CAUGHT IN A BOX.
Nick Carter gazed for a moment without speaking. The face of the knave
peering in at him wore an expression the detective did not fancy.
Mingled malice, merciless hatred, and vicious exultation were pictured
in every feature of Margate’s white, hardset face. His eyes had a gleam
as cold and murderous as that reflected from a blade of steel. His thin,
cruel lips were drawn like those of a dog about to bite.
“So you’re here again, eh?” he questioned, breaking the momentary
silence.
Nick eyed him sharply, suspecting the truth, yet still maintaining the
part he had undertaken to play.
“Yes, as I agreed,” he replied curtly. “Let me out. Why are you keeping
me here?”
“Aren’t you comfortable?”
“No. It’s close and stuffy.”
“It’s not half as close and stuffy a box as you might land in,” Margate
said, with a malicious grin. “Haven’t you thought of that?”
“I’m not thinking along those lines,” Nick replied. “Come, come, Mr.
Margate, let me out.”
“Not yet,” leered the rascal. “I want to talk with you. Have you brought
the money agreed upon?”
“We’ll discuss that in the room where I previously talked with you,”
said Nick. “I refuse to discuss it, or anything else, as long as you
keep me in this place.”
“Is that so?” sneered Margate. “Listen, then! When you leave it--you’ll
leave it for a worse place.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Can’t you guess? Hold on! Keep your hands in front of you!”
Nick was stealthily reaching toward his hip pocket.
Margate’s sneering voice had taken on a fierce and threatening ring. His
right hand leaped into view at the lighted window, and a revolver was
aimed point-blank at the detective’s breast.
“Don’t try to pull a gun, Carter, or you’ll be a dead one on the
instant,” he now threatened sternly.
“Ah!” Nick exclaimed, casting subterfuge to the winds. “You know me,
then.”
“You bet I know you,” sneered Margate, with vicious asperity. “I have
mighty good cause to know you. I’ve been wise to you from the first--and
I now have you where I want you. You’re going to pay the price for what
you put over on me a month ago.”
“I see,” Nick said coolly, despite the ominous outlook. “You’re a very
clever fellow, Margate, after all.”
“Clever enough to get the best of you.”
“So it appears,” Nick agreed, bent upon learning just what the rascal
knew of his movements and doings. “I did not suppose you were half as
keen. You make me curious.”
“I’ll do more than that to you, Carter,” scowled the other. “Curious
about what?”
“How you discovered my identity. I thought my tracks were perfectly
covered.”
“You did, eh?”
“Otherwise, Margate, I would not be in this box,” said Nick. “You can
bet on that.”
“It looks like a safe bet,” Margate allowed, with a leer. “You’re not
half as crafty, Carter, as you think. Do you suppose for a moment that I
would not make sure that Garland did not send for you?”
“He did not send for me,” Nick replied carelessly, bent upon leading him
on.
“I know he didn’t--but Senator Barclay did.”
“Ah!”
“I’ll soon have both where I want them--as I’ve got you!” Margate
exultantly added.
“Admitting that, which now seems quite probable, I don’t see how you
discovered that Senator Barclay sent for me,” said Nick, pretending he
was merely puzzled and had no covert design.
“You don’t, eh?” leered Margate, evidently pleased to discuss his own
cunning. “I’ll tell you how.”
“Well, I’m listening.”
“I sent a man to watch your New York residence.”
“Ah!”
“I knew that if any detective was employed, you would be the one.”
“I see.”
“And you were seen when you left home alone with a suit case and took
the train for Washington,” Margate went on sneeringly. “You were
shadowed when you arrived at the Willard. You were watched throughout
yesterday. You were seen with Fallon, the infernal dick, dipping into a
mess you had better kept out of. You were seen going in disguise to
Garland’s office, and afterward to his rooms in the Grayling, where he
joined you about five o’clock. You were seen leaving and returning to
the Willard, where you remained until to-night, when you went to his
rooms again and fixed yourself up to turn this trick on me.”
Nick Carter’s face evinced no sign of the satisfaction he now felt.
It was obvious to him that Margate had blundered and been deceived, in
spite of his precautions. He evidently had, or one of his confederates,
been watching Garland in the disguise of the detective, and that none of
them suspected the ruse Nick had adopted.
It was perfectly plain, therefore, that the presence of Chick and Patsy
in Washington was not suspected, and no steps having been taken by the
rascals to guard against what they might accomplish, Nick now felt
reasonably sure that one or both of them would make good along the lines
he had laid out. His own situation did not look nearly as dark as it had
before evoking these disclosures, and Nick was content to meet it as he
found it.
The situation took a more threatening turn, however, sooner than he
really expected.
Seeing Nick apparently nonplussed by what he had heard, Margate laughed
exultantly and quickly added:
“But you’ll turn no trick on me, Carter, take my word for it. The boot
is on the other leg. I still have Garland where I want him, as well as
you. The newspapers tell me all that you have disclosed. I’ll get
Garland later--and finish you at once.”
“Don’t hurry, Margate,” Nick put in coolly. “I’m in no rush.”
“But I am!” snapped the scowling miscreant. “I’m itching to get even
with you, to pay you for what you have done to me, to see you dead at my
feet. It won’t be long, Carter, not long. You shall pay the price. Take
it from me--you shall pay the price!”
The threatening face vanished like a flash with the last.
The panel flew back into place with a sharp, ominous click.
Nick Carter found himself again in inky darkness.
He stepped quickly to the opposite wall and listened at the closed
panel.
He now could hear Margate’s voice in the adjoining corridor, followed by
others replying. They told him only too plainly what fate the miscreants
had in view for him.
“The sooner it’s done, Batty, the better,” Margate was forcibly saying.
“We’ll wait only for Nell to show up. I want her here when we put out
his light. That’s the only sure way to prevent her from peaching, or any
one else. Put them in the same boat with you. Then they’ll never
squeal.”
“That’s right, too, Andy,” declared a voice which Nick recognized as
that of the burly chauffeur.
“Sure it’s right, Baldwin,” Margate returned.
“But where is she, Andy?” Lombard demanded. “You must have seen her this
evening. She hasn’t had charge of the girl since afternoon. When will
she show up?”
“By Jove, they have Lottie Trent here, also,” thought Nick. “There would
be something doing, all right, if I could break out of this thing.”
Listening while indulging in these thoughts, Nick heard Margate reply:
“I left her in Brady’s just before coming out here, before seeing you
and Baldwin start out on this job. She had had no supper, so waited to
get it. She may show up at any moment.”
“But Carter has guns, Andy, and will put up a fight. If----”
“Hang his guns!” Margate cut in harshly. “He’ll get no chance to use
them. We’ll not need a gun.”
“How can you fix him?”
“Dead easy. We’ll attach the hose to the gas meter and run it to the
trap. It will reach from the meter to the elevator shaft. We’ll bore a
hole for it through the plank ceiling. Carter then can’t stop the flow
of gas. We’ll suffocate him like a rat in a copper boiler.”
“That’s the stuff,” growled Baldwin approvingly. “Dead easy is right.”
“Come out to the office,” Margate added. “We’ll wait there till Nell
comes in.”
“But the girl----”
“We’ll silence her later. She can’t get out. I’ve made sure of that.
Come out to the office.”
Nick heard their heavy tread through the corridor and up a short flight
of stairs, which convinced him that he was in the basement of some
building.
“By Jove, I’ve got to make a bid for liberty, at least,” he said to
himself.
Whipping out his electric searchlight, he at once began a hurried
inspection of the four walls and the section where the panel was
located. He saw plainly that the trap had been constructed on a small
elevator, and so made that it could be opened only from the outside. He
quickly found, moreover, that the planking was of sufficient strength to
preclude escape, nor could he start the panel in either direction.
“By gracious, it don’t look very promising,” Nick muttered, grim and
frowning. “But there’ll be some gun play, all right, if the rascals try
to bore a hole through this ceiling. I’ll foil them yet, barring----”
Nick then was given the surprise of his life.
A sharp click broke his train of thought. The door of the trap flew open
and a girl stood directly in front of him in the lighted corridor.
She was deathly pale and frightfully excited, but her eyes were aglow
with fierce determination. Her hair and garments were in disorder. Her
lace collar was stained with blood. She was trembling from head to foot
with frantic eagerness.
“I heard them--I know!” she wildly whispered. “I’m Lottie Trent. I was
imprisoned in that room opposite. I picked the lock with a hairpin. I
had seen them open this door and knew you could not----”
Her torrent of words was cut short by the sudden sharp crack of a
revolver.
A bullet splintered the woodwork above her head.
“They’ve heard me!” she gasped.
Nick already had seized her and drawn her into the trap, beyond reach of
bullet from that end of the corridor where Margate and his two
confederates were plunging down a low flight of stairs.
“Wait here!” Nick commanded, forcing the girl to one corner and
snatching out both of his revolvers. “I’ll give these rats a taste of
their own medicine.”