IN GRUESOME CONFINEMENT.
What more Patsy Garvan heard was along much the same lines as that which
he already had heard, but none of it gave him any clew to the
contemplated destination of Deland and his confederates.
Dusk began to gather within half an hour, and darkness quickly followed.
Margate lighted a small lantern, so hooding it with an empty box that
its rays could not be seen from outside, but in its feeble glow the
three crooks continued to sit and discuss their knavery. Their faces and
figures looked grim and threatening in the dim light cast upon them.
Presently, still crouching behind the grain chest, Patsy heard the thud
of hoofs and the grinding of wheels in the gravel, and Margate arose at
the same time, saying quickly:
“Here comes Ruff with the wagon. I told you he’d show up promptly.”
“Good enough,” cried Deland. “We’ll lose no time in getting away.”
“I must go to the house for my cap,” growled Margate.
“Go ahead. That won’t take long, Jim?”
“Wait till I douse this glim. There would be something doing, all right,
if this dead wagon were seen here?”
“It has been seen, you rascal, and I can see your finish,” thought
Patsy, with grim satisfaction.
He had heard the arrival of the wagon, drawn up near the front of the
stable. He heard Ruff greeting Deland and Pitman, when they hastened
out. He saw Margate extinguish the light, then stride out and close the
door, followed by the sharp click of the padlock.
Patsy stole out from behind the grain chest in the inky darkness, then
crawled under Hanlon’s huge black wagon and found the iron ring in the
trapdoor.
“It’s the same old way for mine,” he muttered, while he noiselessly
opened the trap. “I’ll not let these rats give me the slip. I’ll find
out where they are going and where they take their plunder, at least, if
I get no chance to hold them up. I’ll get them sooner or later, by
thunder, if it takes a leg.”
Indulging in these cogitations, Patsy dropped quietly through the
opening, and, without waiting to close it, he crept out through the open
space under the stable, and to a point between it and the old shed near
by.
He then could see the wagon some ten feet away and headed toward the
street. It was a large covered one, and it stood nearly opposite the
space between the two buildings. The driver had not left his seat.
Pitman and Mortimer Deland already had climbed in and were seating
themselves on two boxes under the leather top, that occupied by Ruff
being too small for all four.
Patsy could hear them talking, and he now saw Jim Margate returning from
the house.
“Gee! they may give me a long chase,” he said to himself, crouching low
in the darkness. “If they drive fast, I may have some difficulty in
keeping up with them, or----”
He broke off abruptly, crouching lower and peering intently through the
darkness.
“By Jove, the running gear of the wagon is braced from the end of each
axletree to the center pole,” he added to himself. “The braces form a
sort of platform under the floor of the wagon. There is room enough for
me to lie on them, if I can contrive to get there. The springs will not
give much under the light load to be carried. It will beat walking, by
Jove, and remove the risk of losing sight of the rascals. I’ll do it, by
gracious, unless----”
Patsy did not stop to consider the alternative.
He saw Margate climbing into the wagon, while Ruff gathered up the
reins. It was the only opportunity he would have, and well Patsy knew
it, and he did not hesitate for an instant.
He darted out in the darkness and crawled quickly between the rear
wheels. The voices of the four men drowned the faint sounds he could not
avoid causing. Dropping flat on his back under the middle of the wagon
and parallel with it, Patsy reached up and grasped the center pole with
both hands, then quickly twined his legs around it.
“Get up!” growled Ruff; and the wagon started.
As quick as a flash, knowing that any jar of the wagon would be
attributed to running over a rock, Patsy swung himself over the pole and
wormed himself upon the braces front and rear.
He then found that he had ample room, and that he would not probably be
seen by persons passed on their way, but the position was a trying one,
taxing nerves and muscles to maintain it.
“I’ll stick, by thunder, let come what may,” he said to himself,
gritting his teeth while the wagon jolted out of the driveway and into
the rough road. “I’ll not be shaken down while I have fingers to cling
with.”
It proved to be as rough a ride, nevertheless, as Patsy Garvan had ever
experienced. He had to give his entire attention to retaining his
position. He at no time could tell just where he was, or whither he was
going. He knew only that he brought up in a lonely, somewhat wooded
section, after a last mile over the roughest kind of a road, and the
wagon then came to a sudden stop.
“There’s no show of stealing out,” thought Patsy, with every nerve and
muscle strained and aching. “I must take a chance the rascals will not
see me.”
The four men already were climbing down from the wagon, Ruff and Jim
Margate in advance. The latter scarce had alighted on the ground, when
Patsy heard him ask, with a fierce growl:
“What the devil’s that?”
“What?” snapped Deland, joining him.
“That white thing under the wagon. It looks like a handkerchief.”
A handkerchief it was, as a matter of fact, jolted from Patsy’s pocket
just at that fatal moment when the wagon stopped, and fallen to the
ground to betray him.
“Gee! it’s all off, and I’m caught, dead sure,” flashed through his
mind. “I can’t even pull a gun.”
Deland had crouched quickly to get the handkerchief, and his gaze fell
upon Patsy. His eyes took on a quick, fiery glow. With invariable
coolness, nevertheless, he whipped out a revolver and said sharply:
“Not only a handkerchief, Jim, but also its owner.”
“What d’ye mean?” Margate snarled.
“See for yourself,” snapped Deland. “Don’t stir till I give you
permission, you spying whelp, or there’ll be holes made in you.”
“Oh, I’m not going to stir,” Patsy said coolly, thoroughly disgusted
with the unfortunate turn of affairs. “I’m not dead sure that I can
stir, as far as that goes.”
“You’ll be dead if you do, take my word for it. Drop down on the
ground.”
Patsy obeyed, falling with a thud when he let go of his support. He
could not have clung on much longer.
“Get him by the legs, Jim, and pull him out,” Deland commanded. “Watch
that he don’t reach for a gun.”
“If he does, blast him, I’ll break his head,” Margate snarled, while he
and Pitman seized Patsy’s heels and dragged him from under the wagon.
“Bring a piece of rope, Ruff,” said Deland, with revolver ready. “Stand
him on his feet, Jim. Do you know him?”
Patsy saw that resistance would be nothing less than madness. He
suffered the two ruffians to yank him to his feet, and when they did so
his disguise was jostled out of place.
Margate saw it and jerked it from his face.
“Perdition!” He recoiled with a gasp. “It’s young Garvan, one of Nick
Carter’s push.”
Deland came nearer, till the muzzle of his revolver touched Patsy’s
breast. He did not appear to be in the least disturbed by the discovery,
not more than when Chick intruded upon him that morning. His nerves
were, apparently, as stiff as steel.
“Oh, is that so?” he inquired icily. “Are you sure of it, Jim?”
“I ought to be, hang him.”
“We’ll do better than hang him,” said Deland, with an ominous gleam in
his cold eyes. “Garvan, eh? What sent you out here?”
“I came to see what you rascals were after,” said Patsy curtly.
“Did you?” sneered Deland. “Well, you shall not be disappointed. You
shall see all that we do--until we depart.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
“But after then--you will see nothing!” Deland added, with a merciless
smile.
Patsy did not deign to reply.
He glanced sharply around, however, and saw that they were close to the
rear part of an extensive cemetery. A fence of wooden palings divided it
from, the rough, lonely back road. The white stones and monuments, also
several large tombs built into the side of a hill, could be seen through
the semidarkness.
“Get his weapons and bind his arms securely,” Deland commanded coldly.
“If he has any handcuffs, fasten them on him, also. He shall watch us to
his heart’s content--until we leave him.”
“Leave him where?” growled Margate.
“Wait and see.”
Patsy still was a bit puzzled, but he submitted in grim silence to the
work of the three ruffians, who disarmed and then securely bound him.
“Now, Margate, a gag,” said Deland. “Make sure that you fix it so
securely that he cannot remove it. He shall occupy cold quarters
to-night--and hereafter!”
Patsy saw plainly that he was in the hands of a man who had in him all
the makings of a devil.
Margate took a gag from his pocket and fastened it in Patsy’s mouth.
“Now, gentlemen, we are ready,” said Deland. “Bring him with us. Let
him see what he may. It’s a pleasure to gratify him. Murderers are well
fed and wined, even, if wanted, before their execution. Bring him
along.”
He turned with the last and tore off several palings, already loosened,
from the high fence.
Forced on by the other three ruffians, Patsy was conducted to the door
of one of the tombs, some twenty yards from where the wagon had been
left.
Deland took a key from his pocket and unlocked the iron door, which
Pitman and Ruff quickly removed and stood against a near bank.
“Look!” said Deland. “Here is what we came after.”
He shot the beam of an electric lamp into the tomb.
Patsy looked and saw--the long, wooden case and the florist’s boxes seen
in the undertaker’s wagon that morning.
He could not speak, but he glared at the smiling miscreant near by, and
Deland laughed audibly.
“A safe concealment, Garvan,” he remarked. “Even your famous Nick Carter
will never think of this. Nor will you ever inform him. For, after
removing the plunder for which we had labored--I shall leave you here!”
Patsy felt a chill run down his spine, and a cold perspiration broke out
all over him.
“You will not be found,” Deland added, with merciless deliberation.
“There may be no occasion to reopen this tomb for years. Nor can you
escape, or make yourself heard, for we shall bind your feet and leave
you in the box now containing part of our booty. Move lively, mates! The
sooner we are away, now, the better.”
“Gee! here’s a fine outlook,” thought Patsy, steadying his nerves. “This
miscreant means what he said. Nor will either of these rascals oppose
him. Great guns! it looks tough, for fair!”
The three ruffians, Deland watching, already were transferring the
pasteboard boxes to the wagon, a task that occupied them only a few
minutes.
The cover then was removed from the undertaker’s box, which stood on the
floor of the tomb.
Patsy could only stand and gaze.
When he returned with his companions for the last time, Margate brought
a screw driver from the wagon.
“Off with the cover, Jim,” said Deland coldly. “Save the screws so that
we may fasten it on again--with this meddlesome feller under it. I will
teach him to interfere with my business, already sufficiently hazardous.
Make haste. Put the stuff out here on the ground. We four then can take
it to the wagon, after locking the tomb door.”
The knaves were at work while he was speaking.
Patsy saw small but costly old paintings, boxes of gems and jade, the
priceless Strad violin, then in its case--these and many other treasures
Patsy saw brought out and laid upon the ground.
There was no delay over what followed, no argument about it, no sign of
mercy in the eyes of either of his captors.
Patsy was rudely thrown to the ground and his legs securely bound.
Half a minute later he was lying in the box from which the treasures had
been taken.
He heard the cover replaced, the massive key turned in the grating lock.
Three minutes later the wagon moved away with the four knaves and its
load of treasures.
Only Patsy Garvan remained.
Entombed alive!
Alone with the dead!