Chapter VIII: Caught in a Box

Nick Carter gazed for a moment without speaking. The face of the knave peering in at him wore an expression the detective did not fancy.

Mingled malice, merciless hatred, and vicious exultation were pictured in every feature of Margate’s white, hardset face. His eyes had a gleam as cold and murderous as that reflected from a blade of steel. His thin, cruel lips were drawn like those of a dog about to bite.

“So you’re here again, eh?” he questioned, breaking the momentary silence.

Nick eyed him sharply, suspecting the truth, yet still maintaining the part he had undertaken to play.

“Yes, as I agreed,” he replied curtly. “Let me out. Why are you keeping me here?”

“Aren’t you comfortable?”

“No. It’s close and stuffy.”

“It’s not half as close and stuffy a box as you might land in,” Margate said, with a malicious grin. “Haven’t you thought of that?”

“I’m not thinking along those lines,” Nick replied. “Come, come, Mr. Margate, let me out.”

“Not yet,” leered the rascal. “I want to talk with you. Have you brought the money agreed upon?”

“We’ll discuss that in the room where I previously talked with you,” said Nick. “I refuse to discuss it, or anything else, as long as you keep me in this place.”

“Is that so?” sneered Margate. “Listen, then! When you leave it--you’ll leave it for a worse place.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Can’t you guess? Hold on! Keep your hands in front of you!”

Nick was stealthily reaching toward his hip pocket.

Margate’s sneering voice had taken on a fierce and threatening ring. His right hand leaped into view at the lighted window, and a revolver was aimed point-blank at the detective’s breast.

“Don’t try to pull a gun, Carter, or you’ll be a dead one on the instant,” he now threatened sternly.

“Ah!” Nick exclaimed, casting subterfuge to the winds. “You know me, then.”

“You bet I know you,” sneered Margate, with vicious asperity. “I have mighty good cause to know you. I’ve been wise to you from the first--and I now have you where I want you. You’re going to pay the price for what you put over on me a month ago.”

“I see,” Nick said coolly, despite the ominous outlook. “You’re a very clever fellow, Margate, after all.”

“Clever enough to get the best of you.”

“So it appears,” Nick agreed, bent upon learning just what the rascal knew of his movements and doings. “I did not suppose you were half as keen. You make me curious.”

“I’ll do more than that to you, Carter,” scowled the other. “Curious about what?”

“How you discovered my identity. I thought my tracks were perfectly covered.”

“You did, eh?”

“Otherwise, Margate, I would not be in this box,” said Nick. “You can bet on that.”

“It looks like a safe bet,” Margate allowed, with a leer. “You’re not half as crafty, Carter, as you think. Do you suppose for a moment that I would not make sure that Garland did not send for you?”

“He did not send for me,” Nick replied carelessly, bent upon leading him on.

“I know he didn’t--but Senator Barclay did.”

“Ah!”

“I’ll soon have both where I want them--as I’ve got you!” Margate exultantly added.

“Admitting that, which now seems quite probable, I don’t see how you discovered that Senator Barclay sent for me,” said Nick, pretending he was merely puzzled and had no covert design.

“You don’t, eh?” leered Margate, evidently pleased to discuss his own cunning. “I’ll tell you how.”

“Well, I’m listening.”

“I sent a man to watch your New York residence.”

“Ah!”

“I knew that if any detective was employed, you would be the one.”

“I see.”

“And you were seen when you left home alone with a suit case and took the train for Washington,” Margate went on sneeringly. “You were shadowed when you arrived at the Willard. You were watched throughout yesterday. You were seen with Fallon, the infernal dick, dipping into a mess you had better kept out of. You were seen going in disguise to Garland’s office, and afterward to his rooms in the Grayling, where he joined you about five o’clock. You were seen leaving and returning to the Willard, where you remained until to-night, when you went to his rooms again and fixed yourself up to turn this trick on me.”

Nick Carter’s face evinced no sign of the satisfaction he now felt.

It was obvious to him that Margate had blundered and been deceived, in spite of his precautions. He evidently had, or one of his confederates, been watching Garland in the disguise of the detective, and that none of them suspected the ruse Nick had adopted.

It was perfectly plain, therefore, that the presence of Chick and Patsy in Washington was not suspected, and no steps having been taken by the rascals to guard against what they might accomplish, Nick now felt reasonably sure that one or both of them would make good along the lines he had laid out. His own situation did not look nearly as dark as it had before evoking these disclosures, and Nick was content to meet it as he found it.

The situation took a more threatening turn, however, sooner than he really expected.

Seeing Nick apparently nonplussed by what he had heard, Margate laughed exultantly and quickly added:

“But you’ll turn no trick on me, Carter, take my word for it. The boot is on the other leg. I still have Garland where I want him, as well as you. The newspapers tell me all that you have disclosed. I’ll get Garland later--and finish you at once.”

“Don’t hurry, Margate,” Nick put in coolly. “I’m in no rush.”

“But I am!” snapped the scowling miscreant. “I’m itching to get even with you, to pay you for what you have done to me, to see you dead at my feet. It won’t be long, Carter, not long. You shall pay the price. Take it from me--you shall pay the price!”

The threatening face vanished like a flash with the last.

The panel flew back into place with a sharp, ominous click.

Nick Carter found himself again in inky darkness.

He stepped quickly to the opposite wall and listened at the closed panel.

He now could hear Margate’s voice in the adjoining corridor, followed by others replying. They told him only too plainly what fate the miscreants had in view for him.

“The sooner it’s done, Batty, the better,” Margate was forcibly saying. “We’ll wait only for Nell to show up. I want her here when we put out his light. That’s the only sure way to prevent her from peaching, or any one else. Put them in the same boat with you. Then they’ll never squeal.”

“That’s right, too, Andy,” declared a voice which Nick recognized as that of the burly chauffeur.

“Sure it’s right, Baldwin,” Margate returned.

“But where is she, Andy?” Lombard demanded. “You must have seen her this evening. She hasn’t had charge of the girl since afternoon. When will she show up?”

“By Jove, they have Lottie Trent here, also,” thought Nick. “There would be something doing, all right, if I could break out of this thing.”

Listening while indulging in these thoughts, Nick heard Margate reply:

“I left her in Brady’s just before coming out here, before seeing you and Baldwin start out on this job. She had had no supper, so waited to get it. She may show up at any moment.”

“But Carter has guns, Andy, and will put up a fight. If----”

“Hang his guns!” Margate cut in harshly. “He’ll get no chance to use them. We’ll not need a gun.”

“How can you fix him?”

“Dead easy. We’ll attach the hose to the gas meter and run it to the trap. It will reach from the meter to the elevator shaft. We’ll bore a hole for it through the plank ceiling. Carter then can’t stop the flow of gas. We’ll suffocate him like a rat in a copper boiler.”

“That’s the stuff,” growled Baldwin approvingly. “Dead easy is right.”

“Come out to the office,” Margate added. “We’ll wait there till Nell comes in.”

“But the girl----”

“We’ll silence her later. She can’t get out. I’ve made sure of that. Come out to the office.”

Nick heard their heavy tread through the corridor and up a short flight of stairs, which convinced him that he was in the basement of some building.

“By Jove, I’ve got to make a bid for liberty, at least,” he said to himself.

Whipping out his electric searchlight, he at once began a hurried inspection of the four walls and the section where the panel was located. He saw plainly that the trap had been constructed on a small elevator, and so made that it could be opened only from the outside. He quickly found, moreover, that the planking was of sufficient strength to preclude escape, nor could he start the panel in either direction.

“By gracious, it don’t look very promising,” Nick muttered, grim and frowning. “But there’ll be some gun play, all right, if the rascals try to bore a hole through this ceiling. I’ll foil them yet, barring----”

Nick then was given the surprise of his life.

A sharp click broke his train of thought. The door of the trap flew open and a girl stood directly in front of him in the lighted corridor.

She was deathly pale and frightfully excited, but her eyes were aglow with fierce determination. Her hair and garments were in disorder. Her lace collar was stained with blood. She was trembling from head to foot with frantic eagerness.

“I heard them--I know!” she wildly whispered. “I’m Lottie Trent. I was imprisoned in that room opposite. I picked the lock with a hairpin. I had seen them open this door and knew you could not----”

Her torrent of words was cut short by the sudden sharp crack of a revolver.

A bullet splintered the woodwork above her head.

“They’ve heard me!” she gasped.

Nick already had seized her and drawn her into the trap, beyond reach of bullet from that end of the corridor where Margate and his two confederates were plunging down a low flight of stairs.

“Wait here!” Nick commanded, forcing the girl to one corner and snatching out both of his revolvers. “I’ll give these rats a taste of their own medicine.”