The Slickers (5 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

“Island Product Samples”

D
ESPITE
the heat which seared his cheeks, Bob Clark stood staring blankly, completely baffled by the puzzle which confronted him. The man who had done this thing would lose a million and a half dollars through it; the dope would be consumed with the ship, a total loss. At the same time, he had trapped himself utterly by rendering these lifeboats useless.

Was he a senseless fool? Clark did not think so. There was something else in back of all this.

Harrington, face lit up with anxiety, came reeling through the smoke and jostled against Clark.

“Have you found my wife?”

“I wasn't looking for your wife,” Clark told him. “Have you been in the reading rooms and the salons?”

“All of them!” cried Harrington, suddenly unmanned. “All of them! She's gone, and we're sinking! We'll die, all of us, like rats! Why don't they take to the boats? Why don't these officers do something?”

“Quiet,” admonished Clark. “You'll start a panic.”

“Panic! Panic! What do I care for that? She's gone, and they're letting us die!”

Harrington's bloated features quivered with grief. He staggered away, lurching drunkenly, blinded by smoke and tears.

Clark started forward to find Holt. The chief mate was black and disheveled, sweating with a hose line.

“The pumps are petering out on us,” he wailed. “There isn't any steam in the lines. That damned engineer—”

“You'll have steam,” snapped Clark.

He whirled and started down the companionway toward amidships, intending to head for the engine room, but the sight of Morecliff stopped him. Morecliff was standing in the background, watching the losing fight against the flames. Clark heard the man laugh. He grabbed Morecliff by the shoulder and spun him about.

“You've been getting a big kick out of this, haven't you?” Clark rasped. “What's so funny about it?”

“Why, I … I … you see, I have some tankers; and the West Indies Lines—” Morecliff fell silent and sagged back. And then, suddenly, his fist swept up in a vicious arc, but Clark had been watching for just that move. He jabbed a fast right into the oil man's throat, and sent him back gasping, screaming.

“Damn you!” roared Morecliff. “I'll get you, you lousy dick!”

He pawed at his thigh, fumbling for a gun. Clark kicked the weapon away. Morecliff went limp, and Clark left him where he lay.

Still boiling, Clark swung into the passageway on B deck and headed toward the
stern
. He went into the salon and found the place deserted.

George Davis was nowhere in evidence, nor was the steward with whom Clark had left him. What did that mean? Clark determined to find out.

A light footfall in back of him caused him to whirl around. The girl, Jean Raymond, was hurrying toward him. Anxiety was written on her beautiful features. Her dress was in tatters.

“I can't find her!” she cried. “But I found something else. I have been looking everywhere for you.”

“You mean you can't find Madame Seville?” said Clark.

“No, but I found this.” She extended a slip of paper, the shipper's copy of a bill of lading. “I thought it might be a code message or something.”

“Where did this come from?” demanded Clark.

“It was lying under George Davis' door when I went in there the second time.”

Clark stared at it. It was an ordinary bill of lading, not at all remarkable save for the cubic footage it covered. This, however, immediately aroused Clark's interest. He calculated that a million and a half dollars' worth of heroin would occupy just about that space. The bill was marked “Island Product Samples.” A notation showed that the goods were to be stowed in hold Number Four, all the way aft.

Sending the girl forward, Clark swung down a ladder which was marked “Engine Room.” He came to a huge double door of steel and swung it open. Below him lay the ship's engines.

He swung down three stages and looked forward. Far below, on the engine room floor, he spied a huddled form. Otherwise, the place was deserted. That was why they were getting no steam on the upper deck.

Then Clark saw the flames. They leaped out from the bulkhead and licked at a shining turbine. Though there was nothing there to burn, the fire was sweeping on down the steel floor. The oil tanks! They had been pierced and then set afire.

Undecided for an instant, Clark hovered on the ladder. If he went aft to trace that dope, he might be trapped in the hold; the fire was sweeping straight down upon it.

For a moment his shoes beat a rapid tattoo on the iron rungs; then he reached a decision. He was going down! The blaze leaped out at him like a hungry beast. He snatched at a rail and slid to the next stage. Under his feet the steel plates were like the top of a stove.

Running swiftly around the mighty engines, he made his way to a double door and dashed through. It was still hot here, but not as bad as it had been in the engine room. This passage led to the hold.

Far aft, Clark found another door, and went through it to the sparsely filled Number Four. The lights were still burning, running on emergency batteries. He could see the piles of boxes.

Without difficulty, he found the boxes marked “Island Product Samples.” They were quite innocent in appearance, extremely light. Clark smashed the first down against the plates. Then he took a second, a third, a fourth.

Abruptly he jerked to his feet, swearing. Every box was empty! He had found no dope. The lead which had brought him to the
Cubana
was evidently false. But it had looked so certain, had been so pat!

Face set, he plunged again for the open air, to burst out onto a deck where all hell had broken loose. The panic-stricken passengers had thrown off all restraint. They were tearing at each other, fighting to get at the boats, leaping overboard.

The fire had consumed the deckhouses now. It was reaching down into the cabins. Flame spouted everywhere. The terrific heat became unbearable.

Bitterly Clark cursed the man responsible for this horror. Grimly he swore to apprehend the fiend somehow.

Morecliff was staggering aft, fighting dully to get down the companionway. Harrington was pleading with the third officer to find his wife. Davis was nowhere to be seen.

And then Clark heard a new sound—the sputter of an engine. He ran down a companionway to the deck below, and there to the rail. Dimly seen by the red glow of the fire, a launch lay hard in under the
Cubana
's bows. Clark watched it with hard eyes.

Some of the mystery was explained by the presence of that boat. It was a seagoing craft, very fast, and had undoubtedly come out straight from the shore. But its furtiveness showed that it had not come in response to the signal rockets.

A dim shadow appeared at the ship's rail above the launch. The shadow was holding a flashlight. The light blinked twice in rapid succession.

From the cockpit of the boat came an answering blink. Clark's .38 stabbed out redly before him. The light in the boat went out. Above the bedlam of shouts around him, Clark heard a scream. The shadow at the rail faltered. A red tongue of flame suddenly illuminated the man's face. It was masked! Clark fired again, and the shadow disappeared.

Clark grabbed a life preserver rope, tied one end to the rail, and went over the side in a clean dive. When he reached the rope's end, the jerk almost pulled his arms from their sockets, but he swung toward the bobbing boat. On the first arc he let go and caught at the rail as he went by.

“Who's that?” snarled a voice in the cockpit.

“Some crazy loon. Shoot him!” another directed.

But Clark shot first. The second man to speak clutched at his chest and tumbled over the side. The first jerked out a gun and fired straight at the face above the rail. Again, the .38 won. His face stinging from the burned powder, Clark climbed up over the side and dropped into the pit.

The launch was more than seventy-five feet in length, powered by heavy, throbbing Diesels. Clark went straight to the wheelhouse. A head thrust itself out.

“Who's that? The boss?” a heavy voice demanded.

Before Clark could answer, a flashlight outlined him. Clark shot just over the top of it. There was a grunt. He fired again. The flashlight rolled down the sloping planks and splashed into the sea.

Warily, the Federal man entered the wheelhouse. The thing he wanted was on the charting table—a radio with all tubes burning. Although the set was small, it would be sufficient.

He sat down before the key and hammered out a test phrase. The set responded. Then the key pounded out the first news that the outside world was to hear of the
Cubana
disaster.

“SOS … SOS,” chattered the key. “SOS … calling all ships on the high seas. SS
Cubana
in flames about fifty miles off the coast of New Jersey. No lifeboats, pumps failed. All ships rush aid immediately.”

Then Clark shut off the set and went out on deck. With cupped hands he bawled for Holt.

“Send down an officer and crew for this launch!” he shouted, when the chief mate appeared at the rail. “I've sent an SOS. You can use this to pick the people out of the water.”

They threw him a line and he wrapped it around an iron
bitt
. Every nerve in his body urged him to stay there next to the cool water. But he had to go back up into that hell to get the man who was responsible for it. Hand over hand, Clark went up the rope. In a moment the deck was scorching his feet.

That deck was an inferno of terrified people. Through the milling mass, Clark saw Harrington. The man's fat face was drawn with agony.

“We're lost!” he shouted, when he spied Clark. “We'll all die!”

“Help is on the way,” Clark said, as levelly as possible. “
Buck up
. Did you find your wife?”

Harrington stared at him with unseeing eyes and shook his head vaguely as Clark strode away, his searching eyes darting to the right and left. He located a steward and grabbed the fellow by his white jacket.

“What was the number of Harrington's room?” he shouted.

“Suite B-6,” the white-clad figure gasped.

Clark took off his wet coat and wrapped it about his face. He stumbled toward a smoke-filled companionway, and went down haltingly. He felt as though he walked through a blast furnace. As he stared forward, the fire lashed at him, driving him back. He buried his face deeper in the coat and plunged ahead.

B-6 was a raging furnace. The woodwork had been consumed and the terrific heat had all but melted the metal.

Clark plunged inside, gritting his teeth. He groped about on the floor until his fingers encountered something soft and yielding. Dragging at it, he retreated swiftly, the passageway collapsing behind him as he went. Shouldering his burden, he staggered up the companionway.

Clark threw down the charred body beside the forward mast and, shielding his face against the wall of flame which came from the bridge, looked about for Harrington. It was several minutes before he found the fat man and led him to the mast. Harrington seemed devoid of all intelligence; he had given up.

“Is that your wife?” Clark pointed down at the body.

The face was black, the flesh charred. There was little left for identification except a necklace of gold. Harrington fumbled with the locket. Then he stared up at Clark, his eyes unseeing.

“Yes,” he croaked, and then collapsed over the body.

Clark dragged him away. Harrington stood up, finally, and Clark shoved him against an iron bitt and told him to stay there. Then Clark made his way aft. He had not seen Morecliff. Nor had he seen Davis. He meant to find them, especially Davis.

The heat was beyond human endurance. Close to the bridge, the air would sear the lungs, would kill instantly. Then the forward hatch blew off, and a geyser of flame leaped to the height of the mast.

Try as he would, Clark could not get within fifty feet of the passageways.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Firebug

I
T
was two o'clock in the morning before the first rescue ship loomed up out of the haze beside the
Cubana.
Clark went to the rail and stared at the newcomer with seared eyes.

“What's at the bottom of all this?” the second mate beside him asked wearily. “I don't know who you are, but you seem to be in the know.”

“Not yet, I'm not,” said Clark. “Do you know Morecliff when you see him?”

“Sure, but I haven't seen him for an hour. He's a big shot in the oil game up north. Runs a line out of Venezuela—tankers. He lost one of his contracts, and he had to lay off a lot of his boats. He was pretty sore about it. I wonder why he took this ship.”

“And how about George Davis?” Clark pursued.

“Haven't seen him for a while either. He's kind of nutty. He's on the board of this line. This loss will cost them plenty.”

“What about insurance?” asked Clark.

“Oh, there may be plenty of that.” The officer peered intently at the detective. “Say—you don't think they tried to burn us for the insurance, do you? The line has been running in a hole for three years now. I'll—”

He gripped the rail to steady himself. Clark caught him and kept him from falling. He dragged him up into the extreme bow and propped him up against a winch.

The wall of heat was like a savage advancing army. All the cabins were going now. The sea glowed as red as blood all about the blazing pyre.

Morecliff staggered up, stumbling, his face drawn with fear and exhaustion. Clark eased him to the deck and kneeled beside him. Then, certain that Morecliff would live, the Federal man crawled aft closer to the flames. His red-rimmed eyes peered everywhere for Davis.

Lying in the protection of a bitt, Clark found him. Gasping for breath, his bladelike face swollen and blistered, Davis looked up with dull eyes. There was something unnatural about the man's attitude. His back looked stiff, as though braced against pain.

“A knife,” croaked Davis. “He got … me … with a knife. He …”

The man had fainted. Clark rolled him over. The hilt of a weapon protruded from between his shoulder blades. Clark pulled it out. Thrusting a handful of kapok taken from a torn lifebelt over the wound, he bound it as well as he could.

Then, suddenly, he felt his head swimming—and the deck was hot against his cheek. He could no longer find the strength to hold up his head. He realized that he had been running on sheer nerve for hours, and now that nerve was gone.

Twice he tried to stagger to the rail, where the rescue liner's boats were dragging people from the water. But it was no use. He was too tired to go on—too tired to fight.…

“
Cubana,
ahoy!” a loud, bellowing voice rolled out across the water. “Coast Guard
cutter
337! Stand by with lines! We'll take you off!”

Robert W. Clark, of the US Secret Service, sat up. It was as though he had had a bucket of ice water thrown over his scorched body. The Coast Guard! His own outfit!

On his feet, he found a line. Found a
monkey fist
and threw it round and round his head. It whistled away from him. He felt it jerk tight. Then he began to pull. A
hawser
was coming toward him. A man gave him a hand.

The hawser was dropped over the bitt. A winch on the cutter creaked and whirred. It was coming right in alongside the
Cubana.

Person after person went over to the cutter to be treated for burns and exposure—out of the red hell to the cool
'tween decks
of the gray ship.

Now other vessels were arriving, and the sea was laced with crisscrossing searchlights.

But not until dawn did Bob Clark allow himself to stagger into the cutter's sick bay for treatment, hot coffee and, better than either, sleep.

H
ours later, with the afternoon sun pouring through the wardroom ports of the cutter, Bob Clark was finishing his story of the disaster. Only a few officials were there, and a few of the passengers of the doomed
Cubana.
Davis, Morecliff and Harrington sat against the far wall under guard. Jean Raymond looked across the green-covered table at Bob Clark.

“Now,” said Clark, “to finish up, I promised to tell you who the firebug is, and why he did it. I know now that none of all this was without reason. The man was driven by fear and greed.”

He spread out the three radiograms he had taken from the radio room, the ace of spades, the gold locket, the bill of lading.

“These will give us the entire story. I thought for a while that all this was caused by Davis. But it was not. Actually, Davis is a dupe. Head of the most powerful drug ring in New York, he ordered a million and a half dollars' worth of dope from Havana. He paid a million in advance, leaving the other half million to be paid on delivery. I found the notation of these amounts in Davis' briefcase. This bill of lading was discovered on Davis'
stateroom
floor. You will notice that Davis is the consignee.”

Heads nodded. All eyes were fastened on Clark.

“Davis, as director of this company, was able to import dope without inspection. He made good use of the fact that no one would ever suspect him.” Clark glanced at Davis' contorted face. “He thought that this dope was contained in these boxes, but he had nothing to do with the fire. I thought he had, when he interfered with my sending rockets. I know now that, as an officer of the line, he did not want another ship to salvage on the
Cubana
before it was absolutely necessary. He did not know how bad the fire actually was.

“As for Morecliff, he was glad about the fire until it threatened his own life. He was sore because the West Indies Lines took business away from him. Therefore, Harrington is the firebug—the murderer!”

Harrington's fat form lurched out of the chair. An automatic pushed him back.

“Harrington received the dope order from Davis. Harrington handles dope from South America and relays it to the United States. Harrington is greedy, and a coward. He received that million dollars with which he was supposed to purchase heroin and opium. He spent it and could not replace it—and he had no dope. He was afraid of Davis—terribly afraid of what Davis would do to him if the dope was not actually aboard. Unknown to Davis, those boxes were empty, and there was no dope aboard the
Cubana.

“Now get this. Harrington had to cover up that fact before Davis discovered it. Therefore the Cubana had to be destroyed. So Harrington arranged to have a launch trail the liner. He thought he would be able to get away on it, but I happened along in time to spike that plan. Harrington wanted the
Cubana
to sink or burn. Fire was easier to handle. So he set fire to the liner by means of an acetylene torch connected with the bell hammer of the captain's clock.

“At eight bells, the clock opened the valve of the acetylene tank, and the fire began. Harrington had an alibi. He made certain that Davis and Morecliff were on the fo'c's'le head with him at eight bells.

“Then, so that no word could be sent out, Harrington murdered the radio operator and smashed the set. So that the ship would go off her course and lose her position, making her hard to locate, he killed the bridge officer and the helmsman. To make certain that no witness against him could escape, he had welded the bottoms of the lifeboat davits so that none of the boats could be launched.

“Harrington knew a Narcotics man was aboard. He had made certain that this fake dope cargo was traced in Havana; he wanted Davis to be sure that dope was aboard and that he, Harrington, had not swindled Davis. Afraid that the Narcotics man would
gum
his plans, he tortured the captain into revealing my name. Then he tried several times to kill me.

“When Harrington knew that he was slipping up, he started howling about his wife. There was a corpse in his cabin, but it was not his wife's. This locket from the dead woman's neck says, ‘To Madame Seville, for past services and future loyalty.' Madame Seville was an aide of Harrington's. But he knew she was double-crossing him. This ace of spades was written on by the dying captain, naming Madame Seville as the dope runner.

“Jean Raymond and Madame Seville worked together. Jean Raymond was not certain that Harrington was the head of the
Havana
ring, but she had her ideas. Madame Seville was going to make the revelation last night, but she died before she got a chance.

“Harrington was ironbound in his alibis. He couldn't have started the fire, but he did. He wouldn't destroy a million and a half in dope, and so he knew that that would never be suspected by those who knew of his dope activities. And he wouldn't kill his wife. But Harrington's wife was in Havana. He sent her this radiogram on the night before the fire. I found it. That tripped up Harrington.

“As for other angles of the case, I gave Davis into the hands of the steward, who immediately released him because Davis was a company director. Davis was stabbed by Harrington just before we were rescued, because Harrington was afraid Davis would get wise. But he failed that time.

“And finally, I want to get an invitation to Harrington's execution. I'm not bloodthirsty, but he ought to be burned a thousand times for that flaming hell he kindled for innocent people!”

Then Clark pulled a piece of paper toward him and scribbled out his report to his chief in Washington:

There was no dope on the
Cubana.
(Signed) Robert W. Clark