“Sergeant!” Doyle shouted.
There was no answer. That satisfied him perfectly. It was his duty to call for help, but he wanted none. He was a superb swimmer, and even if Traub struck out across the harbor to escape the police dragnet — which was possible for him to do even now — Doyle had the ability to follow. He set out with long strokes, making as little splash as he could, gaining upon the black dot that moved steadily ahead of him, but not so fast as to drive Traub into the refuge of the piers. Doyle figured that the killer was on his way to the hiding place that he had prepared for himself in the event that the crime had no eyewitnesses. If he could be taken there the loot would also be recovered.
Traub had seen Doyle dive. He was aware that he was being pursued, of course; yet, though he swam rapidly, nothing about his progress indicated flight. He was not splashing like a swimmer moving at top speed. Indeed, he seemed to permit Doyle to close the gap between them to about twenty-five yards, for after that distance was attained the detective discovered that he could no longer gain.
They were in easy pistol shot, but neither could see the sights, and Doyle, with only four cartridges left, did not want to fire until there was some one on the piers who could head Traub out into the open water. So late at night, however, all the watchmen seemed to be inside, and the water front in that section consisted of rickety buildings, poorly lighted and policed — the older part of the city, more or less abandoned in favor of the more modern wharves.
For fully ten minutes, during which Doyle estimated that he must have swum a quarter of a mile, the chase paralleled the docks. Then Traub began to angle in, and suddenly his head disappeared under the piling of a cluster of sheds which were without a single light, and beneath which the darkness was thick as soot.
Doyle’s head would still be outlined by the surface glimmer. It would be a superb target. He realized it, but nevertheless, he pressed on. Cartridges that have been immersed in water are not too reliable. He could fire at Traub’s flash if the killer missed. The break would be more nearly even than anything he had had yet.
Nevertheless, he gasped with relief when he passed from the open into a darkness that seemed to press on his eyeballs, only to curse under his breath a second afterward.
Traub was — where? The tide went slup slup against the piles, covering all sounds of the movements of a swimmer. Bullets were not the only weapons the murderer possessed. If he had a gas mask that would protect him against his own poison bombs — well, if he had, reflected Doyle grimly, it was always possible to swim away under water at the first whiff of the peach odor. Since he couldn’t possibly find Traub in this game of blind man’s buff the thing to be done was to summon help. Doyle shook the water out of his revolver and pulled the trigger. The cartridge exploded. So far, so good. Some one would hear that.
“Help! Police!” he shouted, grinning to himself at the noise he made. He was bawling like a citizen after a holdup. Calling for help might be sensible, but from sheer embarrassment Doyle could not keep it up. Any one within hearing would have heard him, anyhow.
There was no answering shout. The tide went slup slup against the piling.
Nevertheless Doyle’s efforts had a result, though one he had not anticipated. Not twenty feet away the beam of a flash light stabbed down through an open trap door. Doyle caught sight of a slimy ladder rising from the water for a distance of above five feet to the floor of the sheds overhead before the flash light beam found him.
He dodged behind a pile just as a pistol exploded and a bullet splashed water where his head had been. Before he could return the shot, the flash light was snapped off.
“Going to fight, huh?” Doyle whispered delightedly. Dark or not he could find that ladder now. No use to waste precious ammunition in the hope of summoning help that might not come. Instead, he worked his way toward the ladder. He was close to it when he stopped, appalled at his folly. No sucker had ever sucked down bait so eagerly. Of course Traub had revealed himself — to shut Doyle up! He was waiting up there unhampered by the water, to make the shutting up permanent.
For perhaps a minute the detective remained motionless. Traub had lured him to this spot deliberately, and yet, being here, if he retreated the killer would escape — might be escaping even now by some way of his own through that jumble of unlighted sheds overhead. Doyle shrugged and swam ahead, though now that he was aware of the danger he moved far more cautiously. If he made any noise that could not be mistaken for that of the tide once he was under the ladder, there would be a blinding flash of light into his eyes, the crash of a pistol, and curtains for Mr. Terence Doyle, late of the Eighteenth Seattle Precinct.
There had been three piles between him and the ladder. Already he had passed two. He held his breath and floated rather than swam on his back, his revolver ready, his feet dragging, propelling himself by paddling with one hand held at his hip. Very gently his head touched a bar of wood parallel with the water. The ladder.
Once his hand was on the lowest rung, however, it took all his courage to lift himself out of the water. The snap had not been shut. He could shoot at the flash of the light. In a sense he would have an even break, except for the difficulty of climbing with a revolver ready to shoot instantly. Yet to his overstrained senses each drop of water that fell from his body made distinct splash. He held his breath. Not a sound. No! That was a breath — and the faint hiss of it was almost in his ear!
Doyle froze on the ladder. His adversary was within arm’s length, waiting to locate him by the sounds of his advance!
For a long time Doyle clung to the slippery ladder, gun levelled, holding on with one hand. His muscles began to ache. To hang there longer was impossible. Retreat was as likely to betray his position as an advance. He held his breath, straightened his body, and slowly reached upward into the darkness, waving his gun in wider and wider circles.
There was a click of steel against steel. His revolver had touched a pistol that also groped in the dark for contact with his body.
Flame streaked the darkness. Involuntarily Doyle also pulled trigger. He dropped his weapon and lunged upward, snatching at the pistol flash. He caught a wrist, hurled it sidewise. The flash of the second pistol shot burned his face as he let himself fall from the ladder. Gripping his enemy’s wrist as he was, Doyle’s weight jerked the killer through the trap. As they struck the water the detective’s left hand found the throat.
They sank deep, yet though Doyle’s lungs were bursting his only emotion was a fierce joy that the other would drown too. Nothing would have broken his grip. He was kicked, till he caught his enemy’s legs with his own. Then he held tight.
A fist beat at his face, but the water robbed the blows of their sting. Grimly Doyle clung, saving his breath. The pair rose, but very slowly. Doyle caught a mouthful of air and shoved himself under the water again. When air in his lungs brought him to the surface the second time his prisoner struggled no longer.
Chapter IX
Doyle Thinks
Doyle got his shoulder beneath the unconscious prisoner. With the last of his strength he managed to climb the ladder and dump his burden on the floor of the shed. He found the flash light in Traub’s hip pocket, and with this located an electric light, which he turned on. One bag of registered mail lay beside the open trap. Otherwise the shed was empty, but the trail of Traub’s wet feet was printed clear on the dusty floor. The tracks led out through a door in the front of the shed, and back again. Beside the door was a wet patch, as though the killer had stood waiting at the point for some time.