<h2 id="c11"><span class="sc">Chapter XI</span> <br/><span class="small">FROM BAD TO WORSE</span></h2>
<p>With unerring skill, the more amazing
because of the inky darkness, Bill’s opponent
grasped his right wrist, twisted it and the
automatic dropped to the floor. The flashlight
Bill had discarded at the man’s first
spring. In vain he sought to slip his free
hand beneath the other’s armpit to try for
a half-Nelson or some other effective hold.
The man was as sinewy and lithe as a snake,
and blocked Bill’s every move. He tried <i>jiu
jitsu</i>, but here again he was foiled; and only
with the greatest difficulty was he able to keep
those tenacious hands from his throat.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_154">154</div>
<p>Panting and straining, the two swayed back
and forth, crashing into packing cases, banging
into walls, their hot breath on each other’s
faces—twisting, slipping, recovering—and
drenched in perspiration from their terrific
exertions.</p>
<p>Then, in one of his lunges, Bill stepped on
the electric torch—and instantly a dim
glow spread along the floor and threw their
figures and faces into relief against the gloom.</p>
<p>“Bill Bolton!” gasped the stranger, and
released him.</p>
<p>“Osceola!”</p>
<p>Too winded for further speech the friends
stared at each other.</p>
<p>“Great snakes!” exclaimed the young
Seminole chief at last. “A jolly way you
have of receiving callers!”</p>
<p>“Well, why on earth didn’t you come to
the front door and ring the bell like a Christian?”
growled Bill. “What’s the idea?
Snooping in through the wine cellar and scaring
me half to death? This confounded
house is creepy enough without you adding
to the spooks!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_155">155</div>
<p>“The front door,” retorted Osceola, “was
out of the question. How did I know you
were in the place? Sanders has his men
posted all around here. He came out of the
back door with another guy less than half
an hour ago, and I saw them.”</p>
<p>Bill picked up the torch and the automatic
before replying. “You don’t happen to know
how they got in?” he asked. “I locked the
back entry from the inside, so they couldn’t
have come that way.”</p>
<p>Osceola shook his head. “No. They got
in the same way I did. Their footprints are
all over the place.”</p>
<p>“But which way is that?”</p>
<p>“There’s an old shed in the woods about
fifty yards from the house. Mr. Evans told
me about it. Once upon a time it was used
for storing firewood, and it connects with the
cellar by a kind of tunnel. They broke in
there, picked the cellar lock, and went on
up into the house.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_156">156</div>
<p>“But they couldn’t have come through this
cellar—I found both doors locked.”</p>
<p>“They didn’t have to come through here.
There’s a circular stair that leads from where
the phone is, up through that wall and out
into the hall above.”</p>
<p>Bill nodded, remembering the speed with
which Sanders and his man had disappeared.
“Just where and how does it connect with the
hall?”</p>
<p>“There’s a sliding panel in the wall by the
fireplace.”</p>
<p>“Humph! You and Sanders,” said Bill,
“seem to know a lot more about this place
than I do.”</p>
<p>“Mr. Evans put me hep. How Sanders
got his information, I don’t know, but he’s
evidently got it all down pat. That old brick
shed out there takes some finding. It’s all
overgrown with vines and bushes—I had a
job finding it myself.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_157">157</div>
<p>“But tell me, Osceola—” Bill perched on
the edge of the table, “how did you happen
to be telephoning in here—how did you get
here? I must get straightened out on this
business before I hike over to see Parker at
Twin Heads Harbor tonight.”</p>
<p>“Parker flew me up to Clayton from New
Canaan,” the chief told him. “Then he
drove me over here in his car—or that is, I
left him where the road to Turner’s leaves
the Harbor Highway, and came the rest of
the way on foot.”</p>
<p>“Please start at the beginning, won’t you?
I’m still all at sea—”</p>
<p>“All right, all right—don’t get all het up
now! Well, Deborah Lightfoot, the girl
I’m engaged to—”</p>
<p>“<i>What!</i> Not the girl on the island—Evans’
secretary?”</p>
<p>“She’s the girl—”</p>
<p>“But you never told me you were engaged!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_158">158</div>
<p>“Didn’t I? Well, we’re going to get married
next year, just as soon as I’m graduated
from Carlisle.”</p>
<p>“Gee, that’s fine,” said Bill. “I certainly
congratulate you both. But say, let’s get on
with the business end of this gab. Begin
with Mr. Evans—when you saw him or heard
from him first.”</p>
<p>“Have it your own way,” grinned Osceola.
“I came out from New York on an early train
to New Canaan yesterday afternoon, after
seeing your father off for Washington. The
servants were in a great state about the night
before. It seems that the shooting woke them
up after you and Charlie got out of the house.
I read your note and reckoned that since
neither you nor Charles nor the plane were
on the premises, you’d managed to get off
all right. You had told me in your note to
stay put till I heard from you, so I stuck
round the house all evening, waiting for a
wire, or a phone call. I was especially
worried about Deborah. She graduated from
Barnard in June, and shortly after this Flying
Fish affair was cleaned up, I got her the job
with Mr. Evans. I knew she was up here in
Maine with him, but from what you wrote,
it looked as if old Evans had got himself
mixed up in a thug war or something, and I
didn’t want my girl to be stopping bullets.
Mind you, Deb can take care of herself in a
mixup better than most men. She’s a swell
shot, and she can throw a tomahawk as true
as any brave in the Seminole Nation.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_159">159</div>
<p>“Great guns! I had no idea she was a
Seminole!”</p>
<p>“She sure is,” grinned his friend. “Deb
is Sachem of the Water Moccasin Clan in her
own right. She’s a sort of ’steenth cousin of
mine—and <i>brains</i>—well, she’s two years
younger than I am and yet she’s a year ahead
of me in college. She’s—”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_160">160</div>
<p>“Whoa!” laughed Bill. “I’ll take it for
granted and all that, that she’s the most wonderful
girl in the world.... Get back to your
story, now. You were worried because she
was up here, you said?”</p>
<p>“Right, I was. But I decided to hang
round your place for the night and wait for
your message—which never came. If I
didn’t hear by morning, my plan was to come
along up here by train, whether you needed
me or not.”</p>
<p>“And then Mr. Evans turned up, eh?”</p>
<p>“He did. The sound of the plane sent me
running out to the hangar in the middle of
breakfast. At first when I saw the <i>Loening</i>,
I thought you had come back. Then old
Evans piled out and introduced Parker, who
had flown him down. I took them into the
house and we had breakfast together.”</p>
<p>“Well, he’s got a nerve! Disappearing on
us in the first place, and then taking my plane
to do it in!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_161">161</div>
<p>“Yes, he said he hadn’t had a chance to let
you know, or to ask your permission to use the
<i>Loening</i>. Matters suddenly came to a head
and he had to get to Stamford as soon as possible.
It seems that some of Sanders’ crowd
hang out there and they were up to something
he couldn’t get the hang of.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I know—they’re coming up here in
a boat of some kind. They’re after something
that belongs to Mr. Evans.”</p>
<p>“That’s what he said. I mean, he described
Sanders and told me that his crowd was trying
to steal something from him.”</p>
<p>“Why doesn’t Evans move it to some safe
deposit and let us out of all this hullabaloo!”</p>
<p>“Well, the funny part of it is, that he
doesn’t know where it is—and apparently
Sanders and his lads do!”</p>
<p>“That <i>is</i> a funny one,” grunted Bill.
“Evans, the owner, doesn’t know where this
valuable something is—and the would-be
robbers do!”</p>
<p>“That’s what he told me, all right.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_162">162</div>
<p>“Well, <i>what</i> is it that they’re raising such
a rumpus about? Does Evans himself know?”
Bill was getting sarcastic over the situation.</p>
<p>“Search me. He didn’t say.”</p>
<p>“Well, I think it’s the limit. Here I get
all het up, thinking that at last I’m going
to find out something definite about this
mess—and you tell me you don’t know.”</p>
<p>“Evans thinks, I guess, that it’s less dangerous
for us not to know. He’s a pretty
good egg.”</p>
<p>Bill frowned, then began to chuckle.
“Sanders offered me a couple of million or
so, if I’d go in with him. Can you beat that?
So whatever the blooming loot is, it’s worth
money!”</p>
<p>“Looks like it. But let me finish. I was
just starting to talk to Deb over the private
line in the other room, when you came butting
in and I had to ring off. You may not
know it, but I’m rather anxious to finish that
conversation.”</p>
<p>“Oh, go to the phone now, if you must,”
said Bill resignedly. “I’ll wait.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_163">163</div>
<p>“No, I’ll get this off my chest first. You’re
in almost as much of a sweat as old Evans was
at breakfast this morning. He wouldn’t talk
while the waitress was in the room, so things
were a bit jerky. But when we’d finished
eating, and one of your cars was waiting to run
him down to Stamford, he told me about
Sanders. Then he described this place, told
me how to get into it through the sub-cellar,
and where the short-line phone to the island
was hidden. He suggested that Parker take
some sleep, and then fly me up here so I could
keep an eye on Deborah. To finish the story,
Parker and I took turns flying the bus, and
here I am.”</p>
<p>“Did Mr. Evans say what I was supposed
to be doing?” inquired Bill. “He left while
Charlie and I were asleep. I’ve had no instructions.”</p>
<p>“Yes, he wants you to keep careful watch
on the Sanders crowd, so you can locate what
they’re trying to steal.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_164">164</div>
<p>“Huh! A nice, soft job that! How am I
going to find something when I don’t know
what it is? The man’s got bats in his belfry!”</p>
<p>“Well, I don’t know—but that’s what he
said. By the way, where’s Charlie—upstairs?”</p>
<p>“He is not—and that’s another thing that
gets my goat. While his father flies on without
a word—Sanders gets the boy!” Bill
went on to tell Osceola of the day’s happenings.
“You see,” he concluded, “I’m between
two fires. It’s the dickens of a mess.
If I go to Stamford, and pretend to play in
with that gang, I can’t be watching them up
here—and if I don’t go there’s no telling
what Sanders may do with that kid. My plan
before you came along was to meet Ezra
Parker at the Harbor, and see what his advice
would be.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_165">165</div>
<p>“Good idea,” said Osceola thoughtfully.
He had been squatting on his heels, Indian
fashion, and now stood up. “Hello!” he
cried. “There goes that telephone again. I
guess Deb got tired of waiting.”</p>
<p>“How did she know you were here? It
was that bell jingling that brought me down
here.”</p>
<p>“I called her up when I got in the cellar.
Jim answered and said she was out on the
rocks—so she called me back.” He hurried
off to the other end of the cellar with Bill
close behind him holding the light.</p>
<p>Osceola fumbled with a brick in the wall,
it came away in his hands and he pushed his
arm into the cavity. A panel in the wall
swung outward, revealing the fact that it was
not brick at all, but cleverly painted wood.
The ringing of the bell immediately became
louder, for in the open niche stood a telephone.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_166">166</div>
<p>The chief picked up the receiver. “Hello,
hello—” Bill heard him say. “Yes, this is
Osceola. Yes, Deb, I’m all right. Bill is
here. We mistook each other for Sanders’
men in the dark—that’s why I rang off. But
everything is okay now. No, I don’t mean
exactly that ... Sanders has kidnapped Charlie
and.... What are you saying? Great guns—is
that so? Yes, I can hear firing. Hang on
as long as you can—don’t give up—we’ll be
with you just as soon as possible!”</p>
<p>He hung up, slammed shut the camouflaged
panel and turned to Bill.</p>
<p>“The devil to pay! Deb and old Jim are
barricaded in the hut on Pig Island. Sanders’
men have got the place surrounded!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_167">167</div>
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