“But you’ve got the wrong man,” persisted Joe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never ran with a gang or handled bad checks. You’ve picked me up, thinking I was somebody else. I’m a baseball player, a member of the New York Giants.”
“They told me you’d probably say something like that,” retorted Hennessy placidly. “But you can’t pull any wool over my eyes. I’m too old a hand for that.”
The man was obdurate, and Joe ceased his useless efforts to convince him. But he knew now that his case was desperate, and he summoned all his coolness to cope with the situation. One project after another raced through his brain, to be dismissed as useless.
While they had been talking, the motor boat had made rapid progress. But now a heavy haze was settling over the water and the engine slowed down a little.
“Look out, you swab!” shouted Hennessy angrily to the steersman as the end of a pier loomed up before them. “Do you want to smash the boat?”
The man veered off. But in that instant Joe had acted.
His fist shot out, knocking Hennessy off his seat. Like lightning, Joe jumped on the rail and leaped for the pier, six feet distant.
[Illustration: JOE JUMPED ON THE RAIL AND LEAPED FOR THE PIER, SIX FEET DISTANT.]
It was a long jump from an unstable footing, but Joe made it and clutched one of the spiles. It was slimy and slippery, but he held on with all the strength of his trained muscles. His feet, swinging wildly about, touched the rung of a ladder. In another moment he swarmed up it, and stood panting and breathless on the wharf.
“Back her! Back her!” screamed Hennessy from the fog. “Don’t let him get away!”
Joe chuckled, as he heard the wild splashing of the water and the pounding of the screw.
“Good-bye, Captain!” he sang out. “Hope I didn’t spoil your beauty. Give my regards to Rio Janeiro.”
Baseball Joe wasted little time in reaching the end of the pier. He hailed a cab at the first thoroughfare he came to and was soon once more at the hotel.
He found his party ready to start and wondering where he had gone.
“Where on earth have you been, Joe?” asked Mabel. “We were beginning to get worried about you.”
“Oh, I was just called away by a telephone message,” Joe parried.
He had no desire to let the women of the little group know that he was being made the victim of any hostile machinations. They would have magnified the danger and worried without ceasing.