McAdams ran his knife blade through the lashings, feeling for them in the dark. Neither could see the other, but West realized that another man had crept up on the opposite side of him, and crouched there silently in the blackness.
"Need any help, Mac?" the latter questioned in a whisper.
"No, I've got him cut loose. This is the lad I told you about, Carlyn. You go on back, and, as soon as West gets limbered up a bit, and I hear his story, we join you out there. Then we'll know how the ground lies."
The fellow crept away unseen, and McAdams gripped West's hand.
"Say, but this is mighty good luck, old boy," he blurted out. "I was afraid you'd gone down in that yacht last night."
"You were! How did you know about it?"
"Stumbled on to the story, the way most detectives solve their mysteries. That is, I stumbled on some of it, and the rest I dug out for myself. It won't take long to explain and perhaps you better understand. They told me at the office when I got back about the Seminole being tied up at the Municipal Pier, and that you had gone down there. Well, I made it as quick as I could, but the yacht was three hundred yards out in the lake by the time I arrived. There wasn't a damn thing to take after it in, and, besides, just then, I didn't really know any good police reason for chasing her. First thing I did was to try and find you, so we could get our heads together. But you wasn't there, and so I naturally jumped to the conclusion you must have got aboard someway. Say I combed that pier, believe me, West, and finally I ran across a kid who put me wise. He saw you go across the deck, and into the cabin with two other guys. They came out again, but you didn't. I pumped him until I got a pretty good description of both those fellows, and I decided one of them must be 'Red' Hogan, about the toughest gun-man in Chicago."
"It was Hogan."
"I made sure of that afterwards. Then I got busy. If you was in the hands of that guy, and his gang, the chances was dead against you. But there wasn't a darn thing I could do, except to hunt up Hobart, wire every town along the north shore to keep an eye out for the yacht, and pick up a thread or two around town. I got a bit at that to wise me up. We found Hobart hid away in a cheap hotel out on Broadway, and put a trailer on him. The girl had disappeared; she'd been to a bank, and then to the Coolidge lawyer and signed some papers; after that we lost all trace of her for awhile. Your man Sexton, out at 'Fairlawn,' reported that she hadn't returned there. Then I got desperate and decided I'd blow the whole thing to the Coolidge lawyer, and get him to take a hand. I was afraid they were already for the get-a-way--see? I couldn't round 'em up alone; besides I'm a Chicago police officer, and have to keep more or less on my own beat."