Garrick shook his head. "I can't say," he replied. "There isn't much value in this deductive, long distance detective work. You reason a thing out to your satisfaction and then one little fact knocks all your clever reasoning sky-high. The trouble here is that on this aspect of the case the truth seems to have been known by only two persons--and one of them is dead, while the other has disappeared."

"Strange what has become of Forbes," I ruminated.

"It is indeed," agreed Garrick. "But then he was such a night-hawk that anything might easily have happened and no one be the wiser. Since you saw him enter the gambling joint the night of the raid, I've been unable to get a line on him. He must have gone through the tunnel to the ladies' poolroom, but after he left that, presumably, I can't find a trace of him. Where he went no one seems to know. This bit of gossip that Herman has unearthed is the first thing I've heard of him, definitely, for two days."

"If Rena Taylor were alive," I speculated, "I don't think you'd have to look further for Forbes than to find her."

"But she isn't alive," concluded Garrick, "and there is nothing to show that there was anyone else at the poolroom for women who interested him--and--well, this isn't getting back to business."

He turned toward the street.

"Let's go down on a surface car," he said. "I think we ought to learn something down there at the Old Tavern, now. If these people have done nothing more, they'll think they have at least given an example of their resourcefulness and succeeded in throwing another scare into Warrington. But there's one thing I'd like to be able to tell Mr.

Chief, however. He can't throw any scare into me, if that's his game."

CHAPTER XV

THE PLOT

We had been able to secure a key to the hotel entrance of the Old Tavern, so that we felt free to come and go at any hour of the day or night. We let ourselves in and mounted the stairs cautiously to our room.

"At least they haven't discovered anything, yet," Garrick congratulated himself, looking about, as I struck a light, and finding everything as we had left it.

Late as it was, he picked up the detective receiver of the mechanical eavesdropper and held it to his ears, listening intently several moments.

"There's someone in the garage, all right," he exclaimed. "I can hear sounds as if he were moving about among the cars. It must be the garage keeper himself--the one they call the Boss. I don't think our clever Chief would have the temerity to show up here yet, even at this hour."

We waited some time, but not the sound of a voice came from the instrument.

"It would be just like them to discover one of these detectaphones,"

remarked Garrick at length. "This is a good opportunity. I believe I'll just let myself down there in the yard again and separate those two wires, further. There's no use in risking all the eggs in one basket."

While I listened in, Garrick cautiously got out the rope ladder and descended. Through the detectaphone I could hear the noise of the man walking about the garage and was ready at the window to give Garrick the first alarm of danger if he approached the back of the shop, but nothing happened and he succeeded in accomplishing his purpose of further hiding the two wires and returning safely. Then we resumed listening in relays.

It was early in the morning when there came a telephone call to the garage and the garage keeper answered it.

"Where did you go afterward?" he asked of the man who was calling him.

Garrick had quickly shifted to the instrument by which we could overhear what was said over the telephone.

A voice which I recognised instantly as that of the man they called the Chief replied, "Oh, I had a little business to attend to--you understand. Say, they got that fire out pretty quickly, didn't they?

How do you suppose the alarm could have been turned in so soon?"

"I don't know. But they tell me that Garrick and that other fellow with him showed up, double quick. He must have been wise to something."

"Yes. Do you know, I've been thinking about that ever since. Ever hear of a little thing called a detectaphone? No? Well, it's a little arrangement that can be concealed almost anywhere. I've been wondering whether there might not be one hidden about your garage. He might have put one in that night, you know. I'm sure he knows more about us than he has any right to know. Hunt around there, will you, and see if you can find anything?"

"Hold the wire."

We could hear the Boss poking around in corners, back of the piles of accessories, back of the gasoline tank, lifting things up and looking under them, apparently flashing his light everywhere so that nothing could escape him.

A hasty exclamation was recorded faithfully over our detectaphone, close to the transmitter, evidently.

"What the deuce is this?" growled a voice.

Then over the telephone we could hear the Boss talking.

"There's a round black thing back of a pile of tires, with a wire connected to it. One side of it is full of little round holes. Is that one of those things?"

"Yes," came back the voice, "that's it." Then excitedly, "Smash it! Cut the wires--no, wait--look and see where they run. I thought you'd find something. Curse me for a fool for not thinking of that before."

Garrick had quickly himself detached the wire from the receiving instrument in our room and, sticking his head cautiously out of the window, he swung the cut ends as far as he could in the direction of a big iron-shuttered warehouse down the street in the opposite direction from us.

Then he closed the window softly and pulled down the switch on the other detectaphone connected with the fake telephone receiver.

He smiled quietly at me. The thing worked still. We had one connection left with the garage, anyway.

There was a noise of something being shattered to bits. It was the black disc back of the pile of tires. We could hear the Boss muttering to himself.

"Say," he reported back over the telephone, "I've smashed the thing, all right, and cut the wires, too. They ran out of the back window to that mercantile warehouse, down the street, I think. I'll look after that in the morning. It's so dark over there now I can't see a thing."

"Good!" exclaimed the other voice with satisfaction. "Now we can talk.

That fellow Garrick isn't such a wise guy, after all. I tell you, Boss, I'm going to throw a good scare into them this time--one that will stick."

"What is it?"

"Well, I got Warrington, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"You know I can't always be following that fellow, Garrick. He's too clever at dodging shadows. Besides, unless we give him something else to think about he may get a line on one of us,--on me. Don't you understand? Warrington's out of it for the present. I saw to that. Now, the thing is to fix up something to call them off, altogether, something that we can use to hold them up."

"Yes--go on--what?"

"Why--how about Violet Winslow?"

My heart actually skipped beating for a second or two as I realised the boldness and desperation of the plan.

"What do you mean--a robbery up there in Tuxedo?"

"No, no, no. What good would a robbery do? I mean to get her--kidnap her. I guess Warrington would call the whole thing off to release her--eh?"

"Say, Chief, that's going it pretty strong. I'd rather break in up there and leave a threat of some kind, something that would frighten them. But, this,--I'm afraid--"

"Afraid--nothing. I tell you, we've got to do it. They're getting too close to us. We've either got to get Garrick or do something that'll call him off for good. Why, man, the whole game is up if he keeps on the way he has been going--let alone the risk we have of getting caught."