he had just lost his last friend.

"So we all take an airplane ride instead, eh?" Agent Carter said, and
nodded at the wire in Dawson's hand.

"You too?" Dave questioned.

"Right," Agent Carter replied. "There are four reservations waiting for
us at La Guardia."

"Wouldn't you know!" Agent Hickson groaned and shook his head sadly.
"Wouldn't you know I was nuts to think I could mix pleasure with
business!"

CHAPTER THREE

_Silent Lips_

"Well, I guess this is the parting of the ways, Captain," Agent Carter
of the F.B.I. said as the taxicab rolled to a stop on front of a War
Department Building in Washington. "Hickson and I will keep the cab for
the ride over to the Bureau. Sorry we all missed an evening in New York
together, but there'll come another day, I hope. Best of luck, you two.
It's been nice knowing you."

"Same thing, the other way around, sir," Dawson said as he shook hands
and climbed out of the cab. "And thanks for the protection--or whatever
it was supposed to be."

Agent Carter laughed and raised a protesting hand.

"Now let's not go into that again!" he said. "The answer is still that I
don't know. Maybe Colonel Welsh will tell you. We can't, because we
simply don't know. What's the matter, Captain Farmer?"

Freddy was just straightening up after sticking his head back in through
the cab door opening. He shrugged and grinned.

"Just looking to see if you had your fingers crossed, sir, while you
said that," he replied. "But I see you didn't, and so that's that. Well,
cheerio, and good hunting, and all that sort of thing. Sorry I didn't
speak to you sooner."

"That's the kind of tough break we get in our kind of job," Agent Carter
said, and made a flip wave with his hand. "So long, until we meet
again."

"And let's hope that'll be soon!" Dawson called out as the cab rolled
away.

The two air aces stood on the curb until the taxi turned the corner
toward Pennsylvania Avenue and was lost to view. Then they impulsively
turned and looked at each other.

"Swell fellows, those two," Dawson said. "Wish we could have had more
time together. I've always wanted to ask a real honest-to-goodness
F.B.I. man a few questions."

"Then those two will never know how lucky they are," Freddy Farmer came
right back. "But speaking of questions--"

"Check, and double-check!" Dawson echoed, and started across the
sidewalk to the main entrance of the War Department Building. "The
sooner we ask the