Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

Against all his instincts, McCoy abandoned the chase and came pounding back with his men.

Without orders these three hurled themselves as one against the door. The bolt snapped and they tumbled into the cell in a heap. Morgan scrambled over them.

“First aid! Quick!” he ordered. “The boy’s been strangled. The black’s dead. I’ll see to the girl—”

He waited until the men had begun to work over Hal. Then he turned to Dorothy. He cut away the ropes from her chafed ankles, picked her up in his arms, and laid her on the bed.

She would be all right, despite the pink welts on the soles of her feet. Black with anger, he turned to see what hope there was for Hal. And at that moment Hal opened his eyes, drew a long painful breath, felt of his throat and sat up weakly, stung thereto by a deep, subconscious memory of danger.

Morgan turned suddenly. A long, lean figure had crept to the door, dragging a broken leg, its tortured face seeking Hal. Dan saw his friend sit up, knew that all was well, and dropped senseless in his tracks.

In the meantime, McCoy’s whistle and his yell for an ax had brought more men pounding down the stairs. One of them had found an ax somewhere back of the house.

McCoy led them racing along the corridor. Two or three blows knocked out a panel in the door at the end. He reached through to the bolt and the door swung open.

They found themselves in a long tunnel roofed with heavy planks. It led downward and straight for the cliff.

When they had covered about forty yards, stumbling through darkness, the tunnel swerved sharply to reveal an inclosure lighted by electricity about fifty feet farther on.

Suddenly this was flooded with daylight. Now they could make out the side of a plane.

They heard a tremendous, swelling-roar. The plane stirred and shot out of sight.

With an oath, McCoy ran on and burst into a great cave in the cliff looking over the Hudson. He was just in time to see an amphibian plane swoop across the waiter toward the police boat. The men on the boat scrambled to unlimber the gun in the bow.

Before they could train the gun the plane rose in a wide, graceful arc, and headed south toward New York.

Chapter XXVII An Act of God

One hasty glance showed McCoy why they had not seen the hangar from the boat. A huge canvas curtain, painted to resemble the face of the cliff, had hidden the mouth of the cave. It was counter-weighted, so that a touch had sent it up and let the plane escape.

He led his men back on the run, telling one of them to cut through to the main road, meet Hardy and the raid car, and lead them to the house.

The other men from the boat had scattered through the building. Morgan had found Mrs. Evans unharmed in one of the upper rooms and set her free. The police had found her jewels and Dorothy’s. A room on the ground floor held the corpse of an emaciated young girl in a gorgeous bed.

The cellar had yielded another gruesome find. This was the body of an elderly foreigner, swarthy and fat, his face still convulsed with agony. His color and the puncture in his wrist indicated that he had been poisoned.

Dorothy had regained her senses and now lay weeping and shuddering in the arms of Mrs. Evans. The sailor’s bullet had shattered the bone of Dan’s leg above the knee. The wound had been roughly bandaged. Dan was still unconscious.

But McCoy had time for none of this. He was in search of a telephone. In the upper hall he found one.

He got Burke at headquarters and told him to send out a general alarm for McHenry’s amphibian plane, locally and as far as possible throughout Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It was a large order. McCoy had no great hopes of immediate success, but in the end the plane would be found and McHenry traced and captured.

As he concluded, Morgan’s voice boomed in his ear.

“Don’t hang up yet!”

“Wait a minute, Burke,” McCoy complied.

He turned to find Hal as well as Morgan at his side, the younger man wheezing through a bruised and swollen throat.

“Why not catch McHenry yourself?” inquired Morgan.

McCoy glared.

“He got away in a plane! How the hell do I know where he’ll come down?”

“I think we do know!”

“Well? Well?”

“Well! Well!” Morgan echoed. “McHenry told Evans his story. He’s Wallace. He’s got Pap-who’s-is in his power. Collared his money and his yacht and came here to get revenge. His job’s done. Pap’s dead. But the yacht’s somewhere! He’s got a seaplane—”

“Burke!” yelled McCoy. “Gimme the chief!”

The captain sweated over that appeal to his superior. And the police commissioner backed his men. Given a sketchy knowledge of the situation, he promised to ask for a naval seaplane and the fastest Federal rum chaser available. McCoy was to come down river in the police boat. The chaser would be waiting at the Battery.

“I’m going along!” croaked Hal as McCoy hung up. “I told McHenry I’d get him for killing dad!”

“Right!” nodded McCoy, and, turning, plunged down the stairs again.