A CRISIS.
The bloodhound continued to sniff and growl.
Patsy continued to lie low and hold his breath.
He knew that if he showed himself in the open there would be trouble
from that moment—and the worst kind of trouble.
He hoped that the fierce brute would presently have satisfied his
curiosity, and then take it into his ugly head to return out of doors.
But the dog did nothing of the kind.
Plainly enough, he knew that there was something wrong, and his
watch-dog instinct impelled him to hang about the suspected spot.
He fell to trotting to and fro near the back of the touring-car, over a
space of some six feet, like an irritated lion in a cage.
With every turn he made he looked up at the hamper with his rolling red
eyes, and indulged in a low, threatening growl.
It was as much as to say: “Don’t come out, or I’ll make a meal of you!”
His huge jaws hung apart and were froth-flecked, and Patsy, venturing
once to peer out at him, did not like his looks.
“He’d make mince-meat of me in less than ten seconds if I undertook to
leap out there,” he said to himself, with gruesome misgivings. “Yet if
I remain here and he there, I am as good as discovered by these crooks.
I’m blessed if this hasn’t developed into a mighty ugly situation.”
As a matter of fact, he could see no immediate way out of it.
He was so cramped and twisted in his close quarters that he could not
draw his revolver without rising up in the hamper, and he knew that the
dog would instantly attack him if he ventured doing that.
His muscles were so cramped, moreover, that he knew he could not move
to advantage for several moments after his release.
He realized, furthermore, that the report of his revolver, in case
he attempted to shoot the dog, would speedily bring Badger and his
confederates to the spot, and that the result might possibly be fatal
to himself, or, at least, to Nick’s designs, to corner and arrest the
entire gang.
So for upward of five minutes the situation hung fire, Patsy waiting
and wondering, and the bloodhound still growling and trotting to and
fro some six feet away.
It was at this time that Badger had his talk with Nick, as already
related.
Presently Patsy heard Conley returning, accompanied by the two women.
Though all three observed the dog, they paid no immediate attention to
his movements, but at once hastened into the inner basement and to the
vault in which Nick was confined.
Patsy inwardly prayed that the dog would follow them, but his prayer
proved vain.
The bloodhound knew his business.
He continued to trot and growl, occasionally snapping his huge jaws by
diversion or anticipation, and all the while with his red eyes fixed
upon the wicker hamper.
Patsy gritted his own teeth in impotent rage.
At the end of another five minutes, however, he had decided what to do.
He resolved to shoot the dog, taking chances of killing him with a
single shot, and then leap out of the hamper and attack, single-handed,
the gang in the interior basement.
Conley had left the sliding door open after entering with the women,
and Patsy thought he could see a tolerably fair prospect of bringing
to a successful issue even as desperate a move as that which he now
contemplated.
Having grimly settled upon the task, he now wormed about a bit in the
hamper, striving to free his revolver from his hip pocket.
The bloodhound instantly redoubled his growling.
“You be hanged!” muttered Patsy resentfully. “I’ll presently silence
you with a chunk of lead.”
He had succeeded in getting hold of the butt of his revolver.
Before he could free the weapon from his pocket, however, the shrill
voice of Vic Clayton sounded through the basement, as she and Claudia
Badger came hurrying from the inner extension.
“What’s the matter with Pluto?” she cried, as she approached.
“There’s something wrong out here,” declared Claudia.
The instant the dog heard his name mentioned, all the restrained
passions and fierce instincts of the brute leaped violently into play.
With a tremendous snarling and barking he bounded up at the hamper,
clawing at it with might and main, as if bent upon devouring all that
it contained.
Patsy was taking no chances of losing half of his face in one fierce
bite of the brute, and he instantly ducked his head and crouched lower.
“It’s all off!” was the thought that flashed through his mind. “I am
now obliged to put up a game of bluff.”
The screams of the two women were now mingled with the furious barking
of the bloodhound, and Vic Clayton was shouting affrightedly:
“Come out here! Come out here, Amos! There’s something the matter with
this dog. I think he has gone mad.”
Before the last was uttered, both Badger and Conley came rushing out of
the inner cellar.
The two men instantly guessed the meaning of the brute’s actions, and
both rushed toward the car.
“Gone mad be hanged!” shouted Badger. “There’s something wrong with
that hamper, not with the dog.”
“That’s right, Amos,” yelled Conley.
“Ah, I thought so! Get out, you brute, or I’ll brain you! What the
devil have we here?”
Badger had given the excited brute a second kick in the ribs, that once
more sent him yelping out of doors, much to Patsy’s relief, despite the
sudden change in the situation.
At the same time Conley had thrown open the lid of the hamper, plainly
disclosing the cramped detective to the view of all.
In an instant both ruffians had him by the throat and wrists.
“Hold on!” gasped Patsy, struggling to rise out of his cramped
position, and at once assuming to be the injured, rather than the
offender.
“Come out here!”
“Sure, I’ll come out,” whined Patsy, as he was yanked out upon the
ground, yet still in the clutches of both men. “Say, this ain’t no
way to use a fellow. Let go me throat, will you? I ain’t going to eat
nobody up. Holy smoke! but I’m glad you drove that dog off. I thought I
was a dead one, for sure.”
“You’ll be a dead one, all right, young fellow, unless you stand up and
give an account of yourself,” Badger fiercely cried. “Hang onto his
arms, there, Conley, in case he means mischief. Hand me that strip of
rope, Vic, and I’ll make him fast in a jiffy. Look lively, I say!”
While this exchange of conversation was in progress, Patsy had been
jerked rudely to his feet, only to find for several moments that he
could hardly stand erect, so strained and cramped were his muscles.
Conley, meantime, had twisted the captive’s arms back of him, and was
holding them there with the grip of a vise.
Badger had released Patsy’s throat, however, and, with the piece of
rope Vic Clayton had hurriedly brought him, he quickly secured the
detective’s arms and wrists behind him.
“Now, you give an account of yourself,” he fiercely commanded, shaking
his clenched hand under Patsy’s nose.
“Sure I will, mister, since I’m caught in my own box,” Patsy now said,
surveying with a ludicrous grin the frowning faces around him. “But I’d
have been out and away long before this, mister, if it had not been for
that infernal dog.”
“Out and away, would you?” cried Badger, catching up this one
significant remark.
“That’s what, mister.”
“What were you doing in that hamper?”
“Only stealing a ride.”
“Stealing a ride?” echoed Badger incredulously.
“That was all, mister, the whole business.”
“You’re a liar!” snarled Conley, fiercely suspicious.
“Say, you leave me to settle with the boss of this joint, will you?”
growled Patsy, now turning upon the Irishman. “I haven’t trod on any of
your corns, have I? So you leave me to do the talking with the boss.”
“I’ll not leave you a leg to stand on, if you——”
“Shut up, Jerry!” commanded Badger sharply. “How long had you been in
the hamper, youngster?”
“All the way from town, mister.”
“Nonsense!” cried Vic Clayton, now pressing nearer. “I know better than
that.”
“Sure, ma’am, I don’t like to contradict a lady like yourself, but
you’ll find I’m right,” insisted Patsy, bowing to her with a ludicrous
display of humility.
“Do you mean to say that you rode out from town in that hamper?”
demanded Vic.
“That’s what I did, ma’am.”
“What put you up to that?” cried Badger, in threatening tones.
Patsy indulged in another grin.
“Well, ’twas like this, mister, d’ye see,” he proceeded to explain,
with an air of humble frankness. “I was walking along Tremont Street
with a comrade of mine—Jones his name is, mister, and mine is Green.”
“Come to the point, you rascal,” Badger impatiently growled.
“Sure I will, mister, if you give me time.”
“If you don’t, I’ll give you something besides time.”
“’Twas like this, d’ye see?” continued Patsy coolly. “We saw this big
car alongside the curb on Tremont Street, and Nosey, the which we call
Jones because his beak is so big—Nosey bet me a five I didn’t dare get
into the hamper and steal a ride.”
“He did, eh?” sneered Badger, with an ugly gleam in his searching eyes.
“That’s what he did, sir,” nodded Patsy. “I’d seen these two ladies
go into the building near-by, so I said to myself I’d have time to
duck into the hamper before they came out. I thought it a cinch to win
a five in that easy way. So when I found it was empty, mister, in I
jumped, and here I am—the which I wouldn’t be, only for that dog, I
give you my blooming word.”
“Your blooming word doesn’t cut any ice with me,” Conley now declared,
with an angry snarl. “I’ll not swallow this story, Badger, not on your
life. It’s much more likely that he’s working with his nobs in yonder,
and mebbe there are more of the same kind about here at this moment.”
This possibility suggested by Conley was not without immediate effect
upon Badger, who turned quickly to the waiting women and cried sharply:
“Go over to the house, you two, and we’ll bring this rascal there and
question him further. You, Jerry, close that sliding door. We’ll leave
the other where we have him. He cannot get out, that’s sure, and I’ll
take no chance that there are others to see us in this place. We’ll go
over to the house and settle with this young cub.”
“That will be safest,” nodded Conley, as he hastened to obey.
“You may leave this oil-lamp burning, Jerry,” added Badger, as he
seized Patsy by the collar and marched him toward the door. “We may
have to come out here again.”
“I’ll not put it out.”
“But secure this door after you.”
“Sure! D’ye think I’m daffy enough to leave it open?”
With the last remark, Conley came out of the basement and closed the
heavy door, leaving the entire place only dimly lighted by the oil-lamp
on the wall.
Seen from outside, the whole stable appeared shrouded in darkness.
As the three started across the lawn toward the house, with Patsy in
the grip of both men, the huge bloodhound came bounding over the grass
as if to accompany them—or to make a finish of Patsy.
Badger quickly checked him, however, sternly commanding:
“Be off, Pluto! Away with you, and watch out, you brute! Watch out, I
say!”
The dog appeared to understand. He dropped his black nose to the
ground, vented one short, sharp yelp, then coursed away with the speed
of a deer, hither and thither, and finally toward the belt of woods
darkly outlined against the starry sky at the rear of the broad estate.
“He’ll notify us, Jerry!” growled Badger, with his grip unconsciously
tightening on the detective’s collar. “Let Pluto alone for that. He’ll
notify us all right, and promptly, too, if there are other strangers
prowling near here to-night.”
That Patsy was possessed of that true detective genius which
instinctively anticipates coming events, appears in the thought that
quickly arose in his mind:
“He will, eh? I can see his finish if he encounters Chick Carter this
night!”