“Oh, nothing. I got off the track, as usual. Just wanted to say that I got so gol-darned mad at that uppish little groundhog, Sanders, the last time he came ’round bellyachin’ ’bout the job I done on his shock absorbers—and all because his chauffeur got his training from a correspondence course—I told him to get out and stay out. No, he wasn’t on deck tonight—I’d know him a mile away!”
“Well, you said that before. So we’ll take it for granted that if I hop down to Stamford tomorrow and give that bozo Johnson an earful, he won’t start in making it nasty for Charlie in the meantime.”
“I think,” said Ezra, “we can be reasonably sure that he won’t. And now you and I had better get up the hill and help Jim with the—er—dear departed.”
“And while we’re about that, I’m going to wake up the lovers. You may not be hungry, but I can eat a horse. If Deborah is as good at cooking now that she has her little Indian Chief, as she was before he came to divert her mind from worthwhile things, maybe we can get her to scare up a meal.”
“What about Charlie? We’ve got to get that kid away from the gang just as soon as we can.”
“Of course we must. But I can think better when my stomach isn’t so doggone empty. Charlie is safe until the deadline that Sanders gave me. Now for the Seminoles. Lucky they’re not on their natural habitat—you and I would get a tomahawk between the eyes—eh, Osceola?” he cried.
Clocks in New Canaan were striking seven next evening when Bill turned the switch on theLoening’sinstrument board which released the retractable landing gear of the plane. Five or six seconds later he spiralled down on the level field back of the Bolton place, and taxied toward the hangar.
Wheelblocks in hand, he was climbing out of the cockpit when a man ran up from the direction of the Bolton garage.
“Evening, Master Bill,” he greeted. “Glad to see you back again.”
“Hello, Frank! I’m glad to get home myself, even though I won’t be staying long. Has my father returned home from Washington?”
“No sir. That is, he ain’t back in New Canaan.”
“After I get something to eat, I’m taking the Buick down to Stamford. It may be that I’ll come back tonight, but if not, I’ll need theLoeningtomorrow.”
“Very well, sir. I’ll fill her and give her a thorough looking over. Some doin’s there were here the night you left. By the time I waked up and got the cops on the phone, them guys had beat it. There was a wrecked car what had run into a rope, stretched out yonder, but they’d took the license plates with ’em. The cops think they can trace the car, though.”
“Well, that won’t get them anywhere. I’ll bet a hat the car was stolen. Anyway, I know who the men were. I’ve got a date with one of them tonight.”
“Is that so, sir? Better let me go with you, sir!” Frank was all eagerness. “There’s them what says I ain’t so worse in a scrap.”
Bill laughed and shook his head. “Thanks just the same, Frank. Some other time maybe. There won’t be any scrapping where I’m going this evening. This is just going to be a quiet conference.”
Frank looked disappointed. “Well, you never can tell, sir. If it looks like somethin’ interestin’, I hope you’ll give us a ring, an’ I’ll be wid yer in three shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“I’ll remember, but don’t be too hopeful. So long now. I’m off to get a bite at the house before I start off again.”
“So long, Master Bill. I’ll have the Buick ’round front for you, soon as I wheel this crate into the hangar.”
“Thanks,” said Bill again, and marched off toward the house.
In the kitchen he encountered the cook. “Well, if it isn’t Master Bill home agin’,” beamed that buxom female. “Sure as I’m a sinner it’s yer dinner ye’ll be wantin’—an’ divil a bit av it cooked yet. I give the help theirn an hour ago!”
“Oh, that’s all right, Annie. But would it be too much trouble to rustle me a couple of sandwiches—or maybe three?”
Annie, hands on hips and arms akimbo, looked indignant. “It’s no sandwiches ye’ll be gettin’, Master Bill. In half an hour I’ll have something hot and tasty dished up. Can’t ye be waitin’ that long?”
“Gee, I sure can, Annie. But don’t bother too much. Anything will do. I’m hungry enough to eat shoe leather!”
“Now you leave that to me,” he heard her say as he went toward the front of the house and then up the stairs to his room.
He shut the door and picked up the French phone from a night table by his bed. As soon as central answered he called a Stamford number.
“Mr. Evans there?” he asked when a man’s voice answered.
“Evans speaking. It sounds like Bill Bolton?”
“Bill Bolton is right, Mr. Evans. I’m home—in New Canaan—just got here by plane. Deborah gave me your number.”
“Then it must be important. Spill the story, boy. Tell me why you’re not up in Maine looking after my interests.”
Bill told him, and it took him more than ten minutes to do so. “You see,” he ended, “while Deborah was giving us a midnight lunch on Pig Island, the five of us, Deborah, old Jim, Osceola, Ezra and myself, went into a session of the ways and means committee. After some argument, it was decided that on Charlie’s account, I must come down here, and at least pretend to follow Sanders’ orders—to report to Johnson at Gring’s Hotel, anyway.”
“Yes,” concurred Mr. Evans, “I’m afraid there’s nothing else that you can do.”
“I thought that perhaps you might have some men about, rush the joint and capture this Johnson. Kind of tit for tat, you know. We could swap him back to friend Sanders for Charlie. That would even up things a bit. Just now it seems to me that they have the bulge on us.”
“There’s no doubt about it, Bill—they have. Your plan’s a good one, but it is impossible.”
“But why?”
“In the first place, although Slim Johnson is a very young man, he is one of the cleverest gangsters outside Sing Sing. Secondly, if he didn’t have an A No. 1 organization of cutthroats and gunmen behind him, I’d have kidnapped that young gentleman long ago. But tell me,” he went on anxiously, “what are you fellows up there doing about my boy?”
“Just this: after it was arranged that I should come on here, Osceola elected himself a committee of one to locate Sanders’ hide-out, and to get his hands on Charlie. Parker decided to stay on the island to guard Deborah, for it seems that Jim is away most of the time on special duty for you, which he wouldn’t divulge.”
“And quite right, too,” murmured Mr. Evans. “Jim’s work is a most important factor—most important.”
“Well, it’s all Greek to me. And although you’re running this show, sir, and with all due apology, I must say it’s my opinion that you make a mistake in not putting more confidence in the people who are helping you. Look at me: Charlie blows in here and we beat it up to Maine as fast as my plane and good lead bullets will get us there. All kinds of hush stuff when we arrive, then you beat it off during the night, leaving us in a house that’s a warren of secret passages and what not—and to make it worse, you leave us absolutely no instructions. Consequently, one of us gets kidnapped, and the other all but loses his life, first by airgun bullets—and some airgun it must be to shoot that distance—and later, by drowning. Then I mistake the people on Pig Island for your enemies, make a fool of myself and darn near get kidnapped into the bargain. As a direct result, instead of being able to make myself useful in your interests around Clayton, I have to chase off down here to placate the chief of your enemies.”
“There’s a lot in what you say,” replied Mr. Evans. “But you must understand that this is an extremely serious affair—in which an enormous sum of money is involved.”
“Oh, you make me tired,” snapped Bill. “Why, I’ve had a sweet chance to sell you out—lock, stock and barrel. Money, money, money—that’s all you so-called big business men think of—and at that, you’re the guys we have to thank for the depression. Is any amount of money worth Charlie’s life?”
“They wouldn’t dare—”
“They dared with poor little Charlie Lindbergh. Are you any better than our national hero?”
“But I don’t like the way you’re talking—”
“And I don’t care a tinker’s hoop what you like. You’re not paying me anything. Listen to me—just as soon as we can find Charlie for you, I’m through! You want those who are helping you to trust you and your judgment, yet you won’t trust them, and seem to have as little respect for human life as did the German High Command during the war!”
“Anything else?” inquired an angry voice at the other end of the wire.
“Yes,” said Bill, “there is. A slight error on my part, or what might be construed as an error. When I inferred that you willingly risked human life in order to obtain money, I naturally made an exception.”
“And that is?”
“Your own valuable life, Mr. Evans!”
With this Parthian shot, Bill slapped on the receiver and switched off the telephone extension to his room. “I guess that’ll hold him,” he muttered. “Gosh, I’m glad I got that off my chest!”
He was under the shower in his bath when there was a knock on the door.
“You’re wanted on the telephone, Master William,” called a maid’s voice. “It’s a gentleman—wouldn’t give his name.”
“You tell the gentleman,” called back Bill, “that I’m busy. If he is insistent, say that I suggest he can go where snowballs melt the fastest.”
He dressed in a leisurely manner and went down to the dining room, where he found a hot meal awaiting him. He did full justice to it, and about eight-thirty he went out the front door, climbed in his car and drove off.
It was a twenty-minute drive down through the ridge country to the city of Stamford, where he parked his car in a garage off Atlantic Street. From there he walked down back streets and eventually came to Gring’s Hotel.
He had passed the place many times, and knew that it held an unsavory reputation. The building was a five-story frame structure, and back in the early years of the century, it had been a famous hostelry. The neighborhood had gradually deteriorated, until now the once-fashionable tavern reared its ornamental façade amid slums of the worst type. The police department had raided the place so often that newspapers no longer regarded that sort of thing as news. The hotel still had a reputation for excellent food and service, but it drew its patronage almost entirely from the rough element, sometimes criminal, sometimes merely tough, with which every New England manufacturing town is more or less cursed.
Bill ran lightly up the steps to the long veranda, a relic of better days. Paying no attention to the stares of the loungers in the lobby he crossed to the desk and caught the clerk’s attention.
“’Phone up to Mr. Harold Johnson,” directed Bill. “Say that Bill Bolton is down here and would like to see him.”
“One moment, sir,” returned the clerk and spoke a few low words into the phone at the rear of the desk.
“Mr. Johnson will see you,” he announced a moment later. “Take the elevator to the fourth floor and turn left. The room number is 49.”
Bill stepped out of the elevator and turned left as the clerk had directed. He passed along the corridor until he came to a door marked “49.” He stopped and knocked. For a moment he waited, marshalling his thoughts, then the door swung inwards and he was confronted by a low-browed gorilla of a man who held an automatic in his hand.
“Is this Mr. Johnson’s room?” Bill inquired.
“Who wants to know?” the man rasped.
“The name is Bolton,” snapped Bill. “I’ve flown down here from Clayton, Maine, especially to see him if that means anything to you.”
“Let’s hear your business if you’ve got any.” The man continued to point the revolver at Bill’s chest.
“My business,” he said evenly, “is with Mr. Johnson. If you work for the man who sent me here I advise you to tell that to Mr. Johnson—and tell it pronto.”
“Cut the spiel and let him in, Jake!” called a soft voice whose owner was hidden by the half open door.
Jake muttered a surly curse, but he stepped aside and Bill walked into the room. The door slammed behind him and he heard the key turn in the lock.
He was surprised to find himself in a large and handsomely furnished sitting room. Thick hangings of gold brocade were drawn over the windows, shutting out the night and with it the air. The room was close and filled with tobacco smoke. Two massive couches upholstered in brocade were set back to back in the center of the room. One end of the sitting room was filled by a huge mahogany sideboard, loaded with bottles and glasses. At the other end stood a round card table covered with dark green felt. A number of heavily upholstered arm chairs lined the walls, and the polished floor was almost completely covered with handsome Oriental rugs. The walls were hung with a number of really good hunting prints.
Bill glimpsed a door behind the card table, but almost immediately his eyes focussed on a young man who sat on the arm of one of the couches. He was tall and very slender, immaculately dressed in white flannels and a light blue, double-breasted sports coat with dull gold buttons. Bill was astonished to see that the highly manicured nails of his white, tapering fingers were tinted carmine. His soft voice when he spoke lisped like a girl’s.
“I’m Slim Johnson,” he said languidly. “What did you want to see me about, buddy?”
Bill imitated Sanders’ quick, nervous nod.
“Zenas!” he said, and waited....
“Okay,” lisped young Johnson. “Bill Bolton, isn’t it?—The guy that dished von Hiemskirk’s hash?”
“It is,” Bill said shortly. “I had orders to be here at nine tonight.”
Slim Johnson glanced at a diamond-studded wristwatch. “You’re three minutes late,” he purred, “but I guess that’s near enough. Take one of those chairs and make yourself comfortable. I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.” He turned to a man who entered at that moment, a stockily built bruiser, as rough in his appearance as Jake.
Bill sat down in a chair near the wall. Except for the three men and himself, there was no one else in the room, though it was apparently furnished to accommodate a large number.
“Spill the beans, Hank,” Johnson smiled pleasantly on his henchman. “Make it snappy, though. I don’t want to keep Mr. Bolton waiting too long.”
“Humph! Ye had me drug up here,” snarled Hank. “I ain’t done nuthin’—I couldn’t help them guys highjackin’ the truck. If I’d ha’ made a move they’d have put me on the spot right there.”
“Oh, no,” Johnson smiled, “come now—surely that’s a bit of an exaggeration?”
The man glared belligerently about him. “If any guy says dat dem guys didn’t have the drop on me, he’s a liar!”
“I fancy that is the unadulterated truth, my boy, but the trouble is, you leave out a few things.”
“I ain’t left out nothin’—”
“Oh, yes, you have!” The purring voice directed itself toward Bill. “You see, Mr. Bolton, the sad story runs this way. Last night, Hank, who drives one of my trucks, got highjacked with a full load by the Muller gang up near Ridgefield. What he omits to tell us is that Tubby Muller passed over half a grand to him for his part of the job.”
Here, at a smothered exclamation from Hank, his inquisitor put up a slim hand in gentle protest. “Now don’t try to look like the picture of injured innocence, Hank. What Hank doesn’t know, Mr. Bolton, is that I have watched him for something like this ever since he and Tubby got together up at Glendale one night last week. And although they were not advertising the fact, I heard of it. Last night—and this will also be a surprise to Hank—I was behind the stone wall at the side of the road when he turned over the truck, andI saw Tubby hand him the money.”
Slim Johnson’s arm shot out like a serpent uncoiling. There came a sharp click and Hank rolled off the couch on to the floor.
Bill stared at the man’s body in horrified amazement. Then he heard the smooth voice of Johnson speak again to him. “Airguns,” he said pleasantly, “certainly have their uses.”
Johnson slipped the revolver up his sleeve again and crooked a finger at Jake. “Take that stiff out of here,” he ordered in his lisping tones, “he’s spoiling my rug and I paid five grand for it.”
While Jake dragged the dead man through the doorway beyond the card table, Slim Johnson drew out a gold case, selected a cigarette which he lighted, and filled his lungs with smoke.
“No doubt you’re shocked by the summary justice you saw meted out,” he remarked with a return of his languid air. “Treachery has its own reward in this business. I’m sorry if it disturbed you, Mr. Bolton.”
Bill did not reply. He was thinking that of all the cold-blooded murders he had ever heard of, this was certainly the worst. He saw now that the young man’s languid effeminacy was but a cloak to camouflage a nature hard as nails and utterly ruthless. Nobody had to tell him that he himself was in very dangerous waters and that unless he could handle this lady-like monster with kid gloves, he, too, would be removed from the Oriental rug as a piece of loathsome débris.
Bill made an effort to be matter-of-fact. “Suppose we come to business,” he suggested.
“Exactly what I was about to propose, Mr. Bolton, or shall I say ‘Bill’—you don’t mind if I call you Bill, do you? So much more clubby, you know—”
“Not at all.” Bill felt that anything would be preferable to this silly chatter. He, therefore, took the plunge. “You want to know where Mr. Evans may be found?”
“That is so. Where is he?”
“Somewhere in Stamford, I presume. Just where, I can’t say.”
“Oh, come now. How about your phone talk at seven-twenty?”
“What do you know about that?”
Slim Johnson took a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his coat. “Just about everything, Bill, old thing,” he smiled. “Everything except the number you called. Here’s a report of the conversation. Amusing reading it makes, I must say. I might mention that we have tapped your home line, but the silly fool who listened in didn’t wake up until you’d been put through to your friend Evans. Come, let’s have the number!”
“Nothing doing, Johnson,” Bill said steadily, although he fully expected to see the gangster’s arm shoot forward the next instant, as it had done when Hank was killed. “You already know what I said to Evans. Well, that goes with you too, so far as I’m concerned.”
Slim Johnson gave him a quizzical glance. Then he lit another cigarette, which he smoked in a long gilded holder. For several minutes he stared at a print above Bill’s head and sent smoke rings toward the ceiling.
“From what I know of your character,” he said at last, and his voice sounded to Bill for all the world like the purr of a great cat playing with its prey, “you mean just what you say—at present. By morning, you may change your mind. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll have to use other methods. Go in to the bedroom now. I’m sorry that you will have to bear with all that’s left of dear Hank for a while; but we’ll remove the body later. Good night to you—and sweet dreams!”
Bill saw that Jake stood by the door with the automatic menacing him once more. Without a word he got to his feet and walked into the bedroom. Behind him the door closed and he heard a bolt shot home.
In the soft glow from rose-shaded lamps, Bill saw that this room was also of good size. The place reminded him of those impossible boudoir-bedrooms one sees portrayed on the screen. The bed was a huge, canopied affair of gilt and rose, and stood on a dais at one end of the room. Twenty or thirty small pillows covered with rose-colored silk were piled at the head on a rose damask coverlet. The walls and ceiling of the room were of white painted wood with panels of rose silk framed in gilt. On the hardwood floor, a rose rug, silk-piled, was spread. A chaise lounge, wicker arm chairs and mirrored tables laden with jars and bottles all bore out the same color scheme.
Bill thought that all that was needed to complete the screen picture was a movie actress lying back against the pillows, being served with breakfast on a tray by a “French” maid—“Gosh! what a dump!” He looked about him, but saw no sign of Hank.
He investigated the two closed doors at one end of the room, found that one led into the wardrobe closet, where thirty or forty of Slim’s suits hung on padded hangers, together with numberless other articles of wearing apparel on the shelves. The other door opened into a rose tiled bathroom. Onyx shelves held piles of towels, sponges, soap, bath salts in glass jars, and in one corner stood a large wicker hamper, painted rose color.
Bill noticed that the single stained glass window high in the bathroom wall was barred. That gave him a new slant on the plan. He went into the bedroom and pulled the curtains back from the two windows there. Both were crisscrossed with heavy bars of steel.
Slim Johnson’s bedroom was well protected from all intruders, and he, Bill Bolton, was as effectually a prisoner as though he had been cast into an underground dungeon.
He stood near the door to the sitting room, and through the panels he could hear the mumble of voices. Instinctively he moved nearer and placed his ear against the keyhole.
Slim Johnson was speaking: “Give him an hour. He’ll be in bed and asleep by that time. Then go in there and remove the—er—laundry. Better take Alec with you. It will be heavy. Come along with me, now. I’ve got to see Dago Mike about that shipment he landed tonight. It won’t take long and then we can come back to this job. If the big boss makes us let that lad go after we torture him in the morning—what he doesn’t know about thelaundrywon’t hurt anybody, eh?”
Bill heard Johnson giggle, and then the door slammed to the corridor. He straightened himself thoughtfully, stared at the bed and saw that a pair of silk pajamas, rose-hued, had been laid out on the coverlet. Slowly he walked into the bathroom again.
The next instant he had the lid of the hamper open, and disclosed to view a bundle of soiled shirts, crumpled pajamas, collars and handkerchiefs. Bill scattered these articles to right and left.
Then uncontrollably, he shrank back. Huddled in the basket, doubled awry, was the body of a man. Only the head and shoulders were visible. But the head was the head of Hank.
Bill bent swiftly, caught up some of the dirty linen and flung it into the hamper. He had to pull himself together.That—that was the explanation, of course, for Slim Johnson’s cryptic remarks about the laundry. They were coming back in an hour. Would they take the hamper and all?
“Yes,” he decided. “It would mean just that. Not even a gangster beer baron, or whatever role Slim Johnson plays in the criminal life of this state would permit him to carry dead bodies through the public halls of a hotel without causing comment! And possibly another police raid.... No—Hank was going out in the hamper. How many more,” he wondered, “had traveled that route before and would travel it again....”
Like a flash the idea came to him. Of course, it would be necessary to remove the body—
He went back to the bedroom and threw himself down on the chaise longue. He was tired after his long hop, and felt nauseated from his experience that evening. A glance at his watch showed that it still lacked a few minutes to ten o’clock. He had been in Gring’s Hotel only an hour, and in that short time, murder....
Resolutely he put the thought from him and the thought of what he soon must do. His eyes closed and gradually he dozed off into light slumber.
It was a quarter to eleven when Bill awoke. Chimes on a church clock somewhere in the neighborhood were striking the quarter hour. With a cry of annoyance, he sprang to the locked door and listened.
No sound came from the sitting room. Hastily extinguishing the bedroom lights, he hurried into the bathroom and switched on a single electric bulb.
He began to work with feverish haste, lifting the limp body of Hank from the hamper—rigor mortishad not yet set in. He carried it to the bed, removed the coat and waistcoat, slipped on the jacket of the pajamas, turned down the rose-colored sheet and covered the body—all but the head and one arm, which appeared above the coverlet in a natural position.
Bill was trembling like a leaf when that was accomplished. But the worst was over. He had now only to switch off the bathroom light and take the place of Hank in the clothes hamper.
He collected the linen he had scattered on the floor, turned off the light and got into the hamper with his armful of shirts and pajamas, arranging himself as comfortably as he could inside. The lid was hinged, and fell back upon him when he had drawn a few pieces of clothing over his head and assumed the position formerly occupied by Hank.
He crouched, half-stifled, in the hamper, listening for ages—it seemed. At last—the bolt of the sitting room door clicked.
From within his hiding place Bill could hear almost clearly what was happening in the room. There came the faint creak of a boot on the floor boards.
“Keep to the rug, you fool!” hissed Johnson’s voice. “Do you want to wake him!”
For several minutes there was no other sound. In his mind’s eye he pictured the young gangster tiptoeing to the bed and looking down on the rose-colored pajamas—
Suddenly they were beside him. The hamper was dragged away from the wall, lifted and let down on the tiles again.
“Holy smoke! what a weight!” a voice whispered hoarsely.
“Shut up and come on!”
Again the hamper was lifted and carried from the room. Outside in the corridor it was set down for a moment while its bearers locked the door. Then the angle at which Bill was being carried shifted, the basket rocked slowly up and down, as he descended the stairs. There were a great many stairs—they seemed endless. Twice he was set down roughly, while the men paused for breath.
He had a desperate impulse to thrust open the lid, tear away the suffocating clothes and strike out for freedom. But the time was not yet. He must be patient.
The air became cooler and he was able to breathe more freely. He thought they must be in the open now. The hamper was banged down again.
“Slim,” a voice spoke somewhere above and he recognized it as Jake’s, “doesn’t want the bulls to get onto this. You remember last time they dug up Otto and raised an awful stink!”
“Well, what about this stiff?”
“Oh, Hank’s in luck. He gets a Christian burial. There’s one of them private family cemeteries up Sulvermine way. Hank goes in there. The tools are in the car.”
“It’s just too bad Slim can’t do his own diggin’,” growled Number Two.
“Not him—he’s got a heavy date. There he is now, watchin’ from the lobby. When we’re out of sight, he’ll beat it. He ain’t even takin’ a bodyguard tonight.”
“What is it—a skirt?”
“How should I know? But if we don’t get goin’ he will start raisin’ the roof. Git hold of this thing again—she’ll go on the back.”
Again Bill was lifted. The basket swung violently, then landed with a jar that shook his bones. He sensed that rope was being passed around the hamper to secure it to the back of the car. There came the crisp slam of a door, a continuous vibration, and a violent jerk. They were off at last. The car was moving.
Bill waited until he felt the automobile swerve around the corner. Then he thrust upward with all his might. The flimsy wicker catch snapped, the lid flew back, and amid a cascade of soiled laundry, he crawled out and dropped to the roadway. An instant later, he was strolling back toward the hotel. His late conveyance had already disappeared around the corner.
Swinging into the street upon which Gring’s Hotel fronted, halfway down the block, he saw Slim Johnson run down the steps and enter a taxicab. The car was headed away from him and started off directly. Bill at once sprinted after it, hoping that the Boston Post Road traffic would hold it up at the end of the block.
His hope was fulfilled. The cab slowed down, stopped and waited for the green light. Bill had just time to grasp the spare tire on the rear and take a precarious seat on the inner rim when it started up again.
Across the Post Road and under the raised tracks of the New York, New Haven and Hartford it went, then into that network of mean streets between the railroad and the shore like a frightened cat up a back alley.
Near the harbor the car slowed down and drew up before an open lot. Bill dropped off and hid behind a pile of rubbish. Slim Johnson got out, paid off the driver and started away at a smart pace toward the docks. With his weather eye open, Bill followed him, running swiftly across the patches of light from the street lamps and seeking the shadow.
The gangster followed the harbor toward the sea front, wending his way among the wharves. At length, by the side of a pier, he stopped, and gave a shrill whistle. Bill stepped behind a small wooden hut and took a survey.
Lying out among other vessels was the white prow of a large yacht. He could just discern its lines in the dim moonlight. There was a lantern at the bows, and a glimmer at one or two of the portholes.
Soon he heard the creak and dip of oars, and could see the silver sparkle of flashing water. A small boat drew into the pier. Slim made his way carefully down the steps, disappearing from Bill’s view. There was the rasp of an oar on stonework as the boat was pushed off. Bill could distinguish the man’s lisping tones as he talked. Then the boat melted into the darkness, in the general direction of the yacht.
For a few minutes Bill gazed across the water at its outlines. Suddenly there was a bright flood of light upon the deck. A door flung open, a tall figure blocked it, and the light narrowed to a slit and winked out as the door closed again. While Bill stood watching from the pier, he would have given anything to know who the others were on board that vessel. Still hot with anger and horror at being forced to witness the dastardly crime, and sickened with the part he had had to play later, Bill was not in the mood to forego an opportunity of evening things up.
It came to his mind that even to approach the yacht in a small boat, keeping his eyes and ears open, might be of some help in learning who was aboard her, or perhaps yield him a clue to the truth about Slim Johnson’s business. But a small boat was not easy to procure at that time of night, and in any case he did not want any inquisitive soul to know what he was doing. As he walked slowly along the wharf his foot struck a rope, and looking down, he saw it held a small dinghy that lay in the water at the edge of the dock. It probably belonged to a yachtsman who had come ashore. A find, if ever he needed one. No time now to have any compunctions about its owner.
Bill looked across at the yacht, with its portholes showing dim glints of light, and in a trice he was on his knees. He slipped the knot of the rope and hurried down the wet steps.
The white yacht was farther out than he had thought, and when he reached it, he was astonished at its size and magnificence. A shaft of light burst from the door where he had seen the gangster enter. Johnson appeared on deck, and Bill was actually so near that he could see the pleased expression on his smiling face. The dinghy drifted under the yacht’s bows, and he was shut out from view, but he could hear Slim’s feet passing along the deck and clattering down the companionway. Then there was the sharp slam of a door.
Softly Bill sculled along at the side of the yacht. Over the portholes curtains were drawn, so he could see nothing of what was going on inside. The moon was hidden behind clouds, and it was now so dark that he nearly ran into a tiny wooden landing stage. As he paused with the dinghy close under the narrow steps, he could hear the clink of dishes, as if a late meal was being prepared; and a skylight nearby threw the sound of excited conversation out on to the deck.
Each moment Bill kept reminding himself that he ought to be getting back. What if the owner of the dinghy were to appear and send angry halloos across the water? Still, having got so far, to retire without finding out what Johnson was up to seemed stupid. He made up his mind he would take a quick survey of the deck before moving off. He slung the rope around the bottom rung of the ladder, and cautiously felt his way upward.
The deck was empty so far as he could make out. If a hand was supposed to be on watch, Bill could not hear or see any signs of him. The large skylight came into view on deck, and the shimmer of its thick glass indicated that the saloon below was lighted up.
Bill crouched at the rail, listening. The snatches of animated talk he had heard from the water must have come from this saloon, for he could see that one of the skylight windows was raised a couple of inches. Now he could distinguish through the opening the clear tones of two voices in particular.
With the utmost caution, Bill crawled a couple of yards forward and looked down into the saloon. There was a white damask-covered table, with shaded lights, at which sat two men, busy with supper and conversation. He recognized the men at once.
Slim Johnson’s languid gestures emphasized his words, as he directed them, between sips of coffee, to no less a person than Zenas Sanders himself.
With a gasp, Bill realized that Sanders had come by plane, and that this yacht must be the leader’s present headquarters. To go back now was out of the question. He might be on the brink of a vital discovery. He glanced up and down the deck. Still it was deserted. Pulling himself close to the skylight, he lay listening, with every muscle taut.
Slim Johnson was speaking, and at first Bill could not pick up the trend of his remarks. But when Sanders replied, he realized their talk had been bearing on himself and the interview at Gring’s Hotel.
“You’re right, Slim,” said Sanders. “Young Bolton has practically broken with Evans. All he cares about now is getting the kid back. He said so over the phone.”
“Well, that darned Indian is sure to find your hideaway, Sanders. He’s got plenty of guts and so has that Parker fellow by all reports. Between them, they’ll get the boy before this yacht has a chance to reach Twin Heads Harbor.”
Sanders laughed and shook his head in a nervous negative. “Oh, no, they won’t,” he chuckled. “The boy isn’t up there. I brought him with me. At present he’s sound asleep in a cabin not twenty feet from where we’re sitting!”
“Well, that’s a good one!” Slim laughed. “What’s the orders now?”
“We sail in two hours. I want you to come along. Go back to the hotel now and use your gentle persuasion on Bill Bolton to find out where Evans is. We’ll hold them on board until the divers have brought the stuff up from the bottom of the harbor up there. Then we can either make all three of them pay heavy ransoms, or if they’re obdurate, tie them up and drop them overboard.”
“But supposing torture won’t make Bolton tell?” argued Slim. “What shall I do with him then? You aren’t giving me much time to persuade him, you know.”
“Oh, use your air gun if you like. It’s all the same to me!”
“And let Old Evans go?”
“That’s right. He’s tired of trying to watch us up there. And that old diver of his—Jim something-or-other, hasn’t located the stuff yet. Evans thinks that he has a better bet in watching you. So mind your step when you come back tonight. The longer Mr. Evans stops in Stamford the better pleased I’ll be.”
“Okay. It’s a swell break, and the luckiest thing about it is that he can’t bring in the bulls. He and his bank would pay a pretty fine if the government found out that he was taking that gold to Europe in his yacht when von Hiemskirk captured it. Nice of the noble baron to sink it in Twin Heads Harbor, and then go to Atlanta for thirty or forty years!”
“We may be able to blackmail Evans later, after he’s paid his ransom, and we’ve got away with the gold.—Listen!” Sanders dropped his voice and began to whisper across the table.
Bill pressed closer to the skylight, and at the same time a door clicked somewhere along the deck. In a second he was crouching on hands and knees, peering into the darkness. The figure of a man swung up the companionway and paused to light a cigarette. Bill could see his thin, swarthy face, lined and scarred, as the tiny flame leaped within his cupped palms. The match spun overboard in a luminous curve, and hissed into the water. Then the man began to walk slowly along the deck toward Bill.
The moment that the match struck the water found Bill wriggling across the deck like a sand-eel. The red tip of the cigarette in the man’s mouth glowed and waned as he drew in the smoke. A bright point in the darkness, it moved forward, and in its soft luster Bill could distinguish the shiny peak and white linen top of the man’s yachting cap, beneath which his face was a dim brown blur. Everything else was in black obscurity.
As quickly as a cat, Bill slipped down the ladder and, pressing his body against the side of the yacht, lay motionless. It was unlikely that the man would descend, for Bill had seen no boat tethered at the tiny square stage below. And now he prayed that this yacht’s officer would not select the spot directly above him to pause for contemplation of the night sky.
The man drew nearer, hesitated, as if halted by the sound of talk in the saloon below, then passed on. The slow tread of his rubber soles grew fainter, and Bill knew that he had strolled to the other side of the deck. Now was his chance. For an instant he glanced down at the dinghy. That would be the easier way, but—well, there was no telling what might happen if he went ashore.