“By Jove, she’s heading for the lair of her confederates,” thought Chick, after stealthily following her into the narrow street. “It may not be dead easy to trail her.”
This became doubly apparent in a very few moments. There were but few persons in the dismal street, which made it more difficult for Chick to closely follow her.
Her dark figure, too, could be seen only at intervals, when she passed one of the blurs of light that relieved only feebly the prevailing gloom.
Suddenly, nevertheless, Chick saw her turn aside—and then he lost sight of her.
He waited with strained eyes for half a minute, but could not discover her.
“By Jove, I mustn’t let her give me the slip,” he muttered. “Better arrest her than stand for that.”
He darted on with the last, quickly reaching the spot where he last had seen her.
The woman had vanished as if the earth had swallowed her.
Chick gazed sharply around and discovered the black entrance of an alley between two gloomy buildings.
“Hang it, she could not have gone in there,” he said to himself, irritated by the threatening mishap. “She did not go as far as that, as well as I could tell. It may be all off, by thunder, unless I can trace her. I wish, now, that I had arrested both her and that yellow-haired girl. It now looks bad, for fair.”
Chick was looking in vain all the while for the vanished woman.
It did not appear that she could have entered either of the buildings near which he last had seen her. Both were shrouded in darkness.
The only refuge to which she could have resorted appeared to be the alley mentioned, and Chick felt reasonably sure that she had not gone as far as that.
He now turned in that direction, nevertheless, and crept into the gloomy hole. It was so dark he scarce could see his hand before his face. He reached into his pocket to get his searchlight.
As he did so, he stumbled against something lying on the ground.
He stooped and felt of it with his hand, suppressing a cry of surprise.
He had stumbled against—the body of a man!
CHAPTER VI.
DOWN AND OUT.
Patsy Garvan, while Chick was engaged as described, was working out another string of the bow by which Nick Carter was hoping not only to save the Waldmere plate from the melting pot, but also to round up the crooks who had stolen it.
Patsy’s first move was to perfect a disguise that would have caused his own wife not only to turn him down, but even to have fired him out of the house, if he had dared venture into it.
No more tough and sinister-looking a chap ever stood in leather, than was Patsy Garvan when he appeared in a lower section of the Bowery about four o’clock that afternoon.
Patsy was not looking for Bug Bannon at that time. Though he knew the notorious young gangster by sight, and many of the haunts in which he might possibly be found, Patsy was bent upon working out a scheme of his own by which to accomplish his chief’s object.
The nature of it appeared soon after he entered an inferior saloon in one of the side streets, a haunt of the disreputable, and where he finally found the person he had been seeking.
This was an infamous character by the name of John Flynn, though he was much better known to his select circle of friends, and to the police, as Pilot Flynn. He had obtained this sobriquet from the fact that his chief vocation, if not his only one, was that of a steerer for stuss games and other gambling joints, or, in other words, a pilot for such strangers as could be artfully lured to their own undoing.
Patsy had had a case against this fellow a month before, one that would have sent him to Sing Sing. He had not pressed it, nor even arrested him, however, because of the fact that Flynn associated at times with two other crooks much wanted by Patsy and the police, and through whom he hoped to discover them.
It was about half past four when Patsy entered the saloon mentioned, and he discovered Flynn eating free lunch from a table in the rear of the long room. There were many others in the dive, and the entrance of Patsy was hardly noticed. He threaded his way through the smoke-filled place and brought up at Flynn’s elbow.
“How are you, Pilot?” he said quietly.
Flynn swung round and viewed him sharply through a pair of sinister, beady black eyes.
“What’s eating you?” he snarled under his breath, suspiciously.
“Don’t know me, eh?” queried Patsy.
“Not so you’d notice it.”
“Well, don’t show any surprise when I tell you,” cautioned Patsy. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m—whisper! Patsy Garvan.”
Flynn’s hangdog face lost some of its color. He drew back, muttering an oath, then quickly added:
“Looking for me? You’re not——”
“No, I’m not going to take you in,” put in Patsy. “Nothing of that kind.”
“What d’ye want, then?” Flynn asked, with a look of relief.
“I want you to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Come into the back room and I’ll order some booze,” said Patsy. “There’s no one in there. I’ll tell you while we fire a ball or two.”
This proposition suited Flynn to the letter, particularly since learning that he was not to be arrested, but rather was in a fair way to acquire further consideration on the part of the detective.
“I’m with you,” he nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”
Patsy led the way into a dingy rear room and rang for one of the bartenders. He appeared in a moment and took the order, presently returning with the drinks. Patsy paid him, and then closed the door, drawing a chair to the bare table, at which Flynn had seated himself.
“Now, Pilot, we’ll get down to business,” he said quietly, with an assurance the other did not quite fancy. “When did you last see Bug Bannon?”
“I dunno,” said Flynn, crafty-eyed. “It must be a week, sure, since I had me lamps on him.”
“You’re pretty good friends, aren’t you?”
“For all I know.”
“You know you are,” said Patsy, a bit sharply. “Come across with straight goods, now, or you’ll get all that’s coming to you. Are you on?”
“Sure.”
“One word from me will send you up the river.”
“I know that, Garvan,” Flynn grimly admitted. “What is it you want?”
“I want to find Bug Bannon between now and dark. Do you know where to look for him?”
“I might find him for you. What’s up?”
“I’m after a bunch that pulled off a robbery this morning.”
“How does Bannon fit in?”
“He’s in touch with them, and I want to nail them through him.”
“Rats! He wouldn’t tell you,” said Flynn. “He’s no snitch. He wouldn’t squeal if he was in the chair.”
“That may be true, perhaps, but with your help I can get the information I want, and very probably the crooks I am after,” said Patsy. “In other words, Pilot, I want you to put me in right with Bannon.”
“What’s that ‘in-right’ gag?” questioned Flynn distrustfully. “What d’ye mean by that?”
Patsy made no bones over explaining.
“I want you to go with me and find Bannon,” he said curtly. “When we have found him, you must introduce me to him as a particular pal of yours, Sandy Glynn by name, and tell him that you knew me in Chicago. Tell him that you owe me a special service, in return for something done for you, and——”
“Say! D’ye think I——”
“Never mind what I think, Pilot,” Patsy interrupted. “You’re going to do what I direct, and do it right up to snuff, or it’s you for the stone house with the barred windows. Do you get me?”
“Sure I get you,” growled Flynn, scowling darkly. “What more d’ye want?”
“You must tell Bannon that I am wanted by the Chicago police, that detectives are here after me for a burglary, and that you want him to find a safe concealment for me, where I can lie low till the dicks have gone. You must ask it as a special favor, making it plain that he is the only one to whom you can turn to help you out. Hand it to him good and strong, Pilot, for your liberty depends upon your making good. That’s what I want of you—and all I want. I’ll do the rest.”
Flynn’s face wore a look as black as midnight. He sat silent for a moment, scowling daggers at the detective, and then he snarled bitterly between his teeth:
“Say! I’ll not do this.”
“Oh, yes, you will,” Patsy quietly insisted.
“You’re making a snitch of me, a dirty cur, a traitor to——”
“Enough of that, Pilot,” Patsy interrupted. “You’re going to do it, and do it up right—or you’re going with me! You know what that means.”
“But Bug Bannon will knife me for it.”
“No, he won’t. When I get through with him, he’ll be where he cannot do any knifing.”
“But——”
“Besides,” Patsy again cut in, “he need never know but what you thought you were acting on the level.”
“How can that be?”
“You can claim that you did know a crook named Sandy Glynn, and with whom you were friendly in Chicago. You can insist that I was made up as a marker for him, and that you did not dream that I was a detective. You can get by all right with that story, even if you and Bannon do come together again. He would swallow it, hands down, coming from you.”
“That’s the worst of it, blast you!” Flynn snarled fiercely. “That’s why I can’t do it.”
“You’ve got to do it, Pilot. You’ll do it, or do time.”
“That goes, does it?” questioned Flynn, hesitating.
“You bet it goes!”
“Suppose I make good, all right. Will you promise never to give me away?”
“Certainly.”
“On the dead?”
“You know me,” said Patsy. “My word is as good as a government bond.”
“Mebbe ’tis, but I wish you were at the bottom of the East River,” Flynn growled harshly. “But I’ll do it, hang you! I’ll do it to save my own skin.”
“With no monkey business, mind you,” cautioned Patsy. “That will be all your life is worth.”
“I’ll hand it to him right.”
“Do you know where to find him?”
“I can round him up between now and dark. That’s what you said.”
“Come on, then,” said Patsy, rising. “Let’s lose no time about it.”
Despite Flynn’s assurance, however, nearly three hours were spent in a vain search before he finally found the gangster.
Eight o’clock that evening saw all three seated around a small table in a saloon in Second Avenue, on which several rounds of drinks already had been served.
Flynn had told his story and had put it fully as strong as Patsy Garvan had directed.
It appeared to have made a favorable impression upon Bannon, as also had the disguised detective, who had played his part to the letter.
“I know a place, all right, and a gang you’d fit in well with,” Bannon finally said, in response to a suggestion from Patsy that he ought to get under cover without delay. “There’s a guy among ’em you’d like to meet. He’s the big finger of the bunch.”
Patsy felt sure that he referred to Stuart Floyd.
“That will suit me, Bug, and then some,” he assured the grinning rascal. “You will always find me ready to hold my end up.”
“That sounds good to me, Glynn, and the Pilot’s not likely to put me in wrong in any way.”
“I’ll be off, then, if you two ginks are going,” said Flynn, when Bannon appeared willing to depart and take Patsy along with him. “I’ll see you again to-morrow.”
“Out the front way, Pilot,” Bannon replied, glancing toward the swinging doors. “It’s the back way and the alley for us.”
“So long, then!”
Flynn arose with the last and hurried out of the place. He was glad to get away. Though himself a crook and a steerer, the despicable part that he had played was far from his liking.
“We’ll be off, too, Sandy, if you’re ready,” Bannon then said quietly.
“The sooner the better,” Patsy nodded.
“Half a minute while I make sure the coast is clear.”
Patsy waited, well pleased with the result of his subterfuge, and the outlook that now appeared to insure his complete success. He was not deterred for a moment by the thought that he was carrying his life in his hand.
Bannon sauntered into a back room, evidently being perfectly familiar with the place and its surroundings. He returned to the door a moment later and beckoned Patsy to follow him.
“I’ve got him down pat, all right,” flashed through Patsy’s mind while he complied. “He don’t so much as even scent a rat in the meal. If I can only get next to Floyd and the rest of the gang—well, I can see their finish.”
Bannon conducted him out of a back door and around two old buildings in the rear, which brought them into one of the crosstown streets. He then headed for another section of the East Side—that to which Chick Carter shadowed Vera Vantoon only a short time later.
All the while Patsy kept up a quiet stream of talk, describing the supposed burglary for which he was wanted, and in a way to further impress Bannon, but never an inquisitive word to awaken a feeling of distrust.
Nevertheless, the unexpected happened, in so far as Patsy was concerned.
Ten minutes brought them to the street in which Chick lost sight of his quarry.
“Keep your trap closed, now,” cautioned Bannon, as they were nearing the alley previously mentioned. “I’ve got to give a signal in half a minute.”
“I’m dumb,” nodded Patsy, detecting no sign of treachery in the other’s eyes.
Bannon halted upon arriving at the entrance to the alley. He glanced up and down the street, noting that it was deserted, and then he said softly:
“Wait here and watch out in that direction. We’ll sneak through the alley in half a minute and——”
Patsy heard no more.
Involuntarily, as it were, he had turned his head to look in the direction indicated by his companion.
Bannon’s hand then leaped from his side pocket. It was gripping the barrel of a revolver. It rose and fell like a flash, the butt of the weapon landing with a sickening thud squarely on Patsy’s head.
He went down and out and into dreamland as quickly and completely as if felled with an ax.
CHAPTER VII.
INTO A TRAP.
To one not versed in the detective’s art, the announcement of Nick Carter that he was going on a still-hunt after Stuart Floyd would have sounded like a vain and vaunting assertion.
To hunt up one man among the million in New York, a man presumably aware of the fact that he was wanted by the police, and therefore having a potent incentive to keeping out of sight—to attempt to hunt up such a man would seem to a novice a vain and hopeless undertaking.
None knew better than Nick Carter, however, the underworld and the ways of its crooks.
Nick did not seek Floyd in any of the haunts to which such criminals sometimes resort. He knew there would be nothing in that.
He reasoned, however, that Floyd would leave no stone unturned to find out what investigations were being made and what was known and suspected about the robbery, and Nick was much too keen to overlook the probability that the desired information might be covertly sought in the railway yard, when Frank Gilbert and McLauren returned to the freight car to remove the remaining cases.
This required two trips by the couple, it being impossible to take them away in a single load, and it was during their second visit to the car that Nick put in an appearance—or, rather, did not put in an appearance.
For, without displaying any interest in the labors of the two men, or in the contents of the car, Nick picked his way between several trains that were sidetracked in that part of the yard, apparently seeking some other car in which he had an interest. He was carefully disguised and felt sure that he was safe from ordinary recognition.
Nick had not long been thus engaged before he made a convincing discovery. Peering under the long rows of freight cars, he saw beyond that in which Gilbert and McLauren were working—the legs of a man.
One fact alone convinced Nick that his immediate suspicions were correct. The legs were motionless. The man was stationary.
“The rascal is listening on the other side of the car from which the two men are taking out the cases,” Nick said to himself, after briefly watching what little he could see of the motionless figure. “The opposite door must be closed and his presence is not suspected. He hopes to hear Gilbert and the truckman discussing what occurred in the Waldmere residence this morning, and what I said about the robbery. Otherwise, he would not be standing there like a lay figure in a shop window. I’ll have a closer look at him for a starter.”
Passing around the trains under which he had been gazing, Nick speedily reached a position from which he could view the suspect.
He was not the type of man the detective had expected to see. He was roughly clad and looked like a ragpicker. He had a short iron hook in one hand and carried a partly filled burlap bag under his arm.
His hair and beard were gray and long, his figure bowed, and he appeared to be fully seventy years old.
This questionable character, who had been standing just where the detective had thought, looked up and saw Nick just as he appeared beyond the end of the sidetracked train.
He betrayed no fear, however, no inclination to run away. Instead, he walked straight toward the detective, glancing under the cars and over the ground, as if in search of bits of iron and junk, or anything else with which he could turn a penny.
He passed directly by Nick, with merely an indifferent glance at him, as he might have bestowed upon any of the yard hands, and then he ambled on with unsteady gait and sought the near street.
Nick passed quickly around a string of cars and followed him.
“Floyd himself, by Jove, or I am much mistaken,” he said to himself. “The make-up is a good one, but I don’t think I can be mistaken in those shifty gray eyes. Now to prevent his eluding me, if he even suspects my identity.”
There seemed to be no probability of the last. Without looking back, walking as slowly and feebly as if really bowed with years, pausing at intervals to peer into a rubbish barrel he was passing, or to prod into it with his iron hook—thus the man proceeded toward the East Side, with the detective cautiously following.
Nick knew the district tolerably well at which his quarry finally brought up, knew it to be one of the worst in the city. He was somewhat surprised that Floyd, if he had not mistaken his identity, was seeking such a locality, for he had been in the past a man of good taste and fastidious habits.
Nevertheless, constantly watching him, Nick saw the man turn suddenly from the street and disappear between two old storage buildings.
Nick was not in a mood to be given the slip, nor to stand upon ceremony if threatened with anything of that kind.
He had deferred arresting the man only with a view to trailing him until he could discover his confederates, as well as the hiding place of the stolen plate.
Walking more rapidly, therefore, Nick quickly arrived at the alley into which his quarry had disappeared.
Still, he could not discover him. The alley ran through to a more open area, in which there were several old sheds and hovels. Beyond them was a small, square stone building of only two low stories and having a flat roof. Its few narrow windows were protected with iron shutters, all of which were closed and secured. The general appearance of the building denoted that it once had been used for storing explosives of some kind before municipal regulations prohibited it.
It then appeared to be unoccupied and out of use, however, and directly beyond it loomed the blank, windowless brick wall of a brewery fronting on the next street.
Nick lost no time in picking his way through the narrow alley. Even then, he could not at first discover his man. Passing quickly around two of the sheds mentioned, however, he then saw him in a small wooden building near the stone structure described.
The door of it was wide open, and the man was seated on a low stool within, engaged in pulling a quantity of rags from his burlap bag and tossing them upon a rag heap in one corner.
For the first time, in view of all this, Nick began to fear that he had mistaken the man’s identity. This seemed even more probable in that he did not appear disturbed by the approach of the detective, merely looking up with a questioning stare when he paused at the open door.
“How’s the rag business, old man?” Nick inquired, a bit bluntly.
“Bad—vair bad!” was the reply, with a cracked and cackling voice.
“Little doing, eh?”
“Vair liddle. Nodding at all.”
“Is this where you store your stuff?” questioned Nick, stepping inside the low building.
“Ven I have anyding to store.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Vell, not long. I just game in.”
“How long, I mean, have you had this place for your business?”
“Vat is it to you?” came the question, with a sharper scrutiny. “Vat for you vish to know?”
“Merely from curiosity,” said Nick, drawing nearer to him. “I saw you in the railway yard a short time ago, didn’t I?”
“I vas dere,” nodded the man. “You have eyes. Mebbe you might have saw me.”
Nick laughed a bit grimly.
“I saw you, all right,” he replied, with rather ominous intonation. “Do you go there after rags?”
“Junk,” was the terse rejoinder.
“That all?”
“Vat all?” questioned the man, looking up sharply. “Vat for do you care vy I go dere?”
“Merely from curiosity,” Nick repeated.
“Vell, you vas better pocket your curiosity,” snapped the other. “Junk—that’s vat I said.”
“I heard you.”
“For vat else would I go dere?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Nick said more sternly.
“Vell, you dake it out in vanting.”
“See here, old man, this hair of yours don’t appear quite——”
Nick broke off abruptly.
He had reached down while speaking and seized the man’s soiled woolen cap and mop of gray hair, giving them a violent jerk.
They came away in his hand, while the gray beard of the bowed rascal was torn out of place.
The result was precisely what the detective had expected.
The removal of the disguise revealed the pallid face and distorted features of the knave who had threatened him in Madison Avenue only a few days before, those of Stuart Floyd.
Floyd evidently was expecting no less.
In reality, he appeared to have planned for it. Like a flash, lurching forward from his stool while Nick was speaking, he suddenly threw both arms with viselike clutch around the detective’s legs, at the same time shouting, with frantic ferocity:
“Now, boys, quick! Get him! Get him! Get him!”
Nick Carter hardly knew where they came from, they came so quickly—the three ruffians who rushed into the place.
Two were powerful fellows in the neighborhood of forty, both armed with heavy bludgeons. That they meant business, moreover, and were out for bloodshed or murder, even, if it became necessary, was speedily apparent.
Nick realized on the instant that he had walked into a trap, an ambush from which escape would not be easy.
He reached for his revolver, bent upon putting up the fight of his life, but he could not draw the weapon.
For the frantic rascal on the floor, fiercely clutching Nick’s legs, was wriggling to and fro so furiously that the detective was nearly thrown from his feet.
All the while, though the entire episode transpired in less than a quarter minute, Floyd was fiercely repeating:
“Get him, boys, get him! Get him! Get him!”
There was absolutely no occasion for these sanguinary commands.
For the ruffians who had entered instantly attacked the swaying detective from behind. They fell upon him like wolves upon a wounded stag.
Blow followed blow in quick succession, with merciless force, until Nick sank, dazed and bleeding, upon the floor, scarce conscious of what afterward transpired.
In a vague way, however, as one senses such things in a dream, or a hideous nightmare, Nick knew that he was being hurriedly bound and robbed of his revolvers. He heard the brutal voices of his assailants, but they sounded faint to him and far away.
He knew, in a dazed way, that the great heap of rags was hurriedly pushed aside, that a trapdoor which they had concealed was quickly opened, and that he then was hurriedly carried down several low steps and through a dark, earthy-smelling passage, then up other steps, and into a stone-walled room lighted only by the feeble rays of an oil lamp.
Then the cobwebs began to clear from his battered head.
He heard Floyd’s hard voice more distinctly, as harsh and hard as nails. He could see the faces of his assailants more plainly, the two brutal ruffians, and the third none other than Bug Bannon.
“Get out, Bagley, and close the shed door,” Floyd then was commanding. “You slip out, Bannon, and make sure no other dicks are around, and that none else is wise to this. Rope him to that ring in the wall, Gorman, hands behind him, and be sure that he’s tied fast.”
“Leave that to me,” growled the ruffian.
“I told him I’d get him,” Floyd added, in fierce exultation. “I warned him, damn him, to beware of the melting pot! I warned him! I told him I’d get him—and, curse him, now I’ve got him!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MELTING POT.
Nick Carter never forgot the scene at which he helplessly gazed later that evening.
He was seated on a bare earth floor, within four grim stone walls, to an iron ring in one of which he was securely bound.
Two narrow windows in the side walls were closed with tight-fitting iron shutters, precluding the escape of a ray of light from within.
The ceiling was crossed with great faded beams, between which could be seen the chinks of a square trapdoor, showing that there was a room above. A narrow wooden stairway in one corner led up to it.
In one of the end walls was a door covered with sheet iron, closed and securely locked. Near by was an excavation leading into the narrow underground passage, through which Nick had been carried by his assailants, and which evidently had been quite recently made from the rag shed to this secret refuge of the outlaws into whose hands the detective had fallen.
In a pile at one side of the room were numerous articles in cloth wrappings, some of which were partly displaced. Through these could be seen the glitter of yellow metal, and the dull luster of tarnished silver.
Obviously, these parcels had been brought there secretly and separately, or a few at a time, by the thieves then in possession of them.
There could be no mistaking what all this was—the contents of the three stolen cases—the valuable Waldmere plate.
In a temporary brick structure in the middle of the earth floor a coal fire was fiercely burning, forced by a bellows thrust through the low brickwork.
Above it, suspended from an iron frame, hung a heavy caldron, with a long ladle in it—and a quantity of silverware that was being rapidly melted.
In the earth floor near one of the walls were numerous rectangular holes, molds for receiving the melted metal, and from some of which the silver ingots already had been pulled with an iron hook, to make room for more of the costly fluid.
The room was almost as hot as an oven, and perspiration stood in great drops on the faces of the three men then at work there—Floyd, Bagley, and Gorman.
Nick Carter had been sternly watching them for some time. He had found that he had solved more than the mystery of the stolen Waldmere plate.
He had known for weeks of numerous plate robberies from the dwellings of wealthy suburban residents, till it had become a question in the minds of the police as to who were committing the crimes and how so much plate was disposed of successfully.
It no longer was a question in Nick Carter’s mind. He knew, now, that he was in the secret quarters of the gang, and where Floyd had been and how employed since the looting of the Imperial Loan Company.
“Go up, Gorman, and open that trapdoor,” Floyd suddenly commanded, wiping his dripping face and glancing up at the ceiling. “Then some of this infernal heat will go into the loft.”
“So ’twill,” nodded Gorman, red and glowing. “We’ve forgotten that.”
He hastened up the stairway to obey, and Nick presently saw the square trapdoor raised and laid over on the upper floor.
Gorman leered down at him for a moment before returning.
Nick ignored him, however, but then said to Floyd, resuming a conversation that had ended when the miscreants began the work now engaging them:
“You’ll suffer more heat than this, Floyd, for this night’s work. Take my word for that.”
“Not in this world,” Floyd replied, with a sneer.
“No, in the next.”
“I’m not going that way just now.”
“You’ll go sooner or later.”
“I’ll take chances on the heating system, Carter, all the same,” Floyd said scornfully. “I’ll get none the worst of it because of anything you have accomplished.”
“Don’t be so sure of that.”
“Rats! We’ve got safely away with stuff, as I gave you a hint when I last saw you. We’ve got you, too, as I warned you. All this ought to convince you, Carter, that I’m not to be easily cornered.”
“Nor am I easily convinced on so doubtful a point. You’ll get yours in time,” Nick sternly predicted.
“You already are getting yours,” Floyd retorted, laughing derisively.
“Perhaps.”
“I warned you that I’d get you for having put me to the bad. You thought you were keen and clever when you picked me up in the railway yard. You picked up a live wire.”
“Very well.”
“Why, you bonehead, did you think I would not anticipate your seeking me there? I knew you would get after me in that way. I went there only to trap you.”
“That now appears quite obvious,” Nick said dryly.
“I knew that you would recognize me and follow me,” Floyd went on, with malicious satisfaction. “I had the trap all laid. You are a fall guy, Carter, all right. I knew you’d walk into it.”
“It has not occurred to you, perhaps, that I did so with open eyes,” Nick said pointedly.
“Bunk!” sneered Floyd. “Tell that to the marines. Why would you have done that?”
“Merely to get a line on you rascals.”
“At the risk of your life, eh?”
“Certainly. That’s not uncommon,” said Nick.
“Rot!” Floyd glared at him doubtfully. “If you walked into it with your eyes open, Carter, we’ll make mighty sure to close them for you. You’ll keep them closed, too. Take my word for that.”
“Let it go at that, then,” Nick said indifferently.
All the while, in grim amusement over this colloquy, Gorman and Bagley continued their work of melting the silver plate and pouring it into the earth molds.
The seething caldron glowed with the heat.
The fire burned intensely under it, forced by the wheezy bellows.
It was like a scene in the infernal regions.
The melting pot was getting in its work.
Floyd appeared to be making good.
Seeing him tear the cloth wrapping from a magnificent piece of gold plate, superbly embossed and engraved, Nick frowned more darkly and asked:
“Are you going to melt all of that gold plate, Floyd?”
“You can bet I’m going to melt it.”
“That’s a sacrilege.”
“Call it what you like.”
“Such plate could not be replaced in these days. That was the work of some of the finest goldsmiths in Europe. You can do better than melt it, Floyd,” Nick earnestly protested, anxious to save the fine old plate from destruction, if possible.
“How better?” questioned Floyd curiously.
“By selling it back to Waldmere,” said Nick. “He would pay thrice the intrinsic value of the metal.”
“Think he would, eh?”
“I am sure of it.”
“That’s a good scheme, then, no doubt.”
“You had better adopt it and save the plate.”
“Mebbe I had, Carter, but I’ll do nothing of the kind. The risk is too great.”
“Don’t let that deter you,” Nick insisted. “A man as clever as you could safely make the deal and realize what the stuff is worth. You’d get by, all right.”
“I’ll get by, Carter, and you can bank on it,” Floyd asserted confidently. “But I shall stick to the safe road. I’ll put this stuff into shape that can be easily turned into cash. It will pay us handsomely enough, all right,” he added, with an exultant leer.
“That’s no pipe dream,” growled Bagley, with eyes glowing. “It beats any stuff of the kind that I ever lamped. It ought to bring——”
He broke off abruptly when a low, peculiar whistle fell upon his ears. Though instantly recognized, he instinctively reached for his revolver.
“It’s Bannon,” snapped Floyd quickly. “Bannon or Vera.”
“Sure!” put in Gorman, gazing.
This was verified in a moment by the appearance of Bannon from the tunnel leading from the rag shed.
He came out of the ground like an imp out of Hades, with an evil gleam in his narrow eyes, and obviously in some excitement.
“Say, Floyd, I’ve been up against it,” he cried at once. “I’ve been double-crossed by a scurvy whelp, who would have thrown us all down and into the hands of the dicks.”
“Whom do you mean?” Floyd demanded, staring at him.
“Pilot Flynn.”
“That cur!”
“Gee! Wait till I get back at him,” Bannon fiercely threatened. “I’ll pepper him as full of holes as a sieve.”
“What do you mean?” snapped Floyd. “Tell me.”
Bannon hastened to do so, describing the subterfuge of Patsy Garvan and stating what had followed.
It brought a murderous light into Floyd’s eyes, while uglier scowls settled on the sweaty faces of Gorman and Bagley.
Nick Carter, listened with some misgivings, also, though he still felt quite that Patsy would yet contrive to accomplish what he had undertaken.
“But what led you to suspect?” Floyd questioned. “What put you wise to the game?”
“I wasn’t wise, only suspicious, and I knocked him out to make sure,” Bannon quickly explained. “I made sure, too, all right.”
“How so?”
“Here’s his barker and a pair of bracelets,” said Bannon, producing them. “I knew his mug, all right, after I had downed him. He’s one of this dick’s push. His name is Patsy Garvan.”
Floyd swung around and glared at the detective.
“What do you know about this, Carter?” he demanded.
“I’m not telling all I know,” Nick bluntly answered.
“You’re not, eh?”
“Not is right.”
“By Heaven, I’ll find a way to make you,” Floyd harshly threatened. “I’m going to find out just where we stand, or——”
“Easy!” Bannon turned like a flash, then added quickly: “Oh, it’s only the skirt. It’s Vera.”
She came by the same way as Bannon, with her skirts drawn around her to avoid the earthy walls, and with a look of alarm in her evil black eyes.
“Who’s the stiff in the alley?” she asked abruptly, with a startled glance at the detective.
“Still there, is he?” Floyd quickly questioned, instead of explaining.
“Yes.”
“He’ll lie still for some time to come,” Bannon viciously predicted. “I gave it to him good and strong.”
“And I’ll see that you get yours, in return,” thought Nick, far from daunted by his own threatening situation.
“You ought to have downed him earlier, farther from here,” said Floyd, doubtfully shaking his head.
“Why so?”
“He may get wise.”
“Rats!” sneered Bannon curtly. “What can he make of it? He don’t know why I came this way, nor which way I went after dropping him. He’ll get fat trying to trail me from where I left him.”
“Well, what’s on your mind?” asked Floyd, turning to the woman again, to whom Bagley had hurriedly explained the situation. “Have you seen the girl, as you planned?”
“Want it in his hearing?” questioned Vera, with another glance at Nick.
“Why not?” snapped Floyd. “He cuts no ice, now that we have him where we want him. We’ll finish him, along with this other good work, before morning.”
“That will be the safest way,” Nick coolly advised.
“Leave that to us.”
“That’s what I am doing—under protest.”
“Have you seen the girl?” Floyd repeated, again turning to Vera Vantoon.
“Sure, I’ve seen her,” Vera nodded.
“Were you expected?”
“That’s what. I can always bank on Angel Face.”
“Angel Face!” thought Nick, with a quick thrill of satisfaction. “She refers to Minerva Grand, as sure as I’m a foot high. Things are looking up. It’s money to marbles that Chick shadowed the girl, then dropped her to follow this woman. He would not have forgotten her and her past relations with Stuart Floyd. He cannot be far from here. There’ll be something doing presently that will give these rascals the surprise of their lives.”
Nick did not for a moment think that Chick would have lost sight of this woman.
Now replying to Floyd’s inquiry, Vera Vantoon told him of her meeting with Minerva, and reported in detail the information the girl had imparted.
Some of the color faded from Floyd’s face while he listened.
Those of Bug Bannon, Bagley, and Gorman took on more serious expressions.
“What the devil did he want of hot water and a spoon?” Bannon suspiciously demanded, addressing Floyd. “What kind of a test could he have wanted to make?”
“I’ll be hanged if I know.”
“It don’t go down, not down my throat,” Bannon growled. “He had some other object. He may be putting something over that we don’t know about.”
“I’ll darned soon find out!” cried Floyd, with eyes blazing. “What was it, Carter? What was your game?”
“You’ll not find out from me,” Nick curtly answered.
“Won’t I?”
“Not by a long chalk.”
“We’ll see!” thundered Floyd, lifting from the melting pot the ladle half filled with liquid silver. “You answer! You tell me! Out with it—or I’ll pour this down your infernal neck!”
He meant what he said—and he looked it.
CHAPTER IX.
DEAD ASHES.
Chick Carter whipped out his searchlight, crouching above the prostrate man he had found in the alley.
At the same moment a low moan broke from the victim of Bug Bannon’s treacherous assault. Patsy’s head was harder than the cowardly young ruffian had thought. Patsy was fast on his way to reviving.
The glare from the searchlight fell on his upturned face, and a low cry of dismay came from Chick.
“Great guns!” he muttered. “It’s Patsy.”
Patsy heard him, and the sound of the familiar voice was like a stimulant. It brought him completely out of dreamland.
“Oh, it’s you, Chick,” he said faintly. “Gee! that was a hard crack on the bean—but I’m still in the ring.”
Chick heard him with a thrill of relief.
“By Jove, I thought you were done up, Patsy,” he replied, raising him to a sitting position. “How are you feeling?”
“Better every second. I’ll be on my pins in a minute.”
“What happened? How did it occur?” Chick inquired.
It took Patsy only a few moments to inform him, and for Chick to state how he had discovered Vera Vantoon and afterward lost sight of her. Before they had finished, Patsy was on his feet, but with a look of disgust on his rather pale face.
“Hang it, then, we’ve lost both of them,” he said dubiously. “What’s to be done? The chief may be in dead wrong by this time.”
“The fact that both of them vanished in this locality is significant,” Chick replied. “If only one had come here, I might think nothing of it. Under the circumstances, however, it’s ten to one that the gang has quarters in this section.”
“Gee! there’s something in that,” said Patsy, quick to see the point. “In one of these old buildings, perhaps.”
“Are you fit for a search?” asked Chick, still a bit anxious.
“As fit as a fiddle,” Patsy assured him.
“Take one of my revolvers, then,” said Chick, giving it to him. “We may run foul of some one.”
“I’ll be ready for him. I hope it may be that whelp that downed me. I can see where he’d get his.”
Chick laughed softly.
“Come on,” he muttered, leading the way. “We’ll steal through the alley and have a look at the back of these buildings.”
Patsy followed him.
For something like five minutes they searched cautiously and noiselessly back of the gloomy buildings and between the sheds and hovels, but could find in the darkness no trace of the vanished rascals, no clew to their whereabouts.
They then had brought up near the rag shed in which Nick had found the disguised crook, and some twenty yards from the grim and gloom-shrouded stone building.
“Gee! this don’t look good to me!” Patsy whispered, at Chick’s elbow. “They sure have given us the slip.”
“It does look so,” Chick quietly admitted.
“There isn’t a sign of light from any of these miserable cribs. It ought to find its way out through some chink or nail hole, if they are under cover in any of them.”
“True.”
“We had better——”
“Hush! Stop a bit.”
“What now?” Patsy whispered, noting the changed expression on Chick’s face.
“There’s something doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look there.”
Chick pointed to the stone building, not to its grim walls and black windows, from which not a twinkle of light could be seen—but higher, to a point above its low, flat roof.
In the middle of it was a scuttle and glass skylight—and Stuart Floyd had made one mistake that was to bring disaster.
In opening the trapdoor in the ceiling, which was nearly directly above the melting pot, he had forgotten the skylight in a line with the trapdoor.
Chick and Patsy had not, till then, looked up in that direction for a clew.
Now, however, both could see the faint glow that came up from below and stood out in relief, as it were, against the surrounding night gloom.
It was like the glow shed out from the open door of a brightly lighted hall.
“Holy smoke!” Patsy muttered, with a quick thrill. “There’s some one in the old stone crib.”
“More than one, Patsy, I suspect,” Chick whispered.
“Can we get in?”
“Wait here while I have a look.”
“Go ahead.”
Chick glided away in the darkness, presently returning.
“I don’t think we can get in on the ground floor,” he said quietly. “The door and window shutters are of sheet iron, and all are securely closed.”
“Gee! that sure smacks of something doing.”
“I’m convinced of it, now.”
“Could you hear anything from inside?”
“Not a sound,” said Chick. “There is a way, however, by which we can look in.”
Chick pointed toward the roof.
“There’s a skylight,” he said quietly.
“Must be,” Patsy tersely agreed. “But how can we get up there?”
“It’s not more than eighteen feet to the edge of the roof. I climbed over several planks back here that are that long.”
“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Patsy, elated. “I’ve got you. We can lean one of the planks against the rear wall and get up there by means of it.”
“Easily.”
“We’ll not be heard, either, through that stone wall.”
“Not if we are careful.”
“Come on,” whispered Patsy impatiently. “Let’s get the plank.”
It did not take them long to find one that would serve their purpose, nor to lug it to the rear of the low building and place at an angle against the stone wall. It reached within a foot of the edge of the roof, and that was more than ample.
“Shoes off, Patsy,” whispered Chick.
Both were ready within half a minute.
In another minute both were crouching on the roof.
Noiselessly they crept to the skylight and gazed down through the trapdoor on the red-glowing scene below.
“Thundering guns!” whispered Patsy, staring. “The rats are there, all right. They are melting a lot of silver plate.”
“Part of the Waldmere plate.”
“Surest thing you know.”
They could not see Nick, owing to the location of the trap in the upper floor, but while listening intently—they heard him addressed by Floyd and his name mentioned.
“Holy smoke!” Patsy then whispered. “They’ve got the chief.”
“I heard,” Chick nodded, feeling over the skylight.
“Hadn’t we better get help and force an entrance?”
“Floyd might send a bullet into Nick, in that case, before he could be prevented. There’s a better way.”
“What way?”
Chick held up one of the small panes of the skylight. He had found the putty dry and crumbling, and, after a moment, he had quietly removed the pane. Feeling through the opening, he then found that he could release the hook that secured the scuttle.
“That upper floor is less than seven feet below the skylight,” he whispered. “We can let ourselves down to it without a drop. The noise down there will prevent our being heard, providing we are careful. There must be a stairway to the lower floor. We can steal down and hold up the whole gang.”
Patsy nodded his approval.
“Better way is right,” he murmured. “It looks like soft walking.”
“It will enable us to protect Nick, also.”
“That’s the stuff. Safety first.”
“Are you ready?”
“Ready as a trivet.”
Working cautiously and deliberately, Chick succeeded in lifting the skylight without making a sound, and he laid it over on the roof.
“I’ll go first, Patsy,” he murmured.
Patsy merely nodded.
Chick let himself over the sill, then grasped the frame of the scuttle and lowered himself till his feet touched the floor some eighteen inches from the trapdoor.
Patsy followed him.
The scene below was, indeed, one that diverted the attention of the crooks from anything overhead.
It was at that very moment that Stuart Floyd, fiercely threatening the detective, had seized the ladle of liquid silver from the melting pot and was approaching with the evident intention of making good his infamous threat.
Chick Carter did not give him time to do so.
His revolver was out on the instant and its report rang like thunder above all other sounds.
Floyd went to the floor with a bullet in his shoulder, and the ladle fell from his lax hand.
Chick dropped to the edge of the trapdoor and thrust the smoking weapon through it.
“Hands up!” he yelled fiercely. “Up with them! He’ll be a dead man who stirs!”
Patsy had darted toward the dimly lighted stairway and already was nearly down.
“Dead man is right!” he shouted, weapon leveled. “Move foot or finger, man or woman, and I’ll shoot to kill!”
Without exception, the several crooks had knuckled to the sudden startling situation. As a matter of fact, they supposed the building was surrounded and that a posse of police were breaking in on them. Once their hands were up, however, it was all over but the shouting, as Patsy afterward said.
Within five minutes the crooks were secured, Floyd among them, he having suffered only a flesh wound.
Half an hour later all were in the Tombs, including Minerva Grand, the first step toward the punishment they deserved.
Midnight saw the priceless plate, or that most cherished by Waldmere, taken safely into his residence—and thus, crowning with complete success the splendid work of Nick Carter and his assistants, the sensational case ended.
The fire under the melting pot had become dead ashes.
THE END.
Notwithstanding the fact that Floyd and his gang had apparently been rounded up, Nick Carter and his associates were to have yet more trouble with this gang of blackmailers, crooks, and thieves. You will learn about these later developments in “The Duplicate Night; or, Nick Carter’s Double Reflection,” which you will find in the next issue, No. 141, of the Nick Carter Stories, out May 22d. Then, too, there will be the usual installment of the serial, together with other special articles which you will enjoy.
“TURN TO THE JURY, SIR!”
Some years ago a witness was being examined in a case of slander, when the judge required him to repeat the precise words spoken.
The witness hesitated until he riveted the attention of the whole court upon him; then fixing his eyes earnestly on the judge, began:
“May it please your honor, ‘you lie and steal and get your living by stealing!’”
The face of the judge reddened, and he immediately exclaimed: