“You’ll have to pardon me.” She smiled as she threw open the door. “Usually I arrive at the tick of the clock. But I had a blowout. The old bus described a parabola and nearly put me on the curb. But hop in. We’ll get there all right now.”
Curlie climbed in and they were away. He was beginning to have a comfortable feeling about this new friend. “Here,” he told himself, “is unexpected aid.” And aid was what he needed. In spite of the fact that his youthful employer had treated him in a magnanimous manner, he felt morally responsible for the return of that mysterious, and supposedly priceless, package.
149
“If that Secret Service man knew what he was talking about,” he said to Grace Palmer, “those fellows were not only beating the Government out of thousands of dollars in customs duties, but were planning to use the whole proceeds for the purpose of striking what blows they might at the land that feeds, clothes and protects them. And if they get away with it, I’ll be to blame.”
“They won’t get away with it,” Grace Palmer said stoutly. “We will see to that!”
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime, Johnny Thompson had not been idle. He meant to enter the tunnel where Curlie had, quite by accident, lost himself and nearly lost his life in the bargain.
It was, he found soon enough, quite an unusual thing for the entrance to be left unguarded. When he tried to go down, a watchman stopped him.
150
“Have to get a permit from Mr. Rusby,” he told the boy gruffly. “He’s the manager.”
“Where is he?”
“In the office.” The man jerked a thumb to the right. “No. Let’s see.” He consulted his watch.
“Nope. Gone home. You’ll have to come to-morrow.”
Johnny had no notion of waiting until to-morrow. The tunnel would, he reasoned, be used less at night. That would give him greater freedom in making his search.
“More than forty miles,” he grumbled. “Forty miles of tunnel. Like looking for a pearl in a gravel pit.”
For all that, he hurried to the office, caught a belated office girl, secured Mr. Rusby’s telephone number from her and then hurried to a drug store.
But there he came to a halt. Mr. Rusby, he was informed, was out and was not expected back before eleven o’clock. And no one at his home could tell where he was to be found.
151
“So there you are.” Johnny banged down the receiver. “May as well go back to the shack and listen to a few tunes on the radio.”
He did just that. But he heard more than tunes on the radio that night. What he heard started a fresh mystery. It made him sit up and think sober thoughts, too. You may be very sure of that.
* * * * * * * *
Curlie and the college girl were on the island. A curious sort of island it was. The early explorers had not discovered it. There was reason enough for that; it had not been there.
Men had made that island, men and trucks, pile-drivers, dredgers, and more men. The refuse from a great city: ashes, old cans, glass, and the clay from beneath many a skyscraper had gone into its making. And with these, sand, much sand from the bottom of the lake.
It is strange how nature hates ugliness. Men had left this island ugly. Nature had added a touch of beauty. Wind had sifted sand over all. Cans, glass, ashes were buried. Trees and bushes had grown up. And now it was a place where one might stroll with pleasure.
152
But Curlie and the girl, as you know, had not come here for a stroll.
Almost at once they stumbled upon something. What? They could not tell.
They had climbed over a great heap of rocks, used as a breakwater, and were about to descend an even higher pile when the girl gripped Curlie by the arm and pulled him back. At the same time she put a finger to his lips.
He listened. At first he heard nothing save the distant, indistinct murmur of the city. And then there came the sound of heavy footsteps. After that, silence.
And into that silence came a voice. Low but distinct, it said, “Shall we bury it here?”
The girl gripped Curlie’s arm till it hurt. Yet he made no sound.
His heart raced. Bury what? The package of jewels, to be sure. What luck! Or was it so lucky after all? They were not armed. These were likely to be desperate men—men who stop at nothing.
153
What was to be done? They were in the midst of a pile of giant, jagged rocks. Beyond the rocks on one side was water, on the other, sand. On the sand, not five yards away were men, strange men. And in the darkness they were burying something.
“Can it be?” whispered the girl.
“Who knows?” Curlie whispered back.
He touched the girl’s arm for silence. What was to be done? The men were between them and the bridge that led to the island from the city.
It was a lonely spot. True enough, the lights of a great city, ten thousand lights, gleamed in the distance. But that distance was too great. The sandy surface of a man-made island, a deep lagoon and broad park spaces lay between.
“If we stir they will hear us,” the boy whispered. “Don’t move. They may go away.”
154
They heard the sound of scraping in the sand and the puffs of exertion. Moments seemed hours. The girl felt a cramp taking possession of her right foot. She made a furtive attempt to relieve it. Then came catastrophe. A stone, dislodged by her foot, rolled down with a thud which in that silence seemed a crash.
A muttered exclamation was followed by heavy footsteps. Curlie seized the girl’s arm and fairly hurled her over the rocks. The next instant, with the men in hot pursuit, they were dashing away over the sand.
“Some building over there,” Curlie panted. “Have to try for that.”
They did try. But Curlie could fly better than he could run. He was short of breath. The men gained on them, a yard, two, three, five yards. They almost felt the breaths of their pursuers.
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CHAPTER XVII JOHNNY HEARS THE VOICE
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