CHAPTER VIII.
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.”