“Not Sailor,” decided Cardona. “but this fellow may do some talking when he comes to. Dory says Sailor started the battle. It must have been with this guy.
A policeman passed Joe a slip of paper, stating that he had found it in the unconscious man’s pocket.
Cardona read a name and address.
“What’s this doing here?” he asked aloud. “Name of Caleb Wesdren, Hotel Marrington. This guy must know somebody important, who lives at the Marrington. Unless he was figuring on making trouble up there. Get the Marrington; tell them I want to talk to Mr. Wesdren.”
The sergeant put in the call. Meanwhile, two plainclothes men sauntered into the lieutenant’s room. They were the ones who had slugged the dark-faced man. They seemed pleased with their accomplishment.
The sergeant completed the call. He handed the telephone to Cardona. The detective spoke briskly. The others heard his words.
“DETECTIVE CARDONA, of police headquarters,” announced the ace. “We just raided a dive on the waterfront, Mr. Wesdren. Brought in prisoners. One had your address in his pocket… What’s that? Oh, yeah… That’s right… Dark face… Looks like it was dyed, all right… Yeah… What’s that? Say, you don’t mean—”
“Why certainly, Mr. Wesdren… Absolutely… Yes, I’ll bring him right up… You’ll call the senator?… Good… Don’t worry. He’ll be all right.”
Cardona hung up and turned to the plainclothes men, who greeted him with wise grins. One of them offered a husky question.
“Well?” asked the dick. “Is this the mug you want? Sailor Martz?”
“No,” retorted Cardona, “but he’ll tell us plenty about Sailor. Which one of you slugged him?”
“Clancy did. He was the first to get to him.”
“Did he put up much of a fight, Clancy?” demanded Cardona.
“Didn’t give him no chance,” was the reply. “He was beatin’ up a guy that was wounded, so I piled in on him. Morey here helped me.”
“And the other fellow? The wounded man?”
“Don’t know what happened to him.”
Joe Cardona fumed.
“That was Sailor Martz,” he growled. “The guy we wanted. The wounded man, I mean.”
“But we got this bird.”
“Sure you got him — and can you guess who he is?”
Heads shook as Cardona paused. Emphatically, the ace detective added a statement, from information that he had just gained from Caleb Wesdren.
“This fellow you slugged,” he stated, “was smart enough to get in ahead of us. He was clever enough to grab the bird we wanted. He’d have handed Sailor Martz to us, if you’d let him,”
Joe stopped to gesture toward the unconscious man upon the couch. His final words, sarcastically directed toward the plainclothes men, served also as a belated introduction.
“This gentleman,” declared Cardona. “was working in disguise. He is Vic Marquette, of the United States Secret Service.”
CHAPTER IV. THE LOST TRAIL
ALL had quieted on the waterfront. The departure of clanging patrol wagons had left this area to the envelopment of the fog. River whistles still persisted with their blasts but human tumult had completely died.
Raiding police had swooped in and carried out their prey; all traces of that episode had passed. Yet there was evidence of an aftermath to the short battle; traces that led away from Dory Halbit’s deserted dive.
A light was glimmering upon the roughened timbers of a pier. A tiny glow, the little flashlight cast a concentrated disk that was concealed by the form above it. The Shadow was following a trail that he had picked up after the departure of the police.
A splotch of blood showed beneath the light. It was not the first mark of its kind that The Shadow had discovered. Through alleyways, past lurking spots, he had continued along his path, seeking the course that a wounded man had followed. The Shadow was close behind Sailor Martz.
The trail was not an easy one. Blood stains on cobbles, sidewalks, timbers, were infrequent in their intervals. They were tokens of times that Sailor Martz had paused in crippled flight. Where Sailor had lost ground because of his wound, The Shadow, too, had encountered handicaps.
For Sailor’s course had been a zigzag one; and each blood splotch had demanded a surrounding search before the next could be discovered. Yet The Shadow had made gains. He could tell that from his inspection of the newer bloodstains.
Here, on the timber of the pier, the roughened wood should have absorbed the crimson fluid, despite the dampening influence of the fog. The splotch, however, was fresh. Sailor Martz had passed this spot only a few minutes ago.
Blinking out his light, The Shadow stared through the enveloping mist. Even to his hawkish gaze, the blackened atmosphere was impenetrable. Yet The Shadow sensed that he had neared the end of a trail.
Splotches of blood had been more frequent. They were larger than before. Sailor Martz must be nearly through.
That fact meant that his detour to this pier had not been a blind one to cover up a trail. Sailor had used such tactics after leaving Dory’s dive. Realizing that he could hold out no longer, the foiled assassin had straightened from his zigzags. Instead of pursuing a circling search, The Shadow moved outward through the blackened fog. He wanted to learn what was at the end of this pier. There, perhaps, would be quickly gained evidence of Sailor’s whereabouts.
Husky whistles seemed to bellow a welcome from the channel as The Shadow neared the end of the pier. Then came a silence of those blasts. The Shadow caught new sounds, faint ones. Mingled with the slight lapping of pier-nibbling wavelets was the groan and scrape of wood against wood.
Stooping, The Shadow ran a gloved hand along the edge of the pier, in the direction of the sound. His fingers encountered a water-soaked rope. Following that tracer, the cloaked investigator suddenly discerned a solidness in the blackness off the pier. Edging past the timbers, The Shadow dropped to the deck of a moored barge.
PROBING forward, The Shadow encountered new solidity. It was the top of a cabin that projected up from the barge deck. Searching hands found a closed door. Sinking into a cockpit, The Shadow opened the barrier. Light glimmered from within. A groaning voice came to The Shadow’s keen ears.
Entering a first cabin, The Shadow closed the outer door as softly as he had opened it. He turned toward the light; it came from an inner door that stood ajar. Advancing, The Shadow peered into a dirty bunk room. The light of a hanging lantern gave him view of the scene.
Sailor Martz was stretched upon a lower bunk. The groans had been his. Eyes glassy, Sailor was holding conversation with a rough, sweater-clad barge-man who stood beside the bunk. The Shadow listened.
“I’m through, Beef,” coughed Sailor. “I–I was out to get a guy; but some mug got me instead. I’m through.”
A grunt was “Beef’s” response. Sailor spoke again; his words were a mumble; the rough man was forced to lean forward to hear.
The Shadow crept into the bunk room. He moved almost to the edge of the light. He breathed a sibilant hiss that Beef alone could hear. The barge-man swung about. His eyes stared; an oath started from his lips. Then Beef’s outcry ended.
With a swift drive of his gloved hands, The Shadow caught the barge-man in a twisting hold that brought choking fingers to Beef’s throat. With a backward whirl, he snatched the big man away from Sailor’s bunk. Out through the door into the darkened cabin; there, The Shadow’s fingers tightened.
Beef subsided; his body sagged limp. The barge-man was out. The Shadow let him slump to the floor.
“Beef!” Sailor’s hoarse gasp sounded from the bunk in the inner room. “Beef — where are you? I–I’ve got to talk! Beef!”