“I’d better have everyone unmask-pronto! But even that would be risky,” Tom reflected.
What if the intruder was a killer, as Ames feared? The scare of being detected might panic him into shooting, or into some other hasty action which would endanger the merrymakers.
Suddenly Tom remembered something. “That guest in the skeleton costume! I saw him earlier this evening, but not when I took the nose count! That would make twenty-five people in costume!”
To be sure he had made no mistake, Tom repeated his circuit of the patio and the first-floor rooms. Mr. Skeleton was nowhere in sight! With growing alarm, Tom slipped upstairs and glanced into room after room. Again he drew a blank.
There was only one place left to look-the basement. Tom switched on the light and darted down the steps, two at a time. He gasped as he glimpsed THE SKELETON BOMBER 123
the black-and-white skeleton figure streaking toward one of the basement windows!
By the time Tom reached the bottom of the stairs, the man had already flung open the sash and was hoisting himself out.
The young inventor made a wild dash for the window, trying to grab the fugitive’s legs. But the man kicked backward viciously. His heel caught Tom a jarring blow under the chin!
Stunned, Tom reeled backward. By the time he recovered, the skeleton had wriggled safely out.
“Help! Stop him, someone!”
Tom suddenly spotted the answer to the intruder’s actions. A metal cylinder wired to a detonating device lay on the floor near the furnacel The man had been planting a bomb!