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Photographer's Evidence

[91] <h2>CHAPTER VIII. THE RANSOM.</h2> Harry had brought down what the leader of the gang called “the goods.” This was a parcel of papers done up in red tape. It was laid on the kitchen table, and Snell began to count out the money that he had shown a few minutes before. “I have forty thousand dollars here,” he remarked. “Ought to be twice that!” growled the leader. “That was the price agreed on with Leonard, wasn’t it?” “Go ahead.” “You haven’t produced the goods.” Snell, or, rather, Gov. Bradley, stopped counting out the money, and looked straight at the leader. “Plank down the money!” ordered the leader, harshly. Just then there was a furious knocking at both the back and front doors. Loud voices—there seemed to be a dozen of them—were crying: “Surrender, in the name of the law!” [92] “We’re done!” gasped the leader, starting up, and lifting his revolver, “and by thunder! I know who done it! You, Harry, you sneak, with your argument——” “I haven’t given you away, Hamilton,” cried Harry, “I swear——” He got no further, for Hamilton, the leader, fired. Harry groaned and staggered to the cellar door. He grasped the handle to keep from falling. It turned, the door opened, and he plunged headlong down the stairs. All the other men were starting up in great confusion. “Kill the governor!” they cried. “No!” shouted Hamilton; “there’ll be more in him than in anything else. Take him with us.” Then he added, in a lower tone: “Side door, boys. Nobody seems to be there. They’ve forgotten the side door!” He seized the governor as he spoke, and pushed him from the room. Others helped, and both the governor and Leonard were hustled out. All the things on the table—money and papers—were swept off by somebody. [93] A door crashed in, and next instant Nick Carter leaped into the room. He was greeted by a pistol shot from one of the ruffians. It missed him. Many voices were heard, calling, ordering, cursing. Dinsmore rushed in from the front. “Heaven!” he gasped, “the governor’s voice. He’s calling for help. After him, Nick, and rescue him.” Together they made for the side door. They overtook some of the gang there and Nick laid them flat with giant blows from his fists. Then they went on. Over a fence at a little distance a number of men were seen climbing. A pistol shot from Nick dropped one. The rest ran on. Nick and Dinsmore dashed off in pursuit, their one hope being to rescue the governor, who had foolishly tried to do his own detective work. *   *   *   *   * Patsy felt as if a fearfully heavy blanket lay upon him. [94] Slowly, for he was less than half-awake, he put up his hands to brush the blanket away. It was too heavy, and he wondered. Then he opened his eyes. It was rather a dark place, and rough, unfinished ceiling overhead. He saw that first, naturally, for he was lying on his back. “By Jumbo!” he muttered, beginning to remember, “I thought I was dead.” He looked down, raising his head a little, and saw with horror that what he thought was a heavy blanket was the body of a young man. There was an open knife in the young man’s hand. “It’s the fellow they called Harry!” said Patsy to himself, sitting up now and carefully lifting the body away. “What the mischief does it all mean?” His memory was returning fast. He recalled now how he had been carried down to this cellar to be suffocated with gas. That was early last night. It was now day, as he could tell from the light at one dusty window. [95] Besides, the cellar door was open, the one opening into the passage through which he had been taken. His hands had been bound so hard that he could not loose them, and now they were free! “How did that hap——” He looked at the cord that had been around his wrists. It was cut through. Nothing could be clearer than that smooth mark of a sharp knife. The detective looked at the knife in Harry’s dead hand. “That’s it!” he said, softly. “The poor fellow tried to save me, and he came pretty near doing it.” He tried to take the knife from Harry’s hand, but the stiffened fingers held it tight. His own knife was in his pocket, and with that he cut the cord around his ankles. Then he got up. His head still swam, and he was weak, but his strength came back rapidly. Going to the wall, he found the gas jet. The cock had been turned square off. “Harry did it,” he whispered. “Poor fellow! I remember how he couldn’t stand the idea of my being murdered.[96] His coming in and leaving the door open, ventilated the place, and so I didn’t die of suffocation. Poor chap! he meant well. I wonder how he came to be shot?” Shot he was, as the detective could see from the wound in the young man’s breast. Patsy stood still for a full minute. “Hang me!” he exclaimed, “if it doesn’t seem as wonderful as if I was dead!” He felt for his revolver. One had been taken away from him, but he had the other, and, with this in his hand, he went upstairs. The house was very still. In the kitchen he found overturned chairs and other signs of disorder. “There was a ruction of some kind,” he concluded. He wasn’t sure just what he ought to do, and decided that before he tried to form a plan he would explore the house. Nothing attracted his attention in the rooms of the ground floor, and it was the same on the next floor. They were ordinary rooms, furnished cheaply. The detective looked into bureau drawers, not because[97] he was expecting to find anything, but to see if there was any evidence that the house was regularly occupied. There was none. All the drawers were empty. Opening a door, he found himself at the foot of the stairs to the attic. “Might as well take it all in,” he thought, and he started up. The third step was loose, and came up when he put his foot on it. At once he pulled the board away. He saw something that made his eyes bulge. A box had been made beneath the step, and, lying in it, were two packets of papers done up in red ribbon, and a great quantity of money in big bills. He took out and counted twenty one-thousand-dollar bills, and twenty thousand more dollars in bills of five and one hundred. “Whew!” he whistled, sitting down and looking at his find. A sound startled him. It came from above. A faint, weak voice—a woman’s, apparently. It seemed to be calling for help. [98] Patsy stuffed the money in his pockets, and bounded up the attic stairs. Under the unfinished loft on a couch of blankets he saw a young woman lying. She was tied to the place so that she could turn over only with difficulty. “Good gracious!” he cried, “who are you? What does this mean? Have you been hurt?” “No,” she answered, weakly, “but I am so weak and hungry. They haven’t given me anything to eat or drink for more than a day. I suppose they have forgotten me. I am Estelle Bradley, sir. If you would only get word to my father! He is the Governor of Wenonah, and I know he would reward you!” “Don’t try to talk, Miss Bradley,” interrupted Patsy. He was stooping to cut the cords that bound her to the floor. When this was done, he helped her to her feet and then downstairs. On the way, he took the papers he had seen in the box, and put them in his pockets. She told him, when he explained that he was a detective, how she had been deceived by a message that was supposed to be sent by her lover, Cecil West. [99] “It was handed to me during a party at my father’s house,” she said, “and it told me that Cecil was lying dangerously wounded not far away. I went at once to see him, and was seized by rough men, who brought me here and have kept me ever since.” Patsy took her to a hotel, where they had breakfast. Then, knowing nothing of Nick’s journey to the West, he arranged for taking her home. They started on a train that left Helena just as Nick and Dinsmore returned after a successful chase of the ruffians. It had taken them most of the night, but they had rescued the governor and caught three of the gang, though Hamilton, the leader, had escaped. Leonard had been shot through the heart by the leader when it came to the last fight out in the hills miles beyond Helena. The governor confessed bitterly that he and Leonard had been engaged in a business that could not be called quite square years before. “For my reputation,” said the governor, “I had to keep certain papers, and Leonard wanted them, fearing that I[100] would give them up some time, and so ruin him. We feared each other. “So he hired a band of ruffians to steal the papers. They not only stole mine, but, without knowing it, a number of government documents, also. Then, to make a complete job of it, they kidnaped my daughter. “I dared not trust my secrets to the police, or to you, Mr. Carter. When Leonard found that the ruffians would not give up the papers without an immense ransom, that he was unable to pay, he told me what he had done. It was for the interest of both of us to keep the matter dark, and he thought he could drive a bargain with the thieves. “So I got together all the cash I could and we tried it. “We went from city to city, but whether Leonard saw the leader anywhere, I do not know. At last, I told him I should give the matter to Nick Carter. “Leonard threatened to kill me if I did so. He nearly succeeded, as, perhaps, you know. At last, he said we should find that gang in Helena, and that by this time they would be willing to come to my terms—forty thousand dollars—their first bid having been for a hundred thousand. [101] “We came to Helena, Leonard taking a different route from Chicago, in order to give the word to the gang, who, he said, were mostly at the North. “I came here and went, as he told me, to a low saloon, where I stayed till he came, and the rest you know.” “Not quite all,” said Nick; “wasn’t there a man on your track all this time?” “Not that I know of, though yesterday a stranger was found spying on us. The gang killed him.” “How? When? Where?” demanded Nick, anxiously. Gov. Bradley told him about the way the stranger was put down the cellar. “And I was there,” thought Nick, with deep sorrow, “perhaps in time to save him! I wish I had let the governor go.” They went to the house, and found it deserted by all, save the dead Harry. What Nick saw, though, the open knife, the cut cords, convinced him that Patsy had made his escape. But the case did not seem to be finished, for the valuable papers and the governor’s daughter were still missing, to say nothing of the great ransom that had been paid down. [102] So Nick went with the governor to Manchester, and there found Patsy, Miss Estelle, and all that the governor had been looking for. It is supposed that one of the gang hid the papers and the money in the box under the stairs during the confusion of the attempt to escape. “It was a clever move,” said Nick, discussing it; “for the rascal must have known that some, if not all the gang, would be captured, and it would be foolish to have the stuff captured with them. So he took the chance of hiding it, meaning to go back some time, next day, probably, and get it.” Gov. Bradley offered to pay Nick and Patsy for their services. “I don’t think we want any pay,” replied Nick. “We’ve had a good time out of it, and we weren’t engaged on the matter at all. But I’d like to ask two favors.” “They shall be granted,” said the governor. “First, then, when you have detective work to do in the future, don’t try to do it yourself.” “That’s easy,” laughed the governor; “you may be sure I shan’t try that sort of thing again.” [103] “The second,” said Nick, “is that you consent to the marriage of your daughter and Cecil West. He’s a fine young man——” “I yield,” interrupted Gov. Bradley. “I will send for West at once.” <hr class="chap" /></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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