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“I’ll take her,” decided Dorothy. “That is, if she’s not too expensive?”

“I guess we ain’t goin’ to fight about the price, mam,” asserted Yancy. “How long will you be wantin’ her and when do you expect to take her out?”

“Not before nine tonight – and I’ll hire her for twenty-four hours.”

“O. K. mam. You can have her for a year if you want her. How about your air bus?”

“She’ll be left here. I want you to look after her. I don’t think there’ll be any wind to speak of. She’ll be all right where she is.”

“We’re going to get rain in a couple of hours, so if you’ll make her secure, I’ll have her towed out to that buoy yonder. I’ll rest easier with her moored clear of this dock.”

“I’ll pull the waterproof covers over the cockpits and she’ll be all right,” returned Dorothy. “Then we can go up to your office and fix up the finances.”

Chapter VI
THE HOUSE ON THE DUNES

Having come to agreeable terms with Mr. Yancy and having secured the name and location of Babylon’s best restaurant, Dorothy left the waterfront and walked uptown. A glance at her wrist-watch told her it was not yet seven o’clock. She was in no hurry, for she had more than two hours to wait before it would be dark enough to start. So she strolled along the bustling streets of the little city, feeling very much pleased with the way things were progressing.

Arrived at the restaurant, she ordered a substantial meal and while waiting for it to be served, sought a telephone booth. She asked for the toll operator and put in a call for New Canaan. A little while later she was summoned to the phone.

“Is that you, Lizzie? Yes. I – no, no, I’m perfectly all right – ” she spoke soothingly into the transmitter. “Don’t worry about me, please. I’ve had to go out of town, and I wanted to let you know that I won’t be back till morning. Never mind, now. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good-by!” She replaced the receiver and went back to her table, a little smile on her lips at the memory of Lizzie’s distracted voice over the wire.

“Poor Lizzie! She’s all worked up again at what she calls my ‘wild doin’s’,” she thought. And with a determined glint in her eyes, she proceeded to eat heartily.

When she had finished, she asked at the desk for a sheet of paper and an envelope. She took these over to her table, ordered a second cup of coffee, and began to compose a letter. This took her some time, for in it she explained her maneuvers during the afternoon, and gave the exact location of the cottage on the dunes, where she believed the Mystery Plane’s pilot had been bound. She ended with a sketch of her plans for the evening and addressed the envelope to Terry Walters’ father. With her mind now easy in case of misadventure, she paid her bill and walked back to the water front.

“Good evening, Miss Dixon,” greeted Yancy as she stepped into his office. “I’ve done what you asked me to. You’ll find a pair of clean blankets, some fresh water and eatables for two days stowed in the Mary Jane’s cabin. I know you don’t intend to be out that long, but it’s always wise to be on the safe side with the grub.”

“Thanks. You’re a great help. Now, just one thing more before I shove off. Although I’ve rented your boat for twenty-four hours, I really expect to be back here tomorrow morning at the latest. If I don’t turn up by noon, will you please send this letter by special delivery to Mr. Walters in New Canaan?”

“I sure will, Miss Dixon. But you’re not lookin’ for trouble, are you?”

Dorothy shook her head and smiled. “Nothing like that, Mr. Yancy. I just want Mr. Walters to know where I am and what I’m doing.”

“Good enough, Mam. Anything else I can do?”

“Not a thing, thank you. Don’t bother to come down to the wharf with me. I’ve got several things I want to do aboard before I set out.”

“Just as you say. Good luck and a pleasant trip.” Yancy’s honest face wore a beaming grin as he doffed his tattered cap to Dorothy.

“Thank you again. Good night.”

Dorothy went outside and found that Yancy’s prediction of rain earlier in the evening had been justified.

“Lucky this is drizzle instead of fog,” she thought as she hurried down to the landing stage. “I’d be out of luck navigating blind on Great South Bay!”

She dove into the Mary Jane’s cabin and after lighting the old fashioned oil lamp in its swinging bracket, put on her slicker and sou’wester. Then she fished the chart of the bay out of the locker and spent the next quarter of an hour in an intensive study of local waters.

Having gained an intimate picture of this part of the bay, she plotted her course, and checked up on the blankets and food. That done, she blew out the lamp, picked up the anchor and left the cabin, closing the door behind her.

Outside in the drizzle, she deposited her burden in the bow, making the anchor rope fast to a ring bolt in the decking. Then she put a match to the side lights and coming aft, cast off from the staging. Next, she started the motor, a difficult undertaking. At the third or fourth heave of the heavy flywheel it got away with a series of barking coughs. She slid in behind the steering wheel and they headed out across the bay.

Night had fallen, but notwithstanding the light rain, visibility on the water was good. The tide, as Dorothy knew, was at the flood, so she cut straight across for the dull, intermittent glow of the Fire Island Light. The boat ran strongly and well and Dorothy gave the engine full gas. She knew from experience that one of its primitive type was not apt to suffer from being driven, but on the contrary was inclined to run more evenly.

It had been at least two years since she had sailed on Great South Bay, but she remembered it to be a big, shallow puddle, where in most places a person capsized might stand on bottom and right the boat.

“No danger of capsizing with the Mary Jane,” she reflected, “she’s built on the lines of a flounder – I’ll bet she’d float in a heavy dew!”

The two and a half feet of tide made it possible for her to hold a straight course and presently she could see the dim outline of sand dunes. The faint easterly draft of air brought the roar of the Atlantic swell as it boomed upon the beach outside. It was time to change her course.

A quarter turn of the wheel swung the Mary Jane to port and straightening out, she headed across the inlet. Five minutes later she had picked up the dunes on the farther side. With the dunes off her starboard quarter, Dorothy made the wheel fast with a bight of cord she had cut for the purpose, and going forward, extinguished her side lights.

Back at the wheel again, she steered just as close to the shore as safety permitted. For the next couple of miles she ran along the shallows.

“Thank goodness!” she muttered at last. Swinging the Mary Jane inshore, she cut her motor and headed into a small cove, to ground a moment later on a pebbly beach.

Springing ashore, Dorothy dragged the anchor up the beach and buried it at its full length of rope in the sand. Then with a sigh of satisfaction, she straightened her back and took a survey of her surroundings.

The little beach ran up to a cup-shaped hollow, encompassed by high sand dunes. She had noticed the inlet on the large-scale chart, and chose it because she figured that it lay about a mile on the near side of the cottage she sought. And since she had decided to use the motor boat instead of the plane because she wanted to cover her approach, this spot seemed made to order for her purpose.

Her eyes scanned the skyline, and for a moment her heart almost stopped. Surely she had seen the head of a man move in that clump of long, coarse grasses at the top of the incline! Standing perfectly still, although her body tingled with excitement, she continued to stare at the suspicious clump.

Then with characteristic decision, she drew a revolver from her pocket and raced up the side of the dune. But although she exerted herself to the utmost, her progress was much too slow. Her feet sank deep in the shifting sand until she was literally wading, clawing with her free hand for holds on the waving sandgrass.

Panting and floundering, she pulled herself to the top, only to find no one there. Nor so far as she could see was there any living thing in sight. The deep boom of the surf was louder here, and peering through the rain, she made out the long stretch of beach pounded by combers, not more than a couple of hundred yards away. Some distance to the right, facing the ocean twinkled the lights of a row of summer cottages. To her left nothing could be seen but tier after tier of grass-topped dunes, a narrow barrier of sand between Great South Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, bleak and desolate, extending farther than the eye could reach.

Despite this evidence to the contrary, Dorothy still retained the impression that she was not alone. She had an uneasy conviction that she was being watched. She shivered.

“My nerves must be going fuzzy,” she thought disgustedly. “I can’t risk using a flash, and if there were any tracks this stiff breeze from the sea would have filled them in while I was climbing up here. Well, get going, Dorothy, my girl – this place is giving you the creeps – good and plenty.”

The Colt was slipped back into her slicker, and she trudged through the loose sand to the black stretch of ocean beach. Here, walking was better, and turning her back on the lighted cottages, she set out along the hard shingle by the surf.

Several times during that walk, Dorothy stopped short and scanned the long line of dunes above her. Try as she might, it seemed impossible to rid herself of the idea that someone was following. When she judged the remaining distance to the cottage to be about a quarter of a mile, she left the beach and continued her way over the dunes.

Although Dorothy had no tangible fact to connect the Mystery Plane with her holdup in New Canaan and Terry’s disappearance, she approached the lonely cottage with the stealth of a red Indian. And even if this night reconnoiter should prove only that the bearded aviator had a sweetie living on the shore of Great South Bay, or that he was making daily trips to visit friends, she had no intention of being caught snooping. No matter what she should learn of the cottage’s inmates, if anything, she proposed to return with the Mary Jane to Yancy’s wharf and spend the rest of the night aboard. She had no desire to tramp about Babylon after midnight, looking for a hotel that would take her in.

As she slowly neared the cottage, taking particular pains now not to appear on the skyline, she wished that this adventure was well over. She still felt the effects of her adventure with the thunderhead. The tiny cabin of the motor boat seemed more and more inviting to the weary girl. Trudging through the rain over sand dunes was especially trying when one was walking away from bed rather than toward it.

Then she caught sight of the house roof over the top of the next dune and her flagging interest in her undertaking immediately revived.

Dorothy skirted the shoulder of the sandy hill, using the utmost precaution to make not the slightest sound. Then she squatted on her heels and held her breath. Directly ahead, not more than thirty or forty feet at most, gleamed the light from an open window, and from where she crouched, there was an unobstructed view of the room beyond.

There were three men sitting about an unpainted kitchen table which held three glasses and as many bottles. All were smoking, and deep in conversation. One man she knew immediately to be the bearded aviator with whom she had talked on the Beach Club shore. But although Dorothy strained her ears to the bursting point, the heavy pounding of the surf from the ocean side prevented her from catching more than a confused rumble of voices.

For a moment or two she waited and watched. The other two men wore golf clothes, were young, and though they were not particularly prepossessing in appearance, she decided that they were American business men on a holiday. They certainly did not look like foreigners.

Miss Dixon, crouching beside the sand dune, felt vaguely disappointed. She did not know exactly what she had expected to find in the cottage, but she had been counting on something rather more exciting than the tableau now framed in the open window. But since she had come this far, it would be senseless not to learn all that was possible. Taking care to keep beyond the path of the light, she crept forward on her hands and knees until she was below the window. Here it was impossible to see into the room, but the voices now came to her with startling distinctness.

“Why?” inquired a voice which Dorothy immediately recognized as belonging to the aviator, though oddly enough, it was now without accent. “You surely haven’t got cold feet, Donovan?”

“Cold feet nothing! The man don’t live that can give me chills below the knee,” that gentleman returned savagely. “But I won’t be made a goat of either, nor sit in a poker game with my eyes shut. Why should I? I’ve got as much to lose as you have.”

“Those are my sentiments exactly,” drawled a third voice, not unpleasantly. “Listen to that surf. There’s a rotten sea running out by the light. Raining too, and getting thicker out there by the minute. By three o’clock you’ll be able to cut the fog with a knife. What’s the sense in trying it – we’re sure to miss her, anyway.”

“Perhaps you chaps would prefer my job,” sneered the aviator. “You make me sick! But you’ll have to do what the old man expects of you, – so why argue?”

“How come the old man always picks days like this to run up his red flag?” Donovan was talking again. “There’s just as much chance of our picking up that stuff tonight as – as – ”

“As finding a golf ball on a Scotchman’s lawn,” the third man finished for him. “I know there’s no use grousing – but it’s a dirty deal – and well, we’ve got to talk about something in this God-forsaken dump!”

“I don’t blame you much,” the aviator admitted, “but look at the profits, man. Well, I must be shoving off, myself. We’ll have another bottle of beer apiece and – ”

But Dorothy did not hear the end of that sentence. Her vigil was suddenly and rudely interrupted. Someone behind her thrust a rough arm under her chin, jerking back her head and holding her in an unbreakable grip. The sickly-sweet odor of chloroform half suffocated her. For a moment more she struggled, then darkness closed in about her.

Chapter VII
SHANGHAIED

Dorothy came slowly back to consciousness. She was vaguely aware of the chug-chug of a small engine somewhere near by. Her head swam and there was a sickly sensation at the pit of her stomach.

She tried to move, and found it impossible. She heard the splash of waves but could see nothing except the boarded wall of her prison a foot or so away from her eyes.

After a while she became accustomed to the gloom and her sight was clearer. She decided that the rounded wall was the side of a boat. Turning her head slightly she saw that she lay on the flooring of an open motor sailor, beneath a thwart. It had stopped raining. Now the sound of the engine and the gurgle of water against the hull told her that the craft was moving.

She hadn’t the slightest idea where this cabinless craft was bound, or how she came to be aboard. Gradually there returned to her a confused memory of the cottage on the dunes, voices through the window. Someone’s arm about her neck, forcing her head back – she remembered, now, and groaned. Her body was one stiffness and ache.

Again she tried to heave herself into a sitting position, only to find that her ankles were bound with a turn or two of cord, and her wrists whipped together behind her back. She was trussed like a fowl, and by the feel of her bonds, the trusser was a seaman. She wriggled and writhed, consumed by rage at her own helplessness. The only result was to restore her circulation and clear her faculties, allowing her to realize just what had happened.

“Shanghied!” Dorothy muttered thickly. “Oh, if I’d only had a chance to let loose a little jiu jitsu on that beast who scragged me!”

Why had they brought her on board this boat and tied her hand and foot? Where was the motor sailor bound? What was going to happen to her next? Mr. Walters would probably get her letter during the afternoon. Yancy seemed a dependable sort of man. Without doubt a raid on the beach cottage would follow, but by that time the birds would have flown, and what good would the raid do her! Her thoughts ran on.

Those men in the cottage were not fools. Their conversation, as they sat around the table, had meant little to Dorothy, but she no longer doubted that the gang was interested in an undertaking that was illegal and fraught with considerable danger to themselves. Could it be bootlegging? Possibly. But Dorothy did not fancy that idea. The Mystery Plane, (she had got in the habit of calling it that now) hadn’t enough storage capacity to carry any great quantity of liquor. Where did that amphibian come into this complicated scheme?

This night’s work had turned out a failure so far as she was concerned: she should never have undertaken the job of ferreting out the truth alone.

If only Bill Bolton were not away. He would never have allowed her to get into this mess!

Suddenly she heard the creak of a board and the sound of footsteps approaching. Dorothy realized that she lay huddled in the bow of the craft, with her head aft and her feet forward. That was why she had not been able to see anything of the crew. She shut her eyes again as someone flashed a torch in her face.

“She’s not much better,” said a voice she recognized as belonging to the man called Donovan. “Doesn’t look to me as if she’d be out of it for a long time. I think you must have given her an overdose of the stuff, Peters.” He stirred her none too gently with his foot.

“I hope I did!” answered a new voice. “That little wildcat got my thumb between her teeth while I was holdin’ the rag to her face. She bit me somethin’ terrible, I tell yer.”

“Never mind your thumb. We’ve heard enough of that already. How long did you hold the chloroform to her nose?”

“I dunno. I gave her plenty. If her light’s out, I should worry.”

“You’re right, you should. I’m not handling stiffs on the price of this job.” Donovan’s tone was biting.

A hand pressed Dorothy’s side.

“No stiffer than you are,” affirmed Peters matter-of-factly. “I can feel her breathe.”

“She looks pretty bad to me,” Donovan insisted. “The old man will raise the roof if you don’t get her over to Connecticut O.K. You know what he said over the phone!”

“Then why not ask Charlie? He used to be a doctor before he did that stretch up the river.” He raised his voice. “Hey, there, Charlie! Leave go that wheel and come here for a minute.”

“Can’t be done,” replied Charlie, and Dorothy knew that the third man on the beach cottage group was speaking. “What do you want me to do – run this sailor aground in the shallows?”

“Well, Donovan thinks the girl’s goin’ to croak.”

“That’s your worry. You’re the lad who administered the anesthetic. You probably gave her too much.”

“Say, Charlie, this is serious,” Donovan broke in anxiously. “Quit high-hatting and give us your opinion.”

The steersman snorted contemptuously. “She’ll come out of it all right – that is, unless her heart’s wobbly. If it is, I couldn’t do anything for her out here. You’re supposed to be running this show, Don, and Peters did your dirty work. I’m only the hired man. If she goes out, you two will stand the chance of burning, not me. Cut the argument! There’s shipping ahead. What are you trying to do – wake the harbor?”

Donovan and Peters stopped talking and went aft. Presently their voices broke out again but this time came to the girl in the bow as a low, confused murmur.

So she owed this situation to Mr. Peters. Dorothy was feeling better now and despite her discomfort she spent several minutes contemplating what she would do to Mr. Peters, if she ever got the chance.

The motor sailor’s engine stopped chugging and soon the boat came to rest.

“I’ll carry her in myself,” spoke Donovan from somewhere beyond her range of vision. “Peters bungled the business when he was on watch at that dump across the bay. I want no more accidents until she’s safely off my hands.”

Dorothy was caught up in a pair of strong arms as if she had been so much mutton.

“Think I’d drop her in the drink?” laughed Peters.

“You said it. – Sure this is the right dock, Charlie?”

“No, Donny, it’s the grill room of the Ritz – shake a leg there, both of you. We’ve got a long boat ride and a sweet little job ahead of us. We can’t afford to be late – hustle!”

Donovan did not bother to reply to this parting shot. He slung Dorothy over his shoulder, stepped onto a thwart, from there to the gunwale and on to the dock. They seemed to be in some kind of backwater from where a set of steps led up from the dock to a small wharfyard, shut in on three sides by high walls and warehouses.

Donovan shouldered open a door and ascended a narrow flight of rotting stairs. It had been dark in the yard, but inside the warehouse the night was Stygian. At the top he waited until Peters came abreast.

“Where’s your flash, Peters?” he growled.

“Haven’t got one, Cap.”

“Here – take mine, then, and show a glim. It’s in my side pocket. My hands are full of girl!”

“Got it,” said Peters, a moment later.

The light came on and Dorothy, between half-shut eyelids saw that they were in a long, dismal corridor.

“I’ll go ahead,” continued the man, “I’ve got the key.”

Down this long corridor they passed, then into another narrow passage running at right angles from the first.

Peters eventually stopped at a door which he unlocked and flung open.

“Here we are,” he announced and preceded them over the sill.

Dorothy caught a glimpse of a small room that smelt of rats and wastepaper with a flavor of bilgewater thrown in. Then she closed her eyes as Donovan dumped her on the bare floor, propping her shoulders against the wall.

“Well, that’s done,” Donovan said with great satisfaction. “Are you going to wait here for the car, Peters, or out in the yard?”

“The yard for mine, Cap. This joint is full o’ spooks. It’s jollier outside.”

“Right. We’ll get going then.”

Peters paused and looked at the girl. “There might be some change – maybe a bill or two in the lady’s pockets, Cap?” He winked at Donovan hopefully.

“You leave the girl’s money alone. The boss distinctly said not to search her. He wants her delivered just as she is.”

“Well, what if she passes out on me hands, Cap?”

“Deliver her just the same. And mind – you obey orders or you’ll bite off a heap more trouble than you can chew. Come along now!”

The two men left the room. The bolt in the door shot home, then the key turned in the lock; As the sound of their footsteps over the bare floor died away, Dorothy opened her eyes. Summoning all her strength, she wrenched at the bonds that held her, but she accomplished no more than lacerating her wrists.

She was to be shifted to some safer place, presumably in Connecticut, where she was to be taken by car. Meanwhile, there was no escape from where she was, even if her limbs were free. Should she show signs of consciousness, the best she had to hope for was another dose of chloroform or a gag when that enterprising thug, Mr. Peters, returned. He was not the kind to leave anything to chance.

Almost before she had got her wits to work, Dorothy heard steps in the passage and let herself go limp again, her knees drawn up, her head and neck against the wall. The bolt was drawn, and Peters entered the room. He flashed the torch over his prisoner.

“I don’t think there’ll be any harm in me takin’ a dollar or two,” he muttered. “What’s the use of money to a stiff? And you sure do look good and dead, young woman!” he chuckled as he bent down to begin the search.

“Guess again!”

Dorothy’s bound feet shot upward with the force of a mainspring uncoiling. Her neck was braced against the wall and the whole strength of her thighs was behind the kick that drove her boot heels smashing under her captor’s chin. The gangster sailed backward. His head hit the base of the opposite wall with a resounding crack and he lay like a log.

The electric torch trundled over the planks and came to a standstill, throwing its pencil of light across the floor. For a couple of seconds, Dorothy peered and listened. Then with intense exhilaration of spirit, she rolled and wriggled herself across the intervening space until she was underneath the window. Here, after a little straining and wobbling, that nearly cracked her sinews, she got on her knees. Then she heaved herself upright so that she leaned sideways against the sash. With a thrust she drove her elbow through the pane. There was a crash and a tinkle of falling glass.

Two more thrusts shivered the pane until there remained only a fringe of broken glass at either side. Turning her back to it, she felt for the broken edge with her fingers and brought her rope-lashed wrists across it. Splintered window glass has an edge like a razor. Dorothy fumbled the cord blindly to the cutting edge, sawed steadily and felt one of the turns slacken and part.

It was enough. In a few seconds her wrists were free and she stooped and cast loose the lashings from her ankles. She staggered a little and collapsed on the floor. After chafing her arms and legs, she turned to attend to her companion.

There was no need. Mr. Peters showed no further sign of animation than a ham. To insure against interference or pursuit, Dorothy turned him over, untied a length of cord from her ankle-bonds, and cast a double sheet-bend about his wrists.

Picking up the flashlight, she hurried out through the door which that canny seeker of “pickings” had left open. She hurried along the two passages and down the rickety stairs. The door at the bottom was closed, so snapping off her light, she pulled it open and stepped into the yard.

But here she was certain there was no egress except by swimming unless she could find a way through the other side of the house. Somewhere out in the darkness she heard the lap and plash of water and the faint creak of rowlocks. Instantly she ducked behind a pile of empty barrels.

A boat skulled stealthily through the gloom and fetched up alongside the dock. A tall figure made the little craft fast, climbed the steps and peered around the yard.

At that very moment, a water rat dropped from the top of the wall to the ground by way of Dorothy’s shoulder. It was impossible for her to suppress the exclamation of fright that escaped her.

The figure in the middle of the yard swung round and an electric torch flashed over the barrels.

“Come out of that or I’ll shoot!” ordered the stranger. “And come out with your hands up!”