn around, Sam. We’ll run back there and let the guy phone.”

Rob heaved a sigh of relief, turned around to look through the back window to make certain that the service station actually did have a telephone sign in front of it. Once in that service station he made up his mind he would go to the men’s room, turn the bolt in the door and refuse to come out.

The driver slammed on the brakes hard.

The men in the back seat all lurched forward. Rob particularly, since he was facing towards the rear of the car, was thrown off balance.

He hardly had time to appreciate the significance of the maneuver before the black rug in the back of the car descended over his head and handcuffs snapped on his wrist.

“Okay, Sam,” one of the men said. “Keep going.”

Rob Trenton, suffocating beneath the heavy, black rug, let out a yell for help at the top of his lungs.

Something crashed down on the top of his head. There was a blinding flash of light and then he felt himself falling through darkness.