I had a sudden idea.
‘What’s your racket?’ I asked. ‘Hi-jacking Barratt?’
‘You guessed it, pally. We’re taking that stock of reefers. We have our own little organization now.’ He stood up. ‘Okay, let’s go. Straight up the hill, and keep right. Get going.’
We went on up the hill. It was almost too dark now to see where I was going, but Joe seemed to have eyes like a cat, He kept jerking out directions, warning me away from rocks and shrubs, as if he could see as easily now as in the sunlight.
Suddenly he said, ‘Hold it.’
I stopped and waited.
He gave a shrill whistle. A moment later a light flashed on a few yards in front of us, and I could see, carefully hidden behind a screen of trees and bushes, a cleverly concealed log cabin, built into the side of the hill.
‘Neat, huh?’ Joe said. ‘We built it ourselves. You’d have to walk right on it before you knew it was there, and by that time you’d be as full of lead as a church roof. Go ahead. Walk right in.’
I went ahead.
The door stood open and I walked into a large, roughly furnished room. Standing before a log fire, her hands behind her back, a cigarette in her full red lips was Mary Jerome.