The Call of Death by Nick Carter - HTML preview

CHAPTER IX.
 THE LAST CALL.

Kate Crandall had not stirred from the sofa during the sensational scenes just enacted. They told her only too plainly that she was in the hands of knaves who would shrink from no desperate deed that would serve their ends, and she had no thought but to escape from them by any means she could command.

Blink Morgan hastened to liberate her, while Gridley seated himself directly in front of her and sternly said:

“You’ve got mighty few minutes, woman, to tell us what we want to know. We have others here who could tell us, but whose traps are tightly closed. We have not killed them, lest we might kill our golden goose; but understand this: We’ll end them and you, too, unless you give us the information which——”

Kate Crandall checked him with a haughty gesture.

“One moment, Mr. Gridley, if that’s your name,” she said coldly. “I can tell you with very few words all that I know. You will believe me, I think, though this man refused to do so.”

She glanced at Magill, but he made no comments.

“You were seen two nights ago by him and Morgan,” said Gridley, sternly eying her. “They had followed a girl to the home of a clergyman named Maybrick. They saw her look through his library window and then enter his house. They would have listened at his window to her interview with him—but you got there first, and they could not do so without taking risks then thought to be needless. We must know what the girl told him. It’s up to you to tell us. You heard what she said, or you would not have remained to listen.”

“That is true,” Kate coldly admitted. “I heard all that she said to Mr. Maybrick.”

“Tell me,” said Gridley sternly.

“She told him that her father had recently died; that he was a criminal and had forced her to be one, but that she now was determined to reform. She told him that her father was one of a gang that had recently robbed a bank, and that he had had charge of the stolen funds and had buried them, confiding to her their hiding place while on his deathbed.”

“That’s the point,” said Gridley. “That’s the very thing we want to know—where the plunder is hidden.”

“I cannot tell you,” said Kate.

“Not tell me! Why not?”

“Because I do not know. The girl did not inform Mr. Maybrick.”

“What did she say about it?”

“She said she would take him to the spot, and that he could then remove the funds and restore them to the bank. She would not then reveal the hiding place.”

“Did she give him no hint?”

“No, none,” said Kate. “She appointed a place for him to meet her last evening, which he promised to do. That is all I can tell you.”

“Is that true?”

“God hearing me, it is true!” Kate solemnly declared. “I cannot possibly give you the information you expected from me. I do not know——”

“Stop! I believe you,” Gridley cried curtly; then, turning to Blink Morgan, he harshly commanded: “Bring the jade up here, Blink, and the gospel sharp with her. I’ll find a way to force her to speak.”

Morgan seized a lamp and hastened from the room.

Patsy heard him descending the cellar stairs a moment later.

“By thunder, this is the gang that cracked that Westchester savings bank,” he said to himself. “Gee whiz! there’s half a million at stake. If the chief was right, Jim Nordeck must be the man who buried the plunder, and the girl in question must be Nancy Nordeck.”

Patsy did not realize just then, however, how perfectly right Nick Carter had sized up the entire case. This appeared a moment later, when Nancy Nordeck and the missing rector were led into the room, both with their arms securely bound behind them.

The Reverend Austin Maybrick was quite pale, but he carried himself with dignity, and his fine face wore a look of scorn that told how little he feared the threatening situation. He appeared surprised when he saw Kate Crandall and Patsy, but he did not speak.

Gridley hardly noticed him. He turned at once to the girl who had entered, and then leaned wearily against the nearest wall.

She was a slender, poorly clad girl, who looked ten years older than she really was. Her dark-brown hair was in disorder, her eyes deeply ringed, but her features were regular and she would have been quite attractive, but for a wan and pinched look that told of dejection, suffering, and more of care and misery than often falls upon one of her years.

She also was surprised at seeing Patsy and Kate Crandall, but it appeared only in the sharper glint of her large, expressive eyes, which flashed from one to another, though chiefly at Gridley, with a look of mingled determination and defiance that evinced a fearless spirit in her frail form.

Gridley turned to her with lowering gaze, saying harshly:

“You’re surprised at seeing others here, ain’t you?”

Nancy Nordeck gave him look for look, with her thin gray lips curling contemptuously. She drew herself up a little, replying with a sinister slang that evinced her lack of refinement.

“Not on your life, Gridley. I wouldn’t be surprised at any scurvy trick that you pulled off. What d’ye want, now that you’ve brought him and me from the cellar? I’d sooner stay there than be in the same room with you.”

“Cut out that lobscouse!” commanded Gridley sternly. “I’m going to show you where you stand, and where these persons stand whom you’ve drawn into this mess. I’m going to force you, or them, to tell me where your double-dealing dad hid that plunder.”

“Oh, you are!” Nancy exclaimed derisively. “You’ll get fat trying to force that out of me. You can’t get it out of them, or any one else, for I’ve told no one. I handed you that at first, but it seems you can’t swallow it. I’m the only one who knows where the stuff is planted.”

“That is true, absolutely true,” said Maybrick, with habitual dignity. “I don’t know why you have brought this other woman here, but you——”

“What you don’t know cuts no ice with us,” Gridley sharply interrupted. “You keep quiet, or I’ll find a way to make you. There’s a bunch of sleuths on this case who may make trouble for us at any moment, and I’m in no mood to mince matters. This infernal jade, if she’s the only one who knows, is going to tell me where to find that plunder.”

“Oh, is that so, Gridley?” questioned Nancy, with eyes flashing.

“You’ll find it’s so.”

“And you’ll find it isn’t,” snapped the girl defiantly. “You put that idea out of your block. It might turn you batty.”

“See here, Gridley,” she added, with a sudden display of deeper feeling. “I’ve been a bad egg most of my life. It come to me natural, and my old man forced me into it. He’s dead now, and I stood by alone and saw the last breath go out of him. I’d never seen the like before. I’d never been where one sees the call of death—the call of death! It told me something I never knew before—but no matter what! You wouldn’t know, if I told you—and I couldn’t tell you if I tried.”

“See here——”

“You see here!” Nancy forcibly interrupted. “I’m going to have my say, and it won’t take me long. I’m done with the life I’ve led, and done with you fellows. That plunder is going back to the bank. That’s what I’m going to do for a starter on the new road. I knew you guys would watch me. I reckoned I’d better not take this gent to the place where the stuff is hid, not till I was dead sure you weren’t trailing me. So I took him to a fake place first, just to find out, and you and your push were on hand to nail us. You’ve got us, all right; but you’ll not get the coin. I fooled you—and I’ll keep you fooled. You’ll get nothing from me.”

She had told the whole story in those few passionate words, a story that might have filled a volume, and the look on Gridley’s face was one to have appalled a less fearless speaker. He turned quickly to his confederates and fiercely cried:

“We’ll see about that, pals! We’ll find out whether she’ll speak. Pull the boots off of this gospel sharp and shove his feet into the fire. She brought him into this mess. Let’s see whether she’ll pull him out of it. She can do it only by squealing. If not, we’ll burn his feet off, and——”

“Say!” cried Patsy. “Cut that, you fellows.”

“Cut nothing! You dry up, or we’ll cut out the tongue you talk with.”

Nancy Nordeck had turned as white as a sheet.

“Keep quiet, my girl, and be brave,” said Maybrick, observing her. “Reveal nothing—no matter what these scoundrels do. That is your new duty.”

“I’ll stick, sir, if you say it,” said Nancy, but she was trembling from head to foot.

“Oh, you will, eh?” thundered Gridley. “We’ll see whether you will. Grab the gospel sharp, two of you, and——”

But there was no grabbing done of that nature.

Gridley’s furious commands were drowned by the crash of a falling door, the rending of blinds and the breaking of shuttered windows, at which the heads of policemen and leveled revolvers instantly appeared.

Patsy Garvan guessed the truth, and a yell broke from him.

“Hurrah! Zambo! It’s all off! The chief is here!”

Patsy was right. While the words were still on his lips, Nick, Chick, and Danny tore through the hall and rushed into the room, with weapons drawn and blood in their eyes.

Gridley vented an oath and snatched up one of Patsy’s revolvers, still lying on the table.

A bullet from Nick’s weapon broke the rascal’s wrist. He fell to the floor, howling with pain.

Chick had a gun under Magill’s nose, and Morgan and Phelan had thrown up their hands.

There was very little to it after that, in so far as opposition was concerned. Within five minutes the crooks were in irons, their captives liberated, and Nancy Nordeck relieved of her fears and started, indeed, on the better road.

Through her the entire amount of stolen funds were restored to the bank, or, more properly, through her and the Carters. She never was prosecuted for any of her past misdemeanors. Nick Carter made sure of that—and equally sure that Gridley and his confederates received the most severe penalty of the law.

Nick’s deductions had been entirely correct, after the disclosures Chick had made, and the remarkable message from Patsy had showed them the way. Nick was right, too, in thinking that Kate Crandall, though informed of the facts, had suppressed them only with a feeling of jealous hatred and revenge for Maybrick and Harriet Farley, whose relief and gratitude over the happy turn of affairs scarce need be mentioned.

THE END.