Merritt Hughes whistled softly. “This is serious. Have you reported it yet to the police?” “No. I thought it was best to come right here and tell you. I didn’t get the number of the car for I was too busy trying to crash through that blamed barberry.” “That’s not important. They’ve either abandoned the car or changed the license plates by this time. Can you describe the men who were in it?” Bob supplied a detailed explanation and his uncle jotted the facts down on a small card. “This will give us a lead to work on. Later we’ll go over to the bureau of identification and run through some pictures of red heads and men with scars on their foreheads. Maybe we can pick up some real clues there.” Bob was tempted to relate the incident of the early morning at his room when someone had tried to gain access, but he hesitated to tell this in front of Tully. It sounded a little like a fairy tale or the work of an overwrought imagination. The door to an inner suite of offices opened and a dapper, well-built man of about 38 stepped into the room. Behind him was Condon Adams. Bob felt his pulse quicken for even before their introduction he recognized Waldo Edgar, ace of all the federal manhunters and chief of the bureau of investigation. Edgar looked at the handkerchiefs on Bob’s hands and smiled quizzically. “Fighting?” “No, just plain barberry thorns,” replied Bob. “Then I take it you weren’t strolling on the barberry just for the fun of the thing,” said the federal chief. “Well, it wasn’t exactly a stroll,” grinned Bob. “It was something like trying to do a hundred yard dash in nothing flat through half an acre of barberry. It was a good place to hide, but a poor place for running.” Waldo Edgar’s eyebrows went up questioningly and he turned to Merritt Hughes. “Does this tie in with what happened last night?” he asked. “Apparently. Bob was trailed by a couple of hoodlums in a car. When he was alone on a side street they waylaid him, but he knocked one out and jumped over a fence and ran through a barberry patch to escape. He came here directly after that happened.” “Anything else happened since last night?” The question was from the thin, straight lips of Waldo Edgar and Bob told in detail what had taken place during the early hours of the morning. “Why didn’t you tell me about this, Bob?” exclaimed his uncle. Bob flushed. “Well, it seemed like I’d been having enough excitement for the last twenty-four hours and this sounded sort of crazy.” “I’ll say it sounds crazy,” snorted Condon Adams and Bob caught a supercilious sneer flit across the lips of Tully Ross. It was plain that neither Adams nor his nephew believed the story and Bob turned back to the federal chief.