“I heard them--I know!” she wildly whispered. “I’m Lottie Trent. I was imprisoned in that room opposite. I picked the lock with a hairpin. I had seen them open this door and knew you could not----” Her torrent of words was cut short by the sudden sharp crack of a revolver. A bullet splintered the woodwork above her head. “They’ve heard me!” she gasped. Nick already had seized her and drawn her into the trap, beyond reach of bullet from that end of the corridor where Margate and his two confederates were plunging down a low flight of stairs. “Wait here!” Nick commanded, forcing the girl to one corner and snatching out both of his revolvers. “I’ll give these rats a taste of their own medicine.” CHAPTER IX. BETWEEN TWO FIRES. Chick Carter and Patsy Garvan, though this case was one in which nearly all of the work had devolved upon Nick Carter himself, were not idle while their chief was engaged as described. Following the instructions given him, Patsy spent most of the day in running down the place where Margate had obtained a large photographic camera, as Nick had been led to suspect. Patsy finally found that such a camera had been bought ten days before from a pawnbroker in one of the lower sections of the city, and that the purchaser was a man of Margate’s description. The pawnbroker stated that he had not left his address, however, but had paid for the camera and sent an expressman to get it, but whose name the pawnbroker did not know. Patsy then began a vigorous hunt for the expressman, but his efforts were not rewarded until nearly nine in the evening, when he found the man he was seeking. This man then informed him that he had taken the camera to a building out Georgetown way, which had been vacated a short time before by a manufacturing concern that had failed in business, and which had recently been rented by parties who contemplated moving into it for a similar business, but who were not yet under way. Patsy needed to hear no more than that. He learned precisely where the building was located, thanked the expressman for his information, and then headed for the trolley-car line running out there. “It’s after nine, and the chief must have left the Grayling,” he shrewdly reasoned. “If there is anything doing, it will be in that same building. I’ll hike out there at once, in case I am needed.” It was half past nine when Patsy boarded a trolley car, and he then was given a surprise. In one corner of it sat--Chick Carter. He was not alone. His companion was a flashily clad blonde of about thirty, with yellow hair and rouged cheeks, and whose rather bleared eyes and maudlin expression plainly denoted that she had been looking on the wine when it is red in the cup.