CHAPTER XII.
AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
M. Crenelette was a gray-haired, benevolent looking man with mild blueeyes. It was impossible to associate him with anything in the nature oflawlessness, and the boys were tempted to think they were on the wrongtrack.
M. Crenelette was French, but he talked English like one to the mannerborn.
His establishment was a veritable junk shop.
"What can I do for you, my friends?" he asked, getting up from a deskwhere he had been writing.
"Have you any objections to letting us take a look through yourbasement?" asked Matt.
"Basement? basement?" repeated the antiquarian, puzzled.
"Yes, through the cellar under your store."
"My dear young man, there are no cellars in New Orleans. The ground istoo low, and there is water too near the surface."
Once more Matt and Dick began to feel that they were making a mistakein coming to M. Crenelette.
"Is there a room in this building that is inclosed with stone walls?"
"Ah!" and M. Crenelette's face brightened, "you speak now of the vaultsof the old bank. They are on the second floor. I do not use the secondfloor, and it was rented, a few days ago, to an American gentleman. Hehas not moved in, yet. What interests you in the old vault?"
"We simply want to look it over," Matt answered. "Will you show us howto get up there? If the man who rented the place hasn't moved in yet Isuppose there won't be any objection?"
"Certainly not. Come this way."
The Frenchman passed out the rear of his store and pointed to an openback stairway.
"The door may be locked," said he, "and, in that case, you will bedisappointed, for I have given the key to the new tenant. You might goup the stairs and try the door."
As Matt and Dick ascended the stairs, M. Crenelette posted himself towatch. The bell at his front door suddenly tinkled, however, announcinga customer, and he had to go away.
The boys tried the door and found it open.
"The new tenant," remarked Dick, "isn't a very careful man. I wonder ifhis name is Jurgens?"
"Probably," said Matt, stepping into the room beyond the door.
It was a small room, and there was another door opposite the one bywhich he had entered.
"Dowse my toplights!" exclaimed Dick. "This doesn't look much like abank. And then the idea of a bank being on the second floor! All my eyeand Betty Martin!"
"Perhaps the bank was on the first floor and the vaults on the second,"suggested Matt. "It was probably an old institution. From the looks ofthis building it must have been standing at the time Jackson whippedthe Britishers."
"I'm a Britisher, you know, old ship," laughed Dick, "and I don't liketo have you rub that Jackson fight into me. Push ahead and let's seewhat's in the next room."
Matt opened the door and was confronted by a windowless room as dark asEgypt. The only daylight that reached it came from the room in whichthe two boys were standing.
"Shiver me!" muttered Dick. "I guess we've reached the vaults, matey."
"They wouldn't have a door like this to a bank vault, Dick. We'll go inand see if there isn't a door on the other side that we can open."
Matt entered the room, groping his way through the thick gloom. Dickfollowed him closely.
Suddenly, the door through which they had just come slammed shut and akey was heard grating in the lock.
"Trapped!" muttered Dick. "There was some one here and laying for us."
"Quick!" called Matt, whirling around. "Try the door."
Before Dick could get back to it, Matt heard a muttered exclamationand the sound of a struggle. It was impossible to see a thing, and theyoung motorist could only guess at what had happened.
"Dick!" he called, leaping forward.
"Look alive, mate!" panted Dick. "Some one's got hold of me."
Before Dick had fairly finished speaking, a pair of stout arms wentaround Matt, and he was forced to fight on his own account and leaveDick to look after himself.
It was a struggle at close quarters, and a very unequal one. Slowly butsteadily Matt was forced across the floor.
"Who are you?" he panted. "What are----"
"Whistler!" came a husky voice, "I'm closer to you, now, than I wasat the bayou. Saw you coming across the street and opened the door tomake it easy for you to get in. I don't know how you found out aboutthis place, but your call here won't do you any good. You've botheredJurgens and me as long as you're going to, and you and Ferral willnever live to get away from this building!"
With that, Matt felt himself hurled roughly backward. He struck againsta wall and dropped half stunned to the floor.
The next moment Dick came banging against him, and there followed theclang of an iron door, the rattle of a key, then silence.
"Matt?" called Dick, his voice echoing and re?choing strangely.
"Here," answered Matt.
"Blest if we smoked Whistler's roll quick enough! We came easy forhim--so easy that I'm ashamed of myself. The fact that he was hereproves that this is a sort of headquarters for him and Jurgens."
"If this wasn't a rendezvous of theirs, of course Whistler wouldn'thave been around."
"Where are we?"
"I guess," answered Motor Matt, slowly, "that we have found the oldvault. That was an iron door that closed on us, if the noise it madecounts for anything."
"Oh, glory!" grunted Dick, disgustedly. "How long can we stay in herewithout smothering to death?"
"The air seems to be fairly pure, at present--purer, in fact, than itwas out in that other room. But, Whistler! Why he was the last man Iwas expecting to see."
"And we didn't see much of him, at that," growled Dick. "My eye, buthere's a go! Whistler didn't lose much time coming in from that bayou.I wonder if he's found Jurgens, and if the two of them have got thehooks on Carl?"
"There are a whole lot of things I wish I knew, Dick," said Matt.
"Same here, matey. Whistler had some one with him, and that other manmay have been Jurgens."
"Well, if it was Jurgens, then it's a cinch Jurgens wasn't so much offhis balance as Rigolette led us to believe. But I don't think it wasJurgens."
"Why not?"
"Jurgens would have said something to let us know that he had a hand inour capture."
"Right-o. Jurgens is a good deal of a boaster and likes to run up hissignals whenever he gets the chance. We've had a nice time of it sincewe reached New Orleans, I must say! With you and me locked up, and Carlrunning around with his mind in a haze, I wonder what's going to becomeof the _Hawk_? She can't roost out there on the dock indefinitely."
"We're not going to stay locked up for long," returned Matt. "Just assoon as we catch our breath we've got to take a look around here andsee if we can't get away."
"With an iron door to batter down, matey, the outlook isn't what youmight call promising. I've heard of men being shut up in bank vaults,but they usually smothered. Oh, hang the luck! And hang the way wedropped into this bunch of trouble! We ought to have suspected therewas some one in here when we found the door open."
"No use crying over spilt milk, Dick. Don't you think it mighthave been Whistler instead of Jurgens who rushed into the house ofRigolette's and took the idol's head away from Joujou?"
"One guess is as good as another," said Dick, heavily.
"Well, we'll stop guessing and try and get down to facts. Have you anymatches?"
"A pocketful."
"Then strike one and we'll find out where we are."
The floor of the room was of brick. Dick scratched a match on the floorand then got to his feet and held the light in the best position forhim and Matt to make a survey of their quarters.
The room in which the boys found themselves was about ten feet square.The walls and ceiling were of stone, and there was only one opening,and this was closed with a heavy iron door.
Dick stepped to the door and pushed against it. Although rust encrustedthe iron plates, yet the door rigidly
resisted his push upon it.
"We might blow the door down with a stick of dynamite," said Dick, "butthat's the only way we could do the trick, mate. I'm a Fiji if----"
"Look!" came hoarsely from Matt; "on the floor, there, off to the leftof you!"
The flame of the match was eating close to Dick's fingers, but in thelast, dying glow he swerved his eyes in the direction indicated byMatt, and an astonishing duplicate of Yamousa's second smoke pictureburst on his eyes.
On the brick floor lay a man with gray hair and gray mustache, boundhand and foot and gagged.
It seemed to Matt and Dick as though they were again in the hut by thebayou and peering into the smoke arising from the earthen jar under thespell of Yamousa.
"Townsend!" gasped Dick.