“Is it just a coincidence or is there anything funny in the fact that all four of these men were big figures in the munition business out here?”
Campbell took his feet down from the table and I started scratching my-head as this new angle soaked in. They were in the munition business — all four of them — but who — how — what connection was there between that fact and their mysterious disappearances? Neither Campbell nor myself are particularly quick thinkers. We sat silently, waiting for Brierly to go on.
“Why did these men come out here?” he asked. “Was this place advertised for rent? No. Very few people knew anything about it and you know that Stanwood refused several pretty good offers from people who did know, but whom he didn’t want out here for some reason or other. Some people asked to come and were allowed to do so. We know who they were and know that they paid well for the privilege. They got back all right and told some of their friends about the place.
“But how did these missing men get out here? Tell me that.”
I turned to Campbell. He had done most of that end of the investigation and I was not quite sure of this angle of the case myself.
“Stanwood invited them,” he answered.
“Sure of that?” asked Brierly.
“Positive. He urged all four of them to come. Why? What the devil are you driving at anyway?”
For answer, Brierly leaped from his chair and ran softly from the room over to the bedroom wing of the house. He opened the door into the hall noiselessly and disappeared for a moment.
“It’s all right,” he reported as he resumed his seat. “Stanwood’s in his room, reading.”
“What of it?” Campbell wanted to know.
“Just that we’ve got to make sure that he stays there or some place else where we can find him when we want him,” was the reply. “Go tell Corrigan to keep an extra eye open and then hustle back here.”
We smoked in silence until Campbell came back and Brierly was ready with a new line of questions. He was a man who thought a lot and let his thoughts sort of simmer in his head until they jelled. Then he was ready to talk and when he talked it was to some purpose.
“Who is Stanwood?” he demanded.
“Englishman,” I answered. “Sort of upper-class servant. Has worked for Plainfield for years. Gambles, drinks and runs with women when the boss isn’t here.”
“How do you know he’s English?”
“Well, I don’t,” I admitted. “But he’s been accepted as English here and over in Canada for a long time. Talks about England and all that sort of thing.”
“Humph,” grunted Brierly. “Remember that Austrian chap we rounded up after he blew up that ship in Seattle harbor last month? What was his name?”
“Good-looking, well educated chap,” I muttered. “Why it was — Stan — Stan—,” and I turned to Campbell, who had made the arrest.
“Goshamighty, Stanwich,” Campbell exploded.
“Exactly,” said Brierly, with an air of great satisfaction. “Stanwich. And do you remember that our friend inside there showed a particularly keen interest in that case and that he was asking about it only this morning?”
“Yes,” I nodded; “but what possible connection is there between that and this case here?”
“Just this,” said Brierly, slowly and distinctly: “I’ve a lot more than a hunch that our friend is no more English than Song Chin, that his name is Stanwich and not Stanwood, that these two men are either brothers or cousins and both on the same job.”
“You mean—?” I asked.
“I mean that the fellow in jail down in Seattle destroys munition ships and the fellow in here destroys munition makers and that they both work for the same boss. These four men were all munition makers and Stanwood either murdered them or knows how they were murdered.”
It was a little too much for me and I sat still, thinking hard. Campbell started up and made for the hall door, but Brierly halted him.
“What are you going to do?” he called.
“Sweat it out of the devil,” he answered.
Brierly shook his head.
“Can’t be done,” he said. “He’s too deep for that. There’s a trap in this house some place and we’ve got to find it.” Then he turned to me. “What was that again you thought you saw on the side of the cliff?”
I explained again and we waited for Brierly. He was senior man and besides had the clearest head in the party and we readily agreed as he outlined his plan.
“Campbell,” he said, “you and Corrigan go through the king’s bedroom again. It’s the most likely place and that’s where the girl says Adams disappeared with a scream. Mac, I hate to ask you to do it, because I know how dangerous it is, but you’re the best boatman and we ought to know what that thing is you saw. I’ll relieve Corrigan outside and think things over.”
V
Campbell and Corrigan went at their job at once, but I had to wait for the next ebb tide, and before I left I made sure that one man at least would be on the edge of the cliff with a coil of rope in case things went wrong. I knew there wasn’t much chance for a capsized man among those rocks, but if I did hit trouble a rope was the only possible chance for my life.
I couldn’t find an Indian anywhere about the place. I think they had an idea I might want to go out there again. And so I had to go alone in a lighter canoe. The sea was a little smoother than before, or rather a little less rough. You couldn’t call it smooth at all. I crept in closer and closer, while Campbell watched from the top of the cliff. I didn’t dare use the glasses because the paddle took both hands, but I found the spot I had seen and kept my eyes on it. Plainer and plainer it grew as I edged toward it and I let out a whoop of satisfaction as I saw a narrow opening in the rock.
I waved an arm at Campbell and turned my head to make sure of the back track through the surf when I saw a big comber almost on top of me. I don’t know where it came from. They happen that way sometimes. But it was coming all right and I would have said my prayers if I had had time. It caught the little canoe like a barrel at the crest of Niagara, and in a huge surge of water and blinding spray, I dashed straight at the cliff.
I didn’t guide the canoe. God, or somebody else did that. But the next thing I knew, I flew between jagged rocks that scraped the sides of the canoe and then with a sickening lurch and a flop I slid into quiet water, twilight and then darkness. I had hit the fissure in the rocks and was inside a huge cave.
Two or three minutes later I had managed to pull myself together enough to look about. I was shivering more from the shock of being alive than anything else. But I managed to find matches and scrambled out into the shallow tide pool. I couldn’t see any roof about me, but I threw pebbles as high as I could without striking anything and when I shouted I decided from the sound that it must be mighty high. I had slid in about fifty feet and, lighting one match after another, I felt my way back into the darkness to see what was there.
Only a few steps had I taken when I came to a wall, which I could see was a sort of a shelf about twenty feet high, and climbed it. There on the rocky floor was the solution of our mystery, if not the key to it.
Four bodies. Four dead men twisted and broken as they fell to their death from far above. Adams, Hunt, Terwilliger and the boss’s friend, I had not a doubt, but I did not stop to make sure. My last match was in my fingers and I had some job ahead if I were not to join them.
Scrambling down the wall I splashed toward the sunlight at the mouth of the cave where the surf still boiled about the jagged rocks. To swim through it was impossible. My only chance was to find a pinnacle I could climb and trust to Campbell and his rope. Fortunately, there was one a few feet out of the opening, and, watching for a calmer moment, I leaped and caught it in my arms and clung there drenched and lacerated but above the pull of the receding waves.