CHAPTER IX.
THE SWING OF THE PENDULUM.
What was to be done, though?
To burst into the room and seek to overpower the four doctors then and there, in Helga’s presence, would place the actress in additional danger.
Nick was convinced, however, that that risk would have to be run. He had seen evidences that more than one of the men were tiring of the cruel sport, and it might now come to an end at any moment.
He swiftly considered two or three possible plans for drawing the four away from their victim, but rejected them all. They would only increase the danger of a slip of some sort, and he was bent upon capturing the four, as well as releasing the actress.
Furthermore, he did not believe that even Grantley would dare to harm Helga further in his presence, even if the fortunes of war should give the surgeon a momentary opportunity.
He, accordingly, motioned to his assistant to follow close behind him, and laid his left hand on the knob.
He turned it noiselessly, and was greatly relieved to find that the door yielded. Their advent would be a complete surprise, therefore, and would find the four totally unprepared.
Nick paused a moment, then flung the door back violently and strode into the room.
Grantley was the ringleader, the most dangerous of the lot at any time, and the fact that he was an escaped convict would render his resistance more than ordinarily desperate. The periscope had told Nick where the fugitive stood, and thus the detective was enabled to cover him at once with the unwavering muzzle of the automatic.
“Hands up, Grantley! Hands up, everybody!” cried Nick, stepping a little to one side to allow Chick to enter.
His assistant took immediate advantage of the opening and stepped to his chief’s side, with leveled weapon. Chick’s automatic was pointed at Doctor Chester, however. After Grantley, the man whose house had been invaded, was naturally the one who was likely to put up the hardest fight.
The guilty four were spellbound with astonishment and fear for a moment, then the three younger ones jumped to their feet like so many jacks-in-the-box. Grantley had already been standing when the detectives broke in.
“Did you hear me, gentlemen?” Nick demanded, crooking his finger a little more closely about the trigger. “I said ‘Hands up!’ and it won’t be healthy for any of you to ignore the invitation. One—two—three!”
Before the last word passed his lips, however, four pairs of hands were in the air. Doctor Willard’s had gone up first, and Grantley’s last.
“Thank you so much!” the detective remarked, with mock politeness. Now, if you will oblige me a little further, by lining up against that right wall, I shall be still more grateful to you. Kindly place yourselves about two feet apart, not less. I want you, Number Sixty Thousand One Thirteen”—Grantley winced at his prison number—“at this end of the line, next to me, with Chester, alias Schofield, next; Graves next to him, and Willard last. You see, I haven’t forgotten any of my old friends.”
This disposition of the trapped quartet was designed to serve two purposes. In the first place, it would remove them from proximity to Helga Lund, who, crouched in the middle of the floor, was watching the detectives with bewildered, uncomprehending eyes. In the second place, it would enable Chick to handcuff them one by one, while Nick stood ready to fire, at an instant’s notice, on any one who made a false move.
It looked, for the time being, as if the capture would be altogether too easy to have any spice in it, but the detectives did not make the mistake of underrating their adversaries—Grantley, especially.
To be sure, they were probably unarmed, and had been taken at such a disadvantage that they would hardly have had an opportunity to draw weapons, even if they had worn them. Still, any one of a number of things might happen.
The four doctors had been caught “with the goods,” as the police saying is, and they might be expected to take desperate chances as soon as they had had time to collect their scattered wits and to realize the seriousness of their plight.
Nick Carter had shown his usual generalship in the orders he had given so crisply.
Grantley himself, the most to be feared of the lot, was to be placed nearest to the detective, where Nick could watch him most narrowly. That was not all, however. The detective meant that Chick should handcuff Grantley first, and thus put the leader out of mischief at the earliest opportunity.
After him, Chester was to be disposed of, and the two that would then remain were comparatively harmless in themselves.
Grantley doubtless saw through Nick’s tactics from the beginning, and if the detective could have caught the gleam behind the wily surgeon’s half-closed lids, he would have known that Grantley thought he saw an opportunity to circumvent those tactics.
With reasonable promptness, hands still in the air, Grantley started to obey the detective’s order. He moved slowly, grudgingly, his face distorted with rage and hate.
Chester started to follow the older man toward the wall, but Chick halted him.
“Hold up, there, Schofield-Chester!” the young detective ordered. “One at a time, if you don’t mind!”
He wished to prevent the confusion that would result from the simultaneous movement of the four scoundrels.
Chester paused with a snarl, and Grantley went on alone. He was making for the corner nearest to Nick, who still stood close to the door. In doing so, he was obliged to pass in front of the detective.
It had been no part of Nick’s plan to have the fugitive take to that corner, and he suddenly realized that the criminal was crossing a little too close to him for safety.
“Here, keep to the left a little——” he began sharply, when Grantley was about four feet away.
But before he could complete his sentence, the escaped convict ducked and threw his body sidewise, the long arms were already above his head and he left them where they were. Their abnormal length helped to bridge the distance between him and Nick as he flung himself at the detective.
Nick guessed the nature of the move, as if by instinct, and when he fired, which he did immediately, it was with depressed muzzle. He had allowed, in other words, for the swift descent of Grantley’s body.
In spite of that, however, the bullet merely plowed a furrow across the criminal’s shoulder and back, as he dropped. It did not disable him in the least, and, before Nick could fire again. Grantley’s peculiar dive ended with a vicious impact against his legs, and clawlike hands gripped him about the knees in an effort to pull him down.
The convict’s daring act broke the spell which had held his companions. Without waiting to see whether Grantley’s move was to prove successful or not, the three of them threw themselves bodily upon Chick, while the latter’s attention was diverted for a moment by his chief’s peril.
Doctor Chester, who had been looking for something of the sort from Grantley, was the first to pounce upon Nick’s assistant. He gripped Chick’s right wrist and began to twist it in an attempt to loosen the hold on the weapon.
“Help Grantley, Willard,” he directed, at the same time, between his clenched teeth. “Graves and I can handle this fellow, I guess.”
Willard started for Nick, while Graves shifted his attack, and, edging around behind Chick, seized him by the shoulders. At the same moment he placed one knee in the small of the young detective’s back.
There could be only one result.
Chick was bent painfully back until his spine felt as if it was about to crack in two; then, in his efforts to relieve the strain, he lost his footing and went down, with Chester on top of him, and still clinging doggedly to his wrists.
A few feet away Nick was being hard pressed by two other rascals.
The pendulum of chance had swung the other way, and things looked very dubious for the detectives—and for what was left of Helga Lund!