He dived straight through it, carrying away panes and sashes, and vanished on the instant in the gathering dusk outside.
Patsy bounded to the window and looked out.
He saw the splash of falling spray where the man had gone down in the black, swirling waters of the river. He waited and watched—but watched vainly.
No head rose to the surface—no form to tell that Gaston Goulard had not paid the price for his crimes.
The arrest and incarceration of the other crooks were easily and quickly accomplished. Sadie Badger already had been arrested, and was on her way with Slugger Sloan to the precinct station. All were in custody before six o’clock that evening.
In a room back of some lime barrels in a corner of the loft, was found not only Juan Padillo, gagged and bound hand and foot, but also the suit case and its contents—both held there by the Badger gang until they learned what course the police investigations were likely to take.
Nick Carter and his assistants had showed them much sooner than they had anticipated.
The story told by Padillo, whose relief and gratitude were utterly beyond expression, confirmed all of Nick’s deductions from the evidence he had gathered.
It appeared that Goulard and Taggart, contemplating a burglary in the Mantell mansion, had come there to look over the ground on the very night Frank read the Vandyke letter to his wife and parents. The crooks overheard him, as Nick had suspected, and at once framed up the job to get Padillo and his war prize. Not sure that they remembered the letter perfectly, Goulard had stolen into the house one day, picking the lock of the desk and making a copy of the letter during the night, and successfully stealing out of the house the following morning.
While discussing their scheme with Sloan in a barroom a few days later, they were overheard by Ben Badger, who was in an adjoining booth. He at once framed up a job with his gang, or the men included in it, to get into the Manhattanville house before Goulard arrived from the vessel with his victim, and to get away with him and his suit case.