Ollie, turning, saw his fishing companion leveling an automatic at his chest. His face was savage and ugly, and he frankly looked like a man who meant what he said.
Obediently, with a sigh, the sheriff of Derby stretched his arms above him. He spoke simply:
“That’s as high as they’ll go.”
Murdock grunted, reached out his left hand, and patted the pockets and armpits and waist of the sheriff.
“All right, you ain’t heeled. Put ’em down. Yeah, put ’em down and sit down here in this seat an’ grab these oars. Then row like hell for your friend Gansvoort’s camp. I gotta get them coins an’ beat it for Canada!”
III
Ollie, putting down his arms, silently exchanged places with the city man. He took the oars and began to row.
“Put some steam into that rowing,” Murdock ordered from where he was sitting in the stern.
“Judas Priest,” said Ollie, as he increased his speed, “then I reckon you’re the feller that robbed all them other camps, eh? Senator Brodhead’s place. Them at Long Lake. The bunch at the Rangeleys!… I—”
“Bright boy, Sheriff,” said the crook. He added, shortly: “Come on, row like your friend all Sal Brookes and the devil. I’ll admit it’s a hot night and I hate to see you overworked, but I gotta get quick action from now on.” He took off his own coat.
Ollie, silently, did as he had been bidden. Peering at Murdock through the darkness, he knew that here was a man who could be classed as dangerous. If crossed in the perpetration of one of his crimes, he would unquestionably shoot. He would shoot to kill, too. Something in his eyes — that were not those of a genial fisherman any more — assured Ollie of that.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later, after Ollie had been steadily pulling across the lake, he nosed the boat up against the wharf in front of the Gansvoort camp:
“Stick that stern around so I can get out first,” ordered Murdock curtly, in a whisper. “Don’t step out till I say so. When you do get out, keep your trap closed.”
He stepped out onto the dock and then motioned for the sheriff to follow suit.
“Tie the boat up. Then walk up to the porch of the camp and call out to your friend Gansvoort. Tell him you were fishing and just thought you’d drop in. I’ll be right behind you with this gat, and if you make one false move I’ll drill you and him both. Savvy?”
Ollie nodded.
“Get goin’,” said Murdock.
Ollie walked to the porch, more sure than ever that he was dealing with a man who would shoot to kill.
“Call out to him now,” whispered the crook presently.
“Hi, Mr. Gansvoort. It’s me, Ollie Bascomb. I was castin’ for bass an’ thought I’d drop off an’ visit for a spell, seein’ that you was prob’ly up fussin’ with your coins.”
“That’s fine, Sheriff. Glad you did. Step right in,” a friendly voice answered, coming through the opened window.
Ollie, pulling open the door, did step in. Murdock, right behind him, saw a thin, bespectacled man bending over a table, a magnifying glass in his hand with which he had apparently been examining a scattering of coins spread out on a green baize cloth.
The crook, at this, briskly moved in behind Ollie and waved his weapon threateningly.
“Stick ’em up again, Sheriff. You stick ’em up, too Gansvoort,” he commanded.
“Sorry, Mr. Gansvoort, better do like he says,” said Ollie, as his own hands went up. “Not my fault. I had to come with him. He’d ’a’ got you anyways, an’ if he’d surprised you alone there might ’a’ been worse trouble.”
“You’re talkin’ sensible, Sheriff,” said Murdock. He added: “Go ahead an’ lift ’em, Gansvoort.”
As the coin collector obeyed instructions, Murdock glanced about the large, comfortably furnished living room. His eye passed by some fine hunting and fishing prints, some superbly mounted moose and deer heads, some equally choice salmon and trout and bass specimens. He saw, only, two ebony cabinets, one on either side of the huge fireplace, on the purple velvet backgrounds of which the collector had started to place some of his coins for permanent display.
“Gansvoort, go over and strip them cabinets. Chuck all the stuff in those two leather cases you carry ’em in I see there on the table. Put all the others on the table in with ’em. Hustle!”
Gansvoort, like his friend the sheriff, apparently decided that the crook was a man who meant business. He walked over to his cabinets and removed the coins he had secured there on metal racks. It was with a slight sigh, though, that he let them trickle through his fingers into the two valises on the table. Finally the job was over and the cases closed, ready for transportation.
“You, Sheriff,” said Murdock, sticking his hand into a hip pocket. “Take this roll of picture wire and bind your pal to that straight-backed chair. Do it right, see. Then you’re gonna row me back to my car. You won’t have to gag him, cause if he lets out one peep while we’re on the way I’ll drill a hole through your bean. Savvy, Gansvoort! One yelp from you in — well, in the next hour, and Bascomb’s a dead bird!”
Gansvoort nodded, not at Murdock, but at Ollie. The latter, knowing that both of them were still completely under the crook’s power, went about the task of binding his friend to the chair with the roll of picture wire. He did a thorough piece of work on it, realizing that it would be folly to try anything else.
“All right, Bascomb. Pick up them cases and let’s blow,” ordered Murdock. “Keep your trap closed, Gansvoort, that’s all. The sheriff ’ll be back in a couple of hours, perhaps mebbe, like he says!”
Ollie, waved at with the automatic, picked up the valises and went through the door without a word. Gansvoort said nothing, either. Murdock, outside, glanced up at the crescent of moon that was coming over the tops of the trees.
“Shake a leg and get in that boat. I want to be up in Canada before daylight.”
The sheriff, once on the dock, untied the rowboat and then placed the coin cases in it.
“Hop in and turn her around stern towards me so I can get into her easy,” snapped the crook.
Ollie did hop. As he hopped, however, he seemed somehow to lose his footing. He plunged from the dock, seemed to try desperately to right himself in midair, and landed in the boat feet first, falling backwards into the bottom of it as he did so. The momentum behind him, the weight of his short and stout body, sent the craft shooting out over the calm surface of the water, a good fifty feet or more.
“Damn you, what you tryin’ to pull?” snarled Murdock, rushing to the edge of the dock and aiming his weapon. “Come back here, you fat sap, or I’ll drill you to hell!”
“Don’t shoot, Mr. Murdock! My soul an’ body, don’t shoot,” cried Ollie. “I’m tangled up in this net an’ line. I’m jest tryin’ to git my bearin’s. I’ll be at them oars in a minute an’ be at the dock for you! Please don’t shoot, Mr. Murdock!”
“Get them oars and hustle back here,” said Murdock.
“I will… I will, Mr. Murdock!”
IV
But Ollie, in presumably trying to disentangle himself from the landing net and line, was searching for the bamboo casting rod and securing the proper grip on it. Finally he succeeded. Then, with the expertness on which the crook had complimented him, he whipped back the rod tip, twisted his body about to face the man on the dock, and made what he knew was to be the most important cast of his life.
Swiftly and silently, with three gangs of treble hooks screwed securely into it, that top-water plug sailed through the air. Ollie, for an agonizing second, thought that he had overshot his mark. Immediately he was reassured, though, for with a relief so great that it literally caused his whole body to tremble, he saw that he had at least won the opening move.