O’Hara rose and gazed at him solemnly.
“Want to arrest you for the murder of R. J. Conlin,” he said sternly.
Chapter XVII
The Federals Shake a Leg
In Washington, D. C., there is a building which houses the Department of Justice, and in one section of this building is located the Prohibition Unit. The head of the prohibition department was in conference with the director of enforcement in New York and with the commander of the coast guard.
While the business of this unit is to see that the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution as interpreted by the Volstead Act is enforced impartially from Alaska’s icy shores to Florida’s sunny strands and at all way stations between, its officers are practical men or they would not hold down political jobs.
Being perfectly aware that the task set them is impossible and would be impossible if they had twenty times as large an enforcement appropriation and fifty times as many persons on the payroll, they endeavor to give the presumptive dry majority a run for its money by concentrating their efforts and striking at points where their energies will be reported spectacularly in the newspapers.
Reading of the activities of the prohibition unit as exploited in the papers, the conscientious prohibitionist is lulled into thinking that the law is being enforced and it won’t be long before the country will be all dried up.
So now let us listen in on the conference.
“Tim Moriaty is on board Peabody’s yacht, the Huelva, in Nantucket Harbor,” said the director in New York. “That means that something big is about to happen on Nantucket or Cape Cod and we have a chance to nab the Huelva and Moriaty red-handed.”
“I’d like to get Moriaty,” said the prohibition head. “He would look well in stripes at the next bench in Atlanta to Al Capone.”
He turned to the commander of the coast guard. “How much stuff is run in at Nantucket?” he asked.
“Plenty. You see the waters around Nantucket are very dangerous. There are any number of shoals and reefs, fogs are frequent, transatlantic liners are continually passing and God help the coast guard boat running without lights if she crosses the path of one of them. We do the best we can, of course.”
“But conditions must be just as unfavorable for the rum runners.”
“They take the same chances, of course, but fog always helps a fugitive more than a pursuer. Besides the island contains scores of inlets which are unguarded and we never know which has been chosen to land the stuff. Once ashore it’s up to the prohibition officers, and there aren’t enough of them.”
“We can hardly assign a big crew to an island with about 2,500 inhabitants.”
“Very well. They ship the stuff to the main land practically unmolested. And since Massachusetts repealed her dry law we get no help from state or local police. The game there hasn’t been worth the candle.”
“That’s true,” admitted the New York director eagerly, “but at this moment, because of the atrocious murders, Nantucket is very much in the public eye. A Nantucket development will make the front page of any newspaper. Of course these killings were done by bootleggers; anyway the public thinks they were. The time is ripe for a big demonstration at Nantucket. If we can get the goods on Moriaty, so much the better. Now, I’ll be glad to Ioan half my force. I’ll accompany my men in person—”
The coast guard commander smiled. “I believe there are not fifty thousand speakeasies in New York — only twenty-two thousand by your recent chart.”
“It would take a million men to dry up New York. Fifty men will pull this coup on Nantucket,” replied the New Yorker, unperturbed.
“The presence of Moriaty on his yacht there indicates something very big,” said the Head, thoughtfully. “Admiral, suppose you concentrate the biggest fleet you can collect off the coast of Cape Cod. Strip other stations temporarily. I’ll have a band of agents ashore in Nantucket to give you every cooperation. If this yacht Huelva should be discovered in a compromising situation, she ought to be sunk and if Moriaty went down with her, it would be the best thing that could happen to the country. While we can’t touch the fellow, he has a criminal career which is a standing reflection upon American police methods.”
“I’ll send code orders right away.”
“I’m afraid they know our code,” replied the Head. “Make the mobilization for a couple of days off and send sealed orders to commanders whom you know you can trust. And keep off the radio. They intercept and translate more of our code messages than we do of theirs.”
“Very good, sir.”
Within the next twenty-four hours more than a score of the swiftest and best armed coast guard cutters and motor craft put to sea with sealed orders, and after opening them turned their prows toward Nantucket and Cape Cod. And the boat from New Bedford and Woods Hole began to land young men in flannels and golf clothes who scattered around to the various hotels in Nantucket and ’Sconset and caused a flutter in those caravansaries where the young women outnumbered the young men from four to ten to one.
Even when the girls saw some of the new arrivals eating with their knives, they were not completely disillusioned. Many a husband has been taught how to eat properly after he was married.
Chapter XVIII
The Killer Strikes Again
“You must be crazy,” said Jack Billings when O’Hara had announced his intention of arresting him for murder.
“No, sir,” replied O’Hara. “You had the opportunity and the motive, and that trial of yours in Chicago isn’t going to do you any good. You killed R. J. Conlin and you might as well confess it.”
Billings laughed angrily and seated himself on the bed.
“You’re bluffing, O’Hara,” he said. “And you haven’t a scrap of evidence. In the first place Conlin isn’t dead. I read the story in the New York papers about the failure of his firm and how he vanished Saturday morning from the Pennsylvania Hotel. As I have been on the island since Friday, it’s obvious that I didn’t kill Mr. Conlin.”
“You was on the island Thursday,” said O’Hara.
“Friday. I came over on the boat from Woods Hole which arrived at noon.”
“You came over Thursday in an airplane and you went back to the mainland on that plane after you killed Conlin and the three servants,” replied Dan.
“You’ll have a fine time proving that,” retorted Billings contemptuously. “Have you been drinking, O’Hara?”
“I’ve had a drink, Jack,” he replied. “I know where you got the airplane and where it is now. You came here secretly Thursday night.”
Billings shrugged his shoulders. “If I did,” he answered, “what has that to do with the murder of Conlin — if he has been murdered, which I don’t believe.”
O’Hara rose and turned on the light. “Don’t want you to murder me in the dark,” he replied. “Now Jack, Conlin never went to the mainland. He was lured to the Rapidan-Sears house and killed and then his face was smashed to avoid recognition. This woman who was in it with you, and some stooge signed Conlin’s name to the register in New Bedford and you got some pal to sign his name to the register at the Pennsylvania the next night. I got a line on the dame. She’ll be locked up within twenty-four hours.”
“You interest me strangely,” said Billings. “Proceed, Philo Vance.”
“Where you was up against it,” continued O’Hara, “was when Mrs. Conlin got scared on account of the murders and wired New York to tell her husband she was coming home. You didn’t expect her to find out he was missing until the body was buried. So you had to swipe the body out of the undertaking shop in Nantucket.”