The Bartlett Mystery Part 37

It was well-nigh impossible for this rough, callous rogue, brought in contact with such a girl for the first time in his life, to resist her influence. She did not know it, but gradually she was winning him to her side. He swore at her as the cause of his suffering, yet found himself regretting even the pa.s.sive part he was taking in her imprisonment.

On the very Sunday evening that Voles and Fowle were concocting their vile and mysterious scheme, Mick the Wolf, their trusted a.s.sociate, partner of Voles in many a desperate enterprise in other lands, was sitting in an armchair up-stairs listening to Winifred reading from a book she had found in her bedroom. It was some simple story of love and adventure, and certainly its author had never dreamed that his exciting situations would be perused under conditions as dramatic as any pictured in the novel.

"It's a queer thing," said the man after a pause, when Winifred stopped to light a lamp, "but n.o.body pipin' us just now 'ud think we was what we are."

She laughed at the involved sentence. "I don't think you are half so bad as you think you are, Mr. Grey," she said softly. "For my part, I am happy in the belief that my friends will not desert me."

"Lookut here," he said with gruff sympathy, "why don't you pull with your people instead of ag'in' 'em. I know what I'm talkin' about. This yer Voles--but, steady! Mebbe I best shut up."

Winifred's heart bounded. If this man would speak he might tell her something of great value to her lover and Mr. Steingall when they came to reckon up accounts with her persecutors.

"Anything you tell me, Mr. Grey, shall not be repeated," she said.

He glanced toward the door. She understood his thought. Rachel Craik was preparing their evening meal. She might enter the room at any moment, and it was not advisable that she should suspect them of amicable relations. a.s.suredly, up to that hour, Mick the Wolf's manner admitted of no doubt on the point. He had been intractable as the animal which supplied his oddly appropriate nickname.

"It's this way," he went on in a lower tone. "Voles an' Meiklejohn are brothers born. Meiklejohn, bein' a Senator, an' well in with some of the top-notchers, has a cotton concession in Costa Rica which means a pile of money. Voles is cute as a pet fox. He winded the turkey, an' has forced his brother to make him manager, with a whackin' salary and an interest. I'm in on the deal, too. Bless your little heart, you just stan' pat, an' you kin make a dress outer dollar bills."

"But what have I to do with all this? Why cannot you settle your business without pursuing me?" was the mournful question, for Winifred never guessed how greatly the man's information affected her.

"I can't rightly say, but you're either with us or ag'in' us. If you're on our side it'll be a joy-ride. If you stick to that guy, Carshaw--"

To their ears, as to the ears of those waiting in the car at the gate, came the sound of violent blows and the wrenching open of the door. In that large house--in a room situated, too, on the side removed from the road--they could not catch Carshaw's exulting cry after a peep through the window:

"I have them! Voles and Fowle! There they are! Now you, who fought with Funston, fight for a year's pay to be earned in a minute. Here! use this wrench. You understand it. Use it on the head of any one who resists you. These scoundrels must be taken red-handed."

Voles at the first alarm sprang to his feet and whipped out a revolver.

He knew that a vigorous a.s.sault was being made on the stout door.

Running to the blind of the nearest window, he saw Carshaw pull out an iron bar by sheer strength and use it as a lever to pry open a sash.

Tempted though he was to shoot, he dared not. There might be police outside. Murder would shatter his dreams of wealth and luxury. He must outwit his pursuers.

Rachel Craik came running from the kitchen, alarmed by the sudden hubbub.

"Fowle," he said to his amazed confederate, "stand them off for a minute or two. You, Rachel, can help. You know where to find me when the coast is clear. They cannot touch you. Remember that. They're breaking into this house without a warrant. Bluff hard, and they cannot even frame a charge against you if the girl is secured--and she will be if you give me time."

Trusting more to Rachel than to vacillating Fowle, he raced up-stairs, though his injured leg made rapid progress difficult. He ran into a room and grabbed a small bag which lay in readiness. Then he rushed toward the room in which Winifred and Mick the Wolf were listening with mixed feelings to the row which had sprung up beneath.

He tried the door. It was locked. Rachel had the key in her pocket. A trifle of that nature did not deter a man like Voles. With his shoulder he burst the lock, coming face to face with his partner in crime, who had grasped a poker in his serviceable hand.

"Atta-boy!" he yelled. "Down-stairs, and floor 'em as they come. You've one sound arm. Go for 'em--they can't lay a finger on you."

Now, it was one thing to sympathize with a helpless and gentle girl, but another to resist the call of the wild. The dominant note in Mick the Wolf was brutality, and the fighting instinct conquered even his pain.

With an oath he made his way to the hall, and it needed all of Steingall's great strength to overpower him, wounded though he was.

It took Carshaw and Jim a couple of minutes to force their way in. There was a lively fight, in which the detective lent a hand. When Mick the Wolf was down, groaning and cursing because his fractured arm was broken again; when Fowle was held to the floor, with Rachel Craik, struggling and screaming, pinned beneath him by the valiant Jim, Carshaw sped to the first floor.

Soon, after using hand-cuffs on the man and woman, and leaving Jim in charge of them and Mick the Wolf, Steingall joined him. But, search as they might, they could not find either Winifred or Voles. Almost beside himself with rage, Carshaw rushed back to the grim-visaged Rachel.

"Where is she?" he cried. "What have you done with her? By Heaven, I'll kill you--"

Her face lit up with a malignant joy. "A nice thing!" she screamed.

"Respectable folk to be treated in this way! What have we done, I'd like to know? Breaking into our house and a.s.saulting us!"

"No good talking to her," said the chief. "She's a deep one--tough as they make 'em. Let's search the grounds."

CHAPTER XXIV

IN FULL CRY

Polly, the maid from the inn, waiting breathlessly intent in the car outside the gate, listened for sounds which should guide her as to the progress of events within.

Steingall left her standing on the upholstered back of the car, with her hands clutching the top of the gate. She did not descend immediately. In that position she could best hear approaching footsteps, as she could follow the running of the detective nearly all the way to the house.

Great was her surprise, therefore, to find some one unlocking the gate without receiving any preliminary warning of his advent. She was just in time to spring back into the tonneau when one-half of the ponderous door swung open and a man appeared, carrying in his arms the seemingly lifeless body of a woman.

It will be remembered that the lamps of the car spread their beams in the opposite direction. In the gloom, not only of the night but of the high wall and the trees, Polly could not distinguish features.

She thought, however, the man was a stranger. Naturally, as the rescuers had just gone toward the point whence the newcomer came, she believed that he had been directed to carry the young lady to the waiting car.

Her quick sympathy was aroused.

"The poor dear!" she cried. "Oh, don't tell me those horrid people have hurt her."

Voles who had choked Winifred into insensibility with a mixture of alcohol, chloroform, and ether--a scientific anesthetic used by all surgeons, rapid in achieving its purpose and quite harmless in its effects--was far more surprised than Polly. He never expected to be greeted in this way, but rather to be met by some helper of Carshaw's posed there, and he was prepared to fight or trick his adversary as occasion demanded.

He had carried Winifred down a servants' stairs and made his way out of the house by a back door. The exit was unguarded. In this, as in many other country mansions, the drive followed a circuitous sweep, but a path through the trees led directly toward the gate. Hence, his pa.s.sage had neither been observed from the hall nor overheard by Polly.

It was in precisely such a situation as that which faced him now that Voles was really superb. He was an adroit man, with ready judgment and nerves of steel.

"Not much hurt," he said quietly. "She has fainted from shock, I think."

Though he spoke so glibly, his brain was on fire with question and answer. His eyes glowered at the car and its occupant, and swept the open road on either hand.

To Polly's nostrils was wafted a strange odor, carrying reminiscences of so-called "painless" dentistry. Winifred, reviving in the open air when that hateful sponge was removed from mouth and nose, struggled spasmodically in the arms of her captor. Polly knew that women in a faint lie deathlike. That never-to-be-forgotten scent, too, caused a wave of alarm, of suspicion, to creep through her with each heart-beat.

"Where are the others?" she said, leaning over, and striving to see Voles's face.

"Just behind," he answered. "Let me place Miss Bartlett in the car."

That sounded reasonable.

"Lift her in here, poor thing," said Polly, making way for the almost inanimate form.

"No; on the front seat."

"But why? This is the best place--oh, help, _help_!"