Part 14 (1/2)

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 a.s.sisted me over to a cus.h.i.+oned 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 cus.h.i.+on 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 looked again to discover traces of blood. But there was none anywhere.

”We were all put out of business,” muttered Garrick, as he worked over Dillon. Dillon opened his eyes blankly at last, then struggled up to his feet. ”You got it worst, commissioner,” remarked Garrick to him.

”You were closest.”

”Got what?” he sputtered, ”Was closest to what?”

We were all still choking over the peculiar odor in the fetid air about us.

”The bulletless gun,” replied Garrick.

Dillon looked at him a moment incredulously, in spite even of his trying physical condition.

”It is a German invention,” Garrick went on to explain, clearing his throat, ”and shoots, instead of bullets, a stupefying gas which temporarily blinds and chokes its victims. The fellow who was in here didn't shoot bullets at us. He evidently didn't care about adding any more crimes to his list just now. Perhaps he thought that if he killed any of us there would be too much of a row. I'm glad it was as it was, anyway. He got us all, this way, before we knew it. Perhaps that was the reason he used the gun, for if he had shot one of us with a pistol I had my own automatic ready myself to blaze away. This way he got me, too.

”A stupefying gun!” repeated Dillon. ”I should say so. I don't know what happened--yet,” he added, blinking.

”I came to first,” went on Garrick, now busily looking about, as we were all recovered. ”I found that none of us was wounded, and so I guessed what had happened. However, while we were unconscious the villain, whoever he was, succeeded in running his car out of the garage and getting away. He locked the door after him, but I have managed to work it open again.”

Garrick was now examining the floor of the garage, turning the headlight of the machine as much as he could on successive parts of the floor.

”By George, Tom,” he exclaimed to me suddenly, ”see those marks in the grease? Do you recognize them by this time? It is the same tire-mark again--Warrington's car--without a doubt!”

Dillon had taken the photographs which Garrick had made several days before from the prints left by the side of the road in New Jersey, and was comparing them himself with the marks on the floor of the garage, while Garrick explained them to him hurriedly, as he had already done to me.

”We are getting closer to him, every time,'” remarked Garrick. ”Even if he did get away, we are on the trail and know that it is the right one.

He could not have been at the gambling joint, or he would never have called up. Yet he must have known all about it. This has turned out better than I expected. I suppose you don't feel so, but you must think so.”

It was difficult not to catch the contagion of Garrick's enthusiasm.

Dillon grunted a.s.sent.

”This garage,” he put in, looking it over critically, ”must act as a fence for stolen cars and parts of cars. See, there over in the corner is the stuff for painting new license numbers. Here's enough material to rebuild a half dozen cars. Yes, this is one of the places that ought to interest you and McBirney, Garrick. I'll bet the fellow who owns this place is one of those who'd engage to sell you a second-hand car of any make you wanted to name. Then he'd go out on the street and hunt around until he got one. Of course, we'll find out his name, but I'll wager that when we get the nominal owner we won't be able to extract a thing from him in the way of actual facts.”