"I'll tell you all about it later. Right now, I have to get to some people I know, get this story on the wires, out in the open. State'll be a little shy about gunning me down or locking me up without trial, if I give the show enough publicity." I reached in my pocket, handed her the black-&-gold-marked cylinder. "Mail this to--Joe Dugan--at Itzenca, general delivery." "All right," Margareta said. "And I have your things." She stepped into the hall, came back with a shopping bag and a suit carton. She took a wad of bills from her handbag and handed it to me. * * * * * I went to her and put my arms around her. "Listen, honey: as soon as I leave go to the bank and draw fifty grand. Get out of the country. They haven't got anything on you except that you beaned a couple of intruders in your apartment, but it'll be better if you disappear. Leave an address care of Poste Restante, Basle, Switzerland. I'll get in touch when I can." Twenty minutes later I was pushing through the big glass doors onto the sidewalk, clean-shaven, dressed to the teeth, with five grand on one hip and a .32 on the other. I'd had a good meal and a fair sleep, and against me the secret services of two or three countries didn't have a chance. I got as far as the corner before they nailed me. CHAPTER XII "You have a great deal to lose," General Smale was saying, "and nothing to gain by your stubbornness. You're a young man, vigorous and, I'm sure, intelligent. You have a fortune of some million and a quarter dollars, which I assure you you'll be permitted to keep. As against that prospect, so long as you refuse to co-operate, we must regard you as no better than a traitorous criminal--and deal with you accordingly." "What have you been feeding me?" I said. "My mouth tastes like somebody's old gym shoes and my arm's purple to the elbow. Don't you know it's illegal to administer drugs without a license?" "The nation's security is at stake," snapped Smale. "The funny thing is, it must not have worked, or you wouldn't be begging me to tell all. I thought that scopolamine or whatever you're using was the real goods." "We've gotten nothing but gibberish," Smale said, "most of it in an incomprehensible language. Who the devil are you, Legion? Where do you come from?" "You know everything," I said. "You told me so yourself. I'm a guy named Legion, from Mount Sterling, Illinois, population: one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two." Smale had gone white. "I'm in a position to inflict agonies on you, you insolent rotter," he grated. "I've refrained from doing so. I'm a soldier; I know my duty. I'm prepared to give my life; if need be, my honor, to obtain for my government the information you're withholding."