I shifted the heavy canvas duffle bag I was carrying over to the opposite shoulder and said, “Just thought it would be a good night for a sail, Eddie. Have you seen Florence Radcliff sneaking around anywhere?”
Before the young sailor could answer, a voice shouted from the darkness, “Here I am,” and Flo popped up from the shadowy interior of my father’s little mahogany dinghy, the Maybelline.
Flo is my oldest and dearest friend. We’ve been inseparable from the cradle, unless you count the few years I was away from Greenville living in Chicago with my late husband, Timothy.
“Time you’re arriving,” Flo said as I tossed the sail-bag into her hands. “You promised to meet me here at eight o’clock. It’s at least eight-thirty now.”
“Sorry, old dear.” I leaped aboard the Maybelline and began to put up the mainsail. “After I telephoned you, I got a sudden burst of inspiration and had to commit it to paper.”
“Oh, did you think of a way of extricating Miss Amhurst from the clutches of the evil Duke?”
Flo was referring to my latest novel-in-progress: Miss Amhurst Finds a Way. Florence likes to poke fun at my literary efforts, although I think she’s just a trifle jealous now that I’m a reasonably well-paid lady of letters with a string of semi-respectable novels to my name, rather than being a starving hack turning out reams of overwrought romantic bilge for the likes of Pittman’s All-Story Weekly.
“Miss Amhurst is not ensnared in the clutches of an evil Duke,” I corrected Flo. “I made the villain a Baron this time. Baron Von Ribbentrop. I gave him a glass eye and a hook for a hand. Instead of allowing this adversity to make him a kinder and better man, Baron Von Ribbentrop has cherished bitterness in his heart and become heartless and cruel. This leads him to imprison his infant son’s governess—the aforementioned Miss Amhurst—and threaten her with—"
“Aren’t you curious as to why I was late?” Flo asked, a trifle petulantly.
“Were you late, Flo?”
“I was. My father delayed me for fifteen minutes while he read aloud a passage of this week’s sermon on the voyages of the Apostle Paul. All theologically sound, I’m sure, but I’m afraid it may put his parishioners to sleep.
“Perhaps you could get ahold of your father’s sermon and insert a scene from Miss Amhurst Finds a Way as a sort of intermission between voyages. That should keep the old dears on the edge of their seats. I just finished a doozy of a—”
“Truly,” Flo interrupted. “why were you so late? Surely, it can’t be all Miss Amhurst’s fault.”
“It wasn’t all Miss Amhurst’s fault. I extricated Miss Amhurst from the clutches of the evil Baron Von Ribbentrop by having the desperate governess neatly pin the Baron’s waistcoat to a doorframe in the dungeon of his dread castle using weapons improvised from the spokes off the wheels of young master Von Ribbentrop’s baby carriage—Miss Amhurst takes little Von Ribbentrop with her when she runs away, of course—no responsible governess would leave an infant in the charge of such a consummately despicable specimen of humanity as the odious Baron Von Ribbentrop. I’m toying with the idea of having Miss Amhurst raise the baby as her own on a farm in South Dakota. I think I’ll have her meet a young farmer named Tobias when she’s taking the train west to—”
Flo cleared her throat loudly. “I think you’ve gotten sidetracked once again. You were explaining why you were so late.”
“It was a lecture from Mrs. Timms that caused me to be late. She tried to make me promise to wear a life preserver, since I’m insisting on ‘foolishly endangering’ myself by sailing at night,” I said. “I know she means well, and I ought to be grateful, but sometimes I think she forgets I’m a widow woman of twenty-five.”
“I personally think wearing a life preserver is a very sensible thing to do,” said Flo, tugging at the straps on the padded orange monstrosity enveloping her torso. “I also think you should stop going around calling yourself a widow woman.”
“Why should I stop calling myself a widow? It’s true.”
Flo just sniffed and refused to meet my eye.
“You mean because I’m engaged to Jack?” I asked. “Jack Bancroft isn’t the type to mind a piffling little thing like that. Besides, Timothy was friends with Jack long before he was friends with me. We can hardly just pretend Timothy never existed.”
Mrs. Doris Timms, our housekeeper since I was just a wee thing in pinafores, and who is more like a mother to me since I lost my own back when I was ten, always worries when I go out on the river at night. My father never feels entirely easy either, although he refrains from making a fuss. I don’t know why they worry. I’m an excellent sailor and rather glory in my record of overturning my boat only once during the past season.
“All set?” I asked Florence, casting off the ropes one by one.
As I shoved the Maybelline away from the dock, the flapping sail stiffened to the breeze. Florence ducked her head to avoid the swinging boom.
Eddie Franks, watching from shore, called a friendly warning: “If you’re planning to sail downriver, better not get too close to the Seventh Street bridge. After that fiend tried to dynamite it, the new regulations say seventy-five feet.”
Greenville is normally a city of remarkable law and order, but three days previous, someone had attempted to blow up the Seventh Street bridge, one of the five bridges which crossed the Grassy River connecting East Greenville to West Greenville.
The Seventh Street bridge was especially vital to smooth traffic patterns within the city because it connected the docks and the railyard on the east side of the river with the industrial district containing the bulk of the factories on the west bank of the Grassy.
Numerous sticks of dynamite had been placed under the supports of the Seventh Street bridge, but mercifully, most of them had failed to detonate.
The attempt to take out the bridge hadn’t been the only troubling incident involving explosives in the past week. Just the previous Sunday, while the Maxwell Implements Factory in West Greenville’s industrial district had sat idle, a large explosion had rocked the main plant and destroyed two of the factory’s eight production lines.
“We’ll give the bridge a wide berth,” I promised Eddie. “Although I can’t imagine two ladies in a dinghy posing much of a threat to public safety.”
“I think we are quite capable of being a threat to public safety, or at least you are,” said Flo as I sailed the Maybelline out through the slip into the main channel of the Grassy River. “Considering you carry a cosh in your handbag.”
I do carry a cosh in my handbag, and a pocketknife, too, but I don’t like it noised about.
“Shh!” I told Flo. “Don’t disillusion poor Eddie. He thinks we’re just a couple of helpless females. He’s always giving advice. Guess he can’t help it.”
“His boat’s just a leaky tub,” Florence said. “I hear it sunk twice while tied up to the dock. One has to feel sorry for him and treat him with kindness.”
I steered the dinghy in a diagonal course downstream. On either side of the shore, from houses, factories, and a nearby amusement park, twinkling lights reflected on the unruffled surface of the water. The breeze was soft; the stars seemed very close. Overhead a disc of yellow moon rode lazily, now and then dodging behind a fleecy cloud.
“It’s a perfect night to sail,” Florence said, snuggling amid the cushions. “Wish we’d brought the phonograph along. The only other thing we’re missing are the fellas.”
Now that I’m engaged to Jack Bancroft, and Florence has finally forsaken her decade-long crush on Rudolph Valentino to settle for a mere mortal, my friend Martin “Shep” Murphy, Flo and I both have fellas. I’ll confess to not quite being used to my new betrothed status.
“Martin says that when he went to photograph the damage at the Maxwell plant, he—” Flo started to say.
“Look at that,” I interrupted.
Normally, I would have been all ears to hear anything involving a whiff of mystery, but instead my entire attent
ion was taken up by an approaching motorboat.
The oncoming craft was traveling with its lights off, and I was uncertain that the pilot had spotted our little dingey, so I focused the beam of my flashlight high on the mainsail. The motorboat altered its course instantly, but instead of turning only enough to avoid our little craft, it circled in a sharp arc and sped toward the opposite shore and disappeared amid a dark fringe of trees.
“It’s against the regulations to cruise without lights,” I told Flo. “Wonder who piloted that boat.”
“Whoever he was, you seemed to frighten him away.”
“He did turn tail when he saw my light. I imagine the boat came from Halvorson’s. At least it looked like one of theirs.”
Halvorson’s—a nautical supply shop and boat rental dock—was owned and operated by a husband and wife, Anne and Fred Halvorson. Fred worked as a machinist for Maxwell Implements during the week, and Anne ran the motor launch and the establishment that provided canoes, sea skiffs and rowboats to all who were able to pay the hourly rate. Because many of the would-be boatmen were more venturesome than experienced, seasoned sailors were inclined to eye any boat rented out by the Halvorsons with distrust.
“Careful, Jane,” Florence called out as the mainsail begin to flap in the wind. “You’re luffing.”
Reminded of my duties as steersman, I headed the Maybelline on its course once more. As the sail again became taut, I noticed a small object floating in the water directly ahead. At first I could not be certain what it was, but as I steered close to the object, I could see it was a corked bottle. A bottle would create a hazard for the propellers of a motorboat, so I reached in to snatch it from the water. The current, however, swung it just beyond my reach.
“Bother! I want that bottle.”
“Someone else will fish it out.”
“It could do a great deal of damage. Besides, as it floated past, I thought I saw a piece of paper inside.”
“If you aren’t the same old Jane,” teased Florence. “Always looking for a mystery. I suppose you think yonder bottle bears a note telling where pirates buried their treasure?”
“Probably just a paper requesting: ‘Please write to your lonely pen pal.’ All the same, I must find out.” Keeping my eye on the floating bottle, I brought the boat about and turned the tiller over to Flo.
“Grab that old bottle, and don’t take twenty years,” Flo said. Florence likes to sail, but she objects to taking charge of the boat.
I leaned far out over the edge of the boat to try and grasp the bottle. My weight tilted the light craft low into the water. Florence hastily shifted to the opposite side as a counterbalance, and in so doing, released the mainsheet. The boom promptly swung out.
I made a wild lunge for the running sheet but could not prevent disaster. The end of the boom dipped into the water. As the sail became wet and heavy it slowly pulled the boat after it.
“We’re going over!” Florence shrieked, scrambling for the high side.
“We are over,” I corrected her.
We had been tossed into the water. Florence, protected by her life preserver, immediately grasped the overturned boat and even saved her hair from getting wet. I, however, swam after the bobbing bottle. A moment later I came back, triumphantly hugging it against my chest.
“It’s a blue pop bottle, Florence. And there is a piece of paper inside.”
“You and that stupid old bottle. I guess it was my fault we upset, but you never should have turned the tiller over to me.”
“Oh, who minds a little upset?”
“I do,” Florence said. “The water’s cold, and we’re at least a quarter of a mile from shore. No boats close by, either.”
“Oh, we can get out of this by ourselves. Hold my bottle while I try to haul in the sail.”
“I’d like to uncork your precious bottle and drop it to the bottom of the river.”
Florence groused a bit more under her breath, but she held tightly to the little object which had caused all the trouble. The bottle was unusual in neither size nor shape, but the paper it contained did arouse my curiosity. Though she never would have admitted it, I was betting Flo, too, wondered if it might bear an interesting message.
After pulling in the heavy, water-soaked sail, Flo and I climbed to the high side of the Maybelline, trying to right it with our combined weight. Time and again we failed. At last, breathless, cold, and discouraged, I was forced to admit that the task was beyond our strength.
“Let’s shout for help,” Florence proposed as she looked at the lights on the distant shore.
“All right, but I doubt anyone will hear us. My, we’re drifting downriver fast.”
I was starting to worry. Although we shouted many times, there seemed to be no one out on the river to hear us. There were no boats near, not even the motor craft we had seen just before we upset. Worse still, the swift current was swinging us directly toward the Seventh Street bridge.
“Dad says they’ve posted an armed watchman on the Seventh Street bridge since the dynamiting incident,” I said, looking at the fast-approaching structure of concrete and steel. “If the guard isn’t asleep, he should see us as we drift by.”
Florence was too cold and miserable to answer. However, she rather unwillingly held the blue bottle while I swam and tried to guide the overturned boat toward shore.
As we approached the bridge, we began to shout once more. Although I could see automobiles crossing the great archway, no one appeared to notice our plight.
Then just as I feared we would continue to drift under the bridge and on down the river, there came an answering shout from above. A blinding beam of light played over the water, cutting a bright path.
“Help! Help!” screamed Florence, waving an arm.
“Halt or I’ll fire!” a voice shouted from the darkness above.
“Halt?” I shouted back, too exasperated to consider the significance of the order. “That’s what we’d like to do, but we can’t.”
The searchlight came to rest on our overturned sailboat. I was so blinded by the light that for a moment I could see nothing. Then the searchlight shifted slightly to the left, and I was able to distinguish a short, stoop-shouldered man who peered over the railing of the bridge. Apparently satisfied that our plight was genuine, he called reassuringly:
“Okay, take it easy. I’ll heave you a line.”
The watchman disappeared into the little bridge house. Soon he reappeared, and with excellent aim, tossed a weighted rope so that it fell squarely across the overturned boat. I seized an end and made it fast.
“I’ll try to pull you in,” the watchman shouted. “Just hang on.”
Leaving his post on the bridge, the watchman climbed down a steep incline to the muddy shore. By means of the long rope, he slowly and laboriously pulled the water-logged Maybelline with Flo and me still clinging to its sides toward a quiet cove.
Once within wading depth, Florence and I helped the watchman lead the Maybelline in. Together the three of us beached the dinghy on a narrow strip of sand.
“Thanks,” I said to the watchman. “On second thought, many, many thanks.”
“You’ve no business to get so close to the bridge. I could have you arrested.”
“But it wasn’t our fault this sailboat upset. We were reaching for a floating bottle—oh, my Aunt. Where is that bottle, Florence? Don’t tell me we’ve lost it.”
But Flo never had a chance to answer. At that moment a motorboat roared down the river at high speed. Its throttle was wide open, and it appeared to be racing straight toward the bridge.
“Halt!” shouted the watchman, jerking a weapon from a leather holster. “Halt!”
The pilot did not obey the command. Instead, he leaped from the cockpit and swam for the opposite shore, as the watchman fired two shots over the swimmer’s head.
The unpiloted boat, its helm securely lashed, drove straight on its course.
“It’s going to strike the bridge!” shouted Flo
rence.
As the boat raced head on into one of the massive concrete piers, there came a deafening explosion. The entire steel structure of the bridge seemed to recoil from the impact. Girders shivered and shook, cables rattled. On the eastern approach, brakes screamed as automobiles were brought to a sudden halt.
“Saboteurs! They’ve done it this time—they’ve dynamited the bridge!”
Chapter Two
Although one of the main concrete piers had been damaged by the explosion, the approaches to the bridge remained intact. Several automobiles drew up at the curbing, but others, their drivers unaware of what had caused the blast, sped on across.
From our position beneath the bridge, I could see the entire steel structure quiver. The underpinning had been weakened, but whether it was safe for traffic to proceed, only an engineer could determine.
“Oughtn’t we stop the cars?” I demanded, for the watchman seemed stunned by what had happened. His eyes were fixed on the opposite shore, at a point amid the trees where the pilot of the motorboat had crawled from the water.
“Yes, yes,” he muttered, bringing his attention once more to the bridge. “No chance to catch that saboteur now. We must stop the autos.”
Shouting as he ran, the watchman scrambled up the steep slope to the western approach of the bridge. Realizing that he would be unable to cope with traffic moving from two directions, Flo and I followed close on his heels. Our wet shoes provided poor traction on the hill. Slipping, sliding, clothing plastered to our bodies, we reached the bridge level with considerable difficulty.
“You hold the cars at this end,” ordered the watchman. “I’ll lower the gate at the other side.”
Florence and I stationed ourselves at the entrance to the bridge and forced the motorists to halt at the curb. Within a minute or two, a long line had formed.
“What’s wrong?” demanded one irate driver. “An accident?”
The Jane Carter Historical Cozies Box Set 2 Page 31