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voice awed, “if it weren’t for the white hair.”
    “I can wear a hat to cover that,” said Benson. “With a few outside aids, I think I can disguise more quickly and perfectly than any other man in the world today. And that won’t hurt any in our war on these murderers.”
    He rearranged his face into its normal lines, flesh staying plastically in whatever outline his deft fingers prodded it.
    “We’ve got to get a starting point for our investigations, MacMurdie.”
    The Scot nodded slowly. “Yes, an’ I think we may have one, Muster Benson. ’Tis one more thing I thought of, and was going to tell ye when ye shocked me out of a year’s sleep by changing your face like that. Ye say your wife and little girl simply vanished from that plane?”
    “Yes,” said Benson. His pale eyes were stricken at the mention of Alicia and little Alice, but his face was a mask. “They . . . just vanished. Though that’s impossible. The regular door can scarcely be opened on a plane in flight. There’s no other way for them to have gotten out. But . . . they disappeared!”
    “Well, here’s somethin’ that may help ye,” MacMurdie said. “The Great Lakes Airline, owners of the plane ye took to Montreal, have bought some of their crates secondhand. One of ’em they picked up from the United States Coast Survey. It was a plane they used to make maps with.”
    Instantly the flashing brain behind the pale-gray eyes got it. Comprehension glittered in their gray-ice depths.
    “That same plane,” MacMurdie went on, “was used last year. ’Twas in all the papers. The airline sent it up to Hudson Bay with their best pilot—and they dropped food and supplies to a bunch of starving miners blizzard-bound two hundred miles from civilization.”
    Once more Benson was on his feet, rising in the single surge of lithe, tigerish power.
    “A trapdoor!” he snapped. “By all that’s holy—of course! A trapdoor!”
    “An’ there,” nodded MacMurdie, “may be our startin’ point. Though a startin’ point to nothing but a slug in the pump for each of us, I’m thinkin’. We can’t win in a game like this. We’re bound to be flattened out.”
    Later, Benson was to learn that the dour Scot was always a predicter of disaster. Nothing could possibly succeed; nothing gave the man any hope—until he was actually into battle. Then, and then only, did a sort of hard grin appear on his somber lips. Then, and then only, did he predict sure success where any other man on earth would have been convinced of failure.
    “Then we’ll be flattened out,” said Benson shortly. “But we’ll flatten a few others first. What was the number of the plane I rode in, MacMurdie?”
    “The S404. That’s the one with the door in its belly.”
    “I’ll have a look at it,” said Benson. He began to write on a sheet of hotel stationery. “But on my way to the airport, I’ll make a few stops. Meanwhile, you take this note to an old, old friend of mine. On reading it, the friend will give you two things—something I thought I’d never have to use again, something I meant to keep out of my life since I retired with a fortune from adventurous money-making. You bring them back here. I’ll probably be back as soon as you are.”
    “Right,” nodded MacMurdie. Then he looked curiously at the dead, white face that, no matter what the situation or emotional strain, could never express a sentiment.
    “What stops do ye make on your way to the airport, Muster Benson?”
    “I’m stopping at the best tailoring establishment in town. Also at a theatrical costumer’s. Also at a rubber-goods novelty shop. Be careful with those two things you get from my old friend, MacMurdie. It would be very hard to duplicate either of them.”

CHAPTER V

The Camouflaged Plane
    The agent at the Buffalo airport looked curiously at the man across the counter from him. He had a vague feeling that he’d seen the man before, somewhere—and yet he knew that he could not