Mystery of Crocodile Island - Carolyn Keene [43]
“Look!” George exclaimed. “There’s a boat and men are climbing into it!”
Nancy and Bess cried out together, “The Whisper!”
“Oh, they’re getting away!” Bess wailed. “What’ll we do to stop them?”
“We should tell the police!” George declared.
CHAPTER XIX
Triple Sleuthing
“AFTER them!” Burt shouted, and Danny quickly guided the skiff toward the fleeing boat.
The Whisper was a more powerful craft, however, and stayed well ahead of them. They followed it through the green waterway and it became smaller and smaller in the distance. By the time they reached the ocean, The Whisper was only a tiny dot.
Nancy heaved a sigh. She felt completely defeated. “I was so sure we would close in on those men,” she said. “Now they’ve slipped through our fingers!”
Ned patted her shoulder lightly. “Don’t give up,” he said kindly. “We’re bound to get a break.”
George said, “I think the break is coming right now!” She looked into the sky. A helicopter was making its way toward their skiff.
“It’s a police helicopter!” Burt pointed out.
The craft lowered until the young people in the skiff could see the officers aboard. They were shouting through a megaphone, but those on the water could not understand a word.
“Too bad we don’t have a ship-to-shore or ship-to-ship telephone,” Danny said.
The only way Nancy could get a message across to the men above was to point in the direction The Whisper had taken. She made motions with her hands to indicate that it was going very fast. Then she put her finger to her lips, hoping the men might translate it to mean “whisper!”
She could see the pilot bobbing his head and assumed he understood what she meant—that they should follow the suspect boat to the ocean. The copter turned and set off in that direction.
Dave spoke up. “Too bad we can’t be on hand to witness the capture. I’ll bet the men in The Whisper put up a real fight.”
Bess said, “Well, I for one would just as soon not witness a battle. Let’s go back.”
The skiff returned to Crocodile Island. The police launch was gone, but two officers stood on the dock and invited the young people to come ashore. They introduced themselves as Patman and Fifer.
“Aren’t you Danny Cosgrove and these girls detectives?”
“Yes.”
Nancy smiled and said Ned, Burt, and Dave were friends.
“We’ve made some arrests,” Patman reported. “For one, we caught the man named Yunki.”
“Oh, the one who hit Mr. Gonzales with a golf ball?” Bess cried out.
“Yes.” Putnam said they had found him hiding among some bushes. He had readily confessed to hitting the deadly shot toward Gonzales. But Yunki also said that he had not done it of his own accord. Gimler and Sacco had hired him to do not only this but several other illegal jobs. Yunki was well paid for his dastardly work.”
“Where is he now?” Ned asked.
Patman told him that the police launch had taken away Yunki and all the other workers, who admitted helping Gimler and Sacco in some illegal secret work but would not say what it was. Two of the men had escaped, however.
“It’s important that we catch them. They’re the ones who made phone calls and acted as spies whenever necessary.”
“As far as we know, they are still on the island. They are Gimler and Sacco’s special henchmen named Stryker and Jackson. Unfortunately for them they were not quick enough to follow Gimler on The Whisper, which set off in a hurry when you people showed up at the key.”
Nancy asked if Gimler had gone off with Matt Carmen and Breck Tobin. Patman nodded. “Yunki told us that. We sent word for a police helicopter to go out and intercept the craft.”
The listening group also learned that the fake Mr. and Mrs. Cosgrove and their daughter, who had posed as Miss Boonton, had been arrested. They were part of the Gimler-Sacco gang. The weapon E-fee dug up belonged to Sacco, who buried it so the police would not find it if they visited Crocodile Island. He left the dog on the deserted key because E-fee had