"You're telling me?" Dawson groaned softly. Then turning his head and staring at the night-darkened front of Number One Fifty-Six, he murmured, "And if we can't contact Weiden, or if he can't give us any more of the picture, _if_ there _is_ a picture, then we will be sunk. The only thing we can do then is lie low until tomorrow night, and then make our way to where the British Recco plane is to land early the next dawn, and go back to England a couple of chumps. Particularly me, because I was the one with the bright idea that we come on this wild goose chase in the first place. Boy! Will I feel a fool when I tell Colonel Fraser that I didn't even get to first base. He thought the idea was cracked and impossible right at the beginning. Wind-Bag Dawson, that's me. The guy with the bright ideas--I don't think!" "Rubbish!" Freddy Farmer breathed at him. "I was just as much for it as you were. Just simply didn't get the chance to suggest it before you did. But blast it, let's not do our weeping and grinding of teeth yet. Maybe Weiden is here, and maybe he does know something that will help." "Yeah, maybe," Dawson echoed, but not very convincingly. "What do we do, though? Bang on the front door, or just stay where we are and wait to see if anybody goes in or comes out? And that last I think is a very punk idea." "Both ideas are punk," Freddy told him. "I've been doing a little snooping around. There's an alley that leads to the back. And the rear door is open. I really think the only thing for us to do is search the place, room by room. After all, you played Gestapo with a certain amount of luck once today. Let's both try it and see if it works a second time. After all, isn't it a strict Gestapo rule to break in on people at night, and go thumping and tramping around? At least, if anybody lives here, he'll be too scared to ask questions. And if we meet with no luck searching the place, we can simply leave the way we came." "Well, it's worth a try," Dawson grunted. "Gestapo or Luftwaffe, what difference does it make to civilians in the middle of the night? Okay, lead on, Freddy. Get your gun and flashlight?" "Both," young Farmer replied. "But don't use your flash until we get inside. Right you are; follow me. I know the way. And luck, old thing." "And _how_ we both will need it!" Dawson echoed under his breath. CHAPTER FIFTEEN _The Living Dead_ Making no more noise than a couple of cats walking across a velvet rug, Dawson and Freddy Farmer slipped down the narrow alley to the rear of Number One Fifty-Six Kholerstrasse. There at the rear door they paused for a moment, holding their breath and straining their ears for the slightest sound inside or outside the house. There was not one single sound to be heard, however. All of Duisburg seemed truly a city of the dead. No sound, no light, no anything. "Eerie spot, isn't it?" Freddy Farmer breathed. "Gives a chap the creeps."