Dangerous Cargo (25 page)

Mme. Storey glanced over the owner’s group.

“Where’s Martin?” she asked sharply.

“Martin? Martin?” they repeated, looking around witlessly.

Les came back to us.

“Martin?” he said. “Isn’t he here?”

The two of them went from group to group around the deck, searching among
the faces, and asking for him. He was not there. Nobody had seen him.

Presently there was a dull report from the interior of the ship, and she
shuddered like a living creature. Les said: “Forward bulkhead. It’s all over
now!” Raising his voice, he gave the command to man the boats. Each of the
after boats was under command of an assistant engineer. The crew climbed
aboard in orderly fashion.

Soon we three were left standing alone on the deck. Three of the boats
started lowering away; the owner’s launch waited for us. From the darkness
alongside came a hail: “Do you want assistance, Captain?” Les turned a
searchlight in that direction, revealing a ship’s boat manned by four sailors
and an officer. The water had a strange dusty look in the light.

“Much obliged, Captain,” answered Les cheerfully. “Our own boats are
sufficient.” To Mme. Storey he said: “I must look for Coade.” She said: “I’ll
go with you.” She told me to get in the launch, but I paid no attention. I
wasn’t going to leave her. Les ordered the men to lower away, and pick us up
from the ladder below. All the boats took the water safely, and cast off.

We ran, for the after companionway. It was dark below, but we had
flashlights. The ship was settling gradually by the head. We slid forward and
had to climb back aft. We ran through the beautiful rooms on the
promenade-deck; lounge, music-room, library, dining-saloon; already as cold
and damp as if the ship had been deserted for years. We flashed our lights
into the corners, and Les continually shouted Martin’s name. The silence
mocked him.

We descended to A deck and ran along, opening the doors of the various
cabins; and casting a light inside. Clothes and personal belongings of every
kind were strewn around the rooms where the terrified owners had dropped
them. “Rich loot here for the old sea!” muttered Les.

In due course we came to Martin’s cabin, which was near Horace’s suite
astern. The door was locked. Of all the doors only that one was locked. Les
banged on it with his fist. “Martin! Martin!” he cried.

There was no answer.

Mme. Storey put her ear to the crack of the door and listened. “He is in
there!” she said with a grim face.

“Martin, for God’s sake! the ship is sinking!” cried Les, violently
rattling the door.

No sound from inside.

“If you don’t unlock it I’ll smash it down!”

At last Martin spoke: “Let me alone!” he growled. “My life is my own to do
what I want with!”

Les put his brawny shoulder to the door. It creaked, but did not give way.
At the same moment we heard the crash of a pistol shot inside the state-room,
and a heavy fall on the floor. Les retreated from the door.

“Break it down!” cried Mme. Storey.

As Les put his shoulder to it again, there was another dull explosion from
amidships, and the stern began to settle. Les straightened up. “We got to
go!” he muttered, “or we’ll be caught like rats!”

“Break down the door first!” she begged.

Les turned obstinate. “No! I’m not going to risk your life! Come on!”
Seizing her wrist, he dragged her away in spite of herself. I followed.

“Anyhow, divers can recover the diamonds,” I said.

Les stared at me. I believe he thought I had lost my wits.

The vessel gave a little shake and heeled gently to starboard. “Quick!”
said Les, “if you don’t want a cold bath!”

We ran up the stairs and raced for the ladder. Amidships the water had
risen to A deck. Presently it would be pouring through the open portholes.
The boarding ladder was half-submerged, and we had to climb over the handrail
and drop into the launch as they brought her alongside. Celia’s sympathetic
voice said:

“Ah! you didn’t find him! Poor, poor Martin!”

“Quick! Throw in your clutch! Get out of the suction!” cried Les to the
engineer.

We lay to a couple of hundred yards away to see the last of the
Buccaneer
. She was going fast. The beautiful bold creature’s pride was
lowered. How brief had been her career! The gas engine was still noisily
phutting on the boat-deck, and the search-lights blazed, casting weird
shadows. This engine supplied power to the wireless also, and we heard it
whining. Charlie was beside me. He said:

“That’s for us.” After listening a moment, he added: “The tugs are on the
way.

“Too late!” said Les.

She dipped her nose, and her propellers rose out of the water. We thought
she was gone, but she righted herself and rolled lazily. The water was
lapping the promenade-deck. Then suddenly, as if a hand had seized her from
below, she was drawn in swiftly and smoothly, bow first. She gave a long sigh
as she disappeared, no other sound. One moment she was there with her
searchlights blazing, next moment the sea was empty and dark.

Gone! with her rare tapestries and rugs, her gold-plated bathrooms, her
exquisite crystal and silver; gone to rot on the floor of the sea! It had
taken a year and millions of dollars to produce her and she had cruised for
two weeks without doing anybody any good. What a tragic waste!

WE headed the launch for the steamship riding at anchor
nearby. This was the
Kingsley
, a British freighter bound in from
Trinidad with a cargo of asphalt. Our other boats had already reached her.
The only way of getting aboard was by a dangling rope-ladder with wooden
cross-pieces. Mme. Storey urged us briskly to mount it. She had her feelings
under strict control, but it was clear that she was driven by the necessity
of haste. The exasperating Sophie declined to mount the ladder, but later
changed her mind when she saw she was likely to be left alone on the launch
with the corpse.

Quarters aboard the freighter were plain, but we were received with great
kindness. While a sling was being devised to hoist the body aboard, Mme.
Storey went off to the wireless cabin to send a message to her friend,
Inspector Rumsey, who was then chief of the detective bureau of the New York
police.

“Have you plenty of gasoline aboard the launch?” she asked Les.

“The tanks are full.”

“Good! We’ll need it to-night. As soon as you get the body off, go aboard
with two men you can depend on, and be ready to start when I come down.
Bella, you’ll go with us.”

Quarter of an hour later we set off again in the speedy launch. Beyond the
fact that we were bound for town, Mme. Storey would tell us nothing of her
plans. She never will do so when she is in doubt as to the outcome. She
anxiously measured our speed through the water.

“Are you giving her all she’ll take, Les?” she asked.

“Every notch!”

“What is she good for?”

“About twenty miles an hour.”

It was a still, raw, starless night, black as the inside of a hat. The
wide, empty spaces of the lower bay surrounded us. We headed for the far-away
Narrows, marked by clusters of lights denoting Fort Wadsworth on one side and
Fort Hamilton on the other.

“If you see anything coming out, give it a wide berth,” said Mme.
Storey.

Fresh from the tropics, we shivered under our furs. We could have taken
shelter in the cabin, but it was impossible to sit there staring at nothing.
We remained in the cockpit trying to pierce the darkness with our eyes. I was
wondering what we were in such a hurry about.

Just before we reached the Narrows we saw two speedy tugs hastening to the
aid of the
Buccaneer
which was already lying on the bottom of the bay,
but they didn’t know it. We put out our lights and gave them a wide berth to
port. After passing the Narrows we saw another and a speedier craft bound
out. This was evidently a police boat summoned by Mme. Storey’s message. We
kept out of her way.

In the upper bay, with myriads of tiny lights all around us and the Staten
Island ferries passing back and forth, I had the feeling that we had returned
to civilisation, and something of the weight of dread was lifted from me.
This was the place I knew. We passed Liberty on one side gayly bedizened in
her flood-lights, and Governor’s Island on the other with its long rows of
barracks.

“Where are we going?” asked Les.

“Pier A North River,” said Mme. Storey.

“The police pier?”

“Exactly. Inspector Rumsey will be waiting for us. You had better come
with us. The police will take care of the launch and lodge the two men.”

We were now close under the towering cliffs of the New York office
buildings pointed with lights here and there. Off to our right were the
lovely springing arcs of light formed by the suspension bridges. The water is
always rough off the Battery, churned by the meeting tides and passing
vessels.

As we drew alongside Pier A, I saw the doughty little figure of Inspector
Rumsey waiting in one of the openings, dressed in plain clothes. The sight
gave me great satisfaction. There’s nothing of the spectacular sleuth about
Rumsey, but he’s a tower of strength. When he grasped Mme. Storey’s hand, she
said:

“Have you got a car here?”

“Yes,” he said, “and a motor-cycle escort.”

“Good! Let’s go. I’ll tell you the whole story on the way up-town.”

“This is a most irregular landing,” said Rumsey, grinning. “You haven’t
been passed by the customs and the immigration inspectors!”

The launch and the two men aboard her were handed over to the good offices
of the police. As Rumsey was accompanied by his secretary and a couple of
plain-clothes men, there was not room for all of us in the one car. Les and I
were put in a taxicab and told to follow the police.

We set off up West Street with our shrieking escort. A mad ride, fifty
miles an hour, or better, I should say, with the sirens going continuously.
Traffic lights meant nothing to us. It was funny to see the other cars
scuttling for the curb, but my heart was in my mouth the whole way. Suppose
something had popped out of one of the side streets. The driver of our taxi
was delighted.

“Cheese! It’s the first chance I could ever let her out!” he said, and
waved his hand to the various patrolmen on post as we flashed by.

Up West Street to the elevated highway, past all the new piers, “Death”
Avenue with its railway tracks, Eleventh Avenue, the viaduct again, and
Riverside drive without slackening speed for a moment. Finally we drew up
alongside the curb just above the Soldiers and Sailors monument, and our
deafened ears had a chance to recover.

The police car and the motor-cycle cops were dismissed here. Inspector
Rumsey and Mme. Storey came back and joined us in the taxi and we drove on. I
understood that we didn’t want to give warning of our approach. We drove a
couple of blocks farther and turned east towards Broadway. Not until we drew
up before a big apartment house and I read the name over the door, the
Greycourt, did I learn where we were going. This was the address of Mrs.
Martin Coade.

Her apartment was on the third floor. The door was opened to us by a fair,
pale, beautiful young woman, whom we instantly recognised as the original of
the photograph Martin had shown us. There was obviously a great power of
feeling in her, and I foresaw that my employer had a difficult task before
her.

“Mrs. Coade?” she said.

“That is my name,” was the wondering answer. “What can I do for you?”

“I am Madame Storey.”

The girl’s eyes widened, and her face became paler still. Her hand stole
to her breast.

“You have heard of me?” said Mme. Storey.

“Yes,” she stammered, “but I thought…I read in the papers…”

“That I was one of the party on Mr. Laghet’s yacht,” put in my employer.
“It is quite true. We returned unexpectedly to-night.”

An agonised question leaped into the girl’s eyes. My husband? Where is he?
What has happened? But she said nothing.

Mme. Storey introduced the rest of us. She suppressed Rumsey’s title,
referring to him merely as Mr. Rumsey. “May we come in?” she asked.

Mrs. Coade mutely set the door wide, and we proceeded through a short hall
into an inviting living-room, lighted with mellow shaded lamps. One of the
most conspicuous objects in the room was a handsomely framed photograph of
Martin with his queer invidious stare. It gave me the creeps. None of us sat
down.

The poor girl could contain herself no longer. “Where is my husband?” she
cried.

Mme. Storey tried to answer her, and could not. She turned away with a
helpless gesture, murmuring: “You tell her, Les.”

Les was never the one to refuse a difficult job. He straightened up and
cleared his throat; his face was like wood. “It’s a long story, Miss…”

“Oh, quick! quick!” she begged, clasping her hands.

“The yacht was blown up and sunk off quarantine a couple of hours ago,”
said Les, “and Martin, unhinged by that or other things, shot himself in his
cabin.”

Her mouth opened. She stared at him witlessly, and passed a vague hand
over her face. Then a dreadful low cry broke from her. She dropped in a chair
and covered her face. We all stood around in exquisite discomfort. It seemed
like such a rotten deal that the poor creature should have none but strangers
around her at such a moment.

Finally she raised her head. “You said…other things,” she gasped. “What
else happened? Oh, tell me!”

“Mr. Laghet is dead too,” said Les woodenly. “Found murdered in the
swimming-pool this morning.”

A sharp cry broke from the girl: “I knew it!” In terror she instantly
clapped the back of her hand over her mouth, but it was too late, we had all
heard it. She broke into a helpless hysterical weeping.

Mme. Storey waited until the fit had exhausted itself. “I am sorry to have
to trouble you at such a painful time,” she said gravely, “but there are
certain questions I have to ask you.”