by Otto Penzler
He turned the nose of his ship up and climbed. Over to the left was a perfect cirro-cumulus formation which invited him with its natural protection, and he went for it. As he took a gap in the fleece his eyes caught a reflection.
Brass!
The Catherine B!
He offered a silent prayer for the cloud bank and took a hurried compass reading. The course the boat was holding was in a straight line with Galveston. The big traffic route! But it could dare. It could show its stern to ninety-nine out of a hundred….
Frost knew it would be fatal to attempt a landing now. Too much light yet. Something might happen. He thought about that rather sharply. An unknown grave in the Gulf was not appealing. That was the way Nungesser and Coli went. And Pedlar. And Erwin. Poor old Bill. There was a tug at Frost’s throat. He had gone through many a dogfight with the Dallas ace….
No, Frost knew, he couldn’t go down now. Must wait. Hang back and wait for the dark. A big gamble then. A big gamble. Now it would be death.
He guessed the dusk was less than an hour away, but it was a bad guess. It was eighty minutes away and they were the longest eighty minutes Frost ever spent. Occasionally he stole through a rift in the bank to check his quarry to make sure it was within range. The Catherine B had now reduced its speed and was drifting idly: quite plainly at its trysting place.
Frost was forcibly struck by the profundity of the situation. Below was a rum boat a hundred miles at sea; above was a formation of clouds which concealed an eagle of justice. Soon that mass of clouds would part to disgorge a winged courier of the law. Why did those clouds happen—just happen to be there? Providence? Frost went off into an endless speculation about the omnipotence of the Creator.
And he found time to breathe a cautious prayer. Cautious because he had never done so openly. It struck him as cowardly. So he prayed quietly and cautiously.
He had decided to go down now in a few minutes.
The sun reached the end of the world, slid off the rim, and reached with long, tenuous fingers for a final hold, missed and fell into the lap of night. Frost was constantly amazed at the swiftness of the sunset; had always been amazed. Yet it is a source of indefinable joy to airmen to see the sun sink from the sky, for at fifteen thousand feet you seem pretty close to the heart of things. Frost probably always would be stirred by such manifestations, no matter how exigent the conditions under which he viewed them. They mildly disquieted him; made him wish he had been an artist.
“Hell,” he said to his instrument board, “you’re only a lousy airman. Get your head back into this cockpit!”
Night slipped up and five minutes later it was dark. Frost dropped out of the cloud bank among, it seemed, the fledgling stars which were timidly trying their wings, and looked for the Catherine B. The Gulf had lost the blackness so apparent in the sunlight and now had become opaque to a faint luminosity. A wayward light flickered below on deck. The light revealed the boat Frost had come to take—and he had determined to take it. Bellerophon felt the same way about the Chimaera.
Frost took off his gauntlet and slipped the silencer-equipped .38 into the seat beside him. Its touch comforted him, reassured him. Of a sudden he picked it up and pulled the trigger. No other sound broke above the throttled humming of the motor.
“Hot stuff!” he said to the sky. To the instrument board he said: “Well, here we go!”
He fell into a glide and kicked his switch off. It was his farewell to the air. Dropping fifteen thousand feet his motor would get cold, too cold to start again in an emergency. But, he told himself, there must be no emergency.
A quarter of a mile back he nosed up into a sort of drift, timing the distance with that weird sense all good flyers possess. And his landing was a tribute to long years of feeling his air. The premium he collected was munificent—his life. To have failed meant death.
The Catherine B, on the spot of its meeting, drooled in a wide circle, and as the little battle plane slowly moved by the stern, Frost could plainly read her markings:
CATHERINE B
GALVESTON
Frost kicked his rudder bar around and turned in towards the boat. He flattened out against its sides when he saw a spurt of flame and heard the crash of the report. The man shot from the rail amidships. Frost leveled his gun and fired. Then he quickly threw his anchor rope over the rail. There had been no far-carrying report from his gun, but the man dropped. He was out on the wing in a moment, over the rail in another, and had tied his ship off with a loop knot.
Attracted by the explosion, a husky fellow shoved half his bulk through the wheelhouse door and Frost saw him level his gun. The Ranger shot from the hip; the man collapsed in the door and rolled on deck. He never knew what had hit him. Frost ran forward.
There was a scuffling sound aft and a man’s head and shoulders appeared. He seemed to rise out of nowhere. But he was cautious, had come to investigate what he thought was a shot.
Frost tensed his muscles and gripped his pistol. He pressed himself close to the skylights as the man stepped out gingerly and came towards the wheel-house. He was roughly dressed. He had nearly reached Frost’s side, when he stopped suddenly and sucked in his breath in a swift intake. He had seen the plane.
In a flash Frost was beside him. He rammed the gun into his ribs.
“One crack and off goes your head! Get down flat!”
Silently, the man obeyed. He stretched out an arm’s length from the second man who had been shot.
Frost said tensely: “That guy is dead. You didn’t hear my gun go off because it’s got a silencer, see? Now answer my questions and answer ‘em quick!”
“All right,” the man grunted.
“How many on this tub?”
“Six.”
“One of them a woman?”
“Two women.”
“Two!”
Frost thought that over.
“What’s this boat doing out here?”
“Meeting the Mermaid at midnight.”
“Liquor?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I’ll have to give you the works to get you out of the way,” Frost said grimly. He meant it. The man knew he meant it. The game had gone too far to take chances.
“I’m a Texas Ranger.”
“I know,” was the answer. “We been expecting you. But not like this. You’re Frost.”
“Expecting me?” Frost thought probably he hadn’t heard aright.
“Sure. Catherine said you’d come.”
“Who’s Catherine?”
Flash’s girl.”
Frost rolled his tongue against his cheek. “Singleton?”
“Yep.”
“I didn’t know he had a girl.”
“I’ll say he had.”
Frost hesitated, his mind in a turmoil. The man misconstrued the silence.
“You ain’t gonna kill me?” he pleaded. “I’ll do anything—”
“Okey,” Frost said offhand. “Go over there and call the crew up here. And remember that I’ve killed two of this crew—and you’ll be number three if you make a false move. I’ll slug you right through the back of your head. Get up!”
The man walked to the poop ladder, Frost a step behind.
“Hey—Hans!” he yelled through his cupped hands.
Shortly there was a mumble from below.
“Come above and bring Marcelle with you. Hurry!”
Two men climbed out on deck and stood beside the ladder. They hardly were up before Frost stepped out from behind the man and leveled his gun. “Get up in a hurry!” he barked.
They slowly complied.
“Now,” Frost went on tensely, “unless you do exactly as I say I’ll kill you!”
He looked at the man called Hans. “Throw your gun away!”
The light was feeble, but Frost could see the man scowl. He made no move to comply; he merely grunted.
“Get that gun overboard!”
Still the man said nothing. One of those hard-boiled seamen.
Put-t!
The flame leaped from Frost’s gun; there was a muttered oath and the man grabbed his shoulder and moaned, “I’m hit! I’m hit!”
“Get that gun overboard! The next time you stop it with your head!”
There was no mistaking the command now. Frost disliked to shoot the man, but this was no time to quibble. They must be impressed with his determination.
The man groaned and threw his gun overboard with the arm that was still serviceable.
“Get that hand back in the air! And you— throw that gun over! Now yours!”
The men discarded their pistols. Frost lined them up and backed them towards the hatch. “Unbatten it!” he commanded.
They did.
“Pile in!”
“What?”
“Pile in!”
“But, we’ll—”
“In there!”
The wounded man called Hans was the last one down. The others aided him. They disappeared below the top, and Frost wrestled the hatch and battened it down as if heading for the open sea. Then he retrieved his pistol and moved to the wheelhouse. The man who lay on deck had been shot through the mouth, and evidently was a first officer. Frost noticed the wheel was chained, so he dragged the body against the skylights and went to the foredeck where he had glimpsed the first sailor.
He had pitched forward on his face, his gun at his feet. Before Frost stooped to inspect him, he kicked the gun across the deck into the water. Then he tugged the man over, saw he, too, was dead, and came back to the after companion. The night now had come on full. The stars were gleaming and a pale moon glowed off the starboard.
Frost went down the steps slowly. He walked along the passage and heard sounds of music, struggling to free itself of the confinement and get into the air. He could sense the struggle. He paused at the cabin door and listened. An electric gramaphone. Someone evidently was unwor-ried. He rapped on the door.
It opened and he thrust his foot inside. He pried it open with his leg and entered, his gun drawn.
He faced a woman—and gasped.
“You!”
“You!”
His companion of La Estrellita!
Here—in full panoply, arrayed like a queen; against a background of luxury. For a moment he was nonplussed. A lot had happened. This was the crowning blow. He gradually recovered, and thought about the awkward picture he presented there with his pistol drawn.
“Miss Stevens,” he coughed, embarrassed. “Er—”
“How do you do, Captain?” she said. “Sit down.” Frost did so. “Do you find it helps the effect when you visit a young lady with drawn revolver?”
Frost grinned. “Well, I hardly expected to find you like this. I thought—”
“Yes,” she beamed; “they are good to me, aren’t they?”
She nonchalantly moved across the cabin to a wall telephone. He thought that rather an odd thing for a prisoner to do—telephone. That simple act brought the pieces of the puzzle together with a click. Frost had just been told there were two women on board. One he expected to find a prisoner—Helen Stevens. But this woman was no prisoner—
Catherine!
With pent-up fury he leaped from his chair and was beside her before she could get an answer. He snatched the telephone out of her hand and replaced it. He faced her, flushing with anger.
“Get away!” he said. “And I hope it won’t be necessary for me to kill you!”
She lifted her face in a half sneer. “Well,” she said, moving in a swagger, “how long do you think you can get away with this high-handed stuff?”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Frost said.
There was the sound of a knock on a door in another wall than that by which he had entered.
“Who’s in there?” he demanded.
“Find out for yourself,” she snapped.
“I will,” he said. He observed her with something not unlike admiration. “So you’re Catherine, eh?” He was a little taken aback. Disappointed. Once he had had an adventure with her. Men do not easily forget such things. Now it all came back in a rush … her indifference to the danger in La Estrellita … the tapping of her fingers on the glass was a signal….
He glared: “You tried to trap me, didn’t you? Tried to get me killed?”
She laughed. “Why not? You bumped off the only man I ever loved, and for that I’m going to get you, Frost. What a pity those saps didn’t kill you that night in Algadon!”
“Yes,” he mused; “what a pity! You know— you’re a damned attractive woman to be mixed up with a rotten gang like this.”
“I’m going to stay mixed. You can’t bluff me, Frost. I don’t scare worth a damn.”
“Maybe you don’t. Oh, by the way; I neglected to tell you I locked three of your thugs in the hold. Also,” this casually, “I had to bump off a couple of’em. Now who’s the woman in the other room?”
“Nobody. That is—”
“Get that door open, or I’ll tear it down!”
She got up sullenly and unlocked the narrow door. Through it another woman stumbled, her hair disheveled, her clothes wrinkled, her face worried. She saw Frost and stopped short.
“It’s all right,” Frost said reassuringly, “I’m a policeman. Who are you?”
“I’m—”
“Don’t you talk!” came the swift interruption. “This bum means no good.” She tried to reach the woman’s side, but Frost intervened.
“Never mind her,” he said. “I’m Frost of the Rangers.”
“Oh! Frost!” she murmured the words. “I’m Helen Stevens. I’ve been a prisoner for a week.”
“Huh! Are you a newspaper woman?”
“Yes.”
Frost grinned broadly, spread his legs and said: “Well, sit down, ladies, and get comfortable. This ought to be good.”
Then it was that Frost observed both women were about the same height and build, and that the genuine Helen Stevens wore a brown ensemble similar to the one worn by his companion that night in La Estrellita. He began to see the light.
“A week ago,” said Helen Stevens, “I was kidnaped in Jamestown, drugged and brought here. I don’t know why. I never had an enemy in my life.”
“There’s no puzzle there,” Frost said. “This jane here is the ex-sweetheart of an ex-racketeer who was allied with the Black Ship gang and bumped off by Hell’s Stepsons. She wanted revenge on me; the way to get that was remove you and assume your identity.” He smiled appreciatively. “That right, Mrs. Singleton?”
“You go to hell!”
“So,” mused Helen Stevens, slightly more at ease, “you’re Captain Frost. I was on my way to see you—had a letter from the Adjutant-General. It was stolen with my luggage!”
“I got it,” Frost grinned. “You’ll learn after a while that this is a high-powered gang you’re dealing with.”
Helen Stevens was surveying the broad figure of Jerry Frost, remembering tales of his prowess in the skies of France and in the jungles of Latin America—El Beneficio they called him then— surveying him in frank admiration.
“I think,” Frost said, “it would be wise to get going. This boat has got a date I’d rather not keep. First, I’m afraid we’ll have to tie up the hellcat.”
The hellcat got to her feet, her eyes burning with passionate hatred, and leaped at Frost. She landed in his lap and they both went over backwards with the chair. His pistol rattled on the hardwood floor.
“Get that gun!” he yelled, a moment before she clawed at his face. She interposed a few choice oaths, and hammered Frost about the ears with her fists. They squirmed on the floor inelegantly until he managed to get a hammer-lock on her arm. She swore and cried out in pain.
“Pipe down and I’ll let you go!” Frost said. “Otherwise I’ll break it off.” His eyes fell on the silk cord knotted around port hole draperies and he said to Helen Stevens, “Get that cord.”
She untied it and brought it to him. Frost slipped it around the woman’s wrists a
nd tied her hands behind her. Then he took off his belt and strapped it tightly around her ankles. To complete the job he took out his handkerchief and crammed it in her mouth.
“Now,” he said; “I need a bandage.”
Helen Stevens did not hesitate. She lifted her dress, revealed a sheeny knee and a silk petticoat. She ripped it, jerked off a strip and handed it to Frost.
“Great stuff!” he said. “I’m beginning to think you’ll do!”
“You’re damned right I’ll do!” she admitted.
Frost tied the gag and then stepped back to inspect his craftmanship. Apart from the woman’s squirming, and nobody has ever invented a way to stop that, he had to confess it was very good.
“Not bad for a beginner,” he observed.
The woman grunted and her eyes flashed. Frost picked her up and deposited her, none too carefully, on a lounge. He whispered in her ear: “Now we’re going up to take the wheel.” She grunted again, and in a fit of temper wriggled to the floor with a bang.
Frost looked at her loftily. “All right, baby— suit yourself.”
Helen Stevens handed him his pistol and said: “Don’t you think it would be wise to use the radio and let somebody know where we are?”
Frost slanted his head from side to side as if he had known her a century; decided she, too, was a fluffy bit of femininity. His light mood was sharpened by his success. “Another great idea,” he said. “Let’s have a look.”
They came on deck together, he holding her hand. It was, like the night, warm and soft—he remembered snatches of books and stories he’d read about women … regal poise … generations of aristocrats to produce one like this … long lashes … and full red lips…. He even tried to recall some poetry.
He looked at her suddenly as if he knew she had read his thoughts. He was blushing…. She laughed. He laughed too—not knowing what else to do.
They entered the wheelhouse of the Catherine B as she rose on a long swell, poised herself, and settled into the valley of the Gulf. It was dark and quiet, only a light glowed from the compass box; Frost found the switch and pulled it. A light sprang into life at the top of the pilothouse.
On one side was the wireless and without further ado Frost seated himself and cut on the switch. The motor hummed, tiny sparks glowed, and he adjusted the head set. He tapped out a message hurriedly. Presently there was a light cracking sound in the headphone and he bent over his task. He finished and sat up.