Two more thrusts shivered the pane until there remained only a fringe of broken glass at either side. Turning her back to it, she felt for the broken edge with her fingers and brought her rope-lashed wrists across it. Splintered window glass has an edge like a razor. Dorothy fumbled the cord blindly to the cutting edge, sawed steadily and felt one of the turns slacken and part.
It was enough. In a few seconds her wrists were free and she stooped and cast loose the lashings from her ankles. She staggered a little and collapsed on the floor. After chafing her arms and legs, she turned to attend to her companion.
There was no need. Mr. Peters showed no further sign of animation than a ham. To insure against interference or pursuit, Dorothy turned him over, untied a length of cord from her ankle-bonds, and cast a double sheet-bend about his wrists.
Picking up the flashlight, she hurried out through the door which that canny seeker of “pickings” had left open. She hurried along the two passages and down the rickety stairs. The door at the bottom was closed, so snapping off her light, she pulled it open and stepped into the yard.
But here she was certain there was no egress except by swimming unless she could find a way through the other side of the house. Somewhere out in the darkness she heard the lap and plash of water and the faint creak of rowlocks. Instantly she ducked behind a pile of empty barrels.
A boat skulled stealthily through the gloom and fetched up alongside the dock. A tall figure made the little craft fast, climbed the steps and peered around the yard.
At that very moment, a water rat dropped from the top of the wall to the ground by way of Dorothy’s shoulder. It was impossible for her to suppress the exclamation of fright that escaped her.
The figure in the middle of the yard swung round and an electric torch flashed over the barrels.
“Come out of that or I’ll shoot!” ordered the stranger. “And come out with your hands up!”
CHAPTER VIII
THE CORK CHAIN
With the white sabre of light blinding her vision, Dorothy walked out from behind the stack of barrels, hands above her head.
“Dorothy!” exclaimed the tall figure in astonishment. “What on earth are you doing here?”
There was an instant’s pause; then Dorothy giggled.
“Gee, what a relief—but you scared me out of six years’ growth, Bill Bolton!”
As her arms dropped to her sides, she staggered and would have fallen if Bill had not stepped quickly forward and placed his arm about her. He led her to an empty packing case and forced her to sit down. The surprise of this meeting coming as a climax to the strenuous events of the evening had just about downed her splendid nerves.
“Oh, Bill—” she sobbed hysterically on his shoulder—“you can’t guess how glad I am to see you. I’ve really had an awful time of it tonight.”
“Take it easy and have a good cry. Everything’s all right now. You’ll feel better in a minute,” he soothed.
“What a crybaby you must think me,” she said presently, in a limp voice. “Do you happen to have a handkerchief, Bill?”
“You bet. Here’s one—and it’s clean, too.”
Dorothy dried her eyes and blew her nose rather violently.
“Thanks—I do feel much better now. Do you mind turning on the light again? I must be a sight. There—hold it so I can see in my compact.”
Bill began to laugh as her deft fingers worked with powder, rouge and lipstick.
“What’s the joke?” she asked, then answered her own question. “Oh, I know! You think girls do nothing but prink. Well, I don’t care—it’s horrid to look messy. Is there such a thing as a comb in your pocket, Bill? I have lost mine.”
“Sorry,” he grinned, “but I got my permanent last week. I don’t bother to carry one any more.”
“Don’t be silly!” she began, then stopped short. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said and snapped her compact shut. “They are coming after me in a car. Donovan or Peters, I forget which, said so.”
“Who are Donovan and Peters—and where are they going to take you?”
“Not that pair—other members of the same gang. D. and P. are two of the crew over at the beach cottage who chloroformed me, then tied me up and carted me over here in an open motor sailor.”
“Well, I’ll be tarred and feathered!” Bill switched off his torch. “Here I’ve been following you for over two hours and never knew it was you! Never got a glimpse of your face, of course—took you for a man in that rig! Well, I’ll be jiggered if that isn’t a break!”
“So you were the man I thought I saw in the grass clump?”
“Sure. You led me to the house. I knew the gang had a cottage somewhere along that beach, but I didn’t know which one it was. By the way, I’ve got your Mary Jane tied to a mooring out yonder—Couldn’t take a chance on running in closer. That old tub’s engine has a bark that would wake George Washington.”
Dorothy sprang to her feet. “That’s great! We’ll make for the Mary Jane, Bill, right now. If those men in the car catch us here there’ll be another fight. Dorothy has had all the rough stuff she wants for one night, thank you!”
Bill took her arm.
“O.K. with me,” he returned. “Think you’re well enough to travel?”
“I’m all right. Hanging around this place gives me the jim-jams—let’s go.”
Together they crossed the yard and hurried along the narrow planking of the dock to the dinghy. Bill took the oars and a few minutes later they were safely aboard the motor boat. It began to rain again and the dark, oily water took on a vibrant, pebbly look.
“Come into the cabin,” suggested Dorothy, watching Bill make the painter fast. “We’ll be drier there—and I’ve got about a million questions for you to answer.”
“Go below, then. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Dorothy slid the cabin door open and dropped down on a locker. Presently Bill followed and took a seat opposite her.
“Better not light the lamp,” he advised, “it’s too risky now. By the way, Dorothy, I’m darn glad to see you again.”
Dorothy smiled. “So ’m I. I’ve missed you while you were away, and I sure do need your help now. Tell me—where in the wide world am I?”
“This tub is tied up to somebody else’s mooring off the Babylon waterfront,—if that’s any help to you.”
“It certainly is. I hate to lose my bearings. Here’s another: I don’t suppose you happen to know what this is all about?”
Bill crossed his knees and leaned back comfortably.
“There’s not much doubt in my mind, after tonight’s doings. Those men in the beach cottage are diamond smugglers and no pikers at the game, take it from me!”
“Ooh!” Dorothy’s eyes widened. “Diamonds, eh! That’s beyond my wildest dreams. How do they smuggle them, Bill?”
“Well, these fellows have a new wrinkle to an old smuggling trick. Somebody aboard an ocean liner drops a string of little boxes, fastened together at long intervals—the accomplices follow the steamer in a boat and pick them up. And now, from what I’ve found out, there’s every reason to believe that this gang are chucking their boxes overboard in the neighborhood of Fire Island Light.”
Dorothy sat bold upright, her eyes snapping with excitement.
“Listen, Bill! Those men in the cottage—I heard them talking, you know—couldn’t make anything out of their conversation then, but now I’m beginning to understand part of it.”
“Didn’t you tell me they were arguing against going somewhere—or meeting someone—in the fog?”
“That’s right. It was the man they called Charlie—the one who’d been a physician. Let me see…he said that there was a rotten sea running out by the light. That must mean the Fire Island Light! Then, listen to this. He was sure that by three o’clock the fog off the light would be thick enough to cut with a knife—and that they would probably miss her anyway!—Don’t you see? ‘Her’ means the liner they are to meet off the Fi
re Island Light about three o’clock this morning!”
“Good work, Miss Dixon—” Bill nodded approvingly. “And that is where Donovan and Charlie headed for when they parked you with Peters,” he supplemented. “On a bet, they’re running their motor sailor out to the light right now.”
Dorothy glanced at the luminous dial of her wrist watch.
“It is just midnight. Think we have time to make it?”
“Gosh, that’s an idea! But, look here, Dorothy—” Bill hesitated, then went on in a serious tone, “if we run out to the lightship and those two in the motor sailor spot us, there’s likely to be a fight.”
Dorothy moved impatiently. “What of it?”
“Oh, I know—but you’ll stand a mighty good chance of getting shot. This thing is a deadly business. They’re sure to be armed. Now, listen to me. I’ll row you ashore and meet you in Babylon after I’ve checked up on those guys.”
Dorothy stood up and squeezing past Bill, opened the cabin door.
“And my reply to you is—rats!” she flung back at him. “Of course I’m going with you. There’ll be no argument, please. Get busy and turn over that flywheel while I go forward and slip our mooring.”
Bill made no answer, but with a resigned shrug, followed her out to the cockpit. They had known each other only a few months, but their acquaintance had been quite long enough to demonstrate that when Miss Dixon spoke in that tone of voice, she meant exactly what she said. Bill knew that nothing short of physical force would turn the girl from her project, so making the best of things as he found them, he started the engine.
Bill was heading the boat across the bay when Dorothy came aft again. She went inside the cabin and presently emerged with a thermos of hot coffee, some sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs.
“We may both get shot or drowned,” she remarked philosophically, “but we needn’t starve in the meantime.”
“Happy thought!” Bill bit into a sandwich with relish, “One drowns much more comfortably after having dined.”
“Hm! It would be a cold wet business, though. Doubly wet tonight.” She looked at the black water pock-marked with raindrops and shook her head. “Hand me another sandwich, please. Then tell me how you came to be mixed up with this diamond smuggling gang, Bill.”
By this time they were well on their way across Great South Bay toward the inlet. From the bows came the steady gurgle and chug of short choppy seas as the stiff old tub bucked them. Holding a straight course, the two by the wheel were able to make out the grey-white gleam of sand on Sexton Island.
“Well, it was like this,” began Bill. “You remember the Winged Cartwheels.3 Well that was a Secret Service job for the government.”
“I know,” nodded Dorothy.
“Well, as I was saying—because of that and some other business, Uncle Sam knew that I could pilot a plane. Six weeks ago I was called to Washington and told that an international gang of criminals were flooding this country with diamonds, stolen in Europe. What the officials didn’t know was the method being used to smuggle them into this country. However, they said they had every reason to believe that the diamonds were dropped overboard from trans-Atlantic liners somewhere off the coast and picked up by the smugglers’ planes at sea. My job was to go abroad and on the return trip, to keep my eyes peeled night and day for airplanes when we neared America.”
“Did you go alone?”
“Yes, but I gathered that practically every liner coming over from Europe was being covered by a Secret Service operative. I made a trip over and back without spotting a thing. On the second trip back, something happened.”
“When was that?”
“Night before last. The liner I was aboard had just passed Fire Island lightship. I stood leaning over the rail on the port side and I saw half a dozen or more small boxes dropped out of a porthole. They seemed to be fastened together. Once in the water, they must have stretched out over a considerable distance. Of course, there are notices posted forbidding anyone to throw anything overboard: and there are watchmen on deck. But they can’t very well prevent a person from unscrewing a porthole and shoving something out!”
“Did you report it?”
“You bet. The skipper knew why I was making the trip. We located the stateroom and found that it belonged to three perfectly harmless Y.M.C.A. workers who were peaceably eating their dinner at the time. Somebody slipped into their room and did the trick.”
“Did you hear or see any plane?”
“I thought I heard a motor, but it didn’t sound like the engine of a plane. I couldn’t be sure.”
“The motor sailor, probably?”
“It looks like it, now. Well, to continue: I landed in New York and took the next train to Babylon. Then I got me a room in one of those summer cottages on the beach. I was out on the dunes for a prowl when the Mary Jane put in at that little cove. That in itself seemed suspicious, so I followed you to the house and saw Peters scrag you. Although, at the time I had no idea who you were. Then when they tied you up and went off with you in the motor sailor, I knew for certain that some dirty work was on. So I beat it back to the cove and came along in this old tub.”
Dorothy finished the last of the coffee.
“Did you see the amphibian tied up to the cottage dock?” she asked.
“Yes. It took off just before the motor sailor left.”
“Just how do you figure that it comes into the picture?”
“I think these people have a lookout stationed farther up the coast—on Nantucket Island, perhaps. When a ship carrying diamonds is sighted off the Island, the lookout wires to the aviator or his boss and the plane flies over to let the men in the cottage know when to expect her off the lightship. Then when they pick up the loot, he flies back with it to their headquarters next day. Of course, I don’t know how far wrong I am—”
“But he’s been doing it every day for weeks, Bill—maybe longer. Surely they can’t be smuggling diamonds every day in the week?”
“He probably carries over their provisions and keeps an eye on them generally. I don’t know. What he is doing is only a guess, on my part, anyway.”
Dorothy smothered a yawn. “Do you suppose the red flag those men spoke of is a signal of some kind?”
“Guess so. But look here, you’re dead tired. I can run this tub by myself. Hop in the cabin and take a nap. I’ll call you when we near the lightship.”
“You must be sleepy, too.”
“I’m not. I had an idea I might be up most of the night, so slept until late this afternoon. And after those sandwiches and the coffee, I feel like a million dollars. Beat it now and get a rest.”
Dorothy yawned again and stretched the glistening wet arms of her slicker above her head.
“Promise to wake me in plenty of time?”
“Cross my heart—”
“Good night, then.”
“Good night. Better turn in on the floor. We’re going to run into a sea pretty soon. Those lockers are narrow. Once we strike the Atlantic swell you’ll never be able to stay on one and sleep!”
“Thanks, partner, I’ll take your advice.” She turned and disappeared below.
CHAPTER IX
DEEP WATER
The ebb tide soon caught the Mary Jane in the suck of its swift current and the boat rushed seaward. Presently she struck the breakers and floundering through them like a wounded duck, commenced to rise and fall on the rhythmic ground swell.
Dorothy came out of the cabin rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“You didn’t take much of a rest,” said Bill from his place at the wheel.
She yawned and caught at the cabin roof to steady herself.
“Mary Jane’s gallop through the breakers woke me up. Sleeping on a hard floor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—and the cabin was awfully stuffy.”
“Are you as good a sailor as you are a sport?”
“I don’t know much about this deep water stuff, but I’ve never been seasick. Thought I might b
e if I stayed in there any longer, though.”
“Feel badly now?”
“No, this fresh air is what I needed. Is that the lightship dead ahead? I just caught the glow.”
“Yep. That’s Fire Island Light. I wish this confounded drizzle would stop. The swell is getting bigger and shorter. Must be a breeze of wind not far to the east of us.”
“D’you think we’re in time, Bill?”
“Yes, I think so. The weather is probably thick farther out and up the coast, and the ship will be running at reduced speed. It’s likely she’ll be an hour or so late. There is a ship out yonder, but it’s a tanker or a freighter.”
“How do you know that?”
“Why, a liner would be showing deck and cabin lights. Here comes the breeze—out of the northeast.”
“It’s raining harder, too. Ugh! What a filthy night.”
Bill nodded grimly in the darkness. “You said a mouthful. It’ll be good and sloppy out here in another hour or two. Jolly boating weather, I don’t think! And we can’t get back into the bay until daylight, I’m afraid.”
The big boat continued to pound steadily seaward and before long the lightship was close abeam. Bill ran some distance outside it, then stopped the engine.
“No use wasting gas,” he said, and emptied one of the five-gallon tins into the fuel tank.
He went into the cabin again and reappeared with two life preservers.
“It’s lucky the law requires all sail and motor craft to carry these things. Better slip into one—I’ll put on the other.”
Dorothy lifted her eyebrows questioningly. “Think we’re liable to get wrecked?”
“Nothing like that—but a life preserver is great stuff when it comes to stopping bullets.”
“Gee, Bill, do you really expect a scrap? There isn’t a sign of the motor sailor yet.”
“I know—but they’re out here somewhere, just the same. Neither of us is showing lights, so in this weather we’re not likely to spot each other unless our boats get pretty close. And if they do, those hyenas won’t hesitate to shoot! Here, let me give you a hand.”
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