“By thunder, I see the point!” cried Chick, more gravely. “You think they have got both her and Maybrick, and also have landed the plunder.” “It certainly looks so. Furthermore--wait! There’s my telephone bell. We may hear from Patsy.” Nick turned quickly to his desk and took up the instrument. “Hello!” he said quietly. No answer. He called again a bit louder: “Hello! hello!” Still no answer. Nick’s brow clouded. Then, suddenly, there fell upon his listening ears a quick, intermittent tapping. He listened even more intently. His countenance lighted, then clouded again, darker than before. He seized a pad of paper and a pencil and began to write, listening all the while. Three minutes passed and Nick then hung up the receiver and sprang to his feet. “Bring Danny and the car as quickly as possible,” he cried. “We’ve got to make a record run, if ever we made one. Guns on your hips, Chick. Patsy in the hands of the gang.” CHAPTER VII. TAKING LONG CHANCES. Patsy Garvan and Turk Magill, after arriving at a very lucid understanding concerning Kate Crandall, speedily decided how their felonious design could best be executed. Patsy entered into it, moreover, with a zest that further assured Magill of his sincerity, of which he had scarce a shadow of doubt when they parted to begin operations. Leaving Magill to keep his appointment with Kate, Patsy hastened to a public garage that he had seen while shadowing her from her office. Luckily, too, he immediately found the proprietor, to whom he quickly introduced himself and confided the situation. Patsy found in him a willing assistant, too, who provided him with a touring car, but flatly refused to accept any payment. “I’ll not even think of it,” he protested, when Patsy tried to force Magill’s twenty-dollar bank note upon him. “Pastor Maybrick is a friend of mine, and he’s one man in a million. Nick Carter is one in ten millions, moreover, and it’s a pleasure to serve both of them. You take the car, Mr. Garvan, and return it when convenient. It’s yours for the asking. I’d like to do more, and I wish you good luck.” Patsy thanked him heartily and guided the car from the garage within twenty minutes after parting from Magill. He knew that he was playing a hazardous game and taking long chances, that he was going up against as dangerous and desperate a man as ever stood in leather, as well as crooks of like character, and that a slip of the tongue, or even the ghost of a mishap, might at any moment expose his subterfuge and put him in peril of his life. It was not in Patsy’s nature to shrink from the undertaking on that account, however, and he hardly gave it a thought. He felt that the game was worth the candle, and he was ready to burn the candle at both ends.