Before the last word passed his lips, however, four pairs of hands were in the air. Doctor Willard’s had gone up first, and Grantley’s last.
“Thank you so much!” the detective remarked, with mock politeness. Now, if you will oblige me a little further, by lining up against that right wall, I shall be still more grateful to you. Kindly place yourselves about two feet apart, not less. I want you, Number Sixty Thousand One Thirteen”—Grantley winced at his prison number—“at this end of the line, next to me, with Chester, alias Schofield, next; Graves next to him, and Willard last. You see, I haven’t forgotten any of my old friends.”
This disposition of the trapped quartet was designed to serve two purposes. In the first place, it would remove them from proximity to Helga Lund, who, crouched in the middle of the floor, was watching the detectives with bewildered, uncomprehending eyes. In the second place, it would enable Chick to handcuff them one by one, while Nick stood ready to fire, at an instant’s notice, on any one who made a false move.
It looked, for the time being, as if the capture would be altogether too easy to have any spice in it, but the detectives did not make the mistake of underrating their adversaries—Grantley, especially.
To be sure, they were probably unarmed, and had been taken at such a disadvantage that they would hardly have had an opportunity to draw weapons, even if they had worn them. Still, any one of a number of things might happen.
The four doctors had been caught “with the goods,” as the police saying is, and they might be expected to take desperate chances as soon as they had had time to collect their scattered wits and to realize the seriousness of their plight.
Nick Carter had shown his usual generalship in the orders he had given so crisply.
Grantley himself, the most to be feared of the lot, was to be placed nearest to the detective, where Nick could watch him most narrowly. That was not all, however. The detective meant that Chick should handcuff Grantley first, and thus put the leader out of mischief at the earliest opportunity.
After him, Chester was to be disposed of, and the two that would then remain were comparatively harmless in themselves.
Grantley doubtless saw through Nick’s tactics from the beginning, and if the detective could have caught the gleam behind the wily surgeon’s half-closed lids, he would have known that Grantley thought he saw an opportunity to circumvent those tactics.