A prominent radio broadcast band was blaring music from the loudspeakers mounted on poles along the midway. The crowds were thicker. The cool of the night had drawn them out. Overhead, one of the little dirigibles was pulling a long streamer of illuminated letters.
Shack and Tubby walked swiftly.
Nace got in a ricksha pulled by a college boy. He made the boy trot, kept his quarry in sight.
The two crossed the semi-circular bridge over the lagoon, passed the Spectaculum, passed a moored whaling ship, a Norwegian ship. They swung out on the steamer landing.
Nace dismissed his college boy.
Shack and Tubby entered a lake steamer moored to the landing. It was a small craft as such vessels go, obviously old, in need of a paint job. No smoke came from the funnels. The steamer apparently was not being used.
A sign, hung on a chain across the gangplank, said, “No admittance.”
On the other side of the landing, another steamer, clean, neat, was taking on passengers for a night ride on the lake.
Nace, walking back a few yards, paid twenty-five cents admission and went aboard the whaling ship. From the far rail, he could see a speed boat tied to the lakeward side of the old steamer.
He quitted the whaler and approached the old boat. Posting himself near the stern, in the shelter of a piling, he watched the boat which was taking on passengers. It was loaded. They were hauling in the gangplank. A moment later, the whistle blared out, a signal prepatory to departing.
Under cover of the great roar, Nace ran lightly, leaped. He landed on the steamer rail. A twist, and he was aboard the old boat.
He crouched there for a time. There was no light, no sound. He sidled over and saw the speed boat still tied to the lakeward rail.
Working forward, he found, in the engine room, the explanation of why the old steamer was inoperable. Something had gone wrong with the engine. A boiler was partially dismantled.
He went on, ears alert, entering narrow passages which were shabbily carpeted. Stateroom doors crowded either side. One of these, well down the corridor, showed a bar of light at the bottom.
He stopped before this, stooped, put an ear to the keyhole.
“So this guy Nace was pulling a fast one!” growled Shack’s voice. “You sure?”
“I had not told him a thing,” Canadan’s voice quavered.
“He talked like somebody had put a bug in his ear!” Tubby put in. “He knew about Osterfelt — how Osterfelt brought the secret of the big heat and the ingredients for making it to this country. He also knowed we lifted it from Osterfelt, then scragged ’im!”
Shack swore violently. “He knew we had planned to take a whack at the diamond exhibit here! How’d he figure that out?”
“Plain as your nose!” Tubby jeered. “He found Canadan hangin’ around the diamond exhibit. That told him. He’s a dick. He can deduce things!”
“I’ll deduce things too, if I get my hands on that shamus!” Shack gritted savagely. “Say, d’you reckon he could’ve let us loose so he could follow us? Them sheets and things he tied us with were mighty loose. He might’ve trailed us—”
A feminine voice behind Nace said grimly, “And I presume that’s exactly what he did!”
Nace erected, spun. Simultaneously, a flashlight sprayed him with white.
The girl from the orange-drink stand stood just out of reach. A tiny automatic poked a black snout out of her fist.
She waved the gun. “You know the motions! Go through ’em!”
Nace carefully lowered his zipper bag and lifted his hands.
She came forward, patted his armpits, his hips, his coat pockets. “Well, for the love of Mabel! Don’t you carry a gun?”
Nace, keeping his arms up, said, “No!”
Inside the stateroom, silence had suddenly fallen.
Canadan’s shaky voice called, “What’s happened?”
“I’ve got our friend Nace,” retorted the orange-stand girl. “He was using his ears out here.”
“Bring him in,” suggested Canadan, after the briefest of pauses.
“In a minute!”
Nace scowled at the girl. She still wore her one orange colored earring. “So you’re one of the gang?”
She laughed shortly. “The great Lee Nace! I always did figure they had you overrated!”
“Yeah?”
“You said it! You’ve got this gloriously balled up. Your red-head wasn’t so hot, either.”
“Where is Julia?” Nace asked sharply.
“She’s all right.”
“Where is she?”
“Down in the hold, cuffed to a hull brace, and chewing on a mouthful of her own nifty frock.”
Nace rocked slowly on his heels, hands still high. “She’d better be okay!”
The orange-stand girl laughed again. “I wouldn’t hurt her!”
“Yes you wouldn’t!”
“Cross my heart, I wouldn’t. I told you that you had this all balled. I haven’t anything against you and the red-head, except that I thought it’d be swell to put it over on you. The great Lee Nace, who went to England to show Scotland Yard how it was done! Ha! Either you’re lousy, or we’re pretty good here in Chicago.”
“You talk like a cop!” Nace jeered.
“I used to be on the city detective force,” confided the orange-stand girl. “Just now, I’m an agency dick like yourself. I was one of several assigned to guard that diamond exhibit.”
Nace lowered his hands. “So you thought you’d put one over on me?”
“You said it! I got wise when you started to talk to Canadan. I can read lips. So I got Canadan away from you and persuaded him to talk. When your red-head came nosing around, I just collared her to keep her out of the way. Then we came here to the gang hangout and waited for Shack and Tubby to turn up.”
Nace looked at the stateroom door. “You’ve got Shack and Tubby?”
“Sure. They’re handcuffed in there. Canadan is watchin’ ’em! You see, Canadan was a friend of Osterfelt. Shack and Tubby approached Osterfelt with the plan for a series of robberies with the infernal heat. He refused to have anything to do with it, told Canadan about it, and they decided to go to the cops. Osterfelt was killed. Canadan was wandering around, scared to talk, when you collared him. I persuaded him it would be all right to spill the works.”
Nace glowered. “You might have told me you were a private cop in the first place!”
“Don’t be silly! There’s a standing reward of five thousand to anybody who thwarts an attempt to steal that diamond exhibit. Do you think I wanted to cut you in on that jack?”
Nace shrugged. “You win!” He adjusted his Panama, picked up his bag. “Go ahead and grab the glory!”
The girl shoved the door open, backed inside. She was barely across the threshold when a fist flashed into view. It held a revolver; the weapon cracked against her gun hand.
She dropped her automatic.
Shack leaped into view and grabbed her by the throat.
Tubby, jumping around the pair, pointed another gun at Nace.
“Walk in!” he snarled. “And be plenty careful!”
Nace walked in.
Canadan, tall and bony, his dwarf face more than ever seeming to seek concealment behind his big gray moustache, stood against the opposite bulkhead. Handcuffs were on his wrists.
Tubby, jerking open Nace’s zipper bag, brought to light several pairs of handcuffs. He slapped a set of these on Nace’s wrists, others on his ankles.
Shack ceased choking the orange-stand girl. They put Nace’s handcuffs on her, ankle and wrist.
Nace looked at her, snorted, “So you had ’em!”
The girl glared, then stared in bewilderment at Canadan.
The tall man wiped his forehead with his manacled hands. “It’s too bad! They sprang upon me when I was not looking!”