The Mystery of the Merry Magician (12 page)

“That’s only a conclusion you’re jumping to,” Peggy said.

“Sure, but it’s a good one.”

“Ellery Queen warned you …”

“Well, I agree with Gully,” Fisty growled. “The guy’s mean enough to do that.” Then, as they reached the barge, he grumbled under his breath, “But I’m gonna be out there to see that ship tie up. And he’s not going to stop me!”

“W
HAT
’
S
going on inside that head of yours?”

Peggy watched Fisty’s grim face as they sat quietly on deck. Captain Foster had gone to bed early. Over the river the fog was thick. The lights on the Jersey shore were invisible. The dismal wailing of fog horns sounded everywhere.

The S.S.
Fiji Islander
had not yet arrived, though darkness covered the harbor.

“Maybe they’ll hold her up at the mouth of the river,” Fisty said. “No use my telling you what I’m gonna do.”

“Tell us anyway.”

“I want to swim to Pier B and watch from under the dock while they tie up the ship.”

“You’re silly,” Peggy said.

“So I’m silly.” The boy shrugged. “But I’m going to do it.”

“I’ll go with you,” Gully replied.

Peggy looked from one to the other. “You’re both up to something. You know something and aren’t telling me.”

“Honest, Peggy, no …”

“Well, then I’m going, too.”

“You can’t …” Fisty began.

“Oh, I can’t? We’ll see about that.” She went to the deckhouse. There she stopped and glanced back. “I’ll go by myself if you won’t let me come with you!” She turned and disappeared below.

“We might as well get into our bathing trunks,” Gully sighed. “I don’t think we can talk her out of it this time.”

“It’s not fair,” Fisty growled. “She knows we won’t let her go alone.”

The boys had put on their bathing trunks and were waiting by the time Peggy came on deck. She wore a dark green bathing suit which in the fog and the night looked almost black.

“All we have to do now is wait for the
Fiji Islander
,” Peggy said.

It was obvious that in spite of the difficult docking conditions, the ship was expected that night. The lights at the end of the pier were on and a small group of longshoremen could be seen waiting to catch and fasten the heavy lines that would hold the ship.

They waited, peering into the darkness, trying to see through the wisps of trailing fog. Just when they were ready to give up, they heard the booming blast of a whistle close by on the river. A few moments later the snub nose of a tugboat emerged from the fog and a voice called out faintly across the water.

“Stand by for the heaving lines!”

Beyond the tugboat the shadowy outline of the freighter loomed. Here and there lights became visible. The ship was approaching slowly.

“There she is!” Fisty leaned forward to stare tensely. “Let’s go.”

He felt his way down the rope ladder and slipped soundlessly into the water. Peggy followed, then Gully.

“Stay one behind the other,” Gully whispered. “You lead, Fisty. Peggy in the middle.”

The heavy rumble of turning propellers vibrated through the water. From the ship came the splash of running water. The wash of the tugboat sent waves slapping at them, heaving them up suddenly, then pulling them down into the trough between waves.

The tugboat was maneuvering the freighter, pushing it around to the far side of Pier B.

“Feel the current?” Fisty asked. “Watch out when we get under the dock.”

They reached the pier and slipped into the shadows beneath.

“Let’s get over to the other side,” Fisty said.

The tugboat backed away. The side of the ship paralleled the dock. From the bow of the freighter a thick hawser dropped into the water with a loud splash. Longshoremen hauled the looped rope up.

“Brrr … I’m cold,” Peggy whispered. “And tired.”

“I told you not to come,” Fisty said. “Hold on to one of the pilings. You can rest that way.”

“The whole idea was silly,” Peggy complained.

Fisty agreed. “I’m sorry for this, Peg. We’d have seen more staying on the barge.”

“The pier would block the view,” Gully said.

The
Fiji Islander
was slowly moving toward the dock. The propellers stopped, then reversed, then stopped again. In the sudden silence they heard a splash as something dropped down the side of the ship.

“Oh, let’s go back,” Fisty said, disgusted. “The ship’s tied up and there’s nothing to see.”

“I’m tired,” said Peggy. “I don’t know if I can swim back …”

“I’ll stick close to you.”

“Wait,” Gully said. “There’s something near the ship.”

He moved away from the wooden piling and swam to the ship. A few minutes later he came back, pushing a large white object before him.

“What’s that?” asked Peggy.

“An old life preserver that must have fallen from the ship. Just what you need to get back to the barge.”

“There’s always junk floating around in the river,” Fisty said.

Peggy rested herself on the life preserver.

“You two go back,” Gully said. “I’m going to stick around for a while.”

“What for?” asked Fisty.

“I want to have a look at that opening under the street. There’s some kind of tunnel there.”

“You’ve been taking too many chances, Gully,” Fisty protested. “All you’re supposed to do is get facts. The way you’re going, you won’t get facts. You’ll get killed.”

“I’m a pretty good swimmer,” Gully said. “I’m not afraid of meeting the space monster or anyone else in the water.”

“All right,” Fisty agreed. “But don’t stay too long.”

Peggy and Fisty began to swim back. Gully remained at the piling, holding on and watching them disappear in the fog and the darkness.

A truck rumbled heavily on the pier, the wheels thumping overhead. From above, too, came the muffled sounds of footsteps and distant voices. Here and there, a sharp beam of light shot through a chink in the planks and fell sparkling on the black water.

Gully felt an unearthly stillness pressing close around him. He was alone. He pushed away from the slippery piling and swam under the dock, moving slowly in the direction of the street.

Halfway there his hand struck some object submerged in the water. Startled, Gully drew back a little, peering out into the darkness before him. He could see nothing and after a while he reached out cautiously.

His fingers touched a solid structure. Running his fingers over it carefully, he found it was a wooden platform about a foot beneath the surface of the water. It seemed sturdy and he grasped it with both hands. Then, pulling himself toward it, he kicked with his feet. His body rose out of the water and he hoisted himself easily so that his knees rested on the platform.

For several minutes he rested, not moving, puzzled and wary. Then he raised himself to his feet and began to advance, feeling the way with his bare toes. The platform moved gently under his feet.

Suddenly Gully stopped and laughed. He was walking on water!

The thought of it amused him. “So that’s how the man did it. Wait until I tell Fisty and Peggy. A platform floating just under the surface!”

More confident now, he moved toward the foot of the pier. It would be a good opportunity to examine the opening that led under West Street, Gully felt.

As he came closer to the street, the space beneath the dock became darker. Soon not even a faint ray of light showed anywhere. Gully knew he had reached the foot of the pier when his hands touched the concrete base under the street.

By feel he found the wooden door. He tugged at it but found it fastened. Without a light it would be useless trying to find some way to open the door.

He was about to slip into the water and swim back to the barge when he heard a sound on the other side of the door. He put his ear close to it and listened.

Indistinct voices and stumbling footsteps were approaching. Something knocked sharply against the door. A moment later, Gully felt the door start to swing against his hands as it was pushed open.

Acting on instinct, he went down to his knees and slid off into deep water.

The door opened all the way and a light showed. Gully watched, his nose barely above the water.

“You’ll have to work fast,” a man said. “The customs men are busy on the ship. Get it and come back.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get it and nobody’s going to see me.”

“Hurry up!” The first man held the flashlight. “It’s out there.”

“All right.”

The man stepped out of the opening. For a moment the beam of the light went over him. Gully gasped in amazement, suddenly choking on a mouthful of water.

Standing less than a foot from him was the black shiny figure of the mysterious space monster!

“What was that?”

“What was
what
?” the figure in black asked, annoyed.

“Didn’t you hear any noise?”

“You’re jumpy.

“Well, go get the stuff. We haven’t got all night.”

“I’ll get it. Be right back.”

The figure in black moved away and vanished in the darkness. There was a slight splash in the water, then silence and Gully began to breathe more easily.

Until this moment he had seen the mysterious black figure for only a brief fraction of a second and always in dim light. Neither Fisty nor Peggy had had a better view of it. No wonder they had imagined they were seeing some kind of weird monster. Gully smiled to himself.

It was a man dressed in a black, rubber skin-diving suit.

Another fact for him to write down in his notebook. But it raised a new, annoying question. What was a skin diver doing here in the Hudson River?

Perhaps he would have the answer when the man returned. Gully waited, hoping that Fisty would not come back to look for him.

A long time passed before there was a gentle splash in the water. The masked head of the skin diver emerged. The man in the tunnel shot the beam of his flashlight on him.

“Did you get the stuff?” he asked anxiously.

“No,” the skin diver replied. “It’s not there.”

“What do you mean it’s not there? It’s got to be there!”

“I tell you it isn’t! I looked where it was supposed to be, swam all around, figuring that maybe it drifted with the tide. I couldn’t find it!”

“We better see the boss. Something’s gone wrong.”

The skin diver climbed out of the water. “We make no deliveries until the boss has the payment right in his hand! That’s the agreement.”

“Come on.”

The two men vanished into the tunnel. The wooden door swung shut. Gully waited for a moment, then pushed himself away from the platform and swam back to the barge.

“I
WAS
plain scared and that’s how I made the mistake,” Fisty said as he paced back and forth in the narrow confines of the deckhouse.

“No one is blaming you,” Gully said quietly. He was sitting at a small table, hunched over his notebook, writing.

“No, no one’s blaming me. But it all gets written down in that little notebook of yours.” Fisty stopped pacing and pointed an accusing finger at Gully. “What’s Ellery Queen gonna say when he reads it, huh? Fisty Jones sees a skin diver and says it’s a monster from space!”

Peggy sat quietly on the sofa, her feet tucked under her. She wore a warm woolen robe, but it didn’t stop her shivering.

Gully put his pen down and turned to the girl.

“You talk to him, will you?”

“I made the same mistake,” Peggy answered. “I even screamed.”

Gully laughed and turned to look at Fisty. “Looks like we all mistook the skin diver for a space monster. Uncle Ellery will understand. It was a natural mistake.”

“Don’t forget to write down we only saw it for a flash of a second—and it was dark.”

“I wrote it down just the way it happened,” Gully assured him. He turned back to the notebook. Fisty resumed his restless pacing, his bare feet slapping on the deck.

“I’m going to bed,” Peggy said after a while. “It’s late and I’m tired and cold.”

“I want to write down everything I heard. Word for word as nearly as I can remember. By tomorrow, I might forget.”

Fisty stopped and looked at the blond boy. “Gully, what was the frogman looking for, huh?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what was that about no deliveries until the boss had the payment right in his hand, huh? Who’s the boss? What are they supposed to deliver?”

“If I could figure that out, Fisty, I’d be a pretty good detective.”

“You’d be a magician,” Peggy said. “The whole thing is more mysterious than ever.”

“It doesn’t make sense at all,” Fisty muttered.

Somewhere in the distance a dog barked several times, then stopped abruptly. Fisty went to the window. The fog swirled thickly outside.

“Could that be Banjo?” he asked.

“Mr. Merlin might be taking the dog for a walk,” Peggy said.

“So late at night?” Fisty glanced at the clock on the wall. “Past two in the morning.”

“If it’s Mr. Merlin, he’ll see the light here and maybe come over,” Gully said. “I wish he would. I’d like to talk to him about this.”

“You’d do better to talk to Inspector Queen,” Peggy said.

“And no one else.”

Gully thought for a moment. “You’re right, Peggy.”

The girl stood up. “I’m sleepy. Good night.”

She went down the companionway and a moment later the two boys heard the door of her cabin close.

Fisty rubbed his hand over his damp hair, running his fingers through the long black curls.

“How long you going to be writing?”

“I’m finished now,” Gully replied, closing the notebook.

“Let’s go to sleep.”

Gully switched off the light. In the darkness, the boys changed into their pajamas and lay down.

“We better keep mum about everything,” Fisty said. “And you better not wait for Ellery Queen to come back. Tell the Inspector the whole story.”

“Tomorrow.”

Gully sighed wearily and closed his eyes sleepily. His body ached. He did not know he had fallen asleep until he felt a hand seize his shoulder.

He opened his eyes. The room was pitch dark.