Chapter VIII: Taking Long Chances

It was a misty, humid, disagreeable night, with the unseasonable January warm spell hanging on, making winter garments almost unbearable, though ordinary discretion precluded removing them.

Patsy Garvan found it damp and uncomfortable while watching the Ringold residence from a concealment in the adjoining grounds. He was glad when the early dusk of the afternoon deepened into darkness, enabling him to steal out and move around without incurring detection, thus relieving the monotony of his persistent vigil.

It was eight o’clock when his patience was finally rewarded. He had seen the Ringolds at dinner, had watched them through the lace-draped windows of the house, and had seen Nan Levine serving at the table, then clearing it, and supping with another servant in the kitchen. Nothing in her looks or actions, however, denoted that she was in haste, or had any intention of going out that evening.

Patsy was agreeably disappointed, therefore, when he saw her leaving the house. She emerged from the side door, with a dark cloak enveloping her slender figure, while her head and face were covered with a veil. She tripped out to the street, where she paused to glance sharply around for a moment, and then she hurried away.

“Gee whiz! she is breaking cover, all right,” thought Patsy, at once elated. “She’s off on a definite mission, too, and that looks more like business. There’s no mistaking her, for all she’s so bundled up and closely veiled. That points to something doing, for fair. It’s ten to one, now, that Chick sized her up correctly.”

Stealing out, Patsy followed the girl with no great difficulty. He knew that his disguise would preclude recognition, even if she had seen him the previous night, as Nick had apprehended. It soon became obvious to Patsy, however, that she did not feel that she had incurred suspicion, or had any thought of being followed.

Patsy shadowed her over to New York, where she took the Third Avenue elevated. Leaving it a little later, she finally brought up at an inferior wooden house in a low street on the East Side. She darted up the inclosed steps and rang the bell three times, and she was admitted so quickly that Patsy was unable to see who answered the summons.

“She’s under cover again, all right, but this looks still more like business,” he said to himself. “But how am I to get next? That’s the question.”

Patsy had paused on the opposite side of the street and was sizing up the house and its surroundings. The ground floor was used for a small store. Over the door was a sign bearing the single word--Hogan.

“It looks like a measly little grocery store,” muttered Patsy. “But why is it closed so early? Other shops around here are open. Hogan must have other business on for to-night, something doing in which that girl figures. Gee, I must contrive in some way to turn the trick.”

The front room of the dwelling over the store was in darkness, but Patsy could see that the roller shades were drawn down, with no sign of any person near them in the act of peering out. He could also see on the rear wall of an adjoining building the faint reflection of light from the side window of a rear room of the house.

“That’s where the girl has gone,” he rightly reasoned. “But who is with her and how am I to get up there? Those windows are a good ten feet from the ground. I’ll have a look at the back of the crib. There may be a porch.”

Moving more cautiously, Patsy found a narrow passageway between the house and the building mentioned, through which he stealthily picked his way into a small back yard, so small it was hardly worthy the name.

For the rear wall of a large garage fronting on the next street was within six feet of the back of the house. The yard was as dark as a pocket, moreover, but Patsy could feel the outlines of a bulkhead door, evidently opening into a cellar under the store.

There was no sign of a porch, or means of getting up to the second-floor windows. Patsy could see, nevertheless, that the curtain of one of them was up about an inch above the lower sash.

While looking up he also saw that the garage was quite a new one and that it was built of cement blocks, a building of only one story, and having a flat roof.

“If I can get up there, by gracious, I might get a look into that room, at least,” he said to himself. “A look might help. I’ll make a bid for it, even if I have to seek aid from whomever runs the shebang.”

Feeling around a rear corner of the garage, bent upon finding a way to the front, Patsy discovered that the alternate corner blocks of cement were set inward about half an inch, a quite common and slightly ornamental construction, as courses of bricks at uniform distances are sometimes laid.

Naturally, of course, each receding block left a slight projection, the upper edge of that on which it was set, and Patsy was not long in finding that he could fix his toes on these projections, and, by grasping those above that he could mount to the garage roof almost as easily as if provided with a ladder.

“Gee! this was softer than I could have hoped,” he said to himself when seated on the edge of the low roof. “The house is near, but not quite near enough. By Jove, if I had only a piece of--holy smoke! I’m a smelt if I haven’t got it. Things sure are coming my way.”

It was a piece of board that had caught his eye, a strip about six feet long and as many inches wide, and which evidently had been overlooked by the builders when cleaning up the roof of the garage.

Patsy seized it with much the same avidity as a terrier seizes a rat. Creeping along the roof with it he quickly reached a point directly opposite the lighted window of the dwelling--that already specially noticed.

A narrow beam of light was shed out below the roller shade, lending a faint glow to the misty night air. Through the narrow space between the curtain and sash, however, Patsy could see only that there were several persons in the back room, which evidently was a kitchen, and he was too far from the closed window to hear their voices.

“Gee whittaker! I’ve got to get still nearer,” he said to himself, ruefully gazing into the black abyss below. “I might as well be on top of the Flatiron Building. I must take a chance with this plank, by gracious, if I lose a leg.”

Crouching on his hands and knees, proceeding all the while with the utmost quietude and caution, Patsy found that the strip of board was long enough to reach from the outside stone sill of the window to the edge of the garage roof, with about a three-inch rest on each end.

“It will support me, all right,” he muttered, gazing at it after having gingerly placed it in position. “Gee! but it’s a ticklish crawl. Can I wriggle out on it without displacing one end, or the other? If not, it will be a quick trip to the ground for mine.”

Patsy viewed it doubtfully for several moments. It was a stunt from which the boldest would have shrunk. Then he looked at the lighted window again and listened vainly--and his face then took on an expression that spoke louder than words.

“It’s got to be done,” he murmured decidedly. “There’s nothing else to it. I must find out who is in that room, and what is going on there. I might as well be a bump on a log, as sitting here.”

Starting up, Patsy removed his overcoat and hat, placing them near by on the roof.

He then crouched close to the edge, grasping each side of the plank as far out as he could reach.

He found that it rested firmly on each end, and he then worked his hands still farther out, gradually letting himself down until he lay flat upon it, with his feet on the garage roof and his head within eight inches of the house window, his eyes directly in line with the lower edge of the slightly raised curtain.

The beam of light from within fell full on his face. It looked unusually pale, but never more set and determined.

Patsy had reasoned that it might be more difficult to return than to get out there on his narrow support. But he had resolved to cross that bridge when he came to it.

It was enough for him, just then, that he had accomplished his immediate object. He now could see plainly into the room and also hear the voices of its occupants.

He took them in visually with a single swift glance--five persons.

One was a brawny Irishman in his shirt sleeves. He was seated near the stove and smoking a clay pipe.

Another was a corpulent, red-faced woman, whose garments denoted that she was the mistress of the house, as the other appeared to be its master.

“Hogan and his wife,” thought Patsy. “I’ve seen him driving a taxi, too, and his wife most likely runs the little store.”

Patsy afterward learned that he was right.

A third person was Annette Levine, divested of her outside garments.

A fourth was a dark, finely formed woman in the twenties, whom Patsy instantly recognized as a familiar character in the Tenderloin, one Lucy Devoll, a girl formerly intimate with the Vantoon sisters, then in prison for their complicity in two of the crimes committed by Stuart Floyd.

The fifth person was none other than the notorious crook himself--Stuart Floyd.

He looked white and pinched, and there was an abnormal glitter in his eyes that told of feverish anxiety and physical consumption, of the horrible price paid for traveling the downward path.

“Eureka!” thought Patsy, when he discovered these worthies. “I’m in right, if I can only stick here. If worse comes, I can wriggle around and drop into the yard. It’s not more than ten feet.”

Patsy lost nothing that was said in the room while these few thoughts passed through his mind.

Stuart Floyd was talking, addressing the girl who had entered only a few minutes before.

“What type of man is he, Nan, the one who called this morning?” he asked.

“A decent-looking, muscular man, smooth shaved,” said Nan Levine, as she was called. “He’s about medium complexion.”

“It might have been Chick Carter,” said Floyd, with knit brows. “You are sure it wasn’t Nick himself?”

“I’m dead sure of that,” nodded Nan. “I saw him over the baluster rail at two this morning, and also Patsy Garvan, as you call him. ’Twasn’t either of them who called this morning, and I don’t reckon he was a detective.”

“Possibly not.”

“I walked by the door three or four times, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying to the mistress. They sat too far from the door.”

“Gee! the chief was right,” thought Patsy. “He’s never wrong, by Jove, as far as that goes.”

“Oh, I know the Carters are on the case,” Floyd said moodily. “I got wise to that this afternoon.”

“How was that, Stu?” inquired Hogan, removing his pipe.

“I saw the gink Gammon is serving going down Madison Avenue in a taxi,” said Floyd. “Gammon thinks I ain’t wise to him, but I am. From what Gammon has told me, I reckoned the English gink was going to pump Carter, or pull off some kind of a bluff. So I hurried down and had a look through Carter’s front door.”

“Gee! that’s news to me,” thought Patsy, with increasing interest.

“I saw Carter himself on a couch in one of the rooms,” Floyd went on. “I piped him through a mirror in the hall. I’m not sure that he didn’t pipe me, as well.”

“Was the English gazabo there?” questioned Hogan.

“No,” said Floyd bluntly. “The taxi driver must have blundered and went too far south. All of a sudden I saw him coming up the avenue and I knew he was going to stop at the dick’s house.”

“Thunder!” Lucy Devoll exclaimed. “What did you do?”

“Bolted,” said Floyd grimly. “I made a quick get-away, you can bet on that. The gink went in there, and that’s all I waited to see. Gammon had an appointment with him at eight. He ought to show up pretty soon. Then we’ll know how the cat is going to jump.”

“Do you think the dicks have got any line on me?” questioned Hogan apprehensively.

“How can they have any line on you?” Floyd returned, with a growl. “You was in disguise and you had a rented limousine with a phony number. There’s no way that they can have picked up a line on you.”

“Begad, I hope not.”

“You stand well as a taxi driver,” Floyd added. “You’re as safe from suspicion as a preacher. That’s why I had the infernal live stock brought here.”

“You’re right, mebbe.”

“I know I’m right,” Floyd asserted confidently.

“I can see where you’ll get the surprise of your life a little later,” said Patsy Garvan to himself.

“But when do we get the coin? That’s what I want to know,” vouchsafed the Devoll girl, most expressively. “I’ve gone into this blindly, as Nan has, on your word, Floyd, and----”

“Oh, I’ve got that all fixed,” Floyd interrupted. “That’s what Gammon is after to-night.”

“Well, I hope he gets it.”

“He knows I won’t turn down the man until I’m dead sure of the coin. I’m not taking that kind of a chance. The rest of the job cut no great ice and was easily done, but putting out a man’s light--that’s a different matter.”

“I should say so,” frowned Lucy.

“If the coin is ready for us----”

“Easy!”

“That must be Gammon.”

Patsy heard the ringing of the doorbell--three times.

The corpulent woman, Hogan’s wife, hastened out to open the front door.

Patsy clung to his board, watching constantly, listening intently, but he began to feel the strain of his awkward and perilous position. He scarce dared to stir, lest the board should slip from one end, or the other, and his distress was each moment becoming more painful.

“I’ll hang on, by thunder, till I learn the whole business,” he muttered, gritting his teeth. “I’ll land this bunch, too, or know the reason why.”

Less than a minute had passed when Mrs. Hogan returned to the kitchen. She was closely followed by Baldy Gammon, and Patsy Garvan saw the English crook for the first time.

He knew nothing about him, of course, nor about the first interview Nick had had with Sir Edward Chadwick, and much that he had heard was almost Greek to the determined young detective. Hence, his resolution to get all that could be obtained.

Stuart Floyd sprang up with an inquiring stare when Gammon entered, but the latter said quickly, with a sharp glance at the several other occupants of the room:

“Gimme a word with you alone, Floyd. It’s as ’ow I ’ave somethink to tell you.”

“What about?”

“You know. Come into the front room,” Gammon insisted.

Stuart Floyd followed him without replying.

Hogan frowned darkly, and Lucy Devoll stole to the kitchen door to listen.

Patsy rightly reasoned that Floyd and Gammon were the two responsible for the active work of abducting Waldmere, and that the others were merely in their employ. He wondered, too, of course, to what Englishman they had referred.

“Gee! I wish they had done their talking there,” he said to himself during the lull in the kitchen. “This may leave me dead lame as to the exact truth--as lame as I’ll be after lying so long on this board. It’s like being on a rack.”

Patsy had not long to wait, however, before Gammon returned to the kitchen. Scarce ten minutes had passed, and the English crook then was followed by a man with silvery-gray hair and a flowing beard.

Patsy instantly recognized him, nevertheless.

“Great guns!” he exclaimed mentally. “What’s on, now? Floyd is going out in disguise. Gee! had I better try to follow him?”

Floyd already had on his street garments, and brief consideration convinced Patsy that he could not possibly get down from his perilous perch in time to overtake him.

For Floyd lingered only to say a few words quietly to Hogan, and he then turned sharp on his heel and departed.

Gammon remained, however, and took the chair the other had vacated.

Floyd had gone, of course, to keep the appointment as Mr. Pimlico.

Lucy Devoll, frowning, began to question Gammon about it, and so sharp and insistent were her inquiries that he finally proceeded to tell them of the exact situation.

Patsy listened exultantly--but it was of brief duration.

The talk in the kitchen led up to Nan Levine’s mission there, of which Baldy Gammon was ignorant. The moment he learned of the morning caller at the Ringold residence, however, he seemed to be inspired with suspicions that had entirely escaped Stuart Floyd, or been utterly ignored.

“’Ang it, girl, you may ’ave been followed ’ere!” he exclaimed, starting to his feet. “’Ow do you know you wasn’t? What’s out back ’ere? Let’s ’ave a look?”

“Oh, there’s nothing there,” growled Hogan, laying down his pipe.

“’Ow do you know? Let’s make sure of it, all the same. I’ll see for my blooming self.”

This sudden turn of affairs fell, of course, with alarming possibilities on the mind of Patsy Garvan, particularly when he saw the scowling ruffian striding toward the window on the sill of which the plank was resting.

“Gee! this is a case of sneak--if sneaking is possible,” he muttered, in rising excitement. “It’s a quick get-away for mine.”

Patsy had begun to wriggle back on the board with his first thought. His muscles were stiff and cramped, however, and he could not move quickly, nor steadily.

Twice he felt the board slip treacherously on the stone sill of the window.

Then the curtain was raised high from within.

Baldy Gammon appeared at the window.

A blaze of light poured out upon Patsy, and he recoiled involuntarily.

That one slight move threw the board from the sill.

Patsy heard a roar from Gammon--but heard no more for several moments.

He fell through space as if out of an airship, turning while he fell, and in another instant he had crashed completely through the bulkhead door mentioned, and landed, stunned and bleeding, on the floor of the shop cellar.