Chapter XXII
Killers Unmasked
THE gangsters were like stricken men in that first moment of confusion while sirens wailed and searchlights stabbed upon them. They stood stunned, dazed—jaws slack, eyes wide. Then they took refuge in the yacht’s cabin with Banton.
He began cursing at them, ordering them to fight, telling them they would be killed if they didn’t. He lashed them with his tongue, put fear into their hearts. They commenced snarling like cornered beasts, then they crouched and fired at the patrol boats. A screaming, clattering volley of machine-gun bullets answered their shots.
Banton was almost like a maniac now. He saw himself cheated of the thing he sought. He lifted the captured Flammenwerfer gun, thrust its snout through a window of the cabin and squirted liquid fire across the water. He was making a desperate attempt to keep the patrol boats at bay.
The jet of flame missed its mark. Its line of trajectory became an arc. It hissed into the water, sending up billows of steam. Just beyond it, circling like slim greyhounds, the patrol boats edged nearer. Banton raised the gun higher. His face was a living fury. He had double motives now. He had never forgotten that the law had humiliated him, forced him to resign. And, wolfishly, he was ready to murder in order to guard the thing he had fought to possess.
The jet of flame almost struck the gray prow of a coast guard patrol.
Then the man disguised as Tony Garino made a slight movement with his left hand. He was in the cabin of the cruiser, crouched behind its steel walls with the others. No one noticed the darting motion of his fingers. No one noticed either the small glass vial that flashed through the air and shattered with a barely audible tinkle against a metal table leg. The colorless liquid in it seeped out.
But invisible fumes filled the air. A gangster nearest the table felt them first. He began rubbing his eyes. Then he dropped his gun, put both hands to his face and staggered across the floor, seeking air. The fumes were growing sharper, more astringent. They were the smarting fumes of concentrated ammonia that got into the eyes and made them burn and water.
A cloud of fumes drifted around Banton’s head, sucked through the draft of the window. The flamethrower waved his stubby hands. He howled with rage, screamed an oath. The gray boats in the sea before him became confused shadows as tears blinded his eyes. He lost all sense of aim, sprayed flame on the deck of the yacht. Then with a cry he flung the terrible weapon from him and put his hands to his eyes.
The gangsters’ fire had fallen off. The cabin was becoming untenable as the fumes filled it and thickened. One by one the gangsters stumbled through the exits to the deck. Some still clutched their guns, firing fiercely, aimlessly. A volley of machine-gun bullets smashed into one and he collapsed into a thrashing heap, then lay still. Others dropped their guns and raised their hands above their heads in token of surrender. The gray patrol boats began to edge closer.
AMONG the larger coast guard craft was one harbor police patrol. It was far from its accustomed beat tonight, but strange things were in the wind. Two of the most important officials of the city police department were on this boat, the commissioner himself, and Inspector Burks of the homicide squad. The trails of murder know no boundaries, and, though this sea battle was far outside the police boat’s territory, both men were following a murder path. Tense, rigid, standing beside the rail, Inspector Burks spoke.
“I thought it was phony when that tip-off came. The skirt wouldn’t give her name. She hung up on me—but after the killing at the bank tonight I was ready to try anything.”
The tall commissioner was silent a moment, then he touched Burks’s arm.
“They’ve had enough! They’re quitting. They know when they’re licked.”
He was pointing to the yacht, from the cabin of which the gangsters were stumbling, lifting their arms. The police boat came nearer and Burks let out a harsh curse.
“That fat guy—it’s George Banton, chief. What the hell’s he doing out here? Maybe he sent up those rockets!”
Both men were puzzled. All that had happened tonight was puzzling to the law. The tip-off had come into headquarters in a girl’s voice, informing the police that the death-torch murderers were planning a sea getaway. It had sounded fantastic, but a half-dozen coast guard boats had responded. The mysterious message had told them to wait until rockets went up. Those rockets were mysterious, too. Who was responsible for them?
Burks, standing at the rail of the police boat with the commissioner at his side, was trying to dope it out—and wasn’t getting far.
As the gangsters stood in a huddled group, still blinded by the ammonia fumes, the coast guard boats and the police patrol closed in. Searchlights played on the two vessels that were locked with grappling hooks. The dead men on the decks, the havoc caused by the flame-thrower, showed how fierce the battle had been.
Agile coast guardsmen were the first to leap to the deck of the yacht.
INSPECTOR BURKS swore harshly again and stared in amazement, for Banton was fighting like an enraged beast. Blinking through watery eyes he tried to yank an automatic from his pocket and fire at the coast guardsmen.
A balled fist knocked him flat. If he had tipped off the police and sent up rockets for help what was the matter with him? Inspector Burks couldn’t figure it out.
He climbed to the deck of the yacht with Commissioner Foster at his side. The coast guard boats had pushed in, surrounding the two locked vessels. Their crews were swarming up from all sides. Six cops from the harbor patrol joined them.
Banton was yanked to his feet by the man who had knocked him down. The private detective stood blinking, sullen. Burks hurled a harsh question at him.
“What the hell’s going on here, you rat?”
“Find out for yourself!” yelled Banton.
“You sent up those rockets, didn’t you?”
“Rockets! Do you think I’d call any of you lily-livered cops in to help me! The girl did it—the little—”
“What girl?”
Banton shook his head and sneered into Burks’s face. But at that moment two coast guardsmen brought a kicking, struggling figure between them up from the cabin of Banton’s ex-rumrunner. It was Rosa Carpita, the Spanish dancer. She wasn’t speaking English now. She had lapsed, screaming, into her native tongue.
“We found her locked in a closet,” said one of the men. Sweat dripped from his face. He was panting. “She don’t like being rescued,” he said.
Burks, growing more perplexed, bawled a question.
“How in damnation could she send up rockets locked in a closet?”
But he didn’t question the girl at the moment. A more important matter claimed his attention. The tip-off had been that the band of death-torch murderers were escaping in a yacht with their fortune in loot. It was to see the murderers rounded up that Burks and Commissioner Foster had come out here.
There were pungent fumes of ammonia inside the cabin, keeping the coast guardsmen back. Here was another mystery. Who had thrown them? The murderers on board the yacht, Burks decided.
The fumes began to clear. The cops and coast guardsmen entered. They held machine guns, automatics and sawed-off shotguns ready. There must be life still on the yacht, more of the flame-throwers. They were taking no chances.
Three hideous hulks that had once been men were sprawled on the floor of the cabin. They went on to the head of the stairs, then shouted. At the bottom of the stairs lay another figure, helmeted and goggled. One of the torch murderers—dead. The mystery of their identity was at last to be disclosed to the police.
Inspector Burks was trembling with excitement. The police had had little part in catching this band of sinister raiders, but he was in at the finish. If there were any left alive they would have to stand trial for the murders they had committed in the city.
It was Burks himself, gun in hand, who saw a face ahead of him along a passageway of the yacht. His features grew white. He thought he was looking at a ghost. Then the face disappear
ed, a door slammed. From behind the door Inspector Burks heard a single pistol shot and the thud of a falling body.
He leaped forward, yanked open the door, and stood, gun in hand, staring down.
A tall man lay at his feet, a man with stern, aristocratic features, blue eyes and light hair. The blue eyes were blazing now. The features were setting into the immobility of death. There was a cruel sneer on the aristocratic mouth.
“Von Blund!” gasped Burks.
He leaned against the wall, rigid, dumfounded. The man who lay at his feet was supposed to be dead already, slain in the last raid on the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Bank, a charred and hideous corpse identified by his cuff links and jewelry. Understanding of this ghastly mystery began to filter into Inspector Burks’s mind. With a harsh oath he stumbled back along the passageway, stooped over the goggled and helmeted figure at the foot of the stairs.
While Commissioner Foster watched, he ripped off the helmet and goggles exposing the dead face beneath. It was the commissioner’s turn this time to gasp in surprise.
“It’s Francis Marsh, inspector! In God’s name, what does this mean? He was killed tonight—burned!”
“We thought he was!” barked Burks. “Von Blund’s in there, too. He shot himself when he saw he was trapped, when he saw the game was up!”
“You mean—”
“I mean that the cleverest bunch of thieves and murderers in the history of the city pulled the wool over our eyes, chief.”
“What about Osterhout, Davis and Honor—the partners killed in the first raid?”
THE answer to that question came before Burks could speak. Two coast guardsmen came into the cabin carrying a sprawled figure on a piece of canvas. He, too, was goggled, helmeted. But the helmet, ripped off, exposed the face of Eric Osterhout—von Blund’s wartime partner, the man whose supposedly charred corpse found in the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ bank had shown the wings of a flyer. He, also, was dead, riddled by bullets from the guns of Banton’s raiding gangsters. And a group of cops herded a shaking, thin-faced man into the cabin following the corpse.
It was Honer—the fourth bank partner. He had little stomach for action, and they had found him hiding in a closet.
But he wouldn’t speak. His bloodless lips were locked tight.
It was the black-eyed girl, Rosa Carpita, taken from the closet on Banton’s cruiser, who answered vehemently when Burks asked a question.
“What about Davis?” the inspector said. “He must be around here, too.”
The girl, standing in the door of the cabin, stamped her foot.
“Fools!” she said. “Bunglers! He is not here. He was killed—murdered!”
“That’s what we thought about the others,” answered Burks.
“But he was murdered, I tell you. I know. He was the only honest one. He told me terrible things were going to happen. He suspected, but he was afraid to go to the police. They, the murderers, hated him after he had been approached and had refused to aid them. Their bank was going to pieces. They were desperate men. So they killed him—because he knew too much.”
“And you were sweet on him, weren’t you, girlie?”
Color flooded Rosa Carpita’s dark face.
“You are impertinent,” she said coldly. “I shall not answer that question.”
“Why didn’t you come to the police if you knew so much? Why did you wait to tip us off tonight?”
“Tip you off?” Rosa Carpita pouted in puzzlement. “I did not tip anyone off. You are talking crazy. I employed that big pig, Banton, to catch these men. I wanted to be revenged.”
Banton spoke then, sneering through clenched teeth.
“She wanted to get her paws on the reward money that was up for the killers’ capture. But she got cold feet and called on you cops at the last minute.”
“You liar! You double-crosser! I didn’t get cold feet! I didn’t call the cops! But I would have if I could—after you locked me up and threatened to kill me.”
She turned to Inspector Burks, flinging a volley of words at him.
“This man is a crook, not a detective. I hired him to help me catch those murderers. I showed him the place where they were hiding what they stole. Jerry—Mr. Davis—had whispered many things to me. He was a good man—I wanted to see him revenged—and there was big reward out for his murderers. This pig, Banton, is right. We were going to split it. But he found out that they had so much money on board their boat. He was like the greedy hog. He was going to steal it—what you call hijack it—and then put me out of the way—whoof—so I would never tell nothing.”
“Now I get you,” said Burks. “Up to your old tricks, eh, Banton? You’re hooked on a murder charge now. You and you’re little pals here have been killing guys tonight. They were murderers, but the law don’t even allow that.”
He turned to Rosa Carpita.
“You better come clean—all the way, sweetheart! You did tip us off tonight, didn’t you? You figured your big boy friend, Banton, was going to cross you?”
Rosa Carpita started to speak, then held her tongue for a moment. A crafty look came into her dark eyes.
“It is right,” she said haltingly. “I did what you call tip you off. I knew that the big brave cops would be more generous than this fat pig, Banton. I knew that the reward would be mine for catching these murderers.”
Banton exploded into a scornful abuse. His voice was a sneer.
“She’s lying,” he said. “She’s got a tongue like a corkscrew. I thought she’d done it, too, first off. But she was in the closet, you say. That’s where I put her, an’ she didn’t have a chance to send up any rockets. One of my own mugs must have done it because he loved me.”
Inspector Burks scratched his head. The whole thing was mystifying. It would take hours to unsnarl. Rosa Carpita had changed her story suddenly—changed it when she saw a chance of getting the reward money. Burks’s puzzled speculations were abruptly interrupted.
From somewhere below decks a thumping noise sounded. It increased in violence, became steady, monotonous.
Thump, thump, thump!
It sounded like spirit knocking; like some of the ghosts of the dead come back to haunt the ship. The cops and coast guardsmen stared at each other in startled wonder. Then Burks voiced a harsh question.
“What the hell’s that?”
Chapter XXIII
Man of Mystery
THE thumping continued, and Burks gathered his men and went with them to discover its cause. They followed a passageway that led from the stairs at the foot of the yacht’s saloon, and the thumping grew louder.
“It’s somebody pounding,” said Burks. “Some guy’s trying to signal us.”
They walked quietly, tracing the thumping at last to the metal door of a closet. The door was locked, apparently on the outside. The thumping was repeated as monotonously as before. Then a man’s hoarse voice spoke behind the door, faint, muffled.
“Help—let me out! Help!”
Two stout-muscled cops seized the knob of the door and succeeded in forcing the lock. The door opened. Behind it was one of the yacht’s storage closets, and there, standing against the wall, hands and feet bound, was a man. He was a tall man, white-haired, well dressed, distinguished-looking. His face was honest. He was obviously a prisoner.
“Thank heaven,” he groaned. “I thought they would murder me, too.”
Burks was aggressive at first. “Who are you?” he said.
Then his manner became more respectful. When the tall man’s hands were untied, he fumbled in his pocket, brought out a wallet, and drew forth a card. This he presented to Inspector Burks.
On it was the name: “Carleton Madder, State Bank Examiner.”
Madder drew credentials from his pocket, adding these to the card.
“They kidnapped me,” he said. “They wanted help in disposing of stolen bonds. Then they planned to murder me afterward. They locked me in the closet when the attack began.”
Madder’s manner and appearance carried conviction. His credentials were above reproach. Burks nodded and handed them back.
When Madder was brought to the cabin above, Honer, the only surviving banker, stared at him blankly, but, whatever his thoughts, he kept them to himself.
The police and coast guardsmen continued their search of the yacht. They found hundreds of thousands in stolen cash, securities, and jewels—the loot of the murder band. It was transferred to the police boat, kept under heavy guard, to be rushed back to city vaults for safe-keeping before being returned to its owners. Coast guard boats attached hawsers to the two battle-ravaged vessels and made ready to tow them back to port. The death-torch killers would never rob or kill again.
Inspector Burks, Commissioner Foster, and the tall, dignified bank examiner named Madder, smoked in the cabin of the patrol boat as it sped away, its quest ended.
Inspector Burks voiced a question which seemed to be preying on his mind, and Madder, the bank examiner, hazarded an answer.
“I’m wondering about Spencer and Cox,” the inspector said. “Those were the two bank employees who were supposed to have made a get-away after the first raid. If they weren’t guilty what happened to them? Do you suppose—”
Madder, staring at the inspector, nodded.
“I suppose just what you do, inspector. They were the corpses found by the police alongside Davis’s body. The murderers had transferred their own watches and jewelry to their victim’s pockets to make it seem that they themselves were the ones who had died instead of the two employees whom they brutally murdered.”
“And the last two corpses—the ones we thought were von Blund and Marsh? Who could they be?”
THE tall bank examiner shrugged. “Underworld characters probably. The murderers must have had one or more criminal aides in such a well organized plot. We know now that they brought their loot directly to the bank in an ordinary armored car. Who were its drivers? I became suspicious myself when I saw the car come with a load which wasn’t accounted for on the books of the bank. I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation. They probably killed these criminal aides when they were of no further use and would only be in the way. Those were the corpses you found in place of von Blund and Marsh.”
Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated) Page 41