Justice, Inc.

CHAPTER XIV Isle Royale

On the Buffalo-Montreal plane, from which Smitty had been dropped with nothing but two thousand feet of air beneath him and the dark lake, there was scurrying activity. The man with the black pads of hair on his knuckles had seen, far ahead, a tiny pinpoint of light.

That light was the beacon pointing to the gang’s secret lair.

“O.K.,” he grunted.

The man with the perpetual, greasy smile, and another, went to the trunk in the tail. They opened it. The bound, gagged figure of a man showed in the trunk. But the man needn’t have been gagged. He was elderly, frail-looking, and was mercifully unconscious. It was Arnold Leon.

They lifted Leon from the trunk, and put a cork life preserver around his spare shoulders.

“Hurry it! Almost there!” called the pilot through the open front-compartment door, over the motors’ drone.

Hastily they strapped a parachute over Leon’s body. They carried him back to the trapdoor, which two other men already had open.

“Now!” called the pilot. The pinpoint of light was directly underneath.

They let the unconscious man slide down the chute formed by the slanting door.

“Hope that parachute opens all right,” said the man with the meaningless smile uneasily.

“They’ve always opened before. I guess this one will now.”

It had opened as they spoke, though, already far astern, it couldn’t be seen. Leon was dropping toward the surface of Lake Ontario, far below.

And after the huge white mushroom from which dangled Arnold Leon, another, darker shape was plummeting!

Smitty, when he had asked MacMurdie to draw the undercarriage of the S404 strictly to scale, had laid his desperate plan on one thing — the forward-slanting brace of the rear wheel making a tricycle landing gear for the plane. That brace, he believed, could be reached from the rear end of the trapdoor.

He had held his breath when the chloroform was jammed to mouth and nose. But even at that, he had gotten enough of the stuff at the end, when he couldn’t hold on any longer, to fog his brain with beginning unconsciousness.

The deadly slide down the door, however, had cleared his brain again. He was sliding, feet first, on his side. He cleared the door — and whirled.

The plane, traveling better than two hundred feet a second, whipped overhead the instant the air resistance slowed his own initial momentum. But even at that, Smitty caught the rear wheel brace by little more than the tips of his fingers. The screaming gale promptly snapped him back so that he trailed almost straight out like a pennant. But then he had his enormous hands squarely on the brace; and when those hands caught hold of something, they held.

He hung there, great muscles quivering with the strain, till he got over his sick feeling. One thing to plan a try like this — another entirely when it came to putting it into operation! Then he performed the appalling feat of hanging by one great hand while with the other he tore off his coat and a mass of padding in the back.

He shifted hands, and got the coat off over the other sleeve. On his back was revealed a compact parachute. That, plus padding to hide the outlines, was the “hump” on his back. The hump had been only incidentally for a disguise.

He saw the trapdoor come down again. From his place up almost against the belly of the transport, he could not see in the door any more than those inside could see him on the outside. But in a moment he saw a bound body slide through.

The man dropped, and a white cloud of canvas billowed out and broke the fall. Smitty instantly dropped, too, and plummeted down after the white cloud.

“Whew!” he said, shaken and beaded with cold sweat. If ever a guy had looked Death squarely in the eyes — and spat in his face—

He rocked in the swing of his own parachute. This chute was not white. It was black. It blended against the sky so well that only by a blotting out of stars could an observer from below spot it. And there were no stars tonight. A June rain was brewing, and the sky was lowering and black.

A parachute seems to float slowly but it actually falls all too fast. In a very short time the white parachute settled to one side of an unconscious elderly man who splashed deep and then bobbed up on the cork preserver.

Smitty, feet first, to minimize his own splash as much as possible, hit an instant later. He writhed from the ’chute cords at his vast shoulders.

The sound of a motorboat throbbed. It came swiftly toward the spot.

“There’s the ’chute — that white blot,” a man said, from the boat. “Hit it fast Murdock. We want him alive, at least for a little while.”

Smitty swam soundlessly in the ebony water till the boat, from the engine noise, was directly in front of him on a line with the unconscious man. He could see the floating body. In a few minutes he saw the boat, too — without lights, and only a black hulk against black sky and water. There was a grinding sound as the motor was reversed, bringing the boat neatly to a stop alongside the body.

“Up with him!”

From the high side of the boat, a fairly sizeable motor cruiser, a boat hook dipped down. It caught under the strap of the life preserver, was raised, lifted, preserver and body and all.

“Out cold, but still breathin’. Guess he’ll be all right — for as long as we want him,” said the unseen man on the cruiser’s dark deck.

The boat started off, lightless into the darkness of Lake Ontario in the labyrinth of the Thousand Islands region. But there was one more passenger aboard than the skipper reckoned.

Out of the black lake, as the boat halted, two huge arms had reached up. Great hands caught the flukes of the anchor, at the bow. And the hands were followed by a giant’s body as the boat shot forward.

Smitty lay in darkness at the bow, while the motor cruiser went at thirty miles an hour toward the core of the mystery which Benson was scheming like a gray fox to solve—

Isle Royale.

The name was bombastic; the island didn’t carry out the royal promise. It was small, had a dozen log shacks on it which a few resorters had rented. There was a general store, which was also the post office. That was all. There was no phone, because no one had bothered to meet the expense of laying a phone cable underwater to mainland. For the same reason, there was no telegraph.

That was why the post card, had been sent asking for insulin. There was no way to get word out except by mail.

Into the general store, at nine next morning, a man strode with a lithe, jaguar tread. He had just come by hired motorboat after a trip by chartered plane.

The man had snow-white hair, though the latent power in his movements, and the skin of hands and neck, told that he was in his thirties. His face was as expressionless as a sack of flour. But his eyes were not expressionless. They were coldly flaming, almost colorless gray. Eyes of ice; eyes seemingly designed for the sole purpose of peering at enemies over gun sights.

Hair white, eyes light gray, clothes darker gray. All gray. He was like a limber steel bar, rather than a man.

Down at the rickety dock that serviced Isle Royale, behind a pile of crates, was a tall, bony man with a map of Scotland written on his face. Hands like knobby mallets were jammed into his pockets. His ears stood out like sails. But there was nothing amusing about his eyes-cold and bitterly blue.

The two were on the trail of that post card. A man named Murdock had written for insulin. Presumably the man would call for the insulin with the first mail, which came by boat to Isle Royale at nine to nine thirty a.m.

Benson was at the general store and post office to see who asked for a package in the name of Murdock.

MacMurdie was at the dock to see who landed and keep tabs on them.

Benson, gray eyes narrowed to hide their pale flame, asked for a package of cigarettes. The storekeeper, a little sparrow of a man with a ragged brown mustache, dug them out of a fly-specked case.

“Goin’ to stay here a spell?” chirped the storekeeper. “I got a mighty nice cabin for rent, if you are.”

“I may,” said Benson. “Some friends are to come late this afternoon. I came on ahead to see if we’d like to put up here for a while. Rather chilly, it seems to me.”

“It’s still June,” said the storekeeper. “Up here we don’t get hot weather till about the first of July. Then it’s hot enough. But my cabin has a fireplace in it—”

Benson let the man ramble on. As he waited, he looked out the dusty front window. In a few minutes he saw a man coming toward the store from the direction of the dock. The man was big and shambling, in old pants and a sweater. He walked with his arms held crooked at his side like an ex-wrestler.

“I wonder if I could have a drink of water?” Benson said.

“Sure, sure,” said the storekeeper. “Right through the door to the back. I live back there. You’ll find water in the icebox, nice and cold.”

Benson went back, leaving the door open a crack. The big man in old pants and sweater came in.

“Mornin’,” Benson heard the storekeeper chirp. “How’s your little old island this mornin’? Or don’t you live on an island?”

The man grunted something unintelligible.

“What say?” the storekeeper asked. “Mainland?”

“I didn’t say,” the man growled back. “Got a package for me?”

“There’s a package for a Mr. Murdock. It’s small but kind of heavy and marked fragile. Special delivery.” The storekeeper chuckled. “I guess them city folks in Buffalo didn’t know special delivery don’t mean anything when you got to haul mail fourteen miles by boat.”

“Gimme it,” said the man. There was a pause. Then, in a slightly different voice, he said: “Got to get some things. Pack ’em up as I read from this list.”

He ordered a good deal of stuff. So much that the storekeeper said in a pleased tone: “Must be quite a passel of you at wherever you’re stayin’. Camp?”

“No not a camp. Just some friends,” the man growled impatiently.

Back in the rear room, Benson was leaning against the wall and shaking as though he’d just had a chill.

The man named Murdock! The package with insulin, indicating surely that Lawrence Hickock, one of the victims, was on the other end of the route traveled by this man! And now — provisions for many people!

It was the end of the hunt. Only a few miles away was the hide-out of this gang of murderers into whose grip he had blundered that night in Buffalo when he forced his way aboard the plane.

Groceries for many people! Were his wife and girl among those people only a few short miles from here? It was this thought that had completely unstrung Benson, the man of gray metal and cold flame, for the moment. He could see, behind his closed and quivering eyelids, Alicia’s face. The soft brown eyes in it seemed to be imploring him to come to her rescue swiftly. And beside her was little Alice.

Were they alive? Were they near him now?

All his common sense told him they were dead. But for the moment he had to dismiss common sense, or go mad.

The man, Murdock, was padding out of the store. Benson rallied all his iron will and composed himself. Calm again but with sweat-drenched face, he came back into the store.

“Get your water?” nodded the storekeeper. “That’s fine. Goin’ for a stroll around the island? You’ll find it ain’t very big. Keep that cabin of mine in mind if you want to rent—”

Benson thanked him and went out. He walked casually in the opposite direction taken by Murdock — till he had got out of the storekeeper’s range of vision through the front window. Then he darted to the right, circled the store building, and headed toward the dock.

It was broad daylight. The absence of people in the small cluster of houses around the store made any moving thing conspicuous. But Benson had long ago learned to move quite inconspicuously, even under such conditions.

A tree here. A clump of bushes there. A closed and boarded hot-dog stand a little farther on. A pile of crates—

Benson got to the pile of crates alongside the docks at the moment Murdock reached a fast motor cruiser moored there. It was about thirty feet from crates to boat. Benson crouched on the balls of his feet. Murdock began stowing provisions into the rear cockpit of the boat.

Benson silently walked toward the man. Murdock had his back turned. Again Benson seemed to drift, like a gray wraith, an inch above the ground rather than on it, so soundless was his tread.

Murdock bent to lift the rope from the cleat in the dock and cast off. Benson sprang.

And his foot slipped at last.

There was a little rasping sound of leather on wood, and Murdock whirled with a rapping oath to see the gray man leaping at him. As fast as Benson had ever seen it done. Murdock had a gun whipped out and pointing. Benson stopped, less than a yard from Murdock, with the gun boring at his chest.

“A dick, eh?” snarled Murdock. In his flat face was a blend of murderous fury and colossal fear. “So somebody’s tumbled at last. But you’ve only got as far as Isle Royale. And nobody could guess the place even from here.”

Benson wondered where MacMurdie was. A little chill touched him. He wondered if this man, so alert, so fast on the draw, had caught the Scotchman off base and slugged him. Or, perhaps, hit hard enough to — kill him.

“Get into the boat — and keep a yard away from me while you do it!” Murdock snarled.

Benson moved slowly, looking toward the tiny village. But there would be no help from that direction. The pile of crates chanced to cut off the boat from sight of anyone on the dirt road the village called a street.

Benson got into the boat. Still no sign of MacMurdie.

“Up forward, in the cabin,” said Murdock. “And keep your back toward me!”

The boat was an expensive model. There was a starter, with the other controls in the rear cockpit. It whirred as Murdock’s hand touched the button. The engine purred into life, and the boat slid out.

“Smart guy, eh?” Murdock’s voice came over the subdued roar of the motor, now running smoothly and at high speed as the boat shot forward into the lake. “We’ll see how smart you are in a thousand feet of water. We’ll see if you can think your way out of it when I put a lump on your knob and drop you over the side, six or seven miles out. You’ll never report whatever you’ve found out. And by the time others pick up your trail, we’ll all be through and gone.”

The boat sliced at thirty miles an hour through the water; the same boat that without its skipper knowing it, had borne the giant Smitty over the same surface the night before.