_ CHAPTER XXI. A BOUT IN THE CELLAR
It was a stout tin lamp that the fleeing girl held in her hand, and the blaze filled the subterranean apartment but dimly.
She found herself in a square room, larger than the one she had just left. Advancing to a door she tried it, to find it locked. This was made to yield, however, by one of the bunch of keys, and she proceeded to another door that stood ajar.
"Help!"
It was a smothered cry that reached the girl's ears, and quite startled her.
The sound came from the next apartment. For a minute Nell Darrel hesitated. She reasoned that she had nothing to fear from the hag who kept the place, and one who was in need of help certainly could not be a friend to Mrs. Scarlet, or those who profited by the old woman's villainy.
"Help!"
Again came that cry, and Nell moved forward, pushed open the door and flashed her light over the scene--a room much smaller than the one she had just quitted.
A dark object writhing on the floor startled her vision.
"Old woman, do you mean to murder me here?"
The man seemed to imagine that the new comer was the hag who kept the place. With trembling step Nell Darrel advanced and flashed her light into the face of a bound and helpless prisoner.
"Mercy! It is Dyke!"
Stunned at the discovery, Nell was completely overcome for the time, and stood with arms extended like one petrified.
"Nell, is it you?" cried the yet stunned detective. "Where is the old hag who rules this den of iniquity?"
"Back yonder, safely locked in a room," said Nell, when she could find voice.
"And you did it?"
"Yes."
"Cut these cords, brave girl, and we will soon be out of this."
Placing her lamp on a box near, Nell Darrel proceeded to comply with the request of her brother. She had with her a small open knife, and this came into play neatly enough.
Soon the detective's limbs were free. He found when he attempted to rise, that he was unable to do so.
"I received a bad fall," he said, with a groan. "Lend me a hand, Nell, and we will get out of this before friends of that woman come to her rescue."
Nell assisted her brother to his feet. He groaned with pain, for it seemed to him as though every bone in his body was broken.
"I was a fool to run into such a trap," he muttered.
"Can you walk, brother?"
"I can make a desperate try at any rate," uttered the detective, grimly. Then, assisted by Nell's arm, he hobbled across the floor toward a narrow stairs that promised them passage to rooms above.
The beard and wig were left in the cellar.
The sound of steps on the floor overhead brought brother and sister to a sudden halt.
"Hark!"
"Some one is coming," uttered Nell.
"It seems so."
Then the sound of an opening door startled them.
"It's strange that Madge has left everything in such a careless way," said a masculine voice. "Ho! Madge, where are you?"
"Hold up thar," uttered another voice. "I reckin the old gal know'd what she was doin'. Thar's some skulduggery goin' on down here, or my name ain't Nick Brower. I seed an old bloke come in, and 'twixt me an you, Professor, it was the man you'n me would give more to see out of the world than in it."
"You mean Dyke Darrel, the detective?"
"I couldn't mean anybody else."
"Come on, then, let's investigate."
"Extinguish your light, Nell," cried Dyke Darrel, in a thrilling whisper.
The girl did so at once, but the men above flashed a light into the basement room, and soon steps were heard descending the stairs. Dyke felt over his person to discover that Mother Scarlet had been prudent enough to deprive him of arms.
Nell, white as death, yet with a determined look in her eyes, clinched her derringer firmly, and with close-shut teeth waited the denouement.
"If we could only get under the stairs," said the detective, in a low voice.
They made a move to carry out his suggestion, but it was too late.
"Ha!"
This exclamation fell from the lips of the foremost man of three who were descending the narrow stairs. The outcry was caused at seeing two forms gliding across the stone floor toward the stairs.
"Quick! Hold up there, or we fire!" cried a sharp voice. Then the three men rapidly descended to the floor and confronted Nell and the detective. Three revolvers were leveled, and death literally stared brother and sister in the face.
"Caught, by the powers," sneered lips above a massive red beard, and Professor Darlington Ruggles' eyes glittered with intense satisfaction as they peered into the face of the famous railroad detective.
Had Dyke Darrel been in the full vigor of his manly strength, and Nell not by to unnerve him, his chances for escape would have been tenfold greater.
As it was, a terrible weakness oppressed him. His fall into the basement had jarred him terribly, and it was with difficulty that he could stand alone. The walls seemed to whirl about in a mad waltz, and the faces of the three villains seemed one mass of grinning demons.
"Halt!"
Nell Darrel, white as death, yet with the fires of a resolute purpose blazing in her eyes, thrust forward her pistol.
"It's pretty Nell on a lark!" exclaimed Professor Ruggles. "It will be better for you not to make any resistance, for the moment you attempt it, that moment death will come to both of you. Be wise in time."
The Professor advanced a step.
"Stop there," sternly ordered the girl.
"Aye! stop there," repeated Dyke, in a voice husky from very weakness. "We will not be taken alive. Do you know on what dangerous grounds you are treading? This block is surrounded by members of the force, and any harm offered to Nell or myself speedily avenged."
A jeering laugh answered the detective.
"It is wrong to tell such a whopper, Mr. Darrel, especially when one is on the verge of eternity," said Ruggles, showing his teeth.
The situation was interesting.
"Will you permit us to depart from here?" questioned the detective, suddenly.
This speech brought a laugh to the lips of Darlington Ruggles.
"You do not seem to know me!" he said.
"I know that you pretend to be a professor of some sort, but I believe that you are in disguise. I think, if you would cast aside that red hirsute covering, we should see----"
"Zounds! Go for him, boys," cried Professor Ruggles in a loud voice, completely drowning the faint accents of Dyke Darrel.
The two men who kept the Professor company, made a quick move to seize the twain in front of them. On the instant came a flash and sharp report.
One of the villains staggered and sank with a groan against the stairs.
"I--I'm shot!" he gasped.
"The she jade!"
It was Nick Brower who uttered the hissing cry of rage, and the next instant the villain's revolver flashed.
"My God! You have killed Nell!"
It was a cry expressive of the deepest agony, as the weak and reeling detective caught the form of his sister in his arms, as she fell backward, with the blood streaming down her face.
Poor Nell!
She hung a dead weight in the arms of Dyke Darrel--murdered by the hand of a brutal assassin.
No wonder the bruised and almost helpless man-hunter groaned with inward anguish at the sight.
He fell no easy prey into the hands of his enemies, however.
Staggering backward, and easing his bleeding relative to the ground, he turned with a mad cry and dashed at the throat of Professor Darlington Ruggles.
Both men staggered across the floor against the stairs.
"I will strangle you for this," hissed the enraged detective.
"Help!" gasped Ruggles.
Brower came to his assistance with a vengeance, and rained terrific blows upon the head of Dyke Darrel with the butt of his revolver. Soon the mad grip relaxed from the throat of Ruggles, and Dyke Darrel sank a bleeding and insensible mass to the floor.
Panting and gasping, Professor Ruggles leaned against the stairs and gazed about him in the gloom.
The lamp had been overturned in the struggle, and at the last, darkness reigned supreme.
"I've fixed him, Professor," growled Nick Brower, in a savage undertone.
"I hope so, the devil. He went for me with the venom of a tiger. Have you a match?"
"Yes."
"Let's have a light. I'm afraid you have done a miserable job, Nick."
Inside of five minutes the overturned lamp was recovered and burning once more. Its rays revealed a ghastly scene. Two forms lay on the floor, Dyke Darrel and Nell, both apparently dead.
Nick's companion, who had screamed so lustily at the fire from Nell Darrel's derringer, still leaned against the stairs seeming little the worse for wear.
"Mike, where are you hit?"
"Don't know. I FELT the bullet goin' through my brains."
A brief examination showed that the man had only been grazed by the shot from the girl's pistol. When this discovery was made Professor Ruggles became very angry.
"You made more fuss than a man shot through the neck ought to. The girl has been killed in consequence. Hades! this has been a bad evening's work. I would rather have lost a thousand dollars than had Nell Darrel slain."
"She wan't wuth no sich money," growled Brower.
"How do you know what she was worth, you miserable brute?" snarled the Professor, in an angry voice. "I take it, that I know more about it than you do."
"See here, boss, aren't you goin' on a bin run for nothin'? Whar'd you be now if I hadn't gin Dyke Darrel his quietus? Mebbe you'd better thank instead of curse your friend."
There was a deal of homely sense in the words of burly Nick Brower, and the prince of villains realized it.
"I wanted the girl unharmed, Nick. If she's dead I don't suppose it can be helped, however; she brought her fate upon herself."
"That she did, Prof."
Professor Ruggles then proceeded to make an examination of the wound in Nell Darrel's head. He was gratified to discover that the bullet had merely glanced across the girl's skull without making a necessarily dangerous wound.
"I will take the girl out of this while you dispose of the detective," said Ruggles. "Be sure and fix him so that he will give no trouble in the future."
"Trust me fur thet," answered the villain Brower.
Then Professor Ruggles passed up the stairs with Nell Darrel in his arms, just as four men halted at the side door in the alley. _