Chet hadn't forgotten Marquette's taunts which included the statement that
the Feds had checked the other departments. That being the case, every shipment
of lacquer must have been the pure stuff when it left the plant. Marquette's
arguments to the contrary, things must have happened while the goods were in
transit.
Why then had it been so necessary to frame Chet?
The game itself was certainly over. An outside crew would not need to cover
up, as inside crooks would. Those two factors didn't jibe. The riddle kept
clattering through Chet's brain until at last an answer struck him.
This was something more than sabotage. It was wholesale robbery on a lavish
scale. Crooks were highjacking Pyrolac, replacing it with messy stuff worth only
a fraction of the valuable lacquer!
Chet knew two things that added up to such an answer. He knew what went
into Pyrolac and he knew that he hadn't needled the finished product. The
lacquer could be adulterated easily enough, but it would be even easier to fake
the whole thing.
Crooks wouldn't even have to learn the secret formula. All they'd have to
do would be to make a cheap imitation as many companies had tried. Stuff that
looked and smelled like the expensive lacquer would pass as an adulteration of
the genuine article, well enough to fool the average investigator.
But it wouldn't have fooled Chet, if he'd gained his chance to test it.
That was why the needler had been planted in Chet's safe, an easy thing,
considering the way he'd let the combination lie around. Being the key man who
could guess the fraud, Chet was the person upon whom suspicion necessarily had
to be placed!
With that, another thought flashed home.
Chet was riding to his own vindication. This freight train that he'd
grabbed by chance was more than a means of escape. Crooks, whoever they were,
would have to seize the present load of lacquer in order to back the false blame
that they'd placed on Chet. In return for that phony evidence against himself,
Chet could gain real facts to prove the guilt of his persecutors!
It wouldn't do to stay between these laden box cars that would somehow be
crime's target. What Chet wanted was the security of an empty up ahead, where he
could get inside and keep watch on whatever happened. So Chet decided to "go
high" and follow the running boards along the car tops to reach the vantage spot
he wanted.
Squirreling the ladder, Chet followed the catwalk and clambered across to
the car ahead. Continuing past the Pyrolac consignments, he reached an empty,
only to find it was a refrigerator car with its swinging door clamped tightly
shut. So he kept on to a box car, clearing the gap between without bothering to
look below.
Halfway along the box car, Chet paused to survey chances for a swing down
into the open door. A ticklish proposition, though it might be maneuvered if a
sharp curve gave the speeding train a helpful list. With that hope, Chet looked
straight ahead.
What he saw discouraged him - and more.
Over the front edge of the box car came a head, its face obscured by the
visor of a cap. But the headpiece didn't hide the glittering revolver that
pointed straight for Chet. In guessing that crooks were on the job, Chet was
right, but they'd found him, instead of the other way about.
