Chapter XV: The Poison Ball

“If you get a hot foot after you, don’t come here.”

“No; the coppers have had pointers enough already.”

“We may come back if we get the boodle and come out all right, though?”

Parks asked the question in a sneering tone.

“As you choose.”

Then Chick heard Parks and Nixon leaving the place, and heard Gilmore and Geary go up the cellar stairs.

He was practically alone in the cellar.

The man he had overpowered on entering lay unconscious by the bank vault.

“I got him through that partition just in time,” thought the detective, as he peered through the broken cellar wall, “for they would have hunted the place over until they found me, had they seen their chum lying there.”

According to instructions, Chick had slipped into the cellar during the fight in the dining room.

At first he thought himself alone in the place.

It was only when he passed through the door in the double wall, on the approach of the men from upstairs, that he realized that the gang had left a watchman there.

While Gilmore and Geary were talking on one side of the wall, the watchman and Chick were fighting desperately on the other side.

If Gilmore had remained in the cellar, Chick would certainly have been discovered.

As it was, the four men, after the arrival of Parks and Nixon, coolly planned the burglary on Forty-third Street, and then left the cellar.

Chick knew that his chief would follow anyone leaving the place that night, and that he would be likely to have something to say about the affair on the South Side.

He fairly ached to be with him.

He did not like the idea of being shut up in the damp cellar all night, and then having to fight his way out in the morning.

He reasoned in this way:

“I have found out all I can about the place.

“I have seen the electric motor.

“I have seen the broken cellar wall.

“I have seen the unprotected granite wall of the bank.

“Why not get out and follow Nick?”

But what should he do with the captured watchman?

He would not remain unconscious long.

The burglars must not know that the detectives had discovered their plot.

He finally handcuffed the fellow’s hands behind his back, tied his ankles together, gagged him, and prepared to leave the cellar.

Then a new difficulty presented itself.

The door in the double wall was fastened on the street side.

It would take a long time to cut through it with such tools as the detective had.

He must pass out, if at all, through the chophouse.

After some little delay he crept to the head of the stairs and listened.

Gilmore and Geary were still in the place.

He could hear them talking in subdued tones.

The lights were out in the dining room, and the place was evidently closed for the night.

They were waiting for the return of Parks and Nixon.

Chick tried the knob of the cellar door.

It turned easily, and the door opened without noise.

It was very dark in that part of the room, and the detective ventured forth.

He had hardly closed the door behind himself when Gilmore sprang to his feet with an oath and lit the gas.

“What’s up?” asked Geary.

“We’re a couple of fools.”

“Well?”

“Did you see the watchman down there?”

“Didn’t know there was one.”

“Well, there was.”

“Where was he when we were there?”

“That’s just what I’d like to know.”

“Probably off on a drunk,” suggested Geary.

“Not much. He’s been arrested,” said Gilmore. “I thought all along that there was something wrong down there.”

Geary laughed.

“I never saw you act as you are acting to-night,” he said. “What has got into you?”

“I tell you that there is something wrong in the cellar.”

“Well,” said Geary, “then we’d better go down and make it right.”

He lit a candle as he spoke.

Gilmore reached up to turn off the gas.

His companion caught him by the arm.

“Wait!” he said, in a whisper.

“What is it?”

“There’s some one in the room.”

Two revolvers flashed in the light.

Chick was in a tight place.

“I’ll stand here with my gun,” said Gilmore, “and you light all the gas jets in the room. Then we can see to kill the spy.”

Geary set about obeying orders.

In another moment the place where Chick stood would be as light as day.

Then both burglars would begin shooting at him.

They would take any chance rather than allow him to escape after having gained admission to the cellar.

Chick moved cautiously toward the cellar door.

As he did so a bullet grazed his hat.

He sprang for an instant into full view, and darted down the stairs, followed by half a dozen bullets.

Gilmore was fairly white with rage.

“He must have been down there all the time,” he said.

“And heard the plans laid for the burglary,” added Geary.

There was a moment’s silence, during which both men took good care to keep out of range of the cellar door.

“He might shoot,” suggested Gilmore, pointing toward the dark opening through which Chick had disappeared.

“Of course he’ll shoot.”

Geary was not in a consoling mood.

“What is to be done?” asked Gilmore.

“Blessed if I know.”

“Think. I can’t.”

“Can he get out?”

“Only by passing through this room.”

“The door in the double wall----”

“Is fastened on the street side.”

“Then let him stay there until Parks and Nixon come back.”

“And a great roast they’ll have on us.”

Gilmore was becoming decidedly savage.

Geary did not take the matter so much to heart. He was sure that it would all come out right in the end.

“Let them roast if they want to,” said the latter.

“I won’t have it.”

“Well?”

“I’m going down there.”

Gilmore pointed to the cellar as he spoke.

“You’ll get your head shot off if you do.”

“I don’t care. I won’t have this scheme ruined now,” said Gilmore, with an oath.

Geary pondered a moment.

“You might go down the front way,” he suggested, “and get a shot at the fellow through the door.”

“Just the thing.”

When Gilmore reached the street door, he saw a man waiting there, and looking through the glass panel as he waited.

The door was hastily unlocked, and the man stepped inside.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“The devil is to pay.”

“Then pay him, if you can find a member of your crowd that has a soul. I understand that the gentleman you name has a liking for souls, my friend.”

The newcomer was tall and slender, with sharp eyes and very glossy black whiskers, which clung close to a very white face.

He was an important personage in the electric-drill combination, having supplied most of the money with which to equip the chophouse and purchase the machinery.

“You will have your joke,” growled Gilmore.

“Anything new from the South Side?” asked the newcomer, who was a doctor by profession, and always smelled of drugs.

“Parks and Nixon are still there,” was the reply.

“Did they get away from here without being followed?”

“I think so.”

Gilmore locked the door again, and the two men joined Geary in the back end of the room.

“Tell me what’s up,” said the doctor, looking from one man to the other in amazement.

In a moment more it all came out.

A detective had found his way into the cellar.

The doctor cursed until the air was almost blue.

Chick, peeping from the head of the stairs, heard it all, and rather enjoyed it.

“Why haven’t you been doing something?” demanded the doctor. “For all you know, the fellow may be out in the street and halfway to police headquarters now.”

“He can’t get out. The door in the wall is fastened from the street side.”

It was Geary who spoke.

The doctor glanced at him for an instant, and then said:

“An hour ago you would have told me that he could not get into the cellar at all. Go to the street, and watch the front door.”

Geary departed without saying a word.

Then the doctor turned to Gilmore.

“Isn’t it about time the boys were back from Forty-third Street?” he asked.

“I think not,” was the reply. “Have you any fears as to the result down there?”

“None whatever,” was the answer. “Even if Parks and Nixon made a mess of it, my roommate will straighten them out.”

“He will be there, of course?”

“Yes.”

“In the flat across the airshaft?”

“Didn’t we rent it for this special occasion?”

The men conversed for some moments in whispers, and then the doctor crept cautiously to the head of the stairs.

“He is still there,” he whispered back, in a moment.

“In the rear room?”

“Yes.”

“Then throw your poison ball.”

The doctor drew away from the doorway for a second, and took a little round white substance from his pocket.

“You can’t use the place to-morrow,” he said, warningly, as he for a moment held the ball suspended in the air between his thumb and forefinger.

“What is it?” asked Gilmore.

“Something made for just such places,” was the reply.

“Will it produce death?”

“Not at once, but it will make a man lay like a corpse for twelve hours. Then, if restoratives are not applied, death results.”

“Throw it.”

Chick heard something drop almost at his feet.

Then came an explosion, followed by a horrible, choking odor.

Chick tried to breathe, but found it impossible. He felt himself falling, and heard a strange, rushing sound in his ears.