Chapter IV: The Roll-Top Desk

On leaving Nick Carter’s house, Yasmar walked rapidly off down the street.

At the first corner he passed a typical East Side tough, leaning against a lamp-post, rolling a huge cigar between his teeth.

Stepping out into the street, Yasmar hailed an open electric car.

As he got aboard, well forward, the tough jumped on the rear and took one of the seats reserved for smokers.

At Canal Street the Western man changed to a cross-town car, getting off again at Vestry Street.

He had not looked behind him, or displayed any nervousness whatever.

But, nevertheless, it seemed as if he had an idea he might be followed.

Vestry and Canal meet at an acute angle, forming a “V” shaped point.

Yasmar walked down Vestry Street for a few doors, then hastily turned to the right, mounted a short flight of steps and vanished through a dingy doorway.

The tough was close after him.

Passing through a long, dark hall, he made an exit through a door opening on Canal Street.

The tough, apparently, did not come out of the building.

The man who did follow Yasmar out onto Canal Street looked more like a laborer than he did like a tough.

The Westerner, walking leisurely, made his way to the next block and halted in front of a four-story building.

There was a moving van backed to the curb in front, and at the very top of the building two men were engaged in rigging a block and tackle.

Yasmar came to a halt before a door leading into a hallway, and from there, for the first time, he took a survey of the street behind him.

The laborer, his hands in his pockets and a corncob pipe in his mouth, was watching the riggers at work on the roof.

There was nothing suspicious about the laborer, and Yasmar passed into the building and started upstairs.

When he reached the head of the first flight, the laborer was in the doorway.

Something had been shouted by one of the men on the roof.

“All right,” the laborer called back, “I’ll bring it up to ye.”

Thereupon Patsy--for, of course, the supposed laborer was none other than Nick Carter’s assistant--rushed upstairs with a coil of rope.

He passed Yasmar on the second flight.

At the top of the third flight, he waited and listened until he heard the Westerner start up from the foot.

That was Patsy’s signal to make for the narrow passage leading to the skylight and the roof.

“There ye are,” he said, as he tossed the coil of rope to the riggers.

Then, without loss of a moment, he returned to the fourth floor.

A door was just closing down the hall as Patsy stepped out of the passage.

The detective was too late to see the man who entered the room, but he was fairly certain it was Yasmar.

Proceeding noiselessly to the door, he halted and listened.

Voices, pitched in a low key, reached him.

It was impossible to distinguish the spoken words, although Patsy strained his ears in the attempt.

He was anxious to overhear something which would make it absolutely sure that he was on the right trail.

Stooping, he tried the old-fashioned trick of looking through the keyhole, but found that a hat had been hung from the knob inside, effectually covering the small aperture.

Raising himself erect, Patsy made a quick survey to left and right.

Instinctively, he came to the conclusion that the door to the right of the one before which he was standing was more promising than the one on the left.

He went to the door and tried it, but found it locked.

A skeleton key admitted him with very little trouble, and he found himself in an empty room.

A door led from this room into the one which Yasmar had entered, but it was closed and probably fastened.

Again Patsy tried to look through the keyhole, but this time he found the opening stuffed with paper.

“It’s dead sure they do things in that room they don’t want people to get onto,” thought Patsy, “and that proves, in a way, that my man is there. Still, I’d like to get a fair and square look at him.”

Sinking down on his knees, he laid his ear against the crack at the edge of the door.

The talkers were still guarded in their tones, and he could hear nothing.

He remained on his knees, however, and presently he heard a movement as of some one rising.

Steps crossed the floor.

“This is getting infernally tiresome,” said a voice. “Gillman is slow in keeping his appointment.”

“Something has happened to detain him,” said another voice.

“Let’s go out and get a drink. Probably he’ll be here by the time we get back.”

“I’m with you, old man.”

Some one else arose and crossed the floor.

Then the door was unlocked, opened, closed and locked again, and steps could be heard passing down the hall.

Rising quickly, Patsy went to a window overlooking the street, raised it, and looked down.

He was rewarded by seeing Yasmar come out, accompanied by a short, thickset man with an iron-gray mustache.

The second man looked like another Westerner.

“Bully!” exclaimed Patsy, withdrawing and closing the window. “When Gillman gets here, I must be in that other room.”

He went back to the door communicating with the other room.

A few moments’ work with a knife blade sufficed to pick out the paper, and a skeleton key did the rest.

After closing and locking the door from the other side, Patsy carefully replaced the paper in the keyhole and turned for a look at the room he was then in.

It was almost as bare as the apartment he had just left.

A huge roll-top desk was in evidence, and three common chairs--nothing more.

The roll-top of the desk was pushed half up.

Patsy pushed it all the way and looked into the pigeon-holes.

They were empty.

He opened the drawers.

They were empty, too.

“It looks as though this might be moving day,” thought the detective, thinking of the van he had seen out in front. “Gee, but that’s a regular granddaddy desk. They never got it in through the hall door, and I’ll bet on it.”

While he stood there, taking in the situation, his quick ear caught the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

The Westerners were coming back.

The detective looked around for a place to conceal himself.

Opposite the door by which he had entered there was another, leading into the room on the other side.

But even if that door was unlocked, and he could get into that room, he would be no better off than he was a little while before.

He flashed another inquiring look around.

There was absolutely no place in which he could hide himself, unless----

He looked at the desk, and then measured himself with his eyes.

The steps were coming along the hall, now, and it was too late for him to use the skeleton key and get out of the room, even if he had wanted to.

Without pausing another instant, he crawled into the desk and pulled at the roll-top until he got it down.

It was a tight squeeze, and when the roll-top descended the lock snapped.

But Patsy did not care for that.

The only thing that worried him was that one of the two men might notice that the roll-top was shut, and not half open.

That was not a very long chance, however, and, anyway, Patsy had to take it.