Boston Blackie

by Jack Boyle

  The Humboldt’s upper deck was deserted except for one passenger—a girl who leaned over the after rail intently watching the labor of seamen who were lowering weighty, carefully guarded chests of gold from a jutting pier to small boats that were to carry them to the strong-room of the waiting ship offshore.

  The girl, off guard in the safety of her solitude, watched the movement of the treasure with almost proprietary solicitude. Because of that jealously guarded gold she was a passenger on the Humboldt. Because of it there lay on her forearm, hidden by the sleeve of her traveling suit, a tight fitting bracelet a dozen times more precious to her than its weight in diamonds. Often and involuntarily her fingers slipped beneath her sleeve to caress softly the circlet they found there. It represented a difficult adventure skillfully accomplished. It was confirmatory proof of the logic of the master-mind that had set itself the seemingly impossible task of rifling the steamer’s treasure vault. It was an instrument of revenge infinitely precious to the daughter of the man the world had called “Dayton Tom.”

  The boats, each with a shotgun guard idle but watchful in the stern seat, put off from the wharf and drew up beside the Humboldt. A whining cargo engine lowered a rope net to the bobbing carriers, and one by one, with infinite care, the treasure chests were swung to the steamer’s deck and piled there in ten rows, each four boxes high. Forty chests of gold—forty iron-bound storehouses of vast, illimitable power!

  The boxes were counted, checked and recounted and then wheeled down the companionway to the ship’s strong-room. Inside the steel-bound vault, with guards barring the doorway against the curious, the chests were counted once again and each of their heavy seals examined by Captain McNaughton, Purser Dave Jessen of the Humboldt and the Nome manager of the express company that was guaranteeing the treasure’s safe delivery in far-away Seattle. Every seal was intact, every chest in its place; and with a sigh of relief as his responsibility ended, the express manager accepted the receipt signed jointly by the ship’s captain and the purser, for two million dollars in gold.

  At a command from the Captain, a dozen or more trunks, boxes and treasure parcels intrusted to the steamer for safe-keeping by passengers, were wheeled into the strong-room and checked off the purser’s list. All were there. The Humboldt’s treasure-room was in order. With a final, sweeping glance of satisfied security, the Captain’s eye roamed the interior of the steel-lined room. Then he stepped out, pulled shut the great steel-barred door and put in place the giant padlock that guarded it. The Captain’s key turned softly in the lock. The purser’s followed it with another gentle click of hidden ratchets—and the treasure was as safe as human ingenuity could make it.

  Purser Jessen, with a sigh of relief, locked his key in a secret compartment of his private safe. Captain McNaughton hid his key in the money belt that girdled his waist and never left his body night or day. Then he opened a panel in the wall above his berth and threw on an electric switch that turned a death-dealing current through the steel plate in the floor just within the strong-room door and connected, also, a series of alarms that would rouse the ship if the treasure-room door were opened so much as an inch.

  “Well, that’s well off my mind!” the Captain murmured, and went on deck to direct his final preparations for sailing.

  A shrieking blast came from the steamer’s siren. A score of small boats and launches, each crowded with passengers, put off from the pier. An hour later they swarmed over the Humboldt’s decks by hundreds, and the Humboldt, with a final siren blast, slowly swung her prow seaward and began her long homeward journey.

  Nightfall found the girl who had watched the loading of the treasure with such interest standing alone against the after-deck rail abstractedly watching the steamer’s foamy wake fade away into the darkness of an empty sea. On the passenger list she was registered as “Miss Marie Whitney, Chicago,” a name that cloaked the presence on the Humboldt of Mary Dawson—Boston Blackie’s Mary—able assistant of the husband for whom she was waiting now, tense and eagerly expectant, to surrender the circlet on her wrist against which her fingers lay protectingly.

  A step on the deck behind her caught her ear. From the darkness a voice spoke softly. “Mary,” it said.

  The girl stirred in a revealing movement of love, joy and pride in her own well-accomplished task. Without turning her head she stretched two hands behind her and grasped the man’s eagerly.

  “I have it, Blackie,” she said, speaking in a whisper. “Absolutely perfect, too! It’s on my left wrist. Take it quickly—and oh, my dear, do be careful of it. It couldn’t possibly be replaced now. The door is wired, as you thought—alarms ring all over the steamer if it is opened. The wires run out through the upper left wainscoting of the companionway. Everything is arranged as you planned.”

  “The man who said this trick couldn’t be turned didn’t know my Mary,” whispered the voice behind the girl’s head, as strong deft fingers slipped the bracelet over her wrist with a caressing touch as thrilling to her as rare wine.

  “Your work is done,—well done,—dearest,” he said. “Take no more risks whatever. No matter what happens, neither recognize nor communicate with Lewes or with me again. With this bracelet in my hand the gold already is ours.”

  “Do be careful, Blackie dear,” she urged under the stress of the natural, ever-present fear of a woman for the man she loves. “I’ve had a queer feeling—a sort of premonition—”

  “Sh-h-h!” interrupted Blackie. “Someone’s coming.”

  Silently as a shadow he glided away across the darkened deck.

  A man’s firm, heavy step approached, and as Mary leaned across the rail and stared again in seeming idleness toward the disappearing wake beyond the steamer, a blue uniform appeared at her side, and Dave Jessen, the Humboldt’s purser, stooped and peered into her face.

  “It is you, Miss Whitney. I knew I couldn’t be wrong even in the dark,” the young officer said, betraying with each word the deep and deferential interest which had grown steadily during the weeks since the Humboldt had left Seattle with “Miss Marie Whitney” among her passengers.

  “Pin the unfortunate bearer of bad news, Miss Whitney,” he concluded seriously.

  “Bad news?” repeated the girl, looking up quickly.

  “I fear so,” he continued. “You know how crowded we are this trip. Every stateroom is sold, and we’re even bunking some of the miners down in the crew’s quarters; but even so, I was sure until the last moment that I could keep your double stateroom for you alone. But I can’t. An hour before we left Nome, Captain McNaughton received a wireless from Seattle that forces us to make room for express company detectives and—”

  “Detectives!” echoed the girl.

  In the darkness her slender hands clutched the rail until the knuckles whitened. With a quick, fierce effort of will she mastered her fear and looked up at him with a smile that invited confidence.

  “How exciting!” she exclaimed. “But what have detectives to do on the prosaic old Humboldt?”

  The man bent toward her and lowered his voice.

  “The Seattle police have been informed by one of their spies, a woman, that two crooks—top-notchers with an international reputation, the wire said—are on board the Humboldt for the purpose of looting the treasure-room on the trip home,” he said. “That, of course, is impossible; the strong-room is absolutely burglar-proof. But with two millions of gold on board, precautions even against the impossible are necessary. So I had to turn over a stateroom opposite the treasure-room to the officers, and must ask you to permit me to give you company on the return trip. I’m sorry, but—”

  “Whom are you putting in with me?”

  “A Miss Nina Francisco. She’s a Californian, an exceptionally likable young woman, I think. She has been in Nome all summer, visiting mines in which her father is interested, she told me. Do you mind sharing your cabin with her, Miss Whitney?” he finished with unconscious tenderness.

  “C
ertainly not,” Mary answered. Then, spurred to the necessity of obtaining further information by Blackie’s danger, she looked into the officer’s face with parted lips and eyes that were bright with an excitement which she had no need to feign.

  “A robbery planned on this ship!” she cried. “How wonderfully exciting! Are these crooks being watched? Will they be arrested here on the Humboldt?”

  “Probably not, unless they really make an attempt to break into the strong-room,” Jessen replied. “We have their names and a description, but they are using aliases, naturally, and we haven’t been able to identify them yet. But it really doesn’t matter, for now that we have been warned, there isn’t a chance in a million for them to accomplish anything on shipboard; and at the dock in Seattle, officers who know them will take them into custody as they go ashore.”

  The girl’s body stiffened, and her face, protected by the darkness, grew suddenly white and infinitely careworn. Imminent danger threatened Boston Blackie, for she knew he would use without delay the circlet she had given him but a moment before. She must warn him at once of his peril.

  “I think I’ll go below,” she said. “It’s growing chilly.”

  She shivered, but not from cold.

  “I may have Miss Francisco’s baggage moved into your cabin?” asked the purser, steadying her with a gentle hand as they returned across the deck.

  “Of course—and thank you for your courtesy,” Mary answered with cordiality that quickened the pulse of the bronzed, clear-eyed young officer beside her. “As you have chosen her as my companion, I am sure Miss Francisco and I will be congenial, and I am so excited over your news about the—the—crooks. You’ll let me know if anything exciting happens, won’t you, please? Why, it’s all just like a movie, with all of us playing a part in it!”

  She laid her hand on his arm and looked pleadingly into eyes as innocent and straightforward and free from guile as the sea winds that had tanned his cheeks.

  “You know I will, Miss Whitney. Good night,” said Jessen, his voice revealing what he feared to put into words.

  “Good night—and don’t forget your promise,” she said with a smile that gave no hint of the anxiety in her heart as she disappeared toward her stateroom.

  Mary penned a hasty note telling Blackie the crucially important news, and slipped out of her stateroom to rap in the code of the crook-world at his door—under which she slipped the note when an answering rap came from within.

  During Mary’s absence a young woman, tall, dark and voluptuously handsome, entered and stood eyeing curiously the cabin to which her baggage had just been moved. On the table she saw the tablet on which Mary had written, with a freshly used pen beside it. Without hesitation she stepped to the table and held the paper to the light. On the sheet beneath the one that had been used, and which Mary in her hurry had neglected to destroy, a few words were visible.

  “‘Seattle … wireless treasure-room … detectives … ’” the woman read with widening eyes at each telltale word. “So she knows the secrets of the wireless room, does she?” she mused. “And she was talking with a man out on that dark deck when the purser went for her! Ah! She hurried down here and wrote a note and evidently has gone to deliver it. I’m lucky to have stumbled across this. I think the delightful Miss Whitney who so obviously has turned that simple-minded purser’s head is not quite what she seems.”

  Once more she picked up the tablet and strove to decipher further information from the few faint words imprinted there.

  As she bent over the paper, Mary entered. The newcomer laid down the tablet without a trace of embarrassment.

  “Miss Whitney, I presume?” she said, extending a jeweled hand languidly. “I was just admiring the tint of your stationery. You have guessed, of course, that I am Miss Francisco, whom you have so kindly permitted to share this cabin.”

  The women’s eyes met in a long, appraising glance, during which each tried vainly to hide beneath smiling lips a surging flood of hostility based on feminine intuition rather than reason.

  “I’m sure we shall have a delightful trip together,” said Mary in slightly strained tones, as she picked up the tablet and tossed it carelessly into a drawer. Her quick eyes had caught the words at which her new companion was staring as she entered, and she realized that her momentary carelessness had doubled the gravity of her problem.

  “A spy!” she decided instantly. “A spy put here to watch me, but I’ll not let her know that I suspect.”

  “She sees the words imprinted on that sheet of paper and knows I have read them,” thought Miss Francisco. “She’s on her guard now, but can’t possibly guess that I know who is on this steamer and why he is here. I’ll win her confidence, and maybe—”

  She turned with a smile to her new friend. Ten minutes later the two went arm in arm to the music room.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE SHOT IN THE DARK

  As the Humboldt, plowing steadily southward beneath sunny skies, neared Seattle, the tension in the stateroom occupied by Miss Whitney and Miss Francisco increased until it became a tangible something as vibrant as an electric current. Neither woman for an instant relaxed her ceaseless watchfulness, and neither betrayed it; yet each knew that as she spied, she was being spied upon. Mary, in the light of her knowledge of the crucial situation on shipboard, found much in her gay companion’s conduct to deepen her suspicion that Miss Francisco, if not actually a detective, was an emissary of those whom she knew were on board.

  On the days following the woman’s first appearance in Mary’s stateroom, Nina spent much time in the steamer’s wireless station—where, apparently, she flirted flagrantly with the operator—a role in which she proved herself decidedly adept.

  “Camouflage to cloak her anxiety for further news from Seattle that will enable the officers to identify Blackie and Lewes,” was Mary’s inward comment as for the hundredth time she studied her fellow passengers with the hope of determining the identity of the police officers she knew to be among them. The detectives were lodged close to the treasure-room, the purser had said; and gradually her suspicion centered on an Englishman—Sir Arthur Cumberland on the passenger list—who, with a secretary-companion, was ostensibly making the Alaskan trip as part of a round-the-world tour.

  Cumberland was a big, blond Britisher with a long, drooping mustache, an accent that was joyfully mimicked by other passengers in the salon, and a decided weakness for the American bar below decks. His secretary was a keen-eyed little man named McDonald whose burr suggested the Clyde.

  Just why she doubted Cumberland, Mary herself could hardly have explained, except that she felt he was too obviously in dress and personal appearance what he seemed—too perfectly the familiar, titled Englishman of the American stage. A chance word crystallized her suspicion into certainty on the night she hid herself in a secluded nook behind a lifeboat to win for a moment the relief of being off guard. The Englishman, smoking, stopped beside the boat. Almost immediately he was joined by the secretary.

  “What have you learned?” demanded Cumberland.

  “Haven’t located anything yet,” answered McDonald.

  “You must—quickly; for I’ll have them before we sight Seattle or my name’s not—” He stopped, glanced round as if fearing eavesdroppers and laughed at his own caution.

  “Be careful,” warned his companion as they strolled on.

  From that moment Mary assiduously courted the company of the pair—an easy task, for a pretty face was the open sesame to Sir Arthur’s good will and interest. She had no definite plan, no specific hope, but hour by hour prayed for inspiration.

  Miss Francisco had scarcely noticed the Englishman until Mary adopted them as deck companions. From that moment, however, she managed to make herself an inseparable member of the party.

  One night after too-frequent visits to the buffet, Cumberland dropped an h now and then and lapsed occasionally into an accent not at all suggestive of Regent Street. Mar
y, looking up as she caught this false note, found Nina Francisco studying her curiously. McDonald also was keenly aware of his chief’s incriminating bit of forgetfulness, for with ill-hidden anger he managed to separate him from the ladies, and the pair vanished into their cabin.

  That night when they were alone in their stateroom Miss Francisco, to Mary’s surprise, began to discuss and speculate upon Sir Arthur Cumberland and his business.

  “Did you notice anything peculiar in our friend the baronet’s language this evening?” she asked innocently.

  Mary, busy at her dressing-table, flashed a quick look into the glass and met her companion’s eyes in the mirror.

  “She’s wondering whether her detective friends have betrayed themselves to me,” she thought.

  “It was peculiar for a titled Englishman,” she said aloud. Then, after a moment’s thought in which to weigh her words, Mary added: “But it was nothing that I was not fully prepared to expect from him.”

  Again the women studied each other furtively.

  “So you think as I do that our titled globe-trotter may be—” began Nina.

  “I know just as you do,” interrupted Mary with increasing emphasis on each word, “that Sir Arthur Cumberland is playing a part for a purpose. I think even you will admit he plays it badly.”

  Nina tucked a drooping lock of her raven hair into place and toyed with a powder-puff before answering.

  “You’re quite right,” she said at last. “Sir Arthur would play any game rather badly, I imagine—very differently from you, my dear.”

  “And from you also,” added Mary, following the words with a look that accentuated their inner meaning.

  “Does that mean necessarily that we—you and I—must play at cross purposes on the Humboldt?” asked Nina.

  “You can answer your own question far better than I,” said Mary.