The Blue Veil by Nick Carter - HTML preview

CHAPTER IX.
 CONVERGING FORCES.

It was a noteworthy coincidence, though by no means extraordinary, that all three detectives arrived at quite nearly the same time at the Ardley place. Each coming from a different direction, however, neither was at first aware of the presence of the other.

Chick Carter, after parting from Nick, hurried along the woodland road to the right, searching all the while for another fragment of the torn veil, but covering nearly a mile before he found one. This was, in fact, the last fragment dropped by the abducted girl during her forced flight.

“By Jove, this shows that I am on the right road, and Nick, of course, must be following the wrong one,” thought Chick, upon picking up the scrap of lace. “It would be useless for me to signal him. We are too widely separated by this time for him to hear me. Nor would there be anything in turning back and trying to overtake him and set him right. That would be a loss of valuable time. I’ll plug on, therefore, and see where the trail leads.”

It was another case of all roads leading to Rome. The distance to the Ardley place by the way Chick was taking, however, was considerably longer than that followed by Nick, which allowed for the episodes in which the latter figured while the former was covering the distance.

Half an hour brought Chick to the river and to the bridge mentioned by Dugan. He then could see in the far distance the spires of the town, but he was too far down the stream to see the road house or any of the buildings Nick had noticed.

“The rascals must have gone this way, of course, for I have passed no diverging road,” Chick rightly reasoned, while striding on across the bridge. “They may have been heading for that town, or for some isolated place near it. There is no branch road at the end of the bridge, so I cannot possibly take a wrong one. It would be encouraging, nevertheless, to find another fragment of the girl’s veil. Something evidently prevented her from dropping more of them.”

The road wound through the woods and out of view of the river after leaving the bridge, and another half hour had passed when Chick again came in sight of the stream. He then could see the distant road house on the opposite bank, but no sign of any persons near it.

Dugan’s launch no longer was at the float where Nick had observed it.

Chick hurried on, and presently met with a surprise, a most agreeable one. He caught sight of another fragment of the torn veil, and of the narrow road leading toward the river.

“Eureka!” he muttered, hastening to pick it up. “Here’s another scrap, at last. The girl must have dropped it to denote that her abductors took this side road. In that case—oh, by Jove, here are three more, and lying in a line denoting——”

Chick had stopped short in the side road, and his process of reasoning then was precisely what Nick had anticipated. The circumstances, in fact, admitted of only one logical conclusion.

“By gracious, there’s nothing to it,” thought Chick, elated. “Nick has been here. No one else could have had four pieces of the veil, and surely no one else would have placed them so suggestively in this direction. He must have picked up a clew that brought him here, and he evidently figured that I would come along this road. So he left these here to direct me.”

Chick reasoned, too, that the side road must lead to a dwelling, the occupants of which Nick had been led to suspect, and he then became more cautious.

Leaving the road, lest he might possibly be seen, he struck into the woods on the left and picked his way over a low hill, a course that brought him to the edge of the clearing directly back of the Ardley dwelling.

Chick had arrived at a point, however, from which he could see only a part of the building a short distance beyond the house, and at which Margate and his confederates had arrived a few moments before. He was too far away, moreover, for their voices to reach his ears.

It so happened, too, that Toulon and Patsy Garvan then were approaching the building, but Chick had come from nearly the opposite direction, and the building itself hid them from his view.

Though unable to see any sign of Nick, a fact that somewhat mystified him, Chick made one discovery that immediately shaped his course of action.

He had arrived just in time to see Jane Ardley come out of the back door of the house, from which she walked away several yards, and then turned to gaze up intently at an attic window, so intently and for so long a time, in fact, that Chick naturally gazed in the same direction, wondering what occasioned her interest.

He then saw that the attic window was closely curtained. He could see, too, that the curtain evidently was held in place with several wooden slats running across it and nailed to the casing.

“By Jove, that window is barred,” he said to himself. “The woman is looking to see whether it can be detected from outside, or for some other equally suspicious reason. It’s dead open and shut, therefore, that some one is confined in that attic room. Is it Clara Clayton, or has Nick met with some mishap and fallen into the hands of a gang? There now seems to be no one around here but the woman. By thunder, I’ll mighty soon find out.”

Chick whipped out a revolver and thrust it into his side pocket.

Jane Ardley had retraced her steps and was entering the back door of the house. She left it open and passed through the kitchen.

Chick saw her disappear into a room beyond the kitchen, and he instantly seized the opportunity presented. He darted across the clearing and crouched for a moment near the open door.

Listening, he could hear the woman moving in an interior room, but there was no sound of voices.

“She’s alone here, all right, barring whoever is on the top floor,” Chick reasoned. “I’ll get her, for a starter, and then look farther.”

He did not defer operations. He was in a proper mood for aggressive action. He stole quickly through the kitchen and to the open door of the adjoining room, in which Jane Ardley then was engaged in clearing the breakfast table.

The floor creaked under Chick’s weight, and the woman turned and saw him.

As quick as a flash she seized a knife from the table and snarled savagely:

“Who in thunder are you?”

“Tell me, instead, who you are and who is confined in your attic,” Chick sternly answered.

Before the last was fairly uttered, however, the woman went ghastly white, then dropped the knife and turned toward the nearest window.

That she was going to scream for help was obvious, and Chick’s face turned as hard as flint. He reached the woman with a bound, seized her by the throat to prevent any outcry, and forced her against the wall in one corner.

“You utter a sound, you jade, and I’ll silence you with a blow,” he threatened fiercely.

Gasping for breath, with abject fear now manifest in her evil eyes, the woman ceased struggling, and Chick quickly handcuffed her arms behind her and forced her into a small closet near by.

“Now tell me the truth,” he said sternly. “Who else is in the house, and where——”

“You’ll get nothing from me,” the woman snarled between her teeth, glaring at him with impotent fury.

“Won’t I?” snapped Chick. “I’ll not wait, then, to argue the point.”

Seizing a towel from the shelf in the closet, he quickly tied it over the woman’s mouth, then closed the closet door and locked it, removing the key.

Knowing that he had no time to lose, and apprehending that others might return to the house at any moment, Chick then hurried through a narrow adjoining hall and up two flights of stairs, all the while with eyes and ears alert, and his revolver ready for instant use.

There was no one to oppose him, however, and half a minute brought him to the door of the attic room. It was closed and locked, but a key hung on a nail in the casing. As he removed it, a girlish voice from within the room cried affrightedly:

“Who’s there?”

Chick recognized the voice, and his face lighted. He flung open the door and entered, saying heartily:

“I’m here, Mrs. Clayton, and I’ll bet you’re glad to see me.”

The scene that met his gaze was about what he was expecting. Lying on a rude bed, to which she had been tied with strips of cord, was the abducted girl the detectives were seeking, still clad in her traveling costume, with her hat, gloves, and veil on a chair near by.

Chick Carter could never forget the swift change that came over her anxious, distressful white face when she beheld him. It brightened with mingled gratitude, joy, and relief that could not be expressed in words. A cry broke from her, then his familiar name, and then she gave way to hysterical weeping, which she at first could not govern.

Chick hastened to liberate her, however, and told her the danger of needless delay; and the thought of further peril served most to calm her and nerve her to immediate action.

“Oh, I am equal to anything, Mr. Carter, to escape from this dreadful place and that terrible man,” she cried, seizing her hat and rising to accompany him.

“Don’t be alarmed. We shall accomplish it,” Chick assured her, while he assisted her down the narrow stairway from the attic.

“God grant it!” she cried, still sobbing. “Oh, how can I ever repay you?”

“Don’t speak of that. Tell me, instead, how Margate contrived to lure you from the house last night,” Chick added, aiming to divert her mind from the immediate situation.

“I was deceived, terribly deceived,” replied Clara, complying while they continued to pick their way down the stairs. “I had seen no stranger enter my husband’s room. I saw him suddenly come out, however, or supposed it was he, and hasten into mine.”

“I understand,” Chick nodded.

“He was putting on his overcoat and hat,” Clara continued. “He said I must go with him at once, that he had planned to elude our guests, that he had our limousine in the road through the east park, and that my father was awaiting us in it.”

“That was the way it was done, eh?”

“How could I doubt, or distrust him,” she went on. “He had come from my husband’s room. I went with him willingly, of course, and——”

“That was perfectly natural, Mrs. Clayton, under the circumstances,” Chick put in, as they descended the lower stairway.

“We went out by the servants’ door and stairs,” said Clara. “Not until we arrived in the park road, where I saw an open motor car in the starlight, did I realize that I had been duped, that I really was in the hands of Chester Clayton’s double.”

“I see.”

“It was then too late. I was seized by him and two other men and forced to enter the car. They threatened to kill me if I uttered a cry. I did not dare do so. I was forced to go with them.”

“But you contrived to drop fragments of your veil,” said Chick admiringly.

Mrs. Clayton’s countenance lighted.

“You found them, then?” she cried inquiringly.

“You bet we found them.”

“I pretended to be crying bitterly all the while,” she went on to explain. “So I was, in fact, with my head bowed in my hands, but I contrived to tear off bits of the veil at intervals and drop them from the car. I hoped——”

“Your hope is fulfilled,” Chick interposed. “They enabled us to trace you. Nick should be somewhere near here, unless he——”

He stopped short, interrupted by the sudden sharp crack of a revolver—that of Patsy Garvan, when he killed Ben Ardley.

“Great Scott!” Chick exclaimed. “Wait here, Mrs. Clayton. I’ll see what that means.”

He did not wait for an answer, but darted out through a side door of the house.

The first person he caught sight of was Margate, just leaping through the broken door of the building, some fifty yards from the house. The rascal was reaching for a revolver, and was turning toward the door at the opposite end of the building.

Margate caught sight of Chick at that moment, however, instantly recognizing him, and all that was cowardly in him leaped into play. He did not put up a fight, did not venture attempting to rescue his confederates in crime, but he turned like a mongrel cur and darted down to the launch near the river bank, bent only upon making his escape.

Chick saw his design and pursued him, whipping out a revolver. At the same moment he caught sight of Patsy Garvan and the cornered gang through the broken door. Without pausing, he yelled at the top of his lungs:

“Keep them covered, Patsy. I’ll get this other rat.”

Patsy heard him and recognized his voice. It was like sweet music, too, in Patsy’s ears. He felt, then, that he could have held up a regiment.

Margate had a considerable start on the detective, and he already had cast off the launch and was cranking the motor wheel when Chick approached the bank.

By a stroke of sheer good luck he got the ignition with the first turn of the wheel, and a swirl of bubbling black water surged out from under the boat’s low stern. She made way instantly, and Margate dropped flat near the wheel, out of range of a bullet.

Chick then was dashing down the bank at top speed.

He saw the launch start, then veer into the stream, moving faster, and he saw that her stern was swinging for a moment nearer the bank.

It was a moment when some men would have hesitated, most men, in fact—but not Chick Carter.

He dropped his revolver into his side pocket, then caught his breath for a flying leap.

He missed the moving stern with his feet, but caught the low aft rail as he fell, fiercely clinging to it and dragging astern in the wild swirl of water from the propeller, till his arm felt as if it was being pulled from his body.

Margate had seen him leap and heard him swashing astern. Seizing a boat hook, the rascal rushed aft, with murder in his evil eyes.

Chick was expecting this, and he had convinced to draw his revolver from his pocket. He saw Margate coming, saw him loom up against the blue of the sky, saw the uplifted boat hook aimed at his head, and Chick’s hand rose above the swirl and spume around him.

Bang!

There was only one shot, nor need for another.

A splurge of red covered Margate’s evil face and shirt front. He threw up both hands and pitched headlong over the boat’s side, instantly sinking from view in the black, swift-flowing stream.

Chick let go of the launch, and she sped on across the river.

He paddled here and there, watching for Margate to rise to the surface, but the body did not appear.

Apprehending that Patsy might be in need of aid, Chick lingered only to feel sure that Margate had been drowned, if not killed with the bullet, and he then swam ashore and hastened up to the building.

Patsy still had his prisoners well in hand, however, with theirs still in the air.

Ardley was lying dead on the floor.

The four remaining crooks were speedily secured after Chick returned, and all that remains of the stirring case may be briefly told. They, including Ardley’s wife, were tried and convicted of the abduction, and were sent to prison for a term of years.

Margate’s body never was recovered from the river, but there seemed to be no reasonable doubt that he had been shot, or drowned.

Ten o’clock on that eventful morning found the detectives returning to Langham Manor with Clara, and the scenes of joy that followed could not be verbally described. The wedding journey had been deferred by knavery of the basest kind, but only briefly deferred—owing to the prompt and masterly work of Nick Carter and his assistants.

It may go without saying, too, that they were most liberally paid for that work by those they had served so splendidly.

THE END.