Part 48 (1/2)

”I should say I have,” gasped Barnes, ”a most awful chill. But it may pa.s.s off. Excuse me, here's a new policeman I haven't asked yet.” The young man crossed the room to Phelan.

”Have you got a key to these infernal shackles?” he asked, while Sadie looked wonderingly after him.

”I've got a key to nothin',” growled Phelan. ”Don't talk to me--I'd like to kill some of yez.”

Barnes retreated, backing into Mrs. Burton, who turned and seized him.

”Do you know where my niece is?” she demanded.

”Oh, yes, she's here, only you're breaking my arm.”

”Where is she and where is that fiend Gladwin?”

”Oh, _the fiend Gladwin_ just went upstairs to her. She's upstairs asleep.”

”Asleep!”

”Oh, I don't know--go up and find her, that is--I beg your pardon--I'll lead the way--come, Miss Sadie.”

The handcuffed youth led the procession up the stairs, leaving Officer 666 as solitary sentinel in the great drawing room and picture gallery.

”Well, I guess I'm dished fer fair,” groaned Phelan as he mournfully surveyed the deserted room and allowed his eyes to rest on the portrait of a woman who looked out at him from mischievous blue eyes.

”An' all fer a pair o' them eyes,” he added, wistfully. ”'Tis tough.”

He might have gone on at some length with this doleful soliloquy had not a hand suddenly closed over his mouth with the grip of a steel trap.

Alf Wilson had come out of the chest as noiselessly as he had originally entered it and good fortune favored him to the extent of placing Phelan with his back to him while his troubled mind was steeped in a mixture of love and despair.

As the thief pounced upon the ill-fated Officer 666 he uttered, ”Pst!

Pst! Watkins!”

That sinuous individual writhed out of the fireplace and came to his a.s.sistance.

”Get his elbows and put your knee in his back,” instructed the thief, ”while I reach for my ether-gun. Thank G.o.d! Here it is in my pocket.”

Phelan struggled in a fruitless effort to tear himself free, but Wilson's grip was the grip of unyielding withes of steel and the slim and wiry Watkins was just as muscular for his weight.

It was the task of a moment for the picture expert to bring round the little silver device he called his ether-gun. Phelan was gasping for breath through his nostrils, and Wilson had only to press the bulb once or twice before the policeman's muscles relaxed and he fell limply into Watkins's arms.

”That'll hold him for ten minutes at least,” breathed Wilson. ”That's right, Watkins, prop him up while I get his belt and coat off--then into the chest.”

Phelan was completely insensible, but his weight and the squareness of his bulk made it a strenuous task to support him and at the same time remove his coat. Only a man of Wilson's size and prodigious strength could have accomplished the feat in anything like the time required, and both he and Watkins were purple and breathless when they lowered the again unfrocked Officer 666 into the chest and piled portieres and a small Persian rug on top of him.

While Watkins held up the lid the thief tore off his claw-hammer coat and stuffed that down into the chest. In another instant he had forced his shoulders into the uniform coat, donned the cap and buckled on the belt.

”Now break for it, Watkins,” he gasped, fighting the b.u.t.tons into the b.u.t.tonholes. ”Take it easy out the front door. I'll go out on the balcony and call down to the men in the street that it's all right.

Start the engine in the car and keep it going till I can make my getaway. Now!”