There were three men seated about a table in the room, and they were completely taken by surprise. They started to their feet with muttered exclamations of anger and astonishment, staring with wide eyes at the four pistols levelled at them from the doorway.
One man hesitated and made a move as if to reach around towards his hip pocket, but Sergeant Riley was alert.
"None of that," he cried. "Put up your hands."
The man hastened to obey and together the three stood and faced their captors. Sullen and angry they looked, and not one of them spoke.
"Now, Marshal," said Sergeant Riley, speaking to the policeman next to him. "I wish you would be so good as to relieve these gentlemen of any hardware they may have concealed about them."
While Riley and Bob and Hugh covered the three prisoners, the officer went rapidly from one to another and took a revolver from each one of them. He also examined their other pockets, but finding no additional weapons returned to his post by the door.
While this little drama was being enacted Bob had a chance to look about the room. It was scantily furnished, a table, four chairs, and a shelf along the wall constituting its equipment. On the shelf were a dozen or more bottles that looked as if they might contain chemicals; a square black box stood on the table and also a brass spring and what resembled a cord hanging from one side. Bob decided it was a bomb. From a nail in the center of the ceiling a small alligator was suspended by its tail. Bob recognized the missing Percy, and decided that this must be the headquarters of the gang that had used an alligator as its symbol, and traced a picture of it on all the notes and warnings they sent out.
While the furnishings of the room were interesting, the three men captured were far more so, and as Bob saw one of them he experienced a distinct shock. The first was a man with dark hair, weighing perhaps one hundred and fifty pounds, and having a close-cropped mustache; the fake detective beyond a doubt. The second was a thin, wiry individual with a beard, and a swollen, red nose. He was the man who had escaped from his and Hugh's hands at the factory, Bob decided. His nose was swollen where Hugh had hit him. This must be the man who had set off the bomb.
The third prisoner was the one who furnished the surprise to Bob, however. He was a man Bob had known for years, and liked, admired, and trusted as well. He was Karl Hoffmann.
"Well," exclaimed Sergeant Riley, "it looks as if you men was through with your work. Get out your handcuffs, Marshal."