One Wonderful Night Part 30

Taking heed not to turn the lamp toward the ship, lest their movements should be overheard and a head pop up out of the hatch, he led the way quietly to the rear of the wharf. A rough road climbed the hill to the left, and, as this direction offered the only probable means of regaining the car, they took it.

After a long climb they reached a better road, which ultimately brought them into a main thoroughfare. Then Curtis bethought him of looking at his watch, and was astonished to find that the hour was half-past two o'clock.

"By Jove!" he cried. "We must have consumed fully half an hour over that trip. I wonder whether your man has waited, Devar; or would he give us up as lost, and go home?"

"What! Arthur return alone, and tell my aunt that the last he saw of me I was adrift on the Hudson River in a barge with a policeman and a swashbuckler from Pekin? Not much!"

"I hope you are right, sir," said McCulloch. "Even when we reach New York I must trouble you two gentlemen to come to the station-house and report the whole affair, as I was due there an hour ago, and the entire precinct will have been scoured for news of me by this time."

Devar laughed loudly.

"I don't want to alarm you, McCulloch--not that you are of the neurotic habit, judging by the way you took a chance of having a hole bored through you while searching that blessed barge--but if you believe you can frame a cut-and-dried programme during the time you have retained John D. Curtis's services as guide, philosopher, and friend, you are hugging a delusion. I started out from a happy home last evening intending to pick up a friendless stranger and show him the orthodox sights of New York. Gee whizz! Look at me now! I missed John D. by a few minutes, but found myself gaping with the crowd at the scene of a murder in which he had figured heavily. Since then I have helped to break open hotel doors, discovered a villain tied and gagged by other villains, stood on my head in Morris Siegelman's joint, started a riot in East Broadway, helped a detective to commit a larceny, cheeked a British lord, and scoffed at a Hungarian prince, to say nothing of the present racket. So don't you go making plans for the night yet a while, McCulloch, because John D. will keep you busy without any call for you exercising your brain cells in that respect."

The roundsman did not try to grasp the inner significance of this rigmarole. He was unfeignedly glad to have escaped from an awkward predicament.

"Anyhow," he said briefly, "if it comes to the worst I can ring up my captain from the nearest station-house, and at least he will know where I am."

"Don't be too sure of that, either. Suppose you had 'phoned your captain before you went on board the barge, would he be any the wiser now? Just to prove the exceeding wisdom of my remarks, do you know where you are at the present moment? Because _I_ don't."

The policeman stopped short, and gazed ahead with a new anxiety. The mist was thinner here, and pin-points of light from a row of lamps showed in a straight line for a considerable distance. For an instant there was an embarra.s.sed pause, because all three failed to remember covering any similar stretch of level road after descending the hill and turning into the lane leading to the Hudson.

"Did you notice a few minutes since that a low wall bounded the road on both sides?" said Curtis, breaking a somewhat strained silence.

Yes, each had seen it.

"Well, I am inclined to believe," he went on, "that that wall formed part of an accommodation bridge, under which the car pa.s.sed in the dark without our being aware of it. Indeed, I feel confident that if we turn back along this main road, we shall meet our lane on the right, and about three hundred yards from this very point."

They agreed to make the experiment, and Devar grinned broadly when the lane presented itself exactly as Curtis had predicted.

"What did I tell you?" he cackled to the roundsman. "John D. is a Chinese necromancer. I'm getting used to his tricks, and you will catch the habit in another hour or two. By four o'clock you won't be the least bit surprised if you find yourself flying across the New Jersey flats in an aeroplane, or having a cup of hot coffee on board the pilot steamer off Sandy Hook."

"I'll risk either of those unlikely things, sir, if we find your car where we left it," They stepped out briskly. When all was said and done, none of the three wished to be stranded in some unknown byway of Westchester County at that unG.o.dly hour, and their relief was great when the stark outline of the crane became visible in an otherwise impenetrable wall of darkness.

"By Jove! The car is here all right," crowed Devar joyously.

In the next few strides the automobile came in sight, the blaze of its headlights casting a cheerful glow over the wharf. Brodie was standing where the barge had been moored, and gazing blankly at the river; he turned when he heard their footsteps, and ran quickly to the car.

"It's O. K., Arthur," cried Devar, realizing that the chauffeur might be dreading an attack from the rear, "little Willie has returned, and won't go boating again in a derelict barge at two o'clock in the morning if he can help it."

"Oh, it's you, sir!" came the answer in a tone of vast relief. "My, but I'm glad to see you! I didn't know what to do. I thought you were safe enough, because I heard your voices as you drifted away, and I fancied you might make the sh.o.r.e again lower down, but it seemed to be a hopeless job to go in search of you, so, after things had calmed down a bit, I decided to stop right here."

After the first gasp of excitement, there had crept into the placid Brodie's voice a note of quiet jubilation which hinted at developments.

"Did anything happen after we sailed away?" asked Devar.

"Did you see anyone?" demanded the policeman.

"Things were quiet as the grave for quite a time after you gentlemen disappeared," said Brodie, speaking with the unctuous slowness of a man who has been vouchsafed the opportunity of his life and has grabbed it with both hands.

"Something _did_ occur, then?" put in Devar impatiently.

"Nothing to speak of, sir--at first," came the irritating answer. "I watched you go on board the barge, and I noticed her edging out into the river, and it was easy enough to know that none of you had cast her off, because what you said showed that you were even more surprised than I was. So, sez I to meself, 'Arthur, me boy, barges don't untie themselves from wharves in that casual sort of way, and at just the right minute, too, for anyone who wanted to dispose of a cop,' begging your pardon, Mr. Policeman, but that was the line of argument I had with meself."

"Try the accelerator, Arthur," groaned Devar.

"If ever I meet with a bit of an accident, sir, I always pull up and plan the wheel-marks; I carry a tape for the purpose, and it saves a lot of hard swearing in court afterwards." Brodie spoke seriously, and Devar vowed that he would interrupt no more, since he merely succeeded in stimulating the man's torpid wits.

Even now, the chauffeur waited to allow his philosophy to sink into minds which might prove unreceptive. Finding that there was no likelihood of debate, he went on:

"It struck me, too, that a feller who didn't hesitate about shoving a good car into a river must be a rank tough, the kind of character who would jump at the chance of plugging me with a bullet, or two, for that matter, and hiking off with the car, without anybody being the wiser, so I nipped out from behind the wheel, and, taking care to keep away from the light, crept in behind that pile of rock there," and he nodded to the ma.s.s of dressed stone which filled one end of the wharf.

He waited, as though to make sure that they appreciated his generalship. Devar's teeth grated, and McCulloch stirred uneasily, but no one spoke.

"You'll notice that it is only a few feet away," he said, measuring the distance with a thoughtful eye, "but, to make sure of reaching anybody who might try to monkey with the car, I groped around until I had found two half bricks. Then I waited. By that time, which was really less than it takes me to tell you about it, there wasn't a sound to be heard but the lapping of the river. The last thing I heard you say, Mr.

Howard, was----"

"I used language which no self-respecting chauffeur could possibly repeat," broke in Devar despairingly.

"That's as may be, sir. Circ.u.mstances alter cases, as you will see before I've done. Well, I listened to the river, which resembled nothing in all the world so much as the sobbing of a child, but no one stirred for such a time that I began to feel stiff, and I was thinking that I might be acting like a fool for my pains when a head popped up over the edge of the wharf."

Obviously, this sentence demanded a dramatic pause, and Brodie knew his business. Perhaps he expected cries of horror from his audience, but none was forthcoming, so, with a sigh, he continued:

"That cured the stiffness, gentlemen, I can a.s.sure you. I balanced one of the half bricks in my left hand--I'm a left-handed man in many things--and watched the head, while it was easy to see that the head watched the car. 'Now,' sez I to meself, 'that's the whelp who mistreated a car which had served him well, and he's reckoning in his own mind that my car would suit his needs just as well as the one he has lost.' I do believe I read that man's mind correctly. He might have said out loud: 'That party of sports were muts. They're all aboard the Hudson River liner, chauffeur and all.' I beg your pardon, gentlemen, if I have put it awkwardly, but I am sort of feeling my way towards the feller's sentiments, groping in the dark, as you might say."

Notwithstanding his effort at self-restraint, Devar felt that he must speak or explode.

"Go right ahead, Arthur," he said. "Explain the position thoroughly.

The fog is lifting, and we have heaps of time before sunrise."

"The whole affair is a mighty queer business, sir," said Brodie seriously. "The roundsman here will tell you how careful one has to be in such matters. I have had a law-case or two in my time, and them lawyers turn you inside out if you begin romancing. For instance, what I've just told you isn't evidence. The man said nothing; neither did I. We played a fine game of cat and mouse, only it happened that I was the cat. . . . Well, it is getting late, so I'll get on with the story. The head didn't budge for quite a while, but at last it made a move, and soon the identical chauffeur who hit up the pace from 23rd Street climbed on to the wharf and dodged in behind the crane. He had something in his right hand, too, that I didn't like the look of, so I gripped my chunk of brick mighty hard. This time he didn't wait so long, but crept forward like a stage murderer, peeping this way and that, but making for the car. Once he looked straight at where I was crouching, and I was scared stiff, because a brick ain't any fair match for one of them new-fangled pistols at six yards or so; but I guess he was a bit nervy himself, and he didn't make out anything unusual in my direction. Then he dodged right round the car to the back, and returned on the side nearest to me. I suppose he reckoned all was safe by that time, so he took hold of the crank and began to start the engine. 'Now or never!' says I to meself, so up I gets, and my knee joints cracked like--well, they cracked so loud that only the turning of the crank stopped him from hearing them. With that, I let drive with the half brick, and caught him square in the small of the back.

Down he went with a yell, and me on top of him. I had the second half brick ready to batter his skull in if he showed fight, but the first one had laid him out sufficient for my purpose, which was to get hold of this."

Brodie's hand dived into a pocket, and he produced a particularly vicious looking automatic pistol.

Then McCulloch said imperatively:

"You've got him. Where is he?"

Brodie was really an artist. Some men would have smirked with triumph, but he merely jerked a thumb casually toward the automobile:

"In there!" he said.

The policeman ran to a door and wrenched it open. He turned the rays of the lamp which he still held in his hand on to a figure, lying kneeling on the floor in an extraordinary att.i.tude. From a white face a pair of gleaming eyes met his in a glance of hate and fear, but no words came from the thin lips set in a line, and a moment's scrutiny showed that the captive was bound hand and foot. Indeed, hands and feet were fastened together with a stout cord, which had been pa.s.sed around the man's neck subsequently, so that he was in some danger of suffocation if he endeavored to wriggle loose, or even straighten his back, which was bent over his heels.

"He's all right," said Brodie, who had strolled leisurely after the others. "I told him I was taking no chances, and was compelled to make him uncomfortable, but that he wouldn't choke if he kept quiet. Of course, he has had a rather trying wait, but I couldn't help that, could I?"

"We give you best," growled McCulloch. "Did you stiffen him with the half brick, then, that you were able to hunt around for a rope?"