The Million Dollar Mystery by Harold MacGrath (cool books to read .TXT) 📖

like honest onions."

"You lemme by!" breathed Steve, with murder in his heart.

Suddenly the two men closed, surged back and forth, one determined to take and the other to hold this mysterious box. Dunkers struggled to uphold his word: not that he really wanted the box but to prove that he was strong enough to take it if he wanted to. The name on the box flashed and disappeared. It was a kind of shock to him. He and Blossom went battering against the rail. Dunker's grip slipped and so did Blossom's. The result was that the box was catapulted into the sea. With an agonizing cry, Blossom leaned far over. He saw the box oscillate for a moment, then sink gracefully in a zigzag course, down through the blue waters. Fainter and fainter it grew, and at last vanished.

"I'm sorry, Steve; but yuh wouldn't let me look at it," said Dunkers, contritely.

"Damn you; I'm goin' t' kill y' for that!"

It became a real fight this time, fist and foot, tooth and nail; one mad with the lust to kill and the other desperately intent on living. It was one of those contests in which honor and fair play have no part. But for the timely arrival of the captain and some of the crew Dunkers would have been badly injured, perhaps fatally. They hauled back Blossom, roaring out his oaths at the top of his lungs. It took half an hour's arguing to calm him down. Then the captain demanded to know what it was all about. And blubbering, Steve told him.

"Six hundred feet of water, if I've got my reckoning right. The anchor lies in sixty feet, but the starboard side drops sheer six hundred. You swab! Why didn't you bring the box to me? A man has a right to what he finds. I'd have taken care of it for you till we got back to port. I know; you were greedy; you thought I might want to stick my fist into your treasure. And you'll never find it in six hundred feet of water and tangled, porous coral. That's what, you get for being a blamed hog. As for you," and the captain turned to Dunkers, "get your dunnage and your pay and hunt for another boat back. I won't have no murder on board Captain Manners. And the sooner you go, the better."

"I'll go, sir," said Dunkers, readily enough. Had the misfortune happened to him and had Blossom been the aggressor, he would want his life. He understood. Like the valet in Olivette, it was the time for disappearing.

"An' keep out o' my way. I'll git y' yet," growled Blossom.

"Keep your mouth shut," said the mate, "or I'll have you put in irons, you pig!"

"All right, sir. I've said all I'm goin't' say t'day;" and Blossom strode off.

"What was the box like?" asked the captain of Dunkers.

"Chinese contraption, sir; leastwise it looked that way to me. Didn't look as if it'd been in th' water long, sir. Somethin' lost overboard by some private yacht, t' my thinkin'. I'll keep out o' Steve's way. I'll lay low on shore, sir."

And though Steve made a perfect range of the spot, he never came back to find the mysterious box, never saw the Gilson House back home, nor did he ever see Dunkers again. On the voyage home he brooded continually, and was frequently found blubbering; and one night he skipped his watch and went to Davy Jones' locker.

Dunkers had not told about the name he had seen on the box; and Blossom had not thought to. The name Hargreave had instantly brought back to Dunkers' mind the newspaper stories he had recently read. There was no doubt in the world that this box belonged to the missing millionaire, who had drawn a million from his banks and vanished; and, moreover, there was no doubt in Dunkers' mind that this million lay in the Bahaman waters. It had been drawn up from the bottom of the sound, under the path of the balloon. He proceeded, then, to take a most minute range. It would require money and partners; but half a loaf would be far better than no loaf at all; and he was determined to return to New York to find backing. Finding is keeping, on land or sea.

Now it happened that his favorite grog shop was a cheap saloon across the way from the headquarters of the Black Hundred; and Vroon occasionally dropped in, for he often picked up a valuable bit of maritime news. Bunkers was an old friend of the barkeeper, and he proceeded to pour and guzzle down his throat a very poor substitute for whisky. He became communicative. He bragged. He knew where there was a million, and all he needed was a first-class diving bell. A year from now he would not be drinking cheap whisky; he'd be steering a course up and down Broadway and buying wine when he was thirsty. He was no miser. But he had to have a diving bell; and where the blue devil could he get one with twelve dollars and an Ingersoll watch in his pocket?

From his table Vroon made a sign which the bartender understood. Then he rose and approached Bunkers.

"I own a pretty good diving apparatus," he said. "If you've got the goods, I'll take a chance on a fifty-fifty basis." Vroon did not believe there was anything back of his talk; but it always paid to dig deep enough to find out. "Have a drink; and, Bill, give us a real whisky and none of your soap-lye. Now, let's hear your yarn."

"I don't know yuh," said Bunkers, with drunken caution. "How is it, Bill?" turning to the bartender.

"He's the goods, Jim. You've heard of Wyant & Co.?"

"Sure I've heard o' them. Best divin' app'ratus they is."

"Well, this gent here is Mr. Brooks, general manager for Wyant & Co. I can O.K. him."

Vroon threw an appreciative glance at the bartender. He was not affiliated with the Black Hundred, but he had often aided Vroon in minor affairs.

"All right, if yuh say so, Bill. Well, here's th' yarn."

And when he had done, Vroon smoked quietly without speaking.

"Don't yuh believe it?" demanded Bunkers, truculently.

"But six hundred feet of water, in a coral bottom, and no way of telling just where it fell overboard. That's a tough proposition."

"Oh, it is, is it? I'm a sailor. I can lay my hand right over th' spot. Do yuh think I'd be fool enough t' hunt for it without a perfect range?" Bunkers tapped his coat pocket suggestively.

And Vroon knew that the one thing he wanted was there, a plan or a drawing of the range. So there was another man shanghaied that night, and his destination was Cape Town, twenty-two days' voyage by the calendar.

Vroon carried his information to the organization that same night. They would start the expedition at once, and till this was accomplished, Hargreave's daughter was to be immune from attacks. Besides, it would give Hargreave (wherever he was) and the others the idea that the Black Hundred had concluded to give up the chase.

Above, with his ear to a small hole, skilfully bored through the ceiling without permitting the plaster to fall, knelt a man with a bandaged arm. He could never see any faces; no one ever took off a mask in this sinister chamber. But there were voices, and he was going to forget some of them. After the meeting came to an end, he waited an hour, and then stole down into the street by the aid of the fire-escape. Later, he entered a telephone booth and called up Jones.

Then, one leathern and steel box, dotted with bits of ivory and mother-of-pearl, became two; and the second one was soaked in mud and salt water for two weeks till you could not have told it from the original. And that is why Jones was able, some weeks later, to hide once more the original box. As for the substitute, just as Braine was about to use a mallet and chisel upon it, the lights went out. There was a wild scramble, a chair or two was overturned.

"The door, the door!" shouted Braine, furious.

It slammed the moment the words left his lips. And as suddenly as they had gone out the lights sprang up. The box was gone. There were evidently traitors among the Black Hundred.

CHAPTER XIII

The Black Hundred, not as individuals but as an organization, began to worry. Powerful, and often reckless and daring because it was powerful, it began to look about for some basic cause for all these failures against Hargreave's daughter and Hargreave's ghost. They had tried to put the inquisitive reporter out of the way; they had laid every trap they could think of to catch the mysterious visitor at the Hargreave home; they had thrown out a hundred lures to bring Hargreave out of his lair, and failed; and they had lost a dozen valuable men and several thousand dollars. This must end somewhere, and quickly.

The one ray of hope for the conspirators lay in the fact that Florence had never seen her father and knew not in the least what he looked like. They determined to try again in this direction.

"Give it all up," said the countess to Braine. "I tell you, whatever is back of all this is stronger than we are. He knows the organization, and for all we know he may be a ghost."

"I never go back," smiled Braine. "There's something more than the million. There's the sport of the thing. We've been bested in a dozen bouts, and nearly always by a fluke. They have the breaks, as they say out at the Polo Grounds."

"But the time and expense when we might be getting results elsewhere! I tell you, Leo, I'm afraid. It's like always hearing some one behind you and never finding anybody when you turn. I have told you my doubts. I have also asked you to trap that butler, but you've always laughed."

"You are seeing ghosts, Olga. A new man from holy Russia," shrugging, "is coming to-night. Evidently the head over there thinks our contributions of late have not been up to the mark, and they are going to stir us up. I am willing to wager my soul, however, that that box is simply a hoax to befuddle us. Either that or it holds the key. But the rest of them insist that the box must be recovered. When I leave this room to-night I am going over to Riverdale and stalk all by myself. I'm going to get a glimpse of that mysterious stranger. He carries a scar of mine somewhere, for I hit him that night."

The door opened and the executive chamber became silent.

"Count Paroff," boomed the voice of Vroon. "He will present his credentials."

This formality was executed as prescribed by the rules; and Count Paroff was given his chair. He spoke for a while, rather pompously.

"The head organization is not satisfied with its offspring in this Hargreave affair," he said in conclusion. "You are slow."

"Then perhaps you have come with some suggestions for the betterment of our business?" asked Braine ironically.

"Sir, this is not the hour for flippancy," said the agent coldly.

Braine made a sign with his hand, a sign not observed by every one. Instantly Paroff bent lowly. He recognized that the speaker was the actual, not the nominal, head of the American branch.

"What are your suggestions?" inquired the nominal head from his chair, anxious to avoid a clash between the newcomer and the truculent master of them all.

"I have been informed that Hargreave's daughter has never seen her father, not even a photograph of him," said Paroff, more amiably.

"We are absolutely certain that this is the case," said the nominal head, who was known as the president. "But we tried one play in that direction, and it failed miserably."

"I have the story," replied Paroff. "It was clumsily done. The ruse