Another was tall and gaunt, with squinted eyes and cadaverous countenance; while the third was a square-shouldered, powerful man of fifty, with a smoothly shaved, hard-featured face, evincing imperious will and bulldog aggressiveness.
Patsy instantly recognized the last two men, both crooks and cracksmen of national reputation, and he also realized more keenly that he was carrying his life in his hand.
“Blink Morgan and Ginger Gridley,” he said to himself. “I’m in right, by thunder, if I can only stay right and keep things coming my way. If not—gee! I can see my finish.”
These thoughts flashed through Patsy’s mind while Gridley, striding from the house, cried harshly:
“What’s this, Turk? What’s the meaning of this? Why——”
“Oh, you back up, Ginger, till I have time to explain,” Magill interrupted, springing from the car. “Lend a hand, Morgan, and take this skirt inside. She’s the cat who queered our game last night. We’ve got her where we want her, now, all right. Take her in.”
The cadaverous man with squinted eyes, from which he derived his nickname, hastened to obey, Magill having rudely forced the woman to get out of the car while he was speaking, and she then was seized by Morgan and hurried into the house.
Gridley, in the meantime, whom Patsy knew must be the leader of the gang, gazed with frowning eyes from one to the other, and then sternly repeated his question:
“What’s the meaning of this, Magill? Why have you brought her here?”
“Because she wouldn’t yield to persuasion,” Magill curtly declared. “We must force her to tell what we want to know. That could not be done without bringing her here.”