Experiment in Crime (15 page)

He drove smoothly up the road. The sea was a dozen feet below them and not many yards away. Here and there, a beach fire glowed. A few cars were parked on the land side; it was a favorite rendezvous for people who weren't ready to go home yet. For young people, especially.

The professor turned off the road and switched out his lights. "If that houseboat is operating off the Haulover; it should be somewhere yonder." He pointed to the sea, a murmuring darkness that extended to a final nothing, above which stars shone.

"What do we do now?"

He looked at her in the beam of a slowly approaching car. She had changed to a dark dress--and pinned up her hair--somehow, in the rocking, bumping seat. The car passed and went on. "Just watch," he said. "If they intend to beach a shark, they'd do it here."

"Why?"

"Too many hotels and people--too much doing--below here. Above here, there's another long stretch where people live." He opened the door. "We'll go out on the road and patrol a bit."

They crossed the highway. Small waves spilled and hissed on the sand. Far to the north, city lights glowed. To the south were the gas lanterns of the bridge-anglers. In between was a mile and a half, or perhaps two miles, of beach, dunes, underbrush, and road. Not a house or a building.

"Wouldn't it be better," she asked, after they had walked for several minutes, "if we split up? If I patrolled in one direction and you in the other?"

"Do you think it's a good idea for a girl to be walking around in this place alone?"

"It would just double our chances of seeing anything. What happens, if we do see anything?"

"We run for the car, and wait, and follow them."

She looked at him a moment. "Okay. You go north. I'll go toward the bridge and come back. Meet here."

He walked at the edge of the road. Every few rods he stopped and strained his eyes out toward the sea. In the remote distance, Fowey Rock periodically displayed a wan, white flare and channel markers winked in the oblivion between. He had long since lost sight of Marigold--a dwindling figure, visible for a while in the sudden illumination of the cars that passed her. There were not many.

They passed him, too. In one of them, he thought he saw uniformed police, but he was not sure. He went to the end of his beat where habitation began again. He walked back more swiftly, looking less often at the sea and worrying about the girl. She was waiting for him opposite the car.

"See anything?" They said the same thing at the same time--and laughed.

"It's probably foolish . . ." he said. "The information from the Marine Operator was suggestive--that's all."

"Let's go again."

She had walked about halfway back from the Haulover bridge when she heard the launch. She moved from the road down to the beach, and found a sea lavender behind which she could hide. The motor was not running fast--idling, rather. It came toward the shore very slowly. She could not see it. But she thought she had better get the professor.

She expected that she would have to go the full length of the uninhabited beach. But she did not.

He had decided it was too great a risk for her to be there, alone, and turned back before reaching the end of his route. They met a few hundred yards north of her car.

Panting, she told him.

He led her back to the car. He started the motor but he did not turn on his lights.

He drove up over the shoulder and headed south, going slowly. No one approached from either direction.

"It was about here," she said.

He turned from the pavement and parked.

Together, they went down to the beach. They squatted behind the sea lavender.

The motor was plainly audible. He thought he could hear voices out on the dark water.

"It's much nearer!" she whispered.

"I think I can see it. Not quite straight out. A little to the left. A white blur--"

"It is!"

"Coming in gradually."

Behind them, on the road, a large sedan approached--so slowly that he pulled her around to the ocean side of the bush to keep from being noticed. The car went beyond them for perhaps a city block and stopped. It backed into one of the parking places and its lights died out.

"More people necking," she whispered. "Lucky them!"

He murmured, "Maybe."

The white blur became boat-shaped. Voices above its engine sounded cheerful and urgent.
Was it possible.
. . ?

It was not a large boat. But he made out many heads silhouetted against the less dark water. A considerable splashing accompanied the slow progress toward shore.

One voice, louder than the rest, came to their ears: "Stay with it, Doc! You only got a few more feet to go!"

More babble. More splashes. The launch was such a craft as a good-sized, well-appointed houseboat might carry in her davits--for fishing, or for emergencies. And now the professor could see a rod bent in her stern.

The conversation reported by the Miami Marine Operator had not been bogus.

Somebody on the
Spanish Galleon,
off Baker's Haulover, had actually hooked a big shark, a couple of hours before and, lacking the equipment for gaffing such a fish, was beaching it. The big sedan behind them was as innocent as the rest of the random traffic.

The professor jeered at himself.

He had entertained a slight suspicion. On the strength of it, he had roused the F.B.I. He had severely worried Wilson. He had, perhaps, sent others out on a false errand.

He should have left the affairs of that night to men who knew their business.

"What did you say?" she whispered.

"I was swearing."

"That's what I thought." She reached for his hand. "Never mind! It was quite a buzz--while it lasted! Look! They're getting out in the water. The boat's aground. Let's stay and see what they caught. Nothing, I bet, but an old hammerhead. Maybe even just a big nurse shark."

"Wait a minute!" His whisper was sharp.

He had seen something that no fisherman would do: the man with the bent rod had tossed it into the sea. And the people were not encouraging an "angler" any longer.

They were getting out of the launch swiftly, silently, and wading toward the beach. Half a dozen men--and two women. One of the men was very fat.

"They
weren't
fishing!" Her voice was low and tense.

He shook his head.

"Then they
are
. . .
!"

He nodded and pulled her down behind the bush on the cool sand.

The fat man waited until the last person had stepped out of the water. "Rudolph!"

he called loudly. The lights of the big sedan turned on.

The people on the beach were not directly in the rays, but they were near enough to be visible, now. The professor bit hard on his lower lip. French Paul--Wilser--and some strangers,. Strangers who had doubtless just arrived, by a very quiet plane, from Cuba. French Paul either knew or had guessed that every agent in South Florida was concentrated on the Keys and in the Everglades. So he had boldly brought the travelers ashore almost on Miami Beach itself, superintending the maneuver personally--as he had on one other occasion the professor knew of.

The eight people started to scramble up on the road.

"Stand right where you are everybody! Hands up!"

The hard voice had not finished when a pistol cracked in the hand of the fat Alsatian. Wilser knelt and began firing. The others scattered, running back along the beach. From the road came the blast of automatic guns. A woman screamed. Bullets burned above the heads of the two people lying behind the bush. Feet pounded on the road. Car lights blazed up and down the beach.

"Stand still! Everybody!"

The shots ceased. The whole beach above was well illuminated. The sand below was shaded by dunes.

Police were rounding up the men and the two women. "This way! Bring 'em up this way," a voice commanded.

Weeds whispered close beside the girl and the man. The professor rolled over on his back. He wanted to see--but he did not want to stand up suddenly and be shot at.

Paul was creeping through the brush, in the shadow of the steep slope beside the road. He was out of sight and he would soon be far enough out of range to run. Or to wade into the calm sea and swim. A man like French Paul could probably swim a long distance.

"Drop your gun, Paul," the professor said sharply.

Paul turned toward the tangle-staring. The professor kicked up at the man's arm with all his might.

The gun flew. Paul lunged. Marigold yelled.

Police rushed toward them. . . .

The morning paper displayed a banner headline:

FBI SMASHES MAROON GANG

Prof. Burke, Thought Dead, Credited for Coup

Leaders Jailed

Alien-Smuggling Ring Bared

EXTRA!

There were similar headlines throughout the day in the nation's press.

The radio networks talked breathlessly about it.

Harmon read the headlines in his office. He had not slept and his eyes revealed the fact. But he did not seem interested in going to bed. It was the day of his life.

At Bog Key, the night before, he and his men had intercepted a second plane--and its crew of two: Chuck and Johnny. G-men, in a dozen cities, had arrested more than a hundred members of the Maroon Gang and people associated with them. Thirty-eight persons had been arrested in Cuba.

When Harmon had rushed anxiously back to Miami, he had found French Paul, as well as the others on board the
Spanish Galleon
and her launch, in the custody of the police. Professor Burke and Marigold Macey were waiting for him--the professor with a suggestion which led to the predawn capture of The Tip. It was a clean sweep.

Reporters crowded around the desk of the G-man. "How good," they asked, "is your case?"

Harmon laughed. "While Burke was going around as 'Mr. Skeat' we had time to make it watertight. And listen, fellows. You haven't even started to give Burke the credit he deserves." The G-man tapped the newspaper on his desk. . . .

Mrs. MacFalkland nervously woke her husband. "There's some rather disquieting news in the paper, dear. . . ."

He muttered and opened his eyes. "Those Russians!"

"Nothing like that." In spite of her anxiety, she concealed a sudden grimace. It might have been a smile. Perhaps she enjoyed the prospect of seeing--just once--the complete discomfiture of her too-positive husband. "It turns out that Professor, Burke isn't dead."

"Isn't dead!"
He grabbed the paper. Horror filled his eyes. . . .

Connie heard it on the radio while she was eating breakfast. She drove to the Bombay Royale. Double-O was wearing a red dressing gown with a monogram of two linked zeroes on its pocket. He grinned at her and sent his butler for another coffee cup.

"What happened?" the girl asked feverishly.

"Most of it's in the papers. This edition came out too early to mention The Tip."

"They got him?"

"Burke suggested last night to Harmon that I could tell them where The Tip might hide. I did. I went down to headquarters about four o'clock and stayed a while.

Identifying a couple of miscellaneous clucks the G-men didn't know."

"The professor and that girl could have been killed!"

Double-O walked to the window. "Yeah."

"The police--and French Paul's people--were shooting right over them!"

"Nobody got killed," Double-O replied dryly. "Only one guy hit. And the State Department must be very glad he isn't dead. He might tell them what other spies came in."

"Did you see the girl when you were at headquarters?"

"Yes," he said.

"Is she. . . ?"

"Nice? Yeah. Pretty? And then some! Look, chick. Are you in love with the guy?"

Double-O put his worry on the table, like a card it hurt to play.

When she didn't answer, he shook his head sadly and turned to repeat his question. She was laughing!

"Love Martin Burke?" she said. "Me? I'm fond of him. I think he's marvelous. But I'm the restless type, Bill. I couldn't fall for some one like that. It would have to be somebody who loved bright lights all the time, somebody who could" tango like dreaming, somebody who could keep a girl on her toes--not settle down with her."

Double-O blew a long, relaxed cloud of cigar smoke. "Don't know what gave me the impression--"

"Of course, you do! I enjoyed necking with him--he seemed so surprised! He can be one of my favorite men friends as long as he likes."

"The lucky guy who finally does get you," the gambler said, "is going to need his luck. How else will he figure you out?"

Connie dismissed the problem with a gesture. "I asked about Marigold Macey because I hoped she would be nice--and pretty--and I knew he had some romantic ideas about me. I was kind of--embarrassed by it."

"She's the undergraduate's dream of what a gal ought to be, I'd imagine. If the professor is interested, he'll have competition. . . ."

Connie thought about that--anxiously, it seemed.

He dropped into a chair, his long arms and legs sprawling. "It's going to seem funny, now--without the Maroon boys pushing on me."

"That," she said, "is the main reason I busted in on your morning reveries, Bill.

You owe that guy a lot."

"I owe the professor
plenty!
It's funny! That's what my family wanted me to be. A professional man. A doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. Only--I learned the wrong things too young, where I started college." He considered that for a moment. "I owe the guy everything. And I've cooked up an idea about that. See what you think."

As she listened, her eyes grew bright. . . .

It was late afternoon. The professor had slept almost around the clock--with Bedelia's aid and protection. Protection from reporters, news photographers, numerous other visitors, telegrams, phone calls--an excited, impatient and to him, unfamiliar, world.

When he appeared, she hurried him through his breakfast and sent him to the grocery store for a "few items" she said she had forgotten. He decided to walk.

The air smelled of pine smoke as he started home; another high had come in from the northwest--and time for it, too, he thought. He came to the vacant lot and what seemed to be the same ballgame was in progress. He stopped to watch for a moment, smiling rather forlornly, as a man might who was trying to imprint on his mind a pleasant spectacle he would soon see no more. One of the youngsters shouted, "It's
the professor!"