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THE BOMB RUSE.
At Wallace’s suggestion, the detective promised to occupy the empty house next door to Grantley’s under an assumed name, moving in openly, as an ordinary tenant would do.
The plan was carried out with comparatively little delay, and Patsy was chosen because he was married and could bring his wife along to give an air of domesticity to the establishment.
The “Webbs” had moved in ten days before; their furniture having been carefully selected in different secondhand stores of the better class.
Charles Webb, the “father,” went downtown every day, but it was understood in the neighborhood that “Will” was temporarily out of work. That explained why he remained at home all day.
A close but secret watch had been kept on the doctor’s house, and its regular occupants had been studied as thoroughly as possible under the circumstances.
Doctor Siebold, Grantley’s assistant, had proved to be a man in his early thirties, evidently of German descent, whose keen, searching eyes seemed to belie his too agreeable expression and his suave manners.
Kate Rawlinson, the nurse, seemed to be thoroughly efficient, as she must have been to please Doctor Grantley; but her face, which was rather good looking, in a pinched, tight-lipped way, had a hard, forbidding expression, which warned one not to look to her for much human sympathy, to say the least.
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As for Hoff, the German servant, Nick found it easy to agree with Wallace that he had been a soldier. He was fully six feet in height, powerfully built, with a scarred face, keen blue eyes, and a sandy mustache, the points of which were trained rakishly upward, after the model of his emperor’s.
Of the lot, he was the only one who seemed likely to give much trouble in a physical encounter, if it came to that. Siebold was slight and wore glasses, and Doctor Grantley himself, while undoubtedly strong and wiry, did not impress one as a fighting man.
That remained to be seen, however.
It was Hoff who always answered the door, and he did it with an air of suspicion and a brusqueness which suggested a sentry on duty.
Little real progress had been made by the detectives, despite their vigilance. They had discovered that Wallace was correct in saying that patients who seemed to be in humble circumstances were frequently brought to Doctor Grantley’s, or came of their own accord, and they had verified Wallace’s report that several young men, obviously doctors, frequented the place, but that had only been ascertained after a tedious wait.
For the first few days after the Webbs moved in, there appeared to be little activity next door, probably because Doctor Grantley was more or less suspicious, in a general way, of the newcomers, whose presence he doubtless resented.
He would naturally have waited to see if they were going to show any embarrassing interest in his doings. Their apparent inclination to attend strictly to their own affairs, however, seemed to reassure him. Shrewd
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as he was, he did not dream of the watch which was being maintained, day and night, over his house.
Presently his attitude of caution relaxed, and things went on as they had been going. Nevertheless, with all their advantages, Nick and his assistant were not in a position to draw any very definite conclusion for some time, and in the end they were little the wiser.
They decided that they would have to resort to some more active method of getting the evidence they desired. Many different plans were discussed and rejected. In the meantime, two of Nick’s other assistants, well disguised, were sent to the doctor’s house on different, plausible errands, but they did not succeed in penetrating it far enough to learn anything of value.
Furthermore, although the windows of the Webb house were left open night and day, no sounds suggestive of torture were heard, and whatever went on in the private hospital must have been well cloaked and unaccompanied by any excitement.
Nick and Patsy finally determined upon a ruse. They had learned enough to know that the house was carefully guarded by the watchful Hoff, who prowled around at all hours. Besides, they wished to gain access to it when the young doctors were there, for it was reasonable to suppose that at such times the most important experiments took place, whatever their nature might be.
But with five or six extra men in the house, in addition to its regular occupants, the chances for secret entrance were decidedly slim, to say nothing of the
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likelihood that the investigators could get into position to witness the proceedings.
Therefore, it seemed necessary to wait until the occasion seemed as promising as possible, and then to force an entrance under cover of some exciting diversion, which could be counted upon to draw away, temporarily, the attention of Grantley and his chosen disciples.
It meant a dangerous plunge, for, if it failed to uncover the desired evidence, for any reason, it would unavoidably reveal to Doctor Grantley the fact that he was under suspicion. He would be put on his guard in that case and it would be far more difficult thereafter to trip him up, even if he was not of the sort to put up a fight or attempt to retaliate.
Not only that, but there was little likelihood that such a device would catch the man and his associates in the midst of a punishable crime.
Time was passing, however, and the detective felt it necessary to push matters. His attention was needed elsewhere, and he made up his mind that if he could expose Grantley’s methods and show that the eccentric surgeon was actually engaged in unwarranted experiments on his poor and obscure patients, public opinion would do the rest and drive the doctor out of the country, or, at least, force him to give up his questionable practices.
The newspapers could be counted on to make the most of the sensation, and it would almost certainly result in the passing of stringent laws against human vivisection, as well as the unauthorized administration of various experimental serums in the case of unsus
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pecting persons, especially children, of which there had recently been many instances in New York.
That would be a great step in advance, and it would make possible Grantley’s subsequent conviction, if legal proof could be obtained in regard to his past performances, or if he should ever resume such practices in the State at some future time.
Half a loaf was better than no bread. That was the way Nick looked at it. Thus far he had tried in vain, by means of numerous inquiries on the East Side and elsewhere, to find a single instance of a suspicious death under Grantley’s care. He had little doubt that there were plenty of cases of that sort, but he had not happened to come across them, and his time was precious.
Finally, he planned to explode a large bomb in front of his house, by means of an electrical connection.
The bomb was to be placed in the middle of the street, which was not extensively used at any time, and Nick counted on the deafening noise of the explosion to draw the occupants of Grantley’s house into the street, or, at any rate, away from the operating room.
While they were temporarily absent, Nick and Patsy were to break into the doctor’s house at the rear and make their way as rapidly as possible to the operating room, the location of which they had roughly determined by a process of elimination.
They intended to take with them an expert witness in the person of Doctor Willis Cooke, a friend of Nick’s and one of the ablest of the city’s younger surgeons, who was noted for his opposition to vivisection in almost all of its forms.
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In addition to this qualification, Doctor Cooke was a strapping fellow, an athlete, and a champion trap shooter, who could be depended upon to give a good account of himself if it came to a fight.
Doctor Cooke’s presence would be important, because he could determine at a glance the nature of the experiment in progress, whether legitimate or otherwise, and his testimony would be taken by the public as authoritative, where Nick’s, not being that of a specialist, might be open to question.
On the night in question, when Patsy made the observation recorded at the beginning of the first chapter, the young surgeon was in the room with the detective and the latter’s assistant.
He had arrived unobtrusively at the Webb house some time before, having been summoned by Nick when it became clear that something out of the ordinary was about to take place at the private hospital next door.
A young girl of eighteen or thereabouts, evidently a Jewess, had been brought there in a taxi by Doctor Siebold that afternoon.
She was noticeably pretty and seemed to be in ill health, although she had alighted from the machine without assistance. Patsy had witnessed her arrival and had reported the circumstance to Nick when the latter put in an appearance about five-thirty.
It looked as if interesting developments might be looked for that night, and, as the bomb was all in readiness to be planted, Nick decided to telephone for Doctor Cooke.
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By half past eight five men had arrived and been admitted by the watchful Hoff. The detectives had, of course, no means of knowing that the pretty Jewess was to be the subject of the night’s experiments, but it seemed probable. In any event, there was something of more than ordinary interest scheduled.
Nick waited until nine o’clock to see if any others would arrive. One did, about a quarter of nine. He was obviously in a hurry, which indicated that he was late.
When another fifteen minutes passed, without incident, Nick inferred that no others were coming. He decided to delay still longer, though, for he wished to give Grantley time to get to work.
The delay might mean a great deal to the victim of the vivisectionists, but that, unfortunately, could not be helped. It would do no good to break in prematurely, for, unless an operation of some questionable kind was in progress when the interruption came, nothing would be gained, and Doctor Grantley would be justified in taking legal action against the intruders.
But when nine-fifteen came, the tender-hearted detective could stand the suspense no longer.
“Heaven knows what may be happening to that poor girl—or some one else!” he exclaimed. “See if the coast is clear, Patsy.”
The street was deserted, and Nick’s assistant slipped out and placed the bomb at a sufficient distance from the two houses to prevent any material damage.
A small electric wire was attached to it in such a way that the explosion would free it and allow it to be
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drawn quickly into the house as soon as it had done its work.
Nick and Patsy were armed, although they did not look for any resistance of the kind in which there would be gun play, and the detective had supplied Doctor Cooke with an automatic.
They would be greatly outnumbered, of course, if Grantley and the others returned to the operating room and found them there, which they fully expected. Therefore, it was well to be on the safe side, despite the fact that they did not look for weapons in the hands of any of the surgeons.
Patsy’s wife was instructed to rush out of the house immediately after the explosion, to pretend to be greatly mystified and terrorized, and to say that her husband and father-in-law were both downtown.
In that way it was hoped that any suspicions Grantley might have would be nipped in the bud for the time being, and that pretty “Mrs. Webb’s” distress would delay the return of the doctors to the house.
The electric wire was a long one, extending from the bomb in the street through one of the open front windows, and so to a concealed battery.
Nick and his two companions took their places in the back yard, under cover of the fence separating Grantley’s grounds from theirs.
Nick and Patsy carried burglars’ tools, so as to be ready for a quick entry.
The seconds dragged by.
Boom!
An ear-splitting report rent the air.
Adelina had fired the bomb and was doubtless draw
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ing in the wire, preparatory to running out and playing the other part assigned to her.
Without a second’s delay the two detectives swarmed over the fence and ran silently toward the rear of the private hospital, with Doctor Cooke close at their heels.
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