"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 looke............