Experiment in Crime (8 page)

The judge smiled. "He was asking my advice. Talking about what you called the--

other side of his personality."

"Was he? What'd he say?"

"Just put a hypothetical question. Asked me what I would do if I had inside facts which led me to suspect that a certain group of men were engaged in a particularly nefarious and antisocial activity. Would I report my suspicions to the authorities? Or would I continue my observations until I confirmed them beyond doubt?"

"And what did you advise?"

The judge picked up the evening paper and walked to his easy chair. "It was a pretty nebulous question. I told him that I thought the 'authorities' would tend to regard the suspicions of a person like himself with a good deal of doubt--unless he had some very convincing evidence. After all, a professor running around to the police station talking about 'antisocial activities'. . . ! These Miami cops probably wouldn't know what he meant."

"Isn't he exciting!"

"I'm reading," her father answered rather plaintively. "Exciting? Burke? Sound as a rock! Nothing exciting about the man. Good chap!"

Professor Burke sat down in the sea. It was nearly midnight. It was Christmas Eve. It was no time for a man to be wading--and now sitting--in the pitch-black ocean off the Florida Keys. The water was lukewarm over the flats, and there was no wind. The stars were glowing balefully. Near at hand loomed the underbrush on shore. Far away, in the opposite direction, a lighthouse swept its pale, impalpable arms round and round forever, encircling nothing, revealing only the endless flicker of salt sea. Insane, he thought. He should be up at Bedelia's, opening their reciprocal gifts beneath her small, electric-lighted tree.

But the easterly had dropped that morning. The wharf would be usable. The fact was scant indication it would be used; it was, however, the only indication he had to go on. Christmas Eve might suit them.

Behind him, up the coast of Little Tango Key, his coupe stood on one of the roads they had explored. He had parked it there with the coming of darkness. He had eaten his sandwiches and cake and drunk coffee from his thermos in solitude. Every half hour he had walked down to the waterfront and looked. It was well past eleven when the lame man--presumably--had set a gasoline lantern on the little dock.

No one, as Bedelia had pointed out, could stand the torment of exposure in the underbrush or on the near.by water. The professor had worked out a protective device, based upon the bee-hat. He donned it--a helmet of fine screen which sat on his shoulders.

It was painted a dull black. Fixed to it were numbers of wires covered with green paper, which Bedelia used for securing vines. Twisted in these wires were many small branches which the professor had picked before dark. He put on gloves.

In this regalia he was able to wade down the coast line. When he was satisfied that his wading sounds might soon be distinguished from the occasional splash of a fish, he moved out to sea. The bottom--now sandy, now oozy--slippery and then weedy--

forced him to go very slowly. He found, finally, a spot with sandy bottom some fifty yards or so beyond the yellow-green, faintly hissing, gasoline lantern. He eased himself down.

There, his plans completed themselves. From anything but direct inspection, he was safe: above water, he looked like any clump of mangrove branches which floats in the currents around the Keys.

The lame man had left the dock. The night was quiet. He thought of sting rays and barracudas and morays. He reminded himself not to budge if some creature bumped against him. And not to cry out under any circumstances.

He forced his thoughts along rational channels: sting rays and morays did not attack unless disturbed--and barracuda struck seldom, under any conditions. It was much too shallow for large sharks.

He conquered his nerves and then thought about the Coral Gables Choir, which would still be caroling wherever a candle showed in a window. No snow--nothing here to suggest Christmas. No loose tire-chains clanking against fenders in the crystalline dark.

No icicles hanging like glass stalactites around the eaves. Just people standing around amongst rosebushes, jasmine, hibiscus--to sing "Silent Night" and "Little Town of Bethlehem."

Small waves lapped around his portable greenery. Insects hummed indignantly outside his screen. He switched his thoughts to Marigold. Connie Maxson intruded. So he turned back to the matter of carols. Mentally, he hummed, "The First Nowell." He heard a washing, gurgling sound, out toward the open sea. Cautiously, he turned around.

For a long time, he saw nothing. Sea--stars--the remote lighthouse. Then he heard a car on the land. Its motor whined a little. He knew its wheels were sluicing in the soft, white marl. Feet sounded on the dock. He glanced back. Men were there now--two of them. The light had been dimmed. He turned his attention toward the sluicing sound.

And suddenly it took form--a dark, huge shape, and a white combing at the water level. He heard the muffled voices of men, grunting. The thing came steadily nearer. He began to fear it would run him down. As he considered a retreat from the path of the great, black blob, he made it out. It had wings.

It passed him, slowly, splashingly, at a distance of a few rods. When it came between himself and the gasoline light, he could see it perfectly. A two-motored seaplane. Or amphibian. It bobbed and eddied as it was pushed toward the flimsy wharf by two men in the water. The propellers, he saw, were many bladed-and the blades were wide. They looked like the vanes of a windmill.

Somewhere he had read about just such propellers. They were said to be very quiet. Certainly, although the plane must have landed within a half mile of where he was concealed, he had not heard it. And naturally enough, it had showed no light. Instrument landing? Perhaps. Perhaps an accurate knowledge of the area--and a glint from the lighthouse, enough to show the pilot the sea surface. A plane with quiet propellers and, doubtless, engine-mufflers. A windless night for a gentle landing--and this method of hand-taxiing across the shoals. The coastal authorities, he reflected, would not think of the possibility of pushing a plane, by wading, across a mile of flats. It was, all in all, exceedingly ingenious.

The plane was swung around at the pier. A door opened.

"Howdy, Chuck."

"Hi, Solo. Six customers."

"Well--get 'em out. These bugs. . . !"

The professor watched the six passengers of the plane step out. They required help. He could soon see why: their hands were linked together behind their backs and they were bent forward, as if pulling against their hands.

Handcuffs, evidently. Then the professor could make out not only the glitter of the steel, but the sash weights which were wired onto the handcuffs. The cargo was disposable. Dropped overboard--from aloft, or in the deeper water-these passengers would vanish. No incriminating evidence.

They were rubbing their arms and hands, now. One of them sobbed, suddenly.

"Shut up, sister!"

Another "passenger" asked something in a low tone.

"Naw, you damned hun! Not here. You got a long ride in a trunk compartment.

Then you'll be in good old U.S.A. to celebrate Christmas. Only--you probably won't feel like it. Come on, guys. I'm being eaten alive!"

It was then that something struck the professor. Forcibly. It might have been a turtle. A ray. A bonefish hurrying in the night. It might have been any of a hundred creatures. He did not cry out. But he lost his balance. He made a swimming motion with his hand to regain it. And the motion set up a sharp splash.

The men on the dock fell silent. A strong beam from a flashlight shot over the water and began sweeping in circles. The beam found the miniature greenery and held on it.

"Weeds," a voice said.

"What's the matter? Spooky?"

"Fish," said another voice.

"Lemme look." The professor recognized it as the old man's. The light once more blinded him.

"People been pokin' around here lately," the old man said. "Maybe it is weeds.

Looks kind of funny. Floats high. I'll send a bullet into it."

"Cut it out, you fool! Chuck! Johnny! Walk back in and take a squint at that bunch of weeds." They came close. One carried a boat hook. The professor heard the other murmur, "Something in it, anyhow! Look in the water--underneath! "

"Shall I take a slam at it?"

With an emotion like cosmic self-censure rather than fear, the professor rose to his feet. "Never mind, gentlemen. I surrender."

The spectacle of the greenery lifting itself from the sea startled the two men. The professor thought of running. But he knew he could not run fast in water that deep. The light would be at his back. And the range would be easy. He started wading toward the little wharf.

When he got there, the six airplane passengers were gone. The old man and a husky-looking, well-dressed fellow with sleek, black hair were alone on the dock. Each covered him with a gun. The younger man was slapping at his face with his free hand.

"Take that thing off!"

The professor removed it. Light struck his eyes.

"That," said the old man, "is the same jerk came poking around here a few days back."

The professor's clothes dribbled. The two men from the plane, also dripping, came up beside him. The round, white stare of the flashlight was very close. "Who are you?"

The voice was the younger one--cold, furious, afraid.

"Martin L. Burke--University of Miami. An amateur--interested in gang methods.

I--"

Professor Burke heard a sound. The light danced. A hot feeling came in his cheek.

His ear rang. He realized he had been hit--hit hard.

"Who? A Fed? Treasury? Customs? Talk fast!"

Professor Burke was panting, now. "I told you--"

They hit him again. "Look in his pockets!"

"He wouldn't be carrying anything, Solo."

"Look anyhow."

They looked. The professor got his breath and his grip on himself.

"Put cuffs on him, Chuck. And drop him over--about halfway back. Whoever the hell he is!"

The handcuffs held his arms together behind his back. The weights--twenty-five or thirty pounds of them--pulled achingly. He was left standing on the wharf while Chuck and the other pilot--Johnny, the professor thought--went up on the bank and talked with Solo for a minute. Then he was pushed up the board and into the cabin of the plane. He heard the car leave.

They used the flashlight briefly, in order to tie him into a seat. Then they went out the door and onto the nose of the plane. He heard their splashes. Slowly, the plane turned.

He had a glimpse through the door of the lame old man, carrying the gasoline lantern away. Then it was dark. The door shut quietly.

For a long while, the plane moved in slow surges out across the flats. Then it rocked as the two men clambered back on board. They threw a light on him and checked the knots they had made.

One of them then thrust his head through the hatch and turned in a complete circle, slowly. "Coast's clear."

Forward in the plane, a very faint light now glowed. The man put down a heavy pair of binoculars. Presently, there was a tick and a cough and one engine started. It was astoundingly quiet. The professor did not hear the other motor fire and take hold. He simply felt the plane start along the smooth sea, gather speed, and, at last lift itself.

They flew for what the professor had estimated as twenty minutes and then one of them turned on a meager light in the cabin. He stripped off his wet clothes, toweled himself, and brought dry garments from some point in the rear of the ship. He put them on.

"Okay, Chuck!"

The other pilot now changed his clothes.

When he was dressed, he sat down across from the professor. It was so dim that only his square profile, the gleam of his eyes, and his crew· cut hair could be discerned.

His voice was flat. "All right. Who are you?"

"I told you. A college professor interested in criminology. I've made a hobby of gangs. I have nothing whatever to do with the police, the F.B.I." or any other such agency."

The man called Chuck sat quietly for a moment and then moved a little.

Something glittered in his hands. "I know a guy," he said, "who has a jackknife, like this one. When he wants people to talk to him--he uses it. Just the tip. That's the name of the guy: The Tip. He just uses the tip--under fingernails, to start with. After the tip of his knife has loosened up ten fingernails, a person has ten toenails. Doesn't kill a person. Just seems to make them talk. If nails don't work, a person has eyeballs. . . ."

"I told you the truth."

"Maybe you did. It's just that I don't believe it. Talk some more." He leaned over and seized one of the professor's hands. The professor felt the knife point slide under his nail and into the quick. For a moment, it was a mere shock. Then the pain came.

"I've been studying the Maroon Gang a long time," he said, when he felt he could talk evenly again. "I'll tell you some of the things I know about it. I'm a scientist--not a cop. I'll tell you things that the cops don't know. When I do, you'll see that I am what I say."

Chuck said, "So shoot."

Professor Burke had been thinking feverishly. He had dismissed from his mind the near-certainty that the plane would be throttled down, the door would be opened, and he would be pitched out, to fall an unimporant number of thousands of feet, to land with a violence that would surely knock him senseless and probably kill him, and thereafter to be pulled down by the weights through two or three more thousand feet of Gulf Stream.

No trace. No body to be recovered.

But Bedelia would know what to do.

It followed, therefore, that they would need to discover who he was and what his connections were--how much of his information was already known to others. They would be stupid to pitch him over without questioning. The questioning methods would be drastic. What, then, to tell them? What would be most effective? He had settled on the truth--with limitations.

He began, now, to talk to Chuck about the Maroon Gang. He had a grim abundance of information on the theme, supplied by Double-O. He had selected certain high spots. As he talked, his manner became discursive. Soon, he was lecturing. His right index finger throbbed, but no more fingers were adding to the pain--yet.