CHAPTER 19
THE WATCHMAN’S CONFESSION
THE UNEXPECTED WORDS of the night watchman startled Tom. Perhaps Marco was not a traitor after all!
“How soon can you be at my office?” Tom asked.
“I don’t dare come to the plant, Tom,” the trembling voice whispered in reply.
“I’m afraid that someone might see me.”
“Why did you spy against us, Marco?” Tom asked, trying to draw the elderly man out while he was in contact with him.
“He-he hypnotized me. He put me under a-a spell, so I had to help him.”
“Who put you under a spell, Marco?”
“Please, Tom,” the man pleaded. “I don’t want to say any more over the telephone. I’m terribly afraid. I’m sorry if I’ve done you or your father any harm. I’ll do anything to make it up.”
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THE WATCHMAN’S CONFESSION 159
Tom checked his wrist watch. “Go to the York Hotel in downtown Shopton,”
he instructed. “Take a room there and wait for me. I’ll be up at eleven o’clock.”
“Right, Tom. I’ll do just that,” the man promised.
Tom broke the connection and signaled the operator. In rapid order he placed a double-circuit call to Radnor on one line and Bud on another.
“I’m not absolutely sure that Marco is on the level,” he said, after reporting his conversation with the watchman. “For all we know, it could be another ambush.”
“Do you think they’d risk an attack on a crowded street?” Bud asked.
“I told Marco to take a hotel room,” Tom replied.
“Just the same,” Radnor broke in, “I wouldn’t put anything past those bank robbers.”
Tom arranged to have both Bud and Radnor follow him to the hotel.
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