CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE BACK TRACK.
Nick Carter had reasoned correctly concerning the night telegram which he had received from Patsy Garvan, whom he had directed to shadow Pierre Toulon when the latter returned on the special train to New York with Lenaire and the several assistants whom he had brought to Langham Manor.
Patsy expected to have a busy night, but the jaunt Toulon led him far exceeded his anticipations.
It was after twelve o’clock when the train arrived in the station, where Toulon was employed for half an hour in removing to a wagon the articles belonging to the caterer.
He no sooner was at liberty, moreover, than he hurried to the nearest hotel, where he entered a telephone booth and remained for several minutes.
It was then that Patsy heard him call for a long-distance wire, also catching the name of B. Ardley just as Toulon closed the booth door, but mistaking it for Beardly precisely as Nick afterward suspected.
Unable to overhear more, Patsy seized the opportunity to write and send the telegram to Nick, which the detective received an hour later.
Patsy then shadowed Toulon to an all-night restaurant, where the waiter ate a hearty meal, remaining there until three o’clock and then returning to the railway station, where he purchased a ticket.
Patsy inquired a little later and learned that the ticket was for the same town noticed by Nick when approaching Dugan’s road house that morning, and he immediately bought one for the same place.
“There’s nothing to this,” Patsy reasoned, quickly sizing up the circumstance. “He’s going to take the back track. The rascal is going to return and join the gang that did that job last night. He probably wants his bit of the coin.
“The chief sized him up correctly, all right, and it still is up to me to stick to the frog-eating miscreant. It will be a cold day, by thunder, if I don’t have a hand in rounding up the whole bunch.”
Patsy did not think it necessary to again communicate with Nick by telegram, intending to telephone to him after reaching his destination, but the train did not enter the town until after seven o’clock that morning, and Toulon then kept Patsy on the move.
For he started at once on foot for the Ardley place, diverging from the road just before arriving there, and approaching it by a short cut through the woods.
Patsy had kept him constantly in view up to that time, avoiding observation with some little difficulty, but he lost sight of him when the rascal suddenly plunged into the woods.
“Gee whiz! it won’t do to let him give me the slip at this stage of the game,” he muttered, at once increasing his pace. “I’m dead sure he has not seen me, so he cannot have ducked in there as a ruse, bent upon holding me up. If there is any holding up to be done, by gracious, I’m the gink who is going to do it.”
Patsy quickly confirmed his reasoning upon arriving at the point where Toulon had entered the woods. There was no sign of the rascal.
Hurrying on in the direction Toulon evidently had taken, however, Patsy soon came in sight of the sign on the top of Ardley’s building, and a moment later in sight of the building itself, just as Toulon turned one corner of it on his way to the door.
It was precisely at that time that Margate ended his mocking talk with Nick, and then commanded Ardley to throw the lever that opened that floodgate to the sluice.
The unexpected arrival of Toulon caused that murderous design to be temporarily deferred, though by no means discarded, and in the interval that ensued Patsy Garvan was not idle.
“By Jove, it was to this fellow that he telephoned,” he said to himself upon again reading the sign. “Ardley must be one of the gang, and Toulon has hiked back here to join them. The entire gang may be in the building, for all I know.
“There’s a launch made fast at the river bank, but it don’t belong here, or a float would be provided for it. I’ll make a bid, by gracious, to find out who is in there and what’s doing. I can reach one of those end windows without being seen from the house. Let come what may, by thunder, I’ll have one stealthy look.”
Patsy was not slow in acting upon this determination. He sized up with a glance the possibilities of approaching the building without being seen from within.
Leaving the fringe of shrubbery at the edge of the woods, under which he had briefly lingered, Patsy stole back of the huge pile of refuse mentioned, then crawled back of several barrels and boxes, finally reaching a point some twenty feet from an end window of the building and near the corner around which Toulon had disappeared only a few moments before.
Patsy now could faintly hear the sound of voices from within the building.
He shifted both of his revolvers to the side pockets of his sack coat, then crept from his concealment and peered cautiously through a lower corner of the window.
He saw and recognized Margate.
He saw Ardley with his hand on the long iron lever.
He saw Dugan, Conroy, and Morley, all of them forming so ominous a picture that Patsy instantly decided that there was more doing than he had anticipated. He could not hear what Margate was saying, however, who then was talking with Toulon, and he now went a step farther. He drew both revolvers and crept around to the open door through which Toulon had entered the building.
Patsy had arrived too late, nevertheless, to hear how Toulon had explained his unexpected return, that he had thought it necessary to report what Nick had said to him the previous night, denoting that he might have incurred the detective’s suspicion.
“It’s no use talking, Mr. Margate, I’ve got a scare on,” he was saying, when Patsy paused outside of the open door. “I went into this job under protest, you know, and only because you said it would be soft walking. I want to bolt, and I’m going to after you pay me what you agreed. I’ve got a scare——”
“What are you afraid of?” Margate demanded, interrupting.
“Well, I know what it means to be up against Nick Carter,” frowned Toulon. “He’s the worst ever, and likely to——”
“Stop a bit!” snapped Margate, with a scornful gesture. “Do you know where Nick Carter is at this moment?”
“No. Do you?” gasped Toulon, staring.
“You bet I know,” cried Margate, pointing. “He is in a trap under this floor, a trap adjoining the sluice. Do you see that lever Ardley is gripping? It opens the floodgate of the sluice. When Ardley throws it—we shall drown Nick Carter like a rat in a trap.”
Pasty’s ears tingled and his face turned as threatening as a thundercloud.
“If that big bull moose throws that lever, then, he’ll throw it over my dead body,” he said to himself, stealing close to the door and peering in to watch the huge ruffian.
Toulon stared like a man nonplused.
“Nick Carter there?” he gasped. “Drown him like a rat? But that will be murder. It means——”
“Never mind what it means, you milk-and-water monkey!” Margate fiercely cut in. “I know what it means if we let him live. I’ll wipe this cursed dick out of my path, if it’s the last thing I do in this world. Throw the lever, Ardley! Throw the lever and drown the infernal sleuth!”
Patsy Garvan was in the building before the last was said.
Before he could utter a warning cry, however, for he would have held up the entire gang without bloodshed, if possible, he saw Ardley, who was ready and willing to obey, sag back on the iron lever.
Patsy’s revolver barked on the instant.
The report rang like thunder through the old building.
The bullet went true to its mark.
Ardley threw up his hands, with blood gushing from a hole in his head, and without so much as a groan he pitched forward against one of the walls. His huge figure struck a small door at that end of the building. It broke from its hinges, and the crash of it was mingled with that of the ruffian himself when both struck the floor.
Patsy did not hesitate for an instant.
“Hands up!” he yelled, striding toward the startled group. “I’ve got bullets for all, and I’ll drop the first who reaches for a gun.”
Margate did not reach for a gun. He had been struck by Ardley when the latter fell, and he was within a foot of the broken door. He moved like a flash and darted through it.
“Hang him!” thought Patsy. “The worst of the bunch.”
He fell back a step, to a position from which he could watch both doors, and also the four dismayed men who stood with their hands in the air.