Sixty seconds from the moment Don shouted warning, Number Three lifeboat
was swinging, fully manned, from her davits. On the dark water below,
two life preservers, with patent flares attached, floated along the
_Gatoon’s_ portside. The ship, with engines dead, rolled gently in the
trough of a gentle ground swell.
For a rescue at night, no better conditions could be asked. The trouble
was that, from the moment Red Pennington’s attacker had hit the water,
there had been no sign of him. No second splash or cry for help had been
heard.
Was the fellow a suicide—deliberately drowning in preference to being
caught? Or had he just gone down, unable to swim?
One guess was as good as another. Except that the man was a Scorpion
agent, Don Winslow would have given the fellow up for lost. As it was,
he suspected a trick.
Thinking back, he recalled that the spy had not hit the water all
sprawled out like a man who had lost his balance. There had been only
the single, clean _plunk_ of an expert dive.
But where, in mid-ocean, could the man have swum? To a waiting boat,
somewhere out of sight in the darkness?
There was one more alternative. As the idea flashed across Don’s brain,
he whirled and ran to the starboard rail. After sweeping the ship’s side
in one quick glance, he turned again and darted back to the after deck.
Halted at the taffrail, the young officer leaned far over, his eyes
squinting to pierce the darkness under the gunboat’s stern. After a
moment, he straightened up with a satisfied nod, and strode back to the
portside.
A little group of ship’s officers stood beside Mercedes and Michael
Splendor near the davits, just as Don approached. All of them caught the
young commander’s quiet words.
“Send your boat around under the stern, Captain Riggs,” Don Winslow
murmured. “Our man is there, clinging to the rudder post. If we go
softly, we can all get back to the taffrail in time to see the fun!”
For an instant Riggs stared in unbelief, then turned to snap an order at
the men below. As the oars resumed their steady stroke alongside, Don
led his friends aft on tiptoe. He knew the questions they wanted to ask;
but there was no time now for talk.
A few feet from the taffrail, Don signaled the two ship’s officers to
stand by. He himself stooped with one hand on the line of the taffrail
log.
The wait was not long. As the lifeboat started to round the stern, the
stout line under Don’s fingers jerked taut. By its motion he knew that
his man was climbing, hand over hand.
Only a trained athlete could have performed such a feat, for the line
was barely thick enough to hold a man’s weight. The climber’s hands must
have been cut raw after the first half dozen grips, but he came doggedly
on. At the last moment before his head appeared, Don drew back in a
wrestler’s crouch.
A lunge, a harsh oath, a brief, desperate struggle, and it was over. The
unknown, who had attacked Red Pennington and then plunged into the sea,
now stood on deck, panting in the grip of three strong men.
“So what?” he demanded insolently. “Now ya got me, wot ya gonna do with
me? I ain’t done nothin’ wrong. A guy up an’ slugs me in the dark, an’ I
fall overboard, an’ now ya grab me. So what!”
Don’s flashlight, turned on the man’s face showed a pair of small, ratty
eyes set in animallike features. The fellow was desperate, and trying to
cover it up with a line of bluff.
“Looks as if we’d caught our murderer, all right!” gritted Captain
Riggs, after a shrewd glance. “This seaman is one of the replacements we
took on in Guantanamo. Shall I throw him in the brig now, Commander, or
do you wish to question him first?”
Don Winslow snapped out his light.
“The questioning had better wait, Captain,” he replied quickly. “I’ve
just discovered something that may be of vital importance to us and
every honest sailor aboard. Suppose we all talk it over in your cabin,
as soon as this spy is safely under lock and key!”
On his way to the captain’s quarters, Don Winslow stopped by Number
Three davits and waited until the lifeboat had been swung inboard with
its crew. As Red Pennington stepped to the deck, the young commander
seized his arm and led him back into the shadows amidships. A few quick
words covered the rat-faced seaman’s capture.
“And now we’ll see what his game was, Red,” Don whispered, moving over
to the port rail. “Give me a boost up into that boat with the unlashed
cover and stand by for trouble. But don’t let anybody slug you from
behind this time!”
“I won’t, don’t kid yourself!” muttered the stocky lieutenant, stooping
to take Don’s weight. “But, say! You must have found something up there
the first time, or you wouldn’t be so anxious to look again. Can’t you
wait long enough to tell a man...?”
But Don was already over the gunwhale and inside the boat. This time
several minutes passed before his head and shoulders appeared from under
the tarpaulin.
“Take these, Red!” he said softly, passing down a loose packet of
papers. “And put them out of sight. I’m coming down now.”
Swinging light to the deck, he drew his pocket gun and led the way back
aft.
“Wha-what the dickens?” muttered Red Pennington in a hoarse whisper, as
he shoved the papers under his waistband.
“Enlistment records—the missing ones!” hissed Don, glancing along the
shadowy decks. “They were just part of what I found in the boat. If
anybody tries to take them away from you between here and the captain’s
quarters....”