CHAPTER VII.
A TIMELY ARRIVAL.
Patsy Garvan arrived within an hour at his destination, or, rather, that of Mullen and his evil-eyed companion. Through a break in the belt of woods Patsy could see the end of the narrow road, through which he had trailed the two crooks and the covered wagon.
Scattered dwellings, also, could be seen in the distance, all of a cheap and inferior type. Farther away were the poles and wires of a suburban trolley line, all denoting that he was approaching the outskirt of one of the many inferior settlements to be found in that part of the Bronx.
To the right of the narrow road, however, brought into view just before reaching the break of the woodland, was a faded, isolated old house of considerable size, the grounds, stable, and outbuildings of which denoted that it had been a desirable place in the remote past, though then in a miserably run-down and wretched condition.
From below a low, moss-covered wall flanking one side of the place, Patsy saw the wagon enter an ill-kept driveway, the broken gate of which was hanging awry on its rusted hinges.
From a back door of the house came a tall, gaunt man of nearly sixty, clad in overalls and a red cardigan jacket, whose looks and bearing denoted that he was the owner, or tenant of the place. He paused at the edge of the driveway, with lowering gaze fixed upon the men in the approaching wagon, and Patsy heard him growl tersely, in harsh, nasal tones:
"Got her?"
"Bet you!" Mullen responded. "Got her dead to rights, Jim, and none the wiser."
"Don’t bank too heavily on that," thought Patsy, with grim satisfaction, though he never was more puzzled in his life. "I’m wise to some extent, at least. You rats are up to some devilish game, though I cannot fathom how old Mantell figures in it."
"You saw his nibs, then," remarked the man in a cardigan.
"Sure. He rode out with Fallon in his taxi, as he promised," said Mullen. "He’s gone back to town, Corson, to look after a job he has framed up with Sadie."
"What kind of a job, Jake?"
"To get the big dick."
"The big dick?" echoed Corson, staring. "You don’t mean Nick Carter?"
"That’s what. He’s the biggest dick in the running."
"But how in thunder——”
"I’ll tell you later, Jim," Mullen interrupted, still on his seat in the wagon. "We first must dispose of the skirt. She’s dead to the world just now, but there’s no telling for how long. His nibs said she might come to time inside of an hour."
"Drive into the stable, then," Corson replied, with a growl. "We’ll put her in the safe deposit. The devil himself could not find her."
Mullen drove on and into the stable, Corson following, and Patsy lost sight of the man and wagon, a side view of the stable being all that he then could obtain.
"His nibs—that must mean Mantell," he said to himself. "But who is the woman and what’s the old man’s game? Why would he drug any woman and give her in charge of these rascals? Gone back to town to frame up a job with Sadie Badger against the chief. Gee! this certainly is the strangest mix-up that I ever tackled. I must find a way to inform Nick and put him on his guard. Before doing so, however, I’ll try to get next to the whole business. There’s nothing to putting him wise to only half of it."
Sharply viewing the windows of the old house, Patsy could discover no sign of any other occupant. He saw, too, that he could reach the rear of the stable by crawling back of the wall under which he had found shelter.
He at once proceeded to do so, bent upon clearing up the mystery, if possible, and a few moments later he crept over the low wall and stole to a point between the stable and an old shed near by.
He then paused again and listened. He could hear only the thud of the horse’s hoofs on the stable floor. He quickly discovered, however, that the sound came through a square window, then nearly closed with a sliding wooden shutter, and outside of which was a great pile of soiled straw and bedding from a stall.
"Gee! that’s good enough for me," thought Patsy, quickly sizing up the possibilities. "I’ll take one chance at that window. That shutter is not quite closed."
Stealing nearer, with eyes and ears alert, he crawled up the pile of refuse and peered in through the narrow slit between the shutter and its casing.
The interior of the old stable met his gaze. One of the men, Simp Sampson, so called, had unhitched the horse and was making him fast in a near stall.
In another, out of which he had kicked a quantity of straw and bedding, Mullen was raising a large trapdoor, drawing it up by means of a ring in the floor.
Patsy could see through the opening a flight of wooden steps leading down into a dark hole under the floor, the depth and extent of which he could only conjecture.
"Gee! that’s a secret hiding place, all right," he said to himself. "The bedding in the stall would ordinarily conceal the trapdoor. Besides, who would be looking for one in a horse’s stall? I’m evidently up against a gang that makes a business of crooked work. If I can corner them——”
Patsy’s train of thought ended when Mullen, having tipped the trapdoor back against one side of the stall, turned and said to Corson, who had been grimly watching him:
"Lend a hand, Jim, and we’ll lug her down there. It will be safer than keeping her in the house until we learn how the cat’s going to jump. Is the old woman in the house?"
"Not now," said Corson, with his habitual growl. "She’s gone to market. It takes some grub, Mullen, to feed you fellows."
"We’ll have coin enough for grub, Jim, if his nibs gets all he’s banking on from this job," Mullen pointedly answered.
"I hope he’ll get it, then. We need it."
"And we were dead lucky in getting a whack at a piece of it," Mullen added. "That came of my friendship with Fallon, who knows all about his nibs and has been standing in with him on this job. The taxi came in handy, you know. The trick could not have been turned without it."
"Not very well, Jake."
"Fallon reckoned that I knew of a safe place for the skirt, and having got safely away with her, we’re dead lucky to be in the game. Here, you, Sampson, lay hold and lift her out."
Mullen had been unbuckling the back flap of the wagon top while speaking, and Sampson had secured the horse and emerged from the near stall.
Together the three men raised the form of the senseless woman from the wagon and placed her on the stable floor. Her hat dropped off while they were doing so and the veil fell from her white, expressionless face.
Patsy Garvan caught his breath with sudden amazement.
"Holy smoke! That’s young Mantell’s wife, Helen Mantell," was his first thought, while the three men stood gazing down at her. "Gee! there’s more to this than I guessed. Can it be that the old man has soured on her and wants her out of the way? I cannot believe that. There is more to this job than I have suspected."
Patsy’s conflicting thoughts were diverted again by Mullen, who suddenly said bluntly:
"Get a move on. It won’t do to let her lie here. Some one might show up. Lay hold, both of you; it will take all three of us to lug her down to the steps."
"She’ll stay there, all right, once we’ve put her there and fastened the trapdoor," growled Corson. "There’s no other way out."
"In that case, by Jove, you rascals shall stay there with her," thought Patsy, with sudden, grim determination. "I’ll keep you there, by thunder, if I can catch you in your own trap. It won’t take me long to find help and arrest all three of you."
Patsy’s sudden resolve then appeared entirely feasible, barring one fact. He did not know by what means the trap could be so secured as to prevent the three men from raising it from below, providing he went in search of assistants. He was not long, however, in solving the problem.
"I have it," he muttered, with a constant eye on the three crooks. "I’ll shift the horse into that stall and make him fast. He’ll hold them down, all right. They cannot raise the trapdoor with him on it. I’ll get assistance and arrest all three, and then telephone to the chief."
The three knaves, bearing their senseless burden, then were on their way through the trapdoor. Step by step they descended, laboring somewhat in the gloom and on the narrow stairs. Presently the last of the three heads, that of gaunt Jim Corson, disappeared below the stall floor.
Patsy then moved quickly, but as quietly as a shadow. He pushed aside the sliding shutter, then crawled through the open window and dropped noiselessly on the stable floor.
Not for an instant did he shrink from his hazardous undertaking, or hesitate because of the perils involved. He felt sure he could accomplish it.
Shifting a revolver to a side pocket of his leather jacket, he crept back of the covered wagon and approached the stall in which the open trapdoor yawned like the mouth of a black, bottomless pit. He could hear the voices and movements of the three crooks, but not a ray of light was discernible below.
"Now, you rascals, stay there till I come to arrest you," thought Patsy. "It won’t be long."
He stretched out his hand to grasp the edge of the trapdoor and throw it down—but did not do so.
A fourth man had stepped stealthily into the stable. He appeared like an evil shadow in the waning light of the November afternoon. The stillness was broken by a voice as cold and hard as steel, but as threatening as the hiss of a viper:
"Stop! If you drop that door—you’ll drop with it."
Patsy, crouching on the floor near the entrance to the stall, turned around as if electrified.
He found himself covered with an automatic revolver, scarce six feet away, and beheld, with a gasp of momentary dismay, the scowling, white face of Gaston Goulard.
"Gee whiz! the trick’s off!" leaped like a flash through his mind.
"You’ll be a dead one if you drop that door," Goulard added sternly.
"I’ll not drop it. I wasn’t going to drop it," said Patsy, quickly resorting to a subterfuge.
"You wasn’t, eh?"
"Divil a drop! I was only looking to see what’s down there. I——”
"You keep your hands in front of you," Goulard snapped sharply, when Patsy’s right hand stole nearer his pocket. "If any gun is to be used, it will be this one. Come up, you fellows, and be quick about it. Get a grip on this rat and strap his arms behind him. Move lively."
The heads of Corson and Jake Mullen had appeared above the stall floor, both having heard the above conversation, but both were so startled by the scene that they had come no farther. They now hastened to obey, however, followed by Sampson, all three of whom seized Patsy quickly and secured his arms behind him.
Before this was accomplished, noting Goulard’s garments and traces of grease paint on his frowning face, Patsy hit upon the truth in so far as the rascal’s impersonation of the elder Mantell was concerned, as well as the nature of the crime in which these several scoundrels now were engaged.
"The old man was Goulard himself. He has abducted Frank Mantell’s wife," he quickly reasoned. "He must be wise to the trick the chief has played on Sadie Badger, also, or at least suspect it, or he would not have delayed to visit her before bringing Helen Mantell out here. By Jove, I had a hunch the chief might be in wrong. Things look a bit rocky, for fair."
Patsy’s face betrayed none of these thoughts, however, but wore an expression as if he wondered why he had incurred such animosity and rough handling. He gazed at Goulard, after being jerked to his feet by the others, who were hastening to bind him, and demanded, with well-feigned perplexity:
"What’s it all about, anyway? What are you putting over on me?"
"The boot’s on the other leg," snapped Goulard. "We’re preventing your putting something across us."
"I know nothing about you. I——”
"You lie. You followed me from town with a motor cycle. I found it in the woods, where you hid it."
"You did, eh?"
"Furthermore, I think I know you," added Goulard, stepping nearer to Patsy and snatching the disguise from his face. "Ah, I thought so. You’re cute and clever, Garvan, but you’re not in my class, as you now will find at some cost. Get his revolver, Corson. You’ll find it in his side pocket. I saw him stealthily reaching for it."
"It’s dead lucky for you, Goulard, that I did not get my hand on it," retorted Patsy, now seeing the utter folly of further subterfuge. "I’d have ended your vicious career the first crack from the box."
"You would, eh?" sneered Goulard maliciously.
"That’s what I would," snapped Patsy.
"You’ll never have that satisfaction, Garvan."
"Wait and see," growled Patsy, while Corson disarmed him and appropriated his weapons. "It’s a long, long way to Tipperary."
"What in thunder’s the meaning of all this?" Mullen now demanded, grim with astonishment. "Where did the infernal runt come from?"
"I’ll tell you presently," said Goulard, who was apparently very well satisfied with having arrived in time to secure the detective. "Have you taken the woman down below?"
"Yes, of course," Mullen nodded. "That’s the safest place."
"Any old place is safe enough, now that we’ve got this rat," said Goulard confidently. "I’ll have his chief before midnight, too, unless my wires get crossed. Bring the woman up again and take her into the house. I want to revive her and force her to write a letter to her husband. Bring in this rat, too. I want to tell him where he stands. He’ll find mighty soon that I’ve got things dead to rights."
Patsy said nothing. He began to fear, in fact, that the rascal really had.