Johnny spotted me and, on cue, began screaming “POLICE!” His shouts carried along the riverfront. Somebody yelled in the distance. One of the men grabbed at Johnny, but he ducked easily behind Gould, who still gripped the valise. The yells were drawing a few onlookers from nearby streets. One was Sweasy, who walked rapidly toward the scene.
Then I saw what I feared I would see. A dark figure emerged from a warehouse behind Gould. He took in the scene—including me running—and moved quickly into the struggling knot. Something glinted in his hand. I didn’t need to see his face clearly to recognize him: Le Caron.
“Look out!” I yelled. “He’s the one!”
Johnny tumbled out of the way as Le Caron’s knife flashed at him. Gould dropped the valise and stepped back quickly. The man wrestling for it went over backward. Le Caron snatched the valise from him.
“Stop!” I yelled, fifteen feet away.
He ignored me. I fired the derringer over his head. Its small pop! froze everything for a moment. Le Caron’s black eyes drilled into mine. I sighted on him, holding the gun at arm’s length with both hands, like in police movies.
The shot had been in part a signal. In response, a wagon swung onto the landing from East Front. Le Caron looked at it nervously. I knew what he was seeing: Harry, George, Allison, and Mac—good-sized men, all brandishing baseball bats—coming straight for him. His eyes flickered at me; then, tucking the valise under his arm as if it weighed nothing, wheeled and broke into a crouching run along the embankment, moving with surprising speed. I fired another shot over him; he did not slow. As the coach pursued him and the others spread out to cut him off, I bent over the man on the ground and dug my gun into his neck. Its two chambers were empty, but he didn’t know it. His eyes widened and his Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively.
“Where’s Andy Leonard?” I demanded.
Wet sounds came from his throat. “Boat.”
“Which fucking boat?”
“The Mary Rae.”
I jabbed the barrel deeper. “Where do you have him?”
“Starboard cabin,” he gasped. “Stern.”
“Does it have a number?”
His eyes rolled. “Don’t remember, honest.”
“Where’s it docked?”
“Other end, by the gasworks.”
I turned and chased the others. Le Caron, already a hundred yards down the landing, dropped the valise as the four Stockings jumped out of the wagon behind him. Had he known it held scrap iron and newspaper, he might not have carried it so far. For a moment, as they closed in on him with bats poised, it looked as if he were trapped. But Le Caron turned and bounded goatlike up the steep embankment. He poised and dove. I heard a faint splash.
“In the wagon!” I yelled.
With Mac and Gould, I clung to the outside. Harry, handling the reins deftly, took us thundering along the docks. I scanned the names of boats as we passed. Melody Lady . . . Cheyenne . . . Silver Spray . . . Clifton . . . Moored at the foot of John Street sat the Mary Rae, a weather-beaten, medium-sized stern-wheeler. A rugged-looking deckhand stood in the shade of the pilothouse overhang.
“Where you headed?” he growled, blocking the gangway as we swarmed up.
Without a word Mac and Gould threw him in the river. It was a mistake not to muzzle him. He shouted a warning even as he plunged toward the surface. We scrambled up a runged ladder to the passenger deck and moved sternward like grim commandos, wrenching compartment doors open.
There were few signs of life on deck, but that was hardly true in the cabins. Curses and shrieks echoed in our wake. Glimpses of gaudy clothing and hastily covered bodies told us what sort of passengers these were. I wondered if McDermott was aboard.
Everything we’d counted on in our hurried strategy meeting at Harry’s had so far worked out: the kidnappers hadn’t expected a trap to be sprung from so many directions, particularly since I’d done nothing suspicious at the outset; Le Caron had been flushed, as I thought he or McDermott would be; and Andy was near the riverfront, where the kidnappers could escape far easier than by railway or road—which would be closely watched had I gone to the police.
Harry and I burst into the last compartment and saw Andy bound and gagged in the far corner. His eyes bugged at us and his head shook violently. In the instant I realized he was trying to warn us, Harry yelled, “Watch out!”
I twisted sideways as something exploded on my right shoulder. Staggering back against the bulkhead, I saw a man stalking me with something that looked like a rolling pin. Behind him, others crowded through the doorway. The rolling pin flashed at me. Sick with the certainty that I couldn’t move fast enough, I tried to duck. There was a splintering impact over my head. For an instant I thought I had been brained. I tumbled to the deck as fragments of wood showered on me. I looked up and saw Harry drop the handle of his shattered bat. Swearing, the deckhand lifted his club. Harry stepped inside the upraised arm and crashed a textbook right hook to his jaw. The deckhand’s knees buckled and he sagged to the deck beside me.
Then they were on us. A boot kicked at me. I grabbed it and pulled myself upward.
“Help!” Harry was yelling. “In here!”
They pressed us back against the bulkhead. It looked bad. Only the cramped space worked in our favor as the half dozen men trying to get at us were practically jumping over each other. I sent one down with a hard left but took
