“You’ll have to. . . . Now listen. I want you to send the first boat round to the quay. You’ll miss the fishermen—they’ll have gone out on the tide, at ten. Bittle and Bloem will be with me, and Templar might be, too. That depends on what happens, and what I decide to do with him. His servant will go over the cliff just about the time you’re picking us up. And I might have to bring the girl along as well. I’m still wondering whether Templar’s put her next this joke. In any case, she’s very easy on the eyes. I’ll get a report shortly, and then I’ll be able to think better what to do.”
“This is a new one in you, Chief—dragging a skirt in. You always swore you wouldn’t have it.”
The voice of the Tiger snapped back incisively:
“That’s my business, Maggs! When I want your opinions I’ll ask for them. All you’ve got to do is have the cabins ready and send that boat to the quay. Get off all the other boats you can man to the Old House. You can get three away, and still keep a guard. And keep the engineer below—if we do get raided, the boat crews must shift for themselves. Your men haven’t got to do anything but row—and if any man catches a crab or talks in the boat I’ll flay him alive. Tell ’em that from me. I’ll have men on the island to help ’em load, and there’s a small derrick there, the one we used for hauling the stuff up first, just waiting to be rigged. You ought to be able to get away by four, if you work.”
“Stand on me, Chief.”
“See that I don’t have to tread on you. Have you got that all in your head?”
“Down to the Amen, Chief.”
“Call me at seven, in case there are any alterations to be made in those orders. Good-bye.”
The Tiger’s transmission shut down with an audible click, and Carn removed the headphones and leaned back in his chair, gazing thoughtfully at the instrument which had enabled him to listen in on that enlightening chat.
Enlightening it certainly was, and no error. Almost the only thing it neglected to reveal to the detective was the identity of the Tiger himself—the voice of the man called “Chief” had been studiously throttled down to a toneless flat key that was useless as a clue. The Tiger was taking no chances of being caught in person, and he had spoken throughout in a dead level monotone that anyone could have imitated—and, in addition, Carn knew the tricks which electricity plays even with a man’s natural voice, and he would have looked long and carefully before leaping to accuse anybody of being the Tiger on no other grounds than a fancied vocal resemblance after the valves and magnets and transformers had finished distorting a disguised intonation.