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Mystery of the Iron Box

<h2 id='chap14' class='c011'>CHAPTER XIV</h2> <div class='nf-center-c0'> <div class='nf-center c013'> <div>HEADING FOR DEEP WATERS</div> </div></div> On the far side of the cabin wall something—a frying pan, perhaps—began to bang rhythmically as it swung back and forth. The barge was responding sluggishly to the river swells, its tremendous weight of stone lending it a stability that resisted the rise and fall of the water. Ken’s panic gave him strength. He heaved desperately upward, trying to achieve a sitting position. His head struck the low ceiling with a resounding crack. He fell back, half stunned. Labored dots and dashes, in the form of grunts, came quickly up from below him. “Y-O-U O-K?” Ken managed to answer. “O-K.” Finally he forced himself to try again. He had been almost upright once. If he didn’t heave quite so far— He was sitting up finally and hunching himself forward until his head was even with a window set in the wall midway along the bunk. The gap between the curtains was wide enough to let him peer out. There were lights in the distance. But close to the barge everything was in darkness. He could see nothing. The cabin door began to open and Ken let himself fall back on the bunk. Cal came in, lighted the kerosene lamp, and then came over to the bunks. With a single jerk he ripped the adhesive from Ken’s mouth, and then bent to do the same for Sandy. “That’s so you can say your prayers,” he told them with a laugh. “Yell ’em out loud if you want to. Nobody’s going to hear you now.” He seemed enormously amused at the idea. Ken worked his jaws a moment. He felt as if Cal had ripped off several layers of skin along with the tape. Cal was pouring himself a cup of coffee from his apparently bottomless pot. “Where are we going?” Ken asked evenly. “Where are you going?” Cal threw back his head to laugh again. “Well, now, there’s lots of answers to that question.” He took a long swallow of coffee. “Sailors sometimes call it Davy Jones’s locker. Other folks have different names for it. But whatever you call it, it’s mighty wet and a long way down.” Then, still laughing, he finished the coffee and went back outside, slamming the door heavily behind himself. “He’s lying,” Sandy said quickly, from the lower bunk. “Sure,” Ken agreed. “Remember when Dad was talking about counterfeiters that day at the office? He said they usually printed a lot of bills at one time, before they distributed any of it. Then, when they had all they were going to make, they distributed it all over the country at one clip—and by that time their printing equipment and everything else was dismantled and scattered. So even if the bills were identified, there was nothing that would tie the counterfeiters up to them.” “Sure. I remember,” Sandy said. “So all they’re probably going to do with us is get us safely out of the way some place, until they’re finished with their production and ready to clear out.” “That’s right.” But Ken himself hadn’t been convinced by what he said. And he knew that Sandy didn’t believe it either. Cal had been telling the truth. They both knew that. The wind sighed gustily along the cabin walls, but otherwise the little room was silent for a long moment. “Where do you suppose these barges go?” Ken asked finally. “Who knows?” Sandy, too, managed to conceal the panic in his voice. “Up the East River to Long Island Sound—across the bay to Staten Island—” Ken’s heart jumped. Maybe Cal was lying after all. “Not out to sea?” he asked. To drown them in the open sea might be comparatively safe. But if the barges stayed as close inshore as Sandy had suggested, drowning would be too risky. A body would wash ashore. Investigation would follow immediately. “They can go out to sea,” Sandy admitted slowly. “They go down the coast to Baltimore sometimes—and up to Boston too, I guess.” “Oh,” Ken said. With an effort he forced his brain to work. “You’ve sailed out of New York Harbor,” he said. “How long would it take us to be towed out to deep water—in case we are leaving the harbor and heading for the ocean.” “Depends on which way the tide’s running,” Sandy said, “and what kind of a tug they’ve got on the job. From what we saw on the pier earlier, I’d say all three of the barges are being towed at once—anyway, they all had the same cargo. That’s quite a load. Ought to take four or five hours, I’d guess.” “What are our chances of signaling one of the other barges from here?” Ken asked. “Small,” Sandy answered briefly. “It would have been possible shortly after we left the pier,” he went on, “but the towlines are lengthened pretty quickly, especially in dirty weather. We may already be a couple of hundred feet from the barge, and falling behind fast. And there’s nothing back of us,” he reminded Ken. “This was the last barge tied up at the pier—counting from the seaward end of the line.” “I know.” Suddenly Ken heaved himself up again to a sitting position. All his aches and his weariness were temporarily forgotten in the desperate need for action. “So in that case,” he said, “we’d better see if we can’t get out of this cabin while there’s still a chance of yelling for help. If the next barge is only two hundred yards away—” But Sandy had interrupted him. “Just how had you figured on doing that?” he demanded. “I hadn’t—yet,” Ken admitted. “But together we ought to be able to think of something. We’ve got two brains between us—and I doubt if Cal has more than half a one himself.” “My brain’s not working tonight,” Sandy mumbled. Ken heard the dead note of despair in his voice. “Look,” he said hastily, “how much of the time will we be alone in here? What are Cal’s duties on this tub?” Sandy’s answer was reluctant, as if he really were incapable of thought—or believed it to be entirely futile. “They don’t amount to much,” he said finally. “He makes sure the lines are secure. Makes sure the running lights are in working order. Checks the bilges and starts the pump if the water in the hold gets too deep. Generally I guess he just sits in here by the fire.” At that moment, as if to prove Sandy’s words, Cal came in again. He looked over at them briefly, his thick lip curved in its usual sneer. Then he shook the stove into life, refilled his enamel mug with coffee once more, and settled down in the comfortable chair he had occupied earlier that evening. Deliberately he opened up his newspaper. Ken clenched his teeth. They couldn’t even discuss the possibilities of escape with Cal sitting there on guard. In a sudden frenzy he strained at the bonds around his wrists. But even if his hands hadn’t been already numb, he knew instantly he couldn’t break the cord if he struggled over it for a year. The rope around his crossed ankles was equally strong and equally secure. He could feel the bunk under him jerk as Sandy shifted his weight, and knew that Sandy too had been making the same useless attempt. The coal in the stove crackled softly. Outside, the spray beat against the walls. Time dragged by endlessly. Suddenly Ken’s body jarred against the wall of the bunk. He came to, blinking, and realized that despite the tautness of his nerves he had been exhausted enough to sleep. As he twisted himself away from the wall his eyes fell on a clock he hadn’t noticed before, high on the opposite wall. It said five o’clock. Ken instantly was wide awake. Five o’clock! Then they had been underway for a long time. He felt the motion of the barge beneath him. It was no longer a steady forward drive. It was an up-and-down heave. And spray was now lashing frequently against door and windows. Ken knew the barge had left the shelter of the shore. It was nearing the open sea. His eyes flew to Cal. The man was still seated at the table. He had finished his newspaper and was reading a magazine, his lips forming the words as his eyes followed the lines. “Sandy,” Ken said softly. “You awake?” Cal’s eyes flicked toward the bunks and then away. “I’m awake.” Sandy’s voice was dull. He sounded beaten. He, too, realized their predicament—and he, too, was helpless to fight it. Suddenly Ken was swept by an anger that overcame his fear and despair. He lunged toward the edge of the bunk. “I didn’t want to give away too much back there in the shop last night,” he said loudly, hurling his voice against Cal’s bent head, “but I wasn’t kidding when I said the police know about what’s going on there.” He hoped the lying words would be truth within a matter of hours—that soon, following the trail of torn bills, the police would be on the hunt for the counterfeiters. It seemed impossible that they could locate the barge in time to do the boys any good. But, Ken thought, if he could disturb Cal’s sneering calm—even for a moment—it would be worth it. “They’ve probably got Grace and Barrack right now,” he went on. “And if you think those two are going to take the rap when they can pin it all on you—” “Shut up!” Cal said, without looking up. “You’re wasting your time. And you’re talking through your hat.” “You think the police don’t know about the forced entry into my father’s apartment?” Ken went on. It was a shot in the dark, but surprisingly it paid off. “That wasn’t me,” Cal growled, “and nobody can prove it was!” He glared at Ken. The small triumph was like a jolt of adrenalin pouring through Ken’s veins. “They know about the illegal entry into the Allen house in Brentwood, too,” he said tauntingly, testing his luck a little farther. “That wasn’t me either! They—” Ken couldn’t hear the rest of it. His ears were suddenly filled with a thudding roar. It wasn’t spray that had hit the wall of the cabin that time. It was solid water—tons and heavy tons of it. Cal staggered to his feet, grabbed a suit of oilskins and a pair of rubber boots out of a cupboard, flung them on, and dashed out of the cabin. “Good,” Sandy said. “He’s going to be busy for a while. Now we can get busy ourselves. I’ve been thinking.” “Yes?” Ken wished he could see Sandy’s face. But before Sandy could answer, Cal came into the room again. A sheet of spray came with him, to hiss and steam where it struck the hot stove. Cal shoved the door shut and leaned against it for a moment, panting, before he crossed the room to take a kerosene lantern from a shelf. When he had lighted it he left again immediately, fighting his way outside against wind-blown spray that seemed bent on flooding the cabin. Sandy picked up where he had left off. “That door opens inward against the foot of the bunks. If I could turn around on this bunk so that I was behind the door when Cal opens it, and if I could kick it back against him when he was already in the room, he ought to be pretty well knocked out by the blow.” “Knocked outside the cabin, you mean?” Ken was trying to visualize what Sandy described. It sounded like a dubious possibility. “He might be,” Sandy agreed. “That would be all right too, if it just put him out of commission for a while. But what I hope is that if we time it right we can drive him against the opposite wall. Then I think we ought to be able to get rid of these lassos we’re wearing. All we need is plenty of time and some kind of tools.” Ken was still mulling over the scheme Sandy had outlined. “He’d have to come all the way to the edge of the door—that far into the room—and then stop there a minute.” His voice raised a notch. “And he’d do just that if I were lying right there on the floor in front of him.” “You?” Sandy’s question reminded Ken of his position on the upper bunk, up under the roof. “How would you get down there without breaking your neck?” The barge lurched sickeningly. The entire cabin shook as a heavy wave struck the rear bulwark. The coffeepot fell from the stove with a loud clatter and rolled across the floor. “On the other hand,” Sandy said quietly, when the blow subsided for a moment, “there are worse things than risking your neck.” He paused for a moment. “You hear something?” he asked. Ken listened. “Yes! An engine! Could it be the engine of—?” “It’s the pumping engine,” Sandy said grimly. “He’s started it up. We must be shipping water.” “Oh.” Ken’s momentary hope that it might be the engine of a rescue craft died hard. But he tried to fight off his disappointment. “Good,” he said. “It’ll keep him busy awhile. Give us time to get ready.” “Maybe,” Sandy said. “Or maybe it means we have less time than we thought. If it’s really as tough out there as it sounds, the tugboat captain may decide to turn back.” “I see,” Ken said. His throat felt suddenly tight and he swallowed. “And if he decides to turn around, Cal would have to give up the idea of waiting for really deep water. He’d do—what he’s supposed to do to us—right away.” <div class='pbb'></div> <hr class='pb c000' /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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