CHAPTER X.
HIS HOUR OF SUCCESS.
“You will obey!” repeated Nick Carter.
“Obey!” she responded dreamily.
“That is well. Tell me what you did when you got the packet you brought to me this morning. You remember that it was this morning?”
“It was this morning,” she replied, repeating the last few words of his query, as was always her way.
“Where did you get them? The library?”
“The library.”
“Who showed you where they were?”
“Where they were?” she repeated.
“Yes. Tell me.”
“He did,” she answered. “The man I fear.”
“What’s his name?”
But to this there was no reply. She seemed to have no remembrance of names. Perhaps she never had known the name of this man she feared.
“Is it the man who speaks through Buddha?”
She seemed to wrestle hard with this question, as if trying to comprehend its meaning. At last she slowly nodded.
“You are sure?”
“Sure!” she repeated.
“That is enough,” said Nick Carter. “The packet will again be placed in your hands. Take it, as you were commanded, and put it where you got it—in the table leg.”
A gleam of understanding came into her eyes, that had in it more of memory than she had shown before. Nick Carter knew then that this girl, under the fiendish influence of Ched Ramar, had indeed robbed her father without knowing that she had done so. A half-repressed ejaculation dangerously near an oath broke from the detective’s lips, as he came down the ladder.
Hurriedly he took the packet from his pocket, where he had slipped it before ascending the ladder, and looked through it under the red lamp in front of the idol.
The girl had already descended, and was walking, like a somnambulist, toward her chair.
Nick Carter ran through the half dozen large sheets of manuscript, and saw that none of them bore reference to the Yellow Tong. All were of a character that would be valuable to the scientific world, but not one was concerned with the secret, far-reaching organization whose methods and intentions Washington was so eager to know something about.
“The cunning wretches,” he murmured. “They have taken what they want, and are returning these, so that they shall not furnish a clew to the others. Well, I think I shall beat their game. I’m going to find out where those other papers are before I leave this house.”
He walked over to the girl and gave her the packet. Then he said to her, in the quiet, even accents which seemed to penetrate easiest to her beclouded brain:
“Take the packet back and put it into the hands of your father. You understand that. Father.”
“Father!” she repeated dully.
“Look out, chief!” whispered Patsy. “I hear the elevator.”
Nick and Chick got back to the idol and secreted themselves. But Patsy went to the elevator door and unlocked it—just in time to admit Ched Ramar and Keshub.
“Why did you lock the door?” thundered Ched Ramar, at Patsy.
Patsy shrugged his shoulders in a way that he had seen Swagara do it, and there was an expression of bland protest in his yellowed face, as if he considered he were being shouted at unjustly.
He did not speak, but contented himself with pointing to Clarice, who sat still where Nick Carter had just left her.
“She wouldn’t have gone away, if that is what you mean,” growled Ched Ramar. “Keshub, take her down to the limousine and see that she gets home in safety.”
Keshub salaamed. Then he went over to Clarice, touched her arm, and pointed to the curtains shadowing the elevator door. She went over to it, quite docile, and Keshub accompanied her down, out of sight. Ched Ramar let the curtains fall together.
“Watch the doors and windows, Swagara,” he ordered briefly. “There is no danger. But—watch them.”
Patsy responded with a funny little bow peculiar to Swagara, and stood back while Ched Ramar went up the stepladder on which Clarice had stood, and regarded the great brass face of the Buddha for a few moments in silence.
“Great Buddha,” he muttered, at last. “How many secrets dost thou hide! But how willing art thou to give them up when he who has the right puts the request! Siddartha, holy one! It is thy servant who makes the demand. Give him what he seeks!”
He placed his hand on the left arm of the idol, and his long fingers fumbled under the head.
As is usually the case with statues of Buddha, the arm lay across his lap in a negligent way, while the other was stretched forward on his knee. Ched Ramar was pressing a certain little knob under the brass hand. This released a spring, as was evidenced by the slight click that Nick Carter and his assistants could hear.
“That is well, holy one!” murmured Ched Ramar.
He took the hand of the god and raised it slowly, as if it were of great weight—as indeed it was. When he held it clear of the lap, there was revealed a square hole beneath, like a box, some eight inches square.
Into this square opening Ched Ramar dipped his fingers, bringing them out immediately with several papers rolled up, and fastened by a silken cord made of many strands of different colors twisted together.
“My task is nearly done!” exclaimed Ched Ramar, smiling. “It has been a hard one, but the result is worth it. My great master, Sang Tu, will be pleased. Much pleased!”
“Will he?” thought Nick Carter. “Well, it isn’t all over yet.”
Still smiling—but in a grave way, as if he felt that he should not permit himself thus to show joy—Ched Ramar lowered the brazen arm slowly to its former position, and a click announced that it was fastened in its place. When this had been done, no one not in the secret would have suspected that there was anything of the kind there.
“Did you see that, chief?” whispered Chick.
“Yes. Keep quiet. We want the papers. But we want him, too.”
“That’s what,” put in Patsy. “And that Keshub and the other coffee-colored guy, too. There may be others in the house as well as them. There are some maids, we know.”
“They are probably in another part of the house,” answered Nick. “We need not trouble about the maids. What we want is this fellow, papers and all. Keep ready!”
Ched Ramar stepped over the red lamp and looked carefully at the papers he had got from the lap of the image. His sinister smile again spread over his dark countenance, and he muttered to himself in his own tongue.
“This is all!” he suddenly exclaimed in English. “I will take these records to Sang Tu in the morning. Meanwhile, they shall not leave me. I do not trust any one. I will not go to bed. Such sleep as I need I can get here, in this chair.”
He walked over to the chair in which the girl had sat. It was very large, and when she had been in it had seemed actually to swallow her up. Even Ched Ramar, tall as he was, had plenty of room to curl up in it.
He tried it in this way. Then he arose and strode over to the big idol, as if to look behind it. Nick Carter, Chick, and Patsy were standing ready to fling themselves upon him.
But he changed his mind, when nearly up to them, and contented himself with calling sternly:
“Swagara!”
For a moment Patsy Garvan had forgotten his assumed name. He made no move to go out. Instead, he held his automatic pistol ready to be used either as a club or a firearm. Nick Carter brought him to himself with a sharp tug at his elbow.
“Go out, confound you!” he whispered. “You are Swagara!”
“Gee! So I am!”
“Swagara!” called Ched Ramar, again, in a fiercer tone. “Come here!”
Patsy slipped out from behind the statue and made his Swagara bow with due humility.
Ched Ramar raised his fist, as if he would bring it down on Patsy’s shoulder. It was as well that he did not carry out his intention, for Patsy surely would have forgotten his assumed character and retaliated with another and harder blow.
“You deserve to be kicked, you dog!” snarled Ched Ramar. “You are to come quickly when I call. But let that pass. You will keep awake in this room till I tell you that you may sleep. Understand?”
Patsy bowed. He never had spoken more than a word or two to the Indian. He had a presentiment that if ever he did so, he would be known as a bogus Swagara at once.
“Very well,” went on Ched Ramar. “I would sleep for an hour—in this chair. Keshub and Meirum are asleep in the hall without. They will not come in unless I summon them. But you! You are not to sleep at all. Now, walk over there to the large Buddha and let me see that you are quite awake now. Go over and march back. Do as I bid you.”
Somehow, Patsy Garvan did not exactly understand what was meant by this command, and he hesitated when he got to the idol. Turning toward Ched Ramar, he was about to give him a pleading look, which would mean that he wanted clearer instructions.
This angered Ched Ramar, and he bounded from the chair, drawing a large jeweled scimitar that he generally wore, concealed by the folds of his robe.
Flourishing this weapon, he flew at Patsy, as if he would strike him down with it. The belligerent action was a great deal like his former one, only that this time he held a deadly weapon, instead of merely menacing with his fist.
“Gee!” shouted Patsy, forgetting entirely the part he was playing. “If you don’t drop that cheese knife, I’ll plug you as if you were a rat!”
He drew his pistol as he spoke and leveled it at the head of the surprised Indian.
Instantly it occurred to the cunning mind of Ched Ramar that there was treachery somewhere, and he leaped forward to seize Patsy. Rascal as he might be, there was no cowardice about Ched Ramar.
He did not catch Patsy, however. Instead, the supposed Japanese suddenly stooped, and just as the Indian got to him, he arose and sent his fist into the brown neck.
Ched Ramar uttered a choking gasp, and dashed behind the Buddha. As he got there, he found himself facing not only Patsy Garvan, but Nick Carter and Chick, as well. All three were in hostile attitudes that could not be mistaken for a moment.