“What about the guys in the doorway?” asked Patsy, as he prepared to obey orders.
“I’ll look after them. They’ve got to show me where Chick is.”
“That’s right! Look out, Foxey!”
This last ejaculation had been caused by a sudden twitch on the part of Foxey Irwin, as Patsy, having stepped from one boat to the other, snapped a handcuff on Foxey’s right wrist before he knew what threatened him.
“I’ll croak you when I get out of this, Garvan,” hissed Foxey.
“Maybe! But that will be in about seven years’ time, when you come down from up the river, and there’s no telling what may happen before that,” replied Patsy, undisturbed.
At the same moment he caught Foxey Irwin’s left wrist and trapped it in the other cuff. Patsy had been taught to put on handcuffs long ago, and he could do the work so neatly that it looked like sleight-of-hand to an unaccustomed eye.
Meanwhile, Nick Carter had handcuffed Dugan on his left wrist, holding the other steel bracelet in his own left hand, while his right kept the automatic pointed at Dugan’s forehead.
Then it was that the detective worked a little trick on Larry Dugan and Foxey Irwin that he had found useful in dealing with other gentry of their unscrupulous character.
Suddenly pulling Foxey toward him, while giving Dugan a push, he passed the chain of the loose handcuff around the connecting links on Foxey’s hands, and instantly snapped the manacle on Dugan’s right wrist.