“Cancel the call for the doctor,” said Morley. “Call the morgue.”
 

 
By WILLIAM MORRISON
 
Army Aviator Don Morley Was Up Against a Blank Wall in Ferreting Out 
Treachery—Until a Nazi Agent Made Some Sabotage to Order for Him! 
 
AR below him, the plane was twisting and from the wreckage more than two miles 
away. turning end over end. As he drifted slowly He made his way slowly through 
the fields that down, Lieutenant Don Morley heard the lay between him and what 
had been a new fighter crash, then the roar of an explosion. Seconds later, 
plane. By the time he reached it, the wreckage was his feet hit the ground. He 
disentangled himself charred and blackened, and the flames had almost from his 
parachute, and stared at the flames rising died away. A group of farmers stood 
at a respectful distance, curious, but afraid to venture too close. 
“Your plane, Mister?” one of them asked. 
“It was.” Morley spoke coldly to conceal the rage he felt. “Any of you men see 
what happened?” 
“My boy was watchin’ you. Personally, I ain’t got time to keep lookin’ up in the 
air. But he said a wing came off.” 
“Good boy. A wing did come off. Did he see where it fell?” 
The boy himself, a ten-year-old, darted forward. 
“I’ll show you where it is, Captain!” 
A few moments later Morley was staring at what was left of the wing. It told him 
nothing. 
This was the fourth plane of the new Wyatt type that had crashed. Eight men dead 
so far—and he would have been the ninth if he hadn’t been unusually alert and 
jumped just before the wing succeeded in tearing loose. It was lucky, too, that 
he had been flying alone. There wouldn’t have been time for two men to get out 
of the plunging wreck. 
“What happened, Captain?” the boy asked. “Was there sabotage?” 
Morley nodded slowly. It was so evidently sabotage that not even a kid could 
mistake it. Four Wyatt fighters downed in two weeks—eight men murdered—his eyes 
were smoldering when he turned abruptly on his heel and tramped away. 
 
ORLEY sat around the conference table with three men who turned their heads 
whenever his eyes met theirs. 
“That’s the kind of plane you’ve been supplying to the army, gentlemen,” he said 
bitterly. “They’re supposed to be in first class condition when we get them.” 
“They are.” It was Carter Wyatt himself, principal owner of the plant, who 
spoke. “It’s easy enough to talk of sabotage, Lieutenant, but proof is another 
matter. Those planes were inspected thoroughly before we let them out of the 
factory. Are you sure that something didn’t happen to them after they were 
delivered?” 
Morley laughed without amusement. 
“I’ll stake my life that nothing happened to them. I know the mechanics who went 
over every bolt. They’re personal friends of mine, and they’re careful about 
their work. And I’ll tell you something else, gentlemen. The F.B.I.’s pretty 
busy these days, and they didn’t have too many men to assign to this job of 
investigation. That’s one of the reasons it was handed over to me.” 
“We don’t doubt your competence to investigate, Lieutenant.” It was Bracken, 
plant engineer, who spoke. “But we’ve had about a dozen private detectives 
assigned to the job, and they’ve found nothing.” 
“I’m not a detective myself, and I don’t promise to find anything. But the 
second reason the job was handed over to me is this—I know planes. I know the 
way they’re supposed to be made, and I know how they should operate. Most 
private detectives don’t. And, gentlemen, I intend to go over this plant of 
yours from top to bottom.” 
“That’s okay with us.” Wyatt pushed back his chair. “If there’s anything wrong 
here, we certainly want to find it. Would you like to take a look at the wing 
assembly building first?” 
“Whatever you please. I know that a wing came off my own plane, but I don’t know 
what happened to the others that crashed. No one saw them crash, and the reason 
for their cracking up remains a mystery. I don’t insist that something’s wrong 
with the wings. I just say that something’s wrong somewhere.” 
Armstrong, the plant superintendent, was standing up. 
“First I’ll show you the plant personally, Lieutenant. After that, you’ll be 
able to find your way around alone.” 
Morley nodded. Five minutes later he was in the wing assembly plant. 
Most of the work was being done by men, but there were a few women, recently 
hired. The job required skill, no great muscular strength. A few of the workers 
looked up as he entered, then turned back to their jobs. Some of them did not 
even look up. 
“They don’t look it,” Morley was thinking, “but among these men and women 
there’s a good chance of my finding a murderer. Eight men are already dead. And 
more will die if I don’t succeed.” 
He stepped close, watched one man’s flying fingers. The man was about thirty, 
dark, close-shaven, with a small black moustache. For a second he caught 
Morley’s eye, and a trace of a smile crossed his face. He was proud of his 
skill, liked to have his work observed. 
Morley passed on to the next man, then to a woman. They did not even spare him a 
glance. On the wall was a huge poster: 
SMASH HITLER, MAKE THE RISING SUN SET 
All of them, men and women, were working as if they took the words to heart. 
Half an hour later, he was out of the wing assembly plant. He had seen nothing 
suspicious. 
“We get some of our parts readymade,” Armstrong explained. “They’re inspected at 
the factories that send them out, and they’re inspected again here. No chance 
for dirty work.” 
“I’d like to take a look at the inspectors.” 
“Sure.” 
 
E SAW them. Here again, there was nothing suspicious. He passed through the huge 
building where the motors were being put together, examined planes that were 
almost ready to take the air. Nowhere was there anything wrong. 
Morley felt exasperated. Somebody was being too clever for him. The saboteurs, 
whoever they were, were not doing the obvious things. No clogging of the gas 
lines, no sand in the bearings, no tampering with important instruments. Any 
such tricks would have been quickly discovered and traced to those responsible, 
and swift punishment would have followed. No, this was sabotage of an entirely 
different kind. 
Armstrong was staring at him, trying to tell from the expression on his face 
whether he had discovered anything. Morley tried to look not too disappointed. 
“So this is all there is,” he said. 
“Yep, you’ve seen everything. You don’t have much chance to find anything wrong 
going through the place so fast. But you can poke around anywhere you please and 
take your time about it.” 
“How about the night shift?” 
“They’ll be on soon. We’re running most of the plant one hundred and sixty-eight 
hours a week, but not all. You can stay here as long as you want and take a look 
at things.” 
Morley wandered through the plant again, this time alone. An hour after 
Armstrong had left him, a whistle blew, and the shifts changed. He watched the 
tired workmen file out, the new men take their places. Nowhere was there a sign 
of anything wrong. 
And yet, four planes had crashed. 
About eleven o’clock he had had enough. The plant was in a ramshackle 
neighborhood, full of old frame houses and dark, muddy streets. Street lamps 
were few and far between. But the plant itself was guarded, with soldiers 
patrolling the entrances and the streets directly outside. There was almost no 
chance of any one breaking in unobserved. 
All the same, the neighborhood interested him. Possibly somewhere among the 
hundreds of ugly houses, lived the man or men he wanted. He began to walk slowly 
through the muddy streets, examining the buildings. It was cold and threatened 
rain, and there were few people out of doors. Most of the people living here had 
to get up early and were already asleep. There were few lights to be seen 
through the drawn shades. 
He was crossing a street when he felt something whistle past his ear. There was 
a ping on the other side of the street. 
Another man might have stopped, wondering what the sounds were, and offered a 
perfect target. Morley had heard them before and dropped to the ground as a 
second and third shot tore past him. 
Then there was silence. 
 
HEN he raised his head cautiously, there was no one in sight. But he had his own 
automatic out now, and he was no longer a helpless target. He was lying near a 
vacant lot, and judging from the sound as the bullets hit buildings behind him, 
the shooting had come from a small brick building less than a hundred feet away. 
He rose to a crouch and dashed for the building. 
Another burst came. But his unexpected move had caught his assailant by 
surprise, and none of the bullets touched him. He reached the brick house, 
dashed around the corner. The whole width of the house was between him and the 
man who had fired at him. 
He knew something about house-to-house fighting, and the chances were that the 
gunman didn’t. He smiled grimly as he thought of the other man’s predicament. 
Was Morley trying to creep up in back of him, or was he coming around in front? 
The other man, trying to guess, must be in a cold sweat. 
He didn’t have to be, thought Morley. Morley didn’t want to kill him, just 
capture him alive, find out who had put him up to this attempt to commit murder. 

There was a narrow ledge running around the house about four feet above the 
ground. Morley leaped to the ledge. It wasn’t as high as he would have liked, 
but it would do for his purpose. 
He moved along the ledge slowly. When he had turned the corner, he found no man 
in sight. He made his way toward the next corner, and peered cautiously around 
it. 
The would-be murderer was lying on the ground, his eyes shifting uneasily. Which 
way would Morley come? 
He was looking too low, and Morley, from his perch up in the air, almost 
laughed. He pointed his gun at the nervous figure on the ground, and gave cool 
orders. 
“Drop that gun. Put up your hands!” 
Startled, the gunman looked around in bewilderment. It took him a full second to 
see Morley. Then his gun leaped into action. 
The slight pop that came from the silenced weapon was drowned out by the roar of 
Morley’s own automatic. The figure on the ground stiffened in agony, and the arm 
holding the weapon relaxed. The gun fell to the ground. 
Morley leaped down from the ledge. Although the man’s shot had torn a hole in 
his left trouser cuff, it hadn’t touched his leg. The man himself was not yet 
dead, but the bright arterial blood pouring from the wounds in his side didn’t 
look too good. 
Morley cursed quietly. He had meant to hurt and disarm the man, not to kill him. 
But he had reacted to the man’s attempt to commit murder intuitively, without a 
chance to think, and his own training had been too good. He himself had shot to 
kill. 
“Who hired you to kill me?” Morley snapped. “Quick!” 
The man opened his mouth, and a gush of blood poured through it. The face was 
coarse and pockmarked, and the eyes, before Morley’s bullets had dulled them, 
must have been hard and shifty. Morley stared helplessly. In the short time left 
him, this man wouldn’t talk. He’d die, but he wouldn’t talk. 
 
 PAIR of policemen made their appearance, guns drawn and ready for action. Their 
eyes popped when they saw the dying man with Morley in mud-stained mufti bending 
over him. 
“Hey, what’s going on?” one of the cops demanded. 
“Get a doctor before he passes out,” Morley ordered. 
“You killed him!” And then the policemen’s eyes widened still further. “Why it’s 
Big-Foot McCrea! He’s poison. What the—” 
Big-Foot McCrae shuddered for the last time and lay still. 
“Cancel that call for the doctor,” Morley said. “Call the morgue.” 
“What did you kill him for?” 
“Because he tried to kill me.” 
“Why?” 
That why was the important thing. Somebody had hired this gunman to put him out 
of the way because he was dangerous to the saboteurs. The funny thing was that 
Morley himself didn’t see how he was dangerous. He had examined the factory and 
found nothing wrong. What were the saboteurs afraid of? 
About a dozen private detectives had looked for the guilty men too. Nobody, so 
far as he knew, had taken a shot at them. He’d have to speak to Bracken and 
Wyatt about it tomorrow. Meanwhile, the cop wanted an answer to his question. 
Morley made the answer short, but that wasn’t enough for the cops. A man had 
been killed, and they wanted to know all about it. They kept on asking 
questions, and then other cops arrived and asked questions, too. It was two 
o’clock before Morley got to bed. 
He was up at six in the morning. He had seen the workers on two shifts, and he 
wanted to see the men on the third before they went off at eight. He got to the 
plant at six-thirty and looked around. The men on this shift worked in the same 
way as did those on the others, steadily and fast, knowing that they had an 
important job to do. Wanting to show everyone they meant business. There was no 
sign of anything wrong. 
The men went off at eight, and the day-workers came on. Morley racked his brains 
and cursed himself for a fool. Somebody figured he knew enough to be dangerous. 
But he himself couldn’t get it. 
From the wing assembly plant he could see a light on in one of the offices 
across the yard. Some of the office workers must be here before their usual 
hours for checking in. That was a break. Morley left the assembly plant, stepped 
across the yard. He’d have a chance to talk to Wyatt or Bracken. 
As he moved toward the door, he heard the shrill sound of a scream. His hand 
fell to his gun again as he raced forward. Throwing the door open, he almost 
bumped into a stenographer who was groping for the handle from the inside. 
 
YATT was on the floor unconscious, a trickle of blood streaming down his 
forehead. The only other door led to an inner office. It was closed. Morley 
pulled at the knob. The door was locked. 
A bullet took care of the lock, and he threw the door open. This was Wyatt’s 
private office. Somebody had been tampering with the safe. The heavy outer door 
was ajar. Inside, however, was a thin door that was opened by means of a key. 
This was still shut. 
Wyatt’s private office had another door. This door was closed, but not locked. 
Morley went through it, passed through a room where the stenographer was 
supposed to work, found himself in Bracken’s office. 
Bracken was at his desk, facing the other way, leaning back in his swivel chair. 
Morley barked at him. 
“Bracken, did anybody come through here?” 
There was no answer. It was only then that Morley saw the swelling on the man’s 
head, the thin stream of blood on his face. 
Bracken was unconscious, and Morley decided that he could be left alone for a 
while. He hastened back to where Wyatt was lying on the floor. 
Armstrong was now bending over him. As Morley watched, he saw Wyatt stir and 
heard him groan. He was coming to. A half-minute later, he sat up. 
A doctor arrived, and it was not long before both Bracken and Wyatt were fit to 
talk. 
“What happened?” Morley asked. 
It was Wyatt who answered. 
“I got here about eight with Bracken. We both had a lot of work to do, and we 
went to our offices. My stenographer was at work in her own room. 
“I stepped in to give her some dictation and thought I heard a noise out here. I 
came out to investigate—and that’s all I know.” 
“I wanted to see Mr. Wyatt,” the girl said, “but found the door to his office 
locked. I had to go around the building. When I came in, he was lying on the 
floor.” 
Morley nodded. 
“I guess your arrival scared the crook, and he made off through your office.” 
“He must have found me in the way of his escape,” Bracken said weakly. “So he 
hit me over the head and got out of the building as you were entering it at the 
other end.” 
“What was the crook after?” Morley’s voice was sharp. 
“I don’t know.” Wyatt looked puzzled. “There’s some money in that safe, but not 
much. Not enough for him to take a chance like this. There are some valuable 
papers. But as the crook didn’t get a chance to lay his hands on them, I don’t 
know which ones he wanted.” 
“Where were you, Armstrong, when all this was happening?” Morley snapped 
suddenly. 
“Why,” Armstrong stammered. “I—I was in the locker room.” 
“Anybody see you there?” 
“I don’t know.” 
 
HEY were all gazing at Morley tensely, wondering what he was thinking. His face 
was expressionless. 
“Well,” he said, “as the crook didn’t get away with anything, you may as well 
return to your work. I don’t think he’ll try the same thing twice.” 
Wyatt spoke hesitantly. 
“Lieutenant, did you discover—” 
“What?” 
“What you were looking for. Any sort of sabotage. You were around last night, 
weren’t you?” 
“I was. But I didn’t find anything.” 
Some of the tenseness seemed to go out of the faces watching him. 
“I suppose,” Wyatt remarked, “I’m expecting too much, hoping for results so 
soon.” 
Morley’s face was grim. 
“I’m afraid you are. I haven’t found a thing. I’m going out to the plant again 
and keep on looking.” 
Wyatt excused himself, hurried away. As the others left, Morley walked out of 
the office and back to the plant. 
It would have been foolish to tell anyone at this stage what he 
suspected—foolish, because he didn’t believe it himself. What was more, he not 
only had no proof, but no evidence. And he couldn’t hope to convince others 
while he wasn’t convinced himself. 
This time, while he was in the plant, he spoke to the men. They wanted to work, 
but he interrupted them, forced some of them to answer his questions. He could 
have asked the same questions of Wyatt or Bracken or Armstrong, but he preferred 
to ask the men in the plant. 
Slowly his ideas became more definite. And then, shortly after noon, came the 
last piece of evidence he needed. He saw Armstrong hastening toward him, his 
face troubled. 
“Lieutenant—” Armstrong said hesitantly. 
“What is it?” 
“We’ve found some sabotage.” 
Morley’s eyes narrowed. This was more than he expected. 
“Where?” 
“Among the finished planes. Some of the wing struts were weakened. And there 
were small spare metal parts scattered through the motors. Once the motors 
started, the pieces of metal would tear heck out of them.” 
“Who discovered this?” 
“One of the inspectors. He saw a slash on a wing, and that made him suspicious.” 

It was all he needed. 
“Have you told Mr. Wyatt?” 
“Not yet. I thought you ought to be the first one to know.” 
“All right, we’ll tell him together.” 
 
YATT and Bracken were talking over a new plane when Morley and the plant 
superintendent burst in upon them. They seemed startled when they heard the 
news. 
“It sounds incredible!” Bracken cried. 
Wyatt shook his head. 
“I don’t believe it. Those finished planes were well-guarded.” 
“What do you say, Armstrong?” 
“A man who knows the plant could get into the building without being seen. I 
could do it myself,” said Armstrong. 
“Nobody could stop you or Bracken or Wyatt,” agreed Morley. He turned to Wyatt. 
“I’d like to take a look at your safe.” 
Wyatt stiffened. 
“I don’t see any reason for that. What’s in that safe is my business, 
Lieutenant.” 
“Any objection to letting me see the blueprints in it?” 
Wyatt’s eyes opened wide. 
“How did you know there were blueprints?” 
“I guessed. You said there were valuable papers, and blueprints of new planes 
seem pretty valuable to me.” 
“Well, if you insist—but I can’t see what good it’ll do you.” 
“You let me worry about that,” Morley told him. “I know who the saboteur is, 
Wyatt, and the blueprints in your safe will furnish the proof.” 
Wyatt was suddenly pink with excitement. 
“You mean you know who got to those finished planes? You haven’t had time to 
investigate them, Lieutenant. And I thought you said earlier this morning that 
you hadn’t found anything.” 
“I’ve found enough by now. And the guilty man handed me a couple of good hints 
on a platter.” His eyes swept the three men coldly. “Last night a gunman tried 
to kill me.” 
Wyatt looked astonished. 
“What happened?” 
“You’ll find it in this morning’s papers when you get time to read them. I got 
him first. Unfortunately, my aim was too good, and he died before he could tell 
me who hired him.” 
“Why did anybody want you out of the way?” Armstrong demanded. “We had a dozen 
detectives here before. Nobody tried to kill them.” 
“That’s exactly what I told myself. The answer is that I’m not a detective. I 
know planes. The men you hired didn’t know them.” 
“There’s something in that,” admitted Wyatt. 
“I told you three I knew planes. That was why somebody decided to kill me.” 
“It doesn’t make sense. You didn’t discover anything wrong yesterday,” objected 
Bracken. 
“No, but somebody figured I’d discover what was wrong soon. It was inevitable. 
If I could be killed and my body hidden so that it wouldn’t be discovered right 
away, the saboteur figured he would have time to cover his tracks.” 
 
YATT drummed with his fingers nervously on a desk. 
“What did he need time for?” 
“To get those blueprints. They were the only real evidence in the case. He tried 
getting them this morning and failed. He was going to try again soon. I 
suspected then what the trouble was, even though at first it didn’t seem 
possible. 
“Then came this sabotage of the finished planes. That was the first time 
anything as obvious as that had happened. It was clear that somebody wanted us 
to find what was wrong with those planes. 
“I knew at once that it was a desperate attempt to set me on the wrong track. 
That failed too.” 
“How was the actual sabotage carried out?” Armstrong asked nervously. 
“It was clever. I spoke to some of the workmen in the plant and checked my 
suspicions. You three men know that before this fighter plane was accepted by 
the army you had to build a model and have it tested. It passed every test. You 
got orders to go ahead and build.” 
“It’s a good plane,” stated Wyatt. 
“The first one was. So were the next few models. But those planes were built in 
your small experimental plant, a couple of hundred miles from here. And that 
plant didn’t have facilities for large-scale production. So you started work 
here. 
“Your machinists made dies according to plan, your assembly workers put finished 
parts together. But the men you had working here hadn’t worked on this plane 
before. They didn’t notice that the plans had been changed. You weren’t building 
exactly the same plane.” 
“You’re crazy.” Armstrong snarled. 
“Like fun I am! The plane was different. But you couldn’t notice the difference 
by looking at it. Slight, very slight changes in the motor—tiny changes in the 
angles at which the wings were set. 
“Everything was done to weaken the plane, to make it easy for the motor to fail, 
the wings to drop off. You couldn’t tell that anything was wrong no matter how 
carefully you inspected it. But that plane was just as much sabotaged as if 
somebody had put sugar in the fuel line.” 
“Somebody substituted different blueprints!” Wyatt exclaimed. 
“Sure. And the beauty of it, from the saboteur’s point of view, was that once 
the job was done, it was done for every plane. Every last one was weakened, set 
to fail when it got a real test.” 
“The change should have been noticed,” said Armstrong. 
“Only by somebody who had occasion to study the blueprints. Only by somebody who 
knew the plane backwards and forwards. Only by the same man who had done the 
dirty work.” 
Wyatt’s face was red with anger. 
“Bracken!” he shouted. 
“He’s the man. He’s a plane designer. He’s the only one who had a chance to 
substitute different blueprints. This morning, realizing his danger, he hit you 
over the head and tried to get them back. But he was interrupted, had to fake 
knocking himself out.” 
“He went for a trip to Germany four years ago,” Wyatt said. “I didn’t realize 
when he came back that he had changed, but he had. I thought he went to study 
plane designs. What he did was sell out. He admired those Nazis, and he sold 
out.” 
“He’s not the only one. But I think you’ll find it wasn’t admiration alone. He 
probably got paid plenty. How much was it, Bracken?” 
Bracken’s face was green. He was up suddenly, making for the door. This time 
Morley did not shoot before thinking. 
His bullet tore through Bracken’s arm just as the latter’s hand tightened on the 
door knob. The arm fell to Bracken’s side, useless. 
“That’ll give you an idea of how a flyer feels when a wing comes off,” Morley 
told the groaning man. “Just a faint idea. And after you go before a judge and 
jury, you’ll know how a man feels when he crashes.” 
 
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