The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard
"And if that's right, he's run his head into a trap. Cast loose, there, MacVeay, and pile in, all of you! You go back to the house, Mr. Mittel, and fix yourself up. We'll get him!"
Jimmie Dale's lips thinned. It was true! If the other boat had any speed at all, it was only a question of time before he would be overtaken. The only point at issue was how much time. It was dark—that was in his favour—but it was not so dark but that a boat could be distinguished on the water for quite a distance, for a longer distance than he could hope to put between them. There was no chance of eluding the police that way! The keen, facile brain that had saved the Gray Seal a hundred times before was weaving, planning, discarding, eliminating, scheming a way out—with death, ruin, disaster the price of failure. His eyes swept the dim, irregular outline of the shore. To his right, in the opposite direction from where he had left his car, and perhaps a mile ahead, as well as he could judge, the land seemed to run out into a point. Jimmie Dale headed for it instantly. If he could reach it with a little lead to the good, there was a chance! It would take, say, six minutes, granting the boat a speed of ten miles an hour—and she could do that. The others could hardly overtake him in that time—they hadn't got started yet. He could hear them still shouting and talking at the wharf. And Mittel's "twice as fast" was undoubtedly an exaggeration, anyhow.
A minute more passed, another—and then, astern, Jimmie Dale caught the racket from the exhaust of a high-powered engine, and a white streak seemed to shoot out upon the surface of the water from where, obscured now, he placed the wharf. A quarter-mile lead, roughly four hundred yards; yes, he had as much as that—but that, too, was very little.
He bent over his engine, coaxing it, nursing it to its highest efficiency; his eyes strained now upon the point ahead, now upon his pursuers behind. He was running with the wind, thank Heaven! or the small boat would have had a further handicap—it was rolling up quite a sea.
The steering gear, he found, was corded along the side of the boat, permitting its manipulation from almost any position, and, abruptly now, Jimmie Dale left the engine to rummage through the little locker in the stern of the boat. But as he rummaged, his eyes held speculatively on the boat astern. She was gaining unquestionably, steadily, but not as fast as he had feared. He would still have a hundred yards' lead, at least, abreast the point—and, he was smiling grimly now, a hundred yards there meant life to the Gray Seal! The locker was full of a heterogeneous collection of odds and ends—a suit of oilskins, tools, tins, and cans of various sizes and descriptions. Jimmie Dale emptied the contents, some sort of powder, of a small, round tin box overboard, and from his pocket took out the banknotes, crammed them into the box, crammed his watch in on top of them, and screwed the cover on tightly. His fingers were flying now. A long strip torn from the trousers' leg of the oilskins was wrapped again and again around the box—and the box was stuffed into his pocket.
The flash of a revolver shot cut the blackness behind him, then another, and another. They were firing in a continuous stream again. It was fairly long range, but there was always the chance of a stray bullet finding its mark. Jimmie Dale, crouching low, made his way to the bow of the boat again.
The point was looming almost abreast now. He edged in nearer, to hug it as closely as he dared risk the depth of the water. Behind, remorselessly, the other boat was steadily closing the gap; and the shots were not all wild—one struck, with a curious singing sound, on some piece of metal a foot from his elbow. Closer to the shore, running now parallel with the head of the point, Jimmie Dale again edged in the boat, his jaws, clamped, working in little twitches.
And then suddenly, with a swift, appraising glance behind him, he swerved the boat from her course and headed for the shore—not directly, but diagonally across the little bay that, on the farther side of the point, had now opened out before him. He was close in with the edge of the point, ten yards from it, sweeping past it—the point itself came between the two boats, hiding them from each other—and Jimmie Dale, with a long spring, dove from the boat's side to the water.
The momentum from the boat as he sank robbed him for an instant of all control over himself, and he twisted, doubled up, and rolled over and over beneath the water—but the next moment his head was above the surface again, and he was striking out swiftly for the shore. It was only a few yards—but in a few SECONDS the pursuing boat, too, would have rounded the point. His feet touched bottom. It was haste now, nothing else, that counted. The drum of the racing engines, the crackling roar of the exhaust from the oncoming boat was in his ears. He flung himself upon the shore and down behind a rock. Around the point, past him, tore the police boat, dark forms standing clustered in the bow—and then a sudden shout:
"There she is! See her? She's heading into the bay for the shore!"
Jimmie Dale's lips relaxed. There was no doubt that they had sighted their quarry again—a perfect fusillade of revolver shots directed at the now empty boat was quite sufficient proof of that! With something that was almost a chuckle, Jimmie Dale straightened up from behind the rock and began to run back along the shore. The little motor boat would have grounded long before they overtook her, and, thinking naturally enough, that he had leaped ashore from her, they would go thrashing through the woods and fields searching for him!
It was a longer way back by the shore, a good deal longer; now over rough, rocky stretches where he stumbled in the darkness, now through marshy, sodden ground where he sank as in a quagmire time and again over his ankles. It was even longer than he had counted on, and time, with the Weasel on one hand and the return of the police on the other, was a factor to be reckoned with again, as, a half hour later, Jimmie Dale stole across the lawn of Mittel's house for the second time that night, and for the second time crouched beneath the open French windows.
Masked again, the water still dripping from what were once immaculate evening clothes but which now sagged limply about him, his collar a pasty string around his neck, the mud and dirt splashed to his knees, Jimmie Dale was a disreputable and incongruous-looking object as he crouched there, shivering uncomfortably from his immersion in spite of his exertions. Inside the room, Mittel passed the windows, pacing the floor, one side of his face badly cut and bruised from the blow with the boat hook—and as he passed, his back turned for an instant, Jimmie Dale stepped into the room.
Mittel whirled at the sound, and, with a suppressed cry, instinctively drew back—Jimmie Dale's automatic was dangling carelessly in his right hand.
"I am afraid I am a trifle melodramatic," observed Jimmie Dale apologetically, surveying his own bedraggled person; "but I assure you it is neither intentional nor for effect. As it is, I was afraid I would be late. Pardon me if I take the liberty of helping myself; one gets a chill in wet clothes so easily"—he passed to the liqueur stand, poured out a generous portion from one of the decanters, and tossed it off.
Mittel neither spoke nor moved. Stupefaction, surprise, and a very obvious regard for Jimmie Dale's revolver mingled themselves in a helpless expression on his face.
Jimmie Dale set down his glass and pointed to a chair in front of the desk.
"Sit down, Mr. Mittel," he invited pleasantly. "It will be quite apparent to you that I have not time to prolong our interview unnecessarily, in view of the possible return of the police at any moment, but you might as well be comfortable. You will pardon me again if I take another liberty"—he crossed the room, turned the key in the lock of the door leading into the hall, and returned to the desk. "Sit down, Mr. Mittel!" he repeated, a sudden rasp in his voice.
Mittel, none too graciously, now seated himself.
"Look here, my fine fellow," he burst out, "you're carrying things with a pretty high hand, aren't you? You seem to have eluded the police for the moment, somehow, but let me tell you I—"
"No," interrupted Jimmie Dale softly, "let ME tell you—all there is to be told." He leaned over the desk and stared rudely at the bruise on Mittel's face. "Rather a nasty crack, that," he remarked.
Mittel's fists clenched, and an angry flush swept his cheeks.
"I'd have made it a good deal harder," said Jimmie Dale, with sudden insolence, "if I hadn't been afraid of putting you out of business and so precluding the possibility of this little meeting. Now then"—the revolver swung upward and