Odds were equaled; the hoodlums, by their own act, were losing numbers. Some turned to aim as new detectives swung in view along the rail. Then snarling ruffians gave up the fight. Dropping their guns, the defeated remnants yielded to the law.
Cardona’s detectives crowded the riffraff to the bar. The searchlight from a police boat was hoisted, with its wire, to the rail of the Xerxes. Commissioner Weston blinked in amazement as he saw Markham standing there, Leng Doy beside him, with solemn-faced Chinamen on both sides.
FROM the hatchway came Dave Callard and Captain Jund; behind them the two seamen, who joined the ones that The Shadow had saved. Dave and the others had escaped thugs below by taking to the strong room.
Cardona, stepping into the light, saw Dave before him. Joe bounded forward, thinking that Dave must be a prisoner. Markham stopped him.
“Let him explain,” suggested the detective sergeant.
“Dolver was the murderer,” declared Dave, calmly. “I thought it was Mallikan, Markham. I found out I was mistaken. I was out at Dolver’s thinking that Mallikan might be coming there to make trouble.”
The final sentence was addressed to Cardona and Weston. Dave added a few more words.
“I ducked the night I came in,” he admitted. “Just didn’t want to be questioned by the police. I had too much at stake; the recovery of my uncle’s fortune. I went to Leng Doy for advice” — he paused to indicate the Chinese merchant — “and while I was there, someone came in on us. Leng Doy thought I had better stay under cover. I did. I never went to Ralgood’s.”
“This young man is very good,” nodded Leng Doy, solemnly. “He did fine things in China. My friends in that country told him to visit me when he came to New York. I was honored to be of service.”
“When the murders started,” added Dave, “I knew I was being made the goat. So I stayed in hiding, along with Leng Doy. Some of his men trailed this fellow this afternoon.”
Dave pointed to Clyde Burke, who had arrived with Weston. The reporter was actually astonished.
“Callard barged in on me and Hungerfeld,” put in Markham. “Along with a squad of chinks. They grabbed us and carried us out in laundry hampers. They couldn’t explain things in the hotel. We wouldn’t have believed them.
“Hungerfeld blabbed about the Xerxes; so they headed here. As soon as they were on the open road, they cut us loose and told us the layout. They convinced us they were on the level. We said we were with them; so I stuck with Leng Doy and his bunch.”
“Where is Hungerfeld?” demanded Weston.
“Up in one of the cars,” replied Markham. “He’s safe. We left a big Chinaman there to act as his bodyguard.”
Captain Jund was introduced to Weston. The skipper thrust a paper into the commissioner’s hand. It was a note that he and Dave had found in the uppermost of the boxes in the safe, while they were barricaded below.
“Milton Callard’s handwriting,” declared Jund, emphatically. “A codicil to his will, leaving everything to his nephew. There’s plenty in those boxes that I just locked up again. We looked in some of them. Bank notes, securities, boxes of old family gems. It’ll run higher than a million and a half, if I’m any judge.”
Weston extended his hand in congratulation. Dave Callard received it warmly. Cardona edged up to add his good wishes. Clyde Burke smiled at thought of the story that he was getting for the Classic.
FROM beyond the trees below came the throb of a motor. Men swung about to see lights ascending past the woods. A plane was rising almost vertically, its course marking it as an autogyro. High in the dark it lifted, hovering below the close-wedged hulks of the ghost fleet.
The ship swung southward, its motor easing as it took its straight course. Then to listening ears came a sound that might have been a ghostly call, so faintly was it heard at that long distance. It was an echo of a challenge that had rung high tonight; a fierce defiance that had staggered a horde of evil fighters.
It was the laugh that had presaged the death of a master murderer, Courtney Dolver. Now its tone, though strangely like a knell, carried an indescribable quaver that bore a note of victory. Unearthly and unreal, that weird mirth faded; yet its lingering recollection could not be forgotten.
As fitting climax to the victory of justice, those men aboard the Xerxes had received a token from the master fighter who had won the cause for right. They had heard the triumph laugh of The Shadow.