XL
DAWN AT THE NORE
The river police seemed to be floating, suspended in the fog, which nowwas so dense that the water beneath was invisible. Inspector Rogers, whowas in charge, fastened up his coat collar about his neck and turned toStringer, the Scotland Yard man, who sat beside him in the stern of thecutter gloomily silent.
"Time's wearing on," said Rogers, and his voice was muffled by thefog as though he were speaking from inside a box. "There must be somehitch."
"Work it out for yourself," said the C. I. D. man gruffly. "We know thatthe office in Globe Road belongs to Gianapolis, and according to theEastern Exchange he was constantly ringing up East 39951; that's thewarehouse of Kan-Suh Concessions. He garages his car next door to thesaid warehouse, and to-night our scouts follow Gianapolis and Max fromPiccadilly Circus to Waterloo Station, where they discharge the taxiand pick up Gianapolis' limousine. Still followed, they drive--where?Straight to the garage at the back of that wharf yonder! NeitherGianapolis, Max, nor the chauffeur come out of the garage. I said, and Istill say, that we should have broken in at once, but Dunbar was alwayspigheaded, and he thinks Max is a tin god."...
"Well, there's no sign from Max," said Rogers; "and as we aren't tenyards above the wharf, we cannot fail to hear the signal. For my partI never noticed anything suspicious, and never had anything reported,about this ginger firm, and where the swell dope-shop I've heard aboutcan be situated, beats me. It can't very well be UNDER the place, or itwould be below the level of the blessed river!"
"This waiting makes me sick!" growled Stringer. "If I understandaright--and I'm not sure that I do--there are two women tucked awaythere somewhere in that place"--he jerked his thumb aimlessly intothe fog; "and here we are hanging about with enough men in yards, indoorways, behind walls, and freezing on the river, to raid the Houses ofParliament!"
"It's a pity we didn't get the word from the hospitals before Max wasactually inside," said Rogers. "For three wealthy ladies to be drivento three public hospitals in a sort of semi-conscious condition, withsymptoms of opium, on the same evening isn't natural. It points to thefact that the boss of the den has UNLOADED! He's been thoughtful wherehis lady clients were concerned, but probably the men have simply beenkicked out and left to shift for themselves. If we only knew one of themit might be confirmed."
"It's not worth worrying about, now," growled Stringer. "Let's have alook at the time."
He fumbled inside his overcoat and tugged out his watch.
"Here's a light," said Rogers, and shone the ray of an electric torchupon the watch-face.
"A quarter-to-three," grumbled Stringer. "There may be murder going on,and here we are."...
A sudden clamor arose upon the shore, near by; a sound as ofsledge-hammers at work. But above this pierced shrilly the call of apolice whistle.
"What's that?" snapped Rogers, leaping up. "Stand by there!"
The sound of the whistle grew near and nearer; then came a voice--thatof Sergeant Sowerby--hailing them through the fog.
"DUNBAR'S IN! But the gang have escaped! They've got to a motor launchtwenty yards down, on the end of the creek"...
But already the police boat was away.
"Let her go!" shouted Rogers--"close inshore! Keep a sharp lookout for acutter, boys!"
Stringer, aroused now to excitement, went blundering forward throughthe fog, joining the men in the bows. Four pairs of eyes were peeringthrough the mist, the damnable, yellow mist that veiled all things.
"Curse the fog!" said Stringer; "it's just our damn luck!"
"Cutter 'hoy!" bawled a man at his side suddenly, one of the riverpolice more used to the mists of the Thames. "Cutter on the port bow,sir!"
"Keep her in sight," shouted Rogers from the stern; "don't lose her foryour lives!"
Stringer, at imminent peril of precipitating himself into the water, wascraning out over the bows and staring until his eyes smarted.
"Don't you see her?" said one of the men on the lookout. "She carries nolights, of course, but you can just make out the streak of her wake."
Harder, harder stared Stringer, and now a faint, lighter smudge in theblackness, ahead and below, proclaimed itself the wake of some rapidlytraveling craft.
"I can hear her motor!" said another voice.
Stringer began, now, also to listen.
Muffled sirens were hooting dismally all about Limehouse Reach, and heknew that this random dash through the night was fraught with extremedanger, since this was a narrow and congested part of the great highway.But, listen as he might, he could not detect the sounds referred to.
The brazen roar of a big steamer's siren rose up before them. Rogersturned the head of the cutter sharply to starboard but did not slackenspeed. The continuous roar grew deeper, grew louder.
"Sharp lookout there!" cried the inspector from the stern.
Suddenly over their bows uprose a black mass.
"My God!" cried Stringer, and fell back with upraised arms as if hopingto fend off that giant menace.
He lurched, as the cutter was again diverted sharply from its course,and must have fallen under the very bows of the oncoming liner, had notone of the lookouts caught him by the collar and jerked him sharply backinto the boat.
A blaze of light burst out over them, and there were conflicting voicesraised one in opposition to another. Above them all, even above thebeating of the twin screws and the churning of the inky water, arosethat of an officer from the bridge of the steamer.
"Where the flaming hell are YOU going?" inquired this stentorian voice;"haven't you got any blasted eyes and ears"...
High on the wash of the liner rode the police boat; down she plungedagain, and began to roll perilously; up again--swimming it seemed uponfrothing milk.
The clangor of bells, of voices, and of churning screws died, remote,astern.
"Damn close shave!" cried Rogers. "It must be clear ahead; they've justrun into it."
One of the men on the lookout in the bows, who had never departedfrom his duty for an instant throughout this frightful commotion, nowreported:
"Cutter crossing our bow, sir! Getting back to her course."
"Keep her in view," roared Rogers.
"Port, sir!"
"How's that?"
"Starboard, easy!"
"Keep her in view!"
"As she is, sir!"
Again they settled down to the pursuit, and it began to dawn uponStringer's mind that the boat ahead must be engined identically withthat of the police; for whilst they certainly gained nothing upon her,neither did they lose.
"Try a hail," cried Rogers from the stern. "We may be chasing the wrongboat!"
"Cutter 'hoy!" bellowed the man beside Stringer, using his hands in lieuof a megaphone--"heave to!"
"Give 'em 'in the King's name!'" directed Rogers again.
"Cutter 'hoy," roared the man through his trumpeted hands,--"heaveto--in the King's name!"
Stringer glared through the fog, clutching at the shoulder of theshouter almost convulsively.
"Take no notice, sir," reported the man.
"Then it's the gang!" cried Rogers from the stern; "and we haven't madea mistake. Where the blazes are we?"
"Well on the way to Blackwall Reach, sir," answered someone. "Foglifting ahead."
"It's the rain that's doing it," said the man beside Stringer.
Even as he spoke, a drop of rain fell upon the back of Stringer's hand.This was the prelude; then, with ever-increasing force, down camethe rain in torrents, smearing out the fog from the atmosphere, as apainter, with a sponge, might wipe a color from his canvas. Long tailsof yellow vapor, twining--twining--but always coiling downward, floatedlike snakes about them; and the oily waters of the Thames becamepock-marked in the growing light.
Stringer now quite clearly discerned the quarry--a very rakish-lookingmotor cutter, painted black, and speeding seaward ahead of them. Hequivered with excitement.
"Do you know the boat?" cried Rogers, addressing h
is crew in general.
"No, sir," reported his second-in-command; "she's a stranger to me. Theymust have kept her hidden somewhere." He turned and looked back into thegroup of faces, all directed toward the strange craft. "Do any of youknow her?" he demanded.
A general shaking of heads proclaimed the negative.
"But she can shift," said one of the men. "They must have been goingslow through the fog; she's creeping up to ten or twelve knots now, Ishould reckon."
"Your reckoning's a trifle out!" snapped Rogers, irritably, from thestern; "but she's certainly showing us her heels. Can't we put somebodyashore and have her cut off lower down?"
"While we're doing that," cried Stringer, excitedly, "she would landsomewhere and we should lose the gang!"
"That's right," reluctantly agreed Rogers. "Can you see any of herpeople?"
Through the sheets of rain all peered eagerly.
"She seems to be pretty well loaded," reported the man beside Stringer,"but I can't make her out very well."
"Are we doing our damnedest?" inquired Rogers.
"We are, sir," reported the engineer; "she hasn't got another oat inher!"
Rogers muttered something beneath his breath, and sat there glaringahead at the boat ever gaining upon her pursuer.
"So long as we keep her in sight," said Stringer, "our purpose isserved. She can't land anybody."
"At her present rate," replied the man upon whose shoulders he wasleaning, "she'll be out of sight by the time we get to Tilbury or she'llhave hit a barge and gone to the bottom!"
"I'll eat my hat if I lose her!" declared Rogers angrily. "How theblazes they slipped away from the wharf beats me!"
"They didn't slip away from the wharf," cried Stringer over hisshoulder. "You heard what Sowerby said; they lay in the creek below thewharf, and there was some passageway underneath."
"But damn it all, man!" cried Rogers, "it's high tide; they must be agang of bally mermaids. Why, we were almost level with the wharf when weleft, and if they came from BELOW that, as you say, they must have beenbelow water!"
"There they are, anyway," growled Stringer.
Mile after mile that singular chase continued through the night. Withevery revolution of the screw, the banks to right and left seemedto recede, as the Thames grew wider and wider. A faint saltiness wasperceptible in the air; and Stringer, moistening his dry lips, noted thesaline taste.
The shipping grew more scattered. Whereas, at first, when the fog hadbegun to lift, they had passed wondering faces peering at them fromlighters and small steamers, tow boats and larger anchored craft,now they raced, pigmy and remote, upon open waters, and through theraindrift gray hulls showed, distant, and the banks were a faint blur.It seemed absurd that, with all those vessels about, they neverthelesscould take no steps to seek assistance in cutting off the boat whichthey were pursuing, but must drive on through the rain, ever losing,ever dropping behind that black speck ahead.
A faint swell began to be perceptible. Stringer, who throughout thewhole pursuit thus far had retained his hold upon the man in the bows,discovered that his fingers were cramped. He had much difficulty inreleasing that convulsive grip.
"Thank you!" said the man, smiling, when at last the detective releasedhis grip. "I'll admit I'd scarcely noticed it myself, but now I cometo think of it, you've been fastened onto me like a vise for over twohours!"
"Two hours!" cried Stringer; and, crouching down to steady himself, forthe cutter was beginning to roll heavily, he pulled out his watch, andin the gray light inspected the dial.
It was true! They had been racing seaward for some hours!
"Good God!" he muttered.
He stood up again, unsteadily, feet wide apart, and peered ahead throughthe grayness.
The banks he could not see. Far away on the port bow a long gray shapelay--a moored vessel. To starboard were faint blurs, indistinguishable,insignificant; ahead, a black dot with a faint comet-like tail--thepursued cutter--and ahead of that, again, a streak across the blackness,with another dot slightly to the left of the quarry...
He turned and looked along the police boat, noting that whereas, uponthe former occasion of his looking, forms and faces had been but dimlyvisible, now he could distinguish them all quite clearly. The dawn wasbreaking.
"Where are we?" he inquired hoarsely.
"We're about one mile northeast of Sheerness and two miles southwestof the Nore Light!" announced Rogers--and he laughed, but not in aparticularly mirthful manner.
Stringer temporarily found himself without words.
"Cutter heading for the open sea, sir," announced a man in the bows,unnecessarily.
"Quite so," snapped Rogers. "So are you!"
"We have got them beaten," said Stringer, a faint note of triumph in hisvoice. "We've given them no chance to land."
"If this breeze freshens much," replied Rogers, with sardonic humor,"they'll be giving US a fine chance to sink!"
Indeed, although Stringer's excitement had prevented him from heedingthe circumstance, an ever-freshening breeze was blowing in his face, andhe noted now that, quite mechanically, he had removed his bowler hat atsome time earlier in the pursuit and had placed it in the bottom of theboat. His hair was blown in the wind, which sang merrily in his ears,and the cutter, as her course was slightly altered by Rogers, ceased toroll and began to pitch in a manner very disconcerting to the lands-man.
"It'll be rather fresh outside, sir," said one of the men, doubtfully."We're miles and miles below our proper patrol"...
"Once we're clear of the bank it'll be more than fresh," replied Rogers;"but if they're bound for France, or Sweden, or Denmark, that's OURdestination, too!"...
On--and on--and on they drove. The Nore Light lay astern; they weredrenched with spray. Now green water began to spout over the nose of thelaboring craft.
"I've only enough juice to run us back to Tilbury, sir, if we put aboutnow!" came the shouted report.
"It's easy to TALK!" roared Rogers. "If one of these big 'uns gets usbroadside on, our number's up!"...
"Cutter putting over for Sheppey coast, sir!" bellowed the man in thebows.
Stringer raised himself, weakly, and sought to peer through the drivingspray and rain-mist.
"By God! THEY'VE TURNED--TURTLE!"...
"Stand by with belts!" bellowed Rogers.
Rapidly life belts were unlashed; and, ahead, to port, to starboard,brine-stung eyes glared out from the reeling craft. Gray in the nascentdawn stretched the tossing sea about them; and lonely they rode upon itsbillows.
"PORT! PORT! HARD A-PORT!" screamed the lookout.
But Rogers, grimly watching the oncoming billows, knew that to essay themaneuver at that moment meant swamping the cutter. Straight ahead theydrove. A wave, higher than any they yet had had to ride, came boilingdown upon them... and twisting, writhing, upcasting imploring arms tothe elements--the implacable elements--a girl, a dark girl, entwined,imprisoned in silken garments, swept upon its crest!
Out shot a cork belt into the boiling sea... and fell beyond herreach. She was swept past the cutter. A second belt was hurled from thestern...
The Eurasian, uttering a wailing cry like that of a seabird, strove tograsp it...
Close beside her, out of the wave, uprose a yellow hand,grasping--seeking--clutching. It fastened itself into the meshes of herfloating hair...
"Here goes!" roared Rogers.
They plunged down into an oily trough; they turned; a second wave grewup above them, threateningly, built its terrible wall higher and higherover their side. Round they swung, and round, and round...
Down swept the eager wave... down--down--down... It lapped overthe stern of the cutter; the tiny craft staggered, and paused,tremulous--dragged back by that iron grip of old Neptune--then leapedon--away--headed back into the Thames estuary, triumphant.
"God's mercy!" whispered Stringer--"that was touch-and-go!"
No living thing moved upon the waters.