SOME GOOD NEWS.
Jack Wise made himself scarce, and yet took up a position which enabled
him to keep track of the fugitives’ movements.
He was in no great hurry to notify Nick or the police. He wished to
first make sure that there were to be no more doublings and twistings on
the part of Grantley and Siebold.
Apparently, they had reached the end of their New York trail, and Jack
was forced into a sort of reluctant admiration for their cleverness.
The man who had driven them--with the unfortunate millionaire--from the
Bronx to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, knew only the beginning of
their wanderings, and even if the driver who had picked them up several
blocks from that point could be found, it would only be possible for him
to say that he had carried them to the Pennsylvania Station.
The supposition would have been--but for Wise’s timely cut across their
trail--that they had taken a train there; and there would have been
nothing to disprove that belief.
So far as Grantley and Siebold, in their proper persons, was concerned,
the trail had ended there. It was “Henry S. Peckham,” of Boston, and
“Arnold J. Taliaferro,” of Philadelphia, two very different-looking
individuals, who had taken the taxi at that point and driven to the dock
of the New York & Buffalo Transport Company.
The only way in which Jack could have improved on their tactics would
have been to buy tickets for some point on the Pennsylvania and actually
to pass through the gates toward the proper train, if not to board it.
That would have added to the complications, and it would have been easy
enough to mingle with the crowd from some incoming train and so return
to the waiting room and the street.
The tracks they had left were confused enough as it was, however.
They dismissed their cab and entered the company’s tiny office, from
which they emerged a little later, after which they went on board one of
the barges lying alongside the dock.
It was plain to Wise that all arrangements had been made in advance, and
that the two had been expected. The captain of the barge greeted them
with respect and led them into the tiny cabin.
“Hope they like the accommodations!” murmured Jack, with a grin. “They
won’t have time to get fussy over them, though.”
Everything seemed to be in readiness for departure. Towlines were being
paid out and made fast, and a powerful tug, with steam up, was in
readiness to tow a number of the barges up the river to the entrance to
the canal, near Albany, where horse power would replace steam for the
long, tedious journey through the canal.
Jack waited until Grantley and Siebold appeared again, without their
suit cases, and idly began watching the preparations. He had no
reasonable doubt after that that they intended to remain on board, at
least during part of the trip.
Reassured as to this, and no longer fearing that an alarm would be
premature, Nick’s assistant slipped across the street in search of the
nearest telephone. He was perfectly willing that the tug and its covey
of barges should depart before help came, for, if desired, they could
easily be overtaken on the river long before they had passed the city’s
northern boundaries.
The two rascally surgeons had committed themselves now, and they would
not leave the canal boat unless they became suspicious, which was
extremely unlikely at that stage of the game.
There was no public telephone in the neighborhood, but Wise easily
gained permission to use an instrument in a near-by store.
He first called up Nick’s house. Neither the detective nor any of his
other assistants was at home, but they had been telephoning back there
at frequent intervals in order to keep one another informed of their
movements.
Consequently, Joseph, Nick’s highly efficient butler, was in possession
of the main facts regarding the crime committed on Mr. Baldwin and the
plans for the pursuit of the fugitives.
“Well, as fast as they telephone in tell them I’m accidentally on the
job, that I’ve been trailing those fellows all over town, and that I can
lay my hands on them at any moment. There’s no hurry, so I won’t notify
the police. The chief can do that later, if he wishes. Tell him and the
rest of them--except Ida Jones, who won’t be needed--to meet me as soon
as convenient at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Tenth Avenue? Got
that, Joseph?... All right, then. It’s all over but putting on the
nippers.”
He had been careful not to speak any plainer, especially in regard to
the fugitives’ whereabouts, for fear some of those who were in the store
might tip the wink to Grantley and Siebold, in the hope of earning a
reward for the information that they were in danger of arrest.
One who had had less experience in such matters, or had studied the ways
of criminals under an inferior master, would almost certainly have
chafed under the delay and given way to apprehensions lest the two
scoundrels might yet slip through his fingers. But Jack Wise knew when
to look for trouble and when to be sure that the wind was in the right
quarter.
Forebodings would have been foolish under the circumstances. Grantley
and Siebold had made themselves at home on the canal boat, which would
require days to reach Albany. The very fact that they had done so proved
that nothing had aroused their fears during their zigzag course through
the city, and now it was to their interest to do nothing that would whet
the curiosity of those with whom they had temporarily thrown their lot.
Therefore, there was no reason to suppose that they would not sit tight
so long as nothing disturbed them, and Nick and his assistants could be
counted on to see that nothing did--until it was too late for their
quarry to escape.
Meanwhile, several of the barges had been lashed together and had
started up the river. They were heavily laden, however, and the tug’s
pace was almost a crawl.
From the vantage point of a neighboring dock, Jack watched them
philosophically.
“By-by, my friends! See you later!”
The words formed themselves in his mind, but instantly the look of
anticipated triumph disappeared from his face and one of horror replaced
it. He was thinking of the well-nigh unbelievable outrage which had been
perpetrated on the trusting financier.
“‘The chair’ is altogether too quick and clean a death for those
fiends,” he told himself, “and yet they won’t get even that. They
haven’t killed his body, but have only murdered the part of him that’s
worth most to him--his mind! Yet all they’ll get, I suppose, is the
maximum sentence for performing an irregular operation under the new
law. They’ll get that, though, I can tell them! I can never be grateful
enough for the chance, or the fate, that threw them in my way just then.
I suppose the chief would have nabbed them, sooner or later, but it
would have meant a lot of mighty stiff pulling against the current.”
Jack thereupon lounged slowly toward Fourteenth Street and hung about
the corner he had named for half an hour or more. At the end of that
time Nick put in an appearance in one of his motor cars, and, being
familiar with his assistant’s disguise, he picked him out at once.
“What’s this Joseph tells me, Jack?” he demanded eagerly, as he jumped
out of the machine. “Do you really know where Grantley and Siebold are?”
“That’s the idea, chief.”
“Where?”
“On the barge _Mary Jane_, bound up the river for Buffalo.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as I am that you’re the champion detective of the world.”
Nick ignored this.
“How long ago did they leave?” he asked.
“About the time I called up the house. You can’t lose them, chief.
They’re probably off Thirty-fourth Street now. You could come abreast of
them on foot without breaking any walking records. Going to notify
police headquarters?”
“I’ve already done so. I knew that you could be relied on, and that
Joseph isn’t in the habit of tangling messages. The police ought to be
along any minute now.”
Two plain-clothes men, armed with warrants, arrived shortly afterward,
and Chick Carter came up almost simultaneously. Nick had instructed
Patsy and Ida Jones to continue the hunt for Hoff and the nurse.
One of the boats of the harbor squad was summoned to the foot of West
Fourteenth Street from Pier A, after a brief consultation, and in half
an hour more the little party was in full pursuit.