Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Eighty-Nine
We were all too horrified to
speak. I could see the top of the car still floating above the water into which
it had fallen, but there was no sign of the unfortunate driver or other
possible passengers.
I kicked off my shoes.
“No!” my father shouted. “No!
It’s too dangerous!”
I did not listen. If those in the
car were to be saved, I was the one who had to do it. My father could not swim
well, Jack had a serious head injury, and Harry Griffith was needed at the
wheel of the motorboat.
Scrambling to the gunwale, I dove
into the water. I could see nothing. Groping my way to the overturned car, I
grasped a door handle and turned it. The pressure of the water against the door
was too great for me to pull it open, and I was running out of air.
I surfaced, took a deep breath
and dove again, this time all the way to the bottom. I felt blindly about on
the river bottom for a stone big enough to break the glass, but not so heavy
that I’d be unable come up from the bottom with it in my hands. I pushed off
the silty riverbed and kicked with all my strength.
I surfaced again, holding the
stone in one hand and then dove again toward the nearly submerged car. When I
reach the car, I beat furiously at the strip of glass which remained above the
water-line. It broke, and water immediately began to fill the car. I continued
to pound at the glass as water poured into the broken window.
Enough water had entered the car
that the pressure against the door was beginning to equalize, so I decided to
try again to open the door. This time, when I pulled with all my might, I was
able to get the door open.
I worked frantically, blindly
searching for bodies within.
A hand clutched at my own. Before
I could protect myself, I felt a man grab onto me, clawing, fighting, trying to
climb my shoulders, upward to the blessed air.
Fortunately, he was not strong. I
wriggled out of his grasp but held fast to his hand. I braced my feet against
the body of the car and pushed. We both exited the submerged car and shot
upward to the surface.
Griffith and my father lifted the
man out of the water and into the motorboat.
“Have to go down again,” I
gasped. “There may be others.”
I dove in again, doubling myself
into a tight ball and kicking straight to the bottom. I swam into the car once
more and groped about on the seat and floor. Finding no bodies, I quickly shot
back to the surface again.
My father pulled me over the side
of the boat, and said curtly: “Good work, Jane.”
I knew he was both proud and
angry. I didn’t blame him.
The man I’d pulled from the car
seemed little the worse for his dunking. He had his heavy coat off and was
wringing it out.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at
the man, nor did I ever, for just at that moment, Jack raised himself to a
sitting position. He stared at the bedraggled man and pointed an accusing
finger.
“That’s the fellow! The one I was
telling you about—”
The man took one look at Jack and
glanced around. By this time, the motorboat had drifted close to shore. Before
anyone could make a move to stop him, the man hurled himself overboard. He
landed on his feet in the shallow water. He splashed to the shore, scuttled up
the steep bank and disappeared in the darkness.
“Don’t let him get away!” shouted
Jack. “He’s the same fellow I saw in the woods!”
“You’re certain?” Dad said.
“Of course! If you think I’m out
of my head now, you’re the one who’s crazy! It’s the same fellow!”
Griffith brought the craft to
shore.
“I’ll see if I can overtake him,”
he said, “but he’s probably deep in the woods by this time.”
The boatman was a heavy-set man,
slow on his feet. I was not surprised when he came back empty-handed twenty
minutes later—long after I’d retreated to the motorboat’s small cabin and
changed into an old overcoat, a sweater and a crumpled pair of slacks which Dad
had found under one of the seats. Mr.
Griffith reported that he had been unable to pick up the trail.
“The overturned car may offer a
clue to his identity,” Dad said, as we started up the river once more. “The
police will be able to check the license plates.”
“I wonder what the man was doing
at the estate?” I said half to myself. “Dad, that fellow took off his coat! He
must have left it behind!”
“It’s somewhere on the floor,”
Harry Griffith called back over his shoulder, as he started up the engine once
more.
I found the sodden garment lying
on the deck. I straightened it out and searched the pockets. My father came up
beside me.
“Any clues?” he asked.
I took out a water-soaked
handkerchief, a key ring and a plain white envelope.
“That may be something!” my
father said. “Handle it carefully so it doesn’t tear.”
We carried the articles into the
cabin. Dad turned on the light and took the envelope from my hand.
He tore open the envelope and
flattened the letter on the table beneath the light. The ink had blurred, but
nearly all the words were still legible. There was no heading, merely the
initials: “J. J. K.”
“Could that mean James
Furstenberg?” I suggested.
The message was brief. Dad read
it out loud: “Better come through or your fate will be the same as Atwood’s. We
give you twenty-four hours to think it over.”
“How strange!” I said. “That man
I pulled out of the water couldn’t have been James Furstenberg!”
“Not likely, Jane. My guess would
be that he had been sent here to deliver this warning note. Being unfamiliar
with the road, and not knowing about the dangerous drawbridge, he crashed
through.”
“But James Furstenberg isn’t
supposed to be at the estate,” I argued. “It doesn’t make sense at all.”
“This much is clear, Jane. Jack
saw the man talking with the two sailors, and they all appear to be mixed up in
Thomas Atwood’s disappearance. We’ll print what we’ve learned, and let the
police figure out the rest.”
“Dad, this story is developing
into something big, isn’t it?”
He nodded as he moved a swinging
light bulb slowly over the paper to hurry up the drying process.
“After the next issue of the Examiner is printed, every paper
in the state will send their men here. But we’re out ahead, and when the big
break comes, we may get that first, too.”
I sat down at the table, studying
the warning message.
“‘Better come through,’” I read aloud. “Does that mean Furstenberg is supposed to pay money? And what fate did Atwood meet?”
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