CHAPTER VIII

HALF A COAT

Silence followed the dramatic plunging of the rooms of the Club Tamalle into darkness, but the silence did not last long. And as soon as Nat Ridley had knocked aside the knife intended for his helper, the great detective got ready for action.

"They're after me!" grimly decided Nat. "Or at least after Berry, whom they have taken for me. There's likely to be a row!"

It came fully as soon as Nat expected, for he felt a rush of bodies about him, muttered imprecations in Spanish, and then he heard Berry's voice at his ear, whispering:

"Are you all right?"

"So far," Nat answered. "But I don't know how long I'll remain so. Did anything happen?" he went on as the two made their way in the darkness out of the washroom into the main apartment of the Club.

"Not yet. But I'm on the track of some of these fellows, and I think they got wise to me--thinking I was you."

"So far our plan works," murmured Nat. "But I'm wondering if they have spotted me as well."

There was no way of telling this at present. In fact, there was no way of determining anything in the darkness and excitement, for excitement there was in plenty.

"What is it?" some cried in English but with a Spanish accent. It was a woman's voice. There were a number of them in the club, some very handsome in a dark, Spanish way.

"It is the police!" came an answering feminine voice.

"Oh! Oh! A prohibition raid!" exclaimed several. "How silly!"

"Be careful!" warned the deep voice of a man, and Nat, hearing it, tried to recall whether it was that of Ramon or any of his associates. "It is no dry raid! There are spies and traitors among us! Be careful, my friends!"

"He's one of the fellows we want!" whispered Nat to his helper. "See if you can work yourself around to that side of the room. But be careful. You have your gun, of course?"

"Yes," answered Berry in low tones. "But I fancy these fellows would rather fight with a knife than a gun. I've got a knife, too."

"Watch yourself," warned Nat. "But get that fellow if you can."

"I will!" promised Berry, and he slid away.

Nat had backed to a wall, for he felt it safer in case of a fight which he thought would follow to have all his enemies in front of him.

The detective dimly saw forms swirling this way and that in front of him. Then, suddenly, he felt a pricking sensation on his left hand and he drew it quickly away with the thought that someone was trying to disable him by a scratch from the doped point of the miniature double dagger.

At the same moment Nat reached out with his hand and caught hold of a figure passing in front of him. He was surprised when a woman's voice screamed and she exclaimed:

"Oh, let me go! I have done nothing!"

"You tried to stab me!" hissed Nat in her ear. He realized that these Mexican murderers might have hired a woman to do some of their work.

"I stab you, señor? Never! I am but trying to get away. Are you Jules?" she whispered leaning so close to Nat that he could smell the perfume in her hair. "Oh, Jules, take me----"

"I am not Jules!" declared Nat. "But I felt a prick on my hand, and----"

"Pardon, señor, it was but a pin in my dress! Oh, why did I ever come here! Are you of the police?"

"No," answered Nat, which was the truth. "You have nothing to fear. There is a door--go!"

At that instant someone had opened a door leading into a corridor at the end of which a light burned dimly, and the illumination was sufficient to enable the detective to see a little.

Nat gave the unknown woman a shove toward the way of escape, since he decided she had had nothing to do with the case on which he was working. And the detective felt a distinct sense of relief when he heard the news about the pin. Imagination can play uncanny tricks at times.

Now several others, seeing the corridor door open, made a rush for the exit, so that it became jammed and there were grunts and imprecations from the men seeking to escape and screams and imploring calls from the women and girls.

Most of the habitués of the club, Nat realized, had nothing in common with the men he was seeking as the murderers of the Lembergs and Dan Steele. But the detective felt that some of the criminals, or at least their confederates, were present, and feared capture. Otherwise, the order of lights out never would have been given.

As Nat was wondering what was happening to Berry, the detective felt a man bump into him on the right side, and, at the same moment, one came at him from the left. The distant light in the corridor had gone out, and the place was once more in darkness, with a milling, pushing, jostling and excited crowd doing all it could to get away from the danger of arrest.

"Who are you?" asked Nat of the man on his left. "I am a stranger in New York. I came in here by chance and----"

He heard a whisper of Spanish words and though he did not sense all the meaning he had a feeling that the man on his left had called an order to the one on his right.

"They mean to do for me!" thought Nat to himself.

As quickly as a shadow moves, he dropped to the floor. It was not a moment too soon, for in the glow of an electric flashlight which someone switched on, Nat caught the gleam of a knife blade, and it was in the hand of the man who had been on his right.

The hand holding the knife lunged out, but the blade, instead of being sheathed in Nat Ridley's body, found a place in the companion of the Mexican. There was a cry of pain and a voice asked:

"Did I get the pig?"

"No, devil, you got me!" snarled another voice. "He has escaped us. I bleed! Get a doctor!"

"I'm glad he's bleeding instead of me!" mused Nat as he crawled on his hands and knees out of the danger zone. "That was a close one!"

If possible the excitement now became greater, for several had heard what the stabbed man, injured by his own friend, had said, and there was fear of more mistakes.

"Turn on the lights! Let us have light!" several implored.

"No! No!" came the answering replies. "There are traitors among us! They must be killed!"

"I wonder what's happening to Berry all this while," mused Nat. "I hope they haven't stuck a knife into him, thinking it's me. This case is developing faster than I thought it would."

He was reassured a moment later when, crawling into a corner, at that moment somewhat deserted, he felt another man crawling even as he was doing and a voice called into his ear:

"It's all right, Chief. I got some dope."

"You don't mean dope from the double dagger, do you?" asked Nat, for he recognized Berry's voice, though he could not see his face.

"No, I mean information. I got next to the fellow they call Ramon, and I heard him say the next meeting would be in Rolamotaza, a week from to-night. He mentioned a fellow named Don Castro."

"That's the chap who whipped out the knife in the washroom," remarked Nat. "So the scene is going to shift, is it? Well, I'll be on the job. I think we'd better be leaving here, Berry. We can't do much in the dark, and as soon as the lights go up the ones we want will have vanished. There's too much risk getting a knife in the back in the dark to stay here."

"Just what I was thinking, Chief. It's too bad they spotted us so quickly."

"Yes. They're slicker than most. Do you happen to know where the exit is, or any way of getting out?"

"I've got it spotted," was Berry's whispered answer. "Follow me, but keep low. There are too many of these birds lunging about in the gloom with their toad-stickers."

"So I found out. But someone else got the steel intended for me. It's best to be cautious," agreed Nat.

The two detectives started crawling on their hands and knees toward a place Berry thought would take them out of the dangerous place. And as Berry, followed by Nat, made his made way across the room, working in and out of a tangle of legs, the heavy body of a man suddenly leaped upon Nat Ridley's back. It was as if the detective had been tackled in a football game after dropping on the pigskin.

He grunted from the impact of the blow, but at once squirmed to get out from beneath the body. At the same time he began to reach out in the dark to grab any possible hand that might be holding a knife. Nat quickly succeeded in getting hold of a man's wrist.

"Give up!" commanded the sleuth. "I have you!"

With a quick twist and turn of a wrestling trick, he managed to get to his feet, pulling his assailant up with him. Nat reached out to grab the fellow's other hand, but the Mexican gave a squirm like an eel. There was a ripping, tearing sound, and Nat felt all resistance cease.

"What the deuce happened?" he asked himself.

Nat felt he had a garment in his hand--a coat he judged it to be, but whose or what it contained he could not tell.

"Six and a half! Six and a half!" Nat softly called.

This was a code number, indicating Berry's name. If the other detective was near he would answer.

"Seven!" was the reply in a whisper into Nat's left ear.

"What's wrong, seven?" asked Berry.

"All right now," Nat answered. "They had me down, but I got a coat off of someone."

"A coat?" questioned Berry.

At that instant the lights went up again, and Nat looked at what was in his hand.

"No, half a coat," he corrected, with a grim chuckle, for the garment was neatly ripped down the middle seam. "I got only half his coat, Berry."

"You're lucky to have that much," answered the other sleuth. "But look out. Here comes one of them with a knife!"

He and Nat looked up and across the room, from which a number of men and women with much disheveled clothing were now fleeing, since they could see the exits. And headed toward Nat and Berry was one of the three Mexicans who had started the trouble in the washroom. The fellow carried a wicked looking knife.

"This way!" Berry called to Nat, pulling him through a door and closing it after them. "This way out. And keep the coat."

"Half a coat is better than none!" chuckled Nat, as a heavy body crashed against the door, the key of which Berry quickly turned.

"Come on!" he called to his chief. "They're still after us!" And the two ran through a deserted room and out into a yard back of the Club Tamalle.