CHAPTER VI
Conference with a G-Man
IT WAS well after midnight before the two boys turned in for the night, setting their alarm clock to ring at daybreak. And at dawn they awoke and held council.
“The village stores open about seven-thirty or so, John,” Stan said as they ate a hearty breakfast. “You go for the paint while I get out that small can of black paint we had left from the last job and mark out a new name. What will we call her now?”
“Not going to ask your Dad?”
“I think not, because, I’ve a hunch the Porpoise Island crowd may poke into here looking for us and if we have a new name on the boat it will help disguise her. What do you suggest, John?”
“Let’s call her ‘Staghound’!”
“Sounds o.k. That was the name of a famous clipper, wasn’t it?”
“I think so.”
“Staghound it is then!” Stan rejoined.
Breakfast finished, and time drawing on towards the opening of the stores, they set the mainsail and took in the anchor. They sailed to the landing of the town and moored to the pilings there. The tide was going out and, by fastening her properly towards the shore end of the pier they knew she would be almost high and dry at low tide, resting on the sand. This would enable Stan to paint in the lettering and John to help slap the white paint onto her hull. John hurried for the paint and Stan went over-side and, standing up to his neck in the water, began blocking out the new name over the old name. He was still so engaged when John came back lugging the new paint and a small can of tan top-side paint for the cabin.
With the black paint left from the time the Water Witch had been painted at Cedar Island, Stan began painting in the new name neatly while the tide dropped and left him standing up to his knees in the water now. In the meantime John had washed down the rest of the hull and was repainting it white. It had to be a heavy, well spread coat to cover the old black, but John was equal to the task, and by the time the tide was coming back, towards noon, both boys had put finishing touches on the white and were giving the top sides—cabin trunk and top—a coat of tan. At dinner time they were amused by the townspeople who came down to witness the changes in the Water Witch. After a good meal, they went back to work, sawing off the bowsprit, after taking down the outer stay to the mainmast head and unhooking the jib. A plane from the tool box now came in handy to smooth down the stump of the bowsprit, and putty and white paint with a tan topping soon disguised the bow of the Staghound!
“Might as well work away and finish the job as fast as we can to-day, eh, John?” Stan said, as they dumped the remains of the forward spar into an old pile of lumber at the end of the wharf. “Let’s rig a tripod and take out the mast!”
It was a good afternoon’s work to rig a tripod of oak “sills” from that lumber pile and with a heavy tackle and the help of a couple of wharf “idlers” to swing out the mast and lay it upon the wharf. By that time an interesting thing had taken place. One of the onlookers offered to buy the mast and sails when he found out they were no longer wanted.
“Don’t know why you want to ruin a good boat, young fella,” said the man, “but I’ll take that mast fer a price and the sail, effen you say the word!”
They dickered over the price a few minutes and when they were through Stan had some twenty-five dollars toward the new mainsail and Marconi mast!
“Just a drop in the bucket compared to what that new mast will cost, John, but it’ll help!” laughed Stan. “And Nevens will never know the mast on another boat!”
All day they had kept a weather eye open for gray speedboats running in from Point Zenith, but none came till about supper time. By that time, as they were about to go below for a meal, having got the Staghound away from the wharf on a high tide, and anchored some distance out in the harbor after the judicious use of a pair of oars for forced sculling, they were not surprised to see what they had expected!
Round the point roared a speedboat, humming softly into the harbor. The boys ducked below and peered out the cabin ports watching the boat circle around. Would the men in that boat recognize the Staghound? But they need not have had any fear for, without her short mast, and her bowsprit and without her black sides and the name on her stern, the old Water Witch was a strange object, just another white yacht!
“Don’t see them!” came a familiar voice and the gray boat hummed right past the Staghound!
It was Dago, sitting in the bow seat of that runabout, a worried frown on his far from handsome face! Stan could not suppress a gleeful chuckle.
“How I’d like another pot shot at you, Mr. Dago!” cried Stan, softly.
John was grinning like a cat.
“Me too. Tamp me down with a ten-pound weight!”
They watched the boat disappear around the point again, and then gave sighs of delighted relief. They ate with gusto, cracking jokes, and figuring the size of mast and area of sail needed for the revamped sloop. The rough estimate of money involved was a bit staggering but they had a large sum of reward money due from the Hogan case and knew that Mr. Sandborn would insist on lending them enough to take care of the present need. After supper, their figures in hand, as near as they could tell, they went to bed to get a few hours’ sleep.
As they lay in their bunks Stan spoke of the Sea Hawk, the yacht they had seen in the cove.
“The Sea Hawk figured in several rum-running cases, John,” he explained, “and got out of them through technicalities. Fitted out as a yacht in every way, she can still carry a load of anything illegal that the underworld might want to transport or sell! I wonder who owns her now and why she was at Black Cove. Does Nevens own her?”
John grunted.
“Don’t ask me riddles, to-night, Skipper. Blast my tenpins and sing out when the whales breach—but I’ll be glad when this case is solved!”
“And why the salvage job in Black Cove, divers, night work? What ship was she? What is still aboard her?”
“All I know, Stan, is that Dago is a bad actor, and Mr. Nevens is no better than he should be! Think of that secret laboratory, his aquariums, his underground passages, all his electrical devices! And none of his boats seem to show riding lights or running lights at night!”
“Since the law requires running lights when under way——”
“We didn’t show running lights ourselves last night, Stan,” John remarked, interrupting.
“That’s right, and well we didn’t, for they’d have found us sooner!”
“Anyhow, Nevens’ boats break the law all the time, it seems, and that alone is an indication of criminal guilt!”
“You’re right, John. I know this much—we’re on the trail of something big, and it ought to be out in the open before long when the G-men get on the trail!”
They went to sleep after that, and the alarm woke them late that night. They up-anchored, and sculled into the town pier; then they moored the Staghound securely, locked the cabin slide tightly, and hurried through the dark streets bound for Centerport. The last street car for the night was just leaving the tiny depot when they boarded it, and it bore them swiftly towards their home city, about ten miles away.
They alighted from the car at the center, and hurried homeward through the deserted streets.
“Nevens will stop at nothing to get us, John,” Stan said, as they got near home. “So don’t be surprised if some one is hanging around outside my house! He could locate our homes from the street directory and plant watches ’round them. We’ll have to get in by a roundabout way!”
This they did, going to Stan’s home first, coming to the house through a back street and over the back fence, quietly, and being admitted by Mrs. Sandborn. She was, of course, delighted to see her son and his chum; so was Mr. Sandborn, who was reading in comfort by a log fire at the fireplace.
“I’ll call your mother, John,” Stan’s mother said, going to the phone, “and let her know you are here while you and Stan raid the pantry.”
A few minutes later, munching a sandwich, John talked with his folks over the phone, saying he’d drop in for the night in a short while. Then the boys adjourned to Mr. Sandborn’s den where, amidst curious objects of many sorts, ship models, deer horns, and guns, the boys related their many adventures in detail. The good-looking, youngish G-man listened intently, frowning from time to time as they talked and asking many questions. Then they showed him the brass fitting which they had brought with them, the pair of rubber gloves, and a few papers with smudges on them.
“Guess you were right, Stan, no fingerprints on these papers,” said the G-man after a careful study of the smudges. “And this brass fitting is part of the rail of some yacht.”
“Who do you s’pose Mr. Nevens is, Dad?” Stan asked anxiously.
“I’m not sure, but he sounds very like an old time Western bandit known as ‘Cowboy Nevada’! Your description fits him and he has not been seen about his old haunts for several years. It may interest you to know that the F. B. I. wants him for a Federal bank robbery! I guess Mr. Nevens is due for a little investigation! And Dago sort of clinches my opinion because he fits the description of Nevada’s side-kick and companion in crime, ‘Bats Duplisse’—gunman and stick-up artist of the West.”
“What are you going to do, Dad?” Stan asked; “and what do you want us to do?”
“Keep right on with your plans. Finish your re-rigging job on the Water—I mean Staghound—and then go back to the Island. Get some pictures of everything of interest, good clear prints. Get fingerprints of everyone round there, if you can. This cook ‘Wan Ho Din,’ now, might mean something to the F. B. I. if we had a fingerprint to compare with our files. Excuse me a few minutes while I talk with the Chief and see what he says.”
He returned to the den fifteen minutes later after quite a talk on the long distance wires with the Chief in Washington, and his face was serious.
“I’ve been assigned to this case, boys. I’m going to look Porpoise Island over for a while. How and when I may see you again in the next week or so I cannot be sure, of course, but you may see me down there and, unless I speak first, don’t act as though you knew me for, even if we were alone, spies might be watching and listening. In a pinch, I’ll find some way of getting in touch with you, and in the meantime, and at any time, get a message to 27 Eagle Street, in Main Haven, asking for ‘John.’ John is a G-man who runs what appears to be an ordinary grocery store. Actually, he is operating on a case down there and will know what to do in a jam.”
After that, John Tallman went home by a back way to sleep for the night, and Stan hit his own bed with grateful sighs. It had been agreed that both boys would remain at their homes for twenty-four hours, hidden in case Nevens had watchers on the lookout, then the next night they would leave early in the morning so that they could pick up the Marconi mast and new sails at the marine store. The order was to be placed in the morning, and, by paying extra, delivery could be made next day, especially as they could change their sail plan a bit to favor any small Marconi mast which the store might have on hand.
Indeed, next morning Stan was lucky enough to contact the store on a mast in stock and a sail and jib to fit! This was great luck. And furthermore, the delivery was to be made at the wharf in Zenith Village! It now would only be necessary for the boys to be in Zenith to sign for the delivery!
But the day at home was a restless one for both boys. John tinkered in his little workshop down cellar when not eating, and Stan haunted the windows, and read from an adventure magazine between times. His vigilance at the windows was rewarded late that afternoon when he spotted a stranger hovering about the next corner. The man glanced once in a while at the Sandborn home.
The G-man himself had left in the early morning to go on the case, wearing ordinary clothes and carrying his service gun in an armpit holster.
He went by street car to the depot and took a train for Main Haven, arriving there around ten o’clock. Casually, as if merely shopping, he drifted into John’s place. The place was empty of customers at that moment, but he did not relax his attitude as John, smiling, came forward.
“And what can I get you, sir?” asked John, his eyes meeting his “customer’s” with an unspoken question there.
“Nice lettuce you have,” the G-man said, picking up a head, and then continuing in an almost inaudible voice, while examining the vegetable, “New case. Have you received your instructions?”
“Yes, indeed!” rejoined John, winking. “And very fine it is!”
“Good. I’ll have—say, have you any carrots?” Mr. Sandborn remarked, and then added, “Seen anything of Nevens, Nevada, or whatever the name is?”
“No, not yet,” said the grocer, quietly. “But his cook comes in to buy the supplies.”
“Who is he?”
“Just what his name is. Nevens took him on four years ago. I never have seen Nevens himself, but townspeople have, and it sounds a little like Nevada.”
They talked in low tones till a customer came in, apparently interested in the sale of vegetables, and Mr. Sandborn made a few purchases and left. The Chief had already contacted the network of agents all over the country, and concentration would soon begin on Porpoise Island if Mr. Sandborn’s investigations confirmed the boys’ reports.
Having no use for the vegetables he had bought, he left them on one of the back steps in the poorer section of the town, in as inconspicuous a manner as possible, being quite sure no one had seen him do so, and then went about his other business. He asked a hundred innocent questions that forenoon, making notes of everything, mentally, and trying to piece together parts of the facts. He visited the library, the yacht club, and the Sailor’s Snug Harbor, and gathered more facts.
The Sea Hawk was registered in the name of a “Mr. James Fitch, lawyer,” and her port of registry as New York. Some of the facts he learned made him smile, others caused him to whistle in a low tone. And then he saw a gray speedboat pulling into the town wharf at noon.
In it was a trio of men, all three stern faced, all three of medium build and in business suits. The leader appeared to be harder than the other two and smoked cigarettes constantly. They left their boat moored at the wharf and went briskly uptown. Mr. Sandborn hurried to John’s store, slid into the back room, and there opened a small closet door. He removed his jacket and armpit holster and hung them on a peg, taking a stubby revolver from a small shelf and putting that into his pocket instead. Then he put on his jacket again and came out through the store.
He went down to the wharf, and, watching his opportunity, slid open a hatch over a motor in the gray boat, pulled a wire loose, and went back onto the wharf to lounge about. He had not long to wait, for the trio soon appeared, strode briskly down the wharf, and got into the boat.
But the motor would not start and the leader seemed impatient. Again the helmsman tried to start the motor. It sputtered a little but would not run. At once, of course, people began to come along the wharf, attracted by the missing motor. The men seemed anxious to be off. One of them cursed, and another lifted the hoods over the engines and began an examination. His ignorance of marine engines was very apparent, and he utterly overlooked the detached wire. Mr. Sandborn leaned over from the crowd and asked,
“Won’t run?”
For answer the men glared up at the speaker.
“Mind if I try to start her?” queried Mr. Sandborn.
At that the leader frowned.
“If you can get her started right off—come on down and try it!”
Obligingly, Mr. Sandborn stepped down into the boat, and, because he knew something about marine engines, he went about his work with an air of knowledge that was convincing. None of the men and few of the other spectators noticed when he again attached the wire. He made a fuss over an adjustment on another part of the motor and then pronounced her ready to go!
The helmsman stepped on the starter and the motor purred into action, sweetly and powerfully.
“Thanks; what do we owe you?” asked the leader.
“Nothing, unless you know where I kin get a job, Mister,” said the G-man, casually.
The men exchanged looks. The crowd seemed interested and formed a rooting section. Half urged by the mob and mostly by some knowledge of their own, the men told him to seat himself in the bow seat, and the leader promised to see his “boss about a job.”
The gray boat moved swiftly away from the wharf now, bearing a G-man bent on investigating what was to prove one of the most cleverly planned schemes the country has ever known! So stupendous a crime was planned that, had Mr. Sandborn known the facts that morning, he would have stayed ashore and sent in a hurry call for the entire G-man army. Instead he went blithely to his duty, playing the lone hand among that band of super-criminals!
They bore down on Porpoise Island, whizzed through the channel into Black Cove, and purred up to the boat-house and float-stage. And Mr. Nevens himself was coming down the wharf at that moment, smiling a greeting.