Chapter IX: Dead Ashes

Chick Carter whipped out his searchlight, crouching above the prostrate man he had found in the alley.

At the same moment a low moan broke from the victim of Bug Bannon’s treacherous assault. Patsy’s head was harder than the cowardly young ruffian had thought. Patsy was fast on his way to reviving.

The glare from the searchlight fell on his upturned face, and a low cry of dismay came from Chick.

“Great guns!” he muttered. “It’s Patsy.”

Patsy heard him, and the sound of the familiar voice was like a stimulant. It brought him completely out of dreamland.

“Oh, it’s you, Chick,” he said faintly. “Gee! that was a hard crack on the bean--but I’m still in the ring.”

Chick heard him with a thrill of relief.

“By Jove, I thought you were done up, Patsy,” he replied, raising him to a sitting position. “How are you feeling?”

“Better every second. I’ll be on my pins in a minute.”

“What happened? How did it occur?” Chick inquired.

It took Patsy only a few moments to inform him, and for Chick to state how he had discovered Vera Vantoon and afterward lost sight of her. Before they had finished, Patsy was on his feet, but with a look of disgust on his rather pale face.

“Hang it, then, we’ve lost both of them,” he said dubiously. “What’s to be done? The chief may be in dead wrong by this time.”

“The fact that both of them vanished in this locality is significant,” Chick replied. “If only one had come here, I might think nothing of it. Under the circumstances, however, it’s ten to one that the gang has quarters in this section.”

“Gee! there’s something in that,” said Patsy, quick to see the point. “In one of these old buildings, perhaps.”

“Are you fit for a search?” asked Chick, still a bit anxious.

“As fit as a fiddle,” Patsy assured him.

“Take one of my revolvers, then,” said Chick, giving it to him. “We may run foul of some one.”

“I’ll be ready for him. I hope it may be that whelp that downed me. I can see where he’d get his.”

Chick laughed softly.

“Come on,” he muttered, leading the way. “We’ll steal through the alley and have a look at the back of these buildings.”

Patsy followed him.

For something like five minutes they searched cautiously and noiselessly back of the gloomy buildings and between the sheds and hovels, but could find in the darkness no trace of the vanished rascals, no clew to their whereabouts.

They then had brought up near the rag shed in which Nick had found the disguised crook, and some twenty yards from the grim and gloom-shrouded stone building.

“Gee! this don’t look good to me!” Patsy whispered, at Chick’s elbow. “They sure have given us the slip.”

“It does look so,” Chick quietly admitted.

“There isn’t a sign of light from any of these miserable cribs. It ought to find its way out through some chink or nail hole, if they are under cover in any of them.”

“True.”

“We had better----”

“Hush! Stop a bit.”

“What now?” Patsy whispered, noting the changed expression on Chick’s face.

“There’s something doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look there.”

Chick pointed to the stone building, not to its grim walls and black windows, from which not a twinkle of light could be seen--but higher, to a point above its low, flat roof.

In the middle of it was a scuttle and glass skylight--and Stuart Floyd had made one mistake that was to bring disaster.

In opening the trapdoor in the ceiling, which was nearly directly above the melting pot, he had forgotten the skylight in a line with the trapdoor.

Chick and Patsy had not, till then, looked up in that direction for a clew.

Now, however, both could see the faint glow that came up from below and stood out in relief, as it were, against the surrounding night gloom.

It was like the glow shed out from the open door of a brightly lighted hall.

“Holy smoke!” Patsy muttered, with a quick thrill. “There’s some one in the old stone crib.”

“More than one, Patsy, I suspect,” Chick whispered.

“Can we get in?”

“Wait here while I have a look.”

“Go ahead.”

Chick glided away in the darkness, presently returning.

“I don’t think we can get in on the ground floor,” he said quietly. “The door and window shutters are of sheet iron, and all are securely closed.”

“Gee! that sure smacks of something doing.”

“I’m convinced of it, now.”

“Could you hear anything from inside?”

“Not a sound,” said Chick. “There is a way, however, by which we can look in.”

“You mean?”

Chick pointed toward the roof.

“There’s a skylight,” he said quietly.

“Must be,” Patsy tersely agreed. “But how can we get up there?”

“It’s not more than eighteen feet to the edge of the roof. I climbed over several planks back here that are that long.”

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Patsy, elated. “I’ve got you. We can lean one of the planks against the rear wall and get up there by means of it.”

“Easily.”

“We’ll not be heard, either, through that stone wall.”

“Not if we are careful.”

“Come on,” whispered Patsy impatiently. “Let’s get the plank.”

It did not take them long to find one that would serve their purpose, nor to lug it to the rear of the low building and place at an angle against the stone wall. It reached within a foot of the edge of the roof, and that was more than ample.

“Shoes off, Patsy,” whispered Chick.

Both were ready within half a minute.

In another minute both were crouching on the roof.

Noiselessly they crept to the skylight and gazed down through the trapdoor on the red-glowing scene below.

“Thundering guns!” whispered Patsy, staring. “The rats are there, all right. They are melting a lot of silver plate.”

“Part of the Waldmere plate.”

“Surest thing you know.”

They could not see Nick, owing to the location of the trap in the upper floor, but while listening intently--they heard him addressed by Floyd and his name mentioned.

“Holy smoke!” Patsy then whispered. “They’ve got the chief.”

“I heard,” Chick nodded, feeling over the skylight.

“Hadn’t we better get help and force an entrance?”

“Floyd might send a bullet into Nick, in that case, before he could be prevented. There’s a better way.”

“What way?”

Chick held up one of the small panes of the skylight. He had found the putty dry and crumbling, and, after a moment, he had quietly removed the pane. Feeling through the opening, he then found that he could release the hook that secured the scuttle.

“That upper floor is less than seven feet below the skylight,” he whispered. “We can let ourselves down to it without a drop. The noise down there will prevent our being heard, providing we are careful. There must be a stairway to the lower floor. We can steal down and hold up the whole gang.”

Patsy nodded his approval.

“Better way is right,” he murmured. “It looks like soft walking.”

“It will enable us to protect Nick, also.”

“That’s the stuff. Safety first.”

“Are you ready?”

“Ready as a trivet.”

Working cautiously and deliberately, Chick succeeded in lifting the skylight without making a sound, and he laid it over on the roof.

“I’ll go first, Patsy,” he murmured.

Patsy merely nodded.

Chick let himself over the sill, then grasped the frame of the scuttle and lowered himself till his feet touched the floor some eighteen inches from the trapdoor.

Patsy followed him.

The scene below was, indeed, one that diverted the attention of the crooks from anything overhead.

It was at that very moment that Stuart Floyd, fiercely threatening the detective, had seized the ladle of liquid silver from the melting pot and was approaching with the evident intention of making good his infamous threat.

Chick Carter did not give him time to do so.

His revolver was out on the instant and its report rang like thunder above all other sounds.

Floyd went to the floor with a bullet in his shoulder, and the ladle fell from his lax hand.

Chick dropped to the edge of the trapdoor and thrust the smoking weapon through it.

“Hands up!” he yelled fiercely. “Up with them! He’ll be a dead man who stirs!”

Patsy had darted toward the dimly lighted stairway and already was nearly down.

“Dead man is right!” he shouted, weapon leveled. “Move foot or finger, man or woman, and I’ll shoot to kill!”

Without exception, the several crooks had knuckled to the sudden startling situation. As a matter of fact, they supposed the building was surrounded and that a posse of police were breaking in on them. Once their hands were up, however, it was all over but the shouting, as Patsy afterward said.

Within five minutes the crooks were secured, Floyd among them, he having suffered only a flesh wound.

Half an hour later all were in the Tombs, including Minerva Grand, the first step toward the punishment they deserved.

Midnight saw the priceless plate, or that most cherished by Waldmere, taken safely into his residence--and thus, crowning with complete success the splendid work of Nick Carter and his assistants, the sensational case ended.

The fire under the melting pot had become dead ashes.

THE END.

Notwithstanding the fact that Floyd and his gang had apparently been rounded up, Nick Carter and his associates were to have yet more trouble with this gang of blackmailers, crooks, and thieves. You will learn about these later developments in “The Duplicate Night; or, Nick Carter’s Double Reflection,” which you will find in the next issue, No. 141, of the NICK CARTER STORIES, out May 22d. Then, too, there will be the usual installment of the serial, together with other special articles which you will enjoy.

“TURN TO THE JURY, SIR!”

Some years ago a witness was being examined in a case of slander, when the judge required him to repeat the precise words spoken.

The witness hesitated until he riveted the attention of the whole court upon him; then fixing his eyes earnestly on the judge, began:

“May it please your honor, ‘you lie and steal and get your living by stealing!’”

The face of the judge reddened, and he immediately exclaimed:

“Turn to the jury, sir!”

Where’s the Commandant?

By C. C. WADDELL.