Morgan held a card bearing the familiar symbol. Dollar signs and skulls occupied the first seven spaces as before. In the bottom row, where two had been vacant up to now, the middle space contained a cat-o-nine-tails sketched in ink but unmistakable. The final space was still empty.
“Good night!” Morgan rumbled. “This is foul! We’ve got to get those men and get ’em quick!”
“What’s it mean?”
“It means they’ve turned from murder to torture! There’s no time to lose. How long will it take that raid car to get here?”
“Half an hour. Twenty minutes more, maybe.”
“What time is it now?”
McCoy looked at his watch.
“Just on two.”
“Eh? What? — By Gad, Ross—”
Morgan’s face flamed darkly. Dropping the card, he pounced on the classified telephone directory and slapped through its pages. He sat down with the big book open before his eyes and diligently applied himself to the telephone.
His calls completed, he turned to McCoy.
“Ross! Locate the cops who went to the Belmore last night! Let me talk to ’em!”
McCoy called the nearest police station.
“Here,” he growled. “Here’s the sergeant.”
Morgan put a rapid fire of questions that brought the captain upright in his chair, thanked the sergeant, and replaced the receiver.
“Right under their noses!” he snapped.
“What d’ye mean?”
“McHenry! He’s Brooks. And we let him go. Not a woman was admitted last night to any nursing home in the Bronx. But half an hour after the murder, McHenry wheeled his suffering wife out of the hotel while your cops stood by. The sergeant says her face and hands were bandaged. She’s a he, Ross. The murderer was in that chair.”
“But McHenry came down here to help us! He was up at the dam when Evans was murdered—”
“Not he! Why did he wire for a quiet suite? He knew the one across from the Evans’s was empty. He took it to get Evans. He’s played with us like a pair of kids!”
“You think he got Evans out—”
“In that big trunk the sergeant speaks of!”
“If young Evans has been knocked about—”
“He can stand it!” Morgan snapped. “But they’ve got Dorothy Hearn. She’s a girl, Ross! God knows what we’ll see in that last space—”
“Why?” growled McCoy. “Where’s their motive?”
“Damn the motive. We’ve got to save that girl.”
“There’s nothing to do but go out there—”
“Where? Got any program?”
“See that cop at Mount Vernon. Get a description of the car. Look up our patrols out there. What else can we do?”
McCoy was almost humble.
Morgan dropped his head in his hands. Suddenly he sat up with a shout, grabbed the telephone and called his paper.
Five minutes later he hung up in triumph.
“Ross! Can you get hold of a police boat — to meet us at Yonkers? There’s just a chance—”
“Sure I can. What for?”
“McHenry’s our man. He had to be at the dam every day. How could he strike down here and get back there by morning? And what an alibi! — Only a plane, Ross. But no plane could land in that rough country. He had to have water — and a seaplane. My people looked it up on a big map. There’s a little lake not far above the dam but less accessible. That’s where your murderer went when they lost track of him up there—”
“Still I don’t get the police boat idea—”
“That dark-blue car is up the Hudson somewhere! McHenry’s through at the dam. He’d bring his plane away so it wouldn’t be found there. He has to come down on water. If we go up by water, there’s a chance we may see his plane!”
“Right! But I’m sending that carload of police by road as well. I’m counting on those patrols. If we both have luck, we can take him from both sides—”
Morgan nodded impatiently. McCoy called headquarters, ordered a police boat, told Burke to send out a general order to pick up McHenry, and asked for news.
“Nothing new on the big case, sir,” Burke reported.
“Well, send out an order to watch for a big trunk. McHenry had one with him.”
“A park patrolman found a big trunk in Central Park this morning. No shelves or drawers. Pierced with air-holes—”
“That’s the trunk! Why didn’t they report it to police headquarters at once?”
“They did, captain. You hadn’t mentioned a trunk—”
“That’s right. My fault. Get that police boat started for Yonkers as quickly as possible, will you?”
The Force loved McCoy because he played fair.
Morgan was calling Mount Vernon when they heard the siren of their raid car in the street far below. The motor cycle cop was conscious again and they could see him.
Their progress northward to the Boston Road was a thing of sound and fury. McCoy led in his own car which Hardy drove. The raid car followed. Both sirens blared as they tore through the streets. Morgan was glad to have it so. Any one who saw them would think they were going all the way by road.
At the hospital, McCoy was led at once to the ward where his patrolman lay.
The man looked up with sullen apology in his eyes.
The captain grinned and touched his shoulder.
“Tough luck, Smith. Let’s hear the story.”
Smith lay back and looked his gratitude.
“That girl came out with an elderly man. They took a taxi. I trailed ’em. They stopped uptown a ways and let the taxi go. I watched ’em through a long lobby and took a couple a’ corners in time to see ’em pulling away in a big blue car. That looked fishy — the change and the blue car — but you said just trail ’em. Of course, I got the number.”
He repeated it. McCoy wrote it down.
“Right. Then what?”
“I followed ’em uptown, keeping back. They crossed the Harlem toward Mount Vernon. I closed in a bit. I noticed they was on good terms. The girl had her head on his shoulder.”
Morgan suppressed a groan at this point.
“Well, sir, they turned into a side road that leads over to Yonkers. It winds a lot and I had to close in for fear of losing ’em. I figured they’d take me for a civilian now, anyway. But they must have seen me earlier. I took a curve fast and there was the car pulled up across the road. I hit the front fender. That’s all I remember until I woke up here a while ago.”
“All right,” nodded McCoy, rising. “Anything you need?”
“Not a thing, sir, thanks! I’m sorry—”
“Forget it and get well. Come on, Morgan.”
In a few minutes they were speeding toward Yonkers. There Hardy stopped long enough for Morgan and McCoy to get out, then tore northward again, leading the raid car.
The police boat was waiting. McCoy took command and they shot away up river, putting on speed until a bow wave of clear water hissed high to port and starboard.
Soon after they passed Irvington, Morgan got his companion to pull in and hug the east shore.
The grim walls of Sing Sing swung into sight, rose high above them, slipped past. Suddenly Morgan shouted.
“See that old dock? Pull in closer—”
The wheel was put over. The boat careened as she veered to starboard, nearer the shore. Drawing close, they saw that the wharf was old, belonging to a disused factory.
“Here we are!” cried Morgan. “Look!”
A road dipped down a ravine toward the wharf. At one time it had crossed the railroad lines. Old planking led across the tracks. More recently, the fence that guarded the right of way had been built across the road.
Now something had torn through that fence, flinging its woven wires to left and right. And just clear of the tracks lay a crumpled, dark-blue fender.