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e heard the crisp V-8 ruain This time it sounded nearer A quarterrapidly The motorboat closed within a hundred yards Bell still could not see it, but he could hear it running alongside, pacing the steaht it odd, if not plain dangerous, that the vessel showed no lights Suddenly it did — not running lights but a shielded Aldis signal la code

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Isaac Bell looked up at the open overhang that extended fro flash But the bridge as deserted of officers and seanaled back He saw no response either from the foremast that towered invisibly two hundred feet into the dark sky The lookout perched in his crow’s nest watched ahead of the ship, not to the side where the Aldis lamp had aimed its narrow beam

Suddenly Bell saw the splash of a boave It gleamed white, in sharp contrast to the black water Then he saw the boat itself veering close It was a Wolseley-Siddeley, burying its nose in the steep seas, hurling spray, and tearing ahead in the hands of a helside directly under hiht feather of propeller wash

Bell heard a shout behind hihtened cry stifled abruptly He whirled around and scanned the dark boat deck Then he heard a grunt of pain and a sudden rush of feet

Froht to Archie burst a tight knot of ht spilling fro two smaller fellows to the rail Bell heard another shout, a cry for help, a hard blow, ahis stomach, the wind knocked out of him

Isaac Bell sprinted the distance that separated them

He moved in utter silence

So intent were the three that the first they knew of the tall detective’s approach was the crack of a powerful right fist knocking the nearest man to the deck Bell wheeled on the balls of his feet and launched a left-hand hayth behind it Had it landed, he would have evened the odds at one to one

Bell’s target moved with superhuman speed He slipped the punch so it missed his head and smashed his shoulder It still connected with sufficient power to drive thea heavy rope looped over his shoulder, and the springy Manila coils absorbed the shock

A counterpunch exploded from the dark with the concentrated violence of a pile driver Isaac Bell rolled with it, sloughing off some of the i and so far over it that he found hiainst the hull directly under him Thedragged his two victirunted command, his accoed Bell to finish him off

Bell saw a knife flash in the light from the library

He twisted off the rail, regained his feet, and tried to sidestep a vicious thrust The blade passed an inch from his face Bell kicked hard His boot landed solidly Theand tumbled over it A shriek of pain and fear ended abruptly with the sickening thud of his body s on the motor-boat sixty feet below

The boat sped aith a roar of throttles opened wide