"An anesthetic bullet?" repeated both Dr. Mead and myself. "What is that?"

"A narcotic bullet," Garrick explained, "a sleep-producing bullet, if you please, a sedative bullet that lulls its victim into almost instant slumber. It was invented quite recently by a Pittsburgh scientist. The anesthetic bullet provides the poor marksman with all the advantages of the expert gunman of unerring aim."

I marvelled at the ingenuity of the man who could figure out how to overcome the seeming impossibility of accurate shooting from a car racing at high speed. Surely, he must be a desperate fellow.

While we were talking, the doctor's wife who had been attending Warrington until a nurse arrived, came to inform him that the effect of the sedative, which he had administered while Warrington was restless and groaning, was wearing off. We waited a little while, and then Dr. Mead himself informed us that we might see our friend for a minute.

Even in his half-drowsy state of pain Warrington appeared to recognise Garrick and assume that he had come in response to his own summons. Garrick bent down, and I could just distinguish what Warrington was trying to say to him.

"Wh—where's Violet?" he whispered huskily, "Does she know? Don't let her get—frightened—I'll be—all right."

Garrick laid his hand on Warrington's unbandaged shoulder, but said nothing.

"The—the letter," he murmured ramblingly. "I have it—in my apartment—in the little safe. I was going to Tuxedo—to see Violet—explain slander—tell her closing place—didn't know it was mine before. Good thing to close it—Forbes is a heavy loser. She doesn't know that."

Warrington lapsed back on his pillow and Dr. Mead beckoned to us to withdraw without exciting him any further.

"What difference does it make whether she knows about Forbes or not?" I queried as we tiptoed down the hall.

Garrick shook his head doubtfully. "Can't say," he replied succinctly. "It may be that Forbes, too, has aspirations."

The idea sent me off into a maze of speculations, but it did not enlighten me much. At any rate, I felt, Warrington had said enough to explain his presence in that part of the country. On one thing, as I have said, Garrick had guessed right. The blackmailing letter and what we had seen the night before at the crooked gambling joint had been too much for him. He had not been able to rest as long as he was under a cloud with Miss Winslow until he had had a chance to set himself right in her eyes.

There seemed to be nothing that we could do for him just then. He was in excellent hands, and now that the doctor knew who he was, a trained nurse had even been sent for from the city and arrived on the train following our own, thus relieving Mrs. Mead of her faithful care of him.

Garrick gave the nurse strict instructions to make exact notes of anything that Warrington might say, and then requested the doctor to take us to the scene of the tragedy. We were about to start, when Garrick excused himself and hurried back into the house, reappearing in a few minutes.

"I thought perhaps, after all, it would be best to let Miss Winslow know of the accident, as long as it isn't likely to turn out seriously in the end for Warrington," he explained, joining us again in Dr. Mead's car which was waiting in front of the house. "So I called up her aunt's at Tuxedo and when Miss Winslow answered the telephone I broke the news to her as gently as I could. Warrington need have no fear about that girl," he added.

The wrecked car, we found, had not yet been moved, nor had the broken fence been repaired. It was, in fact, an accident worth studying topographically. That part of the road itself near the fence seemed to interest Garrick greatly. Two or three cars passed while we waited and he noted how carefully each of them seemed to avoid that side toward the broken fence, as though it were haunted.

"I hope they've all done that," Garrick remarked, as he continued to examine the road, which was a trifle damp under the high trees that shaded it.

As he worked, I could not believe that it was wholly fancy that caused me to think of him as searching with dilated nostrils, like a scientific human bloodhound. For, it was not long before I began to realize what he was looking for in the marks of cars left on the oiled roadway.

During perhaps half an hour he continued studying the road, above and below the exact point of the accident. At length a low exclamation from him brought me to his side. He had dropped down in the grease, regardless of his knees and was peering at some rather deep imprints in the surface dressing. There, for a few feet, were plainly the marks of the outside tires of a car, still unobliterated.

Garrick had pulled out copies of the photographs he had made of the tire marks that had been left at the scene of the finding of the unfortunate Rena Taylor's body, and was busy comparing them with the marks that were before him.

"Of course," Garrick muttered to me, "if the anti-skid marks of the tires were different, it would have proved nothing, just as in the other case where we looked for the tire prints. But here, too, a glance shows that at least it is the same make of tires."

He continued his comparison. It did not take me long to surmise what he was doing. He was taking the two sets of marks and, inch by inch, going over them, checking up the little round metal insertions that were placed in this style of tire to give it a firmer grip.

"Here's one missing, there's another," he cried excitedly. "By Jove, it can't be mere coincidence. There's one that is worn— another broken. They correspond. Yes, that MUST be the same car, in each case. And if it was the stolen car, then it was Warrington's own car that was used in pursuing him and in almost making away with him!"



CHAPTER VIII

THE EXPLANATION

We had not noticed a car which had stopped just past us and Garrick was surprised at hearing his own name called.

We looked up from contemplating the discovery he had made in the road, to see Miss Winslow waving to us. She had motored down from Tuxedo immediately after receiving the message over the telephone, and with her keen eye had picked out both the place of the accident and ourselves studying it.

As we approached, I could see that she was much more pale than usual. Evidently her anxiety for Warrington was thoroughly genuine. The slanderous letter had not shaken her faith in him, yet.

She had left her car and was walking back along the road with us toward the broken fence. Garrick had been talking to her earnestly and now, having introduced her to Dr. Mead, the doctor and he decided to climb down to inspect the wrecked car itself in the ravine below.

Miss Winslow cast a quick look from the broken fence down at the torn and twisted wreckage of the car and gave a suppressed little cry and shudder.

"How is Mortimer?" she asked of me eagerly, for I had agreed to stay with her while the others went down the slope. "I mean how is he really? Is he likely to be better soon, as Mr. Garrick said over the telephone?" she appealed.

"Surely—absolutely," I assured her, knowing that if Garrick had said that he had meant it. "Miss Winslow, believe me, neither Mr. Garrick nor Dr. Mead is concealing anything. It is pretty bad, of course. Such things are always bad. But it might be far worse. And besides, the worst now has passed."

Garrick had already promised to accompany her over to Dr. Mead's after he had made his examination of the wrecked car to confirm what the doctor had already observed. It took several minutes for them to satisfy themselves and meanwhile Violet Winslow, already highly unstrung by the news from Garrick, waited more and more nervously.

In spite of his careful examination of the wrecked car, Garrick found practically nothing more than Dr. Mead had already told him. It was with considerable relief that Miss Winslow saw the two again climbing up the slope in the direction of the road.

A few minutes later we were on our way back, Dr. Mead and Garrick leading the way in the doctor's car, while I accompanied Miss Winslow in her own car.

She said little, and it was plain to see that she was consumed by anxiety. Now and then she would ask a question about the accident, and although I tried in every way to divert her mind to other subjects she unfailingly came back to that.

Tempering the details as much as I could I repeated for her just what had happened to the best of our knowledge.

"And you have no idea who it could have been?" she asked turning those liquid eyes of hers on my face.

If there were any secret about it, it was perhaps fortunate that I did not know. I don't think I am more than ordinarily susceptible and I know I did not delude myself that Miss Winslow ever could be anything except a friend to either Garrick or myself. But I felt I could not resist the appeal in those eyes. I wondered if even they, by some magic intuition, might not pierce the very soul of man and uncover a lying heart. I felt that Warrington could not have been other than he said he was and still have been hastening to meet those eyes.

"Miss Winslow," I answered, "I have no more idea than you have who it could be."

I was telling the truth and I felt that I could meet her gaze.

There must have been something about how I had phrased my answer that caused her to look at me more searchingly than before. Suddenly she turned her face away and gazed at the passing landscape from the car.

She said nothing, but as I continued to watch her finely moulded features, I saw that she was making an effort to control herself. It flashed over me, somehow, that perhaps, after all, she herself suspected someone. It was not that she said anything. It was merely an indefinable impression I received.

Had Warrington any enemies, not in the underworld, but among those of his own set, rivals, perhaps, who might even stoop to secure the aid of those of the underworld who could be bought to commit any crime in the calendar for a price? I did not pause to examine the plausibility or the impossibility of such a theory. What interested me was whether in her mind there was such a thought. Had she, perhaps, really more of an idea than I who it could be? She betrayed nothing of what her intuition told her, but I felt sure that, even though she knew nothing, there was at least something she feared.

At last we arrived at Dr. Mead's and I handed her out of the car and into the tastefully furnished little house. There was an air of quietness about it that often indefinably pervades a house in which there is illness or a tragedy.

"May I—see him?" pleaded Miss Winslow, as Dr. Mead placed a chair for her.

I wondered what he would have done if there had been some good reason why he should resist the pleading of her deep eyes.

"Why—er—for a minute—yes," he answered. "Later, soon, he may see visitors longer, but just now I think for a few hours the less he is disturbed the better."

The doctor excused himself for a moment to look at his patient and prepare him for the visit. Meanwhile Miss Winslow waited in the reception room downstairs, still very pale and nervous.

Warrington was in much less pain now than he had been when we left and Dr. Mead decided that, since the nurse had made him so much more comfortable, no further drug was necessary. In fact as his natural vitality due to his athletic habits and clean living asserted itself, it seemed as if his injuries which at first had looked so serious were not likely to prove as bad as the doctor had anticipated.

Still, he was badly enough as it was. The new nurse smoothed out his pillows and deftly tried to conceal as much as she could that would suggest how badly he was injured and at last Violet Winslow was allowed to enter the room where the poor boy lay.

Miss Winslow never for a moment let her wonderful self-control fail her. Quickly and noiselessly, like a ministering angel, she seemed to float rather than walk over the space from the door to the bed.

As she bent over him and whispered, "Mortimer!" the simple tone seemed to have an almost magic effect on him.

He opened his eyes which before had been languidly closed and gazed up at her face as if he saw a vision. Slowly the expression on his face changed as he realized that it was indeed Violet herself. In spite of the pain of his hurts which must have been intense a smile played over his features, as if he realized that it would never do to let her know how serious had been his condition.

As she bent over her hand had rested on the white covers of the bed. Feebly, in spite of the bandages that swathed the arm nearest her, he put out his own brawny hand and rested it on hers. She did not withdraw it, but passed the other hand gently over his throbbing forehead. Never have I seen a greater transformation in an invalid than was evident in Mortimer Warrington. No tonic in all the pharmacopoeia of Dr. Mead could have worked a more wonderful change.

Not a word was said by either Warrington or Violet for several seconds. They seemed content just to gaze into each other's faces, oblivious to us.

Warrington was the first to break the silence, in answer to what he knew must be her unspoken question.

"Your aunt—gambling," he murmured feebly, trying hard to connect his words so as to appear not so badly off as he had when he had spoken before. "I didn't know—till they told me—that the estate owned it—was coming to tell you—going to cancel the lease—close it up—no one ever lose money there again—"

The words, jerky though they were, cost him a great physical effort to say. She seemed to realize it, but there was a look of triumph on her face as she understood.

She had not been mistaken. Warrington was all that she had thought him to be.

He was looking eagerly into her face and as he looked he read in it the answer to the questionings that had sent him off in the early hours of the morning on his fateful ride to Tuxedo.

Dr. Mead cleared his throat. Miss Winslow recognised it as a signal that the time was growing short for the interview.

Reluctantly, she withdrew her hand from his, their eyes met another instant, and with a hasty word of sympathy and encouragement she left the room, conscious now that other eyes were watching.

"Oh, to think it was to tell me that that he got into it all," she cried, as she sank into a deep chair in the reception room, endeavouring not to give way to her feelings, now that the strain was off and she had no longer to keep a brave face. "I—I feel guilty!"

"I wouldn't say that," soothed Garrick. "Who knows? Perhaps if he had stayed in the city—they might have succeeded,—whoever it was back of this thing."

She looked up at Garrick, startled, I thought, with the same expression I had seen when she turned her face away in the car and I got the impression that she felt more than she knew of the case.

"I may—see—Mr. Warrington again soon?" she asked, now again mistress of her feelings after Garrick's interruption that had served to take her mind off a morbid aspect of the affair.

"Surely," agreed Dr. Mead. "I expect his progress to be rapid after this."

"Thank you," she murmured, as she slowly rose and prepared to make the return trip to her aunt's home.

"Oh, Mr. Garrick," she confided, as he helped her on with the wraps she had thrown carelessly on a chair when she entered, "I can't help it—I do feel guilty. Perhaps he thinks I am—like Aunt Emma—-"

"Perhaps it was quite as much to convince your aunt as you that he took the trip," suggested Garrick.

Miss Winslow understood. "Why is it," she murmured, "that sometimes people with the best intentions manage to bring about things that are—more terrible?"

Garrick smiled. Quite evidently she and her aunt were not exactly in tune. He said nothing.

As for Dr. Mead he seemed really pleased, for the patient had brightened up considerably after even the momentary glimpse he had had of Violet. Altogether I felt that although they had seen each other only for a moment, it had done both good. Miss Winslow's fears had been quieted and Warrington had been encouraged by the realisation that, in spite of its disastrous ending, his journey had accomplished its purpose anyway.

There was, as Dr. Mead assured us, every prospect now that Warrington would pull through after the murderous assault that had been made on him.

We saw Miss Winslow safely off on her return trip, much relieved by the promise of the doctor that she might call once a day to see how the patient was getting along.

Warrington was now resting more easily than he had since the accident and Garrick, having exhausted the possibilities of investigation at the scene of the accident, announced that he would return to the city.

At the railroad terminus he called up both the apartment and the office in order to find out whether we had had any visitors during our absence. No one had called at the apartment, but the office boy downtown said that there was a man who had called and was coming back again.

A half hour or so later when we arrived at the office we found McBirney seated there, patiently determined to find Garrick.

Evidently the news of the assault on Warrington had travelled fast, for the first thing McBirney wanted to know was how it happened and how his client was. In a few words Garrick told him as much about it as was necessary. McBirney listened attentively, but we could see that he was bursting with his own budget of news.

"And, McBirney," concluded Garrick, without going into the question of the marks of the tires, "most remarkable of all, I am convinced that the car in which his assailant rode was no other than the Mercedes that was stolen from Warrington in the first place."

"Say," exclaimed McBirney in surprise, "that car must be all over at once!"

"Why—what do you mean?"

"You know I have my own underground sources of information," explained the detective with pardonable pride at adding even a rumour to the budget of news. "Of course you can't be certain of such things, but one of my men, who is scouting around the Tenderloin looking for what he can find, tells me that he saw a car near that gambling joint on Forty-eighth Street and that it may have been the repainted and renumbered Warrington car—at least it tallies with the description that we got from the garage keeper in north Jersey.

"Did he see who drove it?" asked Garrick eagerly.

"Not very well. It was a short, undersized man, as nearly as he could make out. Someone whom he did not recognize jumped in it from the gambling house and they disappeared. Even though my man, his suspicions aroused, tried to follow them in a taxicab they managed to leave him behind."

"In what direction did they go?" asked Garrick.

"Toward the West Side—where those fly-by-night garages are all located."

"Or, perhaps, the Jersey ferries," suggested Garrick.

"Well, I thought you might like to know about this undersized driver," said McBirney a little sulkily because Garrick had not displayed as much enthusiasm as he expected.

"I do," hastened Garrick. "Of course I do. And it may prove to be a very important clew. But I was just running ahead of your story. The undersized man couldn't have figured in the case afterward, assuming that it was the car. He must have left it, probably in the city. Have you any idea who it could be?"

"Not unless he might be an employee or a keeper of one of those night-hawk garages," persisted McBirney. "That is possible."

"Quite," agreed Garrick.

McBirney had delivered his own news and in turn had received ours, or at least such of it as Garrick chose to tell at present. He was apparently satisfied and rose to go.

"Keep after that undersized fellow, will you?" asked Garrick. "If you could find out who he is and he should happen to be connected with one of those garages we might get on the right trail at last."

"I will," promised McBirney. "He's evidently an expert driver of motor cars himself; my man could see that."

McBirney had gone. Garrick sat for several minutes gazing squarely at me. Then he leaned back in his chair, with his hands behind his head.

"Mark my words, Marshall," he observed slowly, "someone connected with that gambling joint in some way has got wind of the fact that Warrington is going to revoke the lease and close it up. We've got to beat them to it—that's all."



CHAPTER IX

THE RAID

Garrick was evidently turning over and over in his mind some plan of action.

"This thing has gone just about far enough," he remarked meditatively, looking at his watch. It was now well along in the afternoon.

"But what do you intend doing?" I asked, regarding the whole affair so far as a hopeless mystery from which I could not see that we had extracted so much as a promising clew.

"Doing?" he echoed. "Why, there is only one thing to do, and that is to take the bull by the horns, to play the game without any further attempt at finessing. I shall see Dillon, get a warrant, and raid that gambling place—that's all."

I had no counter suggestion to offer. In fact the plan rather appealed to me. If any blow were to be struck it must be just a little bit ahead of any that the gamblers anticipated, and this was a blow they would not expect if they already had wind of Warrington's intention to cancel the lease.

Garrick called up Dillon and made an appointment to meet him early in the evening, without telling him what was afoot.

"Meet me down at police headquarters, Tom," was all that Garrick said to me. "I want to work here at the office for a little while, first, testing a new contrivance, or, rather, an old one that I think may be put to a new use."

Meanwhile I decided to employ my time by visiting some newspaper friends that I had known a long time on the Star, one of the most enterprising papers in the city. Fortunately I found my friend, Davenport, the managing editor, at his desk and ready to talk in the infrequent lulls that came in his work.

"What's on your mind, Marshall?" he asked as I sat down and began to wonder how he ever conducted his work in the choatic clutter of stuff on the top of his desk.

"I can't tell you—yet, Davenport," I explained carefully, "but it's a big story and when it breaks I'll promise that the Star has the first chance at it. I'm on the inside—working with that young detective, Garrick, you know."

"Garrick—Garrick," he repeated. "Oh, yes, that fellow who came back from abroad with a lot of queer ideas. I remember. We had an interview with him when he left the steamer. Good stuff, too,—but what do you think of him? Is he—on the level?"

"On the level and making good," I answered confidently. "I'm not at liberty to tell much about it now, but—well, the reason I came in was to find out what you could tell me about a Miss Winslow,— Violet Winslow and her aunt, Mrs. Beekman de Lancey."

"The Miss Winslow who is reported engaged to young Warrington?" he repeated. "The gossip is that he has cut out Angus Forbes, entirely."

I had hesitated to mention all the names at once, but I need not have done so, for on such things, particularly the fortunes in finance and love of such a person as Warrington, the eyes of the press were all-seeing.

"Yes," I answered carefully, "that's the Miss Winslow. What do you know of her?"

"Well," he replied, fumbling among the papers on his desk, "all I know is that in the social set to which she belongs our society reporters say that of all the young fellows who have set out to capture her—and she's a deuced pretty girl, even in the pictures we have published—it seems to have come down to Mortimer Warrington and Angus Forbes. Of course, as far as we newspapermen are concerned, the big story for us would be in the engagement of young Warrington. The eyes of people are fixed on him just now— the richest young man in the country, and all that sort of thing, you know. Seems to be a pretty decent sort of fellow, too, I believe—democratic and keen on other things besides tango and tennis. Oh, there's the thing I was hunting for. Mrs. de Lancey's a nut on gambling, I believe. Read that. It's a letter that came to us from her this morning."

It was written in the stilted handwriting of a generation ago and read:

"To the Editor of the Star, Dear Sir:—I believe that your paper prides itself on standing for reform and against the grafters. If that is so, why do you not join in the crusade to suppress gambling in New York? For the love that you must still bear towards your own mother, listen to the stories of other mothers torn by anxiety for their sons and daughters, and if there is any justice or righteousness in this great city close up those gambling hells that are sending to ruin scores of our finest young men—and women. You have taken up other fights against gambling and vice. Take up this one that appeals to women of wealth and social position. I know them and they are as human as mothers in any other station in life. Oh, if there is any way, close up these gilded society resorts that are dissipating the fortunes of many parents, ruining young men and women, and, in one case I know of, slowly bringing to the grave a grey-haired widow as worthy of protection as any mother of the poor whose plea has closed up a little poolroom or policy shop. One place I have in mind is at—— West Forty-eighth Street. Investigate it, but keep this confidential.

"Sincerely,

"(MRS.) EMMA DE LANCEY."

"Do you know anything about it?" I asked casually handing the letter back.

"Only by hearsay. I understand it is the crookedest gambling joint in the city, at least judging by the stories they tell of the losses there. And so beastly aristocratic, too. They tell me young Forbes has lost a small fortune there—but I don't know how true it is. We get hundreds of these daintily perfumed and monogramed little missives in the course of a year."

"You mean Angus Forbes?" I asked.

"Yes," replied the managing editor, "the fellow that they say has been trying to capture your friend Miss Winslow."

I did not reply for the moment. Forbes, I had already learned, was deeply in debt. Was it part of his plan to get control of the little fortune of Violet to recoup his losses?

"Do you know Mrs. de Lancey?" pursued the editor.

"No—not yet," I answered. "I was just wondering what sort of person she is."

"Oh I suppose she's all right," he answered, "but they say she's pretty straight-laced—that cards and all sorts of dissipation are an obsession with her."

"Well," I argued, "there might be worse things than that."

"That's right," he agreed. "But I don't believe that such a puritanical atmosphere is—er—just the place to bring up a young woman like Violet Winslow."

I said nothing. It did not seem to me that Mrs. de Lancey had succeeded in killing the natural human impulses in Violet, though perhaps the girl was not as well versed in some of the ways of the world as others of her set. Still, I felt that her own natural common sense would protect her, even though she had been kept from a knowledge of much that in others of her set was part of their "education."

My friend's telephone had been tinkling constantly during the conversation and I saw that as the time advanced he was getting more and more busy. I thanked Davenport and excused myself.

At least I had learned something about those who were concerned in the case. As I rode uptown I could not help thinking of Violet Winslow and her apparently intuitive fear concerning Warrington. I wondered how much she really knew about Angus Forbes. Undoubtedly he had not hesitated to express his own feelings toward her. Had she penetrated beneath the honeyed words he must have spoken to her? Was it that she feared that all things are fair in war and love and that the favour she must have bestowed on Warrington might have roused the jealousy of some of his rivals for her affections?

I found no answer to my speculations, but a glance at my watch told me that it was nearing the time of my appointment with Guy.

A few minutes later I jumped off the car at Headquarters and met Garrick, waiting for me in the lower hall. As we ascended the broad staircase to the second floor, where Dillon's office was, I told him briefly of what I had discovered.

"The old lady will have her wish," he replied grimly as I related the incident of the letter to the editor. "I wonder just how much she really does know of that place. I hope it isn't enough to set her against Warrington. You know people like that are often likely to conceive violent prejudices—and then refuse to believe something that's all but proved about someone else."

There was no time to pursue the subject further for we had reached Dillon's office and were admitted immediately.

"What's the news?" asked Dillon greeting us cordially.

"Plenty of it," returned Garrick, hastily sketching over what had transpired since we had seen him last.

Garrick had scarcely begun to outline what he intended to do when I could see from the commissioner's face that he was very sceptical of success.

"Herman tells me," he objected, "that the place is mighty well barricaded. We haven't tried raiding it yet, because you know the new plan is not only to raid those places, but first to watch them, trace out some of the regular habitues, and then to be able to rope them in in case we need them as evidence. Herman has been getting that all in shape so that when the case comes to trial, there'll be no slip-up."

"If that's all you want, I can put my finger on some of the wildest scions of wealth that you will ever need for witnesses," Garrick replied confidently.

"Well," pursued Dillon diffidently, "how are you going to pull it off, down through the sky-light, or up through the cellar?"

"Oh, Dillon," returned Garrick reproachfully, "that's unworthy of you."

"But, Garrick," persisted Dillon, "don't you know that it is a veritable National City Bank for protection. It isn't one of those common gambling joints. It's proof against all the old methods. Axes and sledgehammers would make no impression there. Why, that place has been proved bomb-proof—bomb-proof, sir. You remember recently the so-call 'gamblers' war' in which some rivals exploded a bomb on the steps because the proprietor of this place resented their intrusion uptown from the lower East Side, with their gunmen and lobbygows? It did more damage to the house next door than to the gambling joint."

Dillon paused a moment to enumerate the difficulties. "You can get past the outside door all right. But inside is the famous ice-box door. It's no use to try it at all unless you can pass that door with reasonable quickness. All the evidence you will get will be of an innocent social club room downstairs. And you can't get on the other side of that door by strategy, either. It is strategy- proof. The system of lookouts is perfect. Herman—-"

"Can't help it," interrupted Garrick, "we've got to go over Herman's head this time. I'll guarantee you all the evidence you'll ever need."

Dillon and Garrick faced each other for a moment.

It was a supreme test of Dillon's sincerity.

Finally he spoke slowly. "All right," he said, as if at last the die were cast and Garrick had carried his point, "but how are you going to do it? Won't you need some men with axes and crowbars?"

"No, indeed, almost shouted Garrick as Dillon made a motion as if to find out who were available. "I've been preparing a little surprise in my office this afternoon for just such a case. It's a rather cumbersome arrangement and I've brought it along stowed away in a taxicab outside. I don't want anyone else to know about the raid until the last moment. Just before we begin the rough stuff, you can call up and have the reserves started around. That is all I shall want."

"Very well," agreed Dillon, after a moment.

He did not seem to relish the scheme, but he had promised at the outset to play fair and he had no disposition to go back on his word now in favor even of his judgment.

"First of all," he planned, "we'll have to drop in on a judge and get a warrant to protect us."

Garrick hastily gave me instructions what to do and I started uptown immediately, while they went to secure the secret warrant.

I had been stationed on the corner which was not far from the Forty-eighth Street gambling joint that we were to raid. I had a keen sense of wickedness as I stood there with other loiterers watching the passing throng under the yellow flare of the flaming arc light.

It was not difficult now to loiter about unnoticed because the streets were full of people, all bent on their own pleasure and not likely to notice one person more or less who stopped to watch the passing throng.

From time to time I cast a quick glance at the house down the street, in order to note who was going in.

It must have been over an hour that I waited. It was after ten, and it became more difficult to watch who was going into the gambling joint. In fact, several times the street was so blocked that I could not see very well. But I did happen to catch a glimpse of one familiar figure across the street from me.

It was Angus Forbes. Where he kept himself in the daytime I did not know, but he seemed to emerge at night, like a rat, seeking what to him was now food and drink. I watched him narrowly as he turned the corner, but there was no use in being too inquisitive. He was bound as certainly for the gambling joint as a moth would have headed toward one of the arc lights. Evidently Forbes was making a vocation of gambling.

Just then a taxicab pulled up hurriedly at the curb near where I was standing and a hand beckoned me, on the side away from the gambling house.

I sauntered over and looked in through the open window. It was Garrick with Dillon sunk back into the dark corner of the cab, so as not to be seen.

"Jump in!" whispered Garrick, opening the door. "We have the warrant all right. Has anything happened? No suspicion yet?"

I did so and reassured Garrick while the cab started on a blind cruise around the block.

On the floor was a curiously heavy instrument, on which I had stubbed my toe as I entered. I surmised that it must have been the thing which Garrick had brought from his office, but in the darkness I could not see what it was, nor was there a chance to ask a question.

"Stop here," ordered Garrick, as we passed a drug store with a telephone booth.

Dillon jumped out and disappeared into the booth.

"He is calling the reserves from the nearest station," fretted Garrick. "Of course, we have to do that to cover the place, but we'll have to work quickly now, for I don't know how fast a tip may travel in this subterranean region. Here, I'll pay the taxi charges now and save some time."

A moment later Dillon rejoined us, his face perspiring from the closeness of the air in the booth.

"Now to that place on Forty-eighth Street, and we're square," ordered Garrick to the driver, mentioning the address. "Quick!"

There had been, we could see, no chance for a tip to be given that a raid was about to be pulled off. We could see that, as Garrick and I jumped out of the cab and mounted the steps.

The door was closed to us, however. Only someone like Warrington who was known there could have got us in peacefully, until we had become known in the place. Yet though there had been no tip, the lookout on the other side of the door, with his keen nose, had seemed to scent trouble.

He had retreated and, we knew, had shut the inside, heavy door— perhaps even had had time already to give the alarm inside.

The sharp rap of a small axe which Garrick had brought sounded on the flimsy outside door, in quick staccato. There was a noise and scurry of feet inside and we could hear the locks and bolts being drawn.

Banging, ripping, tearing, the thin outer door was easily forced. Disregarding the melee I leaped through the wreckage with Garrick. The "ice-box" door barred all further progress. How was Garrick to surmount this last and most formidable barrier?

"A raid! A raid!" cried a passer-by.

Another instant, and the cry, taken up by others, brought a crowd swarming around from Broadway, as if it were noon instead of midnight.



CHAPTER X

THE GAMBLING DEBT

There was no time to be lost now. Down the steps again dashed Garrick, after our expected failure both to get in peaceably and to pass the ice-box door by force. This time Dillon emerged from the cab with him. Together they were carrying the heavy apparatus up the steps.

They set it down close to the door and I scrutinized it carefully. It looked, at first sight, like a short stubby piece of iron, about eighteen inches high. It must have weighed fifty or sixty pounds. Along one side was a handle, and on the opposite side an adjustable hook with a sharp, wide prong.

Garrick bent down and managed to wedge the hook into the little space between the sill and the bottom of the ice-box door. Then he began pumping on the handle, up and down, up and down, as hard as he could.

Meanwhile the crowd that had begun to collect was getting larger. Dillon went through the form of calling on them for aid, but the call was met with laughter. A Tenderloin crowd has no use for raids, except as a spectacle. Between us we held them back, while Garrick worked. The crowd jeered.

It was the work of only a few seconds, however, before Garrick changed the jeers to a hearty round of exclamations of surprise. The door seemed to be lifted up, literally, until some of its bolts and hinges actually bulged and cracked. It was being crushed, like the flimsy outside door, before the unwonted attack.

Upwards, by fractions of an inch, by millimeters, the door was being forced. There was such straining and stress of materials that I really began to wonder whether the building itself would stand it.

"Scientific jimmying," gasped Garrick, as the door bulged more and more and seemed almost to threaten to topple in at any moment.

I looked at the stubby little cylinder with its short stump of a lever. Garrick had taken it out now and had wedged it horizontally between the ice-box door and the outer stonework of the building itself. Then he jammed some pieces of wood in to wedge it tighter and again began to pump at the handle vigorously.

"What is it?" I asked, almost in awe at the titanic power of the apparently insignificant little thing.

"My scientific sledgehammer," he panted, still working the lever more vigorously than ever backward and forward. "In other words, a hydraulic ram. There is no swinging of axes or wielding of crow- bars necessary any more, Dillon, in breaking down a door like this. Such things are obsolete. This little jimmy, if you want to call it that, has a power of ten tons. I think that's about enough."

It seemed as if the door were buckling and being literally wrenched off its hinges by the irresistible ten-ton punch of the hydraulic ram.

Garrick sprang back, grasping me by the arm and pulling me too. But there was no need of caution. What was left of the door swung back on its loosened hinges, seemed to tremble a moment, and then, with a dull thud crashed down on the beautiful green marble of the reception hall, reverberating.

We peered beyond. Inside all was darkness. At the very first sign of trouble the lights had been switched out downstairs. It was deserted. There was no answer to our shouts. It was as silent as a tomb.

The clang of bells woke the rapid echoes. The crowd parted. It was the patrol wagons, come just in time, full of reserves, at Dillon's order. They swarmed up the steps, for there was nothing to do now, in the limelight of the public eye, except their duty. Besides Dillon was there, too.

"Here," he ordered huskily, "four of you fellows jump into each of the next door houses and run up to the roof. Four more men go through to the rear of this house. The rest stay here and await orders," he directed, detailing them off quickly, as he endeavoured to grasp the strange situation.

On both sides of the street heads were out of windows. On other houses the steps were full of spectators. Thousands of people must have swarmed in the street. It was pandemonium.

Yet inside the house into which we had just broken it was all darkness and silence.

The door had yielded to the scientific sledge-hammering where it would have shattered, otherwise, all the axes in the department. What was next?

Garrick jumped briskly over the wreckage into the building. Instead of the lights and gayety which we had seen on the previous night, all was black mystery. The robbers' cave yawned before us. I think we were all prepared for some sort of gunplay, for we knew the crooks to be desperate characters. As we followed Garrick closely we were surprised to encounter not even physical force.

Someone struck a light. Garrick, groping about in the shadows, found the switch, and one after another the lights in the various rooms winked up.

I have seldom seen such confusion as greeted us as, with Dillon waiving his "John Doe" warrant over his head, we hurried upstairs to the main hall on the second floor, where the greater part of the gambling was done. Furniture was overturned and broken, and there had been no time to remove the heavier gambling apparatus. Playing cards, however, chips, racing sheets from the afternoon, dice, everything portable and tangible and small enough to be carried had disappeared.

But the greatest surprise of all was in store. Though we had seen no one leave by any of the doors, nor by the doors of any of the houses on the block, nor by the roofs, or even by the back yard, according to the report of the police who had been sent in that direction, there was not a living soul in the house from roof to cellar. Search as we did, we could find not one of the scores of people whom I had seen enter in the course of the evening while I was watching on the corner.

Dillon, ever mindful of some of the absurd rules of evidence in such cases laid down by the courts, had had an official photographer summoned and he was proceeding from room to room, snapping pictures of apparatus that was left in place and preserving a film record of the condition of things generally.

Garrick was standing ruefully beside the roulette wheel at which so many fortunes had been dissipated.

"Get me an axe," he asked of one of Dillon's men who was passing.

With a well-directed blow he smashed the wheel.

"Look," he exclaimed, "this is what they were up against."

His forefinger indicated an ingenious but now twisted and tangled series of minute wires and electro-magnets in the delicate mechanism now broken open before us. Delicate brushes led the current into the wheel.

With another blow of the axe, Garrick disclosed wires running down through the leg of the table to the floor and under the carpet to buttons operated by the man who ran the game.

"What does it mean?" I asked blankly.

"It means," he returned, "that they had little enough chance to win at a straight game of roulette. But this wheel wasn't even straight with all the odds in favor of the bank, as they are naturally. This game was electrically controlled. Others are mechanically controlled by what are called the 'mule's ear,' and other devices. You CAN'T win. These wires and magnets can be made to attract the little ball into any pocket the operator desires. Each one of the pockets contains an electro-magnet. One set of electro-magnets in the red pockets is connected with one button under the carpet and a set of batteries. The other series of little magnets in the black pockets is connected with another button and the batteries."

He had picked up the little ball. "This ball," he said as he examined it, "is not really of ivory, but of a composition that looks like ivory, coating a hollow, soft-iron ball inside. Soft iron is attracted by an electro-magnet. Whichever set of magnets is energized attracts the ball and by this simple method it is in the power of the operator to let the ball go to red or black as he may wish. Other similar arrangements control the odd or even, and other combinations, also from push buttons. There isn't an honest gambling machine in the whole place. The whole thing is crooked from start to finish,—the men, the machines,——"

"Then a fellow never had a chance?" repeated Dillon.

"Not a chance," emphasized Garrick.

We gathered about and gazed at magnets and wires, the buttons and switches. He did not need to say anything more to expose the character of the place.

Amazing as we found everything about us in the palace of crooks, nothing made so deep an impression on me as the fact that it was deserted. It seemed as if the gamblers had disappeared as though in a fairy tale. Search room after room as Dillon's men did they were unable to find a living thing.

One of the men had discovered, back of the gambling rooms on the second floor, a little office evidently used by those who ran the joint. It was scantily furnished, as though its purpose might have been merely a place where they could divide up the profits in private. A desk, a cabinet and a safe, besides a couple of chairs, were all that the room contained.

Someone, however, had done some quick work in the little office during those minutes while Garrick was opening the great ice-box door with his hydraulic ram, for on every side were scattered papers, the desk had been rifled, and even from the safe practically everything of any value had been removed. It was all part of the general scheme of things in the gambling joint. Practically nothing that was evidential that could be readily removed had been left. Whoever had planned the place must have been a genius as far as laying out precautions against a raid were concerned.

Garrick, Dillon and I ran hastily through some scattered correspondence and other documents that spilled out from some letter files on the floor, but as far as I could make out there was nothing of any great importance that had been overlooked.

Dillon ordered the whole mass to be bundled up and taken off when the other paraphernalia was removed so that it could be gone through at our leisure, and the search continued.

From the "office" a staircase led down by a back way and we followed it, looking carefully to see where it led.

A low exclamation from Garrick arrested our attention. In a curve between landings he had kicked something and had bent down to pick it up. An electric pocket flashlight which one of the men had picked up disclosed under its rays a package of papers evidently dropped by someone who was carrying away in haste an armful of stuff.

"Markers with the house," exclaimed Garrick as he ran over the contents of the package hurriedly. "I. O. U.'s for various amounts and all initialed—for several hundred thousands. Hello, here's a bunch with an 'F.' That must mean Forbes—thousands of dollars worth."

The markers were fastened together with a slip in order to separate them from the others, evidently.

Garrick was hastily totalling them up and they seemed to amount to a tidy sum.

"How can he ever pay?" I asked, amazed as the sum crept on upward in the direction of six figures.

"Don't you see that they're cancelled?" interjected Garrick, still adding.

I had not examined them closely, but as I now bent over to do so I saw that each bore the words, "Paid by W."

Warrington himself had settled the gambling debts of his friend!

In still greater amazement I continued to look and found that they all bore dates from several weeks before, down to within a few days. The tale they told was eloquent. Forbes, his own fortune gone, had gambled until rescued by his friend. Even that had not been sufficient to curb his mania. He had kept right on, hoping insanely to recoup. And the gamblers had been willing to take a chance with him, knowing that they already had so much of his money that they could not possibly lose.

A horrid thought flashed over me. What if he had really planned to pay his losses by marrying a girl with a fortune? Forbes was the sort who would have gambled on even that slender prospect.

As we stood on the landing while Garrick went over the markers, I found myself wondering, even, where Forbes had been that night after he hurried away from us at the ladies' poolroom and Warrington had taken the journey that had ended so disastrously for him. The more I learned of what had been taking place, the more I saw that Warrington stood out as a gentleman. Undoubtedly Violet Winslow had heard, had been informed by some kind unknown of the slight lapses of Warrington. I felt sure that the gross delinquencies of Forbes were concealed from her and from her aunt, at least as far as Warrington had it in his power to shield the man who was his friend—and rival.

The voice of Dillon recalled me from a train of pure speculation to the more practical work in hand before us.

"Well, at any rate, we've got evidence enough to protect ourselves and close the place, even if we didn't make any captures," congratulated Dillon, as he rejoined us, after a momentary excursion from which he returned still blinking from the effects of the flashlight powders which his photographer had been using freely. "After we get all the pictures of the place, I'll have the stuff here removed to headquarters—and it won't be handed back on any order of the courts, either, if I can help it!"

Garrick had shoved the markers into his pocket and now was leading the way downstairs.

"Still, Dillon," he remarked, as we followed, "that doesn't shed any light on the one remaining problem. How did they all manage to get out so quickly?"

We had reached the basement which contained the kitchens for the buffet and quarters for the servants. A hasty excursion into the littered back yard under the guidance of Dillon's men who had been sent around that way netted us nothing in the way of information. They had not made their escape over the back fences. Such a number of people would certainly have left some trail, and there was none.

We looked at Garrick, perplexed, and he remarked, with sudden energy, "Let's take a look at the cellar."

As we groped down the final stairway into the cellar, it was only too evident that at last he had guessed right. Down in the subterranean depths we quickly discovered, at the rear, a sheet- iron door. Battering it down was the work of but a moment for the little ram. Beyond it, where we expected to see a yawning tunnel, we found nothing but a pile of bricks and earth and timbers that had been used for shoring.

There had been a tunnel, but the last man who had gone through had evidently exploded a small dynamite cartridge, and the walls had been caved in. It was impossible to follow it until its course could be carefully excavated with proper tools in the daylight.

We had captured the stronghold of gambling in New York, but the gamblers had managed to slip out of our grasp, at least for the present.



CHAPTER XI

THE GANGSTER'S GARAGE

"I have it," exclaimed Garrick, as we were retracing our steps upstairs from the dank darkness of the cellar. "I would be willing to wager that that tunnel runs back from this house to that pool- room for women which we visited on Forty-seventh Street, Marshall. That must be the secret exit. Don't you see, it could be used in either direction."

We climbed the stairs and stood again in the wreck of things, taking a hasty inventory of what was left, in hope of uncovering some new clew, even by chance.

Garrick shook his head mournfully.

"They had just time enough," he remarked, "to destroy about everything they wanted to and carry off the rest."

"All except the markers," I corrected.

"That was just a lucky chance," he returned. "Still, it throws an interesting sidelight on the case."

"It doesn't add much in my estimation to the character of Forbes," I ventured, voicing my own suspicions.

The telephone bell rang before Garrick had a chance to reply. Evidently in their haste they had not had time to cut the wires or to spread the news, yet, of the raid. Someone who knew nothing of what had happened was calling up.

Garrick quickly unhooked the receiver, with a hasty motion to us to remain silent.

"Hello," we heard him answer. "Yes, this is it. Who is this?"

He had disguised his voice. We waited anxiously and watched his face to gather what response he received.

"The deuce!" he exclaimed, with his hand over the transmitter so that his voice would not be heard at the other end.

"What's the matter?" I asked eagerly.

"Whoever he was," replied Garrick, "he was too keen for me. He caught on. There must have been some password or form that they used which we don't know, for he hung up the receiver almost as soon as he heard me."

Garrick waited a minute or two. Then he whistled into, the transmitter. It was done apparently to see whether there was anyone listening. But there was no answer. The man was gone.

"Operator, operator!" Guy was calling, insistently moving the hook up and down rapidly. "Yes—I want Central. Central, can you tell me what number that was which just called up?"

We all waited anxiously to learn whether the girl could find out or not.

"Bleecker seven—one—eight—o? Thank you very much. Give me information, please."

Again we waited as Garrick tried to trace the call out.

"Hello! What is the street address of Bleecker seven—one—eight— o? Three hundred West Sixth. Thank you. A garage? Good-bye."

"A garage?" echoed Dillon, his ears almost going up as he realized the importance of the news.

"Yes," cried Garrick, himself excited. "Tom, call a cab. Let us hustle down there as quickly as we can."

"One of those garages on the lower West Side," I heard Dillon say as I left. "Perhaps they did work for the gambling joint—sent drunks home, got rid of tough customers and all that. You know already that there are some pretty tough places down there. This is bully. I shouldn't be surprised if it gave us a line on the stealing of Warrington's car at last."

I found a cab and Dillon and Garrick joined me in it.

"I tried to get McBirney," said Garrick as we prepared to start on our new quest, "but he was out, and the night operator at his place didn't seem to know where he was. But if they can locate him, I imagine he'll be around at least shortly after we get there. I left the address."

Dillon had issued his final orders to his raiders about guarding the raided gambling joint and stationing a man at the door. A moment later we were off, threading our way through the crowd which in spite of the late hour still lingered to gape at the place.

On the way down we speculated much on the possibility that we might be going on a wild goose chase. But the very circumstances of the call and the promptness with which the man who had called had seemed to sense when something was wrong and to ring off seemed to point to the fact that we had uncovered a good lead of some kind.

After a quick run downtown through the deserted avenues, we entered a series of narrow and sinuous streets that wound through some pretty tough looking neighborhoods. On the street corners were saloons that deserved no better name than common groggeries. They were all vicious looking joints and uniformly seemed to violate the law about closing. The fact was that they impressed one as though it would be as much as one's life was worth even to enter them with respectable looking clothes on.

The further we proceeded into the tortuous twists of streets that stamp the old Greenwich village with a character all its own, the worse it seemed to get. Decrepit relics of every style of architecture from almost the earliest times in the city stood out in the darkness, like so many ghosts.

"Anyone who would run a garage down here," remarked Garrick, "deserves to be arrested on sight."

"Except possibly for commercial vehicles," I ventured, looking at the warehouses here and there.

"There are no commercial vehicles out at this hour," added Garrick dryly.

At last our cab turned down a street that was particularly dark.

"This is it," announced Garrick, tapping on the glass for the driver to stop at the corner. "We had better get out and walk the rest of the way."

The garage which we sought proved to be nothing but an old brick stable. It was of such a character that even charity could not have said that it had seen much better days for generations. It was dark, evil looking. Except for a slinking figure here and there in the distance the street about us was deserted. Even our footfalls echoed and Garrick warned us to tread softly. I longed for the big stick, that went with the other half of the phrase.

He paused a moment to observe the place. It was near the corner and a dim-lighted Raines law saloon on the next cross street ran back almost squarely to the stable walls, leaving a narrow yard. Apparently the garage itself had been closed for the night, if, indeed, it was ever regularly open. Anyone who wanted to use it must have carried a key, I surmised.

We crossed over stealthily. Garrick put his ear to an ordinary sized door which had been cut out of the big double swinging doors of the stable, and listened.

Not a sound.

Dillon, with the instinct of the roundsman in him still, tried the handle of the door gently. To our surprise it moved. I could not believe that anyone could have gone away and left it open, trusting that the place would not be looted by the neighbours before he returned. I felt instinctively that there must be somebody there, in spite of the darkness.

The commissioner pushed in, however, followed closely by both of us, prepared for an on-rush or a hand-to-hand struggle with anything, man or beast.

A quick succession of shots greeted us. I do not recall feeling the slightest sensation of pain, but with a sickening dizziness in the head I can just vaguely remember that I sank down on the oil and grease of the floor. I did not fall. It seemed as if I had time to catch myself and save, perhaps, a fractured skull. But then it was all blank.

It seemed an age, though it could not have been more than ten minutes later when I came to. I felt an awful, choking sensation in my throat which was dry and parched. My lungs seemed to rasp my very ribs, as I struggled for breath. Garrick was bending anxiously over me, himself pale and gasping yet. The air was reeking with a smell that I did not understand.

"Thank heaven, you're all right," he exclaimed, with much relief, as he helped me struggle up on my feet. My head was still in a whirl as he assisted me over to a cushioned seat in one of the automobiles standing there. "Now I'll go back to Dillon," he added, out of breath from the superhuman efforts he was putting forth both for us and to keep himself together. "Wh—what's the matter? What happened?" I gasped, gripping the back of the cushion to steady myself. "Am I wounded? Where was I hit? I—I don't feel anything—but, oh, my head and throat!"

I glanced over at Dillon. He was pale and white as a ghost, but I could see that he was breathing, though with difficulty. In the glare of the headlight of a car which Garrick had turned on him, he looked ghastly. I looked again to discover traces of blood. But there was none anywhere.

"We were all put out of business," muttered Garrick, as he worked over Dillon. Dillon opened his eyes blankly at last, then struggled up to his feet. "You got it worst, commissioner," remarked Garrick to him. "You were closest."

"Got what?" he sputtered, "Was closest to what?"

We were all still choking over the peculiar odor in the fetid air about us.

"The bulletless gun," replied Garrick.

Dillon looked at him a moment incredulously, in spite even of his trying physical condition.

"It is a German invention," Garrick went on to explain, clearing his throat, "and shoots, instead of bullets, a stupefying gas which temporarily blinds and chokes its victims. The fellow who was in here didn't shoot bullets at us. He evidently didn't care about adding any more crimes to his list just now. Perhaps he thought that if he killed any of us there would be too much of a row. I'm glad it was as it was, anyway. He got us all, this way, before we knew it. Perhaps that was the reason he used the gun, for if he had shot one of us with a pistol I had my own automatic ready myself to blaze away. This way he got me, too.

"A stupefying gun!" repeated Dillon. "I should say so. I don't know what happened—yet," he added, blinking.

"I came to first," went on Garrick, now busily looking about, as we were all recovered. "I found that none of us was wounded, and so I guessed what had happened. However, while we were unconscious the villain, whoever he was, succeeded in running his car out of the garage and getting away. He locked the door after him, but I have managed to work it open again."

Garrick was now examining the floor of the garage, turning the headlight of the machine as much as he could on successive parts of the floor.

"By George, Tom," he exclaimed to me suddenly, "see those marks in the grease? Do you recognize them by this time? It is the same tire-mark again—Warrington's car—without a doubt!"

Dillon had taken the photographs which Garrick had made several days before from the prints left by the side of the road in New Jersey, and was comparing them himself with the marks on the floor of the garage, while Garrick explained them to him hurriedly, as he had already done to me.

"We are getting closer to him, every time,'" remarked Garrick. "Even if he did get away, we are on the trail and know that it is the right one. He could not have been at the gambling joint, or he would never have called up. Yet he must have known all about it. This has turned out better than I expected. I suppose you don't feel so, but you must think so."

It was difficult not to catch the contagion of Garrick's enthusiasm. Dillon grunted assent.

"This garage," he put in, looking it over critically, "must act as a fence for stolen cars and parts of cars. See, there over in the corner is the stuff for painting new license numbers. Here's enough material to rebuild a half dozen cars. Yes, this is one of the places that ought to interest you and McBirney, Garrick. I'll bet the fellow who owns this place is one of those who'd engage to sell you a second-hand car of any make you wanted to name. Then he'd go out on the street and hunt around until he got one. Of course, we'll find out his name, but I'll wager that when we get the nominal owner we won't be able to extract a thing from him in the way of actual facts."

Garrick had continued his examination of the floor. In a corner, near the back, he had picked up an empty shell of a cartridge. He held it down in the light of the car, and examined it long and carefully. As he turned it over and over he seemed to be carefully considering it. Finally, he dropped it carefully into his inside vest pocket, as though it were a rare treasure.

"As I said at the start," quoted Garrick, turning to me, "we might get a conviction merely on these cartridges. Anyhow, our man has escaped from here. You can be sure that he won't come back— perhaps never—certainly not at least for a long time, until he figures that this thing has completely blown over."

"I'm going to keep my eye on the place, just the same," stoutly insisted Dillon.

"Of course, by all means," reiterated Garrick. "The fact is, I expect our next important clew will come from this place. The only thing I want you to be careful of, Dillon, is not to be hasty and make an arrest."

"Not make an arrest?" queried Dillon, who still felt the fumes in his throat, and evidently longed to make someone pay the price—at least by giving him the satisfaction of conducting a "third degree" down at headquarters.

"No. You won't get the right man, and you may lose one who points straight at him. Take my advice. Watch the place. There's more to be gained by going at it cautiously. These people understand the old hammer-and-tongs game."

Just then the smaller outside door grated on its rusty hinges. We sprang to our feet, startled. Dillon leaped forward. Stupefying guns had no taming effect on his nationality.

"Well, commish, is that the way you greet an old friend?" laughed McBirney, as a threatened strangle-hold was narrowly averted and turned into a handshake. "How are you fellows? I got your message, Garrick, and thought I'd drop around. What's the matter? You all look as if you'd been drawn through a wringer."

Briefly, to the accompaniment of many expressions of astonishment from the insurance detective, Garrick related what had happened, from the raid to the gas-gun.

"Well," gasped McBirney, sniffing the remains of the gas in the air, "this is some place, isn't it? Neat, cozy, well-located—for a murder—hello!—that's that ninety horsepower Despard that was stolen from Murdock the other day, or I'll eat my hat."

He had raised the hood and was straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of the maker's number on the engine, which had been all but obliterated by a few judicious blows of a hammer.

Garrick was busy telling McBirney also about the marks of the tire on the floor, as the detective looked over one car after another, as if he had unearthed a veritable treasure-trove.

"No, your man could not have been at either of the gambling joints," agreed McBirney, as Garrick finished, "or he wouldn't have called up. But he must have known them intimately. Perhaps he was in the pay of someone there."

McBirney was much interested in what had been discovered, and was trying to piece it together with what we had known before. "I wonder whether he's the short fellow who drove the car when it was seen up there, or the big fellow who was in the car when Warrington was shot, up-state?"

The question was, as yet, unanswerable. None of us had been able to catch a glimpse of his figure, muffled, in the darkness when he shot us.

All we knew was that even this man was unidentified and at large. The murderer, desperate as he was, was still free and unknown, too. Were they one and the same? What might not either one do next?

We sat down in one of the stolen cars and held a midnight council of war. There were four of us, and that meant four different plans. Dillon was for immediate and wholesale arrests. McBirney was certain of one thing. He would claim the cars he could identify. The garage people could not help knowing now that we had been there, and we conceded the point to him with little argument, though it took great tact on Garrick's part to swing over Dillon.

"I'm for arresting the garage-keeper, whoever he proves to be," persisted Dillon, however.

"It won't do any good," objected Garrick.

"Don't you see that it will be better to accept his story, or rather seem to, and then watch him?"

"Watch him?" I asked, eager to propose my own plan of waiting there and seizing each person who presented himself. "How can you watch one of these fellows? They are as slippery as eels,—and as silent as a muffler," I added, taking good-humouredly the general laugh that greeted my mixed metaphor.

"You've suggested the precise idea, Marshall, by your very objection," broke in Garrick, who up to this time had been silent as to his own plan.

"I've a brand-new system of espionage. Trust it to me, and you can all have your way."



CHAPTER XII

THE DETECTAPHONE

I found it difficult to share Garrick's optimism, however. It seemed to me that again the best laid plans of one that I had come to consider among the cleverest of men had been defeated, and it is not pleasant to be defeated, even temporarily. But Garrick was certainly not discouraged.

As he had said at the start, it was no ordinary criminal with whom we had to deal. That was clear. There had been gunmen and gangmen in New York for years, we knew, but this fellow seemed to be the last word, with his liquid bullets, his anesthetic shells and his stupefying gun.

We had agreed that the garage keeper would, of course, shed little light on the mystery. He was a crook. But he would find no difficulty, doubtless, in showing that there was nothing on which to hold him.

Still, Garrick had evidently figured out a way to go ahead while we had all been floundering around, helpless. His silence had merely masked his consideration of a plan.

"You three stay here," he ordered. "If anyone should come in, hold him. Don't let anyone get away. But I don't think there will be anyone. I'll be back within an hour or so."

It was far past midnight already, as we sat uncomfortably in the reeking atmosphere of the garage. The hours seemed to drag interminably. Almost I wished that something would happen to break the monotony and the suspense. Our lonely vigil went unrewarded, however. No one came; there was not even a ring at the telephone.

As nearly as I could figure it out, McBirney was the only one who seemed to have gained much so far. He had looked over the cars most carefully. There were half a dozen of them, in all.

"I don't doubt," he concluded, "that all of them have been stolen. But there are only two here that I can identify. They certainly are clever at fixing them up. Look at all the parts they keep ready for use. They could build a car, here."

"Yes," agreed Dillon, looking at the expensive "junk" that was lying about. "There is quite enough to warrant closing the place, only I suppose Garrick is right. That would defeat our own purpose."

At last Garrick returned from his hurried trip down to the office. I don't know what it was we expected him to bring, but I think we were more or less disappointed when it proved to be merely a simple oblong oak box with a handle.

He opened it and we could see that it contained in reality nothing but a couple of ordinary dry cells, and some other paraphernalia. There were two black discs, attached to a metal headpiece, discs about two and a half inches in diameter, with a circular hole in the centre of each, perhaps an inch across, showing inside what looked like a piece of iron or steel.

Garrick carefully tested the batteries with a little ammeter which he carried in a case.

"Sixteen amperes," he remarked to himself, "I don't attempt to use the batteries when they fall below five. These are all right."

From a case he took a little round black disc, about the same size as the other two. In its face it had a dozen or so small holes perforated and arranged in the shape of a six-pointed star.

"I wonder where I can stow this away so that it won't attract attention?" he asked.

Garrick looked about for the least used part of the garage and decided that it was the back. Near the barred window lay a pile of worn tires which looked as if it had been seldom disturbed except to be added to. When one got tires as cheaply as the users of this garage did, it was folly to bother much about the repair of old ones.

Back of this pile, then, he threw the little black disc carelessly, only making sure that it was concealed. That was not difficult, for it was not much larger than a watch in size.

To it, I noticed, he had attached two plugs that were "fool- proof"—that is, one small and the other large, so that they could not be inserted into the wrong holes. A long flexible green silk covered wire, or rather two wires together, led from the disc. By carefully moving the tires so as to preserve the rough appearance they had of being thrown down hastily into the discard, he was able to conceal this wire, also, in such a way as to bring it secretly to the barred window and through it.

Next he turned his attention to the telephone itself. Another instrument which he had brought with him was inserted in place of the ordinary transmitter. It looked like it and had evidently been prepared with that in view. I assumed that it must act like the ordinary transmitter also, although it must have other uses as well. It was more of a job to trace out the course of the telephone wires and run in a sort of tap line at a point where it would not be likely to be noted. This was done by Garrick, still working in silence, and the wires from it led behind various things until they, too, reached another window and so went to the outside.

As Garrick finished his mysterious tinkering and rose from his dusty job to brush off his clothes, he remarked, "There, now you may have your heart's desire, Dillon, if all you want to do is to watch these fellows."

"What is it?" I hastened to ask, looking curiously at the oak box which contained still everything except the tiny black disc and the wires leading out of the window from it and from the new telephone transmitter.

"This little instrument," he answered slowly, "is much more sensitive, I think, than any mechanical or electrical eavesdropper that has ever been employed before. It is the detectaphone—a new unseen listener."

"The detectaphone?" repeated Dillon. "How does it work?"

"Well, for instance," explained Garrick, "that attachment which I placed on the telephone is much more than a sensitive transmitter such as you are accustomed to use. It is a form of that black disc which you saw me hide behind the pile of tires. There are, in both, innumerable of the minutest globules of carbon which are floating around, as it were, making it alive at all times to every sound vibration and extremely sensitive even to the slightest sound waves. In the case of the detectaphone transmitter, it only replaces the regular telephone transmitter and its presence will never be suspected. It operates just as well when the receiver is hung up as when it is off the hook, as far as the purpose I have in mind is concerned, as you shall see soon. I have put both forms in so that even if they find the one back of the tires, even the most suspicious person would not think that anything was contained in the telephone itself. We are dealing with clever people and two anchors to windward are better than one."

Dillon nodded approval, but by the look on his face it was evident that he did not understand the whole thing yet.

"That other disc, back of the tires," went on Garrick, "is the ordinary detective form. All that we need now is to find a place to install this receiving box—all this stuff that is left over— the two batteries, the earpieces. You see the whole thing is very compact. I can get it down to six inches square and four inches thick, or I can have it arranged with earpieces so that at least six people can 'listen in' at once—forms that can be used in detective work to meet all sorts of conditions. Then there is another form of the thing, in a box about four inches square and, perhaps, nine or ten inches long which I may bring up later for another purpose when we find out what we are going to do with the ends of those wires that are now dangling on the outside of the window. We must pick up the connection in some safe and inconspicuous place outside the garage."

The window through which the wires passed seemed to open, as I had already noticed, on a little yard not much larger than a court. Garrick opened the window and stuck his head out as far as the iron bars would permit. He sniffed. The odor was anything but pleasant. It was a combination of "gas" from the garage and stale beer from the saloon.

"No doubt about it, that is a saloon," remarked Garrick, "and they must pile empty kegs out there in the yard. Let's take a walk around the corner and see what the front of the place looks like."

It was a two and a half story building, with a sloping tin roof, of an archaic architecture, in a state of terrible decay and dilapidation, and quite in keeping with the neighbourhood. Nevertheless a bright gilt sign over a side door read, "Hotel Entrance."

"I think we can get in there to-morrow on some pretext," decided Garrick after our inspection of the "Old Tavern," as the crazy letters, all askew, on one of the windows denoted the place. "The Old Tavern looks as if it might let lodgings to respectable gentlemen—if they were roughly enough dressed. We can get ourselves up as a couple of teamsters and when we get in that will give us a chance to pick up the ends of those wires to-morrow. That will be time enough, I'm sure, and it is the best we can do, anyhow."

We returned from our walk around the block to the garage where Dillon and McBirney were waiting for us.

"I leave you free to do what you please, Dillon," answered Garrick to the commissioner's inquiry, "as long as you don't pinch this place which promises to be a veritable gold-mine. McBirney, I know, will reduce the number of cars here tomorrow by at least two. But don't, for heaven's sake, let out any suspicion about those things I have just hidden here. And now, as for me, I'm going uptown and get a few hours' sleep."

Dillon and McBirney followed, leaving us, shortly, to get a couple of men from the nearest police station to see that none of the cars were taken out before morning.

We rode up to our apartment, where a message was awaiting us, telling that Warrington had passed a very good day and was making much more rapid progress than even Dr. Mead had dared hope. I could not help wondering how much was due to the mere tonic presence daily of Violet Winslow.

I had a sound sleep, although it was a short one. Garrick had me up early, and, by digging back in his closet, unearthed the oldest clothes he had. We improved them by sundry smears of dirt in such a way that when we did start forth, no one would have accused us of being other than we were prepared to represent ourselves— workmen who had been laid off from a job on account of bad business conditions. We decided to say that we were seeking another position.

"How do I look?" I asked seriously, for this was serious business to me.

"I don't know whether to give you a meal ticket, or to call a cop when I look at you, Marshall," laughed Garrick.

"Well, I feel a good deal safer in this rig than I did last night, in this part of the city," I replied as we hopped off a surface car not far from our destination. "I almost begin to feel my part. Did you see the old gink with the gold watch on the car? If he was here I believe I'd hold him up, just to see what it is like. I suppose we are going to apply for lodgings at the famous hostelry, the Old Tavern?"

"I had that intention," replied Garrick who could see no humour in the situation, now that we were on the scene of action. "The place looks even more sordid in daylight than at night. Besides, it smells worse."

We entered the tavern, and were greeted with a general air of rough curiosity, which was quickly dispelled by our spending ten cents, and getting change for a bill. At least we were good for anything reasonable, and doubts on that score settled by the man behind the bar, he consented to enter into conversation, which ultimately resulted in our hiring a large back room upstairs in the secluded caravansary which supplied "Furnished Rooms for Gentlemen Only."

Garrick said that we would bring our things later, and we went upstairs. We were no sooner settled than he was at work. He had brought a rope ladder, and, after fastening it securely to the window ledge, he let himself down carefully into the narrow court below.

That was the only part of the operation that seemed to be attended with any risk of discovery and it was accomplished safely. For one thing the dirt on the windows both of the garage and the tavern was so thick that I doubt whether so much caution was really necessary. Nevertheless, it was a relief when he secured the ends of the wires from the detectaphone and brought them up, pulling in the rope ladder after him.

It was now the work of but a minute to attach one of the wires that led from the watchcase disc back of the pile of tires to the oak box with its two storage batteries. Garrick held the ear- pieces, one to each ear, then shoved them over his head, in place.

"It works—it works," he cried, with as much delight as if he had not been positive all along that it would.

"Here, try it yourself," he added, taking the headgear off and handing the receivers to me.

I put the black discs at my ears, with the little round holes over the ear openings. It was marvellous. I could hear the men washing down one of the cars, the swash of water, and, best of all, the low-toned, gruff gossip.

"Just a couple of the men there, now," explained Garrick. "I gather that they are talking about what happened last night. I heard one of them say that someone they call 'the Chief' was there last night and that another man, 'the Boss,' gave him orders to tell no one outside about it. I suppose the Chief is our friend with the stupefying gun. The Boss must be the fellow who runs the garage. What are they saying now? They were grumbling about their work when I handed the thing over to you."

I listened, fascinated by the marvel of the thing. I could hear perfectly, although the men must have been in the front of the garage.

"Well, there's two of them yer won't haveter wash no more," one man was saying. "A feller from the perlice come an' copped off two—that sixty tin can and the ninety Despard."

"Huh—so the bulls are after him?"

"Yeh. One was here all night after the fight."

"Did they follow the Chief?"

"Follow the Chief? Say, when anyone follows the Chief he's gotter be better than any bull that ever pounded a beat."

"What did the Boss say when he heard it?"

"Mad as—-. We gotter lay low now."

"The Chief's gone up-state, I guess."

"We can guess all we want. The Boss knows. I don't."

"Why didn't they make a pinch? Ain't there nobody watchin' now?"

"Naw. They ain't got nothin' on us. Say, the Chief can put them fellers just where he wants 'em. See the paper this morning? That was some raid up at the joint—eh?"

"You bet. That Garrick's a pretty smooth chap. But the Chief can put it all over him."

"Yep," agreed the other speaker.

I handed the receivers back to Garrick with a smile.

"You are not without some admirers," I remarked, repeating the conversation substantially to him. "They'd shoot up the neighbourhood, I imagine, if they knew the truth."

Hour after hour we took turns listening at the detectaphone. We gathered a choice collection of slang and epithets, but very little real news. However, it was evident that they had a wholesome respect for both the Chief and the Boss. It seemed that the real head of the gang, if it was a gang, had disappeared, as one of the men had already hinted "up-state."

Garrick had meanwhile brought out the other detectaphone box, which was longer and larger than the oak box.

"This isn't a regular detactaphone," he explained, "but it may vary the monotony of listening in and sometime I may find occasion to use it in another way, too."

In one of the long faces were two square holes, from the edges of which the inside walls focussed back on two smaller, circular diaphragms. That made the two openings act somewhat like megaphone horns to still further magnify the sound which was emitted directly from this receiver without using any earpieces, and could be listened to anywhere in the room, if we chose. This was attached to the secret arrangement that had been connected with the telephone by replacing the regular by the prepared transmitter.

One of us was in the room listening all the time. I remember once, while Guy had gone uptown for a short time, that I heard the telephone bell ring in the device at my ear. Out of the larger box issued a voice talking to one of the men.

It was the man whom they referred to as the Chief. He had nothing to say when he learned that the Boss had not showed up since early morning after he had been quizzed by the police. But he left word that he would call up again.