THE TURNING TIDE.
Patsy Garvan was right, as stated, in his interpretation of Gaston
Goulard’s movements, and he remained concealed in the doorway to watch
him.
Goulard turned back after viewing the river and the near-by lime shed
for several moments. He retraced his steps with the air of a man having
no special business in that locality. But upon approaching the entrance
to a narrow alley making in between the end of the block and an old
wooden building, and seeing no sign of any person observing him, he
darted quickly into the alley and disappeared.
“Gee! that does settle it,” thought Patsy, at first impelled to follow
him. “He thinks the Badger house is being watched. It must be that end
house in the block, for he looked at that door when passing, but at no
other. He must have decided to go in the back way. In that case--no, by
gracious, I’ll not follow him. I’ll try to get that woman to help me.”
The woman had just appeared at the basement dining-room windows of the
next house. She had opened one of them and was setting a bucket of water
on the ground outside, evidently intending to wash the window. She
turned almost immediately and seated herself on the sill, with her feet
in the room, and fished out two pieces of cloth from within.
Patsy made a short detour and crossed the street, then sauntered toward
her. He judged from her looks that she was not a servant, also that she
was possessed of no great means, which he thought would be to his
advantage. He stepped to the window on the sill of which she was seated,
touching his hat and saying politely:
“Pardon me, madam! Will you tell me who lives in this last house?”
The woman, thin-featured and careworn, turned and regarded him
curiously.
“Certainly, sir,” she replied. “A man and woman named Badger.”
“Are you acquainted with them?”
The woman shook her head and smiled significantly.
“No, sir,” she said. “I don’t think I would care to be. Their reputation
is not very good.”
Patsy now saw plainly that the woman could be safely trusted. He drew a
little nearer to her, displaying his detective badge and saying quietly:
“I am aware of it. In fact, madam, I know all about them. I am a
detective, as you may see, and I am anxious to watch the doings of a man
who, I think, is going into the back door of that house. Would you like
to earn five dollars without lifting your finger?”
The woman laughed softly, with eyes lighting.
“I could use five dollars very nicely,” she replied. “I don’t often get
an opportunity to earn as much so easily. I infer that you want
something of me.”
“I merely wish to use your second-floor back windows for the purpose of
watching the man and that side of the house,” Patsy informed her.
“Ah, I see.”
“I give you my word that I will disturb nothing, and that no one will
ever be the wiser,” he added. “I will pay you in advance. Here is the
money.” He tendered it with the last, and the woman accepted it.
“I’m glad to get it so easily,” she said, after thanking him. “As a
matter of fact, sir, I would like to see those people cleaned out of the
house. High jinks take place in there some nights.”
“I think they soon will occupy other quarters,” smiled Patsy
significantly. “May I go in at once?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“You need not come to the door. Just move a little to one side, and I
will step by you and get in the window. Keep on with your work, please,
so that nothing may be suspected.”
“I will, sir.”
Patsy easily passed the woman, stepping through the low window, and he
then hastened up to a back room on the next floor, from a window of
which he cautiously peered.
This crafty move was a wise one on his part, in that Glidden failed to
discover the spy a little later.
Supposing, of course, that Goulard had gone into the house by that time,
Patsy took a swift look at the surroundings outside.
There was a yard back of the Badger house, partly occupied by a wooden
porch, the door of which was accessible from the alley mentioned. Beyond
the alley was a narrow passageway between the rear walls of the near
buildings, a passage running in the direction of the river, and through
which he could see a bit of the faded side wall of the lime dealer’s
building.
“Gee whiz! there’s the rat, now,” flashed suddenly through Patsy’s mind.
“He has not gone in, after all. He still is watching the house.”
Patsy had caught sight of Goulard’s head, thrust cautiously around the
corner of a shed in the near distance. He was gazing at the windows of
the Badger house.
Presently, after glancing sharply around, Goulard emerged from his
concealment and approached the entrance to the porch mentioned.
At the same moment, giving Patsy a second surprise, he caught sight of a
man coming rapidly through the passageway from the lime shed.
“Great guns! that’s Ben Badger himself, the king-pin of his knavish
gang,” he said to himself, instantly recognizing the notorious gangster.
“He’s bound to meet Goulard in the alley. I wonder if that’s been
fixed.”
That it had not been fixed was speedily apparent.
The two men nearly collided a moment later, plainly seen by Patsy, and
the manner and looks with which both recoiled convinced him that the
meeting was purely accidental.
Their surprise and consternation was of brief duration, however, for
they quickly began to converse in low tones, though Patsy could only
conjecture what they were discussing.
They talked in the alley for about five minutes, and Badger then led the
way to the porch, where Patsy no longer could see them.
As a matter of fact, however, quietly entering the basement door of the
house, Badger caught the sound of Nick Carter’s voice, in discussion
with Sadie, and the nature of the detective’s remarks, coupled with the
arrival of Goulard and what he had just stated, speedily exposed Nick’s
subterfuge and designs.
Patsy, waiting and watching, then saw Badger emerge from the porch and
run at top speed through the passageway, and then disappear into the
lime shed.
Half a minute later he returned posthaste, and followed by two men, whom
he evidently had gone to get--Knocker Freeland and Jack Glidden.
All vanished hurriedly into the house.
“Gee! there’s something doing, all right,” thought Patsy, not for a
moment supposing that Nick was in the house. “Badger got the gang
together for some reason. It now is a hundred to one that all of them
were in the Manhattanville house last night, and that some sort of a
deal is to be made with Goulard. I’ll wait here a while longer, at all
events, and see what follows.”
Patsy waited, constantly watching, but he did not hear the report of
Nick’s revolver, nor any sounds of the brief struggle that ensued.
He saw nothing more, in fact, until Glidden issued from the porch about
twenty minutes later and rushed away to the lime shed.
“There goes one of them again,” Patsy muttered. “There must be something
doing over in that building, also, if the haste of that rat counts for
anything. I’ll wait and see whether he returns.”
Patsy had not long to wait.
Glidden reappeared in about a minute, in company with a slender man in a
blouse and overalls, both pushing a low truck.
“Gee! that’s Jimmy Dakin, known as Quicklime Jimmy,” thought Patsy, who
knew most of the gangsters by sight. “He must be the rascal who runs
that lime business. But what in thunder are they going to do with that
truck? Have they killed Goulard? Are they going to truck him to the shed
and then dump him into the river?”
Patsy remained to find out, if possible. He saw them bring the truck to
the porch door, after which he could see neither them nor the truck, the
porch cutting off his view.
Five minutes passed.
Patsy then saw them troop back to the lime shed--Badger, Goulard, Dakin,
Freeland, and Glidden, hurrying like evil shadows through the narrow
passageway.
Patsy saw, too, that they were dragging the low truck--with a long
object on it, covered with burlap. He watched it--but did not see it
move.
Within a minute all had disappeared into the lime dealer’s building.
“Holy smoke!” thought Patsy, lingering only briefly. “Was that a corpse?
If so--whose corpse? By Jove, I’ve got to make a bid to find out.”
Hurrying downstairs, Patsy found that the woman had just finished
washing her windows. He thanked her again for her kindness, cautioned
her to say nothing about his visit, and then he hurried from the house.
As he emerged from under the front steps, where the basement-hall door
was located, he walked almost into the arms of--Chick Carter.
“Great Scott! here’s a stroke of luck,” Patsy said impulsively. “What
sent you here?”
Chick was nearly as much surprised as Patsy, seeing him come from the
second house.
“I shadowed Slugger Sloan up here,” he replied. “He left Moll Damon and
came up here alone.”
“Do you know for what, Chick?” Patsy asked eagerly.
“Not yet. He took a long look at this house and then went down and sized
up that building with a lime sign on it.”
“Gee! we must be in right. Where is he, now?”
“In a barroom around the corner. What did you learn in that house? You
seem to have something on your mind.”
Patsy hurriedly told his story, and Chick’s countenance took on a more
serious expression.
“By Jove, it may be that Nick was in that house,” said he. “He may have
got wise to something that sent him there.”
“That’s just what I think,” Patsy declared. “I can see no other way of
looking at it.”
“There is only one course for us to shape, I reckon,” said Chick, after
a moment’s thought.
“What’s that?”
“We’ll begin with arresting Slugger Sloan. He may throw up a squeal that
will clinch our suspicions.”
“My idea exactly,” Patsy agreed.
“Come on. We’ll lose no time in discussing it. We’ll nail him at once.”
They hastened around the corner mentioned, then sauntered into the
barroom, as if with no more aggressive intent than to buy a couple of
drinks.
Slugger Sloan was leaning against the bar with a glass of whisky in
front of him.
Chick and Patsy pretended to be about to pass him, then the former
turned quickly and seized the crook’s arms, confining them to either
side.
Patsy whipped out his revolver at the same moment and thrust it under
the gunman’s nose.
“Don’t get gay, Slugger,” he advised coolly. “We want you!”
Sloan scowled defiantly at both, but made no resistance.
“What’s it all about?” he asked, with affected indifference, while Chick
handcuffed him and removed a revolver from his pocket.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked, confronting him.
“Nothing special. Do I have to have a ticket to come here?”
“There is nothing in that kind of a bluff. This is Chick Carter talking
to you, Sloan, and you’d better make a clean breast of it. What do you
know about that Manhattanville murder?”
“Nothing at all about it,” Sloan declared, but every vestige of color
left his sinister face.
“Your looks give your words the lie, Slugger,” Chick said sternly. “You
were out there last night, and you had a hand in the job.”
“You’ve got another guess, Carter,” Sloan coldly asserted.
“Why were you sizing up Badger’s house, then, and Dakin’s lime
building?”
“Was I doing that?”
“I saw you doing it. We know, too, that they were in the job.”
“You’re a couple of wise ginks,” Sloan observed, with a sneer.
“You’re not going to open up, eh?” Chick questioned.
“Not so you’ll notice it.”
“That’s final, Slugger, is it?”
“What I say always goes,” scowled the gunman.
Chick turned abruptly and pointed to a telephone on one of the walls.
“Get next, Patsy,” he commanded shortly. “Call up the precinct station.
Get a wagon and a dozen men here as quickly as possible. We’ll raid that
house and building on the jump.”