That was all.  The chirography was the same as that upon the note of the racing-car episode.  Shirley locked up the missive in his cabinet, and smiled at the increasing tenseness of the situation.

“The writer of these two notes may have an opportunity to leave town himself before long, to rest his nerves in the quiet valley of the Hudson, at Ossining.  My friend the enemy will soon be realizing a deficit in his rolling-stock and gentlemanly assistants.  Two automobiles and three prisoners to date.  There should be additional results before midnight.  I wonder where he gardens into fruition these flowers of crime?”

And even as he pondered, a curious scene was being enacted within a dozen city blocks of the commodious club house.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SPIDER’S WEB

The setting was a bleak and musty cellar, beneath an old stable of dingy, brick construction.  The building had been modernized to the extent of one single decoration on the street front, an electric sign:  “Garage.”  On the floor, level with the sidewalk, stood half a dozen automobiles of varied manufacture and age.  Near the wide swinging doors of oak, stood a big, black limousine.  Two taxicabs of the usual appearance occupied the space next to this, while a handsome machine faced them on the opposite side of the room.  Two ancient machines were backed against the wall, in the rear.

In the basement beneath, several men were grouped in the front compartment, which was separated by a thick wooden partition from the rear of the cellar.  Three dusty incandescents illuminated this space.  In the back a curious arrangement of two large automobile headlights set on deal tables directed glaring rays toward the one door of the partition.  In the center of the rear room was another table, standing behind a screen of wire gauze, at the bottom of which was cut a small semicircle, large enough for the protrusion of a white, tense hand, whose fingers were even now spasmodically clenching in nervous indication of fury.  Behind either lamp was a heavy black screen, which effectually shut off ingress to that portion of the room.

The man standing between the table and the closed door of the partition, full in the light of the lamps, watched the hand as though fascinated.  He could see nothing else, for behind the gauze all was darkness.  Absolutely invisible, sat the possessor of the hand, observing the face of his interviewer, on the brighter side of the gauze.

“So, there’s no word from the Monk?”

“No, chief.  De bloke’s disappeared.  Either he got so much swag offen dis old Grimsby guy, after youse got de bumps, or he had cold feet and beat it wid de machine,”

“It’s a crooked game on me.” rasped the voice behind the screen.  “I’ll send him up for this.  You know how far my lines go out.  What about Dutch Jake and Ben the Bite?”