Chapter IX: Between Two Fires

Chick Carter and Patsy Garvan, though this case was one in which nearly all of the work had devolved upon Nick Carter himself, were not idle while their chief was engaged as described.

Following the instructions given him, Patsy spent most of the day in running down the place where Margate had obtained a large photographic camera, as Nick had been led to suspect.

Patsy finally found that such a camera had been bought ten days before from a pawnbroker in one of the lower sections of the city, and that the purchaser was a man of Margate’s description.

The pawnbroker stated that he had not left his address, however, but had paid for the camera and sent an expressman to get it, but whose name the pawnbroker did not know.

Patsy then began a vigorous hunt for the expressman, but his efforts were not rewarded until nearly nine in the evening, when he found the man he was seeking.

This man then informed him that he had taken the camera to a building out Georgetown way, which had been vacated a short time before by a manufacturing concern that had failed in business, and which had recently been rented by parties who contemplated moving into it for a similar business, but who were not yet under way.

Patsy needed to hear no more than that. He learned precisely where the building was located, thanked the expressman for his information, and then headed for the trolley-car line running out there.

“It’s after nine, and the chief must have left the Grayling,” he shrewdly reasoned. “If there is anything doing, it will be in that same building. I’ll hike out there at once, in case I am needed.”

It was half past nine when Patsy boarded a trolley car, and he then was given a surprise.

In one corner of it sat--Chick Carter.

He was not alone.

His companion was a flashily clad blonde of about thirty, with yellow hair and rouged cheeks, and whose rather bleared eyes and maudlin expression plainly denoted that she had been looking on the wine when it is red in the cup.

“Gee whiz!” thought Patsy, immensely tickled for more reasons than one. “Where did he get next to that? She’s a bird with wilted plumage. He looks all right, but she certainly has her load. There must be something doing, or he wouldn’t be heading out this way with her. But where did he gather her in? That’s what puzzles me.”

Their eyes met a moment later, but no observable sign passed between the two. A momentary twinkle in Chick’s eyes, however, gave Patsy the only needed cue.

Nick Carter’s anticipations were speedily verified when Chick, visiting Larry Trent in his prison cell that afternoon, told the convict what had befallen his sister, and of the other crimes of which Margate was guilty.

Resenting the wrong done the girl, Trent informed Chick that his sister had known Margate only under the name of Matt Gaffney; that the latter had lodged in the same house with her, and that they had been quite friendly, also that Margate could be found almost every evening in a red disguise in a saloon and restaurant run by one Phil Brady, in a red-light section of the city.

Chick thus obtained enough information as he thought would serve his purpose, and eight o’clock that evening found him watching Brady’s establishment from the opposite side of the street.

Half an hour brought no results, however, and Chick then sauntered into the saloon and bought a drink, carelessly asking the bartender:

“Seen Gaffney this evening?”

“Not yet,” was the reply. “But he’ll soon show up. There’s a skirt waiting for him in the last booth.”

Chick took a look at her with the aid of the bar mirror.

“She’s a new one to me,” he said indifferently.

“She ain’t new around here,” grinned the bartender. “That’s Nell Breen.”

Chick turned away without another question and repaired to his former vantage point across the street.

Ten minutes later he saw Margate enter the saloon and talk a few moments with the woman, buying a drink for both.

Margate then came out, hastening to a limousine that had stopped at a near corner. He talked earnestly with the driver and one passenger for a short time and then hurried away.

The limousine departed in the opposite direction.

Chick made one of his characteristic clever moves. He scribbled a few words on a blank card with a lead pencil, then hurried to the booth in which Nell Breen was sipping a Martini and waiting for pork chops.

“Here, Nell, read that,” he whispered impressively, slipping her the card. “Andy sent me in with it.”

The woman looked up suspiciously, then read the card:

“NELL: This fellow is all right. Bring him along. I have a use for
him. Hastily,

ANDY.”

“Who gave you this?” Nell demanded, gazing again, but less suspiciously.

Chick had taken a chance that she was to rejoin Margate later, or would know where to find him.

“Oh, get wise, get wise, kid,” he said significantly. “Matt Gaffney sent me in, or Andy Margate, if that hits you any better. Can’t you read it?”

“Why didn’t he come in with you?”

“He hadn’t time,” Chick glibly explained. “He was spieling to two blokes in a taxi. He sent them away and was in a big rush himself. He said you’d know what to do when you saw his note. What am I up against, anyway?”

Chick began to scowl--and the woman then began to laugh. She had taken just enough liquor to feel silly, and want more.

“He wants me to bring you out, eh?” she asked.

“That’s what he said. You can read it, can’t you?”

“Sure I can read it,” grinned Nell. “But I’m not going out there till I’ve had my feed. You can bet your boots on that.”

“I’m a bit hungry myself,” Chick vouchsafed.

“Sit down and order something. Say, what’s your moniker?”

“Sandy Billings. I’ve known Andy from ’way back. Will you wrap yourself around another drink?”

“Sure! Make it dry.”

With the way thus cleverly paved, Chick afterward found it easy walking. Nell Breen made good in so far as Chick desired. She left the car at the proper point and conducted him about a quarter mile to the building then the scene of episodes already described.

Patsy Garvan followed them with no great need for caution, owing to the woman’s intoxication.

They entered a yard leading to an end door of the somewhat ancient stone building. The limousine was one of the first things to catch Chick’s eye, and it told him all he then wanted to know.

He glanced back and saw Patsy stealing after him.

“Must we ring, or knock?” he asked, as he approached the door with the reeling woman.

“Neizer,” she muttered, with maudlin thickness. “I’ve gotta key.”

“Let’s have it,” Chick said quietly. “You couldn’t find the keyhole.”

“I’ll be dead lucky if I find the key,” said Nell, feeling for a pocket in her skirt.

She presently found it and produced the key, nevertheless, placing it in the detective’s hand.

Chick tried to insert it noiselessly into the lock, and stopped--for the hundredth part of a second.

There came from within, sending a thrill through him from head to foot--the sudden, sharp, spiteful crack of a revolver.

Patsy also heard it, and three quick leaps brought him to Chick’s side.

Both swept the woman aside, throwing her to the ground, and Chick unlocked the door and threw it open.

Their gaze fell upon a lighted corridor, a low flight of stairs leading down to it, and upon Margate, Lombard, and Baldwin, now shooting wildly at a man crouching near what appeared to be a narrow door.

“There’s Nick!” Chick yelled. “At them, Patsy!”

Both dashed into the corridor, revolvers in hand.

Batty Lombard fell at that moment, pierced with a bullet from Nick’s revolver.

Baldwin turned to flee--only to find himself caught between two fires. He dropped his revolver to the floor and threw up his hands.

Andy Margate did nothing of the kind. He suddenly seemed to grasp the altered situation. He reached into his vest pocket and clapped something to his mouth.

Then he dropped as if struck by lightning, landing with a thud on the floor, face up.

An empty vial was rolling to one side, glistening in the bright light.

Nick approached, shaking hands with Chick and Patsy, and then he gazed down at the vial and the white, upturned face.

“Paying the price--that’s right,” he said a bit grimly. “He has saved us the trouble. He spoke the truth for once in his life. The price has been paid.”

Midnight saw Baldwin and Nell Breen lodged in a prison cell, Lombard dying in a hospital, and Andy Margate laid out temporarily in the back room of a city undertaker, his bier a plank, his covering a sheet.

Lombard confessed before he died, but it needs no record in these pages. For it confirmed in nearly every detail the theories of Nick Carter, as already set forth in his discussion of his suspicions and deductions.

The relief of Garland, as well as that of Senator Barclay and Stella, the gratitude of all for Nick and his assistants--these go without saying, as Nick remarked when they attempted to thank him.

“It’s satisfaction enough for me that we have canned Andy Margate,” he added. “Lombard will not live till morning, moreover, and the others will get what’s coming to them. Who could ask more in behalf of justice?”

THE END.

“On Death’s Trail; or, Nick Carter’s Strangest Case,” will be the title of the long, complete story that you will find in the next issue, No. 147, of the NICK CARTER STORIES, out July 3d. In this story are recounted some of the most interesting adventures which have ever befallen the famous detective and his almost equally famous assistants. Then, too, there will be the usual installment of a corking good serial, together with several short but interesting and instructive articles.

FIGHTING WITH CHEESE.

The most remarkable ammunition ever heard of was used by the celebrated Commodore Coe, of the Montevidian navy, who, in an engagement with Admiral Brown, of the Buenos Airean service, fired every shot from his lockers.

“What shall we do, sir?” asked his first lieutenant.

It looked as if Coe would have to strike his colors, when it occurred to his first lieutenant to use Dutch cheese as cannon balls. There happened to be a large quantity of these on board, and in a few minutes the fire of the old _Santa Maria_--Coe’s ship--which had ceased entirely, was reopened, and Admiral Brown found more shot flying over his head. Directly, one of them struck his mainmast, and, as it did so, shattered and flew in every direction.

“What the dickens is the enemy firing?” asked Brown.

But nobody could tell. Directly another came in through a port and killed two men who were near him, and then, striking the opposite bulwarks, burst into pieces.

Brown believed it to be some newfangled paixhan or other, and as four or five more of them came slap through his sails, he gave orders to fill away, and actually backed out of the fight, receiving a parting broadside of Dutch cheese.

Where’s the Commandant?

By C. C. WADDELL.

(This interesting story was commenced in No. 140 of NICK CARTER STORIES. Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer or the publishers.)