“Rope be hanged!” snapped the other, subsequently learned to be one Laurence Trent, and by far the worst crook of the two. “Ah, I thought so. Here they are, Andy.” Patsy felt his two revolvers jerked from his pockets, and then the chill of the handcuffs around his wrists, locked with a pressure that nearly stopped the circulation. He still pretended to be unconscious, nevertheless, bent upon learning more and biding his time for a counter-move. “I knew you would find them,” said Margate. “I’ve known from the first, Larry, that I must be right.” “These prove it, Andy.” “As for your running your neck into a rope, Carney, you’re no good at running,” said Margate, coldly addressing the other. “Otherwise, you would have worked your legs fast enough to keep out of limbo. You’ve come near making a mess of a good thing.” “I’m sorry, Andy, on my word,” replied Carney. “But I slipped in starting, and that put me behind. I hope I have not queered it.” “I never let a job of mine be queered,” Margate said, with sinister assurance. “I can see my way clear, all right, but we must get in our work more quickly than if these infernal sleuths had not turned up.” “Who d’ye think is on the case?” growled Trent, who had been making Patsy doubly secure with a cord around his elbows. “I dunno,” said Carney, turning to him. “Who?” “Nick Carter.” “The devil he is!” Carney gasped, staring. “Leastwise, Andy saw him in Hardy’s office yesterday afternoon, and he reckoned----” “Never mind what I reckoned, Larry, just now,” Margate interrupted. “Sit this whelp against the wall and chuck some more water on him. We must find out just what Carter knows, or suspects, and what he has done. He knew me, all right, or this blooming idiot would not be here. We’ll find out what more he can tell us.” “You’ll get fat and juicy on that,” thought Patsy, intensely disgusted with the unfortunate turn of affairs. “There’ll be nothing in denying my identity, for that cold-blooded guy is right. But if he gets anything more out of me, he’ll do it with a corkscrew.” Another splash of cold water broke Patsy’s train of thought, indulged in while the two lesser rascals sat him against one of the kitchen walls. He did not want it repeated. He opened his eyes, therefore, and said curtly, gazing from one to the other: “Cut that! I’m not on a water diet. What do you ginks take me for?” “Great guns! He’s a long ways from dead,” growled Carney. Larry Trent laughed loudly. But Margate waved both of them aside, taking a chair directly opposite the detective and coldly eyeing him. “We know for what we have taken you,” he said icily. “We know who you are, too.” “Well, you’ve got nothing on me, Mr. Margate, as far as that goes,” Patsy coolly retorted. “Ah, you admit that you know me, then!” “That’s what. You are pretty well known and widely mugged in two countries.” “I see,” Margate drawled, with a sneer. “I was right. Carter did recognize me. He has told you about me.”