“What the hell?” he mumbled. “Put me back on land before I break you into nine pieces.”
I laughed in his face.
“You wanted more of my company,” said I. “Well, you’ve got it. Now roll back in that boat and shut up or I’ll shoot you with your own pistol and drop your damned carcass overboard.”
He passed a hand over his head. It came away covered with blood, and he let his fingers trail idly in the water.
“Blake will have me by the ears for this,” he groaned. “The fool. Why didn’t he keep a better watch on you?”
“What do you want me to do?” I growled. “Weep crocodile tears for you.”
He subsided into the stern of the boat, where he sat watching me with a puzzled frown between his bloodshot eyes. I pulled lustily on the oars for a half an hour before I was rewarded by feeling the boat ram into the soft mud of the shore. I got out first, warning my prisoner to keep his seat, pulled the craft up on the bank and ordered him to stand up.
“Now there’s an interurban line up here about a mile.” I said, “and we’re going to get a car back to the city. Get one thing through your head before we start. I’ll be right beside you with this cannon. One offside motion and you’re all through. Understand?”
Swaying weakly on his feet, the fellow grinned at me and nodded his head,
“Sure, doc, I get you. You mean you’ll drill me if you get an excuse.”
“That’s it,” said I. “Let’s go.” And we moved off. I kept my hand upon the reassuring butt of the automatic.
Chapter XI
Our Hostage
That first gray light that comes just before dawn was in the sky when I marched Blake’s henchman down a side street to the modest flat where Heywood had his bachelor quarters. We made a strange pair, he with his rumpled, baggy clothes and the dried blood upon his square face; I hatless and with a dirty bandage wrapped around my head.
We had come by a devious route, for I had the wits to know that we would be stopped by the first policeman as objects of suspicion. The game would certainly be up if I were caught roaming the streets in company with a criminal and with a loaded pistol in my pocket.
The big young man leaned against the porch railing while I held my thumb upon the bell of Heywood’s place. It seemed like an hour before the window on the second floor flew open and my friend’s head appeared.
“What’s the racket down there?” he demanded.
“Open up, Heywood,” said I. “This is your pal the doctor with excess baggage in the form of one of Blake’s bullies.”
“Thank God,” said Heywood fervently, and slammed the window. In a moment he was at the door, and shortly thereafter we were talking over our pipes, with the prisoner neatly trussed with a clothesline and deposited upon Heywood’s bed.
“I was worried about you, sawbones,” Heywood confessed. “I tracked you as far as Blake’s house and there you disappeared like smoke. I was afraid to call the police and break into the house. Thought I might gum up the works. So I just rocked along, hoping that you would turn up. Well, let’s have it. Who gave you that glorious red, yellow and blue eye?”
I sketched the events of my capture by Blake’s men and of my escape from the mill, hot forgetting what I had learned from the girl in the green dress.
“Barton, then, is our mark,” I concluded. “We must find some way to sew him up and make him give us the details of the conspiracy.”
Heywood shook his head solemnly.
“Not a chance, my friend,” he retorted. “I’ve combed Barton’s life from the age of five to the present age of fifty, and if he’s phony he’s a wizard at covering up. Not one single crooked move have I been able to find.
“Barton is a deacon in the church, a vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, a friend of the needy, a good father and a loving husband. He lives as straight as a string. I’ve given him a good going over, and I’m convinced that we are on the wrong track.”
“We can’t be,” said I stubbornly. “The girl swears he wrote the letter.”
Heywood shrugged.
“She may be fooling you. Suppose she wanted to gain your sympathy. You put Barton’s name in her mouth. Why wouldn’t that line of talk do as well as any other? Suppose she wanted to keep you off the real trail?”
“That is possible,” I admitted, “but hardly probable. Remember, after she told me her story she unlocked the door and let me get away.”
“True. Well, let’s sleep on it. Now, what about the capsule? If it’s in your house we better get it. Blake and his boys are sure to make another try for it.”
“It’s there,” I whispered. “In the inkwell on the big desk in my library. I’ll give you the key and you can get it later.”
“Settled. Next order of business: Who is Blake holding prisoner in the building beside the mill, and why?”
“I give that one up,” said I, and we puffed our pipes and racked our brains, but arrived at no conclusion that sounded reasonable. Finally we turned to other things.
“What about big boy in there?” I asked, waving toward the room where the man lay bound and gagged. “What will we do with him?”
Heywood laughed sourly.
“I’ll show you what to do with that bird. Let him lay there. To-morrow we’ll take his finger-prints and I’ll sneak down to police headquarters and see just who and what he is. If we can get something on him perhaps he’ll loosen up with some real information. That looks like our best bet. Personally, I don’t believe we can make any kind of a case against Barton.”
“I suppose I am allowed to disagree with you?”
“Surely.”
“Well, I do. It is my hunch that Barton is the brains of this whole thing, whatever it may be, and I believe we can find some way to smoke him out.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Heywood good-naturedly. “Let’s turn in and get some sleep.”
We loaded the big young man on a camp cot in the kitchen, and Heywood insisted upon giving me his bed while he bunked on a small couch in the little living room. I was properly grateful, for I was thoroughly exhausted. A moment after I got into the bed I was sleeping a sound, dreamless sleep.
We did not get up until noon. Heywood fried bacon and eggs, while I said good morning to our prisoner and found him in a surly mood. He had recovered somewhat from the blow on the head and, apparently, the realization of the night’s events had not improved his humor. He scowled at me darkly when I untied one of his arms to allow him to eat.
“You’ll pay for this, my friend,” he said. “I’ll make you regret that you ever meddled in this affair.”
“Perhaps,” I admitted cheerfully. “Right now you are the one to regret that you ever got tied up with a pair of dirty crooks like Barton and Blake. What part did you have in the theft of the jewels and in the murder of Copeland?”
“I’m not talking,” said the giant sourly. “Don’t try to question me. You can’t get to first base.”
Heywood turned to us with a frying pan in his hand.
“Oh, you’ll talk all right, my pretty bird,” he assured. “I’ll get all the way around the bases on you and you’ll be damned glad to talk. Here, eat this. The food will be pretty rotten where you are going.”
“What do you mean?” growled the youth. He ignored the plate which Heywood held out to him and stared belligerently at the reporter.
“Eat,” commanded the latter, “before I take this stuff away from you and eat it myself.”
We watched him as he grudgingly ate his meal, then we retied him, took our own food and left the room.
“Did you notice,” said Heywood as we ate, “that the big boy was considerably disturbed when I hinted that he was about to go some place.”