"Fancy what he must have thought," he chortled. "First the newspaper that sent him scurrying up to the gambling place for more news, or to spread the alarm, and then, while they were sitting about, perhaps while someone was talking about the strange voices they had already heard this morning, suddenly the voice from nowhere. Can you blame them if they thought it was a warning from the grave?"

Whatever actually had happened in the gambling house, the practical effect was all that even Garrick could have desired. Hour after hour, we hung to that car ahead, leaving behind the cities, and pa.s.sing along the regular road through town after town.

Sometimes the road was well oiled, and we would have to drop back a bit to escape too close observation. Then we would strike a stretch where it was dry. The clouds of dust served to hide us. On we went until it was apparent that the man was now headed at least in the direction of Tuxedo.

We now pa.s.sed the boundary between New York state and New Jersey and soon after that came to the house of Dr. Mead where Warrington had been convalescing until Garrick's warning had brought him, still half ill, down to the city to protect Violet Winslow. In fact, the road seemed replete with interesting reminiscences of the case, for a few miles back was the spot where Rena Taylor's body had been found, as well as the garage whence had come the rumour of the blood-stained car. There was no chance to stop and tell the surprised Dr. Mead just what had become of his patient and we had to trust that Warrington would explain his sudden disappearance himself. In fact, Garrick scarcely looked to either the right or left, so intent was he on not missing for an instant the car that was leading us in this long chase.

On we sped, around the bend where Warrington had been held up. It was a nasty curve, even in the daytime.

"I think this fellow ahead noticed the place," gritted Garrick, leaning forward. "He seemed to slow up a bit as he turned. I hope he didn't notice us as he turned his head back slightly."

It made no difference, if he did, for, the curve pa.s.sed, he was evidently feeding the gas faster than ever. We turned the curve also, the forward car something more than a quarter of a mile ahead of us.

"We must take a chance and close up on him," said Garrick, as he, too, accelerated his speed, not a difficult thing to do with the almost perfect racer of Warrington's. "He may turn off at a crossroad at any time, now."

Still our man kept on, bowling northward along the fine state road that led to one of the richest parts of the country.

He came to the attractive entrance to Tuxedo Park. Almost, I had expected him to turn in. At least I should not have been surprised if he had done so.

However, he kept on northward, past the entrance to the Park. We hung doggedly on.

Where was he going? I wondered whether Garrick might have been wrong, after all. Half a mile lengthened into a mile. Still he was speeding on.

But Garrick had guessed right. Sure enough, at a cross road, the other car slowed down, then quickly swung around, off the main road.

"What are you going to do?" I asked Garrick quickly. "If we turn also, that will be too raw. Surely he'll notice that."

"Going to stop," cried Garrick, taking in the situation instantly.

"Come on, Tom, jump out. We'll fake a little tire trouble, in case he should look around and see us stopping here. I'll keep the engine running."

We went back and stood ostentatiously by the rear wheel. Garrick bent over it, keeping his eye fixed on the other car, now perhaps half a mile along on the narrow crossroad.

It neared the top of a hill on the other side of the valley across which the road wound like a thin brown line, then dipped down over the crest and was lost on the other side.

Garrick leaped back into our car and I followed. He turned the bend almost on two wheels, and let her out as we swept down a short hill and then took the gentle incline on high speed, eating up the distance as though it had been inches instead of nearly a mile.

A short distance from the top of the hill, Garrick applied the brake, just in time so that the top of our car would not be visible to one who had pa.s.sed on down the next incline into the valley beyond.

"Let us walk up the rest of the way," he said quickly, "and see what is on the other side of this hill."

We did so cautiously. Far down below us we could see the car which we had been trailing all the way up from the city, threading its way along the country road. We watched it, and as we did so, it slowed up and turned out, running up a sort of lane that led to what looked like a trim little country estate.

The car had stopped at an unpretentious house at the end of the lane.

The driver got out and walked up to the back door, which seemed to be stealthily opened to admit him.

"Good!" exclaimed Garrick. "At last we are on a hot trail!"

CHAPTER XXI

THE SIEGE OF THE BANDITS

As we watched from the top of the hill, I wondered what Garrick's next move was to be. Surely he would not attempt to investigate the place yet. In fact, there seemed to be nothing that could be done now, as long as it was day-light, for any movement in this half-open country would have been viewed with suspicion by the occupants of the little house in the valley, whoever they might be.

We could not help viewing the place with a sort of awe. What secrets did the cottage hide, nestled down there in the valley among these green hills? Often I had heard that the gunmen of New York, when hard pressed, sought refuge in the country districts and mountains within a few miles of the city. There was something incongruous about it. Nature seemed so perfectly peaceful here that it was the very ant.i.thesis of those sections of the city in which he had found the gunman, whoever he was, indulging in practically every crime and vice of decadent civilization.

"So--the one they call the Boss has led up to the refuge of the Chief, the scientific gunman, at last," Garrick exclaimed, with marked satisfaction, as we turned and walked slowly back again to our car.

"Yes," I a.s.sented, "and now that we have found them--what are we to do with them?"

"It is still early in the day," Garrick remarked, looking at his watch.

"They suspect no trouble up here. Here they evidently feel safe. No doubt they think we are still hunting for them fruitlessly in New York.

I think we can afford to leave them here for a few hours. At any rate, I feel that I must return to the city. I must see Dillon, and then drop into my office, if we are to accomplish anything against them."

He had turned the car around and we made our way back to the main road, and then southward again, taking up in earnest the long return trip to the city and covering the distance in Warrington's racer in a much shorter time, now that we had not to follow another car and keep under cover. It was late in the afternoon, however, when we arrived and Garrick went directly to police headquarters where he held a hasty conference with Dillon.

Dillon was even more excited than we were when he learned how far we had gone in tracing out the scant clews that we had uncovered. As Garrick unfolded his plan, the commissioner immediately began to make arrangements to accompany us out into the country that night.

I did not hear all that was said, as Garrick and Dillon laid out their plans, but I could see that they were in perfect accord.

"Very well," I overheard Garrick, as we parted. "I shall go out in the car again. You will be up on the train?"

"Yes--on the seven-fifty," returned Dillon. "You needn't worry about my end of it. I'll be there with the goods--just the thing that you want.

I have it."

"Fine," exclaimed Garrick, "I have to make a call at the office. I'll start as soon as I can, and try to beat you out."

They parted in good humour, for Dillon's pa.s.sion for adventure was now thoroughly aroused and I doubt if we could have driven him off with a club, figuratively speaking.

At the office Garrick tarried only long enough to load the car with some paraphernalia which he had there, much of which, I knew, he had brought back with him after his study of police methods abroad. There were three coats of a peculiar texture, which he took from a wardrobe, a huge arrangement which looked like a reflector, a little thing that looked merely like the mouthpiece of a telephone transmitter, and a large heavy package which might have been anything from a field gun to a battering ram.

It was twilight when we arrived at the nearest railroad station to the little cottage in the valley, after another run up into the country in the car. Dillon who had come up by train to meet us, according to the arrangement with Garrick, was already waiting, and with him was one of the most trustworthy and experienced of the police department chauffeurs. Garrick looked about at the few loungers curiously, but there did not seem to be any of them who took any suspicious interest in new arrivals.

We four managed to crowd into a car built only for two, and Garrick started off. A few minutes later we arrived at the top of the hill from which we had already viewed the mysterious house earlier in the day. It was now quite dark. We had met no one since turning off into the crossroad, and could hear no sound except the continuous music of the night insects.

Just before crossing the brow of the last hill, we halted and Garrick turned out all the lights on the car. He was risking nothing that might lead to discovery yet. With the engine m.u.f.fled down, we coasted slowly down the other side of the hill into the shadowy valley. There was no moon yet and we had to move cautiously, for there was only the faint light of the sky and stars to guide us.

What was the secret of that unpretentious little house below us? We peered out in the gathering blackness eagerly in the direction where we knew it must be, nestled among the trees. Whoever it sheltered was still there, and we could locate the place by a single gleam that came from an upper window. Whether there were lights below, we could not tell. If there were they must have been effectively concealed by blinds and shades.

"We'll stop here," announced Garrick at last when we had reached a point on the road a few hundred yards from the house.

He ran the car carefully off the road and into a little clearing in a clump of dark trees. We got out and pushed stealthily forward through the underbrush to the edge of the woods. There, on the slope, just a little way below us, stood the house of mystery.

Garrick and Dillon were busily conferring in an undertone, as I helped them bring the packages one after another from the car to the edge of the woods. Garrick had slipped the little telephone mouthpiece into his pocket, and was carrying the huge reflector carefully, so that it might not be injured in the darkness. I had the heavy coats of the peculiar texture over my arm, while Dillon and his man struggled along over the uncertain pathway, carrying between them the heavy, long, cylindrical package, which must have weighed some sixty pounds or so.