The Bombay Boomerang Read online

  “Okay, let’s make it dawn,” Frank agreed.

  Joe, Phil, and Nathoo walked across the dock toward the Bombay Batarang. Behind the freighter a red barge bobbed up and down on the waves. Stevedores were busy transferring jute into the barge, moving the huge bales through side doors that gave access to a deep, dark interior.

  The three climbed a steep ladder, with Nathoo Keeka in the lead.

  “Here’s hoping no one throws a bale of jute at us this time,” Joe thought, recalling the narrow brush with death he and Frank had encountered while boarding the Nanda Kailash.

  One by one they stepped onto the deck of the freighter. From the opposite side of the ship came the loud clang of hammers beating on metal.

  “What’s that noise?” Phil asked.

  “Members of the crew knocking the rust off the hull,” Nathoo explained. “But allow me to describe the layout of the freighter before anyone interrupts us. After all, we might get separated, in which case you should know where you are on the ship and how to get off by the most expeditious route.

  “The first deck—the one on which we are standing—has the chief officer’s cabin, much like the one on the Nanda Kailash. The second deck has the captain’s cabin.”

  “Probably the nicest accommodations on the ship,” Joe remarked.

  Nathoo grinned. “The third deck,” he went on, “is of the utmost importance because that is where the chart room and the bridge are located. I know the first mate in charge of navigation. His name is Ram Giga.”

  He led the way up to the third deck via a series of metal stairs. Continuing on toward the bow, Nathoo and his companions reached the chart room.

  This was a narrow cubicle with a high built-in worktable. Books on navigation and maps on the Atlantic coastline were scattered across it. The log told the daily story of the voyage from India. The echo sounder on one side indicated the depth of the water under the ship.

  The two officers in the room looked up as the visitors entered. One was Ram Giga.

  “Welcome, Nathoo!” he said with a wide smile. “Who are your friends?”

  Nathoo introduced Phil and Joe and asked for permission to spend some time aboard the vessel.

  “We will be glad to have you,” Mr. Giga replied.

  His colleague, Assistant Engineer Luckman Kann, wore a sour expression. He seemed irritated by the arrival of strangers, and kept giving Joe and Phil venomous looks.

  Ram Giga, an affable individual, willingly answered a few questions.

  When Joe asked about cargo, Giga replied, “We have a hold full of many items for American-Indian trade.”

  “What about mercury?” Joe asked.

  “Part of the cargo is mercury. We will deliver it to the dock as soon as we can get it out of the hold. It is due to be carried off this evening.”

  Joe and Phil had the feeling that Luckman Kann resented the chief mate being so free with information. “The mercury is only part of the cargo,” he declared harshly. “You may be more interested in some other things we are carrying, ivory statuettes and similar curios from the Malabar Coast, for example.”

  Joe and Phil quickly agreed, in order to dispel any suspicion about their visit.

  Ram Giga, ignoring Kann, went on, “We’re late in unloading due to the dock strike that just ended. Usually we would have the mercury off by now, but the rest of the cargo had to come first. The men are working overtime tonight to get all the cargo ashore. Now I must get back to my duties. You are welcome to look around.”

  “Is this wise?” Luckman Kann grumbled. “They will only be in the way!”

  “I will amend the invitation, then,” Mr. Giga said mildly. “You may move around the ship freely as long as you do not interfere with the unloading.”

  “Thank you. We will be most careful not to disturb the labor,” Nathoo assured him.

  Motioning to Joe and Phil, he led them out of the chart room to the bridge, where he explained the technical gadgets.

  “The high seat you see is for the pilot. The wheel may seem small to you, but it is the ship’s brain, transmitting directions that maintain a true course. The gyrocompass next to it gives the bearing so that the navigator can be sure of his direction.”

  “What’s that orange dial in the low metal housing over there?” Joe asked.

  “Radar. I cannot imagine how sailors ever made a safe voyage without it.”

  Phil examined a large wheel equipped with a handle to turn it through the various positions around a circle.

  “That is the telegraph,” Nathoo said. “Sends orders regarding speed to the engine room.”

  “Better not spin it, Joe, or you’ll have the engine room on the phone asking what’s happening on the bridge,” Phil remarked jokingly.

  Nathoo went on, “The small windows along that circle belong to the smoke indicator. Each window is connected to a vent from a different part of the ship. In case of fire, smoke is sucked into one of these holes and one can tell where the fire is. But we have seen enough here. Let us go down to the engine room.”

  The three stood on oily catwalks, high above the throbbing engines. Narrow, slippery steps led down to the floor. After looking around for a while, Nathoo said, “We better stop sightseeing and get on the job.”

  “Right,” said Phil. “Let’s go back to the deck.” He was in the lead when they climbed up again. They made their way through a maze of passages until, on reaching the third deck, Phil suddenly realized that he was all alone. Joe and Nathoo were gone!

  He went down again, but could not find them. “No point wasting time looking for them now,” he told himself. “I’ll have another look at the bridge. We might have missed something the first time around.”

  Finding the bridge empty, he began to examine the navigation instruments once more. That was the last he remembered. A heavy blow on the head knocked him unconscious, and he collapsed against the telegraph!

  CHAPTER XVII

  Precious Wreck

  SLOWLY Phil regained consciousness. He heard voices conversing in a low key. He felt a wet cloth on his face, and the hard floor on the bridge underneath him.

  Opening his eyes, he saw that several officers were grouped around him. As they swam into focus, he realized that one was the captain of the Bombay Batarang.

  Phil got to his feet with the assistance of willing hands. “What happened?” he asked weakly.

  The captain placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Do not be too concerned about what happened. The main thing at the moment is to be sure that you are all right. I am having you moved to my cabin to recuperate.”

  “Someone hit me over the head!” Phil declared.

  “Yes. With a blunt instrument. In falling, you struck the telegraph handle, spinning the wheel and alerting the engine room to the fact that something was wrong on the bridge. I rushed up here and found you lying in a heap. You have a headache?”

  “Awful,” Phil replied, and everything began to spin again.

  While he was being put to bed in the captain’s cabin, Frank and Tony were on a back street, maintaining surveillance from a doorway about a block from the piers. All had been quiet as far as they could tell.

  “Not a suspicious character in sight,” Tony complained. As he started to walk away from the doorway, a truck lumbered slowly up the street.

  Frank seized Tony’s elbow and pulled him back. “That truck is similar to the one that hauled away the empty flasks from Precious Metals!” he said tensely. “We’ve got to find out whether this one is carting mercury!”

  The truck rolled to a stop across from the doorway, at a spot where the pavement widened out along a fence with a gate nearby. Frank and Tony peered across the intervening distance, to see if they could spot a mercury flask.

  Two men got out of the truck and opened the tailgate. Using a block and tackle, with a winch for power in leverage, they lifted their load into the air, swung it out of the back, and deposited it on the pavement. Releasing the hooks, the men swu
ng the block and tackle back into place and returned to the front seat. Then they drove off.

  Frank and Tony watched the whole procedure in utter amazement, for the load was the wreckage of what once had been a car. Like the Chevy they had seen earlier on the dock, this hulk had been stripped clean of every usable part. Motor, wheels, fenders, lights, doors—all were gone. Little more than a skeleton remained, battered metal that seemed hardly worth the attention of a junk dealer.

  “Why would these characters bother to transport this unholy mess?” Tony asked.

  “Perhaps a once-over will tell us. Come on!”

  Frank was already moving, with Tony on his heels. They stealthily crossed the open space to the derelict car.

  Close up it looked even worse. All the windows were smashed, and slivers of broken glass littered the interior. The upholstery dangled in shreds and tatters. The back seat was piled with junk—bolts, hubcaps, twisted wire, a rusty jack handle, and various other useless odds and ends.

  Tony surveyed the scene with complete disgust. “There isn’t anything here to help with the mercury case. I’d say—”

  He broke off as slow footsteps approached the gate from the direction of the dock. Hastily the two boys regained their vantage spot in the doorway, where they could survey the scene with no fear of discovery.

  They were barely ensconced there when a man came through the gate. He was hunched way over, his hands cupped together at the waist, suggesting that he carried a heavy burden concealed under his coat. Two more, similarly bent forward, followed him in single file up to the wreck.

  Gingerly the first man looked around, lowered a mercury flask to the pavement, and took a funnel from his pocket. He placed it in the opening to the gas tank, heaved his flask into the air, and turned it upside down over the funnel. The mercury ran out, down into the interior of the car.

  As soon as he stepped away with the empty flask, the next one took his place, then the third. After they were finished, they walked back through the gate toward the dock, only to be replaced by three more who went through the same motions. The two groups alternated for quite some time.

  “Say,” Tony marveled, “that heap must have a gigantic gas tank!”

  “A gigantic tank, anyway. No car holds that much. They must have put a special tank in to use for this operation. What a gimmick! Who’s going to challenge the battered wreck of a defunct car? They could waltz down Main Street in Bayport in total safety!”

  The men were still pouring mercury into the tank when a policeman came strolling along, swinging his nightstick, glancing alertly around.

  The man heaved his mercury flask into the air

  The men at the wreck caught his eye. Curious, he moved in their direction to investigate. At precisely that moment the sounds of a heated dispute broke the stillness. Two sailors lurched out of the shadows.

  “All right! All right!” one yelled. “Put ’em up and we’ll settle this here and now! No need of a referee to pick the winner!”

  “You’re on!” screamed the other. “I may be drunk, but I can sure finish you off!”

  As the sailors appeared about to pummel one another fiercely, the officer hustled over. “Break it up! You guys have had too much to drink. Better sleep it off!” Taking each by the arm, he pushed them down an alley toward a flophouse for seamen at the opposite end.

  “Decoys?” Tony asked Frank in a subdued tone of voice.

  “Yes,” Frank replied. “Those two were a couple of good-luck charms for the mercury mugs. Gangsters working this kind of a job don’t leave much to chance. They must have kept tabs on the timetable of the police patrolling the waterfront. And they were prepared to lure unwelcome representatives of the law away from the center of operations.”

  “Their plan succeeded brilliantly,” Tony commented, pointing to the wreck. No one was to be seen. The men with the flasks had finished their work and had melted away in the darkness. Silence, and shadows rendered sharper by the fitful glare of the street lights, had descended over the area.

  “Too bad we didn’t have a chance to warn that policeman,” Tony remarked. “Still, one man couldn’t very well have taken on all of those guys.”

  “Not only that, but we’d have alerted the ring-leaders. If they knew that we saw the derelict auto, and how it figures in their plans, they would have disappeared by now. And we’d only have netted a few underlings at best.”

  “True. What’s our next step?”

  Frank looked at his watch. “Just past midnight. I’m sure they won’t do anything with this wreck until the activity starts around here in the early-morning hours, or even later! If they carted it away in the middle of the night, it would alert the harbor police.”

  “We might have to go after Joe and the others on the ship,” Tony said.

  “True. Tell you what. You wait here and keep an eye on the car, while I get the police. They can stake out this area and wait for those thieves, in case we have to leave.”

  Frank left Tony in the doorway and walked around the block until he met a policeman. He explained the situation and the officer went to a call box and phoned his report to Captain Stein.

  Fifteen minutes later the captain and a patrol car full of police arrived at the spot. Frank showed them the wreck and the doorway where he and Tony had hidden out.

  Captain Stein praised the boys’ detective work. “That was a great job! We’ll give those crooks a real reception when they come back for the stuff.”

  He issued orders to stake out the area. Frank and Tony took their places and everyone settled down to wait for their prey to walk into the trap. Hours ticked by. Frank’s eyelids began to droop due to the lack of sleep, and Tony, sitting in the doorway, fell into a short and fitful slumber.

  Finally dawn broke. Activity began along the waterfront and the noise jolted the boys into a tense alert. Cars and trucks drove up and down the street. By early morning the tasks of loading and unloading the many ships were in full swing.

  Tony spotted the quarry, a wrecker, trundling toward the car. The driver pulled up ahead of it. He and his partner climbed out, went around to the rear, and started fastening ropes to the battered vehicle they had come to fetch.

  Then a figure appeared out of nowhere. “Hold it!” Captain Stein ordered. “Police! Stand where you are!”

  Instead of standing where they were, the pair took to their heels, bolting in opposite directions. The driver ran directly into the arms of three officers at the corner of a warehouse. They quickly overpowered him and snapped on handcuffs.

  His partner was hitting top speed when Tony downed him with a tackle. Frank piled on to make sure of the capture. After being hauled to their feet, the two fugitives stood panting and glowering beside a patrol car.

  “So we meet once again!” Frank addressed the pair sarcastically.

  They were the hoods from Bayport!

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Joe Leaves a Clue

  CAPTAIN Stein confronted the pair. “What are your names?” he demanded.

  The beefy member of the duo nudged his partner to remain silent while he handled the situation. “We’re not saying a thing!” he grated with a sullen stare. “We want to see a lawyer. We got our rights, and we’ll have your badge for false arrest. You can’t push innocent people around!”

  “We’ll see how innocent you are! Turn around and put your hands on the hood of the car!”

  The men were frisked. Papers they had on them gave their names as Clyde Cheever and Russ Bucko. They insisted that they were in the towing business, and that their only interest in the wreck was for scrap.

  “Nothing incriminating, Captain?” Frank inquired as the officer shuffled the papers taken from the two.

  “Nothing, except the fact that they were trying to make off with a shipment of stolen mercury. That’s enough to book them. Then I can have their story about the towing business checked out.”

  “We know they’re lying, Captain,” Tony remarked. “They tried to scare F
rank and Joe off the mercury case several times. Why would they do that if they’re on the up-and-up?”

  “You’ve put it in a nutshell, young man.” Cheever and Bucko were taken away in the patrol car. The last the boys saw of them they were scowling menacingly.

  Frank turned to Captain Stein. “Our friends and my brother are on the Bombay Batarang and were supposed to meet us here at dawn. We assume they ran into trouble.”

  “Would you like us to board the ship?”

  “Tony and I will try it alone first.”

  “What’ll be our strategy, Frank?” Tony asked.

  “Level with the ship’s captain and tell him what’s up.”

  “Suppose he’s in with the gang?”

  “Then we’re sunk. But we haven’t much choice. Captain Stein, suppose you send a backup squad if you don’t hear from us in a couple of hours?”

  “Sure thing. I wouldn’t let you go if I wasn’t convinced that the captain is an honest man. I’ve met him a few times, and he has a fine reputation. I think you’ll be all right. Someone on his ship is in league with the gang, though, and we’ll have to check out the whole crew if you don’t come up with something. Good luck!”

  Frank and Tony hustled down to the dock, climbed aboard the freighter, and asked to be taken to the captain. He was on the bridge.

  Frank recounted the story of the mercury that had been stolen from the cargo.

  “This is preposterous!” the captain fumed. “How could so many flasks be removed without anyone on the ship being aware of it?”

  “Somebody must have seen the thieves,” Frank agreed. “The operation could not have succeeded without assistance from someone on this freighter!”

  The captain looked startled. “Do you suspect any member of my crew? Rest assured, I’ll find out who he is before we leave Baltimore!”

  Tony inquired about Joe, Phil, and Nathoo Keeka.

  The captain chuckled. “We have an American boy on board. He is in my cabin, resting.”