THE SLIPPERY APACHE.
The words were hardly out of the detective’s mouth, when the Cuban,
with a snarl of rage, tore the cigar from Nick’s teeth and pressed the
burning end upon the bare hand of his captor.
There were few things that would have made Nick Carter loosen his hold.
The exquisite pain of the burning cigar was one of them, however.
Anybody who ever has been hurt in this way can testify that the red-hot
ash sticks to the flesh in a cruel fashion, causing excruciating agony.
As Nick took away one hand, John Garrison Rayne pulled the other loose.
Then, hissing defiance between his set teeth, he dragged a long knife
from inside his coat and aimed a blow at the detective’s heart.
Nick Carter was unable to ward off the blow entirely, but it only cut
a long slit in his sleeve. The next moment he had seized the rascal
around the waist and slammed him down upon the table by his side.
The table never was meant to stand such a shock. Down it went, in a
muddle of broken legs and splintered top, with the Cuban and Nick in
the ruins, for the Cuban had pulled his assailant down with him.
“Thieves!” roared the Cuban. “Look out! Grab him before he can get
away!”
Four big men piled on top of Nick behind, and, under their combined
weight, down he went, flat upon the floor, while the cunning rascal,
who had incited the attack, slipped away in the darkness.
“Let me get up!” shouted Nick. “The thief has got away.”
“Oh, I guess not!” came from one of the men holding him down. “I saw
the whole thing. This man asked for a light, and when he had it, he
tried to go through the other man’s pockets for his roll. Where are the
police? This is the worst holdup I ever saw.”
“You idiot!” exploded Nick.
He was enraged at seeing Rayne get away when so nearly caught. So
exerting all his enormous strength, he threw the four men off, and,
picking up a chair, swung it around his head to hold them back.
By this time there was a full-sized riot on the porch and in the café.
But the detective’s blood was up, and he cared nothing for that.
It was seldom he allowed his anger to make him lose sight of the main
purpose in view. But he was so disgusted with the interference of these
men, at such a critical moment, that he was determined to make them pay.
He dropped the chair and shot out his two fists, sending the talkative
individual, who had called for the police, one way, and another busy
person another.
He was setting himself for an onslaught on three others who were
coming toward him, when suddenly two men he had not seen before
ranged themselves on his side. They disposed of four of the foes with
well-directed blows.
Before Nick could look around to see who his unexpected reënforcements
were, Patsy Garvan whispered in his ear:
“Break away, chief! The fellow you knocked down is hustling along the
avenue. Let’s get after him.”
A hand was laid on each of his arms, and, as he was drawn away into
the shadows, where the people on the porch could not see him, he found
Chick on one side of him and Patsy on the other.
“Do you know who he was?” asked Nick.
“I didn’t see,” replied Patsy. “I only made out that he was dark, and
that he had on light clothes. I’ll know him again, though. Come on!”
“Who was he, chief?” asked Chick.
“John Garrison Rayne,” replied Nick Carter shortly.
“Wha-at?”
His two assistants delivered themselves of this interrogative
monosyllable together, and with enough astonishment to make it seem ten
times as strong a word as it was.
“Get after him!” replied Nick, as he hustled along the dark
thoroughfare. “He can’t have got far.”
But if Rayne had not got far, at least he had managed to elude his
pursuers on this occasion.
He laughed silently, as, standing in the shadow of a tree, he saw Nick
Carter and his two men go past. He watched them till they were out of
sight.
“That settles it,” he muttered. “I’ve got to get this coat of chocolate
off my face and hands, and tackle something else. It will be a bold
thing, but I guess I can put it over. It seems to be about my only
chance, for that cursed Carter has every part of the wharf and all the
roads guarded. He thinks I don’t know, perhaps--but I do.”
He walked slowly on until he stood in front of the handsome “palace,”
which was at one time the residence of the Spanish captain general, but
is now the home of the governor.
This building is one of the finest in a city of imposing edifices, and
as John Garrison Rayne gazed at it, his busy brain worked with a scheme
that, as he had confessed to himself, was decidedly bold, to say the
least.
“It is the one best bet for me,” he muttered. “It is something that
Carter never would suspect, and for that reason I feel sure I can carry
it out as smoothly as anything of that kind could be done.”
He grinned as he moved away, and the grin was still on his dark face
when he reached the obscure house in which he had engaged a room--a
house where the people never asked questions so long as the rent was
paid promptly.
Once in his bedchamber, he locked the door and made sure the window
shade was adjusted so that no glimmer of light could show outside. Then
he took from his pockets two bags and emptied their contents upon the
bed.
The bags had contained some of the jewelry stolen from Stephen Reed,
including a string of magnificent pearls which he prized more than
anything else he had. The pearls had been the property of Abdul Hamid,
Sultan of Turkey, and were regarded by experts as unique in their
beauty.
“If I could only sell those sultan pearls,” thought Rayne, “I should
have enough cash to do anything. But I daren’t try to work them off in
San Juan. I’ll have to get along the best way I can on the balance of
Captain Lawton’s six hundred dollars.”
He lighted a cigar--one of the long, slim rolls of tobacco that are so
common in Porto Rico--and sat down on the bed to meditate.
“I may as well see that the others are all right,” he said, half aloud.
“Though, so long as I can feel the package under my clothes, there is
no likelihood of anything having happened to them.”
He opened the front of his soft shirt and revealed a flat bag, hanging
to a string around his neck, and which showed no bulkiness from the
outside.
He opened the top of this bag and pulled from it a flat package in
tissue paper. This he emptied out on the bed, apart from the other
jewels. The paper had contained several unset diamonds.
He sifted these through his fingers for a few moments, his eyes
glittering with avaricious triumph. Then he put them back and fastened
the bag. As he buttoned the front of the shirt over it, he muttered:
“Eighty thousand dollars, eh? I’m sure I can raise at least a hundred
on all these. There are stones worth a great deal more than the price
the old man put on them. All I want is to get to some place where I can
market them. And that market is New York. Even if I could not turn them
into cash there, it is so easy to slip across to Europe. Yes, I must
get to New York as quickly as I can. I must.”
He restored the Abdul Hamid pearls and the other glittering gewgaws to
their two bags and placed them both under the pillow on the bed.
“I’ll have a busy, hard day to-morrow,” he told himself, with a grin,
as he began to undress. “I must get a good sleep to-night. I wonder
whether Carter is still looking for me.”
He repeated this last sentence as he turned out the lights and got into
bed. His thoughts were very much on the detective and his doings.
Nick Carter had got the better of him on more than one occasion, and,
in spite of his boastful promise to himself that this was the time when
he would win, John Garrison Rayne did not feel any too sure.