by John Blaine
He tried the door. It had an ancient lever handle. He turned it and pushed. The door was locked.
Stepping back outside, he looked up. There was a sign above the door: Hansa , 373 Lentestraat . Rick knew he wouldn’t forget it. He turned and walked silently but quickly back toward civilization. Now to catch the first taxi he saw andjoin Scotty at the hotel. He was jubilant, certain that the girl had led him to the gang’s hideout.
CHAPTER XIII
The Boys Move In
There was a stranger with the night porter when Rick reached his floor of the hotel. The stranger stepped forward and showed a badge. “Where did you go, Mr. Brant?”
“I went after some information for the inspector,” Rick told him. “Did Mr. Scott return?”
“Yes. He is in the room.”
“Has the inspector returned?”
“No, mijhneer .He went fromThe Hague toRotterdam . But he will be back soon.Maybe beforemidnight
.”
Rick glanced at his watch. It was only a little after nine. “Thank you.”
“You will stay in now?”
“Yes. At least until the inspector comes.” Rick nodded good night and went around the corner to the room. Scotty was seated in the armchair, reading. He looked up as Rick came in.
“Any luck, Rick?”
Page 46
“Plenty.She didn’t look back once. We went into the dock area and she turned into an old warehouse that backs up to a canal. How did you make out?”
“No problem. I got out on the street and there were our two police buddies running around like crazy, searching alleys and doorways. Two other men, probably from the Group, were watching from near the restaurant. I hailed the police officers. They wanted to know where you had gone. I told them you were doing an errand and would return to the hotel. They didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything they could do. We walked back to the hotel together. One went off to report and the other one stayed at the porter’s desk.”
“Have you tried to reach the inspector?”
“Sure. He phoned the station fromThe Hague , but had to go on toRotterdam . He left word he’d be back as soon as he could, maybe aroundmidnight .”
Rick sat down on his bed. “Now what do we do, wait?”
“Sure. What else?”
“Nothing, I guess. It’s out of our hands now. At least until the Group discovers the information is false. I wonder what the message means.”
“I think you hit it back at the restaurant,” Scotty replied. “Van Hooch stashed something behind a brick in a wall. He was a jewel thief, so the obvious guess is jewels. But it might be money, a safe-deposit key, or nearly anything.”
“If the wall is in the warehouse where I left Gretchen, the Group is probably already tearing the wall down,” Rick said. “I’ll bet it is. If the wall wasn’t at the gang headquarters, Van Hooch would surely have given a location.”
“How do you know the warehouse is the headquarters?” Scotty wanted to know.
Rick shrugged. “I don’t. But it’s a good location for a headquarters, and I don’t think Gretchen would rush to the big boss anywhere but at his main hideout. Big bosses usually stay at the main place and leave the outposts to the hired hands, don’t they?”
Scotty grinned. “I don’t know. I don’t watch television dramas that much. But what you say makes sense. So, somewhere in that warehouse is a wall, which is now being taken apart. If they find nothing behind the brick I told Gretchen about, what will they do?”
“Tear the wall down,” Rick guessed.
“I think so, too. They would think that either we got the message wrong, or she did.”
“Once they have the loot, there goes the ball game,” Rick observed unhappily. “We’ll never know what it was. What’s more, it’s the only evidence Vandiveer can use. If it vanishes, he has no ease!”
Scotty sighed. “I get the message. Okay, put on sneakers and a sweater and I’ll do likewise. We’ll go see what we can see.”
Rick moved, heading for the closet, then stopped. “We’d better leave a note for the inspector.”
Page 47
“You’re right. Want to write it?”
“Okay.” There was paper and envelopes in the room desk. Rick hurriedly scrawled a note to Inspector Vandiveer, giving him the address, the text of the message, and saying that he and Scotty were going to the warehouse to observe. He sealed the note in an envelope and wrote the inspector’s name on it, then took it down the hall to the police officer.
“This is for the inspector,” he said. “We’re anxious that he get it as soon as possible. If he’s not back bymidnight , I think the senior officer at the precinct ought to open it.”
The policeman hesitated. “I have no way to get this to the station.”
“Take it,” Rick suggested.
“But I am supposed to stay here.”
“It is no longer necessary,” Rick told him. “We will not be bothered here in the hotel for a while. We know the Group is busy on something else.”
“Very well.I will take it, then come back. Anyone who comes in must pass the porter anyway. The downstairs door has a new lock and a bar. It cannot be opened from the outside.”
For a moment Rick was tempted to tell the officer that he and Scotty were leaving, but thought better of it. The officer wouldn’t let them go. Rick liked the idea of police protection, but he was also confident that he and Scotty could take care of themselves. Besides, they didn’t plan to be seen by the Group.
Back in the room, he changed his suit jacket for a heavy sweater and put on sneakers. Scotty was already dressed to go out.
“Do we walk out through the lobby, or try the fire-escape exit?” Rick asked. He told Scotty what the officer had said about the new lock.
“The Group may still be watching us,” Scotty said. “If we go out the back way, we may lose them.”
“Let’s try,” Rick agreed.
“Just a sec.”Scotty took the bit of cigarette paper with its message from his passport case and tucked it under the edge of the rug, then he put the case in plain sight on the dresser. “Okay.Just in case anyone decides to make another search.”
They left the room, closing the door silently, and walked to the back stairs, which also served as a fire escape. Scotty knew the way from his first chase of a Group member. They wound down the stairs to the lower level, and faced a door with a newly installed bar and lock.
“I wonder how Gretchen got in with a new lock on the door,” Rick asked.
“There’s an entrance on the side. Used for deliveries, I guess. She probably walked right through the kitchen and came up on the service elevator.”
Scotty slid the bar out of its holders and put it down on the floor, then turned the handle that controlled Page 48
the dead bolt of the new lock. The door opened with a push, and they stepped out into a dark alley. No one was in sight. For long moments they waited, but there was no sound, no sign of anyone else in the alley. Scotty led the way down it, then turned into another alley that brought them out onto a side street.
They walked toward the railroad station where taxicabs were plentiful. Rick had a feeling that someone was watching, but there was no sign of a tail.
A cruising cab answered Scotty’s hail. Neither boy saw the black Volkswagen, parked where it could see both the front and side of the hotel. Its motor coughed into life as the cab moved off. In the alley from which they had emerged, a man collapsed the antenna of his small walkie-talkie and put it back into his belt holder.
Rick leaned forward and spoke to the taxi driver.“ Meer Wegen Borstelstraat .”Ocean Way andBrush Street intersected two blocks from the boys’ destination. That was close enough by taxi. They could walk the rest.
“Good thing you know where we’re going,” Scotty observed.
“I watched the street signs on the way.”
They rode in silence, until the taxi pulled up at the intersection Rick had requested, then he leaned fo
rward again and asked the driver, “How much? - Hoeveel is het ?” It was one of the first phrases he had learned inLeiden .
“ Tweeguilder.”
Rick gave the driver the two coins plus a tip. They waited until the taxi was out of sight, then Rick led the way toward their destination.
“Not a busy part of the city,” Scotty commented.
“Probably not very busy even by day,” Rick replied. “It was probably the center of shipping trade a hundred years ago. Now it’s about due to be torn down and new buildings put up.”
As they neared the Group’s hideout, they fell silent, moving silently but wasting no time. Occasionally they looked behind them, but there were no pedestrians, and only a single car, a black Volkswagen that came down the block toward them, then turned off into a side street.
Rick turned the final corner, Scotty at his side. He paused to survey the street. No one was in sight. He moved swiftly to the door through which Gretchen had vanished. The buildings were in a continuous row, and Rick hoped to find a nearby door that would open. He whispered to Scotty, “I’ll check this one once more, then yougo left and I’ll go right.”
He quietly tried the door handle. The door was still locked. As he stepped outside, a black Volkswagen came around the corner. Itpaused a few doors up the street and a man jumped out. Then it continued on, past the boys and braked to a stop a dozen yards away. The driver jumped out, and he had a pistol in his hand. The boys turned to run, and faced the passenger. He was advancing with a gun extended before him.
“Stay there!” the passenger snapped.“Hands above head. Quick.”
There was no choice but to obey. Rick was raging inside. They had been taken neatly, like a pair of Page 49
amateurs. Well, they were amateurs. This proved it. They must have been followed from the hotel.
The two men came close, but stayed out of reach. The passenger directed, “Hands against wall.Lean.”
The boys knew this drill. They complied, putting their weight on their hands. The passenger frisked them quickly and thoroughly.
“Good. Catch.”
Rick held out his hands and caught the object the man tossed from a safe distance. It was a key.
“Open door.No fast moves.”
Rick fitted the key into the lock. The door opened into a small hallway with stairs running up one side.
The guard gestured with his gun, careful to stay out of reach. “Up. Slow.”
Rick gritted his teeth. The guard was too careful a pro to be caught off guard. They were neatly trapped.
He heard the Volkswagen drive off as he and Scotty started up the dark stairs, their captor a careful four steps behind.
CHAPTER XIV
The Deadly Dutchman
It was only a short climb to the second floor. As they moved away from the faint light of the street, the guard produced a flashlight and shot the beam upward. Rick saw a door at the top of the stairs. He reached it, Scotty at his side, and waited for instructions.
“Open. Go in.”
Rick turned the knob and pushed the door. It swung open. He walked into a huge loft, dimly lighted by a single bulb. At the back of the building were great doors, like those of abarn, that he guessed had once been loading doors for cargo that was transferred to and from ships that tied up in the canal. Overhead were blocks through which frayed ends of rope were still reeved . They had evidently been the means by which heavy cargoes were lifted or lowered through the doors. He saw that the doors were fastened together with a single big hook and eye.
On the right a heavy beam, like a hitching rail for horses, stood away from the wall. A heavy iron rod ran its length, and bits of ancient rope dangled from it. On the left two doors were set into the wall about twenty feet apart.
“Move!” the guard ordered.
The boys moved into the loft.
Page 50
“First door.”
They walked obediently to the first of the two doors, and waited.
The guard yelled in Dutch. The door swung open and bright light flooded into the loft. A man Rick recognized as one of those who had accosted them near the Five Flies stood in the doorway. He asked a question in Dutch and the guard replied. The man in the doorway stood aside.
“In,” the guard directed.
Rick and Scotty walked into a big room that served as a combination office and living room. It was well furnished and looked comfortable. There were four people in the room, but Rick’s attention was attracted immediately to the bewhiskered Dutchman who had been so friendly at the airport. The man surveyed them for an instant, then he whirled on Gretchen, who was standing, stunned, her hand to her mouth.
“Fool!” Whiskers shrieked. “Stupid littlefool to let them trail you here!” He drew back his fist to strike the girl.
Scotty leaped like a striking panther, caught the fist before Whiskers could hit Gretchen, and delivered a single punch. Whiskers had an astonished look on his face as his knees buckled. He fell forward. In an instant the big man near the doorway dove at Scotty, driving him to the floor, pinning him down by sheer weight. Rick tensed to jump, and the guard warned him.
“Stay! Or you die!”
Rick stood very still.
The big man stood aside. As Scotty was halfway to his feet, the big man aimed a kick at his stomach.
“ Neen!”
The foot stopped in mid-swing.
Rick looked at the man who had spoken. He was seated behind a massive desk, a once-beautiful piece made of teak, battered and scarred now from a century of misuse. The man was small, pink-cheeked, and white-haired. With a beard, he would have looked like Santa Glaus , or a jolly little apple-cheeked elf. But this Santa was not jolly. His light-blue eyes were the coldest Rick had ever seen.
“Let the boy alone,” Santa said in faintly accented English. “Sidneye deserved what he got. No one strikes Gretchen but me, her uncle. That is understood.”
Her uncle?Rick looked at the girl. There wasn’t the slightest resemblance. Gretchen was standing with eyes on Scotty, her face pale.
“We speak English, in deference to our young guests,” Santa stated. “You will sit down, Mr. Scott and Mr. Brant.Those comfortable chairs. But do not be misled. It is not your comfort which concerns me. It is merely that I judge you as young men with quick reflexes who are capable of sudden action, and you will not find those deep armchairs easy to get out of quickly. Should you try, Johann will shoot.
He is an excellent shot, and he will aim to break a thighbone. Do we understand each other?”
Page 51
The blue eyes met Rick’s, and he shivered. He had no doubt whatever that Gretchen’s uncle was the deadly Dutchman. His cherubic face had showed no expression, and his eyes never seemed to blink.
Both boys nodded in answer to his question.
“Good. It will make things just a little bit easier for you if you cooperate.”
Sidneye was stirring, coming around at last. Scotty and Rick had an old-fashioned streak of chivalry that showed whenever anyone tried to use violence on a girl-any girl, not just pretty ones like Gretchen. But when Scotty retaliated, he didn’t pull his punches and he could hit harder than Rick.
“Help him up, Kurt,” Santa directed.
The big man lifted Sidneye to his feet and helped him into a straight chair. Sidneye swayed and held a hand to his jaw. His eyes were venomous as they focused on Scotty.
“You will remain quiet, Sidneye,” Santa stated. “The next time you attempt to strike Gretchen, I will let Kurt teach you some of the finer points of karate.”
The merciless eyes swiveled to Scotty.“So, Mr. Scott. You finally decided to let us know that you did have a message from my late friend Van Hooch. That was sensible.”
“I didn’t know I had a message,” Scotty told the man.
“So?Why not?”
“Let me tell you what happened.” Scotty launched into the story of his flight intoOrly and the aftermath.
Rick looked at hi
s pal in amazement. Scotty wasn’t normally so talkative. Then he realized what his pal was doing. He was stalling for time.
The minutes ticked by. Scotty had captured the fascinated interest of everyone in the room.
“When Kurt and another man stopped us our first night inAmsterdam , I really didn’t know I had the message,” Scotty explained. “Then, atThe Hague , when we first met Gretchen, I still didn’t know. When you phoned me-I assume it was you-and Gretchen knocked on our door a moment later, we were still innocent, and I meant what I told her. If we had had the message then, I would have given it to her just to get you all off our backs.”
“And what led you to the message?” Santa inquired.
“It was the fight at the windmill. By then we were convinced that you must know exactly what you wanted and that I had it. Your operations were too efficient for you to make a silly mistake like getting the wrong man.”
“I am pleased that you appreciate efficiency,” Santa stated. He didn’t look pleased. He didn’t look anything. He had yet to show the slightest trace of emotion that Rick could see.
“Thank you. Well, Rick made me go over the trip minute by minute, knowing that somehow I must have been used as a messenger without knowing it When I told him about Rilke van Hooch in the Orly waiting room, we knew that must be it. The other factor was that my passport case had dropped out of my Page 52
pocket-so I thought at the time-and I found it on the floor next to my chair.”
“So you arrived at the conclusion that Rilke had planted a message in the passport case.”
“Yes. We found it written on a cigarette paper, crumpled into a tiny wad, and stuffed in a pocket I don’t use.”
“Which explains why a search of your room disclosed nothing.You had the passport case with you at all times.”
“That’s true.”
Santa’s face didn’t show regret as he said, “I regret we have all had so much trouble, Mr. Scott. You see, I was forced to assume that you were holding out, hoping to profit from the message yourself.”
