LUTHER BARR'S TRAP.
Billy's guide conducted him under the bridge and along a
gloomy-looking street of poor houses, huddled together like the cages
of animals. The windows of many of them were broken and they were
otherwise tumbledown, and the young reporter realized that he was in
one of the most squalid parts of New York. He grew suspicious and was
about to halt his guide and ask him some questions when the
ill-favored conductor suddenly stopped in front of a particularly
dark, gloomy-looking brick tenement, and beckoning to Billy, urged the
lad to follow.
In spite of his misgivings, Billy entered the place and followed his
guide up four flights of steep, unlighted stairs.
"Here is Mr. Joyce's room," he announced, flinging open a door. Billy
stepped forward through the portal, and found himself in an apartment
in which the paper was peeling off the wall from long neglect, and the
light only streaked in through cracks in the closed shutters. Save for
a rickety chair and a broken-down table, it was empty.
"Where is Mr. Joyce?" Billy was about to ask, when he felt himself
seized from behind and a voice hissed in his ear:
"Well, Master Barnes, we've got you where we want you."
At the same instant a stout rope was drawn about him, pinioning his
arms to his sides.
In his captor, as he stepped forward, Billy had no difficulty in
recognizing Sanborn, the treacherous mechanic, and while he gazed in
astonishment at the man there appeared from an inner room Luther Barr
and Malvoise, the French aviator.
"You'd better let me go at once," cried Billy angrily. "What do you
want with me?"
"Nothing very much," piped old Barr, "nothing very much, my dear lad.
You are in a position to do us a great service, that is all, and I am
sure, after your providential rescue from the waters of the Sound, you
ought to be grateful enough to try to benefit your fellow man by
imparting a little information. You see, we saw your rescue and had a
messenger track you from the wharf and bring you here."
Billy was puzzled, but nevertheless somewhat relieved. He had thought
at first that his capture was due to the fact that the boys' enemies
knew that he had overheard their conversation in the stateroom of the
Princeton, but it was now evident that they had some other motive in
luring him to their obscure meeting place, and had no idea that he had
played eavesdropper on their plan to forestall the boys in their
treasure quest.
"Tell me first what it is you want to know," said he stoutly, "I
cannot say whether I will tell you anything or not till I learn that."
"Well, we won't occupy much of your valuable time then," put in
Malvoise; "what we want to know is this: "How soon are those young
whelps, the Boy Aviators, going to start for the Sargasso Sea?"
"Suppose I won't tell you," retorted Billy, bravely sparring for time.
"Then we shall find a means to make you."
"Well, I will not tell you one single thing about our plans, and you
might as well make up your minds to that right now."
"What, you won't?"
"No, I won't."
Malvoise crouched as if he was about to spring on the boy, but old
Barr interfered.
"No violence now, Malvoise," he croaked; "we can use other means. I
really think we shall have to use another method to bring this young
man to his senses. First of all, however, search him, he may have
papers on him that concern our project."
But a search of Billy's clothes revealed no paper that threw any light
on the Boy Aviators' plans, and the baffled plotters looked their
rage.
"Lock him in the inner room," ordered old Barr, "it's a nice warm
place for a young man to sit and meditate on his stubbornness, and
perhaps to-morrow he will have come to his senses."
Without more ado Malvoise and Sanborn picked Billy up in their arms
and carried him through the door from which Barr and the Frenchman had
emerged and thrust him forward into a small room without windows. It
was really more like a large cupboard than a room, and most probably
at one time or another had been used as a clothes closet in the days
when the old house was a mansion and stood in a fashionable part of
the town.
Billy heard the key click in the lock and found himself in total
darkness. From outside came to him the mocking voice of old Barr.
"We shall be back at the same time to-morrow, Master Barnes; please be
ready to tell us what we want to know at that time."
The others laughed; but Billy, angry and somewhat scared as he was,
made no reply. Then he heard their footsteps die away and he was alone
in the darkness in the deserted tenement.
He threw himself against the door with all his force several times,
till his body was bruised and sore in fact, but it was of stout wood
and yielded no more than if it had been the portal of a steel vault.
Seeing the futility of hoping to escape that way, Billy fell to trying
to work himself out of his rope bonds. To his great joy after several
minutes of wriggling he succeeded in loosening the not very securely
tied knot and was soon free; so far as the rope was concerned. This
accomplished he felt far more cheerful and set about trying some means
of opening the door of his prison.
But without tools this was difficult--in fact, an impossible feat--as
Billy, after a long period of wasted effort, found out. If only he had
some kind of tool, however, he might be able to make some impression
on the lock, he thought.
It was quite by accident that he encountered what he wanted. He was
leaning back against the wall, after a long period of vain effort on
the door, when his hand encountered what his sense of touch told him
was a clothes hook, formed of bent wire--a relic of the days when
Billy's dungeon was used as a cupboard evidently. With eager fingers
the young reporter unscrewed the hook from the wall and then went to
work to straighten it out till he should have a serviceable bit of
wire with which to pick the lock. In his capacity as a reporter, Billy
had some knowledge of the methods used by burglars; but he never
thought, at the time the subject had interested him, that he would
ever have occasion to put his knowledge to practical use.
Now, however, with his clumsy skeleton key he set to work poking about
in the lock as eagerly as any marauder trying to effect an illicit
entrance to a rich trove.
Just as it seemed that he would have to give up in despair, the lad's
wire encountered a "tumbler" of the lock that yielded to its pressure.
Billy with a beating heart pressed and the lock, which in spite of its
age seemed to have been recently oiled, probably by Barr, responded.
The next instant with a click, the lock slid open and Billy walked out
of the stifling air of the coop--free.
It was the work of only a few minutes for him to reach the street, as
Barr and his accomplices had not taken the precaution to lock the
outer door in their hurry. Probably they didn't think it necessary,
anyhow, as it could never have occurred to them that Billy would be
able to effect an escape from the locked closet, except by working a
miracle.
Swiftly the boy threaded his way through the streets and finally
reached the Astor House. He found that the boys had preceded him there
and had gone away, after leaving a message with the clerk for Billy to
call up the Chesters' Madison Avenue home in case he should happen to
arrive after they had left.
Billy at once made his way to the 'phone booths and was soon in
communication with Frank at the other end of the wire.
"This is the second time to-day you've worried the life out of us,"
exclaimed Frank, much relieved as he heard Billy's voice. "When you
didn't appear at the Astor we were badly puzzled, I can tell you. We
thought something had happened to you."
"And it nearly did," retorted Billy indignantly, "I've got a long
story to tell you, Frank."
"Get right on a car and come up," was the rejoinder.
Billy was soon speeding uptown to the Chester boys' home. He found all
the adventurers there in the room over the garage which had been given
up to the lads as a workshop and experimental laboratory. With what
wonderment the boys listened to Billy's tale may be imagined.
"I'd like to see the rascals' faces when they open that closet
to-morrow morning," cried Lathrop Beasley, who had joined the boys'
party at Frank's urgent invitation.
"It will be a case of 'gone, but not forgotten,'" grinned Billy. "But
seriously, fellows, this shows the necessity of starting as soon as
possible. It means a race between us and old Luther Barr."
"And we mean to win it," put in Frank in a determined voice. "It will
not take long to adjust the pontoons to the Golden Eagle's frames, and
that done we are practically ready."
"Where do you intend to start from?" asked Billy.
"We were talking that over on our way up to the city," was Frank's
reply. "My plan was to charter a large cabin motor-boat at some point
on the Gulf coast--say Galveston--and then round the point of Florida
and keep on east across the Caribbean. Once we have arrived on the
outskirts of the Sargasso we can erect the Golden Eagle on her
pontoons and make a flight for the galleon."
"A good idea," cried Billy, eagerly, "we ought to have no difficulty
in getting a good boat at Galveston."
"I have one already," was Frank's astonishing reply. Frank loved to
spring surprises.
"What?" shouted the amazed young reporter.
Frank drew out a telegram.
"I got this to-night in response to a wire I sent a yacht broker there
some days ago," he said.
"Read it out, Frank," urged Billy.
"Have what you want in gasolene yacht, Bolo. Fifty feet over all,
twenty-five horsepower engine, auxiliary sails and fine cabin. Will
charter reasonably. Wire at once if you want her."
"Sounds good," commented Harry.
"So I thought," said Frank, "and as we've no time to lose, it would be
a good idea to telegraph them to get her ready for sea at once. I will
also instruct the agent to get a ship chandler to stock her with
provisions for a cruise of two months."
Billy threw his hat in the air.
"Hurray for the BOY AVIATORS afloat!" he shouted.