Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Eighty-Seven
We wasted no time in useless
conversation. Dad rented a fast motorboat and prevailed upon Harry Griffith to
operate it for him. Guided by the stars and a half moon, which was slowly rising
over the treetops, we headed down the river.
Riding with the current, we came
before long to the spot where Jack and I had first sighted the two sailors’
cruiser. Now there was no sign of a boat, either large or small.
We crept along the shoreline, searching
as we went, but the river had never seemed more deserted.
“Jack might have stopped anywhere
along here,” Dad observed. “If he drew the boat into the bushes, we haven’t a
chance of finding him.”
We went on, finally arriving at
the Furstenberg estate. As we passed beneath the open drawbridge, I noted how
low it had been swung over the water. A boat with a high cabin could not
possibly go through when the cantilevers were down.
Gazing upward, I saw a swinging
red light at the entrance to the bridge. A lantern, no doubt, hung there to
warn any motorists who might come down the private road in the darkness.
“Thorny probably isn’t on duty at
this hour,” I said. “But I should think an open drawbridge might prove more
dangerous at night than in the daytime.”
As I lost sight of the bridge
around a bend in the river, I transferred all my attention to watching the
coves and inlets. My father sat hunched over in the seat beside me, slapping at
mosquitoes. Every now and then he switched on the flashlight to look at his
watch.
Gradually the river widened so
that it was possible to cover only one shore.
“We’ll search the other side on
our return trip,” Dad told Mr. Griffith. “But it looks to me as if we’re not
going to have any luck.”
Dark clouds began to edge across
the sky. One by one, the stars were inked out. My heavy coat offered inadequate
protection from the cold wind.
Harry Griffith throttled down the
motor and spun the wheel sharply to starboard. He leaned forward, trying to
pierce the black void ahead of the boat’s bright beam.
“Looks like something over
there,” he said pointing. “Might be a log. No, it’s a boat.”
“I can’t see anyone in it!” I
said. “It’s drifting with the current.”
“That looks like one of my boats,
sure as you’re born,” Griffith declared, idling the engine. “The same I rented
the young feller this morning.”
“But where is Jack?”
Griffith maneuvered his own boat
close to the one which drifted with the current. Dad was able to reach out and
grasp the long rope dangling in the water.
“The flashlight, Jane!”
I turned the beam on, and as it
focused on the floor of the boat, I drew in my breath. On the bottom, laying
face downward, was a man.
“It’s Jack! Oh, Dad, he’s—”
“Steady,” said my father.
“Steady.”
While Griffith held the two boats
together, Dad stepped aboard the smaller one. He bent over the crumpled figure,
felt Jack’s pulse, and gently turned him over on his back.
“Is he alive, Dad?”
“His pulse is weak, but I can
feel it. Yes, he’s breathing! Hold that light steady, Jane.”
“Dad, there’s blood on his head!
I—I can see it trickling down.”
“He’s been struck with a club or
some blunt object,” my father said grimly. “He may have a fractured skull.”
“Oh, Dad!”
“Keep a grip on yourself,” Dad
told me. “It may not be as bad as it looks, but we’ll have to rush him to the
nearest doctor.”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t try to
move him out of there,” advised Harry Griffith. “Leave him where he is. I’ll
get aboard, and we’ll take this boat in tow.”
I helped the boatman make our
craft fast to the other boat, and then we both climbed aboard the one that Jack
had rented. Griffith started the engine and turned around in the river.
“I’ll head for Covert,” he said.
“That’s about the closest place. There ought to be a good doctor in a town of
that size.”
While Griffith handled the boat,
my father and I did what we could to make Jack comfortable. We stripped off our
coats, using one for a pillow, and the other to cover his body.
“Those two men he was sent to
follow must be responsible for this!” I said to Dad. “How could they do such a
brutal thing?”
“I’ll notify the police as soon as we touch shore,” my father said grimly. “We’ll search every cove and inlet until we find the ones responsible!”
Comments
Post a Comment