“No hablo ingles,” he growled at last.
His assurance was so extreme that Lang would have doubted, but for surely having recognized the young gunman.
“You can’t bluff it out, Carroll,” he insisted. “Louie the Lope, too. I’ve got to have that money back now that you took off me in Panama. What are you going to do about it? Are you ready to talk?”
The man spread out his hands with a furious, characteristic Chilean gesture.
“Malediction!” he snarled, broke into a gust of unintelligible Spanish, spat violently over the side, and turned again to the freight he was handling.
Lang gazed, really almost staggered for a moment; then turned and slowly walked away. He was no longer in the dark; he could see his way now, and he wanted to think. He heard a step behind him, and a triumphant voice spoke quickly in his ear.
“I’ve got ’em right with me. The old professor’s eating out of my hand. Nothing doing, so far’s you are concerned, doc. They’ve got your number. They know how you tried to double cross ’em, and they’ve got no further use for you. You can go back to the States.”
It was all shot out almost before Lang could turn. Carroll turned back to the cruiser with a malicious grin under his black beard, and in that instant Lang believed his words implicitly.
They had the sound of truth; it was a revelation. For the first time he grasped that the Morrisons must really think that he had tried to forestall them, to beat them to the south. What else could they think?
His excited mind instantly reconstructed what must have happened. Morrison and Eva had hurried to Valparaiso. Carroll, already on the spot, had met them, induced them to hire this power boat, was preparing, along with Louie, to go south with them. Their disguise was reliable. Lang, knowing them well, had barely penetrated it.