"I'll tell you why I'm here," declared Cardona plainly. "I'm looking in on a bunch of phony spirit mediums. That's where I was bound to-night. There's a woman named Plunket who runs a fortune-telling graft right near where you grabbed me."
"Yeah?" questioned Milligan, in derision. "You can't get away with that stall, Cardona. That may be your blind. But I've got a tip that you're out here to make trouble for us. What do you think of that?"
"You've got the wrong lay," declared Cardona frankly.
"I have, eh?" quizzed Milligan angrily. "Well, I'm going to find out about it! Savvy?? Bring him along." The last words were addressed to the other gangsters. One opened a door and turned on a light. Cardona was forced down another pair of steps into a cellar room.
There was a small platform in the corner; above it was a horizontal rack with a roller and a handle that resembled a clothes wringer.
While one of the gangsters held an automatic against Cardona's ribs, Milligan advanced and pressed a knob on the wall some distance from the rack. The platform tilted forward and extended into a black hole on the floor. Milligan pressed a second knob. The platform moved up again. The gangsters were binding Cardona's arms with ropes. They shoved the detective onto the treacherous platform, and hooked the ropes to the roller by the wall. One man turned the handle, and the ropes tightened, drawing Cardona back, almost to the wall.
"You've heard it said that gangsters don't talk," declared Milligan, to Cardona. "You're going to learn different, now. This is the place where they talk — when that roller begins to work. And when we're through with them" — the gangster motioned significantly to the knob on the wall — "that's the end.
"That hole underneath you is big enough, Cardona! Big enough to hide you along with others that have disappeared!"
Cardona knew well that a certain number of gangsters disappeared annually in Chicago. It was supposed that they were bumped off and left in vacant lots and other spots, in accordance with the usual scheme of things.
The usual idea was that only a certain percentage of the slain victims were discovered; for bodies frequently came to light in obscure places.