Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Ninety-Seven
Minutes later I was still leaning
limply against the building when a convoy of cars drove up to the bridge. Jack,
my father, Shep, and a bevy of policemen and government representatives sprang
out and ran across the bridge to where I stood.
“Jane, what happened?” Dad said,
hugging me to him. “You’re soaking wet! Didn’t we hear gunfire as we turned in
here?”
Jack was looking at me as if he
wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kiss me or punch me. I looked quickly away
from Jack’s gaze and waved my hand weakly toward the river below.
“There’s your story, Dad.
Pictures galore. Boat smashes into dangerous drawbridge. Police pursue and
shoot it out with desperadoes, taking what’s left of ’em into custody. I’m
afraid to look.”
“And what were you doing while
all this was going on?” my father demanded.
“Me? I was just waiting for the
drawbridge to go down.”
We all moved to the edge of the
bridge to watch a police boat come alongside the badly-listing cruiser. Three
male prisoners and a girl were being taken off.
“All captured alive,” Dad said.
“Shep, get that camera of yours into action! What happened, anyhow? Can’t
someone tell me?”
I started to explain just what
had happened, but at a certain point in the story, I was forced to turn my back
on my audience.
“Excuse me just a minute,” I said
and pulled a sodden photograph from the front of my dress. I turned back around
and handed the picture to my father.
“This picture is in pretty bad
shape now,” I said, “but it’s clue number one. It’s a photograph of Miss
Furstenberg, and on the back is written, ‘To Father, with all my love.’ I found
the picture this afternoon in Room 381 at the Colonial Hotel.”
“Then you’ve located
Furstenberg?” one of the G men demanded.
“I have. He’s been masquerading
as the Furstenberg gardener, coming back here, no doubt, to witness the
marriage of his daughter.”
“We’ll arrest him right away,”
said the government man, turning to leave. “Thanks for the tip.”
“I am confident Miss Furstenberg
and her mother had nothing to do with Thomas Atwood’s disappearance,” I went
on. “Aaron Dietz plotted the whole affair himself. I guess he must have learned
about Furstenberg’s cache of gold while he worked for the man. He believed that
Thomas Atwood shared the secret and could tell him where the money was hidden.”
“You’ve located the gold, too, I
suppose,” Dad remarked whimsically.
“No, Dad, I slipped up there. I
thought the gold was in a secret vault under the alligator pool, but I was
wrong. I don’t know where it is.”
“We’ll let the G men solve that mystery
when they take Furstenberg into custody,” Dad said. “Our work is cut out for us
now. We’ll talk with young Atwood, and rout Miss Furstenberg and her mother out
of bed for an exclusive interview.”
“And this time, I am sure they’ll
answer questions,” I said.
During the next hour, Jack, my
father, and Shep set about gathering every fact of interest to the readers of
the Greenville Examiner.
Cybil Furstenberg, overjoyed to
find her fiancé alive, posed for pictures with him, and answered all questions
save those which concerned her father.
Not until a telephone call came
from the Colonial Hotel, saying that Mr. Furstenberg had been taken into
custody, would either Cybil or her mother admit that the man had posed as the
gardener.
“Very well, it is true,” Mrs.
Furstenberg acknowledged at last. “James has been trying to avoid government
men for over a year. Wishing to return for Cybil’s wedding, he disguised
himself as a gardener. Then after Thomas’s disappearance, he remained here
trying to help.”
“And it was your husband who
managed to get rid of the alligator?” I asked.
“Yes, we were afraid police might
ask embarrassing questions. James disposed of it to a zoo late yesterday
afternoon.”
“And the cache of gold under the
lily pool,” Jack said. “What became of that?”
“There is no gold.”
“None at all?”
“None.”
“And there never was any?” I was
incredulous. “Then why was the vault ever built?”
“Tell her the truth, Mother,”
Cybil urged. “She deserves to know. Anyway, it can do Father no harm now.”
“At one time, my husband did have
a considerable supply of gold,” Mrs. Furstenberg admitted. “Since he could not
trust a bank, he constructed his own vault under the pool and placed the
alligator there as a precaution against prying persons.”
“My father did nothing so very
wrong,” Cybil broke in. “The gold was bought with his own money. If he chose to
sell it later at a profit, it was his own affair.”
“Not in the opinion of the
government,” Dad said with a smile. “Not if he never paid income tax on the
proceeds of the sale. So, how did your father dispose of it all?”
“All I know is that he shipped it
out of the country months ago, and no one will ever be able to prove anything
against him.”
“My husband is a very clever
man,” added Mrs. Furstenberg proudly.
“That remains to be seen,” said Jack. “I know a number of very clever government men, too.”
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