Clayton, Maine.
Without the slightest hesitation, Bill took the papers from the slit envelopes. Two proved to be bills; one for repairs on a car, the other from a tailor for three suits of clothes. The third letter, however, was headed “Gring’s Hotel, Stamford, Conn.,” and bore the date of three days earlier. It ran—
“Dear Sanders—Just a line to say I have engaged the experts as directed. Got them in the big city and they sure do ask a big price. But that is your business.
“Now you have located the exact position, it either means taking the Evans’ bunch for a ride or making a snappy job of it. Personally I don’t think it can be done in one night.
“Don’t write any more. Both mails and telegraph are too risky. That gink Evans is wide awake. He’s watching this end too—and you know he’s intercepted two messages already. I know what to do, but if you must send your fool instructions, send them by word of mouth, or better still, fly down here and go up with us. Then we could run in nights and stand out to sea day times, and you would be on board to direct operations. That would stop Evans having you followed up there when you join us as you must eventually. Also if we don’t write any more there’ll be no chance of his being able to get documentary evidence. If you send a man, let him say Zenas and nod like you. Then I’ll know he’s Okay.
“Yours, “Slim.”
Bill read this over three times. The writer, he guessed, must be Harold Johnson, the fellow he had been taken for on the island. He recalled distinctly that Sanders had referred to him as “Slim.” Who or what the “experts” were he had hired, was beyond Bill. On the other hand it was obvious that Slim feared Mr. Evans. The scheme, as he saw it, was that Johnson and his men intended coming by boat to Maine, where Sanders had been successful in locating something they wanted. And, having arrived in Maine waters, the boat would put her crew of gangsters ashore at night and stand off the coast day times. That robbery of some sort was their objective, Bill had not the slightest doubt.
But what they intended to steal or where it was located, Slim had not said. Perhaps it was something concealed at Turner’s—hidden in a safe, possibly—and the “experts” had been hired to get it. Still, if Mr. Evans was hiding something in a safe at Turner’s, what prevented him from moving it to the strong room of some metropolitan bank, where it would be beyond reach of both Sanders and Johnson? Bill discarded the idea of the safe then and there. The best he could do was to get in touch with Mr. Evans or his men just as soon as possible.
He slipped the letter back into the overcoat pocket, and folding the coat, replaced it in the locker. He did not want Sanders to guess that he had read that letter. Then he thought over a plan of procedure. If he took the motor boat to Pig Island, he must take the coat with him, and Sanders’ suspicions would be aroused. If, on the other hand, he beached the craft and made for Turner’s, Sanders, who was very likely now footing it for the cove, might think that in his hurry Bill had overlooked Slim’s letter. Also, he would be more likely to find Mr. Evans at Turner’s, and then, there was Charlie to be considered. If the boy had reached the house and his father had not turned up, he would be forced to stay in that gloomy place himself overnight, a prospect that not even Bill relished.
As he reached these conclusions, Bill sent the motorboat skimming into the cove and beached her. Then, slipping into his socks and shoes, he picked up the remainder of his clothes. It took him but a moment to cross the sand and climb the rocks. Soon he was jogging along the lane at a smart trot. He neither met nor saw a single soul. At last he gained the back door by way of the overgrown shrubbery. He found the key under the mat where they had left it after breakfast. Bill inserted it in the lock and walked into the back entry.
Instead of calling Charlie, he walked into the big kitchen and looked about. Everything seemed exactly as they had left it after washing up that morning.
“Well, it’s a cinch the kid never got back here,” he said to himself. “He’d have spent most of the day in here, consuming provisions, and there’s not a thing been touched. I’d better make sure, though—and if I can scare up a gun of sorts, all to the good!”
His inspection of the entire house, including the cellar, proved his surmise to be well founded. He was alone in the place. Charlie, he figured, had either trudged into Clayton to get in touch with Ezra Parker, or he had been captured by Sanders and his men.