“One of you watch this front door,” he directed, in whispers. “The others follow me. Guns ready!”
Chick did not wait for an answer. He plunged through the alley, the policemen after him, and arrived in the yard, a veritable rat trap, just as Floyd switched on the electric light.
“Hands up!” Chick cried. “We’ve got you covered, Floyd. You, too, Gammon! You’ll be dead ones if you show fight.”
The policemen were not idle while Chick spoke. Both bored in upon the three cornered crooks, and Floyd and Gammon found themselves with revolvers at their heads.
Hogan uttered a groan, and threw up his hands.
Patsy Garvan came crawling out of the cellar at the same moment, only a bit bruised by his fall. He also had a gun in his hand—and that settled it.
The arrest of the entire gang was easily made, and thirty minutes saw all except Sir Edward Chadwick locked in the precinct station. Word then was sent to Nick, who then turned his man over to the police, and the case was practically ended.
For Lord Archie Waldmere was found confined in an ice box in the Hogan cellar, not much the worse for his distressful experience, he having been lured away and overcome precisely as Nick had deduced from the surrounding circumstances.
It would be vain to attempt describing his gratitude to the Carters, as well as that of his wife, or the amazement with which he learned of the treachery of his uncle and the altered sentiments of his dying father. It opened the way for him to a new life in England, or to a renewal of the old, and he took it later with the willing consent of Lady Waldmere.
But neither ever forgot the Carters, or failed to visit them when in the States.