THOSE EXTRA-HEAVY SUIT CASES.
Green Eye did not reply to the burly detective’s warning, but his hand
took a firm grip on the revolver in his pocket.
He was holding it by the barrel, however.
The brief interval that followed seemed long and tedious, but in
reality it could not have been of more than three or four minutes’
duration.
Although tense and physically on the alert, Gordon found his mind
wandering. He wondered idly where Simpson had been staying, and how he
dared to travel about even at night in the same machine in which he had
removed the gold from the Hattontown bank.
“He probably counts on Griswold doing nothing,” he decided, then grimly
called himself to account. “What difference does it make to me where he
has been hiding?” he asked himself impatiently. “The important thing is
that he seems to be here, that the gold also seems to be here, and that
he’s going to be kind enough to show me where it is.”
The unseen car approached very quietly, and came to a halt outside
the gate. They heard the faint scrape of the man’s heel as Simpson
dismounted, then footsteps approached the gate, the latch was
cautiously lifted, and the gate swung inward.
Obviously Simpson intended to drive into the yard, and that could mean
only one thing—that he intended to remove a substantial part of the
gold, if not all of it, and wished to bring the machine as close to
his hiding place as possible, so that he need only carry the stuff a
minimum distance.
The fugitive was within a few feet of the two men when he pushed the
gate back against the fence, but they made no attempt to tackle him.
They felt pretty sure that the loot was hidden in the garage, but until
there was no longer the slightest room for doubt, they meant to give
Simpson all the rope he needed.
Presently the faint, buzzing sound of the motor began again, and then
the vehicle loomed over the top of the fence. Simpson was backing it
very slowly and cautiously into the graveled driveway in front of the
garage.
Now the car—an electric coupé somewhat larger than usual—was in the
yard, and part of it was hidden to view beyond the garage. It was
backed a few feet farther, and then the subdued humming of the motor
abruptly ceased.
Again the two watchers heard the driver step out. Now there was a new
sound, that of a key being inserted in a lock. The lock clicked audibly
in the stillness, after which the door of the garage began to slide
aside.
Not one of the sounds that had been made thus far could have been heard
at a little distance, but not one of them had escaped the keen ears of
Cray and Green-eye Gordon.
As they anticipated, the man did not push the garage door fully aside,
that being unnecessary, owing to the fact that he did not intend to
drive the machine in, but only to gain access himself, and to have room
enough to carry out what he meant to make away with.
The time for action had come at last.
After exchanging signals, the two men behind the lumber pile silently
straightened up, exercised their cramped limbs in the air, one after
the other, and then stole toward the nearest corner of the little
structure. Guided by the sounds within, they peered around the corner,
and saw that the open door of the coupé was just opposite the door of
the garage, and that no more than two or three feet separated them.
They had expected Simpson to begin carrying out the stuff at once, and
meant to attack him as soon as he had completed his task and save them
the trouble of handling the gold. Now, however, it was evident that he
was digging.
They caught the scrape of his foot on the spade, and a series of faint
“swishes,” as spadeful after spadeful of soft soil was thrown aside.
It was impossible for the two men to exchange words, but they turned
and looked at each other, their faces close together. Plainly, it was
necessary for them to wait still longer, if they intended to carry out
their original program and let Simpson do the work.
The garage in itself had not appealed to him as an altogether safe
hiding place, and he had gone to the trouble of burying the loot under
the structure.
Some minutes passed before Simpson’s spade struck something hard. After
more scraping and rasping, the fugitive brought out a box or some
similar receptacle, to judge by the sounds. Incidentally its weight was
made manifest by the subdued grunts and pants which they heard.
A few moments’ rest followed, and then the man awkwardly conveyed the
box—or whatever it was—to the door.
The watchers saw now that it was a suit case of the stoutest leather,
bought, doubtless, for the purpose, but looking considerably the worse
for wear, as a result of its burial.
After a great deal of effort, the far-from-athletic Simpson succeeded
in hoisting it into the coupé. Would he fill up the hole now and close
the garage, or was there more to follow?
Obviously there was more, for after some further digging and a lot of
sighs and mutterings, a second suit case, somewhat smaller, was dragged
out and deposited in the car.
“That must be all of it,” thought Green Eye. “Eighty thousand dollars
in gold doesn’t weigh a ton or fill a coffin.”
He was right. At any rate, Simpson’s actions quickly convinced them
that he did not intend to remove anything more that night. He looked
apprehensively in the direction of the house, and reëntered the garage,
where, for some minutes, he again busied himself with the spade.
He was filling in the hole. The clash was about due now.
Gordon had an inspiration. He had been wondering how Simpson had
previously concealed the freshly turned earth, or how he meant to do so
now.
“I’ll bet he has it fixed so that the excavation appears to have been
made for the purpose of sinking one of those underground gasoline
tanks!” he told himself. “Very likely he’s got the whole paraphernalia
there, and the tank is actually in the ground. That’s what I would have
done under the circumstances, at any rate.”
As a matter of fact, his guess proved to be a singularly accurate one,
for that was just the blind to which Simpson had resorted.
The spade had been laid aside now, and the critical moment had arrived.
Cray turned to his companion and made a series of quick, expressive
gestures.
“I’ll tackle him. You be ready to gag him while I hold him,” they said
as plainly as words.
An instant later, Simpson reappeared in the narrow space between the
garage and the car, and, turning his back, started to shut the big,
sliding door.
That was Jack Cray’s opportunity, and, taking immediate advantage of
it, he launched himself full tilt at the thief’s back.