Chapter VII: Into a Trap

To one not versed in the detective’s art, the announcement of Nick Carter that he was going on a still-hunt after Stuart Floyd would have sounded like a vain and vaunting assertion.

To hunt up one man among the million in New York, a man presumably aware of the fact that he was wanted by the police, and therefore having a potent incentive to keeping out of sight--to attempt to hunt up such a man would seem to a novice a vain and hopeless undertaking.

None knew better than Nick Carter, however, the underworld and the ways of its crooks.

Nick did not seek Floyd in any of the haunts to which such criminals sometimes resort. He knew there would be nothing in that.

He reasoned, however, that Floyd would leave no stone unturned to find out what investigations were being made and what was known and suspected about the robbery, and Nick was much too keen to overlook the probability that the desired information might be covertly sought in the railway yard, when Frank Gilbert and McLauren returned to the freight car to remove the remaining cases.

This required two trips by the couple, it being impossible to take them away in a single load, and it was during their second visit to the car that Nick put in an appearance--or, rather, did not put in an appearance.

For, without displaying any interest in the labors of the two men, or in the contents of the car, Nick picked his way between several trains that were sidetracked in that part of the yard, apparently seeking some other car in which he had an interest. He was carefully disguised and felt sure that he was safe from ordinary recognition.

Nick had not long been thus engaged before he made a convincing discovery. Peering under the long rows of freight cars, he saw beyond that in which Gilbert and McLauren were working--the legs of a man.

One fact alone convinced Nick that his immediate suspicions were correct. The legs were motionless. The man was stationary.

“The rascal is listening on the other side of the car from which the two men are taking out the cases,” Nick said to himself, after briefly watching what little he could see of the motionless figure. “The opposite door must be closed and his presence is not suspected. He hopes to hear Gilbert and the truckman discussing what occurred in the Waldmere residence this morning, and what I said about the robbery. Otherwise, he would not be standing there like a lay figure in a shop window. I’ll have a closer look at him for a starter.”

Passing around the trains under which he had been gazing, Nick speedily reached a position from which he could view the suspect.

He was not the type of man the detective had expected to see. He was roughly clad and looked like a ragpicker. He had a short iron hook in one hand and carried a partly filled burlap bag under his arm.

His hair and beard were gray and long, his figure bowed, and he appeared to be fully seventy years old.

This questionable character, who had been standing just where the detective had thought, looked up and saw Nick just as he appeared beyond the end of the sidetracked train.

He betrayed no fear, however, no inclination to run away. Instead, he walked straight toward the detective, glancing under the cars and over the ground, as if in search of bits of iron and junk, or anything else with which he could turn a penny.

He passed directly by Nick, with merely an indifferent glance at him, as he might have bestowed upon any of the yard hands, and then he ambled on with unsteady gait and sought the near street.

Nick passed quickly around a string of cars and followed him.

“Floyd himself, by Jove, or I am much mistaken,” he said to himself. “The make-up is a good one, but I don’t think I can be mistaken in those shifty gray eyes. Now to prevent his eluding me, if he even suspects my identity.”

There seemed to be no probability of the last. Without looking back, walking as slowly and feebly as if really bowed with years, pausing at intervals to peer into a rubbish barrel he was passing, or to prod into it with his iron hook--thus the man proceeded toward the East Side, with the detective cautiously following.

Nick knew the district tolerably well at which his quarry finally brought up, knew it to be one of the worst in the city. He was somewhat surprised that Floyd, if he had not mistaken his identity, was seeking such a locality, for he had been in the past a man of good taste and fastidious habits.

Nevertheless, constantly watching him, Nick saw the man turn suddenly from the street and disappear between two old storage buildings.

Nick was not in a mood to be given the slip, nor to stand upon ceremony if threatened with anything of that kind.

He had deferred arresting the man only with a view to trailing him until he could discover his confederates, as well as the hiding place of the stolen plate.

Walking more rapidly, therefore, Nick quickly arrived at the alley into which his quarry had disappeared.

Still, he could not discover him. The alley ran through to a more open area, in which there were several old sheds and hovels. Beyond them was a small, square stone building of only two low stories and having a flat roof. Its few narrow windows were protected with iron shutters, all of which were closed and secured. The general appearance of the building denoted that it once had been used for storing explosives of some kind before municipal regulations prohibited it.

It then appeared to be unoccupied and out of use, however, and directly beyond it loomed the blank, windowless brick wall of a brewery fronting on the next street.

Nick lost no time in picking his way through the narrow alley. Even then, he could not at first discover his man. Passing quickly around two of the sheds mentioned, however, he then saw him in a small wooden building near the stone structure described.

The door of it was wide open, and the man was seated on a low stool within, engaged in pulling a quantity of rags from his burlap bag and tossing them upon a rag heap in one corner.

For the first time, in view of all this, Nick began to fear that he had mistaken the man’s identity. This seemed even more probable in that he did not appear disturbed by the approach of the detective, merely looking up with a questioning stare when he paused at the open door.

“How’s the rag business, old man?” Nick inquired, a bit bluntly.

“Bad--vair bad!” was the reply, with a cracked and cackling voice.

“Little doing, eh?”

“Vair liddle. Nodding at all.”

“Is this where you store your stuff?” questioned Nick, stepping inside the low building.

“Ven I have anyding to store.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Vell, not long. I just game in.”

“How long, I mean, have you had this place for your business?”

“Vat is it to you?” came the question, with a sharper scrutiny. “Vat for you vish to know?”

“Merely from curiosity,” said Nick, drawing nearer to him. “I saw you in the railway yard a short time ago, didn’t I?”

“I vas dere,” nodded the man. “You have eyes. Mebbe you might have saw me.”

Nick laughed a bit grimly.

“I saw you, all right,” he replied, with rather ominous intonation. “Do you go there after rags?”

“Junk,” was the terse rejoinder.

“That all?”

“Vat all?” questioned the man, looking up sharply. “Vat for do you care vy I go dere?”

“Merely from curiosity,” Nick repeated.

“Vell, you vas better pocket your curiosity,” snapped the other. “Junk--that’s vat I said.”

“I heard you.”

“For vat else would I go dere?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Nick said more sternly.

“Vell, you dake it out in vanting.”

“See here, old man, this hair of yours don’t appear quite----”

Nick broke off abruptly.

He had reached down while speaking and seized the man’s soiled woolen cap and mop of gray hair, giving them a violent jerk.

They came away in his hand, while the gray beard of the bowed rascal was torn out of place.

The result was precisely what the detective had expected.

The removal of the disguise revealed the pallid face and distorted features of the knave who had threatened him in Madison Avenue only a few days before, those of Stuart Floyd.

Floyd evidently was expecting no less.

In reality, he appeared to have planned for it. Like a flash, lurching forward from his stool while Nick was speaking, he suddenly threw both arms with viselike clutch around the detective’s legs, at the same time shouting, with frantic ferocity:

“Now, boys, quick! Get him! Get him! Get him!”

Nick Carter hardly knew where they came from, they came so quickly--the three ruffians who rushed into the place.

Two were powerful fellows in the neighborhood of forty, both armed with heavy bludgeons. That they meant business, moreover, and were out for bloodshed or murder, even, if it became necessary, was speedily apparent.

Nick realized on the instant that he had walked into a trap, an ambush from which escape would not be easy.

He reached for his revolver, bent upon putting up the fight of his life, but he could not draw the weapon.

For the frantic rascal on the floor, fiercely clutching Nick’s legs, was wriggling to and fro so furiously that the detective was nearly thrown from his feet.

All the while, though the entire episode transpired in less than a quarter minute, Floyd was fiercely repeating:

“Get him, boys, get him! Get him! Get him!”

There was absolutely no occasion for these sanguinary commands.

For the ruffians who had entered instantly attacked the swaying detective from behind. They fell upon him like wolves upon a wounded stag.

Blow followed blow in quick succession, with merciless force, until Nick sank, dazed and bleeding, upon the floor, scarce conscious of what afterward transpired.

In a vague way, however, as one senses such things in a dream, or a hideous nightmare, Nick knew that he was being hurriedly bound and robbed of his revolvers. He heard the brutal voices of his assailants, but they sounded faint to him and far away.

He knew, in a dazed way, that the great heap of rags was hurriedly pushed aside, that a trapdoor which they had concealed was quickly opened, and that he then was hurriedly carried down several low steps and through a dark, earthy-smelling passage, then up other steps, and into a stone-walled room lighted only by the feeble rays of an oil lamp.

Then the cobwebs began to clear from his battered head.

He heard Floyd’s hard voice more distinctly, as harsh and hard as nails. He could see the faces of his assailants more plainly, the two brutal ruffians, and the third none other than Bug Bannon.

“Get out, Bagley, and close the shed door,” Floyd then was commanding. “You slip out, Bannon, and make sure no other dicks are around, and that none else is wise to this. Rope him to that ring in the wall, Gorman, hands behind him, and be sure that he’s tied fast.”

“Leave that to me,” growled the ruffian.

“I told him I’d get him,” Floyd added, in fierce exultation. “I warned him, damn him, to beware of the melting pot! I warned him! I told him I’d get him--and, curse him, now I’ve got him!”