CHAPTER VII.
TAKING LONG CHANCES.
Patsy Garvan and Turk Magill, after arriving at a very lucid understanding concerning Kate Crandall, speedily decided how their felonious design could best be executed. Patsy entered into it, moreover, with a zest that further assured Magill of his sincerity, of which he had scarce a shadow of doubt when they parted to begin operations.
Leaving Magill to keep his appointment with Kate, Patsy hastened to a public garage that he had seen while shadowing her from her office. Luckily, too, he immediately found the proprietor, to whom he quickly introduced himself and confided the situation.
Patsy found in him a willing assistant, too, who provided him with a touring car, but flatly refused to accept any payment.
“I’ll not even think of it,” he protested, when Patsy tried to force Magill’s twenty-dollar bank note upon him. “Pastor Maybrick is a friend of mine, and he’s one man in a million. Nick Carter is one in ten millions, moreover, and it’s a pleasure to serve both of them. You take the car, Mr. Garvan, and return it when convenient. It’s yours for the asking. I’d like to do more, and I wish you good luck.”
Patsy thanked him heartily and guided the car from the garage within twenty minutes after parting from Magill. He knew that he was playing a hazardous game and taking long chances, that he was going up against as dangerous and desperate a man as ever stood in leather, as well as crooks of like character, and that a slip of the tongue, or even the ghost of a mishap, might at any moment expose his subterfuge and put him in peril of his life.
It was not in Patsy’s nature to shrink from the undertaking on that account, however, and he hardly gave it a thought. He felt that the game was worth the candle, and he was ready to burn the candle at both ends.
Daylight was turning to the dusk of early evening when he left the garage. It was just about the time when Kate Crandall had promised to meet Magill, and Patsy at once headed for the point agreed upon. He discovered them when he entered the long street leading out of the town, moreover, and he slowed down to approach them moderately.
Magill saw him coming. Increasing confidence in him mingled with his feeling of grim satisfaction. He was talking earnestly with the woman, then in a locality where there were only a few scattered dwellings; but he had relieved her of any misgivings by turning back with her toward the town, though, in reality, only to see and make ready for Patsy when he approached. He reached into his pocket and grasped a large silk handkerchief with which he was provided.
Half a minute later brought Patsy within thirty yards of the couple. He then swerved toward them, bringing the car to a stop near the curbing.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said he, leaning out, and, at the same time, deftly unlocking the door of the tonneau. “Will this road take me to Bronxville?”
Kate Crandall paused.
Magill shook his head and stepped back of her as if to point the way for his questioner.
“No, not straight ahead,” he replied, with a significant wink. “You must take the first crossroad.”
“To the left, or right?”
“To the left, and—now, Dolan, get her!”
Magill had clapped the silk handkerchief over Kate’s mouth, and, as quick as a flash, was tying it back of her head.
Patsy, equally quick, leaped from the car and seized her arms, forcing them behind her and crying hurriedly:
“Tie her wrists, Magill, with another handkerchief. I’ve got her. She can’t yip. Her struggles cut no ice. Into the car with her, now, and the trick is turned.”
In spite of her frantic efforts to escape, it was a comparatively easy task for two strong and determined men to quickly overcome the frightened woman, who was hurriedly forced into the tonneau even while Patsy was speaking. She then sank, half fainting, in one corner, unable to make any outcry and hardly able to move.
Magill banged the door and sat down beside her, crying sternly:
“You’ll not be hurt, woman, if you keep still and do what you’re told. Now, Dolan, away with you. Follow this road for half a mile, then take the left fork. I’ll direct you later. You’re all right from your toes up, pal, and you’ll get the coin I promised you. Let her go lively.”
The last was entirely unnecessary. The speedometer already was showing forty miles, and the last of the scattered dwellings were quickly left behind.
The dusty road swept like a gray ribbon under the swiftly moving car, the skillful driving of which Magill was quick to see and appreciate, while Patsy was inwardly congratulating himself upon having informed the rascal that his vocation was that of a chauffeur.
Under Magill’s repeated assurances that she was in no personal danger, Kate Crandall’s first flash of terror had subsided, and she appeared to yield more calmly to the situation, though a fiery gleam in her black eyes plainly evinced her impotent fury and resentment.
With one eye on the woman, the other on the road ahead, Magill frequently shouted additional instructions to Patsy, who quickly followed them with merely a nod in response.
Patsy had, of course, no idea as to their precise destination. He was thoroughly familiar with the country through which they were speeding, however, knowing by name nearly every important road in Westchester County, and he soon foresaw in what part of it they were likely to bring up. His anticipations soon were verified. Magill suddenly leaned forward and cried, pointing up the woodland road, then only dimly discernible in the increasing darkness:
“Slow down when rounding the bend, Dolan; then take the lane on the left. It will bring you to an old stone house in a clearing. That’s the crib. The going is bad in the lane, but you can make the side yard all right. You’ll see lights in the distance. Head for them.”
“I get you, Mike,” Patsy cried back at him; then, to himself: “I’ll get you for keeps, too, by thunder, barring a slip-up.”
The touring car swept around a long curve in the woodland road. Scattered lights in the distance came into view. Seen through the trees and from the moving car they appeared and vanished again and again like fluttering fireflies seen in the gloom of a summer night.
Patsy knew the distant settlement. He noted the precise location of the grim old house that also came into view, looming up against a background of woods and the star-studded purple of the sky. A feeble ray of light here and there from the lower windows told that it was occupied, but that the outer blinds were closed and the curtains drawn.
“Swing round to the right, Dolan, and you’ll bring up at the side door,” Magill directed. “That’s the stuff. Leave me to do the talking. I’ll put you in right, Dolan, for what you have done.”
“I’ll do as much for you, Magill,” replied Patsy, with dry significance.
He had rounded a corner of the gloomy stone building and stopped some ten feet from a side door. A whistle from Magill was answered with a cry from within, quickly followed by the heavy tread of men on a bare floor. The door was hurriedly opened and a stream of light from the side hall fell upon the touring car and its occupants.
It also distinctly revealed the three men who had responded to Magill’s signal. One was a short, swarthy fellow in the twenties, a stranger to Patsy, but whose vicious character was plainly reflected in his sinister face.
Another was tall and gaunt, with squinted eyes and cadaverous countenance; while the third was a square-shouldered, powerful man of fifty, with a smoothly shaved, hard-featured face, evincing imperious will and bulldog aggressiveness.
Patsy instantly recognized the last two men, both crooks and cracksmen of national reputation, and he also realized more keenly that he was carrying his life in his hand.
“Blink Morgan and Ginger Gridley,” he said to himself. “I’m in right, by thunder, if I can only stay right and keep things coming my way. If not—gee! I can see my finish.”
These thoughts flashed through Patsy’s mind while Gridley, striding from the house, cried harshly:
“What’s this, Turk? What’s the meaning of this? Why——”
“Oh, you back up, Ginger, till I have time to explain,” Magill interrupted, springing from the car. “Lend a hand, Morgan, and take this skirt inside. She’s the cat who queered our game last night. We’ve got her where we want her, now, all right. Take her in.”
The cadaverous man with squinted eyes, from which he derived his nickname, hastened to obey, Magill having rudely forced the woman to get out of the car while he was speaking, and she then was seized by Morgan and hurried into the house.
Gridley, in the meantime, whom Patsy knew must be the leader of the gang, gazed with frowning eyes from one to the other, and then sternly repeated his question:
“What’s the meaning of this, Magill? Why have you brought her here?”
“Because she wouldn’t yield to persuasion,” Magill curtly declared. “We must force her to tell what we want to know. That could not be done without bringing her here.”
“You still think she knows?”
“She must know. She heard all that infernal squealer said.”
“But who is this fellow?”
“He helped me get her. He’s all right, too,” Magill forcibly asserted. “Get out, Dolan, and shake hands with Tom Gridley, more often called Ginger Gridley. You’ll find him full of ginger, too, if you cross him badly. He’s all right, Tom, and I couldn’t have got the skirt without his help. He hired the car with some money I gave him and——”
“Come inside,” Gridley interrupted, extending his hand to Patsy. “It’s all right, Dolan, if you’re all that Magill says you are.”
“I’m all that, and something more,” Patsy coolly assured him. “You can bank on me as long as I’m used right.”
“You’ll have no kick coming, Dolan, if you’re handing us straight goods,” replied Gridley. “If not——”
“Nothing doing in the if-not line,” put in Patsy tersely.
“This way, then. Lock the door, Phelan.”
The last was addressed to the fourth man of the gang, while Patsy followed them into the house. He heard the ominous click of the lock when Phelan turned the key. It told him there was no retreat, no backing out of the hazardous undertaking into which he had fearlessly ventured.
Patsy Garvan, however, had no such inclination even for a moment.