“No gladder than I am, and your mother will be!” said the clear eyed man, smiling. “Let’s stay home a few days and keep Mother company. We’ve been nothing but worry to her for some time now!”
“The water’s no place for pleasure lovers, I can see,” laughed John. “Great gobs of whipped cream—we’ll have to hike on the road next time, or go camping, or build us a trailer and become tin-can tourists! Maybe then we’ll just have a good time and keep clear of gangsters and crime syndicates!”
“Dad,” said Stan, breaking into John’s facetious remarks, “both John and I are dying to know what the wreck was at the bottom of Black Cove and what it contained!”
Mr. Sandborn helped himself to another doughnut while John poured more coffee.
“The whole story is this, in a few words, boys,” said he: “some years ago a rum-running yacht called the Shanghai, owned and operated by underworld interests, became a floating bank for the deposit of the vast sums of money stolen by that particular gang from dozens and scores of big bank robberies, and kidnapings! Besides that, those mobsters added actual gold and silver bullion stolen en route from mines to mints, and chests of precious stones gathered by confidence men and thieves from the necks and safes of rich victims. Besides a normal cargo of liquor which enabled the Shanghai to pose as an ordinary rum-runner, she carried the immense loot I have spoken of.
“For some months while the wealth was being accumulated in that single hull, and while she rode her place along notorious ‘Rum-Row,’ the secret was safe; then some one talked, and in time Cowboy Nevada, a small time racketeer, heard of it.
“He conceived and executed a clever plot by means of which he took possession of the yacht on the seas, took her into Black Cove, which he had figured as a perfect spot for his plan, and sank her at once during the same night, so that at daybreak there was no trace of the vanished rum-runner!”
John choked on a doughnut, he was so surprised.
“That certainly was an ingenious way to set himself up in big-time racketeering!” said Stan. “No wonder he had wealth to start him off on his way to a syndicate!”
“You’re right,” agreed Mr. Sandborn, soberly. “And Nevada made sure to rescue, by a diver, only what he really needed in ready riches to handle his vast enterprises. He kept a pile of cases loaded with currency in his store-room, but the Shanghai must still contain a vast store of jewels, money, and bullion. Most of it will find its way shortly to its rightful owners!”