Chapter VII: The Ambush

“The man with a figured vest, Jack Conroy, mentioned by Patsy.”

This thought passed like a flash through Nick Carter’s mind when the intruder stepped into the room. Instantly, too, Nick suspected trickery, and his right hand went instinctively toward his hip pocket.

On the instant, however, the intruder covered him with a revolver.

“Hold on!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you attempt to pull a gun, Carter, or there’ll be nothing left but the clean-up. I’ve got the drop on you.”

“So I now observe,” Nick put in dryly.

“But not because I thought it specially necessary, mind you, beyond preventing you from putting something over on me, as you have threatened my friend here,” Conroy quickly added. “You sit quiet and keep your hands in sight, as you told her, and there’ll be no bloodshed. This business can be settled without using guns--and settled right.”

“Without using guns, eh?” said Nick, sharply eying him.

“That’s what.”

“And is that why you are so ready with one?”

“I told you why, Carter, and it goes. I’m no gunman, but I don’t propose to let you give me the worst of it, nor this young lady. There will be no more trouble unless you reach for a weapon. If you do--well, I’ll take mighty good care that mine barks first.”

“We’ll let it go at that, then,” said Nick, settling back in his chair. “Who are you and how do you figure in this business? Kate Crandall said she was alone here.”

“So I did, Carter, and supposed----”

“You keep quiet, Kate, and let me do the talking with this detective,” Conroy commanded, interrupting her when she pulled herself together and started to explain. “He has made a mistake, a big blunder, and I’m going to set him right--providing he is not too pig-headed to see things right.”

Conroy coolly sat down while speaking. He took a chair at the table, one directly opposite that occupied by the detective, and he then laid his revolver directly in front of him on the table, where it could be easily reached.

“Now, Carter, we’ll discuss this business man fashion,” he said curtly. “I’ll not touch the gun unless you reach for yours.”

“Very well,” said Nick indifferently. “But you have not answered my questions.”

“What questions?”

“Who are you and how do you figure in this business?” Nick repeated. “Why were you concealed in that room?”

“That isn’t a room,” said Conroy, with a jerk of his thumb toward the door through which he had entered. “That door leads into the rear hall and out to the kitchen.”

“Why were you concealed there, then?”

“I wasn’t concealed there. I only happened to be there,” Conroy coolly asserted. “Kate Crandall did not know I was in the house. Nor was I, in fact, until after you had entered.”

“Well?”

“I heard your voices when I came through the rear yard from the side street. Not knowing yours and being a bit jealous of Kate, I entered noiselessly and listened in the rear hall. That’s all there was to it,” added Conroy. “I heard most that you have said, Carter, and you’re dead wrong.”

“You really think so, do you?”

“I know so, Carter.”

“Dead wrong in what respect?” questioned Nick tentatively.

“In suspecting Kate Crandall of----”

“Stop a moment,” Nick interrupted. “Who are you, anyway?”

The question brought a sharper gleam into the eyes back of the gold-bowed glasses, but it waned almost instantly, for the detective’s tone and scrutiny evinced no definite suspicion.

“My name is Jack Conroy.”

“Jack Conroy, eh?”

“That’s what.”

“Where do you live? How could you enter this house?”

“I board here, have boarded here for weeks,” Conroy promptly asserted. “That’s why I could enter. I have a key to both doors.”

“That’s true, Mr. Carter, on my word,” Kate Crandall put in.

“I already have told you what I think your word is worth,” said Nick, with a quick glance at her.

“But you are wrong, Carter, dead wrong,” Conroy repeated. “I know what I am talking about, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

“That’s up to you, then,” said Nick. “I’m always, open to conviction. I’m willing to listen.”

“That’s as it should be,” Conroy replied. “As I understand it, from what you two have been saying, some girl or child has recently been abducted.”

“Exactly,” said Nick, not without an object in prolonging this conversation.

“Yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“At what time?”

“About four o’clock.”

“Well, I was with Kate Crandall in a moving-picture house at that hour, so I know she could have had no hand in an abduction,” Conroy forcibly asserted. “I know also that you may not believe that, since I am her intimate friend, and it’s on another point that I’m going to set you right.”

“What point is that?”

“That letter,” said Conroy, pointing to it. “I don’t know what it contains, but I heard what you said about it and saw what you did to the pad. You evidently suspect that the letter was written in this house. So it was, of course, in view of what you have discovered. But Kate Crandall did not write it.”

“How do you know that?” questioned Nick.

“Because I know who did write it.”

“Who?”

“The man who lives here and owns the place--Andy Duffy,” said Conroy emphatically.

“How do you know he wrote it?” Nick asked, with steadfast scrutiny.

“Because I saw him at work on it three or four evenings ago,” said Conroy. “I was reading, and he was seated at his desk. I wondered what he was doing, he was at work so long and kept tearing up sheets of paper.”

“Why didn’t you inquire?”

“It was none of my business. I picked out several pieces of the paper from the wastebasket, nevertheless, after he had quit and gone to bed. I found only some printed letters on them, instead of written, but I could make nothing out of what little I found. I did not suppose, of course, that he was engaged in anything crooked.”

Conroy told this story glibly and with an air of genuine veracity.

“There, what say you to that, Carter?” Kate Crandall demanded, with her nerve and courage reviving. “You have been barking up the wrong tree. You admit that you were wrong now, I guess.”

Nick did not trouble himself to assert that Conroy’s statements were false. Pretending to be impressed by them, on the contrary, and with no apparent interest in the weapon lying on the table, Nick had been keeping a constant eye on the man, waiting only to catch him with his attention so diverted from the revolver that it could not be instantly seized, if he should venture a sudden aggressive move.

Instead of replying to the woman’s taunting remark, Nick continued his talk with the man.

“You suspected nothing crooked, eh?”

“Certainly not,” said Conroy, shaking his head. “But I now know, of course, that he must have been framing up this abduction.”

“Is that all you know about it?”

“Not by a long chalk!”

“What do you mean? What else do you know?”

“I can tell you who are with Duffy in the job.”

“His confederates?”

“Surest thing you know.”

“Why are you so sure of it?”

“Because I now recall certain circumstances that did not, at the time of their occurrence, impress me as being suspicious,” Conroy explained. “They now have a very different look.”

“What circumstances, Mr. Conroy?” Nick inquired.

“To begin with,” Conroy proceeded, “Duffy has been visited several times during the past month by a fellow named Kennedy. They have held private discussions out in the garage. I knew they were private, all right, for both made it a point to get rid of me whenever I showed up.”

“I see. What more?”

“Three days ago I saw both of them talking privately with Duffy’s wife, Maggie, and I wondered at the expression on her face,” Conroy continued. “I now know they must have been talking about this abduction, and I afterward saw Maggie giving her red-headed boy some very careful instructions. He’s a cute kid, Carter, and he also may have figured in the job.”

“Quite likely,” Nick allowed.

“That’s how I now size it up, Carter, and it’s a hundred to one that Kennedy and Duffy, with Maggie Duffy and possibly the kid, are the ones who stole the missing child. But Kate was not in the job, Carter, I’ll swear to that,” Conroy forcibly insisted. “I know all about her, mind you, and that she has been a little off color in the past; but she certainly had no hand in this job.”

“That’s true, Carter, on the level,” Kate glibly asserted.

Nick ignored her again, but not the man, for an instant. Addressing him, he inquired:

“Is there anything more you can tell me?”

“You bet there is,” Conroy quickly replied. “I think I can put you on the road to recover the child.”

“How so?”

“Because I know that Duffy and his wife agreed to join Kennedy in a certain house to-night, and that’s where the woman has gone with her sorrel-haired youngster.”

“Where is the house?”

“Out Westchester way,” said Conroy; then, more earnestly: “I know just where it is located. Duffy’s car is in the garage here and I can run it. If you want to go out there to nail this bunch and get the stolen child, I’ll take you out there and help you round them up. I’ll do this just to prove to you, Carter, that Kate had no hand in it.”

“Good for you!” Kate Crandall exclaimed. “That ought to be fair enough for any meddlesome detective.”

“As foul, instead, as the jade herself,” was the thought that passed through Nick Carter’s mind.

That he rightly interpreted this offer; that he knew Conroy designed only to lure him to the house mentioned, in order to place him at a greater disadvantage, if not even to kill him outright, if it could be more safely done--that Nick Carter knew all this and much more appeared in what speedily followed.

“Yes, it’s a fair offer, Conroy,” said he, pretending to be impressed with it. “You know where the house is located, you say?”

“I do,” Conroy nodded. “I can take you straight to it.”

“Does Kennedy live there?”

“He is employed there. He is the only person living there just now. He is employed as a caretaker and chauffeur by the man who owns the place.”

“Do you know the man?”

“Sure I know him.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s the junior partner of a banking house, the one for which Kate worked for a time,” Conroy explained. “His name is David Mack. He’s a widower, and he has not occupied the Westchester house since his wife died. That was only a year ago. He keeps Kennedy there, however, and goes out occasionally. Kennedy probably is taking the risk of hiding the stolen child in the vacant house.”

“By Jove, that might be true,” said Nick. “Have you any idea, Conroy, that Mack himself is in this job?”

“No, no, he isn’t in it,” Conroy quickly protested. “He would have no hand in such business. David Mack is strictly on the square. Kennedy is only his hired man, you know, and is alone out there most of the time.”

“I see.”

“If you will go out there with me, Carter----”

“Stop a moment,” Nick interrupted. “You said you picked some of Duffy’s torn papers from the wastebasket and found printing on them. Have a look at this letter. Were the printed letters that you found like these, or similar?”

Nick leaned forward with the last and tossed the Redlaw letter upon the table.

Conroy instantly picked it up, suspecting nothing.

It was the opportunity for which Nick had been paving the way.

He seized a drooping fold of the tablecloth, then gave it a jerk that instantly whisked the cloth from the table, carrying with it books, papers, magazines, and Jack Conroy’s revolver, scattering all of them over the floor.

Then, with a lightninglike move, Nick’s hand shot across the table and seized the beard of the startled man.

Conroy shrank back with a terrible veil. His beard, his glasses, a neatly fitted wig--all were torn off by the detective’s irresistible hand, revealing the ghastly, horrified, rage-distorted face of--David Mack.

“Aha! I thought so,” Nick shouted, leaping to his feet and reaching for his revolver. “You are the chief abductor, Mack, after all.”

Nick did not, however, succeed in drawing his weapon nor in making the arrests he had in view. The entire sensational episode transpired in the quarter part of a second.

The yell scarce had left David Mack’s lips, when, through a doorway back of the detective, two men leaped with uplifted bludgeons and fell upon Nick from behind, just as he was springing to his feet.

One of them was a brawny, powerful man with red hair--Andy Duffy himself.

The other was Gleason, his chauffeur, mentioned in Patsy’s hearing by Kate Crandall.

All three men were with the woman in the house when Nick rang the bell, and their immediate suspicions had led to what followed.

Nick heard their steps behind him even while he was speaking, and he sprang to one side to avoid a blow--but the move was an instant tardy.

A blackjack in Duffy’s hand fell squarely on the side of Nick’s head. The terrific blow staggered him. Another from Gleason followed it. The third came from his more brawny assailant. All fell in the hundredth part of a second.

Nick felt his knees buckle under him. The room went whirling around like a top. The beginning and end were more quick than one could imagine.

Vengeful shouts from David Mack, exultant cries from Kate Crandall, the hoarse oaths and imprecations of his merciless assailants--all suddenly sounded faint and far away, and the light through the lace-draped windows turned to inky darkness.