“Holy smoke!” thought Patsy. “Here’s where the cat makes her final jump. She’ll come clean out of the bag this time. But the rascals do not suspect the trick I’ve put over on them. That sure is my only anchor to the windward.” Morgan and Turk Magill had turned pale when Nick Carter’s name was mentioned, and their fears were completely verified. For Phelan, suddenly starting up from the telephone book he was hurriedly inspecting, cried excitedly: “I’ve got it! Here’s the name and number. Four, seven Madison! It’s a telephone in Nick Carter’s business office.” “Last jump is right,” thought Patsy. Gridley swung round and gazed at him with murder in his eye. “So Nick Carter wrote this note, did he?” said he, through his teeth. “You’re to telephone your discoveries to him, eh? What have you discovered? What has he got on us?” “Nothing on you that I know of,” said Patsy, unruffled. “I was not directed to shadow you fellows.” “What on this woman, then?” “I don’t know for sure, and I don’t think he does,” Patsy truthfully answered, not yet informed of Nick’s deductions and suspicions. “That’s dead-straight goods, Gridley, on my word.” Gridley vented an oath and shaped another course. “Make sure that he is securely tied, Phelan,” he cried sternly. “We’ll settle his hash a little later. Our first move must be to get the coin--and get it mighty quick, if Carter is dipping into this business.” “That’s right, too,” Magill declared, glaring at Patsy. “Get the coin and bolt--that’s our only safe course.” “We’ll take it, too, and take it on the jump,” Gridley forcibly added. “Free that woman, Morgan, and be quick about it. She shall tell us what she knows, or--God help her!” CHAPTER IX. THE LAST CALL. Kate Crandall had not stirred from the sofa during the sensational scenes just enacted. They told her only too plainly that she was in the hands of knaves who would shrink from no desperate deed that would serve their ends, and she had no thought but to escape from them by any means she could command. Blink Morgan hastened to liberate her, while Gridley seated himself directly in front of her and sternly said: “You’ve got mighty few minutes, woman, to tell us what we want to know. We have others here who could tell us, but whose traps are tightly closed. We have not killed them, lest we might kill our golden goose; but understand this: We’ll end them and you, too, unless you give us the information which----” Kate Crandall checked him with a haughty gesture. “One moment, Mr. Gridley, if that’s your name,” she said coldly. “I can tell you with very few words all that I know. You will believe me, I think, though this man refused to do so.” She glanced at Magill, but he made no comments.