COLD-BLOODED PLOTTING.
When Nick Carter entered the building he found himself in a large,
half-dark warehouse that had formerly held many tons of ice.
A great quantity of moldy sawdust was scattered about, and the thick
boards of the flooring were broken in many places.
In one corner of the great room was a small trapdoor. Nick lifted it
and found that a straight ladder led to another warehouse, not so lofty
as the one above. Evidently it had been used to store ice, too.
The detective could not understand why there should be this separate
storeroom until he had examined a long tank at one end, and found that
it was an ammonia generator, with an engine underneath.
“They used to make artificial ice here, I see,” muttered Nick Carter.
He walked very softly across the floor, because he was convinced that
in the room below there were persons who would come after him quickly
if they were aware of his presence.
In a corner of this second room was a sort of vestibule, with two doors.
It was easy to open these doors, for neither was locked.
The detective found himself at the top of a long flight of stairs which
turned sharply not far from the bottom.
From where he stood he could look down into what appeared to be an
office, furnished with a roll-top desk and a chair.
There was other furniture, no doubt. But the desk and chair were all
Nick could see, except the old linoleum with which the floor was
covered.
Low voices came to him--so low that if his ears had not been sharper
than those of most people, he would not have been able to make out what
was being said.
As it was, he not only caught the words, but also he recognized the
voices as those of Don Solado and Prince Miguel.
Solado was speaking when Nick Carter first heard any of the
conversation, and what he said was of personal interest to the
detective.
“Now we know who that man is who pretended to be Marcos,” were Solado’s
words, bitten off with a spitefulness that told how viciously in
earnest he was, “the thing to do is to get him out of the way.”
“Permanently?” asked Miguel, in a languid tone.
“Permanently,” came the quick assent. “We can’t afford to have an
interfering individual like him disturbing us when we are planning for
the welfare of our beloved country, Joyalita.”
“Solado!” interrupted Miguel.
“Well?”
“You would oblige me if you were not quite so much of a humbug.”
“Your highness?” spluttered Solado, his tone indicating that he was
much scandalized.
“You know what I mean, Solado,” was the imperturbable response. “Don’t
be so confoundedly diplomatic. Call a spade a spade, and don’t try to
fool either yourself or me.”
“I don’t understand----”
“Oh, yes, you do. This talk about working for the welfare of our
beloved country is all very well when you are speaking for the benefit
of strangers, and I have no objection to your giving it to Marcos,
himself. But it only wastes precious time when you and I are alone
together.”
Nick Carter listened with more intentness than ever. He had learned, at
the very beginning, that there was a plot to kill him--or to get him
out of the way for a long time. He did not quite know what was meant
by “permanently,” although he could guess. But he had found out now
that Marcos was somewhere close at hand--doubtless in the power of
these two traitorous rascals.
“What I was going to say,” went on Solado, “is that there is a strong
reason for getting this American detective out of the way. He is taking
too active a part in this matter. I do not feel that we have Marcos
safe even now until we have pared the claws of Carter.”
“You’re right to a certain extent, Solado,” was the response. “It would
be well to stop this detective if we could. But I suggest that our
first business is to take Marcos away, so that there will be no danger
of his getting back to Joyalita by the eighteenth.”
“Isn’t he safe enough here?” asked Solado.
“He would be safer out at sea. Then we should not have to fear the
detective, even though we were not able to dispose of him--permanently,
as you so humanely put it,” returned Miguel, with a grin.
“The blackguards!” muttered Nick Carter, over their heads.
“You forget that assistant of his,” came from Solado, in response to
Miguel’s suggestion. “What are we to do with him?”
“I thought it was settled what was to be done with him,” answered
Miguel, in a more earnest tone than he yet had used. “There is a lot of
ammonia stored in the lower part of this building, isn’t there?”
“Yes, but----”
“There is no ‘but’ about it,” broke in the other man impatiently. “If
you only had a little more red blood in you, Solado, instead of being
always afraid to do what common sense dictates, we should have had
Marcos safe long ago, and we shouldn’t be bothered with this detective
and his man, as we are. Are you going to forget that he had handcuffs
on us, and that, if it hadn’t been for Dugan and his men, we might have
been in that prison over in New York now?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” hissed Solado. “There will be an
international inquiry into that outrage when we get back to Joyalita.
The heir presumptive to the throne and the prime minister can’t be
treated as felons without making trouble.”
“Bah!”
“I mean what I say!” shouted Solado, who seemed to lose control of
himself as he thought of the indignity that had been put upon him. “We
are guests of a civilized country--men of substance and wealth. We
were torn away from our private yacht and treated like criminals, just
because this man, Nicholas Carter, seems to be in the way of Prince
Marcos.”
“A good way to put it,” sneered Miguel. “And I have no objection to
your taking up the matter with the United States government when once
we are safely in our own country. At present, it would be well to take
the law into our own hands.”
“What do you mean?”
Miguel leaned a little closer to his fellow conspirator, so that the
light of the kerosene lamp fell full upon the hard, evil features of
the pair. Nick Carter instinctively bent over the crazy banister to
listen.
“I mean just this, Solado: If this place should accidentally catch
fire, there is ammonia enough stored in the basement to make a smoke
that would soon settle the business of any one who had to inhale it----”
“Well?”
“Where is that fellow?”
“Who? The assistant? He’s down there somewhere. So is Marcos.”
“They’re not together?”
“Of course not. Dugan put them in separate cellars. There are four
cellars and they have been used as storage places for different
materials ever since the building was no longer used as an ice house.”
“You have allowed Marcos to have cigarettes?”
“Yes. He smokes most of the time. That’s his chief amusement--except
when I go down to see him. Then he changes his occupation by abusing
me.”
“Very well. Where are Dugan and his men?”
“They are coming to-night to help me get Marcos away. It isn’t safe to
leave him here. The house stands by itself, and we don’t know who might
come to see what we are doing.”
“Dugan has it leased at present, hasn’t he?”
“Yes. He has some portable property he did not want to keep in New
York, so he took this place for a year, under the name of Morrison. And
there is a lot of stuff in one of the four cellars belonging to him. He
will take that to-night, when we move Marcos. His men will be with him,
and he will do everything at once.”
“Where did you intend to put Marcos?”
“Dugan has a place where he will be safe--in New York. It is a tenement
somewhere. He would not give me the address, but he will take us all
there.”
“I think the yacht would be the best plan. Let it go away, down the
coast somewhere. Then perhaps we could lose Marcos in Mexico. You know
there is a lot of promiscuous shooting in that region at present. It
would need only a bare hint to make some of those officious Mexicans
take a man as a spy and shoot him before he could explain.”
Miguel was a savage-looking fellow at best. When he made this
deliberately cold-blooded proposition he looked positively fiendish.
“Very well,” returned Solado. “I’m willing. But we will leave the other
fellow in the cellar.”
“You mean Carter’s man?”
“Yes.”
For a few seconds the two plotters looked directly into each other’s
eyes. Then, slowly, each reached a hand across the table, and the two
shook hands upon it.
“The scoundrels!” muttered Nick Carter. “I’m glad I got here in time.
Actually they are going to kill Chick right in this building. They
can’t mean anything else. Well, I’ll----”
He turned quickly, determined to get out, go down the chute, and, with
Patsy, make his way to the basement in another way.
It would not be difficult to effect an entrance, for all the doors were
of old and weather-rotted wood, and he could break through any of them,
he was sure.
When once he had Chick and Marcos outside in safety, he would go after
Solado and Miguel. He was resolved, too, that they would not get away
this time.
Later, he would lay a trap for Dugan and his gang, and thus clean
up the whole job in a neat and expeditious way, and without the
expenditure of very much labor.
Probably Nick Carter would have carried out his plans exactly as he had
planned them, but for an unforeseen accident.
As he turned to go away from the place where he had been standing on
the stairs, listening to the edifying conversation below, he chanced to
lean rather hard against the banister.
With a loud crack, it gave way. The detective, losing his balance,
turned a complete somersault to the room below, landing on his head and
shoulders on the table.
The table collapsed under his weight; the lamp smashed--fortunately,
going out, instead of blowing up--and Nick Carter, stunned, and for the
moment helpless, felt himself rudely grasped by somebody and tumbled in
a heap down a steep flight of stairs.
When he reached the bottom he was quite unconscious.