CHAPTER XVIII. CLOSING IN.

Nick Carter did not long remain idle after Belle Braddon left him alone in the trap she had sprung on him and made her departure from Flood’s vacant house.

Nick kept quiet only until he felt sure she had gone, and then he began to take the precise measure of his situation.

With both houses vacant, and the walled passage midway between them, there was, as Belle Braddon had said, no possibility that he could make himself heard by persons in the adjoining dwellings or upon the street.

Nick gave up that idea almost at the outset.

That help would come to him seemed equally improbable. Nick knew that Flood would not visit his house and that Belle Braddon would insure that no person entered the one adjoining. That any accidental intruder would put in an appearance was next to absurd.

Nick quickly dropped all hope of relief of that character; in fact, nearly as quickly as he had dropped the other.

This left him but one resource—himself.

“I’m in here, and I must get out,” he grimly said to himself. “I was fool enough to be caught in the trap, but I’ll try to be clever enough to get out of it. First of all, to investigate it, for which we’ll have a little light.”

Nick never went without the ordinary requirements of his vocation, and he quickly fished out of his pocket a small electric lamp, the current of which he turned on, and immediately a flood of light dispelled the intense darkness of his narrow quarters.

“There, that is more like it,” he muttered. “Now to look about a bit.”

A careful examination of the place required but a little time.

On two sides were the bare brick walls of the passage, reaching from the floor to the ceiling.

At each end was the inner surface of a heavy iron door, which was as tightly closed as that of a steel safe. Under all the pressure Nick possibly could bring to bear upon them they were not even jarred.

“Um! There’s no opening them by force, that’s sure!” he presently decided. “Sheet-iron, too, over stout wood, no doubt, and securely riveted. To break through them is also out of the question.

“Whew! It’s getting close in here already. I shall need fresh air before long.”

The ceiling was two feet above his head, and brief study convinced Nick that nothing could be done in that direction.

Next he sounded the walls and doors with the butt of his revolver. Each appeared to be solid, infernally solid, and Nick then fell to his knees upon the bare floor.

“It’s the only way,” he muttered decisively. “I must get through this floor in some way. It must be done quickly, too, or I may become weak for want of better air.”

Upon his hands and knees Nick carefully examined the floor.

It consisted of spruce boards, six inches wide, in most of which there was no break. Presently, however, he discovered a crack where the ends of two of the boards met.

“Aha! this is better!” he muttered.

With his knife he dug out the wood around the nails securing the longer of the two boards, and succeeded in slightly prying up the end of it.

There was another board beneath it.

With countenance grown more grim and determined, Nick rose to his feet and drew his revolver.

“It’s a long chance,” he growled, under his breath. “The smoke will make it closer than ever in here, but I must know what’s under these boards.”

He aimed down at a spot a few inches from the end of the one he had started, then fired.

The report almost deafened him, and a cloud of smoke immediately filled the place.

The bullet tore through the floor, splitting the end of the upper board, then plowed its way down through the frescoed ceiling of the room below.

Nick dropped to his knees again, and peered down through the hole left by the chunk of lead.

As he did so a breath of fresh air filled his nostrils, and he could discern daylight below.

“Eureka! I’m over one of the rooms!” he cried to himself. “I’ll fool that sly jade yet—and that isn’t all I will do for her!”

Nick now went to work with a will. With his knife he pried up the splintered end of the board until he could get his fingers under it. Then he ripped up a section of it, as if it had been so much cardboard.

To remove the remaining pieces of the upper board required about five minutes, and Nick then tackled the one below it.

First, he fired a second bullet, making a hole a few inches from the former. With his knife he then hacked out the wood between the two holes, thus enabling him to get a good grip upon the board. With his boot heel, and at times with the butt of his revolver, he split the plank in several places, and at the end of fifteen minutes he had the lower board ripped out.

Though reeking from every pore, Nick at once thrust his leg through the aperture and down between the beams, and with his heel broke through the laths and plastering of the ceiling below.

That he could now effect his escape he had not the least doubt; yet it required time.

Nearly two hours of hard labor followed before he could hack a hole in the floor sufficiently large for him to pass through, and it was six o’clock before the work was done.

Then Nick pocketed his knife and lamp, wormed himself through the opening, and dropped into the room below.

He found himself in the house lately occupied by Nathan Godard.

Before leaving, Nick went to the basement and found an old broom, and with it removed all of the rubbish that had fallen to the floor.

“In case that jade comes here before to-morrow night, to learn if I have survived, I’ll have this stuff out of her way, and chance that she does not observe the ceiling,” he said to himself. “Even if she gets no sound from that trap up there, she’ll not dare open the door. To make sure of her movements, however, and that the trick for to-morrow night is by no means queered, I will have Patsy shadow these two houses all day to-morrow.”

It was nearly dark when Nick arrived home, and he sat up until midnight waiting for Chick to return.

The latter had left Belle Braddon less than an hour before, and she had been with Chick since six o’clock that evening, so Nick knew that she had not returned to Flood’s house.

Chick, moreover, had craftily planned with Belle to visit Godard’s shore house the following night, taking with them the alleged uncle who was to arrive from Dakota.

Naturally, the uncle was Nick Carter, and the two detectives were to meet Belle Braddon at the Waldorf the following afternoon.

At ten o’clock next morning Nick received a telegram from Green. It contained only two words:

“Brace on!”

Nick laughed exultingly when he read it, and passed it to Chick, the two being seated in Nick’s office.

“That does settle it,” declared the latter. “Godard is expecting us, and has given the humpback instructions about the cues.”

“Sure thing!” cried Chick. “Belle Braddon has fallen into the net I have spread for her, and Godard expects to find an easy mark in my cattle-raising uncle from Dakota.”

“It is Godard who will be the easy mark!” Nick grimly rejoined. “One thing is sure!”

“What’s that?”

“Belle Braddon will never dream that your uncle is Nick Carter.”

“Well, hardly,” laughed Chick. “She is probably dead sure that you are down and out by this time.”

“I have Patsy shadowing both houses, in case she goes there. That is not likely, however.”

“Not at all,” replied Chick. “Women don’t fancy dead bodies, and shrink from going where they are. Yet she’s about as bad a trickster in petticoats as I ever met.”

“I’ll go and tell the encouraging news to Flood and Harry Royal,” said Nick. “Then we will get ourselves in shape for the round-up.”

At noon that day the yellow-haired chap, who had been at the Waldorf for nearly ten days, appeared at the famous hotel with a companion—his uncle.

No man, however suspicious, would have recognized Nick in the disguise he then wore.

His face was stained to a hue acquired only by long exposure to the burning sun of the plains. His hair was coarse and black, and a heavy beard concealed the lower portion of his face. Two of his teeth had been “stopped out,” which, when he laughed, gave his mouth a peculiarly repulsive look. His hands gave evidence of much labor, and his figure was rounded at the shoulders and several inches below its normal height. He was clad in a suit characteristic of the part he had assumed, and presented, indeed, a most striking picture.

Precisely at six o’clock, Belle Braddon, arrayed in the height of fashion, arrived in a carriage at the hotel, where Chick received her and took her to his suite of rooms.

He had already cautioned her against appearing to be greatly amused by the oddities and roughness of the Western ranchman; yet when Belle Braddon met Nick and was introduced to him she scarcely could contain herself. She thought for sure that she was up against a genuine Western “Rube.”

A sonorous bass laugh came from Nick when they were introduced, to which was boisterously added, with a familiarity that tickled the girl immensely:

“So you’re the gal my Archie’s run up agin’, are you?”

“I guess I am, sir,” Belle admitted, blushing with affected demureness.

“Waal, to tell the hull truth, Miss Braddon, I’m durned if I don’t ruther envy him,” declared Nick, with blunt heartiness.

The girl laughed, shrugging her shoulders, and appearing greatly flattered, then laid off her wrap to wait for dinner.

It was six o’clock before the meal was served, and Nick dined and wined the party liberally.

During the progress of the dinner, which was served in one of the elaborate private dining-rooms, the project of going out to Godard’s shore house was brought up, and Nick expressed his readiness to give the game a good, handsome play.

“I’ve got money enough—barrels of it,” he declared to Belle, much to her delight. “And it’s meat and drink fur me, lass, to get up agin’ a layout.”

“Then you shall be accommodated,” laughed Belle.

“And I’ll not forget, gal, ’twas you who put us wise to the fun,” added Nick pointedly.

This looked to Belle Braddon like the promise of a reward, and she slyly pressed Nick’s hand under the table.

She received the reward all right—or, at least, what was coming to her.