CHAPTER XII.
A TIGHT CORNER.
It was a characteristic of Motor Matt that he never became "rattled."A clear head and steady nerves were absolutely essential in his chosencareer. To these he added a quick and sure judgment.
"Surprised, are you?" asked Grattan, with a choppy laugh.
"Well, yes, in a way," replied Matt coolly.
"I wonder if you know what you're up against?"
"You have a stolen ruby, called the Eye of Buddha, and Goldstein ishere to buy it."
"My cracious!" gasped the Jew, throwing up his hands.
There was no doubting his surprise, so Matt knew that he, at least, wasnot in the plot.
"Close your face, Goldstein," scowled Grattan. "This business isn'tgoing to bother you. Take a seat, Motor Matt," he added. "We'll have alittle chin-chin before we get busy."
There was an empty bench along the end wall. Matt walked over to it andseated himself, glad that there was to be a "chin-chin." This meantdelay, and would give time for McGlory to arrive with re?nforcements.
"I don't understand what's der matter," gulped Goldstein, pressing backagainst the wall and hugging his satchel in his arms. "I don't like derlooks of things, no."
"You can't help the looks of things," snapped Grattan, "and you'llunderstand the situation a lot better before you get away from thissugar camp. Sit down."
There was a three-legged stool close to the Jew, and he dropped down onit in a state of semi-collapse. His eyes passed to Pryne, who had drawna revolver and was standing in front of the door. Undoubtedly Goldsteinhad a lot of money in his satchel with which to pay for the ruby, so itis small wonder he was worried upon finding himself a participator insuch a scene.
"I thought der young feller was Bunce!" he exclaimed, moistening hisdry lips with his tongue.
"Put a stopper on your jaw-tackle!" yelled the sailor. "That's the linewe've run out to you for now, and you'll lay to it."
The Jew swallowed hard on a lump in his throat and fell limply againstthe wall behind him.
Goldstein had even more to lose as the outcome of that desperatesituation than had Matt, but the king of the motor boys saw at a glancethat he was absolutely useless so far as resistance was concerned.
Grattan dropped his suspended foot on the floor and turned to Pryne.
"Did any one come with Motor Matt, Pryne?" he inquired.
"Two fellers come with him," was the response. "They got to Purling ina automobile."
"Who were those fellows, Motor Matt?" demanded Grattan, shooting asharp glance at the young motorist.
"The driver of the car, from Catskill Landing," said Matt, "and mychum, Joe McGlory."
"Why did you leave them in Purling?"
"The driver had to stay to look after the car, and I didn't think itwas necessary to bring McGlory along for a bodyguard."
Grattan threw back his head and peered at Matt through half-closed eyes.
"You're a cool one," he remarked. "Why were you coming here to see me?"
"I wanted to get the ruby."
Bunce roared. Grattan commanded silence sharply, and the sailor'smerriment ceased as suddenly as it had begun.
"Did you think," went on Grattan, "that you could, single-handed, takethe ruby from me by force?"
Matt was silent.
"Or did you think you could talk me out of it?"
"I hadn't much of an idea what I could do," said Matt. "It was justbarely possible you'd be generous enough, when you learned thecircumstances, to give or sell the Eye of Buddha to Tsan Ti."
Grattan curbed the old sailor's fresh inclination to laugh with a quicklook.
"What are the circumstances?" he queried.
"Tsan Ti has received the yellow cord. If he does not recover theidol's eye in two weeks, he must destroy himself."
"Young man," said Grattan, "I have been two years planning to get myclutches on the Eye of Buddha. I have haunted Canton, feasted my eyesupon that priceless splash of red in the forehead of the idol in theHonam Joss House until the itch to possess it fairly drove me mad. Butthe temple was too well guarded, the priests too many, and the wallstoo high. It was only when I learned of the balls of Ptah and theirpowers that the feat looked at all feasible. In order to see theseballs of Ptah for myself, I made the long journey from Hongkong to theruins of Karnak on the Nile."
Taking the buckthorn cane under his arm, Grattan stepped across theroom to a table near the bench where Bunce was sitting. On the tablerested a small box with a strap handle. Grattan opened the lid of thebox, and from a nest of cotton picked one of the shimmering glassballs. He handled the ball gently, and a glow came into his eyes as heheld it up.
"A quantity of these balls," he proceeded, "were unearthed a year agofrom among the ruins of Karnak. They are of Egyptian glass, thousandsof years old, and each of the big beads has blown into its surfacethe _praenomen_ of Hatasu, a queen who is conjectured to have livedmore than fourteen hundred years before our era. A party of workmendiscovered the balls, and chanced to break one of them." Grattanpaused, turning the shimmering sphere around and around in his hand."All the workmen," he went on, "were thrown into an unconsciouscondition, and it was in this manner that the peculiar properties ofthe balls were discovered. Why they are called the balls of Ptah Idon't know, and what they contain that has such a peculiar effect onliving beings, no one has ever been able to discover. But I heard ofthem, stole a dozen, and tried one on the museum guards in making myescape. It answered the purpose," he went on dryly. "If it had not, Iwould have been caught."
Almost reverently he replaced the ball in the cotton-lined case andclosed the lid. Returning to his bench, he resumed his originalposition, sweeping an amused glance around him at the awed faces ofGoldstein, Pryne, and Matt.
"Armed with one of the balls of Ptah," he proceeded, "I picked up theancient mariner"--he nodded toward Bunce--"and we manufactured a silkladder twenty feet long, and weighted it at one end. Then, one day,we repaired to the Honam Joss House at five in the afternoon. Thatball of Egyptian glass, crushed to fragments on the floor, overcamethe priests. Bunce and I protected our own faces with masks, equippedwith oxygen tubes reaching into small tanks of compressed air in ourpockets. To throw the weighted end of the ladder over the head of Ptahtook us possibly a minute; for me to climb the ladder and dig the rubyfrom the idol's forehead consumed possibly five minutes; and for Bunceand me to get out of the temple took five minutes more. We were safelyout of Canton when the storm broke."
Matt had listened to all this in supreme wonder. The audacity of theundertaking caused his pulses to stir, but he wondered why Grattanshould recount such an exploit to him, and in the hearing of Pryne andGoldstein.
"You know now," continued Grattan, "what the Eye of Buddha has cost me,and you say it is just barely possible I would be generous enough toyield the gem to Tsan Ti in order to save his life!"
"Or you might sell it to him," suggested Matt.
"I might, if he could pay what it is worth."
"Grattan," spoke up Goldstein with sudden fervor, "you have promised meder first shance!"
"Keep still!" growled Grattan. "You'll get all the chance you wantbefore you leave here."
"The mandarin is a rich man," said Matt, who, of course, was parleyingmerely to gain time.
"He has a little money with him, but that is all. Every plantation heowns in China, every string of cash in his strong boxes is guarded bythe regent. If he does not recover the Eye of Buddha, the propertywill be confiscated. And he can't touch a cent of his fortune until hereturns the ruby to its place in the idol's head. So, you see, yourfriend, the mandarin of the red button, is in a bally hard fix. Hecan't buy the ruby, and certainly I won't give it to him."
This was intensely interesting to Matt. He was listening, now, in acasual way, for the approach of McGlory and his party, and he wasplanning what he could do with the balls of Ptah in order to keepGrattan from using them.
"You're a clever lad, Motor Matt," went on Grattan, "an
d I admireclever people. You performed a neat trick when you removed that foldednote from Bunce's cap. It was a foolish place to keep such a thing, butBunce is a good deal of a fool. For instance, I reached the CatskillMountains with six of the balls of Ptah--the only ones of the kind tobe had--and the crack-brained sailor man stole two of them and threwthem away on you and your chum, gaining little and losing somethingwhich might prove of priceless value to us."
"Now, shipmate," began Bunce, in a wheedling voice, "you don't get theright splice on that piece of rope; you----"
"That'll do," said Grattan, waving his hand.
Bunce subsided. The power of Grattan over the sailor was absolute. Itwas easy to see whose had been the plotting mind and the guiding handin the exploits of the two.
"You are sharp enough to wonder, I suppose," said Grattan, againaddressing Matt, "why I am going into these private details for yourbenefit. The answer is simple. Our plans are laid to leave hereto-day. You can't stop us, no one can stop us. The balls of Ptah willdisarm all opposition, and the four of them will see us out of thecountry with Goldstein's money."
"But if Goldstein has the Eye of Buddha," said Matt, "I will know itand can prove it. He can't hold stolen property."
"Certainly he can't. Goldstein gets the ruby and we get Goldstein'smoney. You have Goldstein arrested and prove in a court of law that hebought the idol's eye from the original thieves. Then----"
A howl came from Goldstein.
"I von't buy, I von't buy! That is a skin game. I von't buy der stone."
"Oh, yes, you will," and, for the first time, a laugh came fromGrattan's lips. "You've brought the money and you'll buy before youleave."
Then, for the first time, Goldstein understood the true meaning of thesituation. He flashed a wild look at Pryne and the revolver, and sankback against the wall and groaned.