CHAPTER VIII.
IN GRUESOME CONFINEMENT.
What more Patsy Garvan heard was along much the same lines as that which he already had heard, but none of it gave him any clew to the contemplated destination of Deland and his confederates.
Dusk began to gather within half an hour, and darkness quickly followed. Margate lighted a small lantern, so hooding it with an empty box that its rays could not be seen from outside, but in its feeble glow the three crooks continued to sit and discuss their knavery. Their faces and figures looked grim and threatening in the dim light cast upon them.
Presently, still crouching behind the grain chest, Patsy heard the thud of hoofs and the grinding of wheels in the gravel, and Margate arose at the same time, saying quickly:
“Here comes Ruff with the wagon. I told you he’d show up promptly.”
“Good enough,” cried Deland. “We’ll lose no time in getting away.”
“I must go to the house for my cap,” growled Margate.
“Go ahead. That won’t take long, Jim?”
“Wait till I douse this glim. There would be something doing, all right, if this dead wagon were seen here?”
“It has been seen, you rascal, and I can see your finish,” thought Patsy, with grim satisfaction.
He had heard the arrival of the wagon, drawn up near the front of the stable. He heard Ruff greeting Deland and Pitman, when they hastened out. He saw Margate extinguish the light, then stride out and close the door, followed by the sharp click of the padlock.
Patsy stole out from behind the grain chest in the inky darkness, then crawled under Hanlon’s huge black wagon and found the iron ring in the trapdoor.
“It’s the same old way for mine,” he muttered, while he noiselessly opened the trap. “I’ll not let these rats give me the slip. I’ll find out where they are going and where they take their plunder, at least, if I get no chance to hold them up. I’ll get them sooner or later, by thunder, if it takes a leg.”
Indulging in these cogitations, Patsy dropped quietly through the opening, and, without waiting to close it, he crept out through the open space under the stable, and to a point between it and the old shed near by.
He then could see the wagon some ten feet away and headed toward the street. It was a large covered one, and it stood nearly opposite the space between the two buildings. The driver had not left his seat.
Pitman and Mortimer Deland already had climbed in and were seating themselves on two boxes under the leather top, that occupied by Ruff being too small for all four.
Patsy could hear them talking, and he now saw Jim Margate returning from the house.
“Gee! they may give me a long chase,” he said to himself, crouching low in the darkness. “If they drive fast, I may have some difficulty in keeping up with them, or——”
He broke off abruptly, crouching lower and peering intently through the darkness.
“By Jove, the running gear of the wagon is braced from the end of each axletree to the center pole,” he added to himself. “The braces form a sort of platform under the floor of the wagon. There is room enough for me to lie on them, if I can contrive to get there. The springs will not give much under the light load to be carried. It will beat walking, by Jove, and remove the risk of losing sight of the rascals. I’ll do it, by gracious, unless——”
Patsy did not stop to consider the alternative.
He saw Margate climbing into the wagon, while Ruff gathered up the reins. It was the only opportunity he would have, and well Patsy knew it, and he did not hesitate for an instant.
He darted out in the darkness and crawled quickly between the rear wheels. The voices of the four men drowned the faint sounds he could not avoid causing. Dropping flat on his back under the middle of the wagon and parallel with it, Patsy reached up and grasped the center pole with both hands, then quickly twined his legs around it.
“Get up!” growled Ruff; and the wagon started.
As quick as a flash, knowing that any jar of the wagon would be attributed to running over a rock, Patsy swung himself over the pole and wormed himself upon the braces front and rear.
He then found that he had ample room, and that he would not probably be seen by persons passed on their way, but the position was a trying one, taxing nerves and muscles to maintain it.
“I’ll stick, by thunder, let come what may,” he said to himself, gritting his teeth while the wagon jolted out of the driveway and into the rough road. “I’ll not be shaken down while I have fingers to cling with.”
It proved to be as rough a ride, nevertheless, as Patsy Garvan had ever experienced. He had to give his entire attention to retaining his position. He at no time could tell just where he was, or whither he was going. He knew only that he brought up in a lonely, somewhat wooded section, after a last mile over the roughest kind of a road, and the wagon then came to a sudden stop.
“There’s no show of stealing out,” thought Patsy, with every nerve and muscle strained and aching. “I must take a chance the rascals will not see me.”
The four men already were climbing down from the wagon, Ruff and Jim Margate in advance. The latter scarce had alighted on the ground, when Patsy heard him ask, with a fierce growl:
“What the devil’s that?”
“What?” snapped Deland, joining him.
“That white thing under the wagon. It looks like a handkerchief.”
A handkerchief it was, as a matter of fact, jolted from Patsy’s pocket just at that fatal moment when the wagon stopped, and fallen to the ground to betray him.
“Gee! it’s all off, and I’m caught, dead sure,” flashed through his mind. “I can’t even pull a gun.”
Deland had crouched quickly to get the handkerchief, and his gaze fell upon Patsy. His eyes took on a quick, fiery glow. With invariable coolness, nevertheless, he whipped out a revolver and said sharply:
“Not only a handkerchief, Jim, but also its owner.”
“What d’ye mean?” Margate snarled.
“See for yourself,” snapped Deland. “Don’t stir till I give you permission, you spying whelp, or there’ll be holes made in you.”
“Oh, I’m not going to stir,” Patsy said coolly, thoroughly disgusted with the unfortunate turn of affairs. “I’m not dead sure that I can stir, as far as that goes.”
“You’ll be dead if you do, take my word for it. Drop down on the ground.”
Patsy obeyed, falling with a thud when he let go of his support. He could not have clung on much longer.
“Get him by the legs, Jim, and pull him out,” Deland commanded. “Watch that he don’t reach for a gun.”
“If he does, blast him, I’ll break his head,” Margate snarled, while he and Pitman seized Patsy’s heels and dragged him from under the wagon.
“Bring a piece of rope, Ruff,” said Deland, with revolver ready. “Stand him on his feet, Jim. Do you know him?”
Patsy saw that resistance would be nothing less than madness. He suffered the two ruffians to yank him to his feet, and when they did so his disguise was jostled out of place.
Margate saw it and jerked it from his face.
“Perdition!” He recoiled with a gasp. “It’s young Garvan, one of Nick Carter’s push.”
Deland came nearer, till the muzzle of his revolver touched Patsy’s breast. He did not appear to be in the least disturbed by the discovery, not more than when Chick intruded upon him that morning. His nerves were, apparently, as stiff as steel.
“Oh, is that so?” he inquired icily. “Are you sure of it, Jim?”
“I ought to be, hang him.”
“We’ll do better than hang him,” said Deland, with an ominous gleam in his cold eyes. “Garvan, eh? What sent you out here?”
“I came to see what you rascals were after,” said Patsy curtly.
“Did you?” sneered Deland. “Well, you shall not be disappointed. You shall see all that we do—until we depart.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
“But after then—you will see nothing!” Deland added, with a merciless smile.
Patsy did not deign to reply.
He glanced sharply around, however, and saw that they were close to the rear part of an extensive cemetery. A fence of wooden palings divided it from, the rough, lonely back road. The white stones and monuments, also several large tombs built into the side of a hill, could be seen through the semidarkness.
“Get his weapons and bind his arms securely,” Deland commanded coldly. “If he has any handcuffs, fasten them on him, also. He shall watch us to his heart’s content—until we leave him.”
“Leave him where?” growled Margate.
“Wait and see.”
Patsy still was a bit puzzled, but he submitted in grim silence to the work of the three ruffians, who disarmed and then securely bound him.
“Now, Margate, a gag,” said Deland. “Make sure that you fix it so securely that he cannot remove it. He shall occupy cold quarters to-night—and hereafter!”
Patsy saw plainly that he was in the hands of a man who had in him all the makings of a devil.
Margate took a gag from his pocket and fastened it in Patsy’s mouth.
“Now, gentlemen, we are ready,” said Deland. “Bring him with us. Let him see what he may. It’s a pleasure to gratify him. Murderers are well fed and wined, even, if wanted, before their execution. Bring him along.”
He turned with the last and tore off several palings, already loosened, from the high fence.
Forced on by the other three ruffians, Patsy was conducted to the door of one of the tombs, some twenty yards from where the wagon had been left.
Deland took a key from his pocket and unlocked the iron door, which Pitman and Ruff quickly removed and stood against a near bank.
“Look!” said Deland. “Here is what we came after.”
He shot the beam of an electric lamp into the tomb.
Patsy looked and saw—the long, wooden case and the florist’s boxes seen in the undertaker’s wagon that morning.
He could not speak, but he glared at the smiling miscreant near by, and Deland laughed audibly.
“A safe concealment, Garvan,” he remarked. “Even your famous Nick Carter will never think of this. Nor will you ever inform him. For, after removing the plunder for which we had labored—I shall leave you here!”
Patsy felt a chill run down his spine, and a cold perspiration broke out all over him.
“You will not be found,” Deland added, with merciless deliberation. “There may be no occasion to reopen this tomb for years. Nor can you escape, or make yourself heard, for we shall bind your feet and leave you in the box now containing part of our booty. Move lively, mates! The sooner we are away, now, the better.”
“Gee! here’s a fine outlook,” thought Patsy, steadying his nerves. “This miscreant means what he said. Nor will either of these rascals oppose him. Great guns! it looks tough, for fair!”
The three ruffians, Deland watching, already were transferring the pasteboard boxes to the wagon, a task that occupied them only a few minutes.
The cover then was removed from the undertaker’s box, which stood on the floor of the tomb.
Patsy could only stand and gaze.
When he returned with his companions for the last time, Margate brought a screw driver from the wagon.
“Off with the cover, Jim,” said Deland coldly. “Save the screws so that we may fasten it on again—with this meddlesome feller under it. I will teach him to interfere with my business, already sufficiently hazardous. Make haste. Put the stuff out here on the ground. We four then can take it to the wagon, after locking the tomb door.”
The knaves were at work while he was speaking.
Patsy saw small but costly old paintings, boxes of gems and jade, the priceless Strad violin, then in its case—these and many other treasures Patsy saw brought out and laid upon the ground.
There was no delay over what followed, no argument about it, no sign of mercy in the eyes of either of his captors.
Patsy was rudely thrown to the ground and his legs securely bound.
Half a minute later he was lying in the box from which the treasures had been taken.
He heard the cover replaced, the massive key turned in the grating lock.
Three minutes later the wagon moved away with the four knaves and its load of treasures.
Only Patsy Garvan remained.
Entombed alive!
Alone with the dead!