THE FLAGS
“Do you think it will be unlocked?” Bill dropped his voice to a whisper.
The three were standing on the landing at the head of the stairs, facing
the door.
“Sure to be,” returned Terry. “That is, if we can take friend Peters’
word for it. He spilled all this dope when he’d had an argument with the
rest of the gang.”
“Then let’s go—” said Bill. “You stand to one side, Dorothy.”
“Shucks!” With a twist of the handle, that young lady threw the door
wide and jumped into the room.
“Hands up! Stick ’em up!” she cried.
Two of the three men seated at the table complied at once with her
command. Their hands shot above their heads with the rapidity of
lightning. The third reached for a revolver that lay amongst the
scattered cards.
“_Bang!_”
The man gave a cry of pain and caught at his shattered wrist with his
other hand.
Startled by the sudden detonation just behind her, Dorothy almost
dropped her gun.
“Dog-gone it!” Terry seemed annoyed.
“What’s the matter?” Bill still covered the men.
“Matter enough! Too much rest cure, I guess. Forgot to remove the safety
catch on this gat you gave me. Lucky you fired when you did.”
“Well, never mind that now,” Bill’s words were crisp and to the point.
“Grab that clothesline and tie their hands behind their backs. That’s
right! Dorothy, will you give first aid to that fellow’s wrist? I’ll see
that they don’t play any tricks.”
After securing the men, Terry searched their clothes and produced two
revolvers and a wicked looking knife. He also took a ring of keys from
Peters.
“Gee!” exclaimed that gentleman. “If it ain’t the girl what blame near
kicked me teeth out I’ll eat me bloomin’ hat!”
“You’ll eat skilly in Wethersfield Prison, or Atlanta, before you get
through,” Terry promised. “Shake a leg—both of you. Down to the cells
for yours. Did you ever realize what a swell difference there is between
the titles of jailer and prisoner? March!”
“Wait a minute!” Dorothy cut in. “I’ll help you take this man along,
too. I’ve done all I can for him. It’s a clean hole through his wrist.
Bone’s broken but the bullet missed the artery. He might be worse off.”
Bill spoke from the doorway that led into the rest of the house. “While
you’re gone I’ll search this place for any other members that might
otherwise be overlooked!”
After housing the smugglers in cells, Dorothy and Terry returned to the
kitchen and were surprised to find Bill speaking over the telephone.
“And that’s that, Dad,” they heard him say. “Spread the good tidings in
proper places and make it snappy, please. Bye-bye!”
He placed the receiver on its hook.
“I guess you got that,” he smiled. “Dad will phone the police and
Washington. Then he’s driving over here with Frank. And he will also let
Mr. Walters and your father know, Dorothy.”
“Fine—I’m glad he thought of that!” Dorothy laughed in excited
approval.
“Didn’t take you long to search the place,” said Terry.
“No—only a few rooms on this floor are being used. The staircase is
thick with dust. Nobody up there—no footprints.”
“Well, what’s to do now?”
“We’ll wait for Dad, of course,” said Bill, “and then Dorothy and I can
fly our respective planes home. How about it, pal? Feel able to do
that?”
Dorothy lifted her eyebrows in derision. “Well, I should hope so! I
suppose I do look pretty frazzled—but you don’t seem in the best
condition yourself. However—I’ve another plan.”
“What’s that?”
Terry had taken over the phone and was talking in low tones to his
mother.
“Do you remember I told you I had a hunch, Bill?”
“Yes, I do. What about it?”
“We’re going to follow my hunch.”
“Where to?”
“Well, we’ll start out of this house—by the front door this time, if
you please—then across the meadow and through the wood to the field
where our planes are parked.”
“And—?”
“And then you’re going to get into the rear cockpit of Will-o’-the-Wisp
and take a little hop with me.”
Bill looked surprised. “What about my Ryan?”
“Oh, Frank can pilot her home.”
“Yes? And then where are we going?”
“That’s my secret. Tell Terry, and come along now. We’re in a hurry,
even if you don’t know it.”
“Well, I’m evidently not supposed to know anything of this new mystery!”
“Don’t be stuffy! Come on, now. This is serious, Bill, really, I’m not
leading you on a wild goose chase, I promise you.”
“Humph! It must be hot stuff—not!”
Dorothy made a face at him. “I want to tell you it’s the hottest stuff
of the whole business. And I just want you to be in at the finish, don’t
you see, stupid?”
“All right. As you insist—”
“That’s right. Of course I do. And when we’ve done this thing up brown,
I’ll cart you back home to dinner—and if you are very good you can sit
next to me!”
Bill grinned. “You may be New England Yankee, but that line of blarney
you hand out spells Ireland in capital letters! Come on then, we’ll
leave Terry to guard the fort.”
After they had put that young man wise to their plans, the two left the
Castle. They were both pretty nearly exhausted after their experiences
in the tunnel, but the success of their adventure was elating, and more
than made up for its bad effects.
“Well, here’s the field just where we left it,” announced Bill as he
helped Dorothy over the stone fence. “And there’s that Willy plane of
yours, too. Whither away?”
“Hop in and you’ll see.”
Five minutes later, Bill looked down from his seat in the rear cockpit
and saw that she was going to land near the tennis courts in the broad
parking space behind the cabanas at the beach club. The members had
become used to seeing her land Will-o’-the-Wisp on the club grounds.
Their descent therefore caused little or no notice. The plane stopped
rolling and a man in the club uniform of a beach attendant ran up.
“Hello, Jeffries,” waved Bill. “I thought you might be here. How are
things?”
“We caught Donovan and Charlie Myers over at Babylon. But they’re small
fry. Anything new, Bolton?”
Bill got out of the plane and helped Dorothy to descend.
“I should say there is! Tell you about it in a minute. Dorothy, let me
present Mr. Arthur Jeffries, one of the very big men of the United
States Secret Service. Arthur, this is the famous Dorothy Dixon!”
Arthur Jeffries said some polite things which caused Dorothy to blush
modestly, and in a few pithy sentences Bill told the story of their
afternoon.
“So you see, old man,” he ended. “You won’t have to wait around this
club any longer disguised as a goldfish or what have you—because the
bearded aviator won’t fly the Mystery Plane over here any more—that is
to say—not for twenty years or so at the soonest.”
“He’ll get all that or more,” Jeffries commented crisply. “But the man
he worked for—sunning himself over there on the sand—old Holloway, I
mean—he’s the nigger in the woodpile! The boss of this gang of diamond
smugglers—but I can’t arrest him on that evidence!”
Dorothy made an eager gesture. “Will you come with me—I want to show
you two something. We’ll go around the far side of that big cabana on
the end of the boardwalk. We’re going inside.”
“Holloway’s bath house?” This from Bill.
“Exactly. I don’t want him to see us, though, so be careful.”
The three rounded the gaily painted cottage and ducking under the red
and black striped awning, entered the front room which was fitted out
with the usual wicker furniture and bright rugs.
“I wonder where he keeps them,” Dorothy murmured to herself. “Ah—this
looks like it!”
She lifted the hinged lid of a handsome sea chest and pulled forth a
dozen or more colored flags.
“By jove! The goods!” cried Bill. “How did you ever guess it, Dot?”
Dorothy was so pleased by her find that she passed over his use of the
despised diminutive.
“I just happened to remember that he generally decked out his cabana
with a flock of these things. And though the club runs up flags on
special occasions, Mr. Holloway did it nearly every afternoon. It came
to me when you pulled off Tracey’s beard back there in the tunnel.”
“Precisely,” said Arthur Jeffries. “Holloway would get word in New York
at his office, probably, when a liner carrying contraband was expected
off Fire Island light. Then he’d come out here and signal the time to
Tracey in his airplane, by means of these flags. I’ll bet the old boy
never went near that Castle. Some alibi! He and Tracey probably never
saw each other from the time he went to the city in the morning until he
came home for dinner at night.”
“Are you going to arrest him now?” she asked breathlessly.
“As soon as I can get out on the beach. I’ll do it as quietly as
possible, of course. No use in causing a disturbance with his friends
around. So long, Bill. Glad to have met you, Miss Dixon—and many
thanks. See you both later on.”
They left the cabana with him, but turned back toward the plane as he
went down the beach.
“That ties it, I guess,” she smiled.
“It certainly does!” agreed Bill.
“Now—didn’t I tell you it would be hot stuff?”
He looked at her and they both burst out laughing.
“And the best of it is that the government will probably pin a medal on
you for it!” he declared.
“Oh, Bill! Do you really think that?”
Bill grinned at her excitement. “You get into that plane and take me
home to dinner. That was the bargain, and I’m famished!”
“Dinner!” exclaimed Dorothy in disgust. “My word! We’ve caught those
diamond smugglers when the whole of the Secret Service couldn’t do
it—and all you think of is food! Gee, I’m glad I’m not a mere man. Hop
aboard. I’ll give her the gun and fly you home to your dinner.”
THE END
Those who enjoyed this story and the preceding one entitled Dorothy
Dixon Wins Her Wings will find much to interest them in the next book of
this series entitled Dorothy Dixon Solves the Conway Case.