THE GANG AND THE GAME.
Patsy Garvan heard, with a thrill of dismay, the threatening commands
that suddenly broke the silence behind him. He heard, too, a vicious
oath that came with a wolfish growl from David Margate, when he leaped
from his chair and rushed toward the rear door of the house, immediately
followed by Busby and the woman.
“Gee whiz! I’m caught hands down,” was the thought that leaped up in
Patsy’s mind, as he turned and gazed over his shoulder.
One glance was enough to confirm his misgivings. Two men were standing
about four feet behind him, both stocky, dark-featured fellows, and both
held a revolver ready for instant use. That they were the two men he had
heard mentioned, Dunbar and Haley, Patsy also rightly inferred.
“Come down here,” Dunbar repeated, brandishing his weapon. “Be quick
about it, too, or I’ll plug you with a bullet.”
Patsy saw that he had no sane alternative, that his own promising
designs were nipped in the bud, and that the discovery of his identity
by Margate was almost inevitable.
He met the situation with characteristic coolness, nevertheless, though
thoroughly disgusted with the ominous turn of affairs. He sprang down
from the window, replying curtly:
“Save your bullets. You may need them later.”
“Now or later matters little to us,” snapped Dunbar, thrusting his
revolver under Patsy’s nose. “Shove up your hands and give an account of
yourself. What do you want here?”
“You wouldn’t fancy hearing just what I want,” Patsy said dryly.
He had no opportunity to say more, for Margate and Busby rushed out of
the house at that moment, and Patsy found himself confronted by the four
men, and his escape a decidedly remote possibility.
“What’s this, Dunbar?” Margate demanded sharply. “Who is the fellow.
What was he doing here?”
“It’s easy to say what he was doing, Dave,” replied Dunbar, pointing to
the window. “It’s not so easy to say who he is.”
“He’s an infernal spy, Dave, that’s what he is,” put in Haley.
“We’ll very soon find out,” said Margate, glaring at Patsy in the faint
glow cast from the curtained window. “Bring him into the house. Keep him
covered, mind you, and shoot him if he lowers a finger.”
“Let me alone for that,” growled Dunbar. “Get a move on, young fellow,
or you’ll hear something drop.”
Patsy made no comments, nor offered any resistance. He followed Margate
and Busby into the house, their two confederates bringing up in the
rear. He heard one of them close and bolt the heavy door, while he
passed through a dimly lighted passageway, and he presently found
himself confronted by all four in the glare of the chemist’s laboratory.
Margate, in his apprehension and excitement, had not delayed to resume
his disguise. Viewing Patsy in the bright light, moreover, he instantly
penetrated that worn by the detective, partly because of the suspicion
he already entertained.
“Just as I thought,” he cried quickly. “He is one of Carter’s push, that
bright rat known as Patsy Garvan. Get his guns, Haley, and secure his
hands behind him. Be sure you make them fast. Push up that window,
Busby, and pull the curtain to the top. We’ll mighty soon find out what
sent him here and where we stand.”
He tore off Patsy’s disguise while speaking, and his confederates
hastened to obey his commands. In less time than would be required to
describe their doings in detail, Patsy was deprived of his two
revolvers, his arms secured behind him, the window closed, and the
curtain completely drawn, precluding further observation from outside.
Margate, in the meantime, appeared to regain his composure. That he
regarded Patsy’s presence there as exceedingly ominous, moreover, was
manifest in the expression that had settled on his white, hard-set face.
It reflected all that was devilish in his nature, giving the lie to his
outward calmness, and evincing the vicious determination and designs
back of his self-restraint. Such men are most to be feared.
“Now, Haley, slip out and have a look around the house,” he directed.
“Make sure that no one else is nosing around here. I reckon you’ll find
no one. I think I now see through Carter’s game of this evening and why
this rat is here. If I am right, we shall never leave here alive to tell
the story. Slip out and have a look, Haley, nevertheless. We’ll take no
needless chances.”
Haley pulled his woolen cap over his brow and hastened from the house.
Margate pointed to the chair directly opposite that which he had taken.
“Sit down, Garvan, and feel yourself at home!” he commanded, with
ominous politeness. “You may as well, since you are booked to remain
here.”
Patsy obeyed, sitting down and speaking for the first time since
entering the house.
“Is that so?” he inquired indifferently.
“Decidedly so.”
“Well, this is not so bad,” Patsy dryly observed, gazing around.
“It will be bad enough, Garvan, you’ll find,” Margate more sternly
informed him. “Your work of to-night will prove disastrous for you. The
discovery of my identity is the worst discovery you could have made. It
leaves me no alternative.”
“You mean?”
“I must effectually silence you.”
“Ah, I see.”
“And that can be done in only one way.”
“By wiping me off the map, I suppose?”
“Exactly. Dead men tell no tales.”
“So I have heard,” said Patsy, as complacently as if discussing the
price of ice. “Nevertheless, Mr. Margate, I am glad that I have unmasked
you. I will confess, too, that I was never more surprised in my life. So
I am to be turned toes up, am I?”
“As sure as you are looking at me at this moment,” Margate coldly
informed him.
“Well, that’s reasonably sure,” said Patsy. “I almost feel myself going.
Before the final trick is turned, however, I really wish you would
answer one question.”
“What question, Garvan?”
“How the dickens did you contrive to give us the slip a year ago?”
Margate smiled derisively.
Patsy knew that he was exceedingly proud of his evil exploits, and he
felt sure that he would answer the question. His chief motive for asking
it, however, was to gain time in which to consider his own situation,
and to devise, if possible, a way of escape from the fate that
threatened him.
“That puzzles you, does it?” said Margate, still with a sinister smile.
“Very much,” Patsy frankly admitted. “How did you accomplish it?”
“Oh, you Carters are not the whole shooting match,” Margate coldly
answered. “If Chick Carter’s bullet had struck me half an inch lower,
nevertheless, it would have ended me,” he added, pointing to the scar on
his head.
“I guessed that much,” nodded Patsy.
“But ‘a miss is as good as a mile,’” said Margate. “It knocked me out,
and I pitched overboard. Luckily, however, the chill of the water
instantly revived me.”
“But you did not rise to the surface,” said Patsy. “Chick was dead sure
of that.”
“Not for some little time. It was not necessary.”
“You can live under water, eh?”
“I did at that time, Garvan, long enough to reach a point where none of
you ferrets were looking for me.”
“But how did you turn the trick?” Patsy persisted.
“With a piece of rubber pipe about two feet long,” Margate coolly
informed him. “I had picked it up on the launch, apprehending trouble,
and slipped it into my pocket. When I found myself rising to the
surface, knowing I was in bad and a gone goose if I was seen, I slipped
one end of the tube into my mouth and thrust the other end above the
surface, in order to breathe through the pipe. I then paddled downstream
with the current, and without showing on the surface. That’s all there
was to it, Garvan. A very simple trick, you see.”
Patsy expressed his appreciation with a nod.
“Much obliged,” he said tersely. “It was more than a simple trick, Mr.
Margate. It was a very clever one. You lived up to your reputation,
Margate, for fair.”
Margate’s eyes took on a more sinister gleam.
“I fooled you completely, didn’t I?” he exclaimed.
“You certainly did,” Patsy admitted.
“Nick Carter still thinks I am dead, doesn’t he?”
Patsy hesitated, not inclined to further expose his own hand, and
Margate quickly added, with a sharper ring in his sinister voice:
“Oh, you need not reply. I already know it. If Carter had the slightest
suspicion that I am alive, you would have been informed of it, and would
have felt no surprise when you saw me. That’s as plain as twice two.”
“Well, I guess you are right,” Patsy admitted, unable to deny it.
“I know I am right.”
“Let it go at that, then.”
Patsy spoke with an indifference that Margate was quick to resent. He
drew up in his chair. A look of intense hatred and bitter contempt
appeared on his drawn, white face.
“No, I’ll not let it go at that,” he retorted. “I’ll hand you the whole
business, if only to show you how little we fear Nick Carter and his
entire push. It will never go farther through your lips. I’ll make dead
sure of that.”
His frowning observers, mute observers of the scene, appeared surprised
at these daring declarations, but none ventured to interfere.
Patsy was less surprised, for he was quick to detect the bitter feelings
that impelled the rascal. Nor did he object, of course, for he was more
than willing for him to continue.
Margate did so without hardly a moment’s hesitation.
“I have a good cause to hate him, Garvan, as you very well know, but I
do not fear him,” he went on, with icy asperity. “Nick Carter never saw
the day that he could throw me down and keep me down. I now see through
his scheme of to-night. He suspects me of the Thorpe murder. He feared
that I would play the eavesdropper this evening, knowing that he was
closeted with Clayton, and he left you to watch me, Garvan, while he
cleared out as if void of suspicion.”
“That calls the turn, Margate, all right,” said Patsy, seeing nothing to
be lost by admitting it, and aiming to lead him on.
“It was one of Carter’s crafty tricks, a ruse I ought to have suspected.
But it’s booked to fall flat. For having got you, Garvan, he shall never
know what you have learned, nor what becomes of you.”
“I can see my finish, all right,” Patsy dryly allowed.
“You are not the only one booked for a finish,” Margate quickly
asserted. “It’s Nick Carter’s fault, not mine, that your death and
theirs have become necessary. I could have played my game without that,
if he had kept out of it.”
“You’re out to get part of Clayton’s fortune, are you?”
“Most of it, Garvan, would hit nearer the mark.”
“How can that be done?”
“It can be done, all right, in spite of Nick Carter and the slip-up of
three nights ago,” Margate curtly predicted. “My likeness to Clayton
makes it possible. It can be done like breaking sticks.”
“You look precisely like him, all right,” nodded Patsy.
“No need of telling me that. I twice have taken advantage of our
resemblance, and I framed up this job more than three months ago. The
only difficulty lay in the fact that he had become much more fleshy than
I, and that had to be overcome.”
“How overcome?”
“By reducing him to my weight, of course.”
“Evidently, Margate, that now has been done.”
“You bet it has, Garvan, and I’m the one who accomplished it,” Margate
declared, still impelled with vicious pride. “I framed up the whole job.
I took Dunbar into it and had him resign his position, only that I might
become Clayton’s private secretary and make myself familiar with his
home habits and every detail of his business.”
“What was the need of that?” inquired Patsy, though the audacious
project now was becoming quite plain to him.
Margate laughed derisively.
“You now would see my scheme, Garvan, if you were not so thick-headed,”
he replied. “I’m going to abduct Clayton for about a week, with the help
of these good friends of mine. I shall take his place during that time,
discarding my disguise and assuming not only most of his domestic
duties, but also obtain complete control of his business affairs. A week
will suffice, Garvan. I can in that time get away with all of the cash,
bonds, and securities he possesses, which I already know aggregate more
than a million. I can get all of them, Garvan, and turn them into cash
within a week. Let me alone for that.”
“Oh, I see!” exclaimed Patsy. “Though Clayton is to be abducted, his
private secretary is the one who will appear to have suddenly vanished.”
“Exactly,” nodded Margate. “I shall become Chester Clayton long enough
to get in my work. Then I will completely vanish. You can safely gamble
on that.”
“It’s a clever scheme, Mr. Margate,” said Patsy, as if impressed with
the feasibility of the audacious scheme. “No less accomplished a man
than you, nevertheless, could pull off such a job.”
“I’ll make good, all right.”
“Very likely.”
“And in spite of Nick Carter,” Margate added, with a sneer.
“I really begin to think so,” Patsy allowed, as dismally as if he really
meant it. “How have you contrived to reduce Clayton’s flesh and bring
him down to your weight?”
“By means of a compound Busby has provided. That’s why he’s in the
game. I gave him the formula, and he delivered the goods.”
“How could you administer it to Clayton without his knowledge?”
“Easily,” said Margate, with an evil leer. “It is tasteless and
colorless. It was only necessary to inject it into Clayton’s cigars.”
“Ah, I see,” said Patsy. “Very clever, Margate, indeed. I remember that
you are well informed about certain kinds of drugs and poisons, chiefly
those that serve your own evil ends. It strikes me, Margate, that----”
“Never mind what strikes you,” snarled Busby, interrupting, after a
whispered conference with Dunbar and Haley, the latter having returned a
few moments before.
Margate swung round in his chair.
“How long is this to continue, Dave?” Busby impatiently added. “What’s
to be gained by it? There’s no telling what more Carter may have up his
sleeve. He already suspects enough to throw us down, if all you have
said is true and he shows up to-morrow with that Philadelphia
specialist. What’s to be done to head him off? I’m not so sure it can be
done. You certainly are wasting time, Dave, wasting time.”
Margate jerked out his watch and glanced at it. His countenance changed
like a flash.
“You are right, Busby,” he cried, starting up from his chair. “It can be
done, all right, as I soon will show you. No ruse by Nick Carter shall
foil us at this stage of the game. We already have thwarted him by
getting Garvan into our clutches. This way, all of you, for half a
minute. I can tell you in less time how it may be done.”
He strode to one corner of the laboratory, where, for several minutes,
he talked in earnest whispers with his three confederates.
Patsy Garvan could only wait and watch them. That they would kill him
without shrinking, in order to carry out their knavish designs, he had
not a doubt. That was plainly manifested in their evil faces.
So, too, was the seeming feasibility of the steps now advocated by
Margate to thwart the threatening efforts of Nick Carter. That his
project would serve their purpose, that they still had their infamous
game well in hand, all finally seemed to agree.
For Busby suddenly turned and hastened to one of the shelves, from which
he selected a small vial and gave it to Margate, remarking grimly:
“One injection of that will do the business.”
“Leave us to do the rest, then,” returned Margate, then hastily resuming
his disguise. “Look after this rat, Busby, and keep a constant eye on
him. You had better drug him, also, to relieve you of further trouble.
We can turn the trick in half an hour. One o’clock sharp, Dunbar, mind
you, in the gloom under the porte-cochère.”
“We’ll be there, Dave,” said Dunbar, with an assuring nod.
“And back here in thirty minutes,” Margate added, about to go. “Leave me
to prepare the way.”
“Gee whiz, but he seems to feel dead sure of it!” thought Patsy, grimly
watching him. “It’s dead lucky, too, that the chief has an anchor to the
windward. Though one ruse appears to have failed, he may make good with
the other.”