AVENGED.
The rope ladder that Chick had used the night before, and which was
again coiled up in its place on the fire-escape balcony, was brought
into use. Nick Carter did not hesitate now, nor did he care who saw his
movements. He was first over the high fence into the next yard, but he
had hardly alighted on the soft earth of the flower bed when Patsy
Garvan was by his side.
“Shoot--to kill!” was Nick Carter’s brief order, as he ran to a brick
structure at the end of the yard. “We’ve got to make sure of those
rascals this time.”
The brick building looked like a garage, but as there was no way for a
motor car to be got into this yard, Nick knew it could not be used for
that purpose. One glance showed him that it was old, and that the
brickwork was shaky. There was a door and one window. The window was
barred.
Nick decided, after a brief survey, that the bars could be torn loose
with some exertion, and he seized one of them with both hands and pulled
with all his might. If the detective had not been a man of extraordinary
muscular power, perhaps he could not have made the bar yield. As it was,
he pulled it out of one end after a few minutes’ labor. Then it was
comparatively easy to get the other end out.
This left him room to crawl through. As he dropped to the floor, he saw
somebody lying on the floor, bound hand and foot, and with a cloth
fastened over his mouth, so that he could not utter a sound.
Two or three slashes with his knife, and off came the ropes. At the same
time he loosened the suffocating cloth. Then he lifted Chick to his
feet. To his joy, he saw that his assistant was not hurt. He was
standing up without aid, although obviously he felt very stiff.
“Where are they, Chick? In the house?”
“Yes. There are three of them. Sun Jin, the man with the scars, and
another chink.”
“And who is the third?” asked Nick Carter.
“Professor Tolo, of course. I tell you, chief, that Jap is one of the
worst citizens I ever saw out of jail. He’s going to get us all if we
don’t watch out.”
“Is he?” came grimly from the great detective. “I think not. The
electric chair will get him.”
“It ought to, I believe. But he’s smart enough not to do his own job. He
never has anything to do with the actual use of the crossed needles, and
he is smart enough to make it hard to bring anything definite against
him.”
While Chick was speaking, he was digging at the lock with his
pocketknife, and it was not long before he shot back the lock and pulled
the door open.
Patsy Garvan met them as they went out, and, with his usual recklessness
where his emotions were concerned, threw his arms around Chick’s
shoulders, and shouted, in a powerful voice:
“Good old scout! They didn’t get you! I saw them, and I would have come
over the fence right then if the chief hadn’t phoned me to wait. Come
on, everybody! This is where we get the Yellow Tong and hang it on the
fence to dry, inside out! Wow! Bring on your chinks!”
It was impossible to keep Patsy quiet, as both Nick Carter and Chick
well knew. Now that his blood was up, he must be allowed to have his
fling, regardless of who might hear him.
“Don’t try the door,” warned Chick. “They have it locked and barred. But
you can get through the kitchen window by just breaking the glass and
reaching in to the catch.”
“We’ll cut a hole. That will be better than making a crash by breaking
it,” said Nick.
He took from his portable kit of tools a glazier’s diamond, and cut a
square hole in the glass as neatly as if it were his regular business.
He pinched the piece of glass with his nimble fingers before it could
fall to the floor inside, and had the catch pushed back almost in the
same movement. The next moment he was in the kitchen, pistol in hand,
while his two assistants also came through.
So far they had not heard a sound in the house. Yet there could be no
question that somebody was there, for only just before Patsy Garvan had
seen the three men carrying Chick’s bound figure down the yard, to
deposit it in the brick tool house.
These three men might have gone out by the front door. But, according to
Patsy, the caretaker was still there, because he had come out only a
minute before Nick opened the study door. Patsy had watched him from the
window, and had seen him go down the yard to look at the outside of the
tool house. Then he had sauntered back, lighted a pipe, and gone into
the house, smoking, as if he had no intention of moving away--for a
while, at all events.
“We’ve got to get that caretaker, first of all,” whispered Nick.
He opened the door of the kitchen that led to the other part of the
house, closely followed by his two assistants.
There was a dark hall which seemed to run through to the front door, and
the three explorers crept along till they got to another door. When they
opened this, they were startled by a rush of sunlight. It gave out upon
the little, paved yard in front of the house, with the avenue beyond.
Standing in the yard and leaning over the iron railings, as he puffed at
a pipe so strong that it polluted the whole block, was the caretaker. He
was enjoying the leisurely panorama of the early morning, apparently
with nothing on his mind.
Nick pulled his assistants back to the dark hall, and locked and bolted
the door in silence.
“He didn’t see us, and we don’t want him to come in,” he whispered. “We
will look through the house. I don’t believe those fellows have gone
out. It is my opinion they intended to go out to the tool house later
and dispose of you, Chick.”
“Very likely,” assented Chick coolly. “I don’t care what they intended,
now that I know they won’t be able to do it. I’m going upstairs.”
“Not without me,” grunted Patsy.
Cautiously they crept up to the main floor, and went into the dining
room, the door of which was a little way open. The curtains were drawn
at the window, but there was enough light for them to see that the
furniture was all shrouded in denim, and that the pictures on the walls
had been covered with sheets.
The effect was ghostly, but it was natural enough. The owners of the
house wanted their belongings to be kept as fresh as possible while they
were away.
The other rooms on this floor were also wrapped in cloths, and all were
so silent that it was difficult to imagine them full of life and
brightness, as probably they were when the family was at home.
To the next floor went the three investigators, and there they found a
handsome drawing-room in front and two smaller rooms behind, that
probably were used as a cardroom and my lady’s special sitting room.
“That’s a fine grand piano over there,” observed Patsy, in a whisper.
“Gee! I’d like to hear some ragtime on that.”
Patsy Garvan had a way of being incongruous without knowing it. When an
idea came into his head, he was liable to give it utterance, regardless
of where he might be.
The piano, covered all over with an immense sheet that hung down on all
sides, had attracted his attention to such a degree that it seemed to
fascinate him. He tiptoed over the luxurious rugs on the polished floor
of the drawing-room until he was close to the piano, and he put his
hands on it.
“Say, chief!” he whispered. “I’m just going to open this music box and
see how it looks inside.”
“Come away!” hissed Chick. “Are you crazy?”
But Patsy either did not hear, or he would not heed. Throwing up the
sheet, as well as the rich, brocaded cover underneath, he opened the
front of the piano, exposing the keyboard, and the magnificent,
pearl-inlaid music desk. Then he spread his fingers over the keys, as if
about to play.
Patsy was a fair performer on the piano, as well as on several other
instruments. He could hardly resist trying this valuable piano. Only the
fear that there might be others in the house besides his two companions,
who would perhaps catch them unawares if he were to make a sound on the
instrument, held him back.
With a sigh, he put down the lid, and was turning away, when he happened
to glance around the side of the piano. It stood across a corner of the
room, leaving a space behind, besides diagonal corners on either side.
Without a word, Patsy flung himself into the three-cornered space at the
back of the piano, and instantly there was an uproar that made it quite
superfluous for Nick and Chick to keep silence any longer.
Patsy struggled out to the middle of the drawing-room. In either hand he
held a Chinaman!
“Come on, Chick! Take one of these!” he shouted. “I’ve got the guy with
the white ear. You take the other one! Look out! Behind you!” he added,
in a shriek.
It was well that he had uttered this warning. Two other Chinamen had
come from the shadows of the other rooms, and each held a knife
uplifted.
Before they could bring the knives down, Nick Carter had shot out his
left fist and felled one, while Chick floored the other.
But this was not the end of the battle. The two men Patsy had seized at
the back of the piano took advantage of the diversion to break away from
him, and the next moment he was dashing down the stairs, after them.
The front door was their objective, but it had been locked and bolted
just as had the one in the basement that Nick Carter had secured. It was
against this door that the fight came to an issue.
Patsy Garvan did not hesitate to rush in. He slammed one of the Chinamen
on the chin and crumpled him up. It made him smile with satisfaction as
he noted that it was the one with the scarred ear.
Before he could give attention to the other man, that snarling
individual had drawn something from the folds of his blue blouse that
glistened evilly in the half light of the hall.
Whatever it was, Patsy determined not to wait for it. Letting fly with
his right fist--and missing, as the Chinaman ducked, he seized him by
the throat with the other hand. There was a gurgling hiss, and then the
fellow went down on top of his fellow rascal.
A scream--loud, long drawn out, and unearthly--came from the man with
the scarred ear, who was underneath, and the awful cry was echoed by the
Chinaman on top. Then both were still.
Patsy Garvan stood looking at them in astonishment, when Nick Carter
came down with a rush and ran to the help of his petrified assistant.
“Got ’em, Patsy?”
“I think so. But they seemed to give out all at once, without me
touching them. That is, after I’d slung this one on top of the other.”
Nick Carter did not answer, but a look of understanding came into his
keen eyes, as he pulled the top Chinaman off of his comrade and laid him
on his back. Then he took out his pocket flash and turned it first on
one senseless figure, and then the other.
Deeply embedded in the chest of the underneath man--the Chinaman with
the scarred ear and the burned finger, from which the rag had been
removed--were the poisoned crossed needles with which the detective had
become so strangely familiar in the last two days.
He hastily tore open the front of the blouse and shirt away from the
chest of the other. There were the two little marks which showed that
he, too, had died from the same horrible death as his companion.
“It’s clear enough,” said Nick quietly. “When you flung this man on top
of the other, the needles were driven into both of them. It was poetic
justice. The murder of Andrew Anderton has been avenged.”
“This one with the scarred ear is the fellow who actually killed Mr.
Anderton, wasn’t he?” asked Patsy.
“Yes, I have ample proof of that. This other man was concerned in it,
too. The only thing I want now is to get the archconspirator--the man
who arranged the murder--Sang Tu.”
“You mean Professor Tolo, don’t you?” asked Patsy.
“It may turn out to be the same thing,” returned Nick Carter. “We shall
have to find that out later. Hello, Chick!” he called up the stairs.
“Have you got those two fellows, all right?”
“Yes,” replied Chick. “I have handcuffs on both of them. What am I to do
with them now?”
“I’ll go out and grab that caretaker. Then I’ll bring him in and make
him telephone to the police station for a patrol wagon. I don’t know how
deep he is in this thing. He can explain that to the police.”
“Why don’t you telephone, yourself, chief?” asked Chick. “They’d
probably pay more attention to you than to the old man.”
“Yes, and they’d question me more than I care for, too,” replied Nick.
“I don’t want to answer questions until I am face to face with the man
who asks them. This case isn’t wound up yet, you know.”
THE END.
* * * * *
“The Forced Crime; or, Nick Carter’s Brazen Clew,” will be the title of
the long, complete story which you will read in the next issue, No. 152,
of the NICK CARTER STORIES, out August 7th. In the forthcoming story
you will find more of the adventures of the famous detective in running
down the members of the Yellow Tong. Then, too, you will also find
several articles of interest, together with an installment of the serial
now appearing.
Sheridan of the U. S. Mail.
By RALPH BOSTON.
(This interesting story was commenced in No. 148 of NICK CARTER
STORIES. Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer
or the publishers.)