The Great Drought
Page 5
fresh beam of light made apath through the darkness and Carnes could see his opponents lyingprone on the marsh. A cry of dismay came from them. Carnes fired againas he rushed forward. The men leaped to their feet and fled away intothe darkness.
"Your light, Dillon!" he cried.
Dillon's light shone out and picked up one of the fleeing figures. Thebeam from the left was centered on another.
"Halt!" came a stern voice from behind the light. "You are surrounded!If I give the word to fire, you are dead men!"
"Dr. Bird!" cried Carnes in amazement.
* * * * *
The fleeing man in the beam of Dillon's light paused.
"Drop your gun!" cried Carnes sharply.
There was a moment of hesitation before the man's gun fell and hishands went up.
"Get him, Carnes!" came Dr. Bird's voice. "I've got another one heldout here. I hope one of them is the man we want."
As Dillon slipped handcuffs on his prisoner, Dr. Bird came forward,driving another Russian before him. In his hand was a piece of ironpipe.
"Cuff him, Carnes!" he said.
The detective slipped handcuffs on the man while Dr. Bird bent downand examined the face of each of the prisoners with his light. Hestraightened up with an exclamation of anger.
"These are nothing but tools," he said bitterly. "We had thearch-conspirator himself in our hands and let him escape."
"The arch-conspirator!" gasped Carnes. "You don't mean Saranoff?"
"Yes, Ivan Saranoff. He was here on this marsh to-night. There werefour of his men and we got two, letting the most important one getaway."
"You've got four, Dr. Bird," said a guttural voice from the dark.
Dr. Bird whirled around and shot out the beam of his light. A thirdRussian was revealed in its gleam.
"Hands up!" cried the doctor.
"I'm willing to be captured, Doctor," said the Russian. "Your searchfor Saranoff is useless. He has been gone for an hour. He is not oneto risk his own skin when others will risk theirs for him. He fledafter he left the cave."
"Do you know where he has gone?"
"I wish I did, Doctor. If I knew, we'd soon have him, I hope."
The Russian's voice had changed entirely. Gone were the heavy gutturaltones. In their place was a rich, rather throaty contralto. Carnesgave a cry of astonishment and turned his light on the prisoner.
"Thelma!" he gasped.
* * * * *
The Russian smiled.
"Surely, Mr. Carnes," she said. "Congratulations on your acumen. Dr.Bird saw me for half an hour this evening, but he didn't recognize me.He even knocked me out with his fist back in the cavern."
"The devil I did!" gasped the doctor. "What were you doing there?"
"Helping Saranoff capture you, Doctor," she replied. "The day youleft, I saw one of his men on the street. I dared not summon help lesthe should escape, so I followed him. I captured him and learned fromhim the location of the gang headquarters.
"I disguised myself and took his place for a week, fooling them all,even Saranoff himself. I was one of those chosen to carry out yourcapture and your murder. This afternoon, unknown to Saranoff, Itampered with that radite can and removed the fuse. That was why therewas no explosion when Mr. Carnes cut the wire. I had no chance to warnhim. I managed to shoot one of Saranoff's men when they broke andran."
Her voice trembled in the darkness.
"I hated to kill him--" she said with a half sob.
A faint hail came from the night.
"Haggerty!" cried Carnes.
"All right, Chief," came Dillon's voice. "He's got a bullet in hisshoulder and one through his leg, but no bones broken. He'll be allright."
Carnes turned again to the girl.
"What about that Russian whose place you took?" he asked. "Maybe wecan pump something out of him."
Thelma swayed for a moment.
"Don't, Mr. Carnes," she cried, her voice rising almost to a shriek."Don't make me think of it! I--I had to--to stab him!"
She swayed again. Carnes started toward her, his arms outstretched.Dr. Bird's voice stopped him.
"Miss Andrews," said the doctor sternly, "you know that I demandcontrol of the emotions from all my subordinates. You are crying likea hysterical schoolgirl. Unless you can learn to control your feelingsinstead of giving way to them on every occasion, I will have todispense with your further services."
The girl swayed toward him for a moment, a look of pain in her eyes.She shuddered and then recovered herself. She straightened up andfaced Dr. Bird boldly.
"Yes, Doctor," came in level expressionless tones from her lips.
* * * * *