THE FATAL HOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 155, 1 July 1911, Page 19

THE FATAL HOUR.

By JTICHOLAS CARTEK,

inthor of "A Double Mystery," "The £ime Of a Countess," "Kendrick's See" "Man Against Man," '?At Face rl s Value," etc.

CHAPTER XXl.—(Continued.) '•That woman told mc Frank Randall ma here, and flint lie had sent for mc to nfer with your father and Detective Carter" Jliss Harlow replied, in tones . jelled with Wttcr scorn. "She did, eh?" "I'now see how I was duped, and of That knavery you are capable." '•'That is too obvious to be denied." "It was a fatal liour, I fell you, when ,ou turned mc down!" "Fatal for you, you rascal!" thought Chick, peering between the curtain and . the casing of the door. "Now tell mc," Black sn.id abruptly; : Hfljjjt information did you give Kick Carter this morning?" '; "I shall toll you notliinj," Miss Barlow . jimly answered, though her grey lips pere'quivering visibly. "You won't, eh?" "No." "I'll find a way to make you." "I expect you to be as .base as that." ''Hβ called on you this morning," • Black declared, disregarding her con- ' tempi , . "He called at your house." "Just so," thought Chick. "The ras- . eal is trying to find out precisely where ' the gang stands, and what >*ivk 'has dis- . covered and disclosed." I "You may assume what you will," said ;/ Clara, in reply to his assertion. "I shall ' tell, you notfiing." ;: ''You told him something," Black came

• back at her. with a vicious snap of his ' teeth. "Unless you did, he wouldn't . have called on my old man and demanded to see the Eandall will." "It he rid so, there must have been lome very good reason for it." "That's all right. He'll make nothing ' outof it. We've got him where we want : him—as I've got you!" The girl stood motionless, gazing at iim, but did not reply. "We've got Randall, too," Ben went on malevolently. "We've got him in a torner from which there'll be no escape. He'll get the credit for " "For what you evidently have done!" Clara boldly interrupted. "Is that so?" sneered the man. "There's no one who can prove it, no one irho will believe it—barring those curs«d Carters. But we'll get them, one and (tfl of them, as I've got you." ""You don't mean to keep mc here, do you?" Miss Harlow demanded, shudderjag. "Don't I?" Black derisively cried. . "tvhat do you think? That I've gone to this extreme only to stop here? I guess J not!" "You're mad!" . "We'll fix tliinge up so that both you j »nd Bandall will be suspected. He had motive enough, and you, after the way iie old man cut him off without a copper. What did Nick Carter say to you? ISVhat did you tell him ?" ' The miscreant came back to the inquiry with the persistency of one who realised' its importance, despite his half- ■ taken condition. ■ "I shall tell you nothing," Miss Har- £ W repeated. "You won't eh?" I "Xt& a word." "\ VJsn. Black lurched forward in his frail, with his hands on his knees, with wips twitching viciously, with his intoed eyea fixed on the girl's hueless ■/wir-' 'Toiltell mc!" he said, with suppressed ferocity. "You tell me—or I'll wring it out of you!" The girl shrank from the look that l|aped up in his eyes, then strove to get ' /arther from him by edging along the Vail. Yet not for an instant did her gaze leave his. \ "Why, don't you speak?" Black fiercely Mssed. "Have you lost your tongue? Why don't you speak?" "I have nothing to say." "Have you reckoned on the price of lilence?" The girl crouched slightly, drew farther away, shivering from head to foot. • "You have my answer," she said' faint.■ly,,yet not leas'firtnly. ,' "Have I? We'll see!" • Black left his chair with a bound like that of a leopard, with his eyes ablaze, hu arms and hands extended, with the .'hot flush of mingled rage and passion in ;Jus cheeks. / No cry came from the girl—only a half-choked gasp of unutterable terror. : She darted to one side as the man approached, and only one of Ms out- ; stretched hands reached her. ' ; : She threw 'it off with the strength of ■;tittcr desperation, with a violence that 'whirled him half round. :. He reeled unsteadily, tripped, and lost ;w footing—all had transpired in tho , hundredth part of a second —and he pitched ueadlong against the portiere Chick then was sweeping aside. . The heavy curtain tore from its pins &s if made of tissue paper. The falling fold 3 settled over both men, Winding both—but the hands of the detective had found the lawyer's taroatl . Black's anne close"d round him instantly/ , however, with the grappling grasp of a grizzly that has felt the hunter's knife

. —with the frantic fury of a madman I •auddenly brought to bay! CHAPTER XXII. ■ HOW PASTY GOT EVEN. The dusk of the late October afterhoo'n was deepening into darkness when •ratsy Garvan arrived in Fordham and fJWaohed the residence of Anson Black T-irom the rear. - Patsy was taking no chances of being "en .oven in the deepening darkness. ~ |bere were lights on the lower floor 0n1y,.-frost and back. None of the Wrtains was closely drawn, a fact conmr n u n f' Patey tllsre was nothing in the »SmA rooms worthy of his attention, found concealment in a cluster of "yflrangeas, some twenty feet from the onveway and side verandah, a position irom wh ; ch he could wnteh three . oi the house. tl T atter of fact - Pa ' tsv was no* *» that ho had mot with any mishap, to Ml - ° nl V vha,t Chick had been able 2te '"'V was by no means deflwmethmg occ "rred to show him the, fWhfct Q .l A t TV" gh "° ~im a chl <= to wab already hart transpired « came much sooner than he expected H?te"K atUl^~ntrattwit * T" 11 "T ds likp a si a nal >" : TW -F B> '- T l '-" , «P hia ears. obvTot a3 nothin? else was f * ottl lMn P and man quickly disappear-

Ed, however, and the latter emerged a moment later from the side door of the house, just as the covered wagon rattled up the gravel driveway. "All serene, eh?" queried the driver, while a second man leaned forward on the hooded seat and gazed inquiringly at the lawyer. i. ',^ PS C Black ' tersel r answered, in his habitually flinty tones. "Drive round to the cellar door. I'll be there to lend you a hand." The wagon rattled on, having hardly stopped, and rounded a rear corner of the house. Black vanished from the verandah, closing the side door.

Patey craivled quickly across the lawn and dropped behind a group of shrubs, enabling him to watch the wagon and overhear what might be said. Both men had srpung out, and one was hurriedly unbuckling the leather flap at the back of the wagon. Neither was plainly visible in the starlight, yet Patsy could see that they were stocky, middle-aged men. each wearing a beard. In the rear hosement wall of the house was a sloping cellar door, from which Black's- burly figure presently appeared. No light was displayed. ' "He's taking no chances lighting up," thought Patsy, sharply watching the group. "Since they're so deueedly cautious, it's money to marbles that they have got Nick fouled, and are going to take him away. That Fifth Avenue'crib is where they'll take him. very likely, and these are the two fellows who were to let Marvin in last night. One is named Lang, and it's odds that Marvin jis still there." "How did yon leave things?" Black growled inquiringly, as he joined tlvothers. "Smooth as a smelt." was tha reply. "All hands under cover?" "Barring you." "The girl?" "Ben has charge of her. She's there, all right, and there to stay, he says." "AVhat I say will go. not what he* says, or anyone else," Black grimly answered. "You aren't counting on mc." Patsy mentally corrected him. "When I butt in. you shyster, you'll throw a shoe." "I'll return ■with you," Black added. "There's room for three on the seat." ''And one in back," supplemented Lane, significantly. "The sooner he's in there the better." Black nodded. "Lend a hand and we'll bring him up. I'm bound to know what he's got up his sleeve, if we have to skin him alive! I can't stand the suspense born of uncertainty." "Skin him alive, eh?" thought Patsy. "Then he's not dead. That's good enough for mc just now, and I'll gamble I'll get in the way of any bigger skin game than what's been pla\'ed." The three men had disappeared into the cellar. Presently they emerged bearing a heavy object tied in a huge burlap bag, as inert as a bag of meal and twice as large. "That's Nick, all right, and drugged to a standstill," Patsy muttered to himself. "Gee! but wait till the chickens come home to roost!"

The crooks roughly threw their burden into the waggon, and Lang hastened to buckle down the flap.

"I'll be ready in two minutes," said Black, who then hurried into the house.

He was gone twice as long, and when he returned he no longer appeared to be smoothly shaved. A wig, beard, and coloured brows transfigured him, and Patsy Garvan murmured, with a thrill of grim satisfaction:

"Snawley senior! Gee! I've got a hunch that I'll get even to-night." Patsy made no immediate attempt, however, to balance his account with the rascals. He watched them clamber to the seat and ride away in the wagon, and he then darted like a deer across the lawn, vaulted a wall at the corner

of the property, and from that moment did not lose sight of the departing vehicle.

It was only eight o'clock when the wagon stopped opposite the gate through which Ben Black had disappeared about three hours before. From the street no light was visible in the palatial dwelling , . The miscreants within, had adopted means 'to insure that.

Lang got out of the wagon and unbuckled the flap, while Black quickly opened the gate leading into the alley mentioned, and drew the third man out of view from the street. Lang waited until no pedestrian was approaching, and he felt sure their movements would not be observed, then said sharply: "Now lay hold there! We'll have him in and out of sight in a jiffy." No second summons was needed. Within thirty seconds the wagon was empty and the three men were bearing their burden through the gloom of the alley. A few moments later Lang reappeared on the side-walk, and Black at the open gate. "Get rid of the wagon, Martin, and 'then return and join us," he commanded. "You bet," Lang tersely answered. "Expect mc in twenty minutes, I'll ring as usual." He mounted 'the wagon seat while speaking, then drove rapidly away. Black vanished into the alley again. There had been only one observer, one hearer—Patsy Garvan. Feeling sure of the destination of tho wagon, Patsy had anticipated its arrival and concealed himself in the vestibule of the Paulding residence, scarcely ten feet away. "Twenty minutes, ehi" he said to himself, looking at his watch. "Tou may be expected, you rascal, but I'm blessed if you shall be seen. _ There'll be a new butler waiting to receive you." Patsy stole from the doorway and flew out to Fifth Avenue. Martin Lang returned promptly on time. He sauntered leisurely toward the fate closing 'the gloomy alley, then glanced sharply in each direction. When sure that the side street was deserted, he turned and abruptly entered the narrow passage, closing and bolting tho gate. Then, as he wheeled around, a bright beam of light shot through the gloom, and the glare of asmall searchlight fell full on his startled face. At the same moment the cool, cutting voice of Patey Garvan sounded in his ears. "I want you, Lang! Don't move, nor yip, or down and out you'll go!" Lang recoiled involuntarily. The light gleamed on the barrel of a levelled revolver, thrust under his very nose. Dimly disccrnable in the background, the more ominous because of the semi-obscurity, were the threatening figures of Patsy and a burly, broad-shouldered policeman, whom he had pressed into service, and given such instructions ns ho thought would b? necessary. Lang pulled himself together, with nerves relaxing and colour gone. "It's all oil!" ho involuntarily muttered. "All oft' is right, Lang," Patsy curtly said. "Who is in that house? Speak low, mind you." "I'll not speak at all," Lang growled under hi 3 breath. "You'll get nothing out of mc." Patsy had no time, £o waste.

'We'll put something on you then," he said sternly. "The bracelets, Donnelly, and Uake him away. Do what I've directed and leave mc to look after the others."

"There may be too many for you to handle," suggested the officer. "lumbers cut no ice with mc, Donnelly, when I have a brace of guns handy. Bo what I've told you." The policeman made no further objection. The arrest had been quietly made in less than a minute. Lang was marched out and hurried away by thfi officer, and Patsy no longer deferred his next fearless move.

lie stole to the heavy caken gate in the high stone wall flanking the yard of the Randall mansion, and found the electric button which the supposed Snawley had directed Jake Marvin to ring when seeking admission the previous night.

"Ring twice, then once—that was the signal," thought Patsy, having fixed it in his mind the night before. "Since Lang is expected just now, it will bring some one to admit him. He'll suspect nothing, moreover, and I'll catch the rascal hands down.

Patsy pressed the electric button twice, then once, and waited, standing close to the heavy gate, lie drew both of his revolvers. With his left hand he held one in readiness to shoot. With his right he gripped the barrel of the other, turning the solid butt downward, in case a bludgeon should be needed.

Half a minute passed

Then came the rattling of a doorknob, the fall of heavy feet on the flagstones in the yard, the shooting of a bolt from its socket. The man responding to the signal had not. as the detective had reasoned, the slightest doubt that he was about to admit Martin Lang.

Jack Marvin opened the gate, and beheld in the starlight that wound its way down between the buildings, the sturdy figure and sternly determined face of Patsy Garvan, last seen when the ruffian felled him in the closet cf the East Side lodging house, and whom he then supposed to be dead.

Marvin recognised him instantly—but it was like seeing a ghost, lie recoiled with a gasp and an oath—both drowned by Patsy's low, threatening commands. "Silence! Hands up!"

But Jake Marvin stood in fear of neither man, ghost, nor devil! The same vicious spirit that had impelled him to defy Nick Carter in the gloom bai k of the undertaker's rooms inspired him at that moment. Regardless of life, he vented a wolfish snarl and swept Patsy's levelled revolver aside—but did not see the weapon in his light hand.

It rose and fell twice, like a flash, and the heavy butt caught Marvin squarely on the head. A gush of blood covered his face. His knees buckled under him, and ho fell without even a groan; a crimped, senseless, almost lifeless brute, at the very feet of the frowning young detective.

"There, you rascal, those two cracks make us even," Patsy muttered. "Knock mc out, will you? Throttle mc, will you? Never again, you mongrel!" Patsy glanced through the door left open by Marvin. A deserted, dimly lighted hallway met his gaze, with the basement rooms of the vast house leading from it. There was no one in sight. Not a sound came from within.

Patsy picked up Marvin's slouch hat from 'the ground and put it on in place of his own. Turning the inert rascal upon hi.3 face, ho then removed his bapgy plaid coat and making a quick shift in the gloom of the yard, and loft the miscreant in his undergarments.

Having transferred his weapons to tho pockets of his seedy attire, Patsy handcuffed Marvin, though he saw plainly that he would not revive for hours, and dragged him into the hallway, quietly closing and locking the door.

"Two!" he said to himself, with grim satisfaction. "Now to look farther."

(To be Continued on "Wednesday Next.)