CAUGHT ON THE FLY.
The three toughs dragged Marcos across the floor and behind the screen
so quickly that he was gone before Miguel had time to rise from his
chair.
Obviously his intention was to help the three gangsters, but they did
not need him, a fact that he recognized even as they disappeared.
“That’s the end of that, Solado,” remarked Miguel carelessly. “Those
fellows will take him to their joint, as they call it, downtown, in
New York, and there he will stay till we have completed the treaty in
Joyalita----”
“With you as the ruler, under the protection of our allies,” added
Solado, grinning. “That sounds good. But, if we are going to save
trouble immediately, we ought to use the yacht and get him out to sea
for a few weeks.”
“I don’t see that he would be any safer at sea than shut up in some
secret den in New York, with these determined-looking gentry we have
hired to look after him.”
“He would be safer at sea,” hissed Solado, “because accidents happen at
sea. Yachts sometimes get into trouble on the ocean and are never heard
of again.”
“You’re a cold-blooded rascal, Solado!”
“Not any more than yourself,” was the retort. “Only, when I undertake
anything, I like to make sure that it is done completely. I have some
stake in all this as well as yourself, remember.”
“Exactly!” laughed Miguel. “You are still to be at the head of the
government--under me, and you want to be sure of your job. Well, I
don’t blame you. But, for the present, we’ll let Dugan take care of my
dear Cousin Marcos.”
He got up and bent over Jason.
“He won’t die!” he decided calmly, as he might have expressed judgment
on a half-drowned kitten. “That cuff on the side of his head will be a
useful warning to him not to be insolent another time. Come on, Solado!
Let’s go and see how they get Marcos away.”
“Wait a moment!” objected Solado. “They can attend to him, without us.
Here are some letters that came for Marcos from Joyalita. We’d better
look them over and see what is to be done with them. There is a large
part of the population on Marcos’ side, you know, and we can’t take any
chances on rebellion, you know.”
Nick Carter remained long enough to see the two plotters put their
heads together over a bundle of letters on the table. Then he withdrew,
closed the door softly, and rejoined Patsy.
In two minutes more both were at the bottom of the chute, while Patsy
untied the boat.
“I’m glad it is dark, Patsy!” whispered Nick Carter. “They are taking
Marcos away in that boat, and we have to stop them, if we can. If not,
we must trail them till we can get help to take them in.”
“We don’t need help,” snapped Patsy Garvan. “There’s only three of
them, and if we have this Marcos to help us, there’ll be three on our
side. Why, I am almost ashamed to do it. It’s too easy! Are we to
shoot?”
“If we can’t nail them any other way. Have you got handcuffs in your
pocket, Patsy?”
“Two pairs! I figured we’d need them, even if you have a pair----”
“Which I have,” interjected Nick. “I’ll row. Get into the bow, with
your gun in your hand. As soon as you get where you can make a grab at
their boat, cover the nearest man, and I’ll do the same with the next.
Then make a jump.”
“I don’t get you,” admitted Patsy. “Aren’t we liable to tumble into the
water?”
“Not if you do your work right. Their boat is tied up to the stone sill
of the door. All we have to do is to row up level with it, and I’ll get
hold of their gunwale. That will hold us steady, and you can throw your
gun on your man.”
“But you’ll be sitting down, and----”
“I can use a gun sitting down, as well as standing up,” remarked Nick
calmly.
“They are bringing some stuff out of the warehouse,” whispered Patsy.
“Looks like sacks of coal or something.”
“Silver, probably,” interrupted Nick. “Look out! They are all in the
boat except Dugan. You see that man they have sitting in the stern?”
“Yes. Who is he?”
“Marcos.”
“Gee! The king-pin himself! All right! We’ll get him so slick, those
Jimmy toughs will think they are dancing the tango upside down on a
toboggan slide. Just watch me get the drop on that hard-faced guy in
the middle.”
“That’s Foxey Irwin,” remarked Nick.
“Don’t I know it?” was Patsy’s quick rejoinder. “I’m only afraid my
bullet may bounce off his face and fly into bits all over this part of
the meadows.”
Nothing more was said now. Larry Dugan had been piling up sacks of loot
in the boat, and Nick Carter doubted not that his pockets were full of
jewelry and small articles of value generally.
In the doorway stood Solado and Miguel, and Nick noticed that a small
boat, of the same general type as his own and the gangster’s, was
moored at the other side of the door.
“That boat wasn’t there before,” observed Patsy, in a whisper.
“They had it inside,” returned Nick. “Didn’t want to call attention to
their presence.”
“They’re a smooth bunch! Shall we make the rush now?”
“Yes. Be sure to cover your man. That will be Foxey. I’ll get Dugan.”
“Pet Carlin is the most dangerous!” Patsy reminded him.
“I depend on Marcos getting him,” was all Nick said to this.
Like a flash, they shot their boat suddenly out of the tangle of
reeds, and so skillfully did Nick Carter guide the craft, that it
ran alongside the other as evenly as if there had been the utmost
deliberation.
Instantly, excitement broke out in that quiet region, which up till
then had been perfectly silent except for the distant quacking of wild
ducks who had been skimming the water a mile or so away, the rushing of
the evening breeze through the swaying rushes, and the occasional toot
of a railroad locomotive taking home a load of commuters.
Patsy swung his revolver over till its muzzle was exactly opposite
the right eye of Foxey Irwin, while Nick Carter pointed his automatic
steadily at Larry Dugan, with the quiet warning:
“Don’t move, Dugan! Half an inch to one side or the other, and I touch
the trigger.”
“Touch, eh?” sneered Dugan. “Why don’t you pull it while you are about
it--if you have the nerve to shoot at all.”
“A touch is all that is needed with this gun, Dugan,” returned Nick.
“It’s the easiest trigger I ever put my finger on. And I wouldn’t
advise you to test my nerve about shooting.”
Nick Carter would not have parleyed thus if he had not seen that
Marcos had sprung at the throat of Pet Carlin and snatched away that
innocent-looking person’s pistol just as it leaped from his side pocket.
Carlin was known as a “killer,” and there is little doubt that he would
have tried to “get” Nick Carter at the instant that the detective
covered Dugan, if Marcos had not been too quick for him.
Nick had perfect faith in this prince from Joyalita who looked so much
like himself. He had seen that Marcos never permitted himself to get
rattled, but was always in complete control of his nerves.
So, when Marcos leaped at Carlin just as the other boat swung
alongside, anticipating, by a sliver of a second, the drawing of Pet’s
gun, it was no more than Nick Carter had felt sure would happen.
“Put on the cuffs, Patsy!” whispered Nick to his assistant. “Get Foxey
first. Then take Dugan.”
“What about the guys in the doorway?” asked Patsy, as he prepared to
obey orders.
“I’ll look after them. They’ve got to show me where Chick is.”
“That’s right! Look out, Foxey!”
This last ejaculation had been caused by a sudden twitch on the
part of Foxey Irwin, as Patsy, having stepped from one boat to the
other, snapped a handcuff on Foxey’s right wrist before he knew what
threatened him.
“I’ll croak you when I get out of this, Garvan,” hissed Foxey.
“Maybe! But that will be in about seven years’ time, when you come down
from up the river, and there’s no telling what may happen before that,”
replied Patsy, undisturbed.
At the same moment he caught Foxey Irwin’s left wrist and trapped it in
the other cuff. Patsy had been taught to put on handcuffs long ago, and
he could do the work so neatly that it looked like sleight-of-hand to
an unaccustomed eye.
Meanwhile, Nick Carter had handcuffed Dugan on his left wrist, holding
the other steel bracelet in his own left hand, while his right kept the
automatic pointed at Dugan’s forehead.
Then it was that the detective worked a little trick on Larry Dugan and
Foxey Irwin that he had found useful in dealing with other gentry of
their unscrupulous character.
Suddenly pulling Foxey toward him, while giving Dugan a push, he passed
the chain of the loose handcuff around the connecting links on Foxey’s
hands, and instantly snapped the manacle on Dugan’s right wrist.
The net result of the maneuver was that the two scoundrels were
handcuffed to each other, face to face, and about as helpless as a
horse in a balloon.
“Lend me that extra pair of yours, Patsy!” called out Nick.
Patsy gave him the other handcuffs, and they were snapped around Pet
Carlin’s wrists with disconcerting celerity, while Nick drew the young
gunman’s second pistol from an outside pocket and placed it in his own.
“Better draw those cuffs tight, chief!” warned Patsy. “Pet has mighty
pretty hands. If he was a girl, he’d be wearing a finger ring for a
bracelet.”
This advice was not called for, however. Nick Carter had taken
cognizance of the extreme slimness of Pet Carlin’s hand and wrist, and
had drawn the steel cuffs so small that they were quite safe.
Hardly had the detective done all this than he made a leap for his own
boat again and pulled up to the door.
Solado and Miguel were about to beat a retreat in their private skiff.
“Stop!” shouted Nick Carter.
He accentuated his demand by pointing his own pistol and Pet Carlin’s
at the heads of the two conspirators.
They stopped.