The Mystery of the Crossed Needles by Nick Carter - HTML preview

CHAPTER XII.
 AVENGED.

The rope ladder that Chick had used the night before, and which was again coiled up in its place on the fire-escape balcony, was brought into use. Nick Carter did not hesitate now, nor did he care who saw his movements. He was first over the high fence into the next yard, but he had hardly alighted on the soft earth of the flower bed when Patsy Garvan was by his side.

“Shoot—to kill!” was Nick Carter’s brief order, as he ran to a brick structure at the end of the yard. “We’ve got to make sure of those rascals this time.”

The brick building looked like a garage, but as there was no way for a motor car to be got into this yard, Nick knew it could not be used for that purpose. One glance showed him that it was old, and that the brickwork was shaky. There was a door and one window. The window was barred.

Nick decided, after a brief survey, that the bars could be torn loose with some exertion, and he seized one of them with both hands and pulled with all his might. If the detective had not been a man of extraordinary muscular power, perhaps he could not have made the bar yield. As it was, he pulled it out of one end after a few minutes’ labor. Then it was comparatively easy to get the other end out.

This left him room to crawl through. As he dropped to the floor, he saw somebody lying on the floor, bound hand and foot, and with a cloth fastened over his mouth, so that he could not utter a sound.

Two or three slashes with his knife, and off came the ropes. At the same time he loosened the suffocating cloth. Then he lifted Chick to his feet. To his joy, he saw that his assistant was not hurt. He was standing up without aid, although obviously he felt very stiff.

“Where are they, Chick? In the house?”

“Yes. There are three of them. Sun Jin, the man with the scars, and another chink.”

“And who is the third?” asked Nick Carter.

“Professor Tolo, of course. I tell you, chief, that Jap is one of the worst citizens I ever saw out of jail. He’s going to get us all if we don’t watch out.”

“Is he?” came grimly from the great detective. “I think not. The electric chair will get him.”

“It ought to, I believe. But he’s smart enough not to do his own job. He never has anything to do with the actual use of the crossed needles, and he is smart enough to make it hard to bring anything definite against him.”

While Chick was speaking, he was digging at the lock with his pocketknife, and it was not long before he shot back the lock and pulled the door open.

Patsy Garvan met them as they went out, and, with his usual recklessness where his emotions were concerned, threw his arms around Chick’s shoulders, and shouted, in a powerful voice:

“Good old scout! They didn’t get you! I saw them, and I would have come over the fence right then if the chief hadn’t phoned me to wait. Come on, everybody! This is where we get the Yellow Tong and hang it on the fence to dry, inside out! Wow! Bring on your chinks!”

It was impossible to keep Patsy quiet, as both Nick Carter and Chick well knew. Now that his blood was up, he must be allowed to have his fling, regardless of who might hear him.

“Don’t try the door,” warned Chick. “They have it locked and barred. But you can get through the kitchen window by just breaking the glass and reaching in to the catch.”

“We’ll cut a hole. That will be better than making a crash by breaking it,” said Nick.

He took from his portable kit of tools a glazier’s diamond, and cut a square hole in the glass as neatly as if it were his regular business. He pinched the piece of glass with his nimble fingers before it could fall to the floor inside, and had the catch pushed back almost in the same movement. The next moment he was in the kitchen, pistol in hand, while his two assistants also came through.

So far they had not heard a sound in the house. Yet there could be no question that somebody was there, for only just before Patsy Garvan had seen the three men carrying Chick’s bound figure down the yard, to deposit it in the brick tool house.

These three men might have gone out by the front door. But, according to Patsy, the caretaker was still there, because he had come out only a minute before Nick opened the study door. Patsy had watched him from the window, and had seen him go down the yard to look at the outside of the tool house. Then he had sauntered back, lighted a pipe, and gone into the house, smoking, as if he had no intention of moving away—for a while, at all events.

“We’ve got to get that caretaker, first of all,” whispered Nick.

He opened the door of the kitchen that led to the other part of the house, closely followed by his two assistants.

There was a dark hall which seemed to run through to the front door, and the three explorers crept along till they got to another door. When they opened this, they were startled by a rush of sunlight. It gave out upon the little, paved yard in front of the house, with the avenue beyond.

Standing in the yard and leaning over the iron railings, as he puffed at a pipe so strong that it polluted the whole block, was the caretaker. He was enjoying the leisurely panorama of the early morning, apparently with nothing on his mind.

Nick pulled his assistants back to the dark hall, and locked and bolted the door in silence.

“He didn’t see us, and we don’t want him to come in,” he whispered. “We will look through the house. I don’t believe those fellows have gone out. It is my opinion they intended to go out to the tool house later and dispose of you, Chick.”

“Very likely,” assented Chick coolly. “I don’t care what they intended, now that I know they won’t be able to do it. I’m going upstairs.”

“Not without me,” grunted Patsy.

Cautiously they crept up to the main floor, and went into the dining room, the door of which was a little way open. The curtains were drawn at the window, but there was enough light for them to see that the furniture was all shrouded in denim, and that the pictures on the walls had been covered with sheets.

The effect was ghostly, but it was natural enough. The owners of the house wanted their belongings to be kept as fresh as possible while they were away.

The other rooms on this floor were also wrapped in cloths, and all were so silent that it was difficult to imagine them full of life and brightness, as probably they were when the family was at home.

To the next floor went the three investigators, and there they found a handsome drawing-room in front and two smaller rooms behind, that probably were used as a cardroom and my lady’s special sitting room.

“That’s a fine grand piano over there,” observed Patsy, in a whisper. “Gee! I’d like to hear some ragtime on that.”

Patsy Garvan had a way of being incongruous without knowing it. When an idea came into his head, he was liable to give it utterance, regardless of where he might be.

The piano, covered all over with an immense sheet that hung down on all sides, had attracted his attention to such a degree that it seemed to fascinate him. He tiptoed over the luxurious rugs on the polished floor of the drawing-room until he was close to the piano, and he put his hands on it.

“Say, chief!” he whispered. “I’m just going to open this music box and see how it looks inside.”

“Come away!” hissed Chick. “Are you crazy?”

But Patsy either did not hear, or he would not heed. Throwing up the sheet, as well as the rich, brocaded cover underneath, he opened the front of the piano, exposing the keyboard, and the magnificent, pearl-inlaid music desk. Then he spread his fingers over the keys, as if about to play.

Patsy was a fair performer on the piano, as well as on several other instruments. He could hardly resist trying this valuable piano. Only the fear that there might be others in the house besides his two companions, who would perhaps catch them unawares if he were to make a sound on the instrument, held him back.

With a sigh, he put down the lid, and was turning away, when he happened to glance around the side of the piano. It stood across a corner of the room, leaving a space behind, besides diagonal corners on either side.

Without a word, Patsy flung himself into the three-cornered space at the back of the piano, and instantly there was an uproar that made it quite superfluous for Nick and Chick to keep silence any longer.

Patsy struggled out to the middle of the drawing-room. In either hand he held a Chinaman!

“Come on, Chick! Take one of these!” he shouted. “I’ve got the guy with the white ear. You take the other one! Look out! Behind you!” he added, in a shriek.

It was well that he had uttered this warning. Two other Chinamen had come from the shadows of the other rooms, and each held a knife uplifted.

Before they could bring the knives down, Nick Carter had shot out his left fist and felled one, while Chick floored the other.

But this was not the end of the battle. The two men Patsy had seized at the back of the piano took advantage of the diversion to break away from him, and the next moment he was dashing down the stairs, after them.

The front door was their objective, but it had been locked and bolted just as had the one in the basement that Nick Carter had secured. It was against this door that the fight came to an issue.

Patsy Garvan did not hesitate to rush in. He slammed one of the Chinamen on the chin and crumpled him up. It made him smile with satisfaction as he noted that it was the one with the scarred ear.

Before he could give attention to the other man, that snarling individual had drawn something from the folds of his blue blouse that glistened evilly in the half light of the hall.

Whatever it was, Patsy determined not to wait for it. Letting fly with his right fist—and missing, as the Chinaman ducked, he seized him by the throat with the other hand. There was a gurgling hiss, and then the fellow went down on top of his fellow rascal.

A scream—loud, long drawn out, and unearthly—came from the man with the scarred ear, who was underneath, and the awful cry was echoed by the Chinaman on top. Then both were still.

Patsy Garvan stood looking at them in astonishment, when Nick Carter came down with a rush and ran to the help of his petrified assistant.

“Got ’em, Patsy?”

“I think so. But they seemed to give out all at once, without me touching them. That is, after I’d slung this one on top of the other.”

Nick Carter did not answer, but a look of understanding came into his keen eyes, as he pulled the top Chinaman off of his comrade and laid him on his back. Then he took out his pocket flash and turned it first on one senseless figure, and then the other.

Deeply embedded in the chest of the underneath man—the Chinaman with the scarred ear and the burned finger, from which the rag had been removed—were the poisoned crossed needles with which the detective had become so strangely familiar in the last two days.

He hastily tore open the front of the blouse and shirt away from the chest of the other. There were the two little marks which showed that he, too, had died from the same horrible death as his companion.

“It’s clear enough,” said Nick quietly. “When you flung this man on top of the other, the needles were driven into both of them. It was poetic justice. The murder of Andrew Anderton has been avenged.”

“This one with the scarred ear is the fellow who actually killed Mr. Anderton, wasn’t he?” asked Patsy.

“Yes, I have ample proof of that. This other man was concerned in it, too. The only thing I want now is to get the archconspirator—the man who arranged the murder—Sang Tu.”

“You mean Professor Tolo, don’t you?” asked Patsy.

“It may turn out to be the same thing,” returned Nick Carter. “We shall have to find that out later. Hello, Chick!” he called up the stairs. “Have you got those two fellows, all right?”

“Yes,” replied Chick. “I have handcuffs on both of them. What am I to do with them now?”

“I’ll go out and grab that caretaker. Then I’ll bring him in and make him telephone to the police station for a patrol wagon. I don’t know how deep he is in this thing. He can explain that to the police.”

“Why don’t you telephone, yourself, chief?” asked Chick. “They’d probably pay more attention to you than to the old man.”

“Yes, and they’d question me more than I care for, too,” replied Nick. “I don’t want to answer questions until I am face to face with the man who asks them. This case isn’t wound up yet, you know.”