CHAPTER X.
CAUGHT ON THE FLY.
The three toughs dragged Marcos across the floor and behind the screen so quickly that he was gone before Miguel had time to rise from his chair.
Obviously his intention was to help the three gangsters, but they did not need him, a fact that he recognized even as they disappeared.
“That’s the end of that, Solado,” remarked Miguel carelessly. “Those fellows will take him to their joint, as they call it, downtown, in New York, and there he will stay till we have completed the treaty in Joyalita——”
“With you as the ruler, under the protection of our allies,” added Solado, grinning. “That sounds good. But, if we are going to save trouble immediately, we ought to use the yacht and get him out to sea for a few weeks.”
“I don’t see that he would be any safer at sea than shut up in some secret den in New York, with these determined-looking gentry we have hired to look after him.”
“He would be safer at sea,” hissed Solado, “because accidents happen at sea. Yachts sometimes get into trouble on the ocean and are never heard of again.”
“You’re a cold-blooded rascal, Solado!”
“Not any more than yourself,” was the retort. “Only, when I undertake anything, I like to make sure that it is done completely. I have some stake in all this as well as yourself, remember.”
“Exactly!” laughed Miguel. “You are still to be at the head of the government—under me, and you want to be sure of your job. Well, I don’t blame you. But, for the present, we’ll let Dugan take care of my dear Cousin Marcos.”
He got up and bent over Jason.
“He won’t die!” he decided calmly, as he might have expressed judgment on a half-drowned kitten. “That cuff on the side of his head will be a useful warning to him not to be insolent another time. Come on, Solado! Let’s go and see how they get Marcos away.”
“Wait a moment!” objected Solado. “They can attend to him, without us. Here are some letters that came for Marcos from Joyalita. We’d better look them over and see what is to be done with them. There is a large part of the population on Marcos’ side, you know, and we can’t take any chances on rebellion, you know.”
Nick Carter remained long enough to see the two plotters put their heads together over a bundle of letters on the table. Then he withdrew, closed the door softly, and rejoined Patsy.
In two minutes more both were at the bottom of the chute, while Patsy untied the boat.
“I’m glad it is dark, Patsy!” whispered Nick Carter. “They are taking Marcos away in that boat, and we have to stop them, if we can. If not, we must trail them till we can get help to take them in.”
“We don’t need help,” snapped Patsy Garvan. “There’s only three of them, and if we have this Marcos to help us, there’ll be three on our side. Why, I am almost ashamed to do it. It’s too easy! Are we to shoot?”
“If we can’t nail them any other way. Have you got handcuffs in your pocket, Patsy?”
“Two pairs! I figured we’d need them, even if you have a pair——”
“Which I have,” interjected Nick. “I’ll row. Get into the bow, with your gun in your hand. As soon as you get where you can make a grab at their boat, cover the nearest man, and I’ll do the same with the next. Then make a jump.”
“I don’t get you,” admitted Patsy. “Aren’t we liable to tumble into the water?”
“Not if you do your work right. Their boat is tied up to the stone sill of the door. All we have to do is to row up level with it, and I’ll get hold of their gunwale. That will hold us steady, and you can throw your gun on your man.”
“But you’ll be sitting down, and——”
“I can use a gun sitting down, as well as standing up,” remarked Nick calmly.
“They are bringing some stuff out of the warehouse,” whispered Patsy. “Looks like sacks of coal or something.”
“Silver, probably,” interrupted Nick. “Look out! They are all in the boat except Dugan. You see that man they have sitting in the stern?”
“Yes. Who is he?”
“Marcos.”
“Gee! The king-pin himself! All right! We’ll get him so slick, those Jimmy toughs will think they are dancing the tango upside down on a toboggan slide. Just watch me get the drop on that hard-faced guy in the middle.”
“That’s Foxey Irwin,” remarked Nick.
“Don’t I know it?” was Patsy’s quick rejoinder. “I’m only afraid my bullet may bounce off his face and fly into bits all over this part of the meadows.”
Nothing more was said now. Larry Dugan had been piling up sacks of loot in the boat, and Nick Carter doubted not that his pockets were full of jewelry and small articles of value generally.
In the doorway stood Solado and Miguel, and Nick noticed that a small boat, of the same general type as his own and the gangster’s, was moored at the other side of the door.
“That boat wasn’t there before,” observed Patsy, in a whisper.
“They had it inside,” returned Nick. “Didn’t want to call attention to their presence.”
“They’re a smooth bunch! Shall we make the rush now?”
“Yes. Be sure to cover your man. That will be Foxey. I’ll get Dugan.”
“Pet Carlin is the most dangerous!” Patsy reminded him.
“I depend on Marcos getting him,” was all Nick said to this.
Like a flash, they shot their boat suddenly out of the tangle of reeds, and so skillfully did Nick Carter guide the craft, that it ran alongside the other as evenly as if there had been the utmost deliberation.
Instantly, excitement broke out in that quiet region, which up till then had been perfectly silent except for the distant quacking of wild ducks who had been skimming the water a mile or so away, the rushing of the evening breeze through the swaying rushes, and the occasional toot of a railroad locomotive taking home a load of commuters.
Patsy swung his revolver over till its muzzle was exactly opposite the right eye of Foxey Irwin, while Nick Carter pointed his automatic steadily at Larry Dugan, with the quiet warning:
“Don’t move, Dugan! Half an inch to one side or the other, and I touch the trigger.”
“Touch, eh?” sneered Dugan. “Why don’t you pull it while you are about it—if you have the nerve to shoot at all.”
“A touch is all that is needed with this gun, Dugan,” returned Nick. “It’s the easiest trigger I ever put my finger on. And I wouldn’t advise you to test my nerve about shooting.”
Nick Carter would not have parleyed thus if he had not seen that Marcos had sprung at the throat of Pet Carlin and snatched away that innocent-looking person’s pistol just as it leaped from his side pocket.
Carlin was known as a “killer,” and there is little doubt that he would have tried to “get” Nick Carter at the instant that the detective covered Dugan, if Marcos had not been too quick for him.
Nick had perfect faith in this prince from Joyalita who looked so much like himself. He had seen that Marcos never permitted himself to get rattled, but was always in complete control of his nerves.
So, when Marcos leaped at Carlin just as the other boat swung alongside, anticipating, by a sliver of a second, the drawing of Pet’s gun, it was no more than Nick Carter had felt sure would happen.
“Put on the cuffs, Patsy!” whispered Nick to his assistant. “Get Foxey first. Then take Dugan.”
“What about the guys in the doorway?” asked Patsy, as he prepared to obey orders.
“I’ll look after them. They’ve got to show me where Chick is.”
“That’s right! Look out, Foxey!”
This last ejaculation had been caused by a sudden twitch on the part of Foxey Irwin, as Patsy, having stepped from one boat to the other, snapped a handcuff on Foxey’s right wrist before he knew what threatened him.
“I’ll croak you when I get out of this, Garvan,” hissed Foxey.
“Maybe! But that will be in about seven years’ time, when you come down from up the river, and there’s no telling what may happen before that,” replied Patsy, undisturbed.
At the same moment he caught Foxey Irwin’s left wrist and trapped it in the other cuff. Patsy had been taught to put on handcuffs long ago, and he could do the work so neatly that it looked like sleight-of-hand to an unaccustomed eye.
Meanwhile, Nick Carter had handcuffed Dugan on his left wrist, holding the other steel bracelet in his own left hand, while his right kept the automatic pointed at Dugan’s forehead.
Then it was that the detective worked a little trick on Larry Dugan and Foxey Irwin that he had found useful in dealing with other gentry of their unscrupulous character.
Suddenly pulling Foxey toward him, while giving Dugan a push, he passed the chain of the loose handcuff around the connecting links on Foxey’s hands, and instantly snapped the manacle on Dugan’s right wrist.
The net result of the maneuver was that the two scoundrels were handcuffed to each other, face to face, and about as helpless as a horse in a balloon.
“Lend me that extra pair of yours, Patsy!” called out Nick.
Patsy gave him the other handcuffs, and they were snapped around Pet Carlin’s wrists with disconcerting celerity, while Nick drew the young gunman’s second pistol from an outside pocket and placed it in his own.
“Better draw those cuffs tight, chief!” warned Patsy. “Pet has mighty pretty hands. If he was a girl, he’d be wearing a finger ring for a bracelet.”
This advice was not called for, however. Nick Carter had taken cognizance of the extreme slimness of Pet Carlin’s hand and wrist, and had drawn the steel cuffs so small that they were quite safe.
Hardly had the detective done all this than he made a leap for his own boat again and pulled up to the door.
Solado and Miguel were about to beat a retreat in their private skiff.
“Stop!” shouted Nick Carter.
He accentuated his demand by pointing his own pistol and Pet Carlin’s at the heads of the two conspirators.
They stopped.