<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV<br/> <span class="cheaderfont">ON THE TRAIL OF THE CONSPIRATORS</span></h2>
<p>The effect of this announcement upon the boys
was of course electrical.</p>
<p>“Quick!” whispered Buck to his companions,
“let’s get right out of here and call the police.
We’ll nab the scoundrels as they try to leave.”</p>
<p>“No, sit still, Buck,” Ned said in an equally
cautious tone. “The arrest of these four conspirators
wouldn’t necessarily stamp out the
plot. For as bold and big a scheme as this, there
must also be a good many others implicated. It
may be more important to capture them than
these fellows. Besides, even if we were to call
in the police and have these four arrested, we
couldn’t actually prove anything against them.”</p>
<p>“True enough,” agreed Bob. “What do you
propose to do, Ned?”</p>
<p>“This: I’ll sit quietly here. You and Buck
get up leisurely, bid me good night and appear
to leave. Instead of that, each of you secrete
himself somewhere near the bottom of the stairs
leading up to this gallery. When the men here<span class="pagenum">[192]</span>
get up to leave, I’ll follow the man with the
cape muffled around his face, and you boys each
take one of the others.”</p>
<p>“But there are four of them and only three
of us,” objected Buck.</p>
<p>“That’s all right. I don’t think that the
shabby man with the dirty finger nails is anything
more than a mere tool anyhow, so we can
afford to let him go. You, Bob, shadow the
little fat man with the rings, you, Buck,
trail the fellow with the big black beard. Follow
them around all night if necessary, but make
sure that you trace them to their homes finally.
We can all meet with Alan at the <em>Ocean Flyer</em>
over in the Prater at, say, sunrise by the latest.”</p>
<p>This scheme struck the other boys as feasible
and soon Bob and Buck drifted off as arranged,
leaving Ned alone at the table. He had sat
there, seemingly half asleep, for perhaps ten
minutes more, when the four conspirators arose
from their table together and started down the
stairs. Ned followed slyly at a safe distance,
screened by the jostling crowd.</p>
<p>All four men passed out of the place in
company, chatted for a minute or two at the
street entrance and then parted. The ruffianly
looking individual plunged straightway into the<span class="pagenum">[193]</span>
nearest alley, after a furtive look behind him.
The pudgy man with the wicked pig’s eyes and
bejeweled rings took a taxicab at the curb stall
and chugged away, followed by Bob in a second
taxi. The herculean black-beard, after leisurely
lighting a cigar, walked aimlessly a little way
down the thoroughfare; paused and felt of his
hip pocket as if to make sure that something
quite important was still there; and at last he
too hailed a taxicab and disappeared, with Buck
still in his wake.</p>
<p>The fourth conspirator—he who kept his face
so carefully concealed in the collar of his cape—stood
thoughtfully in the lighted doorway of the
dance hall until all of his companions were gone.
Then he glanced with affected nonchalance at
the faces in the crowd around him and turning,
strolled slowly westward along the street. Ned
followed.</p>
<p>At the second square the man suddenly
quickened his pace until it was all that Ned could
do to keep up with him. At the fifth square, he
all at once wheeled about abruptly and stared
after him; then plunged into an ill-lighted side
street. By the time that Ned got to the corner,
the quarry was just turning the next corner,
running at top speed.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[194]</span></p>
<p>Ned sprinted after him, turned the corner
and found himself again on a brightly-lighted
thoroughfare thronged with revelers. The man
had vanished into the crowd. Bitter disappointment
choked Ned until suddenly he saw his man
again, this time on the opposite side of the
street, hesitating as if at a loss which way to
go. Finally he again turned westward, with Ned
keeping closer on his heels this time.</p>
<p>Thus the pursuit went on for more than an
hour’s time. Had not the boy been himself a
good walker, the man would soon have tired him
out. The chase ended at last in what your
Viennese calls “Die Innere Stadt,” (The Inner
Town) which lies in the heart of the city and
is the most aristocratic section. The Hofburg,
or Imperial Palace is there, the palaces of many
of the nobility, the government offices, the now
abandoned foreign legations, the opera house
and principal hotels.</p>
<p>The man in the cloak strode swiftly past the
hotel section into the palatial residence district.
He now had the manner of one who knew exactly
where he was going and was in a hurry to get
there.</p>
<p>At the gates of a great iron fence enclosing
the park-like grounds of one of the palatial residences<span class="pagenum">[195]</span>
with which the street was lined, the
stranger paused, then entered without a glance
behind him. Ned followed him swiftly up the
gravel walk, to drop flat behind a spreading rosebush
as his quarry wheeled like a flash and stood
stock still, staring intently back at the street.</p>
<p>For a few moments the boy dared scarcely
to breathe. Then, to his relief, the man again
turned, but instead of mounting the imposing
flight of stone steps, flanked by two carved lions
bearing an armorial crest in their mouths, he
slipped a key into a little half-concealed postern
door and vanished inside, leaving the door
slightly ajar behind him.</p>
<p>Ned hesitated but an instant, then himself
plunged into the yawning black hole. It was so
dark that he had to grope his way forward with
hands outstretched in front of him, shuffling his
feet along, one after the other. Scarcely had
he gone three steps forward when two muscular
hands closed around his throat from behind,
half strangling him, and a heavy voice boomed
through the narrow confines of the entry:</p>
<p>“Ho! Emil, Oscar, Friedrich! This way!
Hurry! I have caught a burglar!”</p>
<p>Ned’s sight began to blur. There was a loud
buzzing in his ears and sparks of red, vivid blue<span class="pagenum">[196]</span>
and yellow light danced before his eyes. He
was helpless in the iron clutch of the man behind
him. Then came the heavy sound of running
feet and three husky servants in livery arrived
and overpowered him. One tripped him flat on
his face, while the others bound his arms immovably
to his sides with a piece of rope. They
mauled him about and gave him a couple of
kicks for good measure.</p>
<p>“Bring him up here,” commanded the master
of the house abruptly, leading the way up a
narrow little flight of stairs.</p>
<p>As Ned stumbled upward, pushed by the
excited serving-men, he saw for the first time
that a very comely young woman was standing
at the head of the staircase, with a loose dressing
gown thrown around her, just as if she had been
frightened from her bed by the noise of the
scuffle and shouts below stairs.</p>
<p>“What are you doing here, Marya?”
demanded the mysterious man in the cape in
what seemed to Ned to be an unjustifiably gruff
tone. “Why aren’t you in bed where you
belong at this hour?”</p>
<p>The girl’s hands were pressed to her heart,
but she was making a brave effort to conceal
her agitation.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[197]</span></p>
<p>“Oh, I thought—I hoped that—father?”
This last in piteous appeal.</p>
<p>The man in the cloak scowled savagely and
shoved her aside, while he and his men pushed
Ned into a large, sumptuously furnished room.</p>
<p>“I know what you thought well enough,” he
growled. “You thought that Racoszky, that
scoundrelly husband of yours, had come and tried
to see you secretly. That’s what you thought!
Well, you are a fool and, though I’m ashamed to
say it, a daughter of mine at the same time.
Look at him as much as you want, Marya! You
see that this doesn’t happen to be your husband.
Instead, he is a rascally fellow who—you can
go now, men!” The servitors went out silently.
“Instead of that, he is a fellow who has been
dogging my footsteps for the last hour or so
and whom I trapped at the foot of the stairs
there just to find out who he was and why he
has followed me in this way.”</p>
<p>Ned did not quail before the menace in his
captor’s eye. Instead it is to be doubted if he
even had heard his last words. One poignant
thought was ringing through his head:</p>
<p>Marya? The man in the cloak whom he knew
to be a conspirator was her father and he had
called her the wife of Lieutenant Racoszky.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[198]</span></p>
<p>Then this would-be assassin was none other
than old Count Polnychek of Budapest!</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum">[199]</span></p>
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