The Second Nick Carter MEGAPACK®, page 13
A dimly lighted basement met his gaze. It was not more than twenty feet square, with the stone foundation walls of the stable on two sides, the open door on a third, while the fourth and interior side appeared to be a solid wooden bulkhead.
The floor was the bare ground, and the place was evidently designed for stowing away an automobile.
“This is where that car came from this noon, that’s plain enough,” thought Patsy. “Yet Nick must be wrong in thinking the rascals own so many cars, for I’ve seen only two. There’s not room in there for more than that number.”
The last thought had barely crossed his mind, however, when Patsy discovered his mistake, and also why Badger had shouted so loudly.
A secret sliding door in the interior bulkhead wall suddenly flew open, revealing a long extension of the basement, running even under the carriage-house adjoining the stable above.
In this secret extension, which was so cleverly constructed as to defy detection either from within or without, Patsy now caught sight of half a score of motors lined up against one of the side walls, each of a different make from the others, and all apparently in first-class condition.
“By thunder! this does settle it, and Nick was right,” he mused. “Those are the different cars these knaves have used for their night hold-ups. This exterior basement is only a blind for concealing the other.”
The chief figure that at once claimed Patsy’s attention, however, was that of Jerry Conley.
He had appeared in the secret doorway in response to Badger’s shout, and he carried in one hand a lighted lantern, and in the other a flask of brandy.
“Well, what do you say, Jerry?” demanded Badger, as the other strode out to join him.
“He’s all right now,” growled Conley, setting down the lantern.
“Got him back to earth?”
“Pretty nearly. He’ll be himself in a few minutes.”
“Thank God!” thought Patsy fervently. “That refers to Nick.”
“Then he’ll not croak?” inquired Badger, as if somewhat disappointed.
“Not this time; though I reckon ’twould be a good thing for us if he did,” snarled Conley.
“Help me run this car in, then I’ll go and have a talk with him.”
Patsy ducked his head and dropped the hamper lid.
Then he sensed that the two men had seized the sides of the car and drawn it well into the exterior basement.
“Things all right in town?” queried Conley.
“Yes.”
“Did both women come out?”
“Sure.”
“I’m thinking ’twould be a good scheme to hold up some party to-night,” Conley now declared.
“Why so?” inquired Badger.
“It would go to show the police that the unknown road robbers have not been interfered with by any move of Nick Carter, and when he is found to be missing, no suspicion, naturally, would fall upon us.”
“There’s something in that.”
“Sure there is.”
But Badger presently shook his head.
“Not to-night, Jerry,” said he decisively. “We already have enough on for to-night with this infernal detective. Besides, I’m about all in, with what I’ve had to do to-day.”
“I don’t much wonder,” grinned Conley.
“We’ll cut out the hold-up until to-morrow,” added Badger. “You go over to the house and tell Vic that Carter has revived. She wants to come out and see him. Meantime, I’ll take the lantern, and go and have a talk with him.”
“What’s the matter with lighting this wall lamp?”
“No harm in it, Jerry. Light it, if you like.”
Badger took up the lantern while speaking, and strode into the interior basement, closing the sliding door after him.
Conley struck a match and lighted an oil-lamp in a bracket on the wall, then hastened out of doors and across the lawn.
“Now is my time!” thought Patsy. “If I can get into that inner cellar, and down Amos Badger, the rest will be dead easy!”
He raised his head a little to lift the lid of the hamper.
Then he suddenly stopped, holding his breath.
The patter of soft feet on the ground near-by had reached his ears.
Then came a furious sniffing about the wickerwork of the hamper.
It was followed immediately by a long, low, threatening growl, enough to have sent a chill through a brass image.
“That infernal bloodhound again!” thought Patsy, with an ugly creeping of his every nerve. “By thunder! this is worse than being headed off by a man—or by half a dozen men! What’s the cursed brute about to do?”
CHAPTER XVII.
A CRISIS.
The bloodhound continued to sniff and growl.
Patsy continued to lie low and hold his breath.
He knew that if he showed himself in the open there would be trouble from that moment—and the worst kind of trouble.
He hoped that the fierce brute would presently have satisfied his curiosity, and then take it into his ugly head to return out of doors.
But the dog did nothing of the kind.
Plainly enough, he knew that there was something wrong, and his watch-dog instinct impelled him to hang about the suspected spot.
He fell to trotting to and fro near the back of the touring-car, over a space of some six feet, like an irritated lion in a cage.
With every turn he made he looked up at the hamper with his rolling red eyes, and indulged in a low, threatening growl.
It was as much as to say: “Don’t come out, or I’ll make a meal of you!”
His huge jaws hung apart and were froth-flecked, and Patsy, venturing once to peer out at him, did not like his looks.
“He’d make mince-meat of me in less than ten seconds if I undertook to leap out there,” he said to himself, with gruesome misgivings. “Yet if I remain here and he there, I am as good as discovered by these crooks. I’m blessed if this hasn’t developed into a mighty ugly situation.”
As a matter of fact, he could see no immediate way out of it.
He was so cramped and twisted in his close quarters that he could not draw his revolver without rising up in the hamper, and he knew that the dog would instantly attack him if he ventured doing that.
His muscles were so cramped, moreover, that he knew he could not move to advantage for several moments after his release.
He realized, furthermore, that the report of his revolver, in case he attempted to shoot the dog, would speedily bring Badger and his confederates to the spot, and that the result might possibly be fatal to himself, or, at least, to Nick’s designs, to corner and arrest the entire gang.
So for upward of five minutes the situation hung fire, Patsy waiting and wondering, and the bloodhound still growling and trotting to and fro some six feet away.
It was at this time that Badger had his talk with Nick, as already related.
Presently Patsy heard Conley returning, accompanied by the two women.
Though all three observed the dog, they paid no immediate attention to his movements, but at once hastened into the inner basement and to the vault in which Nick was confined.
Patsy inwardly prayed that the dog would follow them, but his prayer proved vain.
The bloodhound knew his business.
He continued to trot and growl, occasionally snapping his huge jaws by diversion or anticipation, and all the while with his red eyes fixed upon the wicker hamper.
Patsy gritted his own teeth in impotent rage.
At the end of another five minutes, however, he had decided what to do.
He resolved to shoot the dog, taking chances of killing him with a single shot, and then leap out of the hamper and attack, single-handed, the gang in the interior basement.
Conley had left the sliding door open after entering with the women, and Patsy thought he could see a tolerably fair prospect of bringing to a successful issue even as desperate a move as that which he now contemplated.
Having grimly settled upon the task, he now wormed about a bit in the hamper, striving to free his revolver from his hip pocket.
The bloodhound instantly redoubled his growling.
“You be hanged!” muttered Patsy resentfully. “I’ll presently silence you with a chunk of lead.”
He had succeeded in getting hold of the butt of his revolver.
Before he could free the weapon from his pocket, however, the shrill voice of Vic Clayton sounded through the basement, as she and Claudia Badger came hurrying from the inner extension.
“What’s the matter with Pluto?” she cried, as she approached.
“There’s something wrong out here,” declared Claudia.
The instant the dog heard his name mentioned, all the restrained passions and fierce instincts of the brute leaped violently into play.
With a tremendous snarling and barking he bounded up at the hamper, clawing at it with might and main, as if bent upon devouring all that it contained.
Patsy was taking no chances of losing half of his face in one fierce bite of the brute, and he instantly ducked his head and crouched lower.
“It’s all off!” was the thought that flashed through his mind. “I am now obliged to put up a game of bluff.”
The screams of the two women were now mingled with the furious barking of the bloodhound, and Vic Clayton was shouting affrightedly:
“Come out here! Come out here, Amos! There’s something the matter with this dog. I think he has gone mad.”
Before the last was uttered, both Badger and Conley came rushing out of the inner cellar.
The two men instantly guessed the meaning of the brute’s actions, and both rushed toward the car.
“Gone mad be hanged!” shouted Badger. “There’s something wrong with that hamper, not with the dog.”
“That’s right, Amos,” yelled Conley.
“Ah, I thought so! Get out, you brute, or I’ll brain you! What the devil have we here?”
Badger had given the excited brute a second kick in the ribs, that once more sent him yelping out of doors, much to Patsy’s relief, despite the sudden change in the situation.
At the same time Conley had thrown open the lid of the hamper, plainly disclosing the cramped detective to the view of all.
In an instant both ruffians had him by the throat and wrists.
“Hold on!” gasped Patsy, struggling to rise out of his cramped position, and at once assuming to be the injured, rather than the offender.
“Come out here!”
“Sure, I’ll come out,” whined Patsy, as he was yanked out upon the ground, yet still in the clutches of both men. “Say, this ain’t no way to use a fellow. Let go me throat, will you? I ain’t going to eat nobody up. Holy smoke! but I’m glad you drove that dog off. I thought I was a dead one, for sure.”
“You’ll be a dead one, all right, young fellow, unless you stand up and give an account of yourself,” Badger fiercely cried. “Hang onto his arms, there, Conley, in case he means mischief. Hand me that strip of rope, Vic, and I’ll make him fast in a jiffy. Look lively, I say!”
While this exchange of conversation was in progress, Patsy had been jerked rudely to his feet, only to find for several moments that he could hardly stand erect, so strained and cramped were his muscles.
Conley, meantime, had twisted the captive’s arms back of him, and was holding them there with the grip of a vise.
Badger had released Patsy’s throat, however, and, with the piece of rope Vic Clayton had hurriedly brought him, he quickly secured the detective’s arms and wrists behind him.
“Now, you give an account of yourself,” he fiercely commanded, shaking his clenched hand under Patsy’s nose.
“Sure I will, mister, since I’m caught in my own box,” Patsy now said, surveying with a ludicrous grin the frowning faces around him. “But I’d have been out and away long before this, mister, if it had not been for that infernal dog.”
“Out and away, would you?” cried Badger, catching up this one significant remark.
“That’s what, mister.”
“What were you doing in that hamper?”
“Only stealing a ride.”
“Stealing a ride?” echoed Badger incredulously.
“That was all, mister, the whole business.”
“You’re a liar!” snarled Conley, fiercely suspicious.
“Say, you leave me to settle with the boss of this joint, will you?” growled Patsy, now turning upon the Irishman. “I haven’t trod on any of your corns, have I? So you leave me to do the talking with the boss.”
“I’ll not leave you a leg to stand on, if you—”
“Shut up, Jerry!” commanded Badger sharply. “How long had you been in the hamper, youngster?”
“All the way from town, mister.”
“Nonsense!” cried Vic Clayton, now pressing nearer. “I know better than that.”
“Sure, ma’am, I don’t like to contradict a lady like yourself, but you’ll find I’m right,” insisted Patsy, bowing to her with a ludicrous display of humility.
“Do you mean to say that you rode out from town in that hamper?” demanded Vic.
“That’s what I did, ma’am.”
“What put you up to that?” cried Badger, in threatening tones.
Patsy indulged in another grin.
“Well, ’twas like this, mister, d’ye see,” he proceeded to explain, with an air of humble frankness. “I was walking along Tremont Street with a comrade of mine—Jones his name is, mister, and mine is Green.”
“Come to the point, you rascal,” Badger impatiently growled.
“Sure I will, mister, if you give me time.”
“If you don’t, I’ll give you something besides time.”
“’Twas like this, d’ye see?” continued Patsy coolly. “We saw this big car alongside the curb on Tremont Street, and Nosey, the which we call Jones because his beak is so big—Nosey bet me a five I didn’t dare get into the hamper and steal a ride.”
“He did, eh?” sneered Badger, with an ugly gleam in his searching eyes.
“That’s what he did, sir,” nodded Patsy. “I’d seen these two ladies go into the building near-by, so I said to myself I’d have time to duck into the hamper before they came out. I thought it a cinch to win a five in that easy way. So when I found it was empty, mister, in I jumped, and here I am—the which I wouldn’t be, only for that dog, I give you my blooming word.”
“Your blooming word doesn’t cut any ice with me,” Conley now declared, with an angry snarl. “I’ll not swallow this story, Badger, not on your life. It’s much more likely that he’s working with his nobs in yonder, and mebbe there are more of the same kind about here at this moment.”
This possibility suggested by Conley was not without immediate effect upon Badger, who turned quickly to the waiting women and cried sharply:
“Go over to the house, you two, and we’ll bring this rascal there and question him further. You, Jerry, close that sliding door. We’ll leave the other where we have him. He cannot get out, that’s sure, and I’ll take no chance that there are others to see us in this place. We’ll go over to the house and settle with this young cub.”
“That will be safest,” nodded Conley, as he hastened to obey.
“You may leave this oil-lamp burning, Jerry,” added Badger, as he seized Patsy by the collar and marched him toward the door. “We may have to come out here again.”
“I’ll not put it out.”
“But secure this door after you.”
“Sure! D’ye think I’m daffy enough to leave it open?”
With the last remark, Conley came out of the basement and closed the heavy door, leaving the entire place only dimly lighted by the oil-lamp on the wall.
Seen from outside, the whole stable appeared shrouded in darkness.
As the three started across the lawn toward the house, with Patsy in the grip of both men, the huge bloodhound came bounding over the grass as if to accompany them—or to make a finish of Patsy.
Badger quickly checked him, however, sternly commanding:
“Be off, Pluto! Away with you, and watch out, you brute! Watch out, I say!”
The dog appeared to understand. He dropped his black nose to the ground, vented one short, sharp yelp, then coursed away with the speed of a deer, hither and thither, and finally toward the belt of woods darkly outlined against the starry sky at the rear of the broad estate.
“He’ll notify us, Jerry!” growled Badger, with his grip unconsciously tightening on the detective’s collar. “Let Pluto alone for that. He’ll notify us all right, and promptly, too, if there are other strangers prowling near here to-night.”
That Patsy was possessed of that true detective genius which instinctively anticipates coming events, appears in the thought that quickly arose in his mind:
“He will, eh? I can see his finish if he encounters Chick Carter this night!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
A LAST RESORT.
“Search him!” sternly commanded Badger. “We’ll see what that will bring forth. Search him, Conley, and see what you can find!”
The scene was the kitchen of the Badger dwelling.
Fifteen minutes had passed since Patsy was rounded up and brought in there, and the quarter-hour had been devoted to plying him with questions to break down the crafty story he had told, and to which he clung with a tenacity born of conscious desperation.
He now stood with his back to one of the kitchen walls, in the full glare of the lamplight.
His arms were still secured behind him, and his collar and cravat were awry from the throttling he had received.
His face was composed, however, not even pale, and his eyes were keen and bright with that inherent courage and invincible determination which rendered him superior to any threatening situation, and eminently worthy to have become Nick Carter’s trusted associate and assistant.
The gang by which he had been so curiously cornered were seated about the room.
Both Badger and Conley appeared stern and ugly, evincing that state of mind when dread and suspicion battle with uncertainty.
The two women, Mrs. Badger and Vic Clayton, appeared pale and anxious, as if fearful that their adventurous career was likely to be seriously interrupted.
