Chapter XII: At Close Quarters

M. Crenelette was a gray-haired, benevolent looking man with mild blue eyes. It was impossible to associate him with anything in the nature of lawlessness, and the boys were tempted to think they were on the wrong track.

M. Crenelette was French, but he talked English like one to the manner born.

His establishment was a veritable junk shop.

"What can I do for you, my friends?" he asked, getting up from a desk where he had been writing.

"Have you any objections to letting us take a look through your basement?" asked Matt.

"Basement? basement?" repeated the antiquarian, puzzled.

"Yes, through the cellar under your store."

"My dear young man, there are no cellars in New Orleans. The ground is too low, and there is water too near the surface."

Once more Matt and Dick began to feel that they were making a mistake in coming to M. Crenelette.

"Is there a room in this building that is inclosed with stone walls?"

"Ah!" and M. Crenelette's face brightened, "you speak now of the vaults of the old bank. They are on the second floor. I do not use the second floor, and it was rented, a few days ago, to an American gentleman. He has not moved in, yet. What interests you in the old vault?"

"We simply want to look it over," Matt answered. "Will you show us how to get up there? If the man who rented the place hasn't moved in yet I suppose there won't be any objection?"

"Certainly not. Come this way."

The Frenchman passed out the rear of his store and pointed to an open back stairway.

"The door may be locked," said he, "and, in that case, you will be disappointed, for I have given the key to the new tenant. You might go up the stairs and try the door."

As Matt and Dick ascended the stairs, M. Crenelette posted himself to watch. The bell at his front door suddenly tinkled, however, announcing a customer, and he had to go away.

The boys tried the door and found it open.

"The new tenant," remarked Dick, "isn't a very careful man. I wonder if his name is Jurgens?"

"Probably," said Matt, stepping into the room beyond the door.

It was a small room, and there was another door opposite the one by which he had entered.

"Dowse my toplights!" exclaimed Dick. "This doesn't look much like a bank. And then the idea of a bank being on the second floor! All my eye and Betty Martin!"

"Perhaps the bank was on the first floor and the vaults on the second," suggested Matt. "It was probably an old institution. From the looks of this building it must have been standing at the time Jackson whipped the Britishers."

"I'm a Britisher, you know, old ship," laughed Dick, "and I don't like to have you rub that Jackson fight into me. Push ahead and let's see what's in the next room."

Matt opened the door and was confronted by a windowless room as dark as Egypt. The only daylight that reached it came from the room in which the two boys were standing.

"Shiver me!" muttered Dick. "I guess we've reached the vaults, matey."

"They wouldn't have a door like this to a bank vault, Dick. We'll go in and see if there isn't a door on the other side that we can open."

Matt entered the room, groping his way through the thick gloom. Dick followed him closely.

Suddenly, the door through which they had just come slammed shut and a key was heard grating in the lock.

"Trapped!" muttered Dick. "There was some one here and laying for us."

"Quick!" called Matt, whirling around. "Try the door."

Before Dick could get back to it, Matt heard a muttered exclamation and the sound of a struggle. It was impossible to see a thing, and the young motorist could only guess at what had happened.

"Dick!" he called, leaping forward.

"Look alive, mate!" panted Dick. "Some one's got hold of me."

Before Dick had fairly finished speaking, a pair of stout arms went around Matt, and he was forced to fight on his own account and leave Dick to look after himself.

It was a struggle at close quarters, and a very unequal one. Slowly but steadily Matt was forced across the floor.

"Who are you?" he panted. "What are----"

"Whistler!" came a husky voice, "I'm closer to you, now, than I was at the bayou. Saw you coming across the street and opened the door to make it easy for you to get in. I don't know how you found out about this place, but your call here won't do you any good. You've bothered Jurgens and me as long as you're going to, and you and Ferral will never live to get away from this building!"

With that, Matt felt himself hurled roughly backward. He struck against a wall and dropped half stunned to the floor.

The next moment Dick came banging against him, and there followed the clang of an iron door, the rattle of a key, then silence.

"Matt?" called Dick, his voice echoing and reëchoing strangely.

"Here," answered Matt.

"Blest if we smoked Whistler's roll quick enough! We came easy for him--so easy that I'm ashamed of myself. The fact that he was here proves that this is a sort of headquarters for him and Jurgens."

"If this wasn't a rendezvous of theirs, of course Whistler wouldn't have been around."

"Where are we?"

"I guess," answered Motor Matt, slowly, "that we have found the old vault. That was an iron door that closed on us, if the noise it made counts for anything."

"Oh, glory!" grunted Dick, disgustedly. "How long can we stay in here without smothering to death?"

"The air seems to be fairly pure, at present--purer, in fact, than it was out in that other room. But, Whistler! Why he was the last man I was expecting to see."

"And we didn't see much of him, at that," growled Dick. "My eye, but here's a go! Whistler didn't lose much time coming in from that bayou. I wonder if he's found Jurgens, and if the two of them have got the hooks on Carl?"

"There are a whole lot of things I wish I knew, Dick," said Matt.

"Same here, matey. Whistler had some one with him, and that other man may have been Jurgens."

"Well, if it was Jurgens, then it's a cinch Jurgens wasn't so much off his balance as Rigolette led us to believe. But I don't think it was Jurgens."

"Why not?"

"Jurgens would have said something to let us know that he had a hand in our capture."

"Right-o. Jurgens is a good deal of a boaster and likes to run up his signals whenever he gets the chance. We've had a nice time of it since we reached New Orleans, I must say! With you and me locked up, and Carl running around with his mind in a haze, I wonder what's going to become of the _Hawk_? She can't roost out there on the dock indefinitely."

"We're not going to stay locked up for long," returned Matt. "Just as soon as we catch our breath we've got to take a look around here and see if we can't get away."

"With an iron door to batter down, matey, the outlook isn't what you might call promising. I've heard of men being shut up in bank vaults, but they usually smothered. Oh, hang the luck! And hang the way we dropped into this bunch of trouble! We ought to have suspected there was some one in here when we found the door open."

"No use crying over spilt milk, Dick. Don't you think it might have been Whistler instead of Jurgens who rushed into the house of Rigolette's and took the idol's head away from Joujou?"

"One guess is as good as another," said Dick, heavily.

"Well, we'll stop guessing and try and get down to facts. Have you any matches?"

"A pocketful."

"Then strike one and we'll find out where we are."

The floor of the room was of brick. Dick scratched a match on the floor and then got to his feet and held the light in the best position for him and Matt to make a survey of their quarters.

The room in which the boys found themselves was about ten feet square. The walls and ceiling were of stone, and there was only one opening, and this was closed with a heavy iron door.

Dick stepped to the door and pushed against it. Although rust encrusted the iron plates, yet the door rigidly resisted his push upon it.

"We might blow the door down with a stick of dynamite," said Dick, "but that's the only way we could do the trick, mate. I'm a Fiji if----"

"Look!" came hoarsely from Matt; "on the floor, there, off to the left of you!"

The flame of the match was eating close to Dick's fingers, but in the last, dying glow he swerved his eyes in the direction indicated by Matt, and an astonishing duplicate of Yamousa's second smoke picture burst on his eyes.

On the brick floor lay a man with gray hair and gray mustache, bound hand and foot and gagged.

It seemed to Matt and Dick as though they were again in the hut by the bayou and peering into the smoke arising from the earthen jar under the spell of Yamousa.

"Townsend!" gasped Dick.