The Secret Pact Part 3

"Thank goodness for that," murmured Penny. "I hope the poor fellow is all right."

"And I hope our driver catches the man who did the pus.h.i.+ng," declared Louise feelingly. "I never witnessed a more vicious attack in my entire life!"

As she spoke, the cabman recrossed the bridge, scrambling down to the river bank.

"The fellow got away," he reported. "He had a car waiting."

"You didn't see the license number?" Jerry inquired.

"Not a chance."

"Too bad."

Penny was watching the tugboat which had been tied up only a short distance from the bridge.

"Jerry, let's go down there," she proposed. "I want to be certain that man is all right."

The reporter hesitated, then consented. Leaving Louise with the cab driver, he and Penny descended the steep, muddy slope.

The boat had been made fast to a piling. Face downward on the long leather seat of the pilot-house, lay the rescued man. Working over him was the captain, a short, stocky man with grease-smeared hands and clothing saturated with coal dust.

"Anything we can do?" called Jerry from sh.o.r.e.

"Don't know yet if he'll need a doctor," answered the tugboat captain, barely glancing up. "It was a nasty fall."

Jerry leaped on deck, leaving Penny behind, for the s.p.a.ce was too wide to be easily spanned.

Inside the cabin Captain Dubbins was expertly applying artificial resuscitation, but he paused as the man on the seat showed signs of reviving.

"Struck the water flat on his back," he commented briefly. "Lucky I saw him fall or I never could have fished him out. Not on a night like this."

"The fellow didn't fall," corrected Jerry. "He was pushed."

Captain Dubbins glanced up, meeting the reporter's gaze steadily. He offered no comment for the man on the seat groaned and rolled over.

"Steady," said the captain. "Take it easy. You'll tumble off the seat if you don't stay quiet."

"My back," mumbled the man.

In the glare of the swinging electric light his face was ghastly white and contorted with pain. Jerry judged him to be perhaps thirty-two. He wore tight-fitting blue trousers and a coa.r.s.e flannel s.h.i.+rt.

"My back," he moaned again, pressing his hand to it.

"You took a hard wrench when you hit the water," commented the captain.

"Here, let's see."

He unb.u.t.toned the s.h.i.+rt, and rolling the man over, started to strip it off.

"No!" snarled the other with surprising spirit. "Leave me alone! Get away!"

Jerry stepped forward to a.s.sist the captain. Ignoring the man's feeble struggles, they pulled off his s.h.i.+rt.

Immediately they understood why he had tried to prevent its removal.

Across his bruised, battered back had been tattooed in blue and black, the repulsive figure of an octopus.

CHAPTER 3 _THE OCTOPUS TATTOO_

Jerry bent closer to examine the strange tattoo. Between the two foremost arms of the octopus was sketched a single word: ALL.

"'All,'" he read aloud. "What does that signify?"

His question angered the man on the couch. s.n.a.t.c.hing the s.h.i.+rt from Captain Dubbins, he made a feeble, ineffectual effort to get his arms into it.

"I want out o' here," he muttered. "Quit starin', you two, and give me a hand!"

"Take it easy," advised the tugboat captain soothingly. "We was just tryin' to see if your back was badly hurt."

"Sorry," the man muttered. Relaxing, he leaned weakly against the leather cus.h.i.+ons. "I ain't myself."

"You swallowed a little water," remarked the captain.

"A little?" growled the other. "Half the river went down my gullet." As an afterthought he added: "Thanks for pullin' me out."

"You're welcome," responded the captain dryly. "Ex-sailor, aren't you?"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"I can usually tell 'em. Out of work?"

"No." The man's curt answers made it clear that he resented questions.

"You haven't told us your name."

"John Munn," the man replied after a slight hesitation.

"We tried to catch the man who pushed you off the bridge," contributed Jerry. "He got away."

The sailor gazed steadily, almost defiantly at the reporter.

"No one pushed me off the bridge," he said. "I fell."

"You fell?" echoed Jerry. "Why, I thought I saw you and another man struggling--"

"You thought wrong," the sailor interrupted. "I was leaning over, lookin'

into the water an' I lost my balance. That was how it happened."