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

In a storm of fierce orders he arranged for a guard on the house, transportation to New York for Dan, Dorothy and Mrs. Evans when Hardy arrived, and a search for the chauffeur. Then he was away and racing down the road, with Morgan, Hal and six of the men from the boat lumbering after him.

He yelled an order before he reached the police boat. She was cast off as they tumbled aboard. In a moment she backed clear of the wharf and headed south.

As the fast little vessel tore downstream like a vibrant living thing, Hal croaked and wheezed out the story Wallace had told him.

Then McCoy explained the chief’s plan of campaign. To locate McHenry’s plane was out of the question. But the naval plane was to quarter the harbor mouth and the sea beyond in search of the yacht. The chaser would follow to sea and stand by. If the plane located the yacht, it was to come back and lead the chaser in pursuit.

All this, if the yacht Circe were not actually in port. But it seemed more likely that she would be standing off the harbor mouth, or out at sea.

It was sheer deductive gambling. But the chief knew Morgan’s guesses and thought this one worth testing.

As they neared the Battery, a steel gray chaser shot to meet them, seemed about to ram the police boat and curved alongside with a flurry of spray, its high bows wet and glistening in the sun.

McCoy, Morgan and Hal scrambled aboard her, to find a crew of youngsters who feared neither man, beast, nor devil.

The hard-eyed young commander put himself at McCoy’s orders, adding that he and his crew had seen McHenry’s plane come down the Hudson and head straight out to sea.

“Pity we couldn’t follow it then,” he observed.

“Follow it now,” said McCoy evenly.

Hal had thought the police boat fast. But the chaser tore through the water like a bullet, the bow rising higher and higher as their speed increased.

He clung to the quivering rail of the bridge while the wind whipped his clothing and rainbows danced in the flashing spray. Staten Island wheeled past. At length the shores began to open and recede. Now they were crashing into the long Atlantic swells.

The lightship was to be their rendezvous with the plane. When they neared it and drew alongside, the commander hailed the blunt-bowed craft.

“Ain’t — seen — no — plane!” came faintly across the water to them. “Fog — just — cleared — hour — ago.”

The only man-made thing in sight except the lightship was a tramp steamer to southward.

Morgan touched the commander’s arm and pointed, his face pale green.

“Since your craft has wings,” he groaned, “suppose we hail the tramp.”

The commander looked at McCoy. McCoy nodded. They wheeled and tore south.

The little steamer grew larger and more distinct. Suddenly the commander whistled.

“Look at her stem!”

They drew nearer the rusty craft. Now even the landsmen could see that her stem sloped back from her forefoot. Nearer still and they saw that her bows were buckled in clear from the waterline. The chaser ranged alongside.

“Seen a plane?” bawled the commander.

A man on the tramp’s bridge took up a megaphone.

“Plane — came — over — us — half — hour — ago.”

“Seaplane?”

“Su-ure!”

“What course?”

“Dead — astern — our — course.”

“What happened to your bows?”

The man on the bridge leaned forward and the megaphone waggled in his hand.

“Rammed — yacht — Circe — last — night — fog — no — lights — no — horn — cut — her — in — two!”

“My God!” muttered Morgan.

“Anybody saved?” McCoy prompted the commander.

He yelled the question.

“Three — seamen — she — sank — quick!”

“Where away?”

“West — south — west — thirty — knots!”

“Can you make port?”

“Yes — got — her — plugged!” floated down to them.

The commander waved his hand. There was a hasty consultation on the bridge. Wallace had been heading for his rendezvous with the yacht. He had seen the wreckage and returned to land. There was nothing to do but go back to the lightship and wait for the naval flyer to find them.

“There’s a plane now!” shouted Hal suddenly.

It was low down to the north, making for the lightship. The commander signaled for full speed and they leaped away to intercept it.

Presently the flyer saw them, wheeled in a wide arc and came drifting overhead, his engine throttled down. Something dropped, breaking out a tiny parachute an instant later. The commander maneuvered his craft so that the message floated down just back of the bridge.

A waterproof box contained a folded slip of paper.

“Plane down at sea forty miles out. Follow me,” ran the message scribbled on it.

The naval plane was drifting off toward the southwest. The chaser tore away in pursuit.

Half an hour later they found what they sought.

Wallace’s plane had crashed, snapping off a float and both wings, and turning turtle.

The wings and the float were drifting near by.

The other float was upside down and awash.

The chaser pulled alongside. One of her crew dived overboard into a creaming swell and made a line fast to the submerged fusilage. With the block and tackle on one of the boatfalls, they hoisted it clear.