Brett Halliday - Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

While Pete and Sandra were diving, he had questioned Shayne about the helicopter which had sunk the Golden Girl, gnawing his lip uneasily as he listened.

“The attack was tied in with the killing of Whitey and Shorty last night,” he said. “No doubt about it. The killer was keeping an eye on Captain Tolliver. Whoever he was working with wanted Tolliver free to lead them to the submarine. That helicopter was a smart idea. Taking off before dawn, it could cover an immense area in a few hours. Knowing what the Golden Girl looked like, as soon as it spotted you at anchor the pilot could feel sure you were over the U-boat. Of course, the men aboard — there must have been at least two — didn’t count on the captain having an automatic rifle aboard. That was good work, Mike — I’m glad you brought them down.”

“So am I,” Shayne said grimly.

“Actually,” Hugo Mollison went on, “that’s how we came to find you. Pete and I were too keyed up just to wait for you to get back. We had this chartered cruiser and decided to head south, hoping we might meet the Golden Girl on the way back. We saw a plane fall into the sea, burning, and headed toward the spot. But it must have sunk because we couldn’t find any traces. But we kept on, thinking we might find survivors, and when we sighted the raft we thought at first it was from the helicopter.”

“I see. Lucky for us.”

“Yes, finding you two was luck, and so was locating the marker you left over the U-boat. I’m sorry as the devil Captain Tolliver is dead, but I’m going to carry out my part of the deal, and pay the money to his estate.”

“He asked me to handle it for him, and turn it over to the St. Francis Foundling Home,” Shayne said. “Said you’d have a certified check. If you have it with you I can take it now.”

Hugo Mollison did not hesitate. He reached at once for his wallet and carefully brought out a crisp green check imprinted in red with the figures $100,000 . It was made out to bearer.

“That’s how he wanted it,” he said, as Shayne folded it and put it into his pocket. “And because of the risk you took, I’m going to compensate you with an extra ten thousand. Does that seem a fair figure?”

“It sounds like a nice round figure,” the redhead said. Hugo Mollison seemed satisfied with the answer.

“We’re going to need your help,” he said. “I don’t know who was behind the attack on the Golden Girl, but we have to anticipate trouble. If you’ll work with us until we’ve finished with the K-Three Forty-One I’ll double that ten thousand.”

“I’ll see the job through,” the detective said, and Mollison nodded.

“Good man!” he said, heartily.

Now they were no more than three hours out of Miami, and Pete Ruggles, at the helm, showed no sign of tiring. In the cabin, he could see Hugo Mollison stir. Hugo stood up, putting some folded papers in his pocket. Then he stretched, put on a jacket, and came out on deck. He stopped to speak to Pete Ruggles, then came forward to where Shayne was smoking, sheltered from the breeze.

“Well, that’s that,” he said with satisfaction. He put his hand into his coat pocket. “I have the U-boat pinpointed on my chart now. I could go back there blindfolded. All’s well that ends well.”

“It hasn’t ended well for Captain Tolliver,” Shayne said.

“No, of course not.” Hugo Mollison shook his head regretfully. “But somehow we will avenge him. For our own safety we have to find out who was behind the attack on him. I was thinking that might be in your line.”

“I think I’ve already got it figured, Hugo,” Shayne said. “You were behind it.”

Hugo Mollison’s round, plump features altered. The softness seemed to vanish like a mask being taken off.

“So!” he said. “You are a better detective than I thought.” His hand remained in his pocket. “And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“I was a little slow,” Michael Shayne said harshly. “I’m not proud of myself. The truth is, I was pretty puzzled myself. Until this afternoon. Then when you rescued us so promptly, and found your way back to the K-Three Forty-One as if you were riding down a concrete road, I knew there was funny stuff going on. It wasn’t too tough to figure out what.”

“Indeed?” Even Hugo Mollison’s faintly English accent seemed to have changed, hardened, become more guttural. “What kind of funny stuff?”

Shayne took a deep drag on his cigarette, and the tip glowed scarlet in the darkness.

“You weren’t taking any chances from the beginning. You obviously gave Sandra a couple of little gadgets to take along with her last night. I can guess what they were. One of them was a miniature directional radio signaling device. She carried that in her overnight case. In fact, I found it while you were busy helping them bring up the stuff from the K-Three Forty-One. She started it broadcasting as soon as she got aboard the Golden Girl. It gave you a line on the boat at all times. All you needed was a directional radio, tuned to the right band. You have one on this cruiser which led you to our life raft, since Sandra was smart enough to bring the device along in her bag.

“The helicopter was also equipped with a directional radio that enabled it to home on the Golden Girl. After all, it came straight for us, and it wasn’t on any search pattern at the time. It knew where it was going. You planned for the helicopter to mark the spot and to eliminate us, because we were now superfluous and would make too many people knowing the secret. As for Sandra, she’d done her job and could be dispensed with. Being a German, you have no great sentiment about a woman you are making use of.”

“Ach!” Hugo Mollison’s eyes narrowed. “You are clever, Mr. Shayne. Did you guess that Sandra also had with her an ingenious little device that emits sounds under water? She took it down and left it in the K-Three Forty-One. We have sonic detectors which led us directly to it. That life preserver — it was just a red herring so you wouldn’t wonder when we found the spot again.”

Shayne shrugged. “That figures,” he said. “You’d naturally take double precautions. And now you have the spot well charted. So you can get rid of me and Sandra and go back to get the rest of the counterfeit when it’s convenient and no one is paying any attention to you any more.”

“Ach!” Mollison said again, a little grunt of surprise. “You knew it was counterfeit?”

“That didn’t take much figuring,” Michael Shayne told him easily. “Hell, the Germans were printing counterfeit money long before the war ended — British and American both. Played the devil with the Bank of England for a while. It stood to reason the Nazis wouldn’t have any million dollars in clean new bills by the time the war ended. They had to be counterfeit. That explained a lot of things — one of them being Tolliver’s trips north.

“The captain was no fool. He took only as much of the phony as he could pass at one time. Then he sold what he bought with it, and gave the cash he collected to the St. Francis Foundling Home. If the money had been good he could have found ways to get it to them with less trouble. And knowing it was probably counterfeit told me what you were really after. The plates. Are the plates aboard the K-Three Forty-One too, Hugo? Was that part of some cute Nazi scheme to set up headquarters in South America and flood the world with fake United States money? What do you figure those plates are worth to you now, if you can get them? Twenty million? Fifty?”

“A hundred million, perhaps. Who knows?” The plump man shrugged. “My friend, you are smart enough to be a German.”