The trail picked up by Patsy Garvan was becoming so hot, indeed, as he
had expressed it, that he now had absolutely no idea of quitting it. He
followed the two suspects through Prince Street, noting that they were
engaged in a subdued and very earnest discussion, with Shannon doing
most of the talking, but Patsy did not venture to attempt overhearing
them.
“I could pick up only a word or two at the most, and must take a chance
of being seen and suspected,” he rightly reasoned. “That would put them
on their guard and knock a further espionage on the head. I’d better
keep them in the dark and try to see what’s coming off. If Shannon
brought orders from some one to this sinister-looking scamp, it’s long
odds that Doctor Devoll was the one. There sure is something in the
wind.”
It soon was evident to him that the two men were heading for the stable
in which Toby Monk kept his car, and he began to fear that he was
booked for the same difficulties he had had the previous night. He felt
quite sure of it, in fact, when both men entered the stable and Toby
Monk partly closed the front door, precluding a view from the street.
Presently, however, a feeble light from a smoky lantern could be seen,
and Patsy muttered perplexedly:
“What do they want of that? They can’t be going out with the car, after
all, or a lantern would not be needed. They may have come here only to
escape observation while planning a job. I can very soon find out by
making use of the back window again.”
He was on his way with the last thought. A couple of minutes brought
him to the back fence, over which he climbed noiselessly, and then
crept near enough to see and hear through the dusty back window.
Toby Monk was on his knees with a box of blue paste and a brush,
engaged in altering the figures on the rear number plate of the touring
car.
Shannon was seated on a box near by, with his brawny arms resting on
his knees, while he grimly watched the chauffeur’s artistic alterations.
“You’d better let the top down, too, Toby,” he advised, after a moment.
“That will help.”
“Mebbe so, Jim, since I’m never seen with it down,” Monk replied. “I’ll
drop it before leaving.”
“Besides, it might be a bit in the way,” Shannon pointedly added. “It’s
easier to get into an open car. This trick has got to be turned on the
jump, mind you.”
“I know that, Jim, all right, and you can bet I’ll do my part.”
“Have I made it perfectly plain to you?”
“As plain as twice two.”
“The signal----”
“There’s no need to repeat it, Jim,” Toby protested, interrupting, much
to Patsy’s disappointment. “I’ve got the whole business down pat, so
far as my part in the job goes. You may tell his nibs he may bank on
that.”
“The hour----”
“I know,” Monk again cut in impatiently. “You need never repeat an
order that he sends me. There’s too much coming, Jim, for me to go
lame.”
“I’ll be off, then, Toby, and tell him I found you,” said Shannon,
rising abruptly. “He’ll be waiting for me by this time.”
“Go ahead, then, and I’ll see you later.”
“Sure thing, Toby, bar a slip-up of some kind,” Shannon paused to add.
“You know what we are up against.”
“Rats! Trust his nibs to get the best of that bunch. No dicks can fool
him. He’ll put something over on them that they never heard of.”
Shannon laughed grimly, picking his way around the touring car, and
left the dingy, dimly lighted stable.
Patsy Garvan hesitated only for a moment. He remembered the previous
night. He knew that he might find it utterly impossible to follow
Toby Monk, who evidently was soon going to use his car, and Patsy
immediately stole around the stable, taking advantage of the darkness
to dart back of the rear dwelling, and in another moment he was
stealthily following Shannon up the street.
“Going to tell his nibs, is he?” thought Patsy, with ever-increasing
elation. “If I don’t learn who is back of this whole business, then
there’ll be something wrong with the cards. Get the best of the chief,
will he? I guess not!”
He found it easy to shadow his unsuspecting quarry. He trailed him to
an outskirt of the business section, where Shannon paused briefly in
a gloomy doorway and put on a disguise. Five minutes later, after
looking sharply in each direction, he entered a court flanking one end
of a large stone building.
“By gracious!” thought Patsy, gazing up at it. “This is the Waldmere
Chambers, the building in which Todd was killed. Has the gang a
headquarters here, or is it where only the chief himself hangs out? In
either case, by Jove! I’m getting in right at last.”
Stealing nearer, he peered cautiously into the court. Shannon had
disappeared in the deeper darkness. Following noiselessly, Patsy
brought up at a solid wooden gate about six feet high, and he then
heard a door closed and the snap of a lock. It told him plainly enough
that Doctor David Devoll’s burly attendant had entered the building.
“Gee whiz! I must not lose track of him,” Patsy muttered under his
breath. “I’ll take chances to guard against that. Locked, by thunder!”
Patsy had vainly tried to open the gate. He saw that it closed an alley
about five feet wide between the rear of the Waldmere Chambers and
the blank back wall of another lofty building. He drew himself up and
looked over it. He could see a door some ten feet away, and directly
above it a single-lighted window, the roller shade of which was drawn
nearly to the sill.
“That’s a rear office on the second floor,” Patsy rightly reasoned.
“That door must open into a basement, however, for the land slopes
toward the front of the building. By Jove! I must find out what’s
doing.”
Without a sound that could have been heard in the office mentioned, he
climbed over the gate and dropped upon the pavement in the alley, then
picked his way through the gloom toward the door. He then found that it
was an ordinary storm door, opening outward and protecting an interior
one, which was securely locked.
He listened vainly for any sound from within, also at two ground-glass
windows near by, evidently those of a basement, then as dark as a
pocket. Both were securely fastened.
“Gee! I’m no better off,” he said to himself. “If I could get up to
that lighted window, I might learn whether Shannon is there, or--by
gum! I have it. I can both see and hear, all right, by standing on
the top of this outer door. It’s some stunt to get up there, though,
without being heard.”
He demurred only briefly, seeing no other way to accomplish his object.
He opened the door, then hung by his hands from the top for a moment,
finding that the hinges would support him. He then drew himself up,
working one leg over the outer corner, and finally worming himself to
a seat on the unsteady perch. Twice he had swung against the building,
but met the wall noiselessly with his shoulder.
Reaching up, he then could grasp the stone sill of the lighted window.
He drew himself up, hanging clear of the door, then nearly closed it
with his feet, bringing it to a position directly under the window,
enabling him to stand in a crouching posture on it, still grasping the
stone sill.
A beam of light from under the roller shade then fell on Patsy’s grimly
determined face. Voices from within reached his ears. He peered into
the room and saw, seated in opposite chairs, Jim Shannon and Professor
Karl Graff.
“The man I trailed to Leary’s road house! The man who killed the cat!”
The thoughts flashed swiftly through Patsy’s mind. “By gracious, it now
is a cinch! He’s the big finger of the gang. But who the deuce is he?”
Though puzzled as to his identity, Patsy read plainly in Professor
Graff’s gray-bearded face that he was discussing something of serious
importance. His narrow eyes had a vicious gleam and glitter. He was
drawn forward in his chair, with his hands clenched on his knees and
his gaze riveted on Shannon’s dark face, from which he had removed his
disguise.
“You made it clear to him, Jim, perfectly clear?” Graff was asking.
“There must be no mistake, no delay.”
“There’ll be none,” Shannon gruffly informed him. “You can bank on
that.”
“The number plates----”
“I left him changing them.”
“The position he is to take with the car----”
“He knows the very spot.”
“The signal----”
“Your flash light--he knows,” Shannon cut in again. “He’ll be watching
for it.”
“And what he then must do?”
“The whole business. He has it down pat from A to Z.”
Graff settled back in his chair. He appeared satisfied with these
forcible assurances. He fell to rubbing his hands, his eyes gleaming
with malicious triumph, a gleam and glitter so intense that Patsy
Garvan felt that he was gazing at a madman.
“If he isn’t dippy, a pronounced victim of criminal mania, I’m no judge
of human faces,” he said to himself. “Human be hanged! He has the look
of a devil, and all the makings of one, if I’m not mistaken.”
“We’ll balk him, thwart him, turn this trick on him, Shannon, in spite
of all he can do,” Graff snapped viciously after a moment. “Then, if he
dares to remain in Madison--well, God help him! His fate will be on his
own head. I have told him. I have warned him.”
“He means the chief,” thought Patsy. “This was the rascal who sent
him the letter, and he refers to the theft of Mrs. Thurlow’s pearls.
They’ve been planning it, and that’s the job Toby Monk is booked for
to-night. If I can but learn the details of their scheme, it will be
soft walking for the chief to foil their game and collar the entire
gang. I’m on the way, all right.”
Patsy felt reasonably sure of it, indeed, and he was missing nothing
that passed between the two conspirators. Shannon appeared oblivious to
Graff’s display of feeling, though he smiled a bit grimly and said:
“You can turn the dick down, all right, if need be, and none would get
wise. All I hope is that he won’t be able to queer this job. There
would be something coming to us from it, a deal more than usual.”
“It’s as sure as if you already had it in your pocket, Shannon, if my
instructions are carefully followed.”
“They will be,” Shannon nodded. “What does Tim Hurst think about it?
Where does he fit in?”
“He’s to work the trick with me.”
“Any one else?”
“Only Dorson.”
“Is it safe to rely upon him?”
“There will be no safety for him if he disappoints me,” Graff declared,
with vicious asperity. “He knows what it will cost and that he’ll pay
the price. You know what befell the one treacherous cur who dared to
defy me and threatened to expose----”
“Enough of that,” Shannon cut in, with a growl. “I don’t like to think
of it, much less talk about it. What has become of Hurst, anyway?”
“I have not seen him since last night, after he searched the rooms of
that servile cur.” Graff spoke with an ugly snarl. “He found papers
that would have exposed us, but they now are ashes only. Luckily, too,
he was in time to down one of the Nick Carter gang, who otherwise would
have found the same and had us by the ears.”
“We’ll get you all right, sooner or later,” thought Patsy. “Tim Hurst,
eh? The masked man whom Chick encountered. Give us a little more time
and we’ll uncover all of these hidden faces.”
“Downed him, did he?” queried Shannon. “He must be a lightweight dick
that Tim could down, for all he’s quick and clever.”
Professor Graff laughed for a moment as if much tickled, but his mirth
had qualities that sent a chill down Patsy’s spine.
“I had made it easy for him,” Graff replied, still chuckling with evil
pride. “He wore an unsuspected weapon, an electrical device of mine
that would overcome a horse. Let Tim alone to make good when in a
tight place.”
“But it’s near seven,” Shannon growled, glancing at the clock. “If he’s
to work with you to-night----”
“He’ll come,” Graff cut in quickly. “He’ll show up on time. He’s due
here now.”
“Due here! Will he sneak in this way, or enter from the front street?
If he comes while I’m up here----”
Patsy caught his breath, scenting speedy trouble.
A key had been thrust into the lock, and almost instantly the gate was
opened and hurriedly closed. A slender, black-clad figure had entered
the alley, a thin-featured, keen-eyed man of about thirty, who quickly
jerked the key from the lock.
Patsy had as quickly decided what he would do. He knew he could not
leap down from his unsteady perch undetected and retreat farther into
the alley. He took, therefore, his only chance to escape observation,
knowing that he could not hold up the intruder without alarming his
confederates. Firmly grasping the stone sill of the window, he drew up
his legs and raised his feet from the top of the door, hoping the man
would pass under him and enter without seeing him.
The ruse came near proving successful. Tim Hurst strode quickly to the
storm door and flung it open, then fished out a key to the inner one.
He had heard nothing alarming nor seen the crimped figure hanging close
to the dark wall directly above him.
Just then, however, a bit of cement broke from the stone under Patsy’s
rigid grasp, and it fell straight down upon Hurst’s head. He drew back
as if electrified, looking up, and as quick as a flash he guessed the
truth. On the instant, too, while he uttered a short, sharp whistle, he
leaped up and seized Patsy’s legs, snarling fiercely:
“Come down here! Let go, blast you, or----”
Hurst was not given time to say more.
Patsy heard Graff and Shannon spring up and rush down a back stairway
in response to the whistle, and he realized that only quick work could
save him. He let go of the sill and dropped straight down upon Hurst’s
head and shoulders, worming quickly around as he pitched over him, and
trying to grapple him around his arms and waist.
The lithe and wiry rascal was alert, however, and as quick of motion
as a cat. He also twisted around when Patsy fell, spreading his feet
to steady himself, and then, with a lightninglike lurch toward the
building, he brought Patsy’s head against the stone wall, a blow that
nearly cracked his skull and dazed him so that he hardly knew what
immediately followed.
In a vague way, however, he realized that he was being roughly handled,
that Graff and Shannon had rushed out into the alley, and that the
three men were hurriedly taking him into the building.
He heard both doors closed and locked, then was conscious of being
placed roughly on a cold cement floor, with two of the ruffians nearly
crushing him in the inky darkness. This was dispelled in a moment by
a glare of electric light, and the cobwebs then had cleared from his
brain sufficiently for him to size up the surroundings.
He saw at a glance that he was in a chemical laboratory, a large,
square room with shelved walls, laden with bottles, jars, carboys, and
the like. A zinc-covered table was littered with the customary articles
required by a chemist. There was a closet in one corner. Near by was an
open door, an adjoining entry, and a narrow stairway leading up to the
room in which the two men had been seated.
Patsy still was gazing around when Graft approached him, commanding his
two confederates to bind him, which they quickly proceeded to do with
cords brought from the closet, while Tim Hurst hurriedly stated where
he discovered their captive.
“Who are you? Who sent you here to play the spy?” he fiercely
questioned.
Though he keenly realized that he was in wrong, and that much of his
good work might prove futile, Patsy lost neither his head nor his nerve.
“No one sent me,” he answered curtly. “I came on my own hook.”
“You lie!” Graff snapped harshly. “You are in Nick Carter’s employ.”
“By Heaven, I guess that’s right,” Shannon agreed, with a snarl. “He’s
one of the dicks.”
“We’ll dick him! We’ll dick him all right when the time comes,” Graff
fiercely declared. “But not now, not yet. The Thurlow pearls are of
first importance, and I have only time to prepare for that job. We’ll
settle with him later. Gag him, Shannon, and lock him in the closet.
You must wait here and watch till we return. Make sure the whelp can’t
escape. I’ll fix him later. I’ll fix him.”
“Gee whiz!” thought Patsy. “If he makes good as he looks, I can see my
finish.”