AN OFFER OF LIBERTY.
When Nick Carter and Patsy began to row toward the back of the
warehouse, both were on the alert for any enemy who might be on the
watch.
The famous detective knew by experience that the time to expect a
hostile surprise was the moment when everything seemed safe, and he was
not deceived by the apparent serenity around him.
“Pull into the reeds, Patsy!” he whispered hurriedly.
Patsy obeyed without asking why. He had not seen anything suspicious,
but he knew Nick Carter would not give an order without some good
reason.
Once in the shelter of the thick, tall grass, however, Patsy looked at
his chief for an explanation.
“There’s a boat at the back door, Patsy! I can see only the end of the
rudder. But that is enough to tell us that if we were around the corner
we should come upon the boat itself. You sit still. I’ll take the oars.”
Patsy yielded the oars without a word.
With extreme caution, Nick Carter pulled through the reeds, without
coming out, until he had a clear view of the back door.
Larry Dugan, in the bow of a serviceable skiff--flat-bottomed and
solid, like Carter’s--was knocking at the heavy door with a blackjack.
Pet Carlin was in the stern, and Foxey Irwin sat amidships, oars in his
hands.
It was almost dark by this time, and, if the reeds which concealed Nick
Carter’s boat had not grown almost up to the warehouse, it would have
been impossible to make out the door at all.
When Dugan had tapped twice with his lead-weighted, short club, it
swung open a little way, and a head protruded.
“Hello, Dugan!”
“Miguel!” muttered Nick Carter. “What’s the game, I wonder.”
“All right, boss!” was Larry Dugan’s response. “We’re ready! Let me in!”
“What do you want to come in for?” demanded Miguel. “Your man is ready
to pass out.”
“That may be. But we’ve got other business beside taking this guy
away,” growled Dugan. “There’s some stuff of mine in this house that I
have to get.”
“I’d forgotten that,” returned Miguel. “Come in, then.”
“I’m coming!” grunted Dugan.
He stepped out of the boat to the stone sill of the door, and, as he
disappeared, Foxey Irwin followed.
It was just as Foxey went into the warehouse that another man in the
boat, who had been lying along the bottom, as if anxious to keep out of
sight, raised himself slightly, so that he could peer over the gunwale.
“That makes four of ’em, chief,” remarked Patsy Garvan in a whisper.
“Well, I reckon we can get away with them, especially if we get Chick
going strong.”
“Silence!” was all Nick Carter answered.
He was trying to make out the features of this man. But it was not till
the fellow had straightened up and stepped into the doorway, where
the light of a lantern showed by this time, that Nick saw he was a
pale-faced, slick-haired personage, who seemed to be in mortal terror
of personal injury of some kind.
“That fellow looks like a cur,” broke out the irrepressible Patsy.
“Gee! I’d like to land on him with my left. S’help me! I’d send in a
jolt right from my heels.”
“Why? Do you know the man?” asked Nick, with a momentary hope that his
assistant might be able to give him some information he wanted. “Ever
seen him before?”
“Nix! But I don’t like his face. His ears aren’t set on right, and
there’s too much bulge each side of his nose. I want to hand him one on
general principles, and if you say the word, I’ll----”
“Keep quiet!” ordered Nick sternly. “There go the other two, and they
have left their boat tied up outside.”
Patsy did not speak. But he wondered what was to be the next move.
He did not have long to speculate, for Nick Carter rowed swiftly around
the warehouse until he was under the end of the chute by which he had
gained entrance before.
“Make the boat fast and come after me, Patsy!”
Patsy deftly hitched the painter rope around the bottom of the chute
and knotted it in such a way that there was no fear of its slipping.
Then he looked at his chief for further commands.
“Good knot, Patsy!” commended Nick Carter, whose quick eyes took in all
details, even when he seemed to be occupied with something else. “Where
did you learn it?”
“Went across to Liverpool on an old windjammer when I was a kid. I
was too small to go aloft, except in good weather, but you can bet I
learned a lot about bending ropes, and I can make ’most any knot that
was known in those days.”
Patsy said this without anything suggesting bragging. He was merely
telling a commonplace truth, as he looked up at Nick Carter to see what
he was to do next.
“Come up this chute, after me. Have your gun ready. I mean your pistol;
not your duck gun. Keep close to me, but don’t do anything till I give
the word. And, above all, don’t make a noise.”
Patsy nodded his comprehension of all this, and crawled up the
long chute just behind Nick as softly as a kitten walking across a
short-cropped lawn.
With his knife, it took the detective only about half a minute to
negotiate the bolted door.
Once in the room where Nick Carter had been before, Nick took out his
flash lamp and threw its white glow all about the room.
It was empty, and the heaps of moldy sawdust that he had observed the
first time were still undisturbed, showing that nobody had been moving
about since he had left the place.
“Ah!” he muttered. “There’s the trapdoor in the corner. We’ll go down
there.”
He pointed his flash at the corner, and Patsy understood, even though
he had not caught Nick’s whispered observations.
Once in the room below, Nick Carter was able to look down the staircase
with the broken banister into the office he had been surveying when he
had his unfortunate tumble.
“They are not here,” he remarked, in a low tone, to Patsy. “There is
some other office close by. I feel sure. Come on!”
Once in the office where Nick, from the staircase above, had heard the
plotting of Solado and Miguel, he became very busy, searching every
corner and looking behind two other desks he found in the room. He
wanted to make sure no one else was there.
Nick Carter knew the cunning of Solado as well as the vindictiveness
of Miguel, and it would not have surprised him had there been a sudden
attack from ambush.
Even if they had killed him, and it had been brought home to them
afterward, they could plead self-defense, setting up the argument that
even a detective had no right to break into a warehouse that did not
belong to him.
Besides, they would say, naturally, that they did not know he was a
detective.
“But I’ll beat their game, or know the reason why,” he muttered.
In one corner of the office was a square wooden partition, which the
detective believed concealed the door and staircase to the lower part
of the building.
He opened the door of the partition with caution when he found that it
was unlocked. He found himself in a small vestibule, which became pitch
dark when the door swung back on a spring.
Before turning off his flash--which precautionary measure he had taken
ere he let himself into this little lobby--he had seen that there was
another door opposite.
Slowly he opened this door. As he did so, a blinding flash of light
came in his face. He was looking directly into a lamp with a reflector
on the wall of a room adjoining the office from which he had come.
At the same time he was confused by a babel of voices.
It was lucky for Nick Carter that the persons talking were all standing
or sitting with their backs toward him--except one.
This one, whose eyes met his own at the moment he thrust part of his
head through the opening, was the person he wanted to get into touch
with. It was Prince Marcos.
The other three were Solado, Miguel, and the small-eyed, slick-haired
individual who had been lying down in the skiff outside the warehouse
up to the time he entered.
“I’ll give you this last chance, Marcos,” Miguel was saying, in harsh,
insulting tones. “If you will give me your word of honor to remain in
New York for two weeks longer, I will release you at once.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” broke in the slick-haired man. “Keep him where you
can be sure of him.”
Marcos shot a look of indignant anger at the slick-haired man that made
him seem to crumple up, as he said sternly:
“Jason, if ever I get you back in Joyalita, you shall pay for this in
a way you deserve. I ought to have taken notice of the warning I had
before we left home that you were not to be trusted.”
“That’s all right!” snarled Jason. “I was as much to be trusted as any
one, I suppose. There’s Prince Miguel! He’s your cousin, and he’s going
to take your place as head of the country when he gets back. Why don’t
you talk to him. He’s----”
Jason might have said more, for he seemed to be getting more spiteful
as he proceeded. But Miguel suddenly jumped from his chair, and, with a
stifled oath, sent his fist crashing against Jason’s temple.
The rascal fell to the floor without a groan. He did not move afterward.
“Now, Marcos! What do you say?” asked Miguel coolly, as he took his
chair again, without even a glance at the prostrate Jason.
“What do I say?” repeated Marcos. “What do I say? Why, I say that you
are a more contemptible scoundrel than that poor devil you have just
knocked down, and that I shall yet have the pleasure of putting you in
the government prison of Joyalita for treason and abduction.”
“That’s enough!” sneered Miguel. “Go on, Solado!”
Solado rapped with his knuckles on the table before him.
As if he had touched a spring, Larry Dugan, Pet Carlin, and Foxey
Irwin dashed into the room from a doorway hidden from Nick Carter by a
screen, and pulled Marcos off his feet before he saw that anybody was
behind him.