The Smuggled Atom Bomb

Why nights? Did he come out only at night, because of his great stature, as Higgins evidently believed? Or could it be that there was something about his immense size which wouldn’t look natural in daylight? Could size be a kind of truck? Itself a ruse? The figure, menacing, looming, weird, had obviously perturbed even the sanguine G-men. Was that intentional?

Could a man, Duff asked himself, who was, say, Duff’s own height — two and a half inches over six feet — add the balance? Special shoes, such as many very short men wore to increase their apparent height, would help. He might wear a wig, to, that increased the size of his head. But the man had been taller even than that, Duff thought. Stilts would do it — little stilts.

Duff remembered the print in the mud. A shoe, laced over a wooden form from which a steel bar rose to a second shoe, would do it. The steel bar wouldn’t have to be very long, either. Nine or ten inches. And if a man so equipped fell over, as he might in a mucky place, the side of his shoe would be printed in the mud, and there would be no ankle for ten inches above it, but only a steel rod which mightn’t touch the mud at all. Then there would be left exactly such a print as Duff had seen in the mudbank.

The possible meaning of that, in turn, was clear. He and the FBI had been searching for a giant. But the man they wanted, actually, was perhaps no taller than Duff. Size, and especially vast size, is the most conspicuous of all human characteristics. If a veritable giant was seen entering a building and then even a dozen merely tall men came out, no one would connect the first man with the others.

Almost, then, Duff phoned Higgins. But Higgins was sleeping, and Higgins needed sleep. In a couple more hours he would telephone the G-man. Meanwhile, he would go on thinking, There might be still more that could be dredged up and made to mean something other than what he had supposed, until then.

He tore open a new package of cigarettes, saw how his hand shook and forced himself to be calm again. By and by, it grew faintly light. He realized he had dozed a little when the thwack of the morning paper on the porch made him start. He went downstairs in stocking feet. It was light enough by then to read the headlines:

Orange Bowl Queen Vanishes

Police Search for Miss Eleanor

Yates

Kidnaping Feared

Crank Suspected

Duff couldn’t wait any longer. He dialed Higgins’ number, got a sleepy “Yeah?” and began to talk excitedly. Fifteen minutes later he hung up. He knew that he was close to tears, but only when he heard himself sniffle did he realize that fatigue, humiliation and a sense of incompetence had actually brought tears into his eyes.

About the particles on the warehouse floor, Higgins had said, “Hunh! Interesting! I’ll pass it on to New York.”

But about the idea that Harry Ellings’ entire life had been planned, the G-man was brief and cutting, “Good Lord! We’ve assumed it was that way for weeks!”

A similar response greeted his theory about the huge man. “Did that just occur to you? We’ve been on the lookout for anybody of any size for a hell of a while!”

Duff said wretchedly, “I shouldn’t have phoned.”

“Oh, sure. That warehouse hunch is solid. And my alarm will let go in less than an hour, anyhow.”

Nevertheless, Duff felt disappointed; he felt as he had ever since the beginning, foolish. The FBI and the police knew. They could and did think and act. And he chimed in afterward with his half-baked hunches. Bitterly, he started toward the porch, but he heard Mrs. Yates crying softly, and he went in to try to comfort her.

Cars surrounded the Yates home, parked in the drive and on the lawns — police cars, press and radio cars, Orange Bowl officials’ cars and the cars of friends, neighbors, curious strangers. They had accumulated all day.

Mrs. Yates and Duff were obliged to keep telling people that they had no idea where Eleanor might have gone, with whom or whether she could have been kidnaped. Because of the numbers “of people, the shock and the confusion, they had sent Marian and Charles to stay with friends.

Some time after lunch Duff observed that Mrs. Yates was not strong enough to bear both her anxiety and the thronging people. He arranged with the police to get her moved to the home of the friend who had already taken in the youngsters. The police saw to it that neither the reporters nor the merely curious followed the Yates station wagon, and when Duff returned to the house, the crowd was thinning.

Toward late afternoon he was alone. As far as he knew, not even the police or the FBI were keeping watch. The Yates place had served its final purpose where Ellings’ colleagues were concerned. And if Eleanor should happen to come back home somehow, he was there.

He believed she was dead. So, he was sure, did the FBI. But Duff knew he would not give up hope until it was certain.