Bradley rubbed his eyes. There had never been a bridge across Little Moose, and never would be. What was he seeing — or did he just think he saw’ it? Had that crack on the head knocked something loose in his brain, perhaps, and made him a victim of delusions?
He still saw the headlights, though, after the eye-rubbing and the question. The only difference was that they had changed direction. They no longer came toward him but were casting their beam down the lake. The white shaft kept on turning until it was lighting the woods across Little Moose and another light was facing him, a light not nearly so bright; a red light, this one.
Straining his eyes, Bradley could just make out two letters on the metal plate on which the red light shone. The letters were “N Y,” and that was enough for him. He was sane, and the water-voyaging automobile out there wasn’t even an optical illusion. It was an explainable fact. As he congratulated himself on that heartening assurance, the headlights were snuffed out.
Bradley drew a deep breath. Thanks to his brief glimpse of the license plate, he knew now what was doing.
He went back along the veranda and tried the door. It was unlocked. A swift glance around the big room revealed half a dozen likely hiding places; the best of all would be one of those curtained alcoves into which the bunks were built.
His strategy would be different now, bagging his men a lot easier. He’d have no window-sill to negotiate after he’d revealed himself, but could have his quarry under observation-from the instant of their entrance and pick his moment for making his presence known.
The hard gasp of a struggling motorboat engine reached him above the clatter of the gathering storm when he had made his survey and his decision. He peered out a window that looked on the lake, cautiously parting the dark curtains that would show no shadow on the far side. A launch was slowly fighting its way to the little dock below the bungalow, towing what looked like a big bathing raft.
Bradley saw the launch tie up at the dock, saw then that there were only two men in it. They set the raft adrift, for a space watched it until it had been carried close onto the shingle, and then started up toward the bungalow.
When they opened the door, Bradley was out of sight in his alcove. Dutch Gompert and the Crow — nobody else.
He gave them time to throw off their mackinaws; time beyond that to pour and down a drink from the whiskey bottle on the long table. Then the little metal rings tinkled along the suspending wire as he swept back the curtain. Gompert and the Crow wheeled at the sound. They stood rooted, silent, Dutch frozen with amazement, his bony satellite livid with terror.
“Oh, my God!” screamed the Crow. “Look, Dutch, look! Do you see it?”
Bradley hadn’t drawn his pistol. Against men paralyzed, as these men were, he didn’t have to.
“Hello, Dutch!” he greeted calmly. “What’s happened to your friends from New York?”
Chapter V
The Kite’s Tail
A wheezy gasp of relief came from the dope-soaked Crow when Bradley’s voice had revealed him to be a living man and not an avenging spirit. Beside him, Dutch Gompert mopped a face suddenly moist and plumped his weight down at the edge of the home-built table. Neither spoke.
“This must be quite a surprise,” Bradley suggested. “You hear, one minute, that I’ve got a lily in my hand. Next minute, here I am!”
Gompert’s bewilderment was evolving into rage. His face reddened.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he snarled. “You’ve got your nerve, breaking into a place like this!”
“Didn’t break in — I walked in,” Bradley countered, placid. “Walked in to get a little information. You had some visitors here a short time ago, Gompert. I want to find out where they are.”
“Visitors? Here?” Gompert swiveled. “Hear that, Crow? Remember seeing any visitors?”
“That’s a laugh,” said the Crow. “There ain’t been nobody here but us.”
“I mean,” Bradley said, “the people who came up in that red roadster.”
“What red roadster?”
“The one you just got rid of.”
That brought guilty eyes furtively together.
“You’re talking Choctaw,” Dutch Gompert complained.
“I’ve been here quite a while — and I’ve got eyes,” Bradley told him. “I saw you take an automobile out on the lake, on a raft. You towed back the raft, but not the automobile. Now I’ve got an idea where a few other cars went just when I was ready to grab them — and you.”
Gompert burst out with a too loud laugh. “Say, grayback, you didn’t see as much as you think you did! What car do you suppose that was? I dumped one, sure. I’m not denying that. There ain’t any reason why I should. It was a piece of old junk that’s been standing around here until I got tired of looking at it.”
Bradley grinned. “Yes? Well, the car you took out in the lake and didn’t bring back had this year’s license plates on it — New York license plates. Isn’t that a fact?”
“You’re telling me,” Gompert came back after a pause.
“You bet I am,” agreed Bradley. “And I’ll tell you something else, Gompert. That car was the same red roadster that Scudder came here in!”
The cigarette which the Crow had just lighted dropped from his fingers to the floor.
“Scudder!” he cried.
The side glance that Gompert darted at him was freighted with a promise of future reprisal for that slip. He did what he could to cover it.
“Who’s Scudder?” he demanded.
“Tom Scudder,” Bradley said. This was the time to put it on thick and he proceeded to. “Scudder, alias Stevens, alias a few other things. The Scudder who was indicted with you in New York in that whiskey withdrawal game. The Scudder who came in the red roadster a while ago and told you he and his friends had just shot up a state trooper with that machine gun they carried in the rumble. That’s the Scudder I’m looking for — and when I get my hands on him, you can lay your bottom dollar, Gompert, that he’s going to be a resident of this commonwealth for a good long stretch. Now, where is he?”
Dutch’s eves blazed. “You go to hell, Bradley!” he grated. “Even if I could tell you anything, do you think I would? Be your age!”
“You will,” Bradley promised. He jerked out the police positive. “Get your hands up, both of you! First I’m going to frisk you and then I’m going to work on you.”
Even up there, Dutch and the Crow were wearing the familiar harness of the city gunman. Each had a shoulder belt under his coat, and a moment later the side pockets of Bradley’s gray tunic were weighted with the snub-nosed pistols he had taken from them.
“The investigating committee is just about to sit, Gompert — and sit hard!” he announced grimly. “Are you going to tell me where Scudder went with those two other mugs, or am I going to bruise the information out of you? Take your choice.”
Dutch Gompert delayed answer. While Bradley was disarming him, his eye had fallen on that tell-tale scrap of paper that might give the whole game away if Bradley got hold of it — Joe Veronalli’s “kite.” Now he had begun inching toward it along the edge of the table. The Crow saw what he was up to and attempted to cover the maneuver by diverting attention to himself.
“Mind if I take a drink, Bradley?” he asked.
He was reaching for the uncorked bottle as he spoke, and with calculated clumsiness tipped it over when his shaking hand touched it.
That by-play had a reverse effect on Bradley from the one intended. It warned him that something was afoot.