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Title: Snarled Identities - A Desperate Tangle
Author: Carter, Nicholas (House name)
Language: English
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* * * * *
NICK CARTER STORIES
New Magnet Library
PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS
_Not a Dull Book in This List_
Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that
the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the
work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no
other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of
new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from
all sorts of trouble, and landed the criminal just where he should
be—behind the bars.
The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories
than any other single person.
Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been
selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of
them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth
covers which sells at ten times the price.
If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet
Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.
_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_
850—Wanted: A Clew By Nicholas Carter
851—A Tangled Skein By Nicholas Carter
852—The Bullion Mystery By Nicholas Carter
853—The Man of Riddles By Nicholas Carter
854—A Miscarriage of Justice By Nicholas Carter
855—The Gloved Hand By Nicholas Carter
856—Spoilers and the Spoils By Nicholas Carter
857—The Deeper Game By Nicholas Carter
858—Bolts from Blue Skies By Nicholas Carter
859—Unseen Foes By Nicholas Carter
860—Knaves in High Places By Nicholas Carter
861—The Microbe of Crime By Nicholas Carter
862—In the Toils of Fear By Nicholas Carter
863—A Heritage of Trouble By Nicholas Carter
864—Called to Account By Nicholas Carter
865—The Just and the Unjust By Nicholas Carter
866—Instinct at Fault By Nicholas Carter
867—A Rogue Worth Trapping By Nicholas Carter
868—A Rope of Slender Threads By Nicholas Carter
869—The Last Call By Nicholas Carter
870—The Spoils of Chance By Nicholas Carter
871—A Struggle With Destiny By Nicholas Carter
872—The Slave of Crime By Nicholas Carter
873—The Crook’s Blind By Nicholas Carter
874—A Rascal of Quality By Nicholas Carter
875—With Shackles of Fire By Nicholas Carter
876—The Man Who Changed Faces By Nicholas Carter
877—The Fixed Alibi By Nicholas Carter
878—Out With the Tide By Nicholas Carter
879—The Soul Destroyers By Nicholas Carter
880—The Wages of Rascality By Nicholas Carter
881—Birds of Prey By Nicholas Carter
882—When Destruction Threatens By Nicholas Carter
883—The Keeper of Black Hounds By Nicholas Carter
884—The Door of Doubt By Nicholas Carter
885—The Wolf Within By Nicholas Carter
886—A Perilous Parole By Nicholas Carter
887—The Trail of the Fingerprints By Nicholas Carter
888—Dodging the Law By Nicholas Carter
889—A Crime in Paradise By Nicholas Carter
890—On the Ragged Edge By Nicholas Carter
891—The Red God of Tragedy By Nicholas Carter
892—The Man Who Paid By Nicholas Carter
893—The Blind Man’s Daughter By Nicholas Carter
894—One Object in Life By Nicholas Carter
895—As a Crook Sows By Nicholas Carter
896—In Record Time By Nicholas Carter
897—Held in Suspense By Nicholas Carter
898—The $100,000 Kiss By Nicholas Carter
899—Just One Slip By Nicholas Carter
900—On a Million-dollar Trail By Nicholas Carter
901—A Weird Treasure By Nicholas Carter
902—The Middle Link By Nicholas Carter
903—To the Ends of the Earth By Nicholas Carter
904—When Honors Pall By Nicholas Carter
905—The Yellow Brand By Nicholas Carter
906—A New Serpent in Eden By Nicholas Carter
907—When Brave Men Tremble By Nicholas Carter
908—A Test of Courage By Nicholas Carter
909—Where Peril Beckons By Nicholas Carter
910—The Gargoni Girdle By Nicholas Carter
911—Rascals & Co. By Nicholas Carter
912—Too Late to Talk By Nicholas Carter
913—Satan’s Apt Pupil By Nicholas Carter
914—The Girl Prisoner By Nicholas Carter
915—The Danger of Folly By Nicholas Carter
916—One Shipwreck Too Many By Nicholas Carter
917—Scourged by Fear By Nicholas Carter
918—The Red Plague By Nicholas Carter
919—Scoundrels Rampant By Nicholas Carter
920—From Clew to Clew By Nicholas Carter
921—When Rogues Conspire By Nicholas Carter
922—Twelve in a Grave By Nicholas Carter
923—The Great Opium Case By Nicholas Carter
924—A Conspiracy of Rumors By Nicholas Carter
925—A Klondike Claim By Nicholas Carter
926—The Evil Formula By Nicholas Carter
927—The Man of Many Faces By Nicholas Carter
928—The Great Enigma By Nicholas Carter
929—The Burden of Proof By Nicholas Carter
930—The Stolen Brain By Nicholas Carter
931—A Titled Counterfeiter By Nicholas Carter
932—The Magic Necklace By Nicholas Carter
933—’Round the World for a Quarter By Nicholas Carter
934—Over the Edge of the World By Nicholas Carter
935—In the Grip of Fate By Nicholas Carter
936—The Case of Many Clews By Nicholas Carter
937—The Sealed Door By Nicholas Carter
938—Nick Carter and the Green Goods Men By Nicholas Carter
939—The Man Without a Will By Nicholas Carter
940—Tracked Across the Atlantic By Nicholas Carter
941—A Clew From the Unknown By Nicholas Carter
942—The Crime of a Countess By Nicholas Carter
943—A Mixed Up Mess By Nicholas Carter
944—The Great Money Order Swindle By Nicholas Carter
945—The Adder’s Brood By Nicholas Carter
946—A Wall Street Haul By Nicholas Carter
947—For a Pawned Crown By Nicholas Carter
948—Sealed Orders By Nicholas Carter
949—The Hate That Kills By Nicholas Carter
950—The American Marquis By Nicholas Carter
951—The Needy Nine By Nicholas Carter
952—Fighting Against Millions By Nicholas Carter
953—Outlaws of the Blue By Nicholas Carter
954—The Old Detective’s Pupil By Nicholas Carter
955—Found in the Jungle By Nicholas Carter
956—The Mysterious Mail Robbery By Nicholas Carter
957—Broken Bars By Nicholas Carter
958—A Fair Criminal By Nicholas Carter
959—Won by Magic By Nicholas Carter
960—The Piano Box Mystery By Nicholas Carter
961—The Man They Held Back By Nicholas Carter
962—A Millionaire Partner By Nicholas Carter
963—A Pressing Peril By Nicholas Carter
964—An Australian Klondyke By Nicholas Carter
965—The Sultan’s Pearls By Nicholas Carter
966—The Double Shuffle Club By Nicholas Carter
967—Paying the Price By Nicholas Carter
968—A Woman’s Hand By Nicholas Carter
969—A Network of Crime By Nicholas Carter
970—At Thompson’s Ranch By Nicholas Carter
971—The Crossed Needles By Nicholas Carter
972—The Diamond Mine Case By Nicholas Carter
973—Blood Will Tell By Nicholas Carter
974—An Accidental Password By Nicholas Carter
975—The Crook’s Bauble By Nicholas Carter
976—Two Plus Two By Nicholas Carter
977—The Yellow Label By Nicholas Carter
978—The Clever Celestial By Nicholas Carter
979—The Amphitheater Plot By Nicholas Carter
980—Gideon Drexel’s Millions By Nicholas Carter
981—Death in Life By Nicholas Carter
982—A Stolen Identity By Nicholas Carter
983—Evidence by Telephone By Nicholas Carter
984—The Twelve Tin Boxes By Nicholas Carter
985—Clew Against Clew By Nicholas Carter
986—Lady Velvet By Nicholas Carter
987—Playing a Bold Game By Nicholas Carter
988—A Dead Man’s Grip By Nicholas Carter
989—Snarled Identities By Nicholas Carter
990—A Deposit Vault Puzzle By Nicholas Carter
991—The Crescent Brotherhood By Nicholas Carter
992—The Stolen Pay Train By Nicholas Carter
993—The Sea Fox By Nicholas Carter
994—Wanted by Two Clients By Nicholas Carter
995—The Van Alstine Case By Nicholas Carter
996—Check No. 777 By Nicholas Carter
997—Partners in Peril By Nicholas Carter
998—Nick Carter’s Clever Protégé By Nicholas Carter
999—The Sign of the Crossed Knives By Nicholas Carter
1000—The Man Who Vanished By Nicholas Carter
1001—A Battle for the Right By Nicholas Carter
1002—A Game of Craft By Nicholas Carter
1003—Nick Carter’s Retainer By Nicholas Carter
1004—Caught in the Toils By Nicholas Carter
1005—A Broken Bond By Nicholas Carter
1006—The Crime of the French Café By Nicholas Carter
1007—The Man Who Stole Millions By Nicholas Carter
1008—The Twelve Wise Men By Nicholas Carter
1009—Hidden Foes By Nicholas Carter
1010—A Gamblers’ Syndicate By Nicholas Carter
1011—A Chance Discovery By Nicholas Carter
1012—Among the Counterfeiters By Nicholas Carter
1013—A Threefold Disappearance By Nicholas Carter
1014—At Odds With Scotland Yard By Nicholas Carter
1015—A Princess of Crime By Nicholas Carter
1016—Found on the Beach By Nicholas Carter
1017—A Spinner of Death By Nicholas Carter
1018—The Detective’s Pretty Neighbor By Nicholas Carter
1019—A Bogus Clew By Nicholas Carter
1020—The Puzzle of Five Pistols By Nicholas Carter
1021—The Secret of the Marble Mantel By Nicholas Carter
1022—A Bite of an Apple By Nicholas Carter
1023—A Triple Crime By Nicholas Carter
1024—The Stolen Race Horse By Nicholas Carter
1025—Wildfire By Nicholas Carter
1026—A _Herald_ Personal By Nicholas Carter
1027—The Finger of Suspicion By Nicholas Carter
1028—The Crimson Clue By Nicholas Carter
1029—Nick Carter Down East By Nicholas Carter
1030—The Chain of Clues By Nicholas Carter
1031—A Victim of Circumstances By Nicholas Carter
1032—Brought to Bay By Nicholas Carter
1033—The Dynamite Trap By Nicholas Carter
1034—A Scrap of Black Lace By Nicholas Carter
1035—The Woman of Evil By Nicholas Carter
1036—A Legacy of Hate By Nicholas Carter
1037—A Trusted Rogue By Nicholas Carter
1038—Man Against Man By Nicholas Carter
1039—The Demons of the Night By Nicholas Carter
1040—The Brotherhood of Death By Nicholas Carter
1041—At the Knife’s Point By Nicholas Carter
1042—A Cry for Help By Nicholas Carter
1043—A Stroke of Policy By Nicholas Carter
1044—Hounded to Death By Nicholas Carter
1045—A Bargain in Crime By Nicholas Carter
1046—The Fatal Prescription By Nicholas Carter
1047—The Man of Iron By Nicholas Carter
1048—An Amazing Scoundrel By Nicholas Carter
1049—The Chain of Evidence By Nicholas Carter
1050—Paid with Death By Nicholas Carter
1051—A Fight for a Throne By Nicholas Carter
1052—The Woman of Steel By Nicholas Carter
1053—The Seal of Death By Nicholas Carter
1054—The Human Fiend By Nicholas Carter
1055—A Desperate Chance By Nicholas Carter
1056—A Chase in the Dark By Nicholas Carter
1057—The Snare and the Game By Nicholas Carter
1058—The Murray Hill Mystery By Nicholas Carter
1059—Nick Carter’s Close Call By Nicholas Carter
1060—The Missing Cotton King By Nicholas Carter
1061—A Game of Plots By Nicholas Carter
1062—The Prince of Liars By Nicholas Carter
1063—The Man at the Window By Nicholas Carter
1064—The Red League By Nicholas Carter
1065—The Price of a Secret By Nicholas Carter
1066—The Worst Case on Record By Nicholas Carter
1067—From Peril to Peril By Nicholas Carter
1068—The Seal of Silence By Nicholas Carter
1069—Nick Carter’s Chinese Puzzle By Nicholas Carter
1070—A Blackmailer’s Bluff By Nicholas Carter
1071—Heard in the Dark By Nicholas Carter
1072—A Checkmated Scoundrel By Nicholas Carter
1073—The Cashier’s Secret By Nicholas Carter
1074—Behind a Mask By Nicholas Carter
1075—The Cloak of Guilt By Nicholas Carter
1076—Two Villains in One By Nicholas Carter
1077—The Hot Air Clue By Nicholas Carter
1078—Run to Earth By Nicholas Carter
1079—The Certified Check By Nicholas Carter
1080—Weaving the Web By Nicholas Carter
1081—Beyond Pursuit By Nicholas Carter
1082—The Claws of the Tiger By Nicholas Carter
In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the
books listed below will be issued during the respective months in New
York City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance
promptly, on account of delays in transportation.
To Be Published in July, 1922.
1083—Driven From Cover By Nicholas Carter
1084—A Deal in Diamonds By Nicholas Carter
To Be Published in August, 1922.
1085—The Wizard of the Cue By Nicholas Carter
1086—A Race for Ten Thousand By Nicholas Carter
1087—The Criminal Link By Nicholas Carter
To Be Published in September, 1922.
1088—The Red Signal By Nicholas Carter
1089—The Secret Panel By Nicholas Carter
To Be Published in October, 1922.
1090—A Bonded Villain By Nicholas Carter
1091—A Move in the Dark By Nicholas Carter
To Be Published in November, 1922.
1092—Against Desperate Odds By Nicholas Carter
1093—The Telltale Photographs By Nicholas Carter
To Be Published in December, 1922.
1094—The Ruby Pin By Nicholas Carter
1095—The Queen of Diamonds By Nicholas Carter
To Be Published in January, 1923.
1096—A Broken Trail By Nicholas Carter
1097—An Ingenious Stratagem By Nicholas Carter
SNARLED IDENTITIES
OR,
A DESPERATE TANGLE
BY
NICHOLAS CARTER
Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures, which
are published exclusively in the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY, conceded
to be among the best detective tales ever written.
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1916
By STREET & SMITH
Snarled Identities
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
SNARLED IDENTITIES.
CHAPTER I.
STARTLING NEWS.
Nicholas Carter, and his first assistant, Chickering Carter, had risen
early that morning, but not for the usual reason. It was a very unusual
occasion in the great detective’s household, for he and Chick were
actually going away for two weeks’ vacation in the Adirondacks.
The train that was to carry the two to the Great North Woods was
scheduled to leave shortly after eight o’clock, and many preparations
had been deferred until that morning. Now, however, everything was
practically ready, their trunk was packed, locked, and strapped,
their suit cases were nearly filled, and they had time for a bite of
breakfast and a glance at the morning papers, which had thus far been
neglected.
Nick seemed to be the only one who was interested in the news. In fact,
his assistant made a wry face when he saw his chief reaching for one of
the papers.
“Can’t you forget that sort of thing?” he asked, in an injured tone. “I
was hoping you would until we got well started, at least.”
“What’s the trouble?” Nick asked, in a bewildered tone. “Oh, I see what
you are driving at! You are afraid I’ll see something interesting in
the line of crimes and mysteries, and decide at the last minute to stay
at home? Is that the idea?”
His assistant nodded gloomily. “Correct,” he answered. “I never
know which way you are going to jump, or at what moment. When I’m
trying to get you off for a holiday, especially, I feel the greatest
responsibility. You have such a way of changing your mind, and, if you
don’t, somebody usually bobs up with a case that you find irresistible.
You’ve been working your head off for months, and you are run down;
you know you are.” Chick grinned. “You are not exactly at the breaking
point yet,” he went on, “but you are just a little stale, and that
won’t do, you know. Any day something may break that will require your
keenest brain work, and your last ounce of strength and agility. Of
course, things will turn up; of course, you’ll have all sorts of calls
every day, and if you allow yourself to read the papers, you’ll run
across plenty of things that will prove fascinating to you. Can’t you
cut yourself loose, though—absolutely?”
“I’ve done harder things than that, grandmother,” Nick answered, “but
I really don’t see the necessity for that sort of total abstinence. If
you think I’m going to cut out all newspapers for two weeks, you’re
very much mistaken. I’ve promised to go, though, and I’m going—unless,
of course, something turns up that is altogether too big to neglect.”
He opened the paper, whereupon Chick gave an exaggerated sigh of
resignation.
“What is to be is to be, I suppose,” the younger detective murmured;
“or, in more up-to-date form, she goes as she lays.”
It may be inferred, therefore, that he was far from surprised, when his
chief gave a startled exclamation a few moments later.
“Well,” Chick asked pessimistically, “what have you struck now? We are
not going away, I suppose?”
“Of course we are, you idiot!” Nick answered excitedly. “You’ll agree
with me, though, I’m sure, that it would have been a calamity if we had
missed this. It looks as if we had had our last tussle with ‘Green-eye’
Gordon.”
Chick’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Has Gordon died in
prison?”
Nick nodded soberly. “He was burned to death last night in a fire that
destroyed one wing of Clinton Prison,” he replied, his eye hastily
running over the rest of the article.
Presently the paper was passed to Chick. This, in part, was what the
latter read.
CHAPTER II.
“GREEN-EYE” GORDON.
“Shortly after ten o’clock last night fire was discovered in the
laundry at Clinton Prison. The blaze spread with surprising rapidity,
and as the laundry was in the basement of one of the main wings of
three tiers of cells above it, the lives of many of the convicts were
soon seen to be in danger.
“Under the circumstances, it is surprising that more lives were not
lost, but the best information obtainable at the present time is
that three of the inmates were fatally burned—including the clever
and infamous Green-eye Gordon—that many were injured or temporarily
overcome, and that one took advantage of the excitement to escape.
“As soon as it was seen that the fire was beyond control, so far as the
prison’s fire-fighting facilities were concerned, and that there was
danger of asphyxiation from the dense smoke, the cells of each tier
in the threatened wing were unlocked simultaneously, and there was a
general exodus of frightened prisoners. The scene defies description,
for the delay in opening the cells had given the trapped men an
opportunity to work themselves up into a frenzy, and, as a result, the
guards were powerless to handle them.
“A general jail delivery might have followed if the convicts had
realized their power, but fear had driven everything else out of their
minds for the time being, and in consequence, only one man, Convict No.
9,371, made his escape. He is known to the world beyond the gray walls
as “Shang” Libby, a yegg, who had made his headquarters at Buffalo.
Libby must have followed one of the guards when the latter left the
inclosure for help, and having waited until the door of freedom had
been opened, he quietly struck the guard down and passed through. He
was one of those who had hastily dressed himself in the prison uniform
and unless he can manage to get other clothing there is no doubt that
he will soon be rounded up.”
Then followed a long account of the fire, and references to those
who had been killed or seriously injured. The article ended with the
following:
“The death of Ernest Gordon, widely known as Green-eye Gordon, was
the most ignominious one, and hardly in keeping with this notorious
criminal’s career. There was nothing spectacular about it. Gordon might
have been expected to play a conspicuous part at such a time—to rally
the prisoners for a concerted attempt at escape, for instance—but he
does not seem to have distinguished himself in any such way. Indeed, it
would appear that his daring and initiative left him at the last, for
there seems no very good reason for his death, when most of his fellow
prisoners escaped.
“Of course, some accident must have happened to him, for he was
found trodden to death by the others in their bestial rush. His face
disfigured beyond recognition.
“Gordon hailed from New York, and those who know have long classed him
as one of the cleverest and most dangerous criminals this country has
ever produced. He came of a good family, and was well educated, but
early showed a tendency to criminal pursuits. Apparently he reformed,
however, and for several years was employed by one of the great
detective agencies.
“In this capacity he showed himself to be very able and daring, so much
so that he advanced rapidly, and long enjoyed the utmost confidence of
his employers. In the end, however, it was learned that he had been
using his position for his own ends, and had really never given up his
career of crime. He must have known that a storm was brewing, for, as
usual, he managed to get away a few jumps ahead.
“After that, thanks to the invaluable experience he had gained as a
detective, he turned his attention to much more ambitious and lucrative
pursuits, soon becoming one of the most troublesome thorns in the side
of the police of this city and elsewhere. Gordon always was versatile,
and handled many kinds of crime with remarkable success. Toward the
last, however, he developed something approaching a specialty in the
shape of blackmail on a large scale. He seemed to have an uncanny
facility for learning the secrets of the wealthy and prominent, and
using them for purposes of blackmail.
“Crimes of this sort are not easy to establish in a legal way, or to
punish, for the victims seldom raise an outcry. Nevertheless, that
lifelong foe of crime and criminals, Nicholas Carter, took up the
trail, and finally brought Gordon to bay. The capture and trial of two
years ago are doubtless fresh in the minds of many newspaper readers.
“Gordon acquired his nickname of Green Eye from the fact that he had
a pair of peculiar, rather nondescript gray eyes, which were said to
emit a green light when the man was angry or excited. In addition, his
eyes showed an inclination to cross at such times, although perfectly
normal at all others. In fact, it is claimed that these distinguishing
characteristics more than once served to identify the clever rogue,
whose remarkable histrionic ability and skill at make-up would
otherwise have enabled him to defy detection.”
Of course, neither of the detectives read all of this. They did not
need to, for they knew a great deal more about Ernest Gordon than any
one else could have told them.
Chick followed his chief’s example in glancing through the article and
getting the main points that were new to him. Then he looked up with an
odd expression.
“Well, it certainly sounds final enough,” he remarked. “I find it hard
to believe, though, that Green Eye is dead, and that he died in such a
way.”
“It is somewhat difficult to credit it,” Nick agreed. “That’s the way
things frequently happen, though. Fate isn’t always dramatic in its
methods according to our theatrical standards. No, it seems safe enough
to believe that Ernest Gordon won’t give us any more trouble, and I
find a certain amount of relief in the thought. I’m willing to confess
now that there were times when I doubted my ability to bring him to
account. In other words, I felt myself nearer defeat at his hands than
I had ever done in any other case.”
The detective pulled out his watch, glanced at it, and threw his
napkin aside. “We must hustle if we are going to catch that train,” he
announced.
Five minutes later he and Chick were whirled away to the station. Their
well-earned vacation had begun, but they were far from carefree.
The thought of Ernest Gordon persisted in haunting their minds, and
somehow it seemed to dull the edge of their anticipations.
CHAPTER III.
NOT SO DEAD, AFTER ALL.
Two days later a striking-looking, conspicuously well-groomed man
presented himself at Nick Carter’s door.
He did not give his name, which is not to be wondered at under the
circumstances, for the caller was Green-eye Gordon—not his ghost, but
the man himself, substantial flesh and blood, escaped convict, and
first-class criminal.
For once Chick’s intuitions had been keener than his chief’s. The
younger detective had been inclined to question the validity of
Gordon’s death in the absence of any more conclusive testimony than
that given in the first accounts of the fire. Nick, however, had been
in a mood to discourage such skepticism—perhaps because of that relief
to which he had confessed.
The fact was that it was Green Eye who had escaped, and not the yegg
from Buffalo. Gordon had stumbled over the latter’s body during that
mad rush for safety. The yegg was by no means dead at the time, but had
been overcome by the smoke, and, without a moment’s hesitation, Gordon
had determined to profit by the encounter.
He had no definite plan, but it was characteristic of him that whereas
the others were interested only in escaping the flames, he was looking
for the opportunity to escape from the prison itself, and was prepared
to profit by every promising circumstance.
It occurred to him at once that an exchange of coats would be to his
advantage, and he proceeded at once to make the exchange, stripping off
the unconscious man’s coat, and putting his own halfway on in place of
it.
The reason for this may be easily guessed. The gray coats—for stripes
are no longer in vogue in New York State—bore each man’s prison number,
and, therefore, by such a simple exchange, identities could be shifted
temporarily.
Gordon’s number was 39,470, and, of course, it was known to all the
keepers and prisoners as standing for the identity of the formidable
Green Eye. The other man’s number, on the other hand, had no particular
significance, for the yegg was an ordinary criminal, of comparatively
little intelligence, who had not made himself conspicuous in any way,
either in or out of the prison.
Consequently, if there should prove to be later on any reason to
believe that Libby was missing, his absence would not be likely to
cause any great commotion, for it would be taken for granted that his
capture was only a question of time.
Gordon had reasoned shrewdly, as usual, and had thus, by his own
promptness and resourcefulness, put himself in the way of the luck that
subsequently favored him.
He had feigned an injury, and had thrown himself down in the prison
courtyard, after taking care to stagger close to the main gates, and a
shadow of the projecting section of the wall. There he was ignored, for
the flames in the burning wing were mounting higher and higher, and all
the men were not yet out of it.
It was some minutes before Green Eye’s chance had come, but it did
come, as he had felt sure it would. One of the guards rushed past him
and approached a small door at one side of the big, double gates.
Evidently the man had been sent on some important errand, which would
take him outside the prison walls.
The keeper looked behind him with a wary eye to make sure that he
was not followed. He had fears of a general break for liberty, but
apparently no one was paying any attention to him.
Therefore he excitedly inserted a key in the lock, and, after some
fumbling, opened the door. It was then that Gordon had pounced upon him.
One blow had been enough. It caught the unfortunate guard behind the
ear and sent him hurtling through the opening. In a moment the convict
had followed.
Gordon dashed across the road before the vanguard of the crowd from the
town had reached the spot, and, dodging through the extensive lumber
yard, made his way to the outskirts of Dannemora, his goal being a
certain tumble-down, abandoned house.
There he found what he sought—a moisture-proof box of considerable
size, containing a complete outfit of clothing, an automatic of the
latest model, and no less than five hundred dollars in gold.
We have hinted that Ernest Gordon was no ordinary criminal, and the
truth of that has doubtless begun to shine through this narrative.
Here, at any rate, is striking evidence of it.
Green Eye had always preferred to work alone, as many of the most
successful criminals have done. He had friends, however, and one of
these had carried out his directions. The gates of Clinton Prison had
not even closed behind Gordon, when the latter had begun to plan for a
possible escape, and the planting of this box played an important part
in the arrangement.
During his many months in the prison, Green Eye had not succeeded in
liberating himself, but now that the fire had enabled him to escape,
the box was waiting for him, thanks to his unusual foresight.
Thus it was that he had completely eluded pursuit. The authorities were
looking for a commonplace, unimaginative yegg, who went by the name of
Shang Libby, and who might be expected to retain some, at least, of
his prison garments. It is little wonder, therefore, that they failed
to capture the polished and superdaring Gordon, who lost no time in
starting for New York City in a sleeping car.
The fugitive’s first thought when he reached the metropolis was one
of revenge. He had no idea of killing Nick Carter for the part the
latter had played in his downfall, for murder had never been in his
line. There are many other kinds of revenge, however, and Gordon was
determined to avail himself of one or more of them.
He wished to humiliate Nick to the utmost, if possible, and,
incidentally, to do so in such a way that his success would line his
pockets with gold.
He had a plan, when he presented himself at Nick’s door, but it
was lacking in many details, for these he had decided to leave to
the inspiration of the moment. In any case, however, he meant to
palm himself off as a would-be client, and, having thus gained the
detective’s confidence, to proceed with the rest of the scheme, or some
modification of it.
“Is Mr. Carter in?” he asked anxiously, when the butler opened the door.
“No, sir,” the servant replied, noting with approval the visitor’s
apparent prosperity and air of importance. “Mr. Carter is out of town
at present.”
“Is it possible? For how long?”
“He went away day before yesterday, and expected to be absent for two
weeks.”
“How unfortunate! I have a case of the utmost importance—the sort of
thing no one else can handle,” the caller said, with the semblance
of profound disappointment. “One of his assistants might help me to
some extent, however, or bring the matter to Mr. Carter’s attention by
telegraph.”
Again the butler shook his head regretfully. He was being very
indiscreet, but he did not suspect it for a moment, owing to the
impression the stranger made upon him.
“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, too, sir,” he answered. “There
is no one at home who could attend to you. It’s the first time it has
happened in years.”
The stranger seemed greatly distressed.
“This is terrible!” he cried. “I don’t know what I shall do if I can’t
get hold of Mr. Carter. I would be very sorry to break up his vacation,
but I’m sure if he knew the circumstances, he would not hesitate for a
moment. Some very prominent people are involved, and, unless something
is done speedily, there will be nothing short of a national scandal.
Surely, you will give me Mr. Carter’s address, will you not?”
The butler hesitated—and fell.
CHAPTER IV.
THE DETECTIVE’S “HALFWAY HOUSE.”
Chick had been in favor of cutting off all communication with the
detective’s residence in New York. It was not because he himself felt
any great need of a holiday, but rather because he had an exaggerated
notion that his chief was badly in need of a change.
Nick, however, had vetoed this suggestion, and left things largely to
his butler’s discretion. The butler had been in his service for years,
and had shown himself by no means a fool.
“If anything big develops,” Nick had told him, “do not hesitate to
telegraph for me, or have me called on the long distance—if there isn’t
time to write. I don’t want to miss an important case.”
The butler remembered these words now—and forgot that he did not even
know the caller’s name. Carried away by the man’s air of authority, he
blurted out the desired information.
“Mr. Carter is staying at the Buck’s Head Inn, Little Saranac Lake,
sir,” he said.
“Many thanks! That’s all I need. I’m sure Mr. Carter will respond at
once when he hears what’s in the wind,” Gordon declared importantly,
and having made a note of the address, thanked the butler again, and
returned to the waiting taxi.
Green Eye had seen a great light as a result of the butler’s incautious
revelations, and all his previous plans had been discarded. In their
place a new one was growing—a plan that promised to set a record for
daring, and to bring the detective nearer to professional shipwreck
than he had been in all of his career.
The new plan did not involve an interview with Nick. On the contrary,
it was built upon the fact that the detective was hundreds of miles
away, buried in the woods.
Therefore, as may be guessed, Green Eye did not make use of the address
the butler had given him. He was quite satisfied to have created the
impression that he intended to communicate with Nick at once, and that
the latter might return in the course of a day or two.
The following morning an individual climbed the stairs leading to one
of Nick’s “halfway houses,” that particular one being on One Hundred
and Twenty-fifth Street.
Nick Carter maintained a number of these places in different parts
of the city, and in each of them he kept several complete changes
of clothing and a supply of wigs, false mustaches, beards, make-up
articles, and the like.
Their mission is perfectly obvious. Under ordinary circumstances,
it was safe enough for the detective and his assistants to disguise
themselves at home, and to return to their headquarters at their
pleasure. When they were handling an unusually delicate case, however,
or dealing with exceptionally clever lawbreakers, they found it
necessary to take further precautions, and these so-called halfway
houses then came in handy.
In other words, the secret bases of supplies—each of which had
two exits—made it possible for them to leave and return to their
headquarters openly, and without disguise, although the intervening
hours might be devoted to the most relentless shadowing, carried on
under all sorts of guises.
The man who climbed the stairs at the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
Street place, therefore, might easily have been Nick in the act of
returning from some such expedition. He did not look in the least like
the great detective, but that proved nothing, and his actions went far
to indicate that he was Nick or one of the latter’s assistants.
He boldly approached the door of the room, the location of which did
not seem to give him the slightest trouble, despite the fact that there
was nothing on the door to guide him. He seemed to have some little
difficulty in getting the door open, to be sure; but, after working at
the lock for two or three minutes, he gained entrance.
Many criminals would have given a great deal to know the location of
one of those rooms, but Nick did not dream that one rascal had long
since discovered the halfway house in Harlem.
The man who had gained entrance by picking the lock was Green-eye
Gordon, of course.
He had learned of the place shortly before Nick had caught him, two
years or more back, and had been more or less uncertain as to the
present use of the room. The detective might have given it up in the
interval, for all he knew, but he had resolved to put his knowledge to
the test, and now he was rewarded, for a glance about the place showed
him that it was still employed by the detective.
Rows of clothing hung in orderly array on hooks along the walls. At
one side there was a long mirror, which enabled one to view oneself
from head to feet, and between the windows, at the rear, was a dressing
table, which looked as if it might belong to some musical-comedy star,
so cluttered was it with make-up materials of all sorts.
It was nearly an hour later when Ernest Gordon let himself out, locked
the door behind him—after some further effort—and sauntered downstairs.
Another complete transformation had taken place in his appearance. He
was no longer the hunted criminal who had escaped from Clinton Prison,
no longer the dressy individual who had presented himself at the
detective’s, the day before, and least of all did he look like the man
who had ascended those stairs some fifty minutes previously.
Now, to all intents and purposes, he was Nick Carter himself.
Not only was he wearing one of the excellent suits the detective kept
for his more respectable disguises, but in build, walk, features, and
even expression, he was as much like Nick Carter as one pea is like
another.
His astounding plan had ripened into action.
CHAPTER V.
IN NICK’S SHOES.
The butler happened to be out ordering supplies when the detective’s
front bell rang, and, as Mrs. Peters, the housekeeper, was near the
door, she answered it.
On the tip of her tongue she had the answer which she had already given
to several inquiries—that the detective was out of town. Therefore, her
amazement may be imagined when she found—as she supposed—that it was
Nick himself who was outside.
“For goodness’ sake, sir!” she ejaculated, starting in surprise. “What
in the world are you doing back so soon?”
The masquerader smiled one of Nick’s characteristically genial smiles.
“I was called back, I’m sorry to say,” he answered, his voice taking on
the detective’s familiar tones. “Joseph furnished my address yesterday,
I believe, and the man he gave it to wired me to come back. The case
was so important that I felt I had to. I hope to return, though, in a
few days, and, as I have everything here, of course, I didn’t bring any
baggage.”
“Well, I never!” exclaimed the housekeeper. “I feared it would be just
like this, but I hoped you would stay this time. Didn’t Mr. Chickering
come back with you?”
“No, I left him at Little Saranac, but shall send for him if I need
him.”
As they had been speaking, the housekeeper had instinctively stepped
aside, and Gordon had passed her. Now he started up the stairs, in the
direction of the study.
“You’ll have some lunch ready at the usual time?” he asked, looking
back over his shoulder.
“Of course, sir,” was the reply; and that was all that was said.
If the new arrival had been Nick himself, he would have smilingly
apologized to Mrs. Peters for having broken in so unexpectedly upon her
well-earned relaxation, but Green Eye was altogether too selfish to
think of such things.
Thus far he had played his part very well, but there were many pitfalls
in his path, and there was no knowing at what moment he might fall into
one of them. His eyes were not Nick’s eyes, and his disposition was not
Nick’s disposition—far from it, in fact.
At any moment his innate harshness and tyranny might assert themselves.
Moreover, his habits were unlike those of the detective. He smoked
much more, for one thing, and he drank. Nick, to be sure, had consumed
many a glass of beer and wine—for effect and under protest—but he had
no real liking for anything of the sort, and no one had had a better
opportunity than he to note the evil effects of drink.
Naturally, Gordon had resolved to deny himself whenever he was under
the eye of those who were familiar with Nick’s habits, but it remained
to be seen whether he would succeed in keeping to that resolution.
Already he had forgotten one little thing which might have caused him
embarrassment, and might still do so, for that matter. He had meant to
offer some plausible explanation of his failure to let himself in with
a latchkey, but he had forgotten all about it at the time, and now it
might seem strange if he brought up the subject.
He had not come straight to the house from the changing room on One
Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, but had shown himself in one or
two places where Nick was well known, his idea being to see if his
disguise would pass inspection elsewhere before submitting himself
to the scrutiny of Nick’s household. That had consumed some time;
consequently, the luncheon hour was near when he arrived at the house.
He was on fire with eagerness to rummage in Nick’s desk, hunt about
in his file cases, and rifle his safe, but he knew that he could not
accomplish much before lunch, and he did not wish to make himself
conspicuous by passing over that meal. Perhaps he could accomplish
something, however.
With that idea in view, he approached one of the detective’s metal file
cases. The drawers were locked, but he found a means of opening them,
and the drawer he first pulled out was that devoted to the letter “G.”
A few moments spent in thumbing over the big cards filed there brought
the desired one to light. It was that devoted to himself, and bore, in
addition to a lot of closely written information, a photograph and a
set of facsimile finger prints.
Gordon seemed to take a grim delight in reading the accurate
description of himself, and the careful details concerning his career,
characteristic methods, and so on.
“Not bad!” he muttered presently. “In fact, it’s a little too true for
comfort. I think I shall have to withdraw it.”
And going over to the wastebasket, he deliberately tore the card into
small bits and dropped them into the receptacle.
After that he returned to the file case, fingered over some of the
other cards, and then leaned thoughtfully on the opened drawer.
“There are hundreds and thousands of cases recorded here,” he mused,
“but apparently they are not the most important ones, and it’s safe to
say that Carter isn’t keeping records of his most confidential affairs
in such an easily accessible place. I have no doubt I could milk lots
of these fellows for tidy little sums, but I’m after big game just
now—not rabbits.”
His gaze strayed in the direction of the detective’s safe, and a more
calculating look came into his eyes.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if you hold the records I’m looking for—or
some of them,” he muttered aloud, addressing the big safe. “If not, you
may contain something else of interest. At any rate, I’m going to find
out, the first chance I get.”
CHAPTER VI.
AN INTERRUPTION.
The audacity of Green-eye Gordon’s venture has doubtless been apparent
from the beginning, but now the real purpose of his impersonation has
begun to be discernible.
He was not there in Nick Carter’s shoes, in undisturbed possession of
the detective’s study, for the mere satisfaction involved in such a
daring masquerade. Of course, the experience was a stimulating one, and
the clever rascal chuckled to himself every time he pictured Nick’s
face when the detective learned the truth. It was something more
practical, though, that had brought him there.
Naturally, if he succeeded in gaining access to the safe, he would not
be above appropriating to his own uses whatever money and valuables he
might find there, but his desires even went beyond that—far beyond it.
He knew that Nick had handled many of the most delicate cases that had
ever developed in this country, and was the custodian of more secrets
than had come into the possession of any other American.
Among those secrets he had no doubt were many of such a nature that
those concerned would feel compelled to part with large sums of money,
in order that their secrets might be kept. Some of them doubtless
were men and women now wealthy or distinguished, who had some secret
connected with their past lives which they would go to almost any
lengths to keep the world from knowing. In other cases, the guilty
might be dead, or unable to pay, but the records would probably give
the names of relatives, friends, or former business associates who
might be successfully blackmailed.
That was it—blackmail on a huge and hitherto unprecedented scale.
The accomplished scoundrel had made up his mind that Nick Carter’s
records would prove nothing less than a gold mine, and he meant to work
that mine for all it was worth in the next week or ten days. Nick might
have destroyed the most confidential and dangerous of these records,
but Gordon did not believe that to be the case.
“They are too valuable to him in his work,” he told himself. “And,
even if they were not, the keeping of records gets to be a habit. Of
course, he may realize that some of them would be more dangerous than
a few tons of dynamite, if they should fall into the wrong hands, and
he may have placed the ones of that description in some safe-deposit
vault. If he has, that will mean much more trouble, but if I can locate
the vault, I ought to be able to trick those in charge of it into
giving me access to the box, even if I can’t produce the key. Am I not
Carter himself, and are not keys lost or mislaid in the best-regulated
families?
“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary, though. I trust I shall find what
I want right in this room.”
He was summoned to luncheon then, but he came through the ordeal that
followed with flying colors. Joseph, the detective’s butler, served him
in person, and evidently found nothing more suspicious than Mrs. Peters
had done. Gordon still had himself well in hand, and, after the brief
greetings were over, little was said.
“I’ll eat what’s set before me,” Green Eye had decided. “The servants
are well trained, and ought to know Carter’s likes and dislikes by this
time; therefore I can’t go far wrong in eating what they serve, whether
I like it or not. It won’t be easy to deny myself, and to keep on the
alert, but I shall have to pay some penalties, I suppose, for aspiring
to be the great and exalted Nick Carter.” And he grinned at the thought.
After luncheon the impostor hurried back upstairs, and hunted up a box
of Nick’s favorite Havana cigars. A handful of them underwent a careful
selection, and a more or less appreciative sniffing before being
transferred to his pocket.
“Not so bad,” he commented mentally. “A little too dry, though, and
I’ve smoked better.”
Nevertheless, he did not seem averse to smoking these, one after
another.
“I shall have to go out before long, I suppose,” he decided. “It’s
understood that I’ve been called back on important business, and, as
it isn’t convenient for my new client to call on me here, I’ll be
expected to meet him elsewhere, and to make a noise like action.”
That did not deter him, however, from making an immediate descent upon
the safe, but he soon found that he would be obliged to defer serious
activities in that connection. He had hoped to be able to open the safe
by merely putting one ear to the door and listening to the fall of the
tumblers in the lock, but five or ten minutes’ effort convinced him
that that was out of the question.
“It can’t be done with a lock like this,” he concluded, with a muttered
imprecation. “It looks to me as if I would have to force my way in if
I’m going to get in at all. That will be decidedly risky, at best, but
I think I can do it quietly enough, and, after it’s over, I ought to
be able to find some means of concealing my handiwork. Not just now,
though, thanks. I’ll take something a little easier, first.”
And with that he turned his attention to the desk.
The top had been cleared of its accumulation of papers before the
detective’s departure, and the drawers were all locked, but Green Eye
was provided with certain handy little tools. To be sure, it took two
or three minutes to open each drawer, but soon the contents of three or
four of them lay at his disposal in plain sight, and he determined to
examine these papers and books before opening the other drawers.
He was engaged in this absorbing occupation, when the lower bell rang
and roused him with a start.
“Wonder who that is?” he asked himself apprehensively, then shrugged
his shoulders. “This won’t do!” he muttered. “If I’m going to be as
nervous as a cat at every sound, I had better give up. What difference
does it make who it is; I’m master of the situation.”
He listened attentively, and heard Joseph go to the door, after
which there was a murmur of voices, followed by steps on the stairs.
Presently, the butler knocked and entered.
“I thought I told you at luncheon that I was still out of town,” Gordon
said angrily. “I came back for this one case, nothing else, and I don’t
want to be bothered by every Tom, Dick, and Harry.”
“I didn’t forget, sir, I assure you,” Joseph said apologetically. “It’s
Mr. Cray, though, and I felt you would want to make an exception in his
case. There’s a gentleman with him.”
Gordon knew what that meant, for he had studied Nick Carter almost
as thoroughly as the detective had studied him. Moreover, had he not
himself figured not inconspicuously in detective circles not many years
before? Consequently, he knew that the Cray referred to was Jack Cray,
a former police detective, who for years had been in business for
himself, and who, curiously enough, was a close friend of Nick’s.
The two were about as unlike as possible, but Cray, big, methodical,
tireless, and brave to the point of recklessness, was a fine example
of his type, and had won Nick’s friendship and assistance, giving, in
return, a rare gratitude and loyalty.
Nick had thrown many cases in Cray’s way, and, on the other hand,
had found his big, lumbering friend of considerable assistance
now and then. In fact, they worked together unusually well, for
Cray had all the plodding methods of the police department at his
command, to supplement Carter’s swift intuitions, and the ex-police
detective—unlike many of his kind—was always ready to follow Nick’s
leadership, and defer to the latter’s better judgment.
Should the bogus Nick Carter see Cray, though? He did not in the
least fear discovery at Cray’s hands, but the interview might lead to
something embarrassing. On the other hand, it might be most fortunate.
Obviously, Cray had brought one of his clients to Nick, and that meant
that the big fellow felt himself more or less out of his depth, and
wished to consult with his brilliant friend.
If the case were important enough, it would be worth while for Green
Eye to look into it. He felt himself quite capable of solving almost
any puzzle if he chose to solve it, but, aside from that, there was a
possibility of pickings—of blackmail again. But much depended upon the
client.
“Who is the other man?” the criminal asked eagerly. “Did Cray say?”
“Yes, sir. It’s Mr. Griswold—Mr. Lane A. Griswold.”
The man behind the desk whistled softly, and a gleam came into his
eyes.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RASCAL’S FIRST CLIENT.
Green Eye’s decision had been an immediate one when he heard the second
man’s name, for Lane A. Griswold was several times a millionaire, and
the owner of the New York _Chronicle and Observer_, one of the biggest
and most influential of the country morning papers—the first and most
conspicuous link in the chain of daily publications which now stretched
all the way across the continent.
Millionaires were worth cultivating, according to Gordon’s philosophy,
and he reasoned that if he could get any sort of a hold upon this one,
it might mean the greatest stroke of luck in his life.
It was well to be on the safe side, however, and he knew that Cray
sometimes exhibited an unexpected degree of intelligence. In the light
of that thought, he took an automatic from one of the open drawers,
examined it to make sure that it was loaded and in first-class
condition, and then dropped it into the right-hand pocket of his coat.
After that he closed the drawers, darkened the room, took up his cigar,
and leaned back in his chair.
“Nick Carter” was ready for another case—as ready as a spider is for a
fly.
The face of the man was calm, his expression indifferent, but it is
probable that his heart was beating at an unusually rapid rate, and
that more or less fear was lurking behind that noncommittal exterior.
It would have been strange, indeed, had it not been the case, for,
with all his daring, this was no commonplace, everyday affair for
Ernest Gordon. He might remind himself as much as he pleased that he
was “officially” dead, burned in the fire at Clinton Prison, and that
no one would be looking for him for that reason, but the many months
he had spent within those grim walls had told upon him physically and
mentally.
In other words, he was not yet his old self. The unnatural conditions
of prison life so lately left behind had incapacitated him to a certain
extent for this abrupt plunge into the life outside, especially a
plunge of such an interesting character, yet he gave no sign of all
this, and, unless something unforeseen developed, he would doubtless
gain confidence and ability as time went on.
For that matter, he had already planned and begun to carry out a scheme
which would have daunted any other criminal in the country.
The supposed detective regarded his visitors with lowered eyes as he
rose languidly from his chair.
Jack Cray’s red face was redder than usual with excitement, and there
was something about his manner that suggested he had brought the famous
newspaper owner there for no trivial reason.
The latter was a man rather over medium height, dressed in the very
latest fashion, but with a trace of untidiness that suggested a
careless valet. His face was inclined to be sallow, and the light
eyes, prominent and rather jerky in their movements, had heavy bags
under them, despite the fact that their owner must still have been
under fifty.
For the rest, his chin was firm, perhaps a little pugnacious, and his
bearing was that of a man who fully realizes his importance.
“This is Mr. Lane A. Griswold, the owner of the _Chronicle and
Observer_, you know, Carter,” explained the flustered Cray. “Mr.
Griswold, my friend, Nicholas Carter.”
Gordon kept his eyelids partially drawn down as he greeted the
millionaire. It was a trick of Carter’s when thinking. In fact, the
detective often closed his eyes altogether at such times. Gordon had
noted this, and was making use of it in order to conceal the color
of his eyes, the one weak point about his impersonation, physically
considered.
Cray was inclined to clip his words short, and leave out as many of
them as he could, thereby giving an impression of unusual directness,
and a haste that cannot stop for trifles.
“Very important case, this one, Mr. Griswold has brought me,” he said.
“Delicate matter, too—decidedly. Did little job for him once, so he
brought me this. Thought I’d better let you in on it, though.”
Gordon nodded slightly, as if all this was quite a matter of course.
“I shall be glad to hear what it is about, Mr. Griswold,” he said. “Of
course, I’m very busy, as always, but——”
“I understand that,” the newspaper proprietor broke in. “I’ll make this
well worth while for both of you, though, if you can handle it without
publicity.”
Green Eye smiled. “That sounds rather strange from the lips of our
greatest apostle of publicity,” he commented.
Griswold gave a gesture of impatience. “Perhaps so,” he admitted.
“I can’t help that, though. Facts are facts, and this would be most
embarrassing to me if any of my competitors should get hold of it, or
even if it were spread by word of mouth.”
He fixed Gordon with his eyes, looking him up and down, as if
scrutinizing an applicant for the position of office boy—supposing a
millionaire would descend to such trivialities.
But the bogus detective stood the scrutiny very well. To tell the
truth, Ernest Gordon was really beginning to enjoy himself. Griswold’s
first words could hardly have sounded more promising. They suggested
all sorts of delightful and golden possibilities.
It seemed perfectly plain that this was just the sort of thing he was
looking for—the case of a wealthy, prominent man, who had something
to hide, and was willing to pay liberally to those who would keep his
secret.
“I can trust you implicitly, whether you succeed or fail, to reveal no
word of what I’m about to tell you?” Griswold asked sharply.
The man behind the desk shrugged his shoulders in a way that was
characteristic of Nick Carter on occasion.
“I’ve been in the confidence of presidents and senators, ambassadors
and noblemen—and millionaires,” he returned, tacking on the word
“millionaires” as if it were an afterthought. “In fact, I may claim
some knowledge of the secrets of royalty.”
It was all perfectly true from Nick Carter’s standpoint, but the
detective himself would not have put it in that way, or boasted of it
at all.
“Of course, you may confide in me or not, as you please,” Green Eye
continued, warming up as he gained self-confidence.
“Tut-tut!” ejaculated Griswold, with a somewhat pained expression. He
had come, with reason, to believe that wealth would buy anything, and
he was not quite prepared for this show of indifference. “I meant no
offense, Mr. Carter, you may be sure. As I said, though, this is a very
ticklish business——”
“We’ll take that for granted,” Gordon quietly interrupted. “Were you
going to give me the details, Mr. Griswold?”
His cool, almost insolent tone gave no hint of the turmoil of
impatience raging within.
What was he about to hear, and what use would he make of it—in other
words, how much could he make it yield him in cold, hard cash, or
crackling bank notes?
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ABSCONDING TREASURER.
For a time it looked as if the millionaire newspaper proprietor meant
to resent the supposed detective’s effrontery in some way, but he
managed to swallow his wrath, and, after reseating himself and angrily
fingering his watch chain, got down to business.
Probably he had decided that it would be very poor policy to have words
with a man of Nick’s reputation, especially when he was badly in need
of the detective’s services.
After clearing his throat, he began:
“I have explained it all to Mr. Cray, here, but perhaps I had better go
over it again, in my own way. The case is in connection with the relief
fund which my papers, headed by the _Chronicle and Observer_, have
raised for the Hattontown sufferers.”
Gordon nodded almost imperceptibly. The terrible fire at Hattontown,
which had destroyed a large part of one of New England’s busiest little
manufacturing cities, had occurred while he was still in prison. He had
read of it, however, in the papers to which he had access in the prison
library, and for that reason he was familiar with the main facts.
Hundreds of residences and business blocks had been destroyed, with
an appalling property loss and a considerable loss of life, as well.
Thousands of persons, men, women, and children, had been rendered
homeless and penniless.
That was where Griswold’s chain of newspapers had taken a hand. Always
quick to respond to such emergencies—largely, it is to be feared,
for the advertising it gave them—they had started to raise a fund
for the destitute victims, and, thanks to their tremendous combined
circulations, the amount had soon attained imposing proportions.
Part of it had been paid out for the immediate needs of the victims,
but most of it, according to the latest reports Gordon had seen, was
being retained for more permanent aid, to provide work, homes, et
cetera.
What could there be about this fund, Green Eye wondered, that required
investigation, particularly an investigation prompted by the proprietor
of the newspapers responsible for it.
“As usual,” Griswold went on. “I started the fund by subscribing five
thousand dollars, and many men of substance have contributed large
sums, although none so large as that. You may or may not know that the
receipts to date total a little over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“A very neat sum, indeed,” Gordon commented, “and one that is very
creditable to those who have contributed, especially those who have
done so anonymously.”
He could not resist that slight dig, for he knew perfectly well
that Lane A. Griswold had never been guilty of making an anonymous
contribution in his life. He was never satisfied unless his name could
head the list.
Perhaps this baiting was unwise, but Green Eye did not think so. A
little of it, he felt sure, would be good for the millionaire, and give
him a wholesome fear of the supposed detective. He decided, though, to
let it go at that, for the present, at least.
As for Griswold, after swallowing hard two or three times, he evidently
determined to ignore the thrust.
“But how could a criminal case, delicate or otherwise, have arisen out
of such a philanthropic enterprise?” Green Eye queried innocently.
If pressed, he could have given a pretty shrewd guess, but it suited
his purpose just then to take another course.
“It’s simple enough—too infernally simple!” Griswold retorted
feelingly. “The money has been stolen, that’s all!”
Gordon had suspected something of the sort, but it was pleasing to
hear it put into words. A hundred-thousand-dollar relief fund reposing
safely in some bank vault was of only theoretical interest to him,
along with the hundreds of millions stored in similar vaults within
a radius of a few miles of Nick Carter’s study. A hundred thousand
dollars—or anywhere near that amount—in the hands of a fugitive from
justice was a very different matter, however. There were possibilities
in that situation.
“Ah, I’m not surprised!” Gordon remarked calmly. “How and when was the
money taken? I assume you don’t know by whom?”
“But I do—I know only too well,” Griswold told him promptly.
“You do?”
“There’s no room for doubt about it. The money was taken by a man
named John Simpson, an old and trusted employee of the _Chronicle and
Observer_.”
“How did he happen to have access to it, may I ask?”
“I made him the treasurer of the fund. I never dreamed of anything of
this sort. He had served in a similar capacity more than once in the
past, and always with the most scrupulous fidelity.”
“But how did he have possession of the whole fund, if it was collected
by different newspapers?”
“Daily drafts were sent to the _Chronicle and Observer_, as the
parent newspaper of the chain. Our New York office is the general
headquarters, you know.”
“I see. Simpson is missing, is he, along with the money?”
CHAPTER IX.
CHANCE PLAYS INTO GORDON’S HANDS.
The newspaper proprietor nodded gloomily in response to Gordon’s
question.
“Yes,” he answered, “Simpson disappeared four days ago.”
“Has he a family?”
“A wife.”
“And she knows nothing about him, or professes to know nothing?”
“I feel sure she’s as much in the dark as we are.”
“Perhaps—perhaps not,” murmured the bogus detective, joining the tips
of his fingers as he had seen Nick do. “Please tell me now how the
fellow managed to get hold of the money, to get it out of the bank or
banks in which it had been deposited to the credit of the fund. Surely,
his wasn’t the only signature required, was it? The checks drawn
against the fund must have been countersigned by some one else?”
“They were—by Mr. Driggs, the vice president of our organization.”
“Then how——”
“In a very ingenious way. I wouldn’t have thought John Simpson capable
of so much adroitness. I was away at the time, but he prevailed upon
Mr. Driggs to withdraw the fund from the two New York banks in which
it had been deposited—the Broadway Exchange Bank, and the Hudson
National—and to transfer everything to the Cotton and Wool National at
Hattontown.”
“Thus making it possible to deal with only one bank, and that a smaller
one whose officials presumably were not so wary,” Green Eye commented
judicially. “What excuse did he give?”
“A most plausible one. He pointed out that the Hattontown sufferers and
the citizens generally would feel more comfortable, more sure of the
reality of the fund if they knew that it had been transferred to one
of their local banks. ‘We aren’t ready to pay the money all over to
them,’ he told Driggs. ‘Most of them would like to have it all at once,
of course, and they’re somewhat dissatisfied, even though the more
sensible among them realize that mere temporary relief isn’t a solution
to their problems. If we transfer the fund to Hattontown, however, that
will encourage them. They will feel it is almost in their hands.’
“Well, it looked like sound sense, and Driggs agreed, with the result
that every cent was withdrawn from the two New York banks. As you
say, that made it much easier for the thief. Still, the task that
remained would have seemed big enough to most men. In fact, they
would have passed it up as impossible. Not so our old, reliable John
Simpson, though—confound him! After plodding along as methodically
as any spiritless work horse for fifteen or eighteen years, he had
suddenly developed a streak of lawlessness, and, along with it, in
some unaccountable fashion, had come something approaching brilliancy
of mind. The Hattontown bank was now the custodian of the entire
fund, less what had been paid out to the victims for their immediate
necessities. As the disbursements amounted to a little less than
twenty thousand, there was a balance of about eighty thousand when the
transfer took place. Naturally, Simpson then turned his attention to
Hattontown.
“The Cotton and Wool Bank there, so far as I’ve been able to ascertain,
is a fair sample of hundreds of good, average, conservatively conducted
institutions of the kind of our smaller cities. Apparently there was
no rottenness of which Simpson could take advantage, and evidently he
didn’t waste time over that possibility. He seems to have felt himself
quite capable of getting that money out by his own unaided efforts, and
subsequent events prove that his confidence was far from misplaced.”
“What did he do?” Gordon urged eagerly.
He was greatly interested; not from the standpoint of law and order,
but from that of one criminal studying the work of another. He had been
inclined at first to think that the fugitive would be easy to catch,
and easy to swindle out of the proceeds of the theft, but he was not so
sure of that now.
“You would never guess in a hundred years, gentlemen,” Griswold assured
his two hearers. “This is new to Cray, too,” he added in explanation,
addressing Gordon. “I didn’t cover this point when I explained matters
to him.
“This is the way he worked it: After getting the money where he
wanted it, he went to Driggs with another adroit idea—a suggestion
for the publicity stunt this time. One of the smaller papers under
my ownership, as you probably know, is published in Hattontown—the
Hattontown _Observer_. Well, Simpson went to Driggs and proposed that
that eighty thousand dollars be temporarily withdrawn from the bank in
gold, and exhibited under strong guard in the windows of the _Observer_
office. See the point? He argued very convincingly that the sight of so
much money would create the greatest possible local sensation, and give
the people in Hattontown an exalted idea of the importance and power of
the _Observer_. Driggs offered certain objections, but Simpson argued
them away without much trouble. As a matter of fact, I have no doubt
but that I would have fallen for it as readily as Driggs did.”
The millionaire paused and smiled in a rather grim fashion.
“To tell the truth, I’ve actually adopted the suggestion,” he informed
them. “Eighty thousand dollars in gold is actually on exhibition at the
present time in the windows of the Hattontown _Observer_—under the eyes
of armed guards day and night.”
“But——” Gordon had started to speak, but a gesture of Griswold’s
stopped him.
“Let me explain,” the great newspaper owner hastened to say. “The
original fund has been stolen, but, of course, that fact is known
only to very few, including the officials of the Cotton and Wool Bank
in Hattontown. We cannot afford to let the truth get out, if we can
possibly help it, for it would be a serious blow to the prestige of
our organization; therefore I have duplicated the fund, drawing on
my private account for the purpose, and, as Simpson suggested, the
money has been placed on exhibition. It’s attracting an immense amount
of favorable attention, and will doubtless mean a great increase in
circulation for the Hattontown _Observer_. We have that much to thank
Simpson for, at any rate.”
“Very extraordinary!” murmured the supposed detective aloud. “Better
and better!” he commented inwardly. “I haven’t any scruples to speak
of, but it goes without saying that I’d rather relieve this hog of a
millionaire of eighty thousand than take it from a few hundreds of poor
devils who have been cleaned out of everything. That money seems to be
fatherless, and waiting to be adopted. It was contributed to the fund,
but the fund is now complete without it. It doesn’t belong to Simpson,
and Griswold doesn’t need it. Obviously, it’s mine, and I’m going to
have it.”
“But you haven’t told us yet,” he added, addressing his visitors, “how
the missing treasurer actually got his hands on the money. The bank in
Hattontown naturally wouldn’t have turned any such amount over to a
stranger.”
CHAPTER X.
THE IMPOSTOR’S CLEVERNESS.
“You may take that for granted, of course,” Griswold agreed, in
reference to the bogus detective’s last suggestion.
“But Simpson was treasurer of the fund,” Cray interposed. “He worked it
so the bank accepted his authority, and——”
Gordon was studying the millionaire’s face, and was clever enough to
read what he saw there.
“By no means, my dear Cray,” he said. “Simpson didn’t approach the
Hattontown bank in his capacity as treasurer of the fund. He knew
better than to do that—knew that he would have no standing there,
unless identified and backed up by the organization itself. He knew,
too, as I reason it out, that the bank would look for any action to
come from the local newspaper, and would be off its guard if it did,
the _Observer’s_ man being naturally known to the bank officials.”
He was watching Griswold narrowly all the time, and saw that he was on
the right track.
“Mean he had an accomplice on the Hattontown paper?” demanded Cray,
looking startled.
“By no means,” Gordon returned calmly, still using Griswold’s
expression as a guide. “There’s such a thing, though, as impersonation,
my friend.”
It was a venturesome leap, but it proved surprisingly successful.
“By Jove!” ejaculated the millionaire, looking at the supposed Nick
Carter in amazement and with a new respect. “You have hit the nail on
the head, Mr. Carter! How in the world——”
Gordon shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, it was very simple,” he confessed. “I read it all in your face.”
He rightly guessed that that would not make it seem any the less
remarkable in Griswold’s eyes.
“I don’t see how,” declared the millionaire.
“Some stunt!” Cray commented admiringly.
“I did just that, though,” Green Eye assured the millionaire. “Of
course, I saw in advance that Simpson would have been powerless unless
introduced by the manager of your local paper, and supplied with
credentials from the New York office. The credentials might have been
forged, to be sure, but a local introduction would have been out of the
question without the assistance of a confederate to impersonate the
manager, or some one else in authority on the paper. And if there was
any impersonating to be done, it was clear that Simpson could do it
himself. For the rest, I depended upon your expression, Mr. Griswold,
to tell me when I got off the track.”
“It is useless to try to belittle your achievements, sir,” the
millionaire told him. “I consider it an evidence of most unusual
ability. You have hit upon the truth in a manner that has taken my
breath away. You are quite right, Mr. Carter. The trick was turned
by means of impersonation, and the man impersonated was the business
manager of the Hattontown _Observer_. Charles Danby is his name, and,
as it happens, he and Simpson resemble each other more or less. Simpson
pleaded overwork as a result of his extra duties in connection with the
fund, and got permission to be away for a couple of days. Evidently he
lost no time in going to Hattontown, and there he presented himself at
the bank in the guise of Danby.”
“The fellow must have had nerve!” contributed Jack Cray. “Hard to
believe he isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool crook.”
“It’s almost incredible,” Griswold agreed, “but apparently there’s no
room for doubt that Simpson did the whole business. He was known at the
bank, but no one suspected the deception, and the only thing the bank
people can remember that was queer about him was his husky voice, which
he attributed to a cold.
“In the character of Danby, he informed the bank people, and showed a
letter addressed to Danby and signed by Driggs, our vice president.
The letter was perfectly genuine, and had been dictated here, in our
New York office, following Driggs’ acceptance of Simpson’s scheme
for exhibiting the gold. Simpson had managed to get possession of
it, however, before it was sent out, and the real Danby never got a
sight of it. Naturally, the bank officials did not approve. The plan
seemed too spectacular, and altogether too risky. It was none of their
business, though, and they finally agreed to an immediate removal of
the gold.”
“Simpson had a car handy, then?” queried Green Eye.
“Oh, yes, he had an electric outside—said he had just bought it at
secondhand. Hattontown is a place of twenty or thirty thousand, you
know—too large for every one to know the business of everybody else;
consequently, the bank people had no reason to doubt his word.”
“How about guards, though,” Cray broke in.
“There were none,” Griswold answered. “The bank people claim to have
expostulated on that score, but Simpson scoffed at their fears. It was
broad daylight, in a peaceable community, and he had only a few blocks
to go. He assured them, however, that the gold would be carefully
guarded when it was put on exhibition, and reminded them that their
responsibility ended when he had withdrawn the deposit. I forgot to
say, also, that he presented an order on the bank for the withdrawal,
signed by John Simpson, as treasurer.”
“So they packed all this money up, loaded it on the electric, and let
him make off with it alone, did they?” queried Gordon. “It certainly
sounds like small-time stuff. I suppose we can’t blame them, though.
They had plenty of reason to think that everything was straight.
Anything more, Mr. Griswold?”
“That’s practically all, I think,” the millionaire returned. “We
haven’t notified the police, or employed any other detectives;
therefore we have been unable to trace the rascal’s further movements.
The only reason we know all this is that it has come out naturally. One
of the bank officials met the real Danby the next day, and expressed
surprise that he had heard nothing of the gold being put on exhibition.
You can imagine Danby’s consternation, and the confidential reports
that have been flying back and forth since then.”
“Trail begins in Hattontown, then,” Cray mused aloud.
“We may cross it at some other point, though,” hinted Gordon. “Describe
Simpson, please, Mr. Griswold.”
The newspaper proprietor fumbled in his pocket and produced a
photograph, which Gordon took eagerly.
“Seen it already,” Cray informed him. “Face commonplace, easily
disguised.”
The photograph was indeed that of a very ordinary-looking man. He was
a little over forty, one would have said, but looked older. He was
somewhat bald, wore glasses, which would make it difficult to determine
the color and expression of his eyes, and had a rather weak, amiable
face.
In short, he belonged to the traditional clerk or bookkeeper type, and
seemed to be one of those men whose chief object in life is to hold
down some poorly paid position, and to cheerfully make hypocrites of
themselves in order to do so.
With that pictured face before him, Ernest Gordon found it very
difficult indeed to credit Simpson with the cleverness and
resourcefulness which had been so conspicuous in Griswold’s account
of the theft. Still, he knew that such men sometimes had flashes of
brilliancy.
“Let’s hope it’s nothing more than a flash, though,” he told himself.
“If he were to keep up that pace, it might not be such a cinch to
corner him—but he won’t. He’ll have a relapse, and when it comes, he’ll
be an easy mark.”
He continued to examine the face in detail.
“You feel sure his wife does not know of his crime?” was his next
question.
“Certainly not,” was the prompt answer. “That would have been unwise,
under the circumstances, for, in her distress, she would probably blurt
it out to her relatives and friends, and, before we knew it, the whole
thing might get into print. I have inquired about him, of course, and
she may suspect, but that’s all.”
“Her address, please.”
“No. 31 Floral Avenue, New Pelham.”
Gordon jotted it down on one of Nick Carter’s pads.
“Now, will you kindly answer a question that has been puzzling me for
some time?” he went on. “If we catch this man for you—or, rather, when
we catch him—what are you going to do with him? You can’t prosecute,
you know, without letting the cat out of the bag.”
CHAPTER XI.
CRAY GETS HIS ORDERS.
“Unfortunately, that’s only too true,” admitted the millionaire
newspaper proprietor. “Secrecy is the prime requisite in this case,
and that precludes the possibility of arrest. I want you to catch
John Simpson, though, scare him as much as you can, and force him to
disgorge. He’ll be dropped from my staff, of course, but, beyond that,
we can do nothing.”
“Compounding a felony—accessory after the fact!” Cray pronounced
disapprovingly. “Bad business—very bad!”
“I can’t help that,” Griswold persisted, “and I’m willing to take
full responsibility. If any trouble threatens, I think I have enough
influence to fix things up.”
Green Eye’s face was grave and thoughtful, but inwardly he was fairly
chuckling with glee.
He could have asked nothing better than this extraordinary case, and
his only regret was that the amount involved was not much larger.
Everything seemed to play into his hands in the most unbelievable way.
Here was a man, who, despite the surprising adroitness he had shown,
was plainly a novice in crime—a novice with something like eighty
thousand dollars in gold in his possession. And here, on the other
hand, was a man to whom eighty thousand dollars was only a drop in the
bucket, a trifle hardly worth mentioning.
The latter’s interest demanded secrecy, required that the whole thing
should be conducted under cover, and unofficially. What an opportunity
it was! If Simpson could be caught—and Green Eye had no doubt he could
do it alone, or with Jack Cray’s unsuspecting assistance—it ought to be
a very simple matter to relieve the thief of the coin in some way, and
neglect to turn it over to Griswold. As for the latter, he could not
take the matter into the courts without ventilating the whole affair
from beginning to end.
Surely, the situation seemed to have been made expressly for Green-eye
Gordon’s benefit.
If necessary, two or three thousand—or possibly five—could be left in
Simpson’s possession, in order to buy his silence, or to induce him
to give some misleading explanation of the disappearance of the loot.
And here was Griswold, actually ready to pay handsomely for having the
robber robbed.
No wonder that Green Eye exclaimed inwardly, “Oh, joy! This is almost
too good to be true!”
As if influenced by his thought, the newspaper proprietor broke the
brief silence by announcing:
“There’s the whole story, so far as I know, gentlemen. I need only add,
I think, that I’m prepared to pay you ten thousand dollars for your
services. What do you say, Mr. Carter? Will you help us? Mr. Cray has
already agreed to my proposition.”
Gordon did not answer at once, as Nick would have done, if too many
cases were not already awaiting solution. He wished to impress the
others with his importance and indifference to monetary considerations.
“The affair has its points of interest,” he conceded at length. “I went
up to the Adirondacks two or three days ago, intending to remain there
for a couple of weeks, but I was called back on urgent business. That
case, though important, is a comparatively simple one, and I can attend
to it at intervals.”
“Then you’ll undertake this?” Griswold asked eagerly.
The impostor slowly nodded. “I’m glad of an opportunity to oblige you,
Mr. Griswold,” he said. “And, of course, I’m always desirous of helping
my friend Cray, here, if possible.”
“Good!” ejaculated the millionaire. “I’m glad, indeed, to have you
on the case, Mr. Carter. It’s no flattery to say that you’ve greatly
impressed me this morning. That being settled so satisfactorily,
however, I’ll leave you and Mr. Cray to decide upon your course of
action.”
“Yes, we need not detain you any longer, I think,” Green Eye assured
him.
Three minutes later Griswold was gone, after asking them to call him
up either at the office or the house whenever they desired any further
word from him, or had anything to report.
As a mark of special respect, Gordon had accompanied his distinguished
client to the door. Now, with a smile on his face, he returned to
Nick Carter’s study, where the ex-police detective was awaiting him
impatiently.
“Queer case, very!” Cray barked at him, as soon as he entered the
doorway. “What’s your idea? How are we going to handle it?”
Doubtless, he had his own ideas as to the proper methods of procedure,
but he was revealing, as usual, deference where Nick was concerned. His
manner of exaggerated respect made it difficult for the masquerader to
keep his face straight.
“I’m having the time of my life, without a doubt,” thought Gordon. “I
wouldn’t have missed this for anything. Here I am in Nick Carter’s
house, monarch of all I survey, with Cray fawning on me like a faithful
dog, and a multimillionaire for a client already. Soft, soft!”
The accomplished rascal had really given a very creditable performance
while Lane A. Griswold was on the scene, but now, in spite of his
contempt of Cray, he decided to give the latter his head for the time.
It would be safer so, and, besides, Gordon was not one to exert himself
unnecessarily.
He helped himself to another of Nick’s cigars, and threw himself into a
chair.
“You have had more time to think about it than I have, Jack. Let’s hear
how you would go about it.”
Cray found this very flattering.
“Well,” he said, with assumed modesty, “I had thought of one or two
little things. Of course, there are two ends to be picked up, two
places to cover. One’s Hattontown—tracing the electric machine, and all
that.”
Green Eye made a gesture of indifference, as if he did not think much
of that suggestion.
“The other’s this end,” Cray went on, somewhat less confidently,
meaning the fellow’s home.
Gordon gave a slight nod. “That’s more likely to yield something, I
should say,” he declared. “Of course, an electric car is comparatively
uncommon, and might be traced without a great deal of trouble. Several
days have passed, however, and that will make considerable difference.
Suppose we consider the situation at New Pelham. Much depends on that.
Of course, if Simpson is tired of his wife, and has decided to abandon
her, we may not be able to get a single clew there.”
He gave another glance at the photograph which Griswold had left on the
desk.
“The fellow’s face is against that supposition, however,” he went on;
“I don’t believe he has spunk enough to cut himself off absolutely from
his wife.”
“Had spunk enough to swipe a fortune,” Cray pointed out skeptically.
“I know, but there’s a difference. I don’t know where he got the nerve
to do what he did, but I’d like to wager a tidy little sum that a man
with that weak chin and mouth would be too much a slave to habit to cut
his domestic bonds with one slash. He’s probably foolishly fond of that
wife of his, no matter how much of a fright she may be, and, if I’m
right——”
“He’ll write her sooner or later, or try to sneak an interview,” Cray
burst out excitedly, with the air of one who had just arrived unaided
at the most astounding conclusion.
“Precisely,” agreed the masquerader. “That being so, I think you had
better cover the New Pelham end of it. Go and see the man’s wife, tell
her you are from the office, and find out all she knows. She may give
you a clew right away, without knowing it—something that may mean
nothing to her, but much to you.”
“Get you,” Cray said eagerly.
His distinguished friend, as he believed, had just said that the New
Pelham end of it was the most important, so that here was another
feather in his—Cray’s—cap.
“I’ll work it for all I’m worth,” he added. “What line are you going to
take, though?”
CHAPTER XII.
GREEN EYE DOES SOME THINKING.
That question of Cray’s ought to have proved very embarrassing to the
impostor under the circumstances.
As a matter of fact, Green-eye Gordon did not intend to do anything, if
he could help it. It appealed to his lazy temperament, and his sense of
humor, as well, to let Cray do as much of the actual work as possible,
and then to step in at the end and claim the reward in his own peculiar
way.
Of course, it remained to be seen whether or not he could carry out
that program without arousing the ex-police detective’s suspicion,
and its success was also conditioned on Cray’s ability to handle
the practical end of it in a way that promised to bring the desired
results. Naturally, if Cray fell down, he would be obliged to take a
hand in the game, and the eighty thousand dollars would amply reward
him for his exertions.
“Time enough to cross that bridge when I come to it, however,” he
assured himself. “Meanwhile, I’ll do a little stalling, and see what
comes of it. It’s safe to say that it won’t prove so difficult as it
looks. Cray is more or less of a fool, and he thinks the sun rises and
sets in his good and great friend, Carter; hence, Carter can do no
wrong in his eyes—and I’m Carter.”
He assumed an engaging expression.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go it alone, Jack,” he confessed frankly,
accompanying the words with a disarming smile. “For a day or two, that
is. Of course, we’ll go over the thing together step by step, and I’ll
give you my advice whenever you wish it. There’s this other case,
however, which will keep me in New York for the present, although it
won’t take up all of my time. You see how it is—it simply means that I
won’t be able to do much running around in the Simpson case just now.
As soon as I get this other thing out of the way, though——”
“But hadn’t I better go to Hattontown, if that’s the state of affairs?”
suggested Cray. “You can’t leave New York just now, you say, but you
might be able to run out to New Pelham before long. For that matter,
it’s quite likely that you could handle Mrs. Simpson better than I
could. You have a great way of getting around the women.”
Gordon looked around with mock alarm.
“I’m glad there’s no one to overhear that, Jack,” he said, with a grin.
“I might get the reputation as a lady-killer.”
“Nonsense, Carter!” scoffed Cray. “Everybody knows you never even look
at a woman that way. Seriously, though, hadn’t I better beat it for
Hattontown?”
That would have appealed to Green Eye if he had had any desire to get
rid of his unsuspecting ally. That was not his purpose, however. He
had a strong feeling that New Pelham was more promising ground than
Hattontown, and, since he was determined that Cray should bear the
brunt of the investigation, it was to New Pelham that he meant to send
him.
“No, I think my way is better,” he insisted quietly. “You will see that
later on, Jack, I’m sure. As for Hattontown, a few hours more or less
will make no difference. You can start for New England to-night, if
necessary.”
Jack Cray scratched his closely cropped head in a manner that was
characteristic of him when in thought.
“All right,” he agreed presently. “Guess I can handle it all. You are
usually right in the thick of it, though.”
“I’ll be in the thick of it before we are through, Jack,” Gordon
assured him, with a hidden gleam in his eyes.
And, with that, Cray heavily descended the stairs, and left the house.
Now that he was alone, Green Eye leaned back in the chair, allowed his
face to relax into its own lines, and indulged in a prolonged fit of
silent laughter.
“Ernest, my boy, this is the greatest piece of luck you ever had, or
ever dreamed of,” he murmured aloud. “What a yarn this will make when
you retire and write your reminiscences!”
Soon he sobered down, however, and began to consider the case point by
point.
“I’m willing to stake almost anything on that hunch of mine,” he
decided. “I feel sure the clew we are after will turn up at the
fellow’s place out in the suburbs sooner or later, and, naturally, I’m
not interested in the amount of work Cray is obliged to put into the
business, or the wasted efforts it involves.”
At the same time, though, he meant to reason the thing out, so far as
he could.
“This fellow Simpson,” he mused, “has been treasurer of other funds,
and has been connected with the auditors’ department for years.
That’s probably what influenced him to obtain the money in the bulky
or more awkward form of gold. He knew that paper currency of high
denomination could be traced by the numbers, if obtained from a bank or
any institution which keeps track of such things. On the other hand,
he seems to have overlooked the fact that there isn’t a great deal
of gold in common use, and that a man who keeps on tendering gold in
payment—after the theft of a large quantity of the stuff—is very likely
to fall under suspicion. That may give us a clew.
“Obviously, the electric machine may furnish another, if it can be
traced. It isn’t probable that it belongs to Simpson, or, if it does,
that it has been in his possession very long. His salary hardly puts
him in the automobile class, and there’s nothing to show that he has
been dishonest in the business. Besides, an electric costs considerably
more than many makes of excellent cars.”
The more he thought about Simpson’s use of such a machine, the more it
struck him as significant.
“Why an electric, anyway?” he asked himself. “All that I know anything
about are ladylike little coupés—about the last thing any man in his
senses would be expected to choose for a quick get-away, especially
when weighted down with eighty thousand dollars in gold. Why did he
choose such a vehicle? What possible advantage could he see in it?”
Green Eye turned this over for some time in his mind, stopping now and
then to grin, as he realized how seriously he was entering into the
problem.
“I flatter myself I’m giving a pretty good imitation of Nick Carter,”
he thought, with a complacent grin. “Griswold threw bouquets at me, and
now I’m keeping up the pace when I don’t have to.
“What’s the answer, though?” he went on mentally. “Hanged if I can see
more than one possibility. It strikes me that the great advantage of
an electric in the hands of a crook would be its silence. That must
be it—silence. But why should silence be of any particular importance
to Simpson? He didn’t have to use any gumshoe methods at the bank;
therefore, it looks as if he must have anticipated the need of stealth
at the other end when delivering the loot at its destination.
“That’s the problem—that destination.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE POLICE DOG ACTS STRANGELY.
“The fellow has lived in and around New York for fifteen years, at
least, for he has been in the employ of the paper that long,” Gordon
thought, continuing his analysis. “Probably he hasn’t had more than
two weeks’ vacation a year. If so, he hasn’t had much chance to
make friends elsewhere, or familiarize himself with the criminal
possibilities of any particular locality. Hold up, though, my boy!
The fellow may have been born in the East, and may have spent every
vacation there. Better settle that before you go much farther.”
Impelled by this, he promptly called up Griswold’s office, and, after a
little delay, Nick Carter’s magic name brought him directly into touch
with the newspaper proprietor.
“It occurred to me to ask you another question or two about our friend
S., Mr. Griswold,” Green Eye said apologetically. “What is he, a New
Englander? Do you happen to know?”
“No, no! He comes from the Middle West—somewhere in Ohio.”
“But perhaps he has been in the habit of spending his vacations in
Massachusetts?”
“I’ve already looked that up, Mr. Carter. The question occurred to me
when I first learned of his disappearance. Those who know him best,
though, in the office, tell me that he has either spent his little
vacations at home, in New Pelham, or back in Ohio.”
“Then, so far as you know, New England is strange country to him?”
“It would seem so.”
“Now, about that electric—you haven’t known of his owning one in the
past, have you?”
“Certainly not—he was paid only eighteen hundred a year.”
“I see. That’s all at present, thanks. Sorry to have troubled you.”
The clever scoundrel felt he was making headway.
“Now we can go ahead with a little more assurance,” he soliloquized,
after he had hung up the receiver. “If New England is unknown to the
fellow, or known only in a superficial way, it doesn’t seem reasonable
to suppose that he would think of hiding the yellow boys there.
Besides, he must have them where he can obtain access to them at
frequent intervals—for he would be almost certain to be arrested if he
presented a quantity of gold at any bank, either for deposit or to be
exchanged for paper. That’s his hoard, therefore, from which he must
draw.”
He grinned to himself.
“Tastes differ, of course,” he went on mentally, “but New England isn’t
the place I’d choose if I had eighty thousand to spend. I would want a
little more action than I could get there.
“Then what? Well, something tells me that the chap has headed back
in this direction. New York would attract that money as surely as
a magnet attracts iron filings. What’s more, Simpson is on his own
ground here. And the electric car? It’s a tempting theory, confoundedly
tempting! Why would a stay-at-home shrimp like Simpson think of hiding
his treasure if not somewhere on his own bit of land? That’s it, I’ll
wager! Not a bad idea, either, for, ordinarily, no one would think of
looking there for him or his loot. The police, for instance, would
spend a few years going over the rest of the world with a fine-tooth
comb before it would ever occur to them to look for the fugitive at
home.
“But apparently the wife is straight, and doesn’t know of her husband’s
fall from grace. He can’t show himself to her, but he might safely
pay visits to the place at night, thanks to the silence of his little
electric. By George! What if I’m right? What a cinch for your Uncle
Ernest! I’m almost tempted to go there at once, and see if I can locate
the good old stuff. But, no, that won’t do. I’ll keep on playing a
thinking game as long as I can, and leave the legwork to the worthy
Jack Cray.”
He threw a glance in the direction of Nick Carter’s safe.
“Besides,” he continued inwardly, “eighty thousand isn’t so much, after
all. If I find what I hope to in that safe, and play my cards right,
I ought to make several times eighty thousand, and I mustn’t let the
grass grow under my feet, for Carter may come home in a very few days.”
He got up, and was about to approach the safe, when there came a knock
at the door, and, in response to his somewhat surly invitation, Mrs.
Peters, the housekeeper, appeared on the threshold. She was dressed for
the street, and had a strap wrapped about the knuckles of one hand.
“I’m going to take my usual constitutional, sir,” she announced, “and
I thought, if you had no objection, that I would take Prince with me.
He’s been shut up in the kennel most of the time since you went away,
and what he really needs is a good run.”
Just then the detective’s famous police dog pushed past the
housekeeper’s skirts, and pattered into the study at the end of the
leash which Mrs. Peters held.
The animal started eagerly for his master, as if surprised to find him
there. Suddenly, however, he halted, the hair along his back raised in
a bristling line, and an unmistakable snarl escaped him.
“Good boy! Good old Prince!” Gordon said, in a wheedling tone, but
he had turned pale, and his eyes were very ugly. “Take him by all
means, Mrs. Peters. His confinement doesn’t seem to have improved his
temper—and I’m busy.”
But the housekeeper was staring from Prince to the man she believed to
be her employer.
“Well, I never expected to see anything like that!” she ejaculated
wonderingly. “Don’t you know your own master, Prince? What’s the matter
with you, anyway? You are not going mad, are you?”
Green Eye’s hand had mechanically sought the pocket in which the
automatic lay.
“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” he said, with assumed lightness. “The
heat has put him a bit out of temper, that’s all. Take him away, and
let him work off his grouch.”
Still looking very much bewildered, Mrs. Peters turned to go, but she
had to drag the dog from the room by main force, and the more she
pulled at the leash, the more he snarled.
When the door finally closed upon them, Gordon passed a trembling hand
across his forehead, and his fingers came away damp with sweat.
“Curse the brute!” he muttered savagely. “If he does that again, I’ll
have to put him out of the way.”
He had intended to tackle the safe, but now he changed his mind once
more. He was too much shaken by this last experience to attempt
anything of that sort at present, and, therefore, he determined to
take a walk and steady his nerves. In less than an hour he was back in
Nick’s study, though, and the door was locked.
He was about to try his luck with the detective’s safe.
CHAPTER XIV.
CRAY CALLS ON MRS. SIMPSON.
It was quite early in the afternoon when Jack Cray reached New Pelham,
and during his journey to that outlying suburb he had plenty of time
in which to think out a plan of action, using as a basis Gordon’s
suggestion that he should present himself as a fellow employee of the
missing Simpson.
Cray walked briskly through the little town, having inquired the
direction in which Floral Avenue lay, and soon came to a steep hill.
On the top of the hill the detective stopped to mop his brow, and as he
did so, his keen eyes took in every detail of the scene that lay before
him. There was not much of it—just a dozen or so houses strewn about at
haphazard in the midst of a maze of newly built roads.
The latter ran here and there, not at right angles, but obliquely, in
sweeping curves, circles, and what not. The houses were all different
and distinctive in type, with not a single old-fashioned veranda to be
seen. In short, the settlement on the hill aimed to be a modern and
“artistic” suburban development, which, like most of its kind, was
still in the early stages of growth.
Floral Avenue proved to be at the very end of the development, and
everything about it seemed newest and most unfinished. At the corner
of it stood a small house of two stories and a half, with dull-red
shingled roof and trimmings.
Beside the door, in big, brass figures, was the number 31.
That it was the only house on the street seemed to have made no
difference to the builder, who doubtless saw all the rest of the houses
from one to thirty and on indefinitely in his mind’s eye.
No. 31 was very new, indeed. The lawn still plainly showed the seams
where the strips of turf met, and the gravel walks evidently had not
been rolled sufficiently, for they were scarred with footprints.
Plainly, Jack Cray had not looked for just this sort of thing. He
paused at the gate and gave his red forehead a thoughtful mopping.
“Looks as if Griswold didn’t know the whole story, or forgot this part
of it,” he speculated. “I got the impression that friend Simpson had
been living in New Pelham for a long time, but he certainly hasn’t been
living long in No. 31 Floral Avenue. Besides, this looks like a buying
proposition, not a renting one.”
He ran his tongue along his lips, and a knowing look came into his eyes.
“I’ll bet he squeezed that fund for a few thousands before he raked in
the whole bunch!” he muttered. “A little slick bookkeeping would have
done the trick while they were disbursing funds for the immediate needs
of the Hattontown sufferers. Some of it went into this house, if I’m
not mighty badly mistaken, and I have a hunch that some more of it went
to buy that electric machine he sported in Hattontown.”
Without further hesitation, Cray opened the gate and started up the
front walk to an oddly shaped little stoop, which gave access to the
front door. A neatly dressed servant answered his summons.
“Mrs. Simpson in?” Cray inquired.
“Yes, sir,” the girl answered, looking doubtfully at him, “but I don’t
believe she will feel like seeing any one. She hasn’t been very well.”
“I hope she will see me,” Cray declared. “Please say that I’m Mr.
Jones, from the _Chronicle and Observer_ office, and would like very
much to see her for a few minutes.”
The girl was obviously impressed by this information, and, without
further argument, conducted him into one of the rooms off the reception
hall, and then hurried away to communicate with her mistress.
With the natural instinct of the detective, Cray looked keenly about
him, and there was something that impressed him at once.
The house he was in was by no means a large one, but the furniture
seemed to have come from a much smaller house. The diminutive hatrack
was positively lost in the square hall, the rugs were little more than
patches on the inlaid floor, and the stair carpet—which he could see
through the door—was shabby, and too narrow for the stairs.
In short, though John Simpson had recently taken a larger house, he
had either been unable to furnish it adequately, or else had been too
hurried or careless to do so.
“Mrs. Simpson will see you, sir,” the maid announced, when she
returned. “She will be down in a few minutes.”
Presently, the fugitive’s wife descended the stairs. She was a small,
slight woman, plainly dressed, and apparently about forty years of age,
though her lined face and gray hair caused her to look much older than
many women do nowadays at that age.
“You have news of my husband, Mr. Jones?” she asked eagerly, holding
her hands out in unconscious pleading, so that Cray could see that they
had been roughened by hard work.
It seemed curious that the mistress of such a house should find it
necessary to do menial labor.
“Not yet, Mrs. Simpson, I’m sorry to say,” Cray answered reluctantly.
The woman sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. There was
no longer the slightest room for doubt as to her innocence. Plainly,
she knew nothing whatever about the theft, although it might be that
some of her worry was due to fear that something of the sort might
account for her husband’s unprecedented absence.
“It’s hard lines, Mrs. Simpson,” the detective said sympathetically.
“Your husband will turn up pretty soon, though, I’m sure.”
The wife raised her head and hastily wiped her eyes.
“You—you don’t think that he’s dead, then?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that!” Cray hastened to assure her.
“Oh, I do hope you are right, sir!” Mrs. Simpson said fervently. “If he
isn’t dead, though, or terribly injured and unable to communicate with
me, what can it possibly mean? Have they reported it to the police yet?”
“You mean the office?”
“Yes.”
Cray shook his head.
“That hasn’t seemed necessary—at least, that’s what the office seems to
think,” he answered. “Mr. Simpson isn’t in a hospital, though, you may
be sure.”
“Then where is he? If they don’t do something at the office, I shall be
obliged to go to the police myself. I can’t understand why it wasn’t
done long ago. John has been gone days and days now, and he’s never
before stayed away from home unexpectedly for more than a few hours
without letting me know just where he was. I don’t understand it; I
don’t, I don’t!”
“I know it’s tough, Mrs. Simpson,” Cray admitted awkwardly. “I wish
I had some good news for you, but I came, instead, to see if you
could not tell me something that might throw some light on it. We are
naturally very much interested at the office, and they thought I might
be able to find out what had happened. Will you help me?”
“Of course, I’ll do anything I possibly can,” the distracted woman
assured him. “It’s very kind in them, and of you, to take all this
trouble. What is it you want to know, though?”
CHAPTER XV.
SOME INTERESTING INFORMATION.
Mrs. Simpson asked the question bravely enough, but there was a certain
haunted expression in her eyes which suggested that some inkling of the
situation might have come to her. If so, however, her love and loyalty
had caused her to brush it aside.
Jack Cray did not feel quite comfortable. It seemed like tempting the
woman to betray her own husband—was nothing less, in fact. That was
unavoidable, however.
“Well, I hardly know what to ask,” he confessed, desiring to keep
her, if possible, from attaching any great importance to his line of
inquiry. “Something unusual is keeping Mr. Simpson away, that’s sure,
and I’ve got to try to find out what it is. I’m afraid I’m not much of
a detective”—he was mentally comparing himself with Nick Carter—“and,
therefore, the only thing I can think of doing just now is to ask a lot
of questions, and hope to hit upon something of interest before I get
through.”
Mrs. Simpson did not look as if this appealed to her in all respects,
despite her great desire to have the mystery cleared up.
“Of course, I’m not going to peddle what you tell me all over the
office,” Cray hastened to say, noting her look of doubt. “Besides,
you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I’ll try not to seem
impertinent, though, or to tire you out, and remember it’s only because
we want to find your husband.”
The woman nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Ask me anything you
please, and I’ll try to answer it.”
“That’s the way to talk,” Cray commented, and then went on, after a
slight pause: “They generally began a long ways back when they’re
trying to dope out a thing like this. Suppose we try that method?”
He was playing the part of the novice very well, and it was clear that
Mrs. Simpson had no suspicion of his real status. On the contrary, she
soon showed signs of impatience, as if she looked upon his questions
as boring and pointless. She continued to answer them politely and
truthfully, however, and that was all Cray asked.
“You have lived here, in New Pelham, for some years, haven’t you, Mrs.
Simpson?” the detective inquired.
“Yes, sir; ten years.”
“But not in this same house?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Jones. This has only been built a few months, and we were
hardly settled, when my husband disappeared. We lived right in the
village until recently.”
“Mr. Simpson is buying this on installment, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir. We have always rented until now, but he has long wanted to
have a place of his own, and just lately he decided that he could
afford it. It didn’t seem possible to me at first, but my husband’s
salary had just been raised, and they had given him quite a lump sum, I
believe, for the extra work entailed in handling this relief fund.”
The woman’s eyes were on Cray now, and there was a troubled, searching
expression in them.
He nodded—there did not seem to be anything else to do. “Naturally,
that would have made a difference,” he agreed, and was glad to see that
Mrs. Simpson looked relieved. Apparently she had feared that he might
deny the raise and the bonus.
“What a pity this should have happened just after you had moved into
your new house!” he went on. “I hope Mr. Simpson hasn’t shouldered
more than he can carry. That might explain it, you know. Possibly he
has gone away in a fit of discouragement, after finding that the place
would cost him more than he could afford. Real-estate people sometimes
hold back essential facts, you know, in order to get a man’s signature
to a contract.”
But he saw that that was a hardly less disturbing possibility in the
woman’s eyes, and hastened to turn her thoughts into another channel.
“Or it may be loss of memory, or something of that sort,” he added.
“Your husband may be wandering about without knowing his own name.”
Naturally, that suggestion met with no better reception, and Cray was
obliged to give it up.
“There isn’t much use in speculating about it, though, until we get
hold of more facts,” he declared. “I suppose you picked out this house?”
“No, I didn’t,” Mrs. Simpson said with some feeling. “I had nothing to
say about it.”
“Is that so? I wouldn’t have thought Mr. Simpson would have gone ahead
in any such way as that.”
“He never did before, Mr. Jones, but his heart seemed to be set on this
place, and I let him have his way. The openness seemed to appeal to him
very strongly. I’ve been living in a row for years, you know.”
“Ah, the openness!” murmured Cray. “I can see how that might have
attracted him. Have you noticed anything unusual about your husband
lately, Mrs. Simpson? Has he seemed his normal self all the time?”
His hostess seemed at a loss to know how to answer the question, to
judge by her hesitation and knitted brows.
“If you think there may be anything the matter with his mind, Mr.
Jones, I’m sure you’re wrong,” she said, at length. “I haven’t noticed
anything of that sort at all, and I would have been sure to do so. I
can’t say that he has been himself, though. Buying this house on his
own responsibility, and in such a hurry would be enough to show that
he wasn’t. Besides that, though, he has been nervous and irritable,
but I laid that to the extra work he was doing. I’m afraid I shall
have to call him freakish, but nothing more. He seems to have suddenly
developed whims, and acquired rather expensive tastes. I’m afraid his
advancement at the office has turned his head somewhat.”
“You are still referring to the house?”
The woman hesitated again, but seemed to decide that frankness would be
best.
“No,” she answered, “that isn’t all. He has got the automobile fever,
as well.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TIRE PRINTS.
Jack Cray barely avoided a sudden start at that last remark of Mrs.
Simpson’s. He had been hoping for some light on the electric car, but
had thought it improbable that he would find any clew at the fugitive’s
home.
“So he’s a fool at times, is he?” he thought. “Good enough! That ought
to make things easier.”
“So the bug caught him, too, did it?” he asked aloud, with a careless
smile. “Did he buy a machine?”
“Oh, no, sir! He rented one in the village, but his idea was to buy one
as soon as he could afford it. In fact, he has had a gate made in the
back fence, and one of those little, portable garages put up.”
“He meant to enjoy himself, didn’t he?” Cray asked lightly, though
the role he was obliged to play was becoming more and more irksome.
“There’s a driveway at the side of the house, though, isn’t there? I
thought I noticed one as I came in.”
“Yes, there is,” Mrs. Simpson agreed. “That was another queer thing.
I didn’t see how in the world John was going to afford a car—even a
secondhand one, as he talked of buying—but if he was going to have one,
I didn’t see why it should not be driven in from the front, since that
was what the drive was made for. He wouldn’t hear of it, though.”
“Why not?”
“He said he was going to drive his own car, and he didn’t want
everybody to be watching him and criticizing the way he was doing
it. He thought he would prefer to come in the back way, where there
wouldn’t be so many spectators. That was ridiculous, though, because
you can see for yourself that there are not many people living here on
the hill. Besides, he would soon have learned to drive well enough not
to mind if he were watched.”
Cray nodded, but his heart was pounding. This was certainly a queer
whim on Simpson’s part, and the detective was sure there must be some
reason for it. In fact, he was inclined to believe that there was a
reason for the choice of the house itself, and that both had to do with
the fugitive’s crime. The thought was an exciting one, but Cray was at
a loss to explain Simpson’s actions.
It might be well to see how the land lay, and the best way to do that,
he believed, was with Mrs. Simpson’s knowledge, rather than furtively.
“I don’t want to alarm you too much,” he said, “but these things look
rather queer, you know. You seem sure that there wasn’t anything the
matter with Mr. Simpson’s mind, and yet you admit that he has done
some peculiar things. You’d rather think that his mind was temporarily
clouded, wouldn’t you, than that he was dead, or had deliberately left
you in the lurch?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Simpson agreed. “It would be terrible,
though—terrible!”
“So are the other possibilities,” Cray pointed out. “Let’s work along
this line—for a while. Would you mind letting me see this gate and
garage you speak of?”
“No, certainly not,” the woman said, but it was plain that she thought
the proceeding a senseless one. “I’ll show you.”
The lot was perhaps sixty feet wide, and one hundred and fifty feet
deep, possibly more. The grass had not yet obtained a fair start, and
the shrubs and trees were very small, although they had evidently been
planted the season before.
The gravel drive ran along one side of the lot, from front to rear, and
beside it, close to the rear fence, was the little, portable garage of
which Mrs. Simpson had spoken. It was built of metal, as a precaution
against fire, and when the detective tried the door, he found it locked.
“Your husband has the key, I suppose?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Cray had noted the graveled surface of the drive on his way from the
house, and had seen that it had not been used. There were footprints on
the soft surface, but no evidence of tires.
“The garage has never been used, I suppose?” Cray inquired.
“Oh, no, Mr. Jones.”
“And no car has been driven into the yard?”
“No, sir.”
There was no doubt that she was telling the truth, so far as she was
aware, but Cray had evidence that she was mistaken. To be sure, no
car had been driven in from the front, but it was plain that one had
entered the yard through the new back gate.
Evidently the machine had not entered the garage, but had halted in
front of it, and had then been backed out again. The marks were not
very recent, however, and at least one rain had fallen since they were
made.
Cray walked on to the rear gate and peered over. There was a newly
graded road beyond, and in its surface were the marks of other
tires—or, rather, the marks of the same tires repeated several times,
a number of sets of them being more recent than those in the yard. And
all were made by tires of the sort in common use on electric machines.
“Been here often,” Cray concluded. “Hasn’t been in the yard but once,
but has come as far as the gate on a number of occasions. Seems to have
been undecided about something, or had cold feet. What’s more, unless
I’m ’way off the track, that machine has been here not later than night
before last, and those freshest marks look suspiciously as if they were
made last night.”
He actually forgot Mrs. Simpson for the time being, and, opening the
gate, passed through. He had seen something which interested him, the
print of a rather small shoe in the soft ground just beyond the gate,
where one would naturally have stood to open the gate from the outside.
The detective took a steel tape line from his pocket, and carefully
measured the footprint. Incidentally, he gave the tire marks a close
examination.
Soon he straightened up and looked about him. In doing so, he was more
struck than ever with the isolation of the Simpson house. The spot
where they stood was not overlooked by any other residence. There was
another house within two or three hundred yards, to be sure, but it
presented a blank wall on that side, evidently being designed to stand
close to another one, which was yet to be built.
“Supposing the fellow had any motive to do it, he could come here in a
noiseless electric at the dead of night, with lights turned off, and
nobody would be the wiser,” Cray told himself. “And he could reach the
hill here without passing through the center of the village itself.”
At that point, however, he glanced up at the rear of the Simpson house.
“How about his wife, though?” he went on to himself. “She evidently
isn’t wise to any such thing, and yet there are plenty of windows here,
at the rear—and not very far from the garage, either.”
That brought him back, and he rather awkwardly entered the yard,
fearing that he might have betrayed curiosity of an altogether too
professional character.
“A fellow can’t help trying to act like a detective, I guess, when he’s
put on such a job like this,” he said, with a sheepish grin. “I see
right now that I’m not in the same class with Nick Carter. Suppose I’ll
have to try to keep up the bluff just the same, and ask some more fool
questions—if you are not ready to throw me out.”
“Of course not, Mr. Jones,” the poor little woman assured him. “I only
wish——”
The detective nodded. “I wish, too, that I could find him for you, Mrs.
Simpson,” he said sincerely, and added, under his breath, “and for you
alone.”
“May be I will—who knows?” he went on, gazing thoughtfully about. “By
the way, where do you sleep, if I may ask? At the back of the house?”
CHAPTER XVII.
CRAY WIRES FOR “CARTER.”
It is not to be wondered at that Mrs. Simpson looked surprised at a
question which appeared so irrelevant.
“Yes, I do,” she answered, “but I don’t see what in the world that has
to do with Mr. Simpson’s absence.”
“Nothing, of course,” was the prompt response. “I’m trying to get at
something else, Mrs. Simpson—I’m afraid I can’t tell you just what at
present. Are you a light sleeper?”
“Yes, very.”
“I suppose your room is on the second floor, there, where those double
windows are?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the windows are open these nights?”
“Of course—all of them. It has been very warm, you know.”
“Was that the room you originally planned to occupy?”
Mrs. Simpson looked amazed.
“Why, no, it wasn’t,” she confessed. “Naturally, the best bedroom is
supposed to be at the front of the house. It has a big bay window,
and gets the air from three sides. It’s so big, though, and seemed so
lonesome after Mr. Simpson was gone, that I changed to this back one
after the first night. But I don’t understand what’s in your mind, Mr.
Jones.”
“Don’t try to, Mrs. Simpson,” he advised. “I have an idea, but I’m not
free to share it yet, even with you. That’s all I care to look at here,
Mrs. Simpson; let’s go back to the house.”
They went around to the front door, and the woman invited him in again
somewhat reluctantly. He would have liked to get hold of a pair of
Simpson’s shoes, but he did not dare ask that, feeling sure that she
would smell a rat if he did.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I have imposed on you too much already.”
He paused for a moment, and went on, picking his words carefully.
“I suppose you haven’t got a very good opinion of my abilities along
this line, Mrs. Simpson?” he said deprecatingly. “Mr. Griswold himself
has thought fit to send me here, and I have an idea or two that I would
like to test. It’s too soon to tell you what I believe, but I think I
have a clew to your husband’s behavior. Will you help me to find out
whether it’s good for anything, or not?”
“Of course, I will—I’ll do anything I can.”
“Then—it sounds like a mystery thriller, but the explanation is very
simple—will you sleep in the front room for a night or two, and see
that all the windows at the back are closed and dark?”
Mrs. Simpson looked at him as if she thought he had lost his senses,
but she reluctantly agreed to do as he asked.
“Thanks ever so much,” Cray said uncomfortably. “I know how it sounds,
but I have a notion that it will help.”
And, after a few more words, he left the house, being careful, however,
to caution Mrs. Simpson to say nothing to any one concerning his
peculiar request, or the trend of his inquiries.
Incidentally, he had secured from her the name of the garage at which
Simpson had rented the car—an electric.
The ex-police detective’s manner, as he strode down the hill, was a
very thoughtful one, but there was something triumphant about the swing
of his shoulders and the carriage of his massive head.
In his opinion, he had done a good day’s work. Certainly, he had made
some very curious discoveries, and if his theory were anywhere near
correct, he had hopes of solving the mystery—and, incidentally, of
capturing John Simpson, and recovering a large share of the stolen
gold—before many hours had passed.
And the best of it was that he had done everything single-handed. To be
sure, his friend Carter had advised his going to New Pelham first of
all, but, beyond that, the great detective had had nothing to do with
the affair, thus far.
“Carter will be sorry he didn’t get into the game at the start,” Cray
told himself, with a satisfied grin. “If this thing goes through, as I
hope it will, I’ll cop about all the credit there is. Too bad I called
Carter in at all. If I had known what a cinch it was going to be, you
can bet I would have handled it alone.”
He and Nick were great friends, but Cray saw no reason to hide his own
light under a bushel for that reason. On the other hand, he well knew
that Nick would rejoice in his success, and decline to take any credit
or pay that did not rightfully belong to him.
He would have been less certain of the outcome, however, had he
suspected that he was not dealing with Nick Carter at all, but with one
of the most unscrupulous criminals in the country.
Cray found the garage easily enough, and lost no time getting down to
business.
“Friend of mine, Mr. Simpson, rented a car here,” he said. “An
electric. It looks pretty good to me. Is it still for hire?”
“No, sir,” the owner of the garage answered. “Didn’t you know I sold it
to Mr. Simpson nearly a week ago?”
“The deuce you did!” ejaculated Cray. “That’s a new one on me. Haven’t
seen Simpson lately.”
“Well, he liked the machine so much that he took it, after having it
out several times. I’ve got other cars here for sale, but that was the
only electric. There isn’t very much demand for them, you know.”
“It was an electric I wanted,” Cray told him, with apparent regret.
“Like them quiet.”
“That’s what Mr. Simpson said,” the garage owner vouchsafed. “They may
be quiet enough, but I like something a little faster and bigger. I’ve
got a dandy Wellington here, sir, as good as new, that I’ll sell you
for——”
“Nothing doing,” Cray interrupted. “Wife has set her heart on an
electric, and you know what that means. Thanks just the same, though.”
They exchanged meaning glances, and Cray left the garage. As he walked
along the main street, he whistled softly, but very cheerfully. The
garage man’s hint as to Simpson’s reason for purchasing an electric car
had served to strengthen his suspicions. The more he thought about it,
the more certain he became that he was right, and the more eager he was
to lay his amazing theory before Nick Carter.
He desired the great detective’s approval, and his cooperation in
the last dramatic scene, which he hoped would take place that night.
But again there would have been a fly in his honey had he known
that another had arrived at practically the same conclusion by pure
reasoning, and that that other was not Nick Carter, but an impostor and
ex-convict, who was posing in Nick’s place.
Perhaps it is just as well that Jack Cray did not know that fact when
he proceeded to the combined railroad station and telegraph office, and
wrote out the following message:
“NICHOLAS CARTER—_Madison Avenue, New York_: Come to New Pelham by
7:30 train this evening. Important. Will meet you.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
GORDON TACKLES NICK’S SAFE.
Green-eye Gordon stood looking at the safe that was built into the wall
of Nick’s study, and, as he stared at it, his eyes were very greedy in
expression.
For one thing, he felt certain that the famous detective kept money
there—very likely a large sum—for, in Nick’s profession, it is often
essential to lay one’s hands on plenty of cash at very short notice.
Expensive journeys have to be undertaken on little warning, often at
hours when the banks are closed, for instance, and there are many other
ways in which ready money comes in handy. It remained to be seen, of
course, whether the detective’s absence had made any difference in this
respect.
This, however, was but a very small item in Gordon’s expectations.
As we have seen, he was after very much bigger game, in the shape of
the secret records of Nick’s most important cases, records which he
hoped would be the means of netting him a very much larger sum than
that represented by the missing relief fund.
The rascal’s mouth fairly watered now as he thought of the
possibilities. The possession of the papers he desired would mean a
chance of blackmail, such as the world had never known. Until now,
these papers had been perfectly safe in Nick Carter’s possession, but
should they tail into Gordon’s hands, they would suddenly acquire a
destructive power far more terrible than that of dynamite.
What a prospect! Aside from the enormous advantage which he expected to
reap from it, Green Eye could conceive of no more effective retaliation
for Nick’s part in sending him to prison.
“A fool would only think of killing Carter, or at most, of giving him a
taste of physical torture,” thought the criminal. “But I can understand
his point of view, and I know that the loss of such papers—and the use
I shall make of them—will be infinitely worse than death itself in his
eyes.”
Gordon started as he heard the front door open, and moved across the
room. He felt sure that it was Mrs. Peters returning from her afternoon
constitutional, and he wished to give her an order, but he paused, as
he remembered the police dog. It would be better to have Prince out of
the way before he sent for the housekeeper.
He waited ten minutes, therefore, before ringing the bell, and
presently Mrs. Peters arrived, somewhat out of breath.
“If any one calls, say that I’m away,” the masquerader said sharply.
“On no account am I to be disturbed by any one—by any one, mind you. If
Joseph is about, tell him so, too.”
“Very well, sir,” Mrs. Peters answered. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Despite Green Eye’s eagerness to get at the safe, he remembered
Prince’s alarming behavior, and narrowly watched the housekeeper’s
face. He felt sure she could not deceive him. If she had the slightest
suspicion that all was not as it should be, her face and manner would
be sure to reveal the fact.
“No, she hasn’t tumbled to me,” he assured himself, as Mrs. Peters
left the room. “It was not to be supposed that she would, but she
must have thought the beast’s actions very peculiar. Thank Heaven,
all of Carter’s assistants are away. I’ll have to keep the butler at
a distance, too, as much as possible. I don’t believe he’s capable of
seeing through the deception, but he’s a man, and he’s been with Carter
for a good while. His eyes may be sharper than I think.”
He turned the key in the lock hurriedly, took off his coat, and began
to roll up his sleeves.
“Now, where, does he keep the outfit?” he muttered, his pale, keen eyes
darting about the room.
With quick steps he crossed to the cabinet and tried that, but,
obviously, he did not find there what he sought, for he turned away
from it with a snarl of impatience.
The desk was the next thing he examined, but it was not until he had
picked the lock of one of the hitherto unopened drawers that he found
what he sought—a small black bag.
When he had opened the latter, his lips curled into an ugly grin.
“What a burglar he would have made,” he muttered, as he emptied the
contents of the bag carefully on the floor in front of the safe.
There were bits of various sizes, ordinary drills and wheel drills,
jimmies, glass cutters, skeleton keys, acids—in fact, everything that
goes to make up the outfit of the most up-to-date burglar.
Green-eye Gordon turned them over caressingly, but it was not for long
that he was idle. He knelt before the safe, his eyes roving over it at
close range. Soon he smiled with satisfaction.
It was scarcely as modern a safe as he would have expected Nick Carter
to possess, but that was probably because the last thing in the world
the famous detective expected was a burglary in his own house.
Among other accomplishments, most of which had brought him into
conflict with the law, Ernest Gordon numbered safe-cracking, and,
as he knelt before the massive steel door, with its shining nickel
fittings, he had no doubt that he would be able to master this one in a
comparatively short time.
After a brief examination of the lock, to make sure that he could not
open the combination by ear, the masquerader picked up the powerful
wheel drill, fitted a bit to it, and, pressing the other end against
his stomach, set to work.
At first the bit seemed to make little impression upon the specially
hardened metal, but presently a little hole appeared, and grew deeper
and deeper as Gordon kept the wheel in motion.
For the time being, the criminal forgot the relief fund that he hoped
to appropriate, forgot even the great, unique haul he counted on
obtaining from that very safe, and was lost in the joy of being at his
old trade again, and handling the old, familiar tools with undiminished
skill.
Gh-r-rh!
Gordon paused to squirt oil into the deepening hole, as the note of the
revolving bit changed and grew harsher. It was working smoothly again
after a moment, and the particles of metal were rapidly accumulating.
Thus the work went on. One hole was sunk to the required depth, then
another, and finally, after various deft operations, the inner secrets
of the lock were disclosed, and the thick door swung back on noiseless
hinges.
A little chuckle of satisfaction sounded as the door began to move,
but, by the time it was wide open, a snarl of surprise and rage burst
from the criminal’s lips.
CHAPTER XIX.
AN UNTIMELY KNOCK.
Despite the opening of the door, the interior of the safe did not
meet Gordon’s eye, as he naturally had anticipated. Instead, he found
himself confronted by a second door.
Worse still, this second door appeared to be even more formidable than
the first.
Doubtless, it was not nearly so thick, of course, but the trouble was
that it presented an absolutely unbroken surface. In other words, there
was no knob on it, no combination, no handle, nothing to indicate how
it opened, or where the lock was.
It might open from left to right, or right to left—or from top to
bottom, or bottom to top, for that matter. Moreover, it was only after
a close and most careful scrutiny that it was possible for Green Eye to
tell where the door ended, and the rest of the safe began, so tiny was
the crack about it.
“Of all the infernal luck!” muttered the criminal. “A trick door,
evidently. Of course, I could blow it open, if I wanted to do that,
but it isn’t safe to use explosives with a house full of servants. And
how in thunder am I to know where the cursed lock is, if there are no
outward signs of it? It may be on one side, or on the other, high or
low. Have I got to keep on drilling holes at random until I stumble
upon it?”
It was all he could do to keep from wrecking the study in his rage. He
had a temper, and he knew it was at white heat, and threatening to boil
over at any moment.
“This is the limit,” he thought. “For all I know, there may be no
regular lock at all. Instead, there may be a mechanism somewhere else,
operating a series of bolts which can be shot into the door from all
sides. I might have known that any safe Carter would have would not
be as easy to crack as this one seemed to be. Curse him! I wish I had
him here right now! I’d make him open this safe for me, or tear him to
pieces with my bare hands!”
Much must be allowed for exaggeration in the case of an angry man. If
Nick Carter could have appeared at that moment, it is probable that the
outcome would have been by no means the one Green Eye imagined.
After storming up and down the room a few times, Gordon quieted down
a little and returned to the safe. It had occurred to him that in the
absence of anything like a knob or handle, there must be a secret
spring or something of that sort, that was pressed in order to set the
mechanism in motion, and open the inner door.
If he could find that, all would be well.
It seemed like a hopeless task, but Green Eye was master of himself
again, and prepared to exercise the greatest care and perseverance.
First, he returned Nick’s tools to the little black bag, and restored
it to the drawer, after which he carefully removed all traces of his
work, except those which permanently disfigured the outer door, and
told of the violation of its lock.
Even these he cleverly hid by means of a sort of wax, which he found in
Nick’s laboratory, and which he coated over with ink after the holes
had been plugged.
He did not expect to use the tools again, if he could help it, and he
wished to clear the telltale litter away before doing anything else, so
that if he were interrupted, in spite of his injunctions, he could open
the door without too great delay.
Another trip to the detective’s desk brought to light a powerful
magnifying glass. Armed with this, the rascal returned to the safe and
began a systematic inspection of its surfaces, inward and outward, so
far as he could gain access to them.
He was looking for some place where the enamel had been worn off by the
frequent pressure by fingers, or where finger marks had been left in
such a way as to indicate repeated pressures.
He began just beyond the edge of the narrow door, and worked his way
completely around it, but without success.
“I didn’t think I’d find it there,” he told himself, “but I had to make
sure first.”
He then extended his area of search, taking in the jambs of the outer
door, and so working his way out to the exterior of the safe.
He did not waste time over the inside of the outer door, for his
common sense told him that there could be no connection between that
and the rest of the safe, except through the hinges, which were not
likely to conceal any hidden wiring or mechanical connection.
It was a long and tedious search. Most men would have given up in the
first few minutes, or at the end of an hour, but not so Green-eye
Gordon. There was an ugly expression on his face, and his nerves were
on edge, but he kept on with a dogged determination, scrutinizing the
enameled surface of the safe inch by inch, and going over it not once,
but many times.
The fact that the safe was set into the wall gave him a comparatively
small surface to cover, and seemed to promise success without any great
effort, but the promise was without foundation.
Nevertheless, the scoundrel’s persistence was finally rewarded.
He located the secret spring, but did so purely by accident, not from
any help which his keen eyes, or Nick’s powerful magnifying glass gave
him.
The reason was that the spring was located in a comparatively
inaccessible place, behind one of the legs of the safe.
Gordon had lain down again and again, and, with the help of a pocket
flash light and the magnifying glass, had done his best to peer under
the low safe and behind the two squat little legs at the front. He had
met with very little success, but finally, having failed to find what
he sought elsewhere, he had begun feeling about at random.
In this way, just behind the right leg, and in the bottom of the safe,
he had happened upon a small, yielding surface, and his heart had
bounded as he pressed it upward.
To his delight, the inner door began to open noiselessly.
Simultaneously, the impostor’s heart stopped.
Some one had knocked at the door!
CHAPTER XX.
THE BLACKMAILER’S SUPREME HAUL.
For a moment that seemed an eternity, Ernest Gordon crouched as if
petrified, his eyes turned wildly to the door.
Had he locked it?
Of course he had, but he could not be sure of it at that moment,
and, even if it were locked, what beastly mischance had brought an
interruption just then?
Supposing it were Carter himself, or one of his assistants?
The rascal’s clammy hands were cold, and his knees threatened to
collapse under him.
Gritting his teeth, however, and with a look of contempt for his own
weakness, he pushed the inner door back, swung the other one around
until it was only slightly ajar, and, after a hasty glance about to
make sure that all else was in order, strode to the door.
“What is it?” he called harshly.
Even at the moment of utterance he was conscious that the voice bore
little resemblance to that of the man he was impersonating.
The reply, to his relief, was in the butler’s deferential tones.
“Telegram, sir,” Joseph announced. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I
thought you probably would like to have it at once.”
“That’s all right,” Gordon said, taking care this time to imitate
Nick’s voice accurately.
He unlocked the door and opened it a foot or so.
“Thanks, Joseph,” he said, taking the telegram from the butler’s silver
salver, and closing the door again, but not locking it.
He knew that the hand he had extended was grimy, and that a locked door
was probably a very unusual phenomenon, but he did not make the mistake
of offering any explanation. That would have been more suspicious still.
“If he noticed my hand, he’ll think I’ve been working in the
laboratory,” he assured himself. “As for the door, that’s none of his
business. A man doesn’t have to do the same things in the same way year
after year.”
He hastily tore open the yellow envelope, and found within Jack Cray’s
message from New Pelham, asking him to come on the seven-thirty train.
Gordon positively chuckled as he finished reading the telegram.
“He’s hit upon something big already, or thinks he has, at any rate,”
he decided. “Let’s hope his impression isn’t an erroneous one, and that
my dear Carter’s friend Jack is going to lead me to a carload of gold
pieces. I’ll be there, Cray, you may be sure.”
Now that Joseph had gone away, Green Eye quietly relocked the door,
and, thrusting the telegram into his pocket, hurried back to the safe.
He swung the ponderous outer door to the right, and clamping his
fingers over the right-hand edge of the knobless door within, he drew
it to the left.
He had been careful not to push it completely shut before going to the
door, for he feared that he might not be able to open it again.
Now open to his eyes lay the interior of the safe.
Eagerly he snatched open one of the drawers, and gave a little grunt
of satisfaction when he found a couple of reasonably thick bundles of
paper money. When the bundles were withdrawn, he caught a glimpse of
several familiar-looking little packages, round, slender, and wrapped
in manila paper.
“Gold, just as it came from the bank!” he muttered, snatching up one of
the packages and tearing off the end of the wrapping.
A stack of ten-dollar gold pieces was revealed.
“This will do very nicely for current expenses,” Green Eye murmured,
with a smile. “Now for the rest, though.”
He carried the money over to the table, and thrust notes and gold into
the pockets of the coat he had taken off before he set to work, after
which he returned to the safe and began his search for Nick’s precious
secrets.
Packet after packet he drew out, chuckling at the inscriptions on some
of them, then grimy with his work, and, still in his shirt sleeves,
he set out to examine the records, his chair drawn up to the table,
his fingers shaking with the excitement that possessed him. Once he
stopped, and mechanically lighted a cigar, but it was soon forgotten,
and went out, after which the end of it was chewed to a pulp.
The papers he unearthed were all he hoped they would be.
There, before him, were the histories of scores of the most important
cases that Nick Carter had handled. Many of them, to be sure, were of
such a nature that they afforded no opportunities for blackmail, but
there were quite a number which, even to a casual glance, revealed
alluring possibilities in that direction.
Gordon’s pale eyes glittered with greed as he read names and dates,
and all the precise array of facts which had been accumulated by the
painstaking labors of the great detective and his staff.
“It’s a gold mine, nothing else!” the master rascal told himself, his
hands trembling with eagerness. “If I have time to work it as it ought
to be worked, I can pull down a quarter of a million—half a million!”
His enthusiasm carried him away into the region of fairy possibilities,
where a rosy light played over everything. He did not realize how
important was that little word “if” which he had passed over so lightly.
This was just the sort of thing that appealed to him most, this
bleeding of those who could much better afford to pay large sums in
hush money than to have gossip busy with their names.
He made a selection of the records that appealed to him most at first
glance, then bundled the others up carefully and thrust them back into
the safe.
“This will be all I will need,” he told himself; “for the present, at
least.”
Therefore, he risked closing the inner door of the safe, but, lest
there should be any uncertainty about it, he made sure that he could
open it later. After that he closed the outer door, but, of course, did
not lock it, for he had put the locking mechanism out of commission.
Thanks to his care in covering up his traces, however, it was not
likely that any ordinary eyes would detect the fact that the safe had
been violated, and, to further minimize the possibility, he placed a
chair with its back against the safe door.
Leaving the bundle of documents in plain sight of the desk, he rang for
Joseph.
“I shall want dinner by six-thirty to-night, Joseph,” he said.
“Very good, sir,” the butler replied. “Any special orders?”
“No, no—the usual thing.”
After the butler had departed, Green Eye hastily bathed and changed his
clothing, after which he seated himself at the desk, and began going
through the papers in a more careful way, stopping to consider their
possibilities now and then, or to jot down a note.
Dinner was announced long before he expected it, and, after keeping
it waiting for ten minutes or more, he rose, stretched himself, and,
with a little hesitation, thrust all of the papers into his pockets, to
which he had already transferred the stolen money.
“For all I know, I may never return here,” he told himself. “It isn’t
likely that Cray has located Simpson’s treasure chest, but if he has,
the situation will call for immediate action on my part—and the worthy
Cray and I will hardly be friends afterward, if he survives. He’ll know
I’m not Carter if I stick him up for the eighty thou, and that means
that I’ll have to make myself scarce, and be quick about it.”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MASQUERADER JOINS CRAY.
Green-eye Gordon, Nick Carter’s double for the time being, did full
justice to the excellent dinner that he found ready for him when he
reported to the detective’s dining room.
To have asked for special dishes would have been a risky thing to do,
and even if he had had an active dislike for anything that was served
to him, he had sufficient self-control to conceal that fact.
To be sure, he would have preferred other things, and his craving for
drink often nearly overmastered him, but he succeeded in fighting it
down—at any rate, during the hours he spent under the eyes of Nick’s
servants.
It was a few minutes after seven when one of the detective’s cars
drew up at the curb, and Danny Maloney, Nick’s chauffeur, honked an
announcement of the fact.
The supposed Nick Carter left the table, explored his pockets for the
last time, to make sure that his loot—including the automatic—was all
in his possession, and then went out to the machine.
He was more afraid of Danny, than any of the rest, for the chauffeur’s
eyes were very keen, and he had had more than a taste of detective work
on the various occasions when he had jumped in and helped out in a
crisis. Nevertheless, the impostor felt that he could not afford to do
too many unusual things, and he had sent for Danny instead of calling a
taxi.
“I’ll be behind the fellow as soon as I get into the machine,” he
mused. “He’ll only see me for a few minutes. Therefore, as I’ve already
stood Jack Cray’s scrutiny, and am going to invite it again, I ought
not to have any trouble with this fellow.”
He did not, of course. Danny had no reason to doubt that his chief had
returned unexpectedly, and therefore, it did not occur to him to give
more than a passing glance.
Gordon was dropped at the station in plenty of time to catch the
seven-thirty for New Pelham, a small suburban place a few miles to the
north, in Westchester County. Both the motor car and the train afforded
opportunity for very agreeable day-dreams connected with the papers in
the scoundrel’s pocket, and by the time he stepped from the train at
the village he had persuaded himself that a big fortune was as good as
within his grasp, and that there could be no possible hitch.
It is not to be wondered at that his hopes ran high, for certainly his
daring had carried everything before it, thus far.
High tide is invariably followed by low, however, and although the ebb
might not set in for some time in Green Eye’s case, it was sure to come
sooner or later. For wrongdoing is its own worst enemy, and devours its
own children.
Jack Cray was waiting on the platform when Gordon alighted at New
Pelham, and it was plain from the ex-police detective’s bearing that he
had had news of unusual importance to communicate.
“You have hit upon something, I see,” Green Eye remarked in Nick’s
quiet tones.
“Cleared up the whole thing, I hope,” Cray assured him excitedly.
“Let’s stroll in this direction—there are not many houses, and we need
not be afraid of being overheard.”
“Lead the way,” the masquerader agreed, adding, when they had left
the platform behind: “I’m curious to hear what you have dug up, Cray.
Before you begin, though, I’d like to give you a few of the results I
have arrived at in my study since you left me. It will be interesting
to see how near they come to your findings.”
He was proud of the way he had analyzed the matter, and could not
resist the temptation to parade his results.
“Go ahead,” invited Cray in an expectant tone.
He was thinking of Nick’s achievements in that line, and looked for
something out of the ordinary. To be sure, his famous friend might
“take the wind out of his sails,” as had often been the case in the
past, but Jack’s admiration was sincere enough to stand even that test.
The fact that he was not disappointed in this instance is perhaps the
most remarkable tribute that could be paid to Gordon’s intelligence.
“Just a word or two, then,” Green Eye said in a self-satisfied tone
that was far from characteristic of the man he was impersonating. “In
the first place, I’ve made up my mind that there’s no use in looking
for Simpson in New England. The trail starts there, of course, but it
ends here.”
“Here!” echoed Cray in amazement. “How the dickens did you hit upon
that?”
Gordon had not meant the word to be taken quite so literally. He felt
sure that the fugitive had headed for New York, or some place in the
immediate neighborhood, and he was inclined to believe that he was
lurking in the vicinity of New Pelham, but he was prepared to shift his
ground, if necessary.
Now he realized, as a result of Cray’s amazing question, that he was on
the right track. Furthermore, that realization gave him confidence, and
helped him to fit in the rest.
“Oh, I’ve just arrived at it,” he said carelessly, determined to use
his companion’s unconscious tip for all it was worth. “He has been back
in New Pelham, and will be again, if he isn’t at this moment. More than
that, I have a suspicion that he has been lurking about his own house.”
“For the love of Mike!” Cray breathed, looking his admiration as they
strolled through the gathering dusk. “You sure are a wizard!”
“Not a bit of it. I simply use my reason, and when I find two and two,
I don’t hesitate to put them together, knowing that the result is bound
to be four.”
“But what in thunder led you to think that the fellow would come
back here—especially that he would dare to return to his own place?”
demanded Jack.
“I called up Griswold and learned that he had never lived in New
England, and had spent most of his brief vacations here at home, or out
in the Middle West. That helped to give me a start, and I sized Simpson
up as a man with some clever ideas, but probably timid and unacquainted
with the world in many respects. I reasoned that such a man might
conceive the idea of outwitting his enemies by hiding his stealings
in the last place which would be likely to be searched—his own—and
once thought of, I felt sure he would decide on it for other reasons.
Because he was essentially a home body, for instance. Also, because he
was not in touch with crooks, and wouldn’t wish to trust any one with
his secret.
“Of course,” he admitted, “it wasn’t all reasoning—some of it was
intuition, or plain hunch. His use of an electric machine, though, went
far to convince me that I had the right idea. Its only advantage seemed
to be its silence, and I couldn’t imagine what good silence would do
him, unless he expected to hide the gold somewhere, without those in
the immediate neighborhood being aware of it. The bulk of the stuff,
you see, made it necessary to use a vehicle of some sort to transport
it. Well, it naturally occurred to me that the person he would least
desire to know anything about it was his wife.”
All the time thinking, or seeming to do so, he was keeping one eye on
Cray, and thus he was able to tell that he was not going astray.
“In short,” he concluded, “the more I thought about it, the more
certain I became that the chap had hidden the stuff somewhere within
earshot of his own house. Of course, though, I didn’t attempt to carry
the theory any further. That would have been a waste of time. Let’s
hear, though, what you have discovered.”
CHAPTER XXII.
PLANS FOR THE NIGHT.
The two men had some hours to kill, for they could not expect anything
to happen before midnight, at least, although they realized that it
would be well to be on the scene before that.
Mrs. Simpson would in all probability retire at ten or eleven o’clock,
and as Simpson could—and probably did—approach the hill from the other
direction without coming through the village, he might appear sooner
than they expected.
Therefore, Jack Cray did not hurry himself when the time came for
him to report his findings. They walked to the end of the street and
turned, heading back toward the center of the village, while Cray
expressed his amazement at his companion’s reasoning.
That tribute having been paid, he got down to business.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “Doesn’t leave me much to boast of. I’ve got
some facts, though, and even you need facts to put under your theories.”
He went on to describe his call at the Simpson residence, and the
various things which had interested him—the new house, the misfit
furniture, the facts that Simpson himself had chosen the place, the
hasty move, the fugitive’s sudden interest in motor cars, his refusal
to use the drive from the front, and so on, until the subject of the
tire tracks was reached.
“Very interesting,” murmured Gordon. “The garage is metal, you say,
and was locked? You think, then, that the stuff is hidden there—that
Simpson bought the little, portable building for that purpose, not to
use it in the ordinary way?”
“That’s the way it strikes me,” Cray answered. “A place like that
doesn’t seem very safe for such a purpose, but nobody would think it
contained anything of any particular value. Besides, it’s far enough
from the house to make an occasional visit sufficiently safe, even in
a car—providing the car is noiseless—and the neighbors wouldn’t be
any the wiser. Mrs. Simpson wouldn’t have any interest in the garage,
because she thinks it’s empty.”
“I see. Just how do you explain these different sets of tire marks,
however? Your idea is, as I understand it, that the one set which you
found in the yard itself in front of the garage doors was made several
nights together, when Simpson brought the stuff there and unloaded it?”
“Sure.”
“Then how about the others which seemed to show that he has been there
more than once since then, but hasn’t driven the car in?”
“Those other prints are the most interesting of the whole lot to me,”
Cray returned eagerly. “It was because of them that I asked the woman
where she slept, and all that. Don’t you see? This is the way I dope
it out. He left the money the first time, and maybe, in his excitement,
he didn’t keep any back, or else he’s been spending more freely than he
expected. At any rate, it looks to me as if he wants more, or maybe the
stuff is drawing him like a magnet, and he’s coming back to gloat over
it.
“But right there, friend wife steps in and interferes without knowing
it. He thought he had everything fixed with her sleeping at the front
of the house and the garage far enough away so that she could sleep
with one eye open, if she wanted to, without hearing him. Evidently,
though, the very night after he banked the stuff in the garage, she
upset all his calculations by deciding to sleep in that back room.
Got the idea? It has three big windows right in a row, and as the
nights have been warm, she has had them all open. He must have seen
those open windows the next time he came, and evidently he guessed
what they meant. Anyhow, he got cold feet, and didn’t dare sneak up to
the garage, for fear she would hear him and get up. That’s why he has
fiddled around and gone off again, and that’s why I asked her to oblige
me by sleeping in the front room for a night or two.”
The big man chuckled.
“I suppose she thought I was crazy,” he went on, “but I can’t help
that. I wasn’t exactly in a position to shine in her eyes, but if she
does what I ask her to, and shuts those back windows, I shall be very
much disappointed if we don’t catch our man red-handed to-night.”
“You think he’ll turn up again, do you, and that if he finds the coast
clear, he’ll lose no time in getting next to the gold?”
“That’s the ticket.”
Gordon was silent for a minute or two.
“Well, I certainly hope you are right, Jack,” he said at length. “And
you must be, I think, for it isn’t likely that we would both arrive at
the same point by totally different routes unless there was something
in it. We’ll put it to the test, at any rate, and if he doesn’t show
up by two or three o’clock, we’ll burrow under one side of the garage
and see what we can find. That will make it unnecessary to tamper with
the lock, and we can fix things so he’ll never know that anybody has
entered the place. Then, after removing the stuff, if we find it, we
can watch the empty garage to-morrow night, and nab him if he puts in
an appearance.”
Cray agreed to this plan, and informed Gordon that there was a pile of
lumber within a few feet of the garage.
“We can hide behind that,” he said, “and wait for him. We’ll be in
plain sight from the back windows of the house, to be sure, and Mrs.
Simpson may spoil everything if she peeks. Let’s hope, though, that she
obeys orders and goes to bed without question.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE WATCHERS MAKE THEMSELVES SCARCE.
When Cray and Gordon first came within sight of No. 31 Floral Avenue
there were lights in some of the upper windows, but before they had
reached a point opposite the house, the lights went out.
“Mrs. Simpson is just going to bed,” announced Cray. “Good enough! Glad
to see she isn’t a night owl. Thought of that, but was afraid to pile
on any more injunctions.”
They passed the house and continued along the road toward the brow of
the hill, then turned about and paced slowly back. There were lights in
some of the other houses, and Green Eye could see that Cray had been
right in saying that there were no other windows to overlook Simpson’s
rear yard and garage.
“Like to see the wheel tracks?” asked Cray, just before they reached
the house again. “Safe enough, I guess, if she isn’t snooping around.”
Gordon shook his head. “I’d like to have a look at them myself,” he
answered, “but we’d better wait for a while and give the woman a chance
to quiet down. She may be peering out of those back windows for all
she’s worth at this very moment, you know. What you said was enough to
arouse any woman’s curiosity, and she’s probably imagining all sorts
of things. I don’t believe she’s in touch with her husband, and even
if she were, it’s unlikely that she could get word to him. Still, you
never know what a panicky woman is going to do. She has no man to fall
back upon now, remember, and if she saw us lurking about, she might
call up the police.”
“Well, what if she did?” demanded Cray. “We haven’t anything to be
afraid of at their hands.”
Having once been a police detective himself, he often found it hard
to sympathize with his companion’s attitude, which was that of most
private detectives.
“That’s a foolish question, Jack,” Green Eye returned, copying one
of Nick Carter’s gentle rebukes. “We’re not down in the city now,
remember. We’ll be up against some country officers, who might yank
us off to the lockup before we had a chance to explain. While we were
gone, what if Simpson should appear on the scene? Where would our plans
be then?”
“That’s right, too,” Cray agreed ruefully. “Might get away and not turn
up again. Take it all back, Mr. Carter. We can wait for a while—long
enough for Mrs. Simpson to get tired if she’s on the watch—and still
have time to look about a bit, with the help of our flash lights,
before midnight. Not much chance that Simpy will show up before then.”
Accordingly, they concealed themselves near by and waited impatiently
until nearly eleven-thirty, by which time all the houses in the
neighborhood were dark.
“Now we’ll do a little exploring,” announced Green Eye. They cautiously
skirted Simpson’s property until they reached a point from which they
could see that the rear windows were all closed, after which they
continued to the rear of the lot.
They remained outside the low fence until they had satisfied themselves
that Simpson was not in the vicinity. Having ascertained that, they
crept about the corner of the fence, and, lurking in its shadow,
approached the wide gate which the fugitive had had cut there.
Cray switched on his flash light, and turned it downward so that it
shone upon the footprint he had noted earlier in the day.
“That’s Simpson’s, I’m pretty sure,” he declared. “Got the data of it,
anyway. The fellow stood here to open the gate.”
“Show me the tire marks first,” Gordon said.
He was trying to simulate Nick’s thoroughness, but he had a more
personal reason as well. He wished to see if the tracks would tell
him the same story they had told his companion, because if they did
not—well, the stolen gold might prove to be much more elusive than he
had hoped, and the sooner he found it out the better.
The night was dark. Along the street an occasional arc lamp spluttered
characteristically, but there at the rear of the house it was very
lonely and gloomy; nevertheless, the two men threw frequent glances at
the Simpson back windows, and their ears were strained all the time to
catch the first sounds of approach.
Gordon’s examination did not take long. Every mark that he saw served
to confirm what Cray had told him, and as the light was switched off
the darkness permitted a significant grin of satisfaction.
“I see nothing to upset your reasoning, Jack,” he said judicially.
“We had better go into the yard, though, and see if there are any new
tracks in front of the garage, and then get under cover.”
Cray had noted that morning that the hinges of the gate had been very
thoroughly oiled, but it seemed best not to put them to the test, but
to crawl over the fence at one side, where their own footprints would
not be conspicuous.
Thereafter, keeping as much as possible in the lee of the little
garage, they examined the corner in front of the door.
“Nothing new seems to have taken place here,” Cray informed the
supposed Nick Carter. “Here’s the one set of tire marks, you see, and
nothing more of consequence, not even an obliterated trail. If the
stuff was inside the garage this morning, it seems safe enough to say
that it’s here still.”
As he spoke, he tried the door once more, but found it locked, as it
had been that morning. They passed on around the little structure of
metal, keeping to the side, away from the house.
“There’s the lumber pile I told you about,” Cray announced. “About time
to hunt our holes, isn’t it?”
His companion agreed, and they made themselves as comfortable as they
could beside the pile of boards. Now, however, as Cray had foretold,
they were exposed to view from the back of the house, but the only
alternative was to take a position which might reveal them to Simpson
if he should come, as they counted on his doing.
“Let’s hope he shows up, and is considerate enough not to keep us
waiting too long,” murmured Gordon. “I’ve seen cozier places than
this.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
REWARDED AT LAST.
More than once during the wait that followed, Jack Cray felt compelled
to enjoin silence.
Under ordinary circumstances, he would not have thought of doing so
where Nick Carter—as he believed—was concerned. That night, however,
the great detective appeared to be unusually reckless, and Cray, on the
other hand, felt an unwonted sense of responsibility and leadership.
To be sure, his ally had taken the joy out of life to some extent
by arriving at practically the same point through a process of
reasoning, but Cray had done all the work, and was quite proud of his
achievements; therefore, for once in his life, he felt somewhere near
on an equality with Nick, and allowed himself to call Gordon down for
incautious remarks now and then.
“Not a word now!” he at last whispered authoritatively. “No telling how
soon he may come!”
As a matter of fact, he had reason to be more cautious, and to take
Simpson’s anticipated advent more seriously than did Gordon. Cray was
doing everything in good faith, and kept continually in mind Griswold’s
injunctions in regard to secrecy. He believed that it would be easy
enough for two of them to capture Simpson, should that individual
appear, but he went further than that, and determined to accomplish
the capture as nearly in silence as possible, for he feared that the
neighborhood might be aroused by Mrs. Simpson, if she heard anything in
the nature of a scuffle.
On the contrary, Green Eye cared nothing about the millionaire
newspaper proprietor’s desires or interests, and it made little
difference to him whether the man were arrested or not, if only he
could get the best of Cray and Simpson and make his get-away.
Nevertheless, he did not resent Cray’s assumption of command, for his
brain was very busy, and quickly turned from the contemplation of one
pleasing possibility to another.
He did not believe that a man of John Simpson’s type had succeeded in
spending very much of that eighty thousand dollars. Therefore, the
absconding treasurer’s loot promised to be well worth having as a nest
egg.
Gordon meant it to be more than a nest egg, though. Other and larger
sums were soon to join it and keep it company, according to those rosy
dreams of his.
Now to the front crowded memories of those coveted papers he had
examined in Nick Carter’s study that afternoon—the papers which were
now safe in his pockets, and represented his real fortune.
In particular, he recalled one set of records relating to the doings of
a young man of sporting inclinations. The young man in question was the
only son of one of America’s richest men, and the sporting tendencies
referred to had once got him into a very awkward position.
Nick Carter had extricated the foolish youngster without injustice to
any one, and without the slightest hint of publicity. If Green-eye
Gordon had his way, however, the young man and the young man’s father
would soon learn how it feels to have youthful indiscretions return to
roost.
“That alone ought to be worth a tidy fortune,” the schemer told himself.
In addition there were the Walsh papers, the Gravesend case, all the
tempting possibilities of the Lindley matter, and, coming nearer
home, there were a number of documents dealing with men within easy
reach—with Chester J. Gillespie, for instance; ex-Senator Phelps,
Bertie Craybill, Harold Lumsden, the actor, and others.
Yes, there were endless possibilities—money to be wrung from men who
would be forced to keep their mouths shut, and their banking accounts
at his command.
In the darkness, the criminal gave vent to a chuckle, which choked as
he felt Cray turn and glance at him inquiringly.
“I was just thinking of the surprise in store for our friend,” he
whispered. “Why doesn’t he come?”
But John Simpson seemed in no hurry to arrive, if he intended to do so
at all. One o’clock came and passed, and the waiting men were still in
their cramped positions beside the pile of lumber.
It began to look as if Cray had been wrong in his theory, or else
that, discouraged by Mrs. Simpson’s new hobby of sleeping at the rear
of the house, the missing man had decided not to visit the place that
night—for surely Simpson must have known that everybody had been in bed
for hours.
Even the ex-police detective, usually so stolid, began to fidget.
Suddenly, however, his body grew rigid, and his left hand closed upon
the arm of the man beside him.
From the roadway at the rear, still some little distance off, had come
faint but unmistakable sounds.
A motor vehicle of some sort, well-nigh silent in operation, was
approaching, and pebbles were being displaced by its rubber-tired
wheels.
“Our man!” Cray whispered.
CHAPTER XXV.
THOSE EXTRA-HEAVY SUIT CASES.
Green Eye did not reply to the burly detective’s warning, but his hand
took a firm grip on the revolver in his pocket.
He was holding it by the barrel, however.
The brief interval that followed seemed long and tedious, but in
reality it could not have been of more than three or four minutes’
duration.
Although tense and physically on the alert, Gordon found his mind
wandering. He wondered idly where Simpson had been staying, and how he
dared to travel about even at night in the same machine in which he had
removed the gold from the Hattontown bank.
“He probably counts on Griswold doing nothing,” he decided, then grimly
called himself to account. “What difference does it make to me where he
has been hiding?” he asked himself impatiently. “The important thing is
that he seems to be here, that the gold also seems to be here, and that
he’s going to be kind enough to show me where it is.”
The unseen car approached very quietly, and came to a halt outside
the gate. They heard the faint scrape of the man’s heel as Simpson
dismounted, then footsteps approached the gate, the latch was
cautiously lifted, and the gate swung inward.
Obviously Simpson intended to drive into the yard, and that could mean
only one thing—that he intended to remove a substantial part of the
gold, if not all of it, and wished to bring the machine as close to
his hiding place as possible, so that he need only carry the stuff a
minimum distance.
The fugitive was within a few feet of the two men when he pushed the
gate back against the fence, but they made no attempt to tackle him.
They felt pretty sure that the loot was hidden in the garage, but until
there was no longer the slightest room for doubt, they meant to give
Simpson all the rope he needed.
Presently the faint, buzzing sound of the motor began again, and then
the vehicle loomed over the top of the fence. Simpson was backing it
very slowly and cautiously into the graveled driveway in front of the
garage.
Now the car—an electric coupé somewhat larger than usual—was in the
yard, and part of it was hidden to view beyond the garage. It was
backed a few feet farther, and then the subdued humming of the motor
abruptly ceased.
Again the two watchers heard the driver step out. Now there was a new
sound, that of a key being inserted in a lock. The lock clicked audibly
in the stillness, after which the door of the garage began to slide
aside.
Not one of the sounds that had been made thus far could have been heard
at a little distance, but not one of them had escaped the keen ears of
Cray and Green-eye Gordon.
As they anticipated, the man did not push the garage door fully aside,
that being unnecessary, owing to the fact that he did not intend to
drive the machine in, but only to gain access himself, and to have room
enough to carry out what he meant to make away with.
The time for action had come at last.
After exchanging signals, the two men behind the lumber pile silently
straightened up, exercised their cramped limbs in the air, one after
the other, and then stole toward the nearest corner of the little
structure. Guided by the sounds within, they peered around the corner,
and saw that the open door of the coupé was just opposite the door of
the garage, and that no more than two or three feet separated them.
They had expected Simpson to begin carrying out the stuff at once, and
meant to attack him as soon as he had completed his task and save them
the trouble of handling the gold. Now, however, it was evident that he
was digging.
They caught the scrape of his foot on the spade, and a series of faint
“swishes,” as spadeful after spadeful of soft soil was thrown aside.
It was impossible for the two men to exchange words, but they turned
and looked at each other, their faces close together. Plainly, it was
necessary for them to wait still longer, if they intended to carry out
their original program and let Simpson do the work.
The garage in itself had not appealed to him as an altogether safe
hiding place, and he had gone to the trouble of burying the loot under
the structure.
Some minutes passed before Simpson’s spade struck something hard. After
more scraping and rasping, the fugitive brought out a box or some
similar receptacle, to judge by the sounds. Incidentally its weight was
made manifest by the subdued grunts and pants which they heard.
A few moments’ rest followed, and then the man awkwardly conveyed the
box—or whatever it was—to the door.
The watchers saw now that it was a suit case of the stoutest leather,
bought, doubtless, for the purpose, but looking considerably the worse
for wear, as a result of its burial.
After a great deal of effort, the far-from-athletic Simpson succeeded
in hoisting it into the coupé. Would he fill up the hole now and close
the garage, or was there more to follow?
Obviously there was more, for after some further digging and a lot of
sighs and mutterings, a second suit case, somewhat smaller, was dragged
out and deposited in the car.
“That must be all of it,” thought Green Eye. “Eighty thousand dollars
in gold doesn’t weigh a ton or fill a coffin.”
He was right. At any rate, Simpson’s actions quickly convinced them
that he did not intend to remove anything more that night. He looked
apprehensively in the direction of the house, and reëntered the garage,
where, for some minutes, he again busied himself with the spade.
He was filling in the hole. The clash was about due now.
Gordon had an inspiration. He had been wondering how Simpson had
previously concealed the freshly turned earth, or how he meant to do so
now.
“I’ll bet he has it fixed so that the excavation appears to have been
made for the purpose of sinking one of those underground gasoline
tanks!” he told himself. “Very likely he’s got the whole paraphernalia
there, and the tank is actually in the ground. That’s what I would have
done under the circumstances, at any rate.”
As a matter of fact, his guess proved to be a singularly accurate one,
for that was just the blind to which Simpson had resorted.
The spade had been laid aside now, and the critical moment had arrived.
Cray turned to his companion and made a series of quick, expressive
gestures.
“I’ll tackle him. You be ready to gag him while I hold him,” they said
as plainly as words.
An instant later, Simpson reappeared in the narrow space between the
garage and the car, and, turning his back, started to shut the big,
sliding door.
That was Jack Cray’s opportunity, and, taking immediate advantage of
it, he launched himself full tilt at the thief’s back.
CHAPTER XXVI.
NOT ON THE PROGRAM.
Simpson gave a startled gasp and tried to turn, but Cray’s weight bore
him down, and in a trice they were on the ground.
Gordon showed himself, and approached as they flopped about for a few
moments in that confined space. Suddenly he turned without warning and
ran around the corner behind which he had just been hiding. He quickly
circled about the tiny garage and approached the struggling men from
the other direction.
The space had been so narrow that it would have been awkward for him to
get at Simpson’s head. Now, however, he could do so without difficulty,
and, as he stooped, he had a handkerchief all ready to gag the prisoner.
Cray, he found, had Simpson by the throat, and was effectually
preventing any outcry, while his great bulk kept the prisoner from
squirming out from under him.
“Now, give it to him!” Jack muttered, breathing heavily. “He can’t let
out a peep.”
Green Eye forced the wretch’s jaws apart, and, inserting the
handkerchief, tied it tightly in place; whereupon, Cray rolled Simpson
over and handcuffed his wrists together behind his back.
The capture had been completed in record time, with no battle to speak
of, and without a sound that could have been heard in the front of the
house. Neither of the victors was inclined to congratulate himself very
much on that achievement, for whatever might be said of John Simpson’s
cleverness in gaining possession of that snug little fortune in gold,
the treasurer was far from a desperate character to deal with.
“Now, keep still!” commanded Cray. “If you don’t, you’ll wish you had,
I can promise you!”
The warning seemed entirely superfluous, but Jack Cray knew that gagged
men have sometimes managed to make sounds in their throats which have
been loud enough to bring assistance.
With Gordon’s help, the captive was jerked through the doorway and into
the garage. One man had already been disposed of, and Gordon was now
secretly turning his attention to Cray, but the latter did not dream of
that.
Jack’s interest at the moment was confined to the helpless man whose
face he desired to see to better advantage. Accordingly he drew out his
flash light and turned it upon Simpson’s features.
The treasurer’s face was very pale—ghastly, in fact—and his lips
were working convulsively on the gag, while his eyes were those of a
cornered animal.
To an inexperienced person, he bore little resemblance to the
descriptions of the missing treasurer, and certainly he did not look
like the manager of the Hattontown _Observer_, whose character he had
assumed at the bank. As a matter of fact, his disguise was a rather
effective one, in view of his inexperience, for he had been wise enough
not to attempt too much.
A rather straggling little mustache, grayish, and too long, with a
tendency to “weep,” had been transplanted to his upper lip, and proved
to be unusually in keeping with his somewhat weak features. He wore a
wig of an expensive sort, very difficult to detect, and the rest of
his disguise consisted of a few inconspicuous lines, by which he had
managed to change his expression to a surprising extent.
Cray made short work of the mustache and wig.
“Well, my friend,” he announced, “here we are! You didn’t look for us,
did you? Here are Nick Carter and old Jack Cray, at your service.”
He shook his head as he contemplated the shrinking man.
“You’ve certainly a lot of misdirected ability in a number of ways,
Simpson,” he remarked. “If you had exhibited half as much when you were
holding down your job on the _Chronicle and Observer_, you might have
made something of yourself. There’s a big streak of incompetency in
you, though. Queer mixture you are—very.”
He paused for a moment, while Simpson quailed under his glance and
looked the picture of misery.
“Got any more of the stuff buried, or did you dig it all up?” Cray
demanded, jerking one stumpy thumb toward the place where his prisoner
had been digging.
Simpson nodded despairingly.
“All in the car, eh?”
There was another nod.
“Well, I’m inclined to believe you,” Jack announced, “but we don’t
intend to let it go at that, you know. Have to do a little digging on
our own account to make sure.”
He stepped aside and reached for the spade.
“What are you doing, Mr. Carter?” he called out softly.
But in a moment the other’s occupation was evident enough, for Gordon
was leaning through the open door of the coupé and working, with
trembling fingers, at the straps of one of the suit cases. The weight
of the case left little or no doubt concerning the nature of its
contents, but his greed had compelled him to take a look at the gold
at the first opportunity, especially when he had found that both cases
were only strapped, not locked.
“I wanted to be sure this was the stuff,” he replied to Cray’s
question, and continued feverishly until the cover was raised.
It was gold beyond question—a great quantity of it.
Much of it was still done up in packages, just as it had come from the
bank in Hattontown, but many of the packages had been broken open,
either by accident, or because Simpson had wanted to feast his eyes on
the thousands of bright, newly minted coins.
Cray looked over Green Eye’s shoulder for a moment.
“Looks like the real stuff,” he commented indifferently. “Got to dig
and see if there’s any more, though.”
“Go ahead, then,” his companion said impatiently.
Gordon also wished to be sure that all of the stolen gold that remained
was in the car, but he could not tear himself away from the sight and
touch of those gleaming coins just then. Besides, he was quite willing
that Cray should do whatever dirty work might be involved.
While the perspiring Cray was again removing the dirt which Simpson had
shoveled back into the hole, the master criminal fondled the gold in
the two suit cases, then grudgingly closed and strapped them. He had
hardly done so before Cray announced:
“He told the truth. At any rate, there’s no more of it here.”
Green-eye Gordon took his revolver from his pocket and clubbed it.
“Just leave everything as it is, and let’s get out of this,” the
supposed Nick Carter said impatiently, stepping aside, so that he was
not directly in front of the garage door. “Come out here a moment,
though, before we put this fellow into the car. I don’t want him to
overhear.”
At that, the unsuspecting Cray threw the spade aside and came out,
mopping his forehead.
“Where are you?” he asked, looking about uncertainly from beneath the
folds of his handkerchief.
For the time being, his big hand was protecting his forehead, but the
moment he withdrew it, in order to see better, the blow fell.
CHAPTER XXVII.
GORDON MAKES HIS GET-AWAY.
As it happened, Jack Cray’s skull was a pretty tough one, and,
therefore, the criminal’s first blow, vicious as it was, did not end
matters.
It badly dazed the ex-police detective, making him totter and throw out
his hands instinctively, but the attack was so extraordinary, coming,
as he believed, from Nick Carter, that he fought with all his might to
retain his senses long enough to see what it meant.
“Mr. Carter!” he muttered; then, lurching forward, peered at his
assailant.
The act took Gordon by surprise. He had been prepared to strike again,
but his blow missed its mark and struck Cray on the shoulder.
“Curse you!” Green Eye snarled, raising the weapon a third time. “Take
that, then!”
But Cray seized him in a clumsy, though powerful grasp, and, with
blinking eyes, peered into his face at close range. A moment later,
Gordon wrenched himself loose, but the emergency seemed to have made
Cray’s brain act with more than its customary speed.
Despite the poor light, Jack had got a near and clear view of that
distorted face and those rage-filled, greenish eyes. Had he been his
normal self, he probably would have disbelieved the evidence of his own
senses, for he would have recalled the seemingly conclusive reports of
Gordon’s death. As it was, however, he recalled nothing of this at the
time, and only remembered the peculiarity which had given Ernest Gordon
his nickname.
“Good heavens! Green-eye Gordon!” he whispered.
A second later, the criminal’s third blow fell squarely on his
forehead, and he went down, without a groan.
Immediately Green Eye bent over him and switched on his flash light.
“Curse you, curse you!” he reiterated wildly, striking Cray’s
unprotected head again and again, apparently with all his might.
He had no definite intention of killing the detective, but he was
seeing red just then, and did not care in the least how hard he struck.
As a matter of fact, he was inclined to believe that he had murdered
his victim, and he actually hoped that he had, for Cray’s recognition
of him had enraged him beyond measure.
On the other hand, that sort of thing had never been in his line. He
had prided himself on his ability to succeed without resorting to such
extremes, and for that reason he shrank from any attempt to ascertain
definitely whether Jack Cray were living or dead.
Besides, he was naturally impatient to be off with the gold, and away
from this place where he had momentarily forgotten himself.
Accordingly, he rose from his knees, without another glance at the
unconscious man, and, pocketing his weapon, returned to the door of
the garage. The prisoner could not have seen what took place; but, as
the attack had occurred just at the corner of the little building, and
within a few feet of the door, it was quite possible that he had heard
enough to reconstruct the whole scene, despite the remarkable quietness
which had prevailed.
That, however, could not be helped, and as Gordon planned to lock the
absconding treasurer in the garage, he did not anticipate any immediate
trouble from that direction.
Moreover, Cray had, so to speak, introduced himself and his companion
to Simpson, speaking of Gordon as Nick Carter, of course. That promised
to furnish the basis of a nice mystery.
Green Eye found the prisoner almost fainting with terror, and finished
the work already begun, by fastening him in such a way that he could
not budge from his place, or make any noise to amount to anything.
“This will have to be your cell for the present, Simpson,” he informed
the trembling thief. “Don’t worry, though, you’ll find yourself in a
real one, before long.”
And he turned his back on the wretched man and stalked out, pushing the
door to and locking it behind him.
Cray remained to be disposed of, but Gordon had not forgotten that
fact. He had had no intention of placing the two men in the garage,
for he considered that unwise, on general principles. If Cray were
dead, as he believed, the presence of the body might drive Simpson to
extraordinary exertions, and thus bring about a premature discovery.
On the other hand, if Jack were still alive, the two men might find
means of communicating with or helping each other.
What then?
Naturally it occurred to the criminal that it might be well to bundle
Cray into the car and carry him for some distance from the scene of the
affair before attempting to dispose of the body. A moment’s thought
caused him to veto that plan, however.
The car was not overlarge, and if Cray’s bulk were added to that of the
two gold-laden suit cases, the interior of the electric machine would
be overcrowded.
Furthermore, the upholstery was rather light in hue, and Gordon was
afraid of bloodstains.
On the whole, therefore, he decided to leave his victim in the yard,
but to conceal him as well as he could.
To that end, he dragged Jack’s inert form around the corner of the
garage to a point close beside the lumber pile. Then very quietly he
began removing boards from the top of the pile and placing them in
another and narrower pile just on the other side of the body.
When he had raised this smaller pile to the required height, he began
placing more boards in such a way that each one projected an inch or
so beyond the one below it, thus forming a sort of arch over Cray’s
outstretched form—a one-sided arch that soon touched the original pile
of lumber and leaned against it more or less securely.
“There!” Green Eye muttered. “Now he can’t be seen from the house or
the road here at the back. The ends are open, to be sure, but I can’t
help that. I haven’t anything here to cover the openings. All I ask,
though, is a start of a few hours, and that I shall certainly have.”
As best he could, he obliterated the track he had left in dragging Cray
to the lumber pile, after which he climbed into the machine, disposed
of the precious suit cases to the best advantage, and touched the
starting lever.
He had not yet turned on the lights of the car, but the hours he had
spent in the gloom had thoroughly accustomed his eyes to the darkness,
and, therefore, he had no trouble in guiding the easily controlled car
out through the gate and into the road beyond.
There he brought it to a stop, and, returning hastily, obliterated the
tire marks in front of the garage and such of his own footprints as he
could find. He did not wish to use his flash light too much, however;
therefore, it is quite possible that the job was not a very thorough
one.
Finally he passed through the gate, closed it, and reëntered the car,
which quietly purred away into the night.
Green-eye Gordon’s extraordinary daring had put him into possession of
a fortune of close to seventy-five thousand dollars, at least, as well
as a bundle of papers which might yield him several times that amount.
He had robbed a thief and left the latter an unofficial prisoner,
doomed to starvation, in all probability, if he were not soon found.
And he had murderously assaulted Jack Cray and left him, a battered
and bleeding hulk, supposedly dead.
It was quite a day’s work, and Green-eye Gordon may be excused for
feeling considerably elated. His work was full of holes, however, and
far from detection-proof, as Nick Carter could have proved to him in
short order.
The question was, would Nick have the chance in time to avoid a chase
around the world?
CHAPTER XXVIII.
WHAT THE DOG BARKED AT.
About half past six the following morning, Mrs. Simpson’s maid, who had
slept out, let herself into the house with her latchkey and quietly
made her way to the kitchen.
As usual, her first act was to open the door and windows, for the
weather was warm. In doing so, she was attracted by a disturbance in
the back yard, and realized that she had heard a dog barking furiously
as she came along the street and through the house.
She had paid no particular attention to the persistent barking, but
now that she found the animal was in the rear of the Simpson lot, and
acting very strangely, her curiosity was fully aroused.
She did not know the dog. It was brownish in hue, collarless, and
neglected in appearance. Obviously it was a stray animal which had
found its way there on a foraging expedition.
Now, however, its original errand had been completely forgotten, and
the greatest excitement had taken its place.
The creature was running from one end of the lumber pile to the
other—always being careful to remain at a respectful distance—and was
giving vent to an unending series of frenzied barks.
The open country lay just beyond the Simpson house, and the girl’s
first thought was that some small-game animal had taken refuge in some
cranny of the lumber. Urged on by her curiosity, she stepped out of the
house and started toward the rear of the yard.
“It’s a rabbit, mebbe, or a squirrel,” she told herself. “Why don’t the
fool dig at it, though, instead of yelping its head off?”
But by that time she had reached a point from which she could get a
view of the rear end of the lumber pile. Suddenly she halted in her
tracks.
“For the love of Heaven!” she muttered. “That’s funny! Who’s been
monkeying with that lumber? It’s been piled over in the night, or some
of it has been swiped, and they’ve left a hole underneath. That’s where
the mutt’s rabbit, or whatever it is, is making itself scarce.”
Vaguely disturbed by her surprising discovery, she approached the spot
more slowly.
“There seems to be as much lumber as ever,” she decided, “but what does
it mean? Who would have taken the trouble to do that—in the dead of
night, too—if he wasn’t up to some mischief?”
Now the dog caught sight of her and came running forward. She shooed
him away, and he began barking at her, but the barks now had a pleading
note in them, and again and again he ran back to the pile of lumber.
“He wants me to help him, the poor boob!” the girl thought, with a
pitying smile. “Ain’t that just like a fool dog?”
But she advanced a little farther, somewhat warily, and sniffing the
air as she did so. Certainly it was not a skunk that had been cornered,
and it was not likely that the creature was ferocious.
Having finally arrived within six or eight feet of the end of the pile,
the maid stooped cautiously and peered into the little tunnel. A moment
later, she gave a piercing scream, picked up her skirts, and fled to
the house.
Again and again she raised her voice as she ran, but fortunately her
vocal efforts did not again touch the high-water mark of that first
cry, which, as it proved, had awakened Mrs. Simpson.
The girl scuttled through the lower part of the house, and was flying
up the stairs, when her mistress appeared at the top of the first
flight.
“What in the world is the matter, Mary?” Mrs. Simpson demanded.
As she put the question, she clutched at her heart, for her thoughts
had instinctively gone to her missing husband, and she imagined that
the maid must have had some news of Simpson, or, perhaps, had even
found his body on the front doorstep.
Naturally, therefore, the girl’s information was not reassuring.
“Oh, Mrs. Simpson!” she cried. “There’s been a murder as sure as you
live! There’s a dead man under that pile of lumber in the back yard! I
saw his feet!”
Mrs. Simpson’s face was as white as her nightdress.
“Merciful Heaven!” she breathed, horror in her eyes. “I knew it—it’s
Mr. Simpson! Oh, how can I bear it, how can I bear it!”
And she clutched the banister for support.
Fortunately, however, the girl knew better than that, even in her
fright, and said so at once.
“No, no, it ain’t Mr. Simpson!” she said pityingly, patting her
mistress’ heaving shoulder. “This man’s got big feet, Mrs. Simpson. His
shoes ain’ a bit like your husband’s.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certain sure, ma’am.”
“Thank Heaven!” the frightened woman cried fervently. “It’s terrible
enough, though, if what you say is true. Call the neighbors, get some
man here as quick as you can. I’ll dress while you’re gone.”
The maid ran downstairs on the new errand, and Mrs. Simpson returned to
her bedroom. Five minutes later, she left the house by the rear door,
wrapped in a long kimono.
The servant’s errand had already borne fruit, for, although the girl
herself was not in sight, a man in his shirt sleeves and with dangling
suspenders was just climbing over the side fence.
“What’s this I hear about a dead man, Mrs. Simpson?” he called out, as
he caught sight of her. “Your girl wasn’t very coherent, but I caught
something about the lumber pile in the back yard.”
Mrs. Simpson hurried to him and pointed to the pile of boards.
“There it is,” she explained nervously. “Mary says a man is
underneath, and I can see that something has been done to the pile
since yesterday. That hole wasn’t there then.”
The dog was still keeping up his incessant noise as they approached,
and the neighbor found it impossible to drive him away. Mrs. Simpson
stopped at some distance, and the man went on.
He, too, stopped and peered into the opening under the pile, but laid
his hand on it in order to do so. After a prolonged scrutiny, he
straightened up.
“There’s a man under there,” he said soberly. “You had better go to the
house, Mrs. Simpson. This is no place for you.”
Confronted by this emergency, however, the fugitive’s wife showed
unexpected courage.
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” she said. “The poor fellow may not
be dead yet, for all we know, and unless the sight is too terrible, I
shall remain to help you. Besides, he’ll have to be brought into the
house, anyway, so why shouldn’t I see him now?”
“Of course, if you feel that way about it, Mrs. Simpson, stay, by all
means,” the neighbor replied, turning and beginning to throw the boards
back.
In half a minute he was joined by a couple of other men, while the maid
and several other women appeared. These latter kept at a distance,
however, and, in response to their urgings, Mrs. Simpson joined them.
The combined efforts of the men resulted in uncovering Cray’s body in
almost no time. The sight that met the rescuers’ gaze was a distressing
one, for the detective’s face was battered and bloody, and there did
not appear at first to be any life in his big body. One of the men
examined him, however, and presently announced that he was still alive.
“I wouldn’t give much for his chances,” he said, shaking his head, “but
he isn’t dead, that’s certain. I’ll go for Doctor Lord.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
“THE GREENISH EYES!”
Doctor Lord was a young man, with next to no practice, who had recently
moved into one of the new houses on the hill. It was easier, therefore,
to go for him in person than to stop to telephone.
In the meantime, the women were reassured and thrilled by the
announcement that Cray still lived, and Mrs. Simpson at once took steps
to care for him.
She had sent the maid to the house for a basin of warm water and some
towels. With these at hand, Mrs. Simpson herself knelt beside the
unfortunate man and tenderly wiped the blood from his forehead and face.
Not until then had she recognized him, but when she did so, she gave a
great start, and an audible gasp escaped her.
The other women were crowding around then, and her behavior was not
lost on them.
“What’s the matter?” they demanded. “Do you actually know him?”
Mrs. Simpson bitterly regretted her display of emotion. Fear seemed
to be squeezing her heart with icy fingers. In the background of her
mind a foreboding had been lurking for days. Her instincts had told
her that there was something strange and sinister about her husband’s
disappearance—something which the office had not seen fit to reveal to
her.
Now she recalled all of Cray’s strange questions and stranger actions.
“He’s a detective!” she told herself. “I was right. John is in trouble,
and this man must have set a trap for him last night. If he dies, John
will be his murderer. Oh, how could he do it! And Heaven pity me, how
can I stand it!”
She was the soul of honor herself, however, and simply did not know how
to lie.
“Yes, I recognize him now,” she admitted reluctantly. “I never saw him
until yesterday, though, and I don’t know what he was doing here last
night—if he was here. He’s a Mr. Jones from my husband’s office, and he
said they had sent him to see if he could help find Mr. Simpson.”
The young doctor arrived at that juncture, and, at his request, Mrs.
Simpson repeated the information for his benefit as he worked over Cray.
“You don’t know where he lives, then, or anything about his people?”
“No, but they would naturally know about that at the newspaper office,
wouldn’t they?”
“That’s true. You had better telephone there, then—or somebody had.
This poor fellow has had a terrible battering. Fortunately his skull is
very tough, but though I can’t be sure at present, I fear it has been
fractured, in spite of that. If so, the outcome is problematical, and
he may not recover in any case.”
He rose to his feet.
“But the first thing to do is to get him into the house,” he declared.
“Have you a bed or a couch on the first floor, Mrs. Simpson?”
“Yes, there’s a couch, doctor.”
“Good! Make that ready for him, then, and we’ll bring him right in.”
Mrs. Simpson and the maid rushed away to do the young physician’s
bidding, and several women accompanied them. The men waited for perhaps
five minutes, in order to allow time to get the couch in readiness.
Then they lifted Cray’s inert bulk as carefully as they could and bore
it slowly toward the house.
It was no easy task, for the detective weighed close to two hundred
pounds, but their united efforts were equal to it, and the unconscious
man was soon lying, partially undressed, on the comfortable couch in
one of the lower rooms.
A little later, every one had left the house, with the exception of the
doctor, who continued to work over Cray for some time.
“I’ve done all I can at present, Mrs. Simpson,” he announced finally.
“If you don’t mind, though, I’ll stay with him for the present, so that
I shall be on hand if any change comes.”
He paused and smiled frankly.
“You see, I’m not overburdened with practice,” he explained, “and under
the circumstances, I’m inclined to make as much out of this case as I
can—in the way of experience, I mean.”
That promised to relieve the woman of a great deal of responsibility,
and she accepted the suggestion readily enough, although she would
have preferred, if possible, that no outsider should have access to the
patient.
“I’m afraid you had better telephone to the office, though, before
breakfast,” the doctor went on. “As yet, there’s no knowing how this
case is going to turn out, and this poor fellow’s friends may live
out of New York, in some other direction. In that case, there’s a
possibility that it will take hours for them to reach here.”
“I’ll telephone at once,” Mrs. Simpson assured him, “and, meanwhile,
Mary will be getting breakfast. You must join me in the dining room,
doctor, or let her bring you something here.”
She intended to play the part that had been thrust upon her as well as
she could, even though her mind was filled with all sorts of tragic
possibilities.
Fortunately there was a telephone in the house, and, after considerable
delay, Mrs. Simpson got in touch with the office of the New York
_Chronicle and Observer_. To her regret, however, she could find no one
who knew anything about an employee by the name of Jones who answered
her description.
It was explained, however, that the hour was a very early one, and that
the business offices would not be open until eight-thirty.
“This is the editorial department,” the man at the other end assured
her, “and we don’t know much about the other branches. I’ll make a
note of it, though, and of your telephone number, and have the matter
brought to the attention of the general manager when he arrives.”
“I—I think it might be well to inform Mr. Griswold himself,” the woman
ventured to suggest. “Mr. Jones told me yesterday that Mr. Griswold had
sent him. I don’t know whether he meant it literally or not, but——”
“Well, I’ll do everything I can, Mrs. Simpson,” the editor promised,
and with that she had to be content.
Doctor Lord was plainly disappointed at the news, but seemed to have
nothing better to suggest.
“It’s pretty early,” he admitted.
Mrs. Simpson finished dressing, and she and the young physician
breakfasted together, after which he returned to Cray’s side, while his
hostess busied herself with some of her morning duties.
Lord was a practical, unimaginative young man, and therefore, although
he was greatly interested in the case from a professional standpoint,
he did not waste much time in speculation regarding it. That was for
the local authorities to do. He would not have been human, however,
had he not pricked up his ears when his patient, after showing various
signs of returning life, began to move uneasily, and to mutter.
The doctor was able to make out two names, which were repeated over and
over again.
The names were “Gordon” and “Nick Carter.”
“Nick Carter!” muttered the listener. “That’s queer! That must be the
well-known New York detective. What the dickens has this fellow got to
do with him, though, unless he has done something wrong, and Carter is
after him?”
Then he remembered the rumors that were flying all about in the
neighborhood—rumors which hinted that there was something queer about
John Simpson’s unexplained absence.
“This is getting interesting!” Doctor Lord told himself meditatively.
“Nick Carter!” Cray muttered again, and this time he added: “The
eyes—the greenish eyes!”
CHAPTER XXX.
MRS. SIMPSON LEARNS THE TRUTH.
Lane A. Griswold’s big car hummed softly to itself as it climbed the
hill from the village of New Pelham, and stopped in front of No. 31
Floral Avenue.
The millionaire newspaper proprietor was on a strange errand, and his
expression showed that he realized it.
Although he was frequently absent from his luxurious suite of private
offices in the _Chronicle and Observer_ building for weeks at a time,
he had walked in that morning promptly at nine o’clock, instead of ten
or eleven, as was his usual habit when in town.
Five minutes later, he was in possession of such facts as his general
manager and the editor could give him concerning Mrs. Simpson’s phone
message. The manager, of course, informed him that no such person was
employed in the building, but the description had set Griswold to
thinking.
“I’ll call her up myself,” was the unexpected announcement which had
sent his subordinates about their business. The connection was quickly
made, but the conversation which had ensued was very brief.
Mrs. Simpson described Jones’ visit of the day before in a very few
words, and then told of the finding of the injured man. Griswold wanted
to ask her to describe the latter once more for his benefit, but
refrained, thinking the request might seem rather strange.
“I see,” he answered, instead. “I think I had better come up to the
house myself, Mrs. Simpson. I shall start at once, and ought to be
there in an hour, I should say.”
Less than that time had been required for the trip, and now the
millionaire stepped out of the car and approached the house, looking
about him rather critically as he did so.
He had not always been wealthy, and he knew that No. 31 Floral Avenue,
though insignificant enough from his present standpoint, was not the
sort of place that a man dependent on the salary of the size of John
Simpson’s was able to afford. Accordingly, therefore, he came to the
same conclusion that Jack Cray had reached the previous day.
“By Heaven!” he muttered, the skin under his jaws tightening. “The
fellow must have been helping himself from the fund before he decamped.
What a fool he is! What fools they always are to make a big showing on
nothing. Don’t they know what a telltale performance it is?” Then he
smiled a little grimly and shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose, though,
it’s natural that they should want to find some outlet for the money
they’ve sold their souls for,” he added mentally, as he pressed the
button of the electric bell.
The maid presently opened the door, and Griswold gave his name. He
was ushered into the same room in which Cray had been conducted less
than twenty-four hours before, and in hardly more than a minute Mrs.
Simpson joined him.
Griswold looked at her with a touch of curiosity, for to him the
members of his staff had always been little more than the cogs in the
great machine that he drove, and it was rather hard for him to think of
them in any intimately human relationship.
As soon as their first formal greetings were over, he came to the point
at once.
“I’m very much interested—after a fashion—in this man Jones, Mrs.
Simpson. Are you sure you made no mistake in the name?”
“Quite, Mr. Griswold,” the missing treasurer’s wife replied positively.
“That’s certainly the name he gave me yesterday. He said you had sent
him, too. He asked me all sorts of questions about Mr. Simpson and
the house and myself—very strange questions, some of them. He even
requested me to show him about the place. I do hope——”
Lane Griswold held up one carefully manicured hand.
“It’s all right, I think, Mrs. Simpson,” he hastened to assure her.
“If he’s the man I think he is, he was quite justified in saying I
sent him. Apparently, however, he didn’t choose to give his own name,
which seems to have been a rather useless and unlooked-for performance.
Describe him, please.”
The woman did so, and Griswold nodded once or twice during the
description.
“That’s the man,” he admitted. “The name has caused some confusion,
however, and the rest was due to the fact that he isn’t regularly
employed at the office, but works for me personally.”
He was studying Mrs. Simpson’s face intently, and trying to decide
whether it were worth while to continue the deception or not. Surely,
if she had any intelligence, she must have suspected long before that
there was something very queer about her husband’s disappearance.
Still, so long as she did not insist upon the truth, he thought it best
not to be too definite.
“I hope Mr.—er—Jones isn’t badly injured?” he said.
“He’s still unconscious, sir, and the doctor seems to be afraid that
his skull may be fractured. If he has any relatives, Doctor Lord thinks
that they should be notified at once.”
“I know nothing about his family affairs,” Griswold said, a trifle
impatiently. “My impression is that he’s alone in the world, but I may
be mistaken. May I see him?”
“Of course. He’s here on the first floor. They did not wait to take him
upstairs. This way, please, Mr. Griswold.”
And she led the way to the room in which the battered detective lay,
drawing back, however, at the threshold. The young doctor was still
there, largely, perhaps, for want of something better to do.
Mrs. Simpson had said that the patient was unconscious, thereby giving
Griswold a somewhat mistaken idea. Certainly Cray had not returned to
normal consciousness, but he was by no means in the motionless stupor
the newspaper proprietor had looked for. If his informant had told him
that Jack was delirious, he would have been better prepared.
Nick’s burly friend was tossing restlessly to and fro—at least, his
head and arms were—and just as Griswold came to a halt and looked down
at him, he uttered two words which had come frequently to his lips that
morning.
“Nick Carter,” he muttered, in a somewhat muffled, but perfectly
distinct voice.
“He has been repeating that name at intervals for hours,” the young
doctor remarked. “It must be the detective, don’t you suppose?”
Griswold was under the impression that Mrs. Simpson had withdrawn, but
even that did not entirely explain the slip that followed. He who had
desired secrecy above all things must have forgotten himself for the
time being.
“Yes, it’s the detective,” he answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “This
man is himself a detective, and they were working together on——”
He stopped abruptly as a cry from the doorway reached him. Mrs. Simpson
had heard what he said.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE MILLIONAIRE PLAYS SLEUTH.
As we have seen, the missing man’s wife had always had an uncomfortable
feeling that all was not as it should be. Her husband had not been
himself for some time before his disappearance, and the sudden fit of
extravagance which had led him to take the new house on such short
notice, and to talk about buying a car, had aroused suspicions, which
she had loyally tried to tread under foot.
Naturally, therefore, his actual flight, and the strange attitude of
those connected with the newspaper—their unwillingness to have her go
to the police, for instance—had worried her greatly, although she had
succeeded again and again in arguing herself into a belief that there
was some other explanation.
Now, after hearing Lane Griswold’s unguarded statement, there was no
longer any room for doubt in her mind. She staggered forward half
blindly, and, forgetting the doctor, or ignoring him, she laid both
trembling hands on Griswold’s sleeve.
“My—my husband!” she stammered. “Then he—took——”
The newspaper proprietor lowered his head.
“Yes,” he answered soberly. “I’ve tried to keep the truth from you
as long as I could, Mrs. Simpson. I thought you were out of earshot.
You must try to bear up under it. If I had had any intention of
prosecuting Simpson for making away with the relief fund he was
handling, this whole affair would not have been conducted with any
such secrecy. I have hired private detectives to investigate, because
I wished to keep things quiet, in order that the reputation of the
_Chronicle and Observer_ might not be tarnished.”
“Then, if they catch John, he’ll not be arrested? Is that what you
mean?”
“Exactly,” he answered. “I must confess, Mrs. Simpson, that I shall not
approve in every way of such an outcome. I believe in just punishment.
As it happens, however, we’re not in a position to punish your husband
without starting a lot of injurious gossip about the way we handle
public contributions. Therefore, when Simpson is found, he’ll merely be
forced to disgorge. His discharge is already awaiting him on his desk,
of course. Beyond that, I shall do nothing.”
As may be imagined, Mrs. Simpson’s emotions were chaotic. Her horror
at the certainty of her husband’s crime had been succeeded by loving
anguish, as she pictured his arrest and punishment. Now she was greatly
relieved to hear that there was no danger of this; but, on the other
hand, her heart bled as she realized what it would necessarily mean to
them both, at best. He was no longer a young man, and had been able
to save very little. His disgrace and the loss of his position would
almost certainly age him greatly, perhaps cause a complete breakdown.
Nothing but misery seemed in prospect.
“I—I thank you, but I’m in—in no condition to remain!” the poor woman
sobbed, and, turning on her heel, precipitately left the room and fled
upstairs.
Griswold and the doctor exchanged glances. The former was as sorry for
Mrs. Simpson as he could be in his own way.
“You’ll treat this as strictly confidential, I’m sure,” the millionaire
said. “You must see the importance of secrecy to us, and so long as
there can be no prosecution, there’s no use in making that poor woman’s
life more of a burden to her than is unavoidable. There’ll be a lot of
gossip here, anyway, I suppose, but we must do all we can to minimize
it.”
“I agree with you perfectly, sir, and you may count on me,” Doctor Lord
declared sincerely.
“Thank you. Now, tell me, please, what you make of this man’s injuries,
and what you know of the circumstances?”
The doctor’s reply was a rather lengthy one.
“There must have been several blows, and they were very severe,” he
concluded. “I should say that they were delivered by a man of unusual
strength.”
“That’s interesting,” Griswold said, with a change of expression.
“You don’t believe, then, that a man of slight build, who had spent
practically all of his life in an office, could have perpetrated the
assault?”
Doctor Lord shook his head emphatically. “That’s extremely unlikely,”
he replied. “In fact, I venture to say that it’s quite impossible.”
“Then, it’s hard to explain,” Griswold muttered. “Apparently Cray
found some reason to hang about here last night, presumably to catch
Simpson, or to recover the missing gold. If he was knocked out by an
unusually powerful man, the only reasonable conclusion, it seems to
me, is that the fellow in question must have been an accomplice of
Simpson’s.”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s the way it looks to me offhand,” he answered. “I don’t pretend
to be a detective, though.”
“Neither do I. Such problems interest me, though. Can you tell me where
the phone is?”
The doctor informed him, and Griswold left the room in search of it.
After a little more delay than usual, owing to its being a suburban
call, the millionaire was connected with Nick Carter’s house in New
York. He was informed, however, that the detective had left there
shortly after seven o’clock the evening before, and had not yet
returned. Furthermore, nothing had been heard from him.
This information was a great disappointment to Griswold, for he had
hoped to get in touch with Nick at once.
“Very likely he has gone to Hattontown,” he decided. “If both of them
had been watching this place, Cray would hardly have got the worst of
it to such an extent, and would certainly not have been left to be
found by accident—unless there’s a whole gang involved. In that case,
Carter himself must have met with foul play. But it doesn’t seem likely
that Simpson could have enlisted any strong-arm assistance.”
He reëntered the room where Doctor Lord was.
“I think I’ll have a look around myself,” he announced. “Will you tell
me just where this man was found?”
Three minutes later, he approached the pile of lumber, having quietly
left the house by the front door and walked around by way of the
graveled drive.
He was looking for signs of a struggle, but had found none. The
arrangement of the lumber had been changed when the boards had been
hastily thrown from on top of Cray’s form, and the sod had been badly
trodden by the rescuers.
Having decided that he was not capable of reading the signs there, if
there were any to be read, the newspaper proprietor stepped rather
aimlessly toward the little garage. Passing around it, he tried the
door, and found it locked. While he was tugging at it, however, a sound
came to his ears from within, and he paused abruptly, holding his
breath.
“What was that?” he thought.
CHAPTER XXXII.
SIMPSON IS FOUND.
The sound was a curious, muffled groan, and in a moment it was repeated.
“Good heavens!” the thought flashed through Griswold’s mind. “What if
Carter has been injured, too, and locked in here?”
For perhaps half a minute the newspaper proprietor hesitated, as any
man might have done under the circumstances, then he called out in a
guarded tone:
“Is that you, Carter?”
There was no answer in words, but he heard another groan—or, rather,
a prolonged and incoherent sound, which suggested a tongueless man’s
efforts at speech.
“He’s probably injured or gagged,” Griswold concluded. “I mustn’t waste
any time.”
He pressed against the sliding door some distance below the lock, and
found that it gave quite a little. That discovery encouraged him,
and, running around the garage, he approached the pile of lumber, and
snatched up one of the boards.
It was twenty feet or more in length, and about six or eight inches in
width.
Returning as rapidly as he could, he pressed the door with his hand,
and inserted one end of the board in the opening thus made, after which
he began to pry at the door. The length of the board made it unwieldy
and inclined to bend, but Griswold soon remedied that by pushing in
several feet of the board, and then deliberately breaking it off.
He thereupon threw the larger piece aside, and, using the smaller,
which was now wedged in the door, he drew it out for some distance, and
then repeated his prying operations.
This new weapon was much more convenient and less inclined to bend.
In fact, it proved to be unexpectedly sturdy, and, after repeated
attempts, into which he threw all his strength, the millionaire
presently succeeded in breaking the lock.
The door was then quickly pushed back, and Griswold peered into the
interior of the garage. The place was comparatively dark at first, in
comparison with the bright sunlight outside, but a further shove at the
door let in more light, and revealed a figure propped up against the
lower wall. There was a gag in its mouth, its hands were evidently tied
behind its back, its ankles were bound, and a closer scrutiny revealed
that, in addition, it was tied to the wall in some way so that it could
not budge from its place.
Almost immediately Griswold saw that it was not Nick Carter—or,
rather, the man whom he supposed to be Nick Carter. As he strode
forward, however, with an exclamation of pity, he did not recognize
the unfortunate, the lower part of whose face was obscured by the
handkerchief which was used as a gag.
It was not until this was removed that recognition came, and when it
did, Griswold started back in amazement.
“Simpson!” he cried. “What on earth are you doing here?”
The man tried to speak, but seemed unable to articulate. Probably his
throat and tongue were too dry from disuse, and very likely the tongue
and lips were swollen as well.
Griswold saw the difficulty, and did not repeat his question just then.
Instead, he proceeded rapidly to cut the cords which bound Simpson to
the wall, and also to sever the bonds about the ankles.
The body sagged to one side from weakness, and when the millionaire
turned it over to get at the wrists, he found them encircled by
handcuffs, instead of ropes.
“Great Scott!” he muttered. “This is certainly a strange state of
affairs.”
It looked as if Simpson had been caught by Cray—or perhaps by Cray and
Nick Carter together—and that subsequently the detective had been set
upon by others. That would account for Cray’s condition, and it might
be that Nick had been carried off. Had the prisoner been locked in
the garage, however, before that attack had taken place? If not, it
seemed hard to explain, unless the mysterious assailants had not been
accomplices of his at all, but had worked independently.
The newspaper proprietor propped Simpson up again, none too gently.
“I can’t get these handcuffs off,” he said. “Speak, man, as soon as
you can, and tell me what happened? Where’s the money?”
John Simpson looked about him as if he did not quite understand. As a
matter of fact, his experiences had left his faculties more or less
benumbed for the time being.
Griswold had to repeat his question in a more peremptory tone.
“The money is gone,” Simpson managed to say at last, after several
futile efforts and much moistening of the lips. “I—I had it here.”
“Go on, go on!” Griswold urged, bending eagerly, with clenched hands.
“I had come in the car to carry it away to—to a new hiding place I had
found,” the absconding treasurer explained with difficulty. “It was all
in the car—two suit cases full of it—when a couple of fellows pounced
on me.”
“Two, eh?”
“Yes, one was rather tall and very broad and powerful——”
“Cray!” put in Griswold.
“Yes, he told me that after I was handcuffed,” Simpson agreed, “and he
said the other man was Nick Carter.”
“So Carter was here? I wonder what’s happened to him? When did the
others butt in, Simpson, and who were they?”
The handcuffed man looked up at him in bewilderment.
“I don’t know anything about any others,” he declared, with evident
sincerity.
“But there must have been others. Cray was found outside here this
morning, with his head nearly mashed in. Didn’t you hear anything after
they shut you up. You didn’t go to sleep right away, did you, after
that sort of thing? Did you have any accomplice?”
The treasurer shook his head in a dazed sort of way. “Nobody else had
any hand in what I did, Mr. Griswold,” he said. “As for falling asleep,
I guess you wouldn’t have done that very quickly if you had been in my
place. I did doze off after daylight, but that was all.”
There could be no doubt that he was telling the truth. “Probably you
were in a deep, exhausted sleep when they found Cray,” he said. “The
yard seems to have been full of people then.”
“I did hear a dog barking,” Simpson admitted finally. “It partially
aroused me, but I dropped off again. Maybe that was the time.”
“Then you haven’t the slightest idea of what happened after you were
locked up here?” persisted Griswold.
“Why, I guess I could explain that,” the thief replied slowly, as if he
were just beginning to realize what it all meant. “It must have been
Nick Carter who——”
“Who did what?”
“Who put the other fellow out of business.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SUSPICION FALLS ON NICK.
“For the love of Heaven!” exclaimed Lane Griswold, in a shocked voice.
“You are crazy, Simpson, or lying! Do you actually mean to charge
Carter, who is one of the greatest detectives we have in this country,
and a man who is absolutely above suspicion in every way, with having
turned on his friend and associate, Cray, and then made off with the
money?”
Simpson’s air was one of injury. “I’m not crazy, and I’m not lying,” he
answered. “I’m telling you, or am ready to tell you, just what I know,
and all I know. You’ve got me where you want me. Is it likely that I’d
do anything to get in deeper than I am?”
“Then, tell me about it—everything.”
“Well, it isn’t much, and I didn’t actually see anything. I heard
things, though—more than I was intended to, I guess. They tied me up
here, and then, while Carter was looking at the money in the suit cases
which I had already got in the car, Cray dug over there to make sure
that there wasn’t any of it still buried. When he got through, Carter
called him to come out, saying that he had something to tell him that
he didn’t want me to hear.”
“Where was Carter then?”
“He wasn’t in sight. He had stepped to the corner out there, just back
of where the car was. You can see that he could not have been many feet
from here, so it was easy enough for me to hear things.”
“Well?”
“Well, Cray went out, leaving the door open behind him. The next thing
I knew, I heard a queer sort of dull thud, and pricked up my ears. It
sounded as if somebody had been hit, perhaps with a fist, or, more
likely, with something else.
“Of course, I didn’t know then which man had done it, but I suspected
that Carter had, because he had called Cray out. The blow must have
given Cray something to think about, for there was a pause before I
heard him say ‘Mr. Carter!’—just like that. He said it as if his best
friend had turned on him, and he didn’t know what to make of it. I
guess Carter must have tried to hit him again right away, for they had
a little tussle. It did not amount to much, because, as I figured it
out, Cray must have got a pretty nasty blow that first time, and there
wasn’t very much fight in him. He must have done something, however,
for the other fellow snarled, ‘Curse you; take that, then!’ and rapped
him again, as I could tell by the sound. Still Cray was not down and
out. They clinched, apparently, and then Cray muttered something, or
whispered it in a hoarse sort of whisper. I couldn’t hear all of it,
but it was something about ‘green-eyed.’ That seemed to make Carter
more furious than ever, so far as I could tell. He cursed Cray some
more, and seemed to strike him again and again. That was the end of
it. Carter locked me in then, and I think he dragged Cray around the
garage before he drove off.”
Lane Griswold had been listening with all his ears throughout
this recital, his face the picture of amazement and incredulity.
Incidentally, his keen eyes seemed to search Simpson’s very soul.
The man was a thief, and might easily be a liar as well. What possible
motive could he have for lying, however? The millionaire could think of
only one, and that seemed far-fetched. It was conceivable, of course,
that, despite all the probabilities, John Simpson might have had one or
more confederates who had struck down Cray, and carried the loot off
to some new place of concealment. In that case, the treasurer’s story
might be made up out of whole cloth.
But after a brief mental consideration of this, the millionaire
rejected the theory. If Simpson had had any one to help him, surely he
would not have remained tied up there in a locked garage to starve, or
be caught by those who were searching for him.
Even if he had actually been surprised and handcuffed by Cray before
the arrival of his friends, the latter would not have left him there to
such an uncertain fate. After giving the detective his quietus, they
would have carried Simpson off with them, handcuffs and all, and found
a means of releasing him later on.
No, the man must be telling the truth. He had suffered great hardships,
and he was face to face with the employer he had defrauded. Surely,
he was not the sort of man to lie under such circumstances, especially
after having confessed to hiding the money under the earthen floor of
the garage.
But if he had told the truth, and had not misinterpreted what he
heard—which seemed unlikely—what could it possibly mean, except that
the sight of so much gold had proved too much for the great detective,
and that he had turned criminal.
Griswold faced the possibility very reluctantly, but he felt obliged to
face it. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he
became that it was the one and only solution.
As a newspaper proprietor, he knew a great deal about the seamy side of
life, and was the custodian of many discreditable secrets which for one
reason or another had never been allowed to see the light of print. He
did not need any one to tell him that all is not gold that glitters,
or that a man is necessarily straight in every respect because he has
never been found out in any wrongdoing, and has always enjoyed the best
of reputations.
As far as that went, this might not be Carter’s first fall from grace.
The detective was undoubtedly an extraordinarily clever man, and was
said to be wealthy. Might it not be that he had contrived for years to
deceive his clients, and fatten his bank account at their expense?
The thought made Griswold gasp, but at the same time it caused his
heart to race with excitement.
What a beat it would be if his papers could announce exclusively that
Nick Carter, one of America’s greatest detectives, and the so-called
“archenemy of criminals,” was in reality a master criminal himself! It
would cause a sensation, the like of which had never been known.
Of course, Griswold confided none of this to the man before him.
Instead, with the instinct of the reporter, which had never deserted
him since his early days of struggle, he surprised Simpson with a
question.
“Well, what do you make of it?” he asked.
The thieving treasurer’s mind had reverted to his own troubles, and it
was with some difficulty that he pulled himself together sufficiently
to answer.
“Why, I—I hardly know what to think, Mr. Griswold,” he replied. “It’s
pretty hard to reconcile that sort of thing with what I’ve always heard
and read about Nick Carter, but I have to believe my own ears, don’t I?
The money seems to have looked good to Carter, just as it did to me,
but that wasn’t all of it, I’m sure.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m thinking about that whisper of the other fellow’s,” Simpson
explained. “I told you, remember, that he said something about
‘green-eyed.’ We use that expression in only one connection, don’t we,
in speaking of ‘green-eyed jealousy?’ Don’t that look as if Cray was
accusing Carter of turning on him because he was jealous of him for
some reason?”
Griswold was impressed. “That sounds plausible enough,” he admitted.
He was unconsciously allowing himself to be led still further astray,
and it began to look as if the outcome might be decidedly unpleasant
for the great detective, for the owner of a chain of great newspapers
is not an accuser who can be ignored or despised.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
GRISWOLD IN COMMAND.
The millionaire remained lost in thought for a few moments longer, then
grasped Simpson firmly by the arm.
“Come into the house,” he ordered.
“But—but these, sir!” his former subordinate stammered, nodding over
his shoulder, and moving his hands so that the chain of the handcuffs
rattled.
For the moment Griswold had forgotten his desire for secrecy. To be
sure, if he could expose Nick, he would be willing to have all the
facts come out, but he knew that he would have to be very sure of
himself and his facts before publishing any such charge against a man
of the detective’s reputation; consequently, he would have to delay,
in the hope that Cray would be able to tell his side of the story, and
until then it was desirable that no rumors should be set in motion.
Therefore, he slipped off his motor coat and threw it like a cloak over
Simpson’s bowed shoulders.
“Come!” he commanded again.
And with shuffling steps, his head down, John Simpson accompanied him
to the house, but went through the kitchen, instead of going around to
the front door.
“Thank Heaven!” the maid cried, as she caught sight of her employer.
“Mr. Simpson! Is it really you? I must run and tell Mrs. Simpson right
this minute!”
“No, no, Mary!” the wretched man protested weakly. “Not—not yet! I wish
to surprise her.”
Griswold had not told Simpson that the injured detective was in the
house, but now he led the thieving treasurer to the room in which Cray
lay. He said nothing about his object, because he wished to see if
Simpson would recognize the patient at once.
If he did so without hesitation, and spoke of him as Cray, that would
go far to indicate the truth of his story, for if Cray had been struck
down under other circumstances, this unexpected sight of him might well
cause a momentary confusion.
The spectacle was, indeed, unlooked for, but though surprised, Simpson
did not appear to be in the least embarrassed.
“Yes, that’s the fellow who called himself Cray,” he said, with a nod.
“He was the one that jumped on me first, and the other, Carter, gagged
me. He certainly seems to be in pretty bad shape.”
The doctor looked at him in the greatest surprise. He had never met
Simpson, for the latter had moved to the hill very recently. He knew
him by sight, however.
“You may or may not know that this is John Simpson himself, Doctor
Lord,” the newspaper proprietor said bruskly. “I found him locked up in
the garage just now. I’ll make it worth your while, however, to keep a
discreet tongue in your head.”
The young physician’s shoulders went back proudly.
“I accept remuneration for professional services only, Mr. Griswold,”
he said crisply. “I hope I can be trusted not to blab anything I may
learn while attending a case.”
“I meant no offense, I assure you, doctor,” Griswold hastened to say.
“I merely——”
“Wished to remind me of something you should have taken for granted,”
the doctor cut in. “Please say no more about it, though.”
Then Lane Griswold did another unexpected thing. He held out his hand
with an apologetic smile, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Doctor Lord
gripped it firmly.
A moment later Griswold led Simpson into another room and closed the
door.
“Look here, Simpson,” he said, without preliminaries, “I’ve been
grievously disappointed in you, but we’ll let that pass. I’m done
with you, and your dismissal is waiting for you at the office. I want
to hear no excuses. As for prosecution, however, you have doubtless
counted on immunity from that, and I regret to say that you haven’t
counted in vain—unless this new complication makes it worth while to
air the whole thing for the sake of a supreme newspaper sensation. For
your wife’s sake, I’ll let you know about that as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, I shall see that you are under observation all the time. You
can’t get away, for I may want you locked up. If I don’t, you’ll soon
be free to do what you please and go where you please.”
“I—yes, sir,” was all Simpson was able to say, and he had to swallow
more than once before he could utter those words.
“Now you had better go to your wife.”
“But these handcuffs, sir!” Simpson again protested.
“You should have thought of the possibility of such adornments before
you made away with that fund,” Griswold told him sternly. “Don’t
imagine that your wife doesn’t know what you have been up to, for
she does. Still, it isn’t her fault, and I would not like to see her
needlessly distressed. Perhaps there’s a key to the handcuffs in Cray’s
pockets.”
There was, and Simpson was freed from the humiliating shackles before
he went upstairs to face his wife.
Griswold watched his halting progress, then sought the young doctor
once more.
“It’s important that this man should be able to talk as soon as
possible—if he’s ever going to,” he said. “If you desire to consult
with any one, no matter what his price, do so, and I’ll be responsible.
You may also look to me for your fee, and I wish you would get the best
of trained nurses you can procure—one whose discretion you can rely
upon. While you are with the patient, listen carefully for anything
he may say, and make a note of it, whether it seems delirious or not.
Request the nurse to do the same, and see that I’m notified by phone as
soon as Cray is able to be questioned for five minutes.”
“Very well, Mr. Griswold.”
“One thing more. If the patient should become lucid at any time, and
you or the nurse should have reason to believe that he may lapse into
this same condition in a few minutes, ask him just one question and
jot down his answer.”
“And that question?”
“Ask him who is responsible for his injuries—who struck him down.”
Doctor Lord agreed to do so if the opportunity offered, and, after
coming to that understanding, the millionaire reëntered his waiting car.
“New York,” he ordered, giving Nick Carter’s address.
CHAPTER XXXV.
A TRAP IS SET FOR NICK.
Lane Griswold had telephoned to the detective’s house only once, and
then had been told that the detective had not returned since the
previous evening. It might be, however, that Nick was there by this
time.
Nothing in Simpson’s story indicated that Nick had met with any mishap,
and it was improbable that a man of his daring and resourcefulness
would take to his heels at once simply because he had become a thief.
It was much more probable that he would return home and bluff it out to
the end.
In that case, Griswold hoped to corner him, and, under threat of
country-wide exposure, force him to confess—after which an exposure
would be likely to follow, anyway.
The millionaire’s face was flushed and determined as he strode up the
detective’s steps and pressed the electric button in peremptory fashion.
Joseph, the butler, opened the door.
“Is Mr. Carter in?” Griswold demanded.
“No, sir,” was the prompt reply. “I can’t say when he’ll be back,
either.”
“I telephoned from New Pelham a couple of hours ago,” Griswold went on.
“I was told then that he had left the house last evening, and had not
returned. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you know where he is?”
“No, sir. He was going to New Pelham on the seven-thirty train,
however.”
“He was, eh? That’s significant.”
He had sized up the butler, and decided that he was telling the truth.
If necessary, he would try diplomacy. If he could get hold of Nick’s
assistants, he told himself, he might obtain some valuable pointers.
To be sure, if the detective had been playing the
wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing part for any length of time, it was quite
conceivable that his assistants, or some of them, at least, were as bad
as he. If this were the first offense, however, it might be possible to
get one of his staff to turn against him, and assist in his capture, in
the hope of stepping into his shoes.
“I’m Mr. Griswold, the owner of the _Chronicle and Observer_,” he told
the butler. “Perhaps you’ll remember that I was here yesterday with
Mr. Cray? I’m very anxious to see Mr. Carter himself, but one of his
assistants might do.”
“None of them is here now, sir,” Joseph told him. “They’re all away
from the city for one reason or another. Mr. Carter’s chief assistant,
Mr. Chickering Carter, left for the Adirondacks with him just the other
day, and stayed up there when he returned unexpectedly.”
“Carter’s leading assistant! He would be the best one!” thought
Griswold.
Aloud he asked for Chick’s address.
“Something has happened,” he explained. “Cray has been rather
badly injured, and I can’t seem to locate Mr. Carter. Under the
circumstances, I feel compelled to telegraph for this young man you
speak of, or else to call in some outsider.”
In view of this explanation, it is not surprising that the butler gave
him the desired information, especially as he and Mrs. Peters had been
worrying somewhat over Nick’s unexplained absence.
Armed with the address, Griswold lost little time in reaching the
nearest telegraph office, and in drafting a message to Chick Carter. It
read:
“Unusually important case on. Am badly injured. Come at once.”
And it was signed “Cray.”
He had decided to send it in the injured detective’s name, believing
that it would have more force than if dispatched by a third party. The
absence of any specific directions for finding Cray was intentional.
Griswold had neglected to make any inquiries concerning the injured
man’s relatives, and did not even know where he lived. He had been to
his office, that was all, and he knew that to be a business building.
He did not care to give the New Pelham address, because he hoped to
have a very confidential interview with Chick, and he did not care to
have it take place under Simpson’s roof; therefore, he had decided to
say nothing about it, and to meet Chick’s train—for he had estimated
the time required for the telegram to reach its destination, and could
easily look up the trains when he reached his office.
It was then nearly one o’clock in the afternoon, and Chick could not be
expected before morning. Meanwhile, Griswold hoped for a summons from
New Pelham, but none came.
Growing impatient, he telephoned late in the afternoon, and was
informed by the new nurse that there had been no change in Cray’s
condition, except one for the worse. He had sunken into a deep stupor.
“Hang it all! I hope he isn’t going to die,” Griswold muttered. “If he
does, without recovering consciousness, I may not be able to fasten
this thing on Carter, after all, for I’m certain Simpson’s testimony
would not have any great weight, unless corroborated.”
Later, the millionaire called up Cray’s office. He did not believe
the injured detective had any one to keep the place open during his
absence, but he wished to make sure, if possible, whether a message had
been received from Chick Carter or not. As he had expected, he found
the place closed.
It then occurred to him to return to Nick’s house. The detective might
have put in an appearance; if not, it was possible that Chick had sent
a reply there, trusting that it would reach Cray indirectly.
In this latter respect, his surmise was correct. Nick had not returned,
and Joseph’s worry had grown. On the other hand, a telegram had arrived
for Jack Cray, and Joseph was holding it; not knowing what else to do
with it.
Griswold promised to deliver it, and took it in charge. In this way
he learned that his guess as to Chick’s train was correct. The young
detective wired that he would arrive in New York at eight-thirty the
following morning.
Nothing developed in the interval, and a few minutes before
eight-thirty the next morning, Griswold took up his position at one
of the gates leading to the tracks in the great Forty-second Street
terminal.
The train from the Adirondacks arrived at schedule time, and began to
disgorge, while the millionaire, who had obtained a description of
Chick from the butler, narrowly scanned the faces of the passengers as
they hurried through the gate.
The newspaper proprietor did not have to wait long. He soon caught a
glimpse of an erect, keen-eyed, athletic young man, striding down the
platform, and carrying a heavy suit case, as if it were a featherweight.
“That must be Chick Carter!” he told himself, with a nod of
satisfaction.
But the next moment he gave a gasp, and a look of utmost bewilderment
spread over his face.
He had caught sight of the man at Chick’s side, and feature for feature
it was the man whom Cray had called into consultation—was, in other
words, Nick Carter himself!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
AT CROSS PURPOSES.
Staggered, his brain reeling under the shock, Lane Griswold was flung
clean off his balance.
What was Nick Carter doing here? Had he hidden the money somewhere, and
hurried northward to join his assistant, as if nothing had happened?
That must be it, and yet it hardly seemed possible that he could have
made the journey in that time. He would have had to leave New York in
the dead of night following the robbery, and if he had reached the
mountain resort in the far northern part of the State before Chick’s
departure, there could have been no time to spare. In other words, he
must have returned at once with his assistant.
But what nerve to have returned at all, in the face of such a message
from the man who had been half killed by him!
The detective could not know that the telegram had not been written or
dictated by his victim, and therefore, must expect to have to face Cray.
It was incomprehensible, and yet there was Nick, beyond a doubt, and
more than that, he was looking as fresh and buoyant as possible.
A policeman brushed past Griswold, and, with a quick movement, the
latter touched the officer on the arm. He would have Nick arrested, and
then——
“Yes, sir?” the bluecoat asked civilly.
“That man!” the millionaire answered hoarsely, pointing toward the
approaching detective. “I must ask you to——”
Then something stopped him. He remembered that he did not have enough
evidence as yet, and that it would be very unwise to press matters,
unless he were reasonably sure of proving his charges.
“I—I’m mistaken!” he added confusedly.
The policeman looked at him for a moment in disgust, then turned away
with a shrug of his shoulders, muttering something under his breath.
Undecided, his thoughts in a turmoil, the newspaper proprietor stood
aside and allowed Chick and his companion to pass him. They had gone
hardly more than ten paces, however, before he suddenly made up his
mind to follow and have it out with the detective at once.
He feared that it was a very foolish thing to do, under the
circumstances, especially as Chick might be in the secret as well;
nevertheless, he counted on his wealth and prominence to stay their
hands, no matter how hostile they might be.
Just how he meant to proceed, he did not have the slightest idea as
yet, but impulse flung him after the pair, and he overtook them just as
they were about to step into a taxi.
“Mr. Carter!” he said sharply.
Both men turned.
“That’s my name,” the older man replied, looking the millionaire over
coolly, as if he had never seen him before in his life.
The scrutiny had not gone far, however, before a look of recognition
sprang into Nick’s eyes.
“Ah!” he went on. “Mr. Griswold, is it not?”
“You ought to know,” was the significant reply. “I called on you
yesterday, in company with Cray, and it was that which took you to New
Pelham night before last.”
Nick looked from the newspaper proprietor to his assistant, and back to
Griswold again.
“There seems to be a very strange misunderstanding here, Mr. Griswold,”
he said. “I have just returned from the Adirondacks, where we were
enjoying a little vacation. Chick, here, received a telegram from my
old friend, Jack Cray, stating that the latter had been seriously
injured in connection with an important case, and asking that Chick
return to New York at once. I did not understand why the wire hadn’t
been sent to me, but, of course, I decided to accompany my assistant.
If you know anything about Cray’s condition, I wish you would tell me.”
The dignified, commanding Lane Griswold looked at the detective in a
half-dazed manner, and his lower jaw showed a tendency to drop.
“You are the coolest proposition I ever expect to see, Carter!” he
said, with grudging admiration.
It was clear that something extraordinary was in the air, and Nick
acted accordingly.
“I don’t know in the least what you are hinting at, Mr. Griswold,” he
said, “and this is hardly the place for explanations. Will you do us
the honor of sharing our taxi with us? Perhaps we can come to some
understanding on the way home.”
Certainly, there did not seem to be anything menacing in his attitude,
and in that of the younger detective at his side. Both appeared to be
genuinely mystified. Griswold attributed it to good acting, nothing
more, but after a few moments’ hesitation, he decided to accept the
offer.
They would hardly dare attack him in a cab in broad daylight, and he
need not enter the detective’s house, if he did not choose to do so,
when they reached their destination. Accordingly, he bowed, and, in
response to Nick’s gesture, stepped into the taxi, after which the
others followed.
“Now, you’ll greatly oblige us, Mr. Griswold, by explaining what you
are driving at,” Nick said, with courteous firmness.
The millionaire was a little too impetuous now and then, and this was
one of the occasions. His reason told him that he had been misled
in some unaccountable way, and that this was the real Nick Carter,
but reason spoke in a very small whisper, and he did not choose to
listen—in fact, he hardly heard it.
He had kept his rage and sense of injury bottled up, thus far, but now
it exploded.
“I’m driving at just this, Carter,” he said hotly. “You are found
out—the game is up! I don’t know whether this is the first time
temptation has been too much for you, or not, but I have you where I
want you, you thief! Your spectacular career is at an end. My papers
have a circulation well into the millions, you know, and as soon as I
say the word, the greatest broadside of publicity that was ever fired
will be hurled at your crime of the night before last! Oh, you need not
glower at me! I’m not in the least afraid of you, and what I say, I
mean, as you will learn to your cost.”
Any one who knew Nick Carter well would have seen that he was growing
dangerously warm, but the increasing tension was much more noticeable
in Chick.
That young man wore his “fighting face,” and was bending forward
longingly, with twitching hands on his knees.
Nick, seeing his assistant’s attitude and look, laid a restraining hand
on Chick’s arm.
“Easy there, my boy!” he murmured, then turned again to Griswold.
“I fear you are a little hasty, and will soon regret it, Mr.
Griswold,” he said as quietly as he could. “If I were not sure of your
identity, and inclined to believe that you are laboring under a very
serious misapprehension, I should not be so patient. I have been in
the Adirondacks for several days, and know nothing whatever of the
circumstances to which you allude.”
“You lie!” replied the millionaire, his face purple. “You went to the
Adirondacks several days ago with your assistant, but you came back
alone. I have your own butler’s word for that. What’s more, I saw you
with my own eyes yesterday at your home, whither Cray took me.”
Again Nick and his lieutenant exchanged glances. It was beginning to
look more and more serious. Had Nick not recognized the newspaper
proprietor at once, they might have supposed the man to be
irresponsible, despite his references to Cray, but that explanation
seemed out of the question in Griswold’s case.
Yet, the alternative appeared to be just as far beyond belief.
Had some one passed himself off as the detective under any ordinary
circumstances, it would have been easy enough to believe, for such
things had happened often enough in the past. The millionaire’s
statements, however, seemed to imply that some person had been passing
as the detective in his own house, and had done so in such a skillful
and thoroughgoing way that not only the servants, but even Jack Cray,
had been completely deceived.
It was unbelievable, and yet what else were they to think?
Chick had often seen the skin over his chief’s jaw and knuckles tighten
ominously, but he never remembered such a set, tense look as this one.
Nick was beginning to realize that something unparalleled had
happened—something which struck directly at his honor and prestige—and
he was rising to the emergency.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
GRISWOLD STILL DOUBTFUL.
The detective leaned forward in the taxi, and held Griswold’s eyes
commandingly.
“That’s about enough of that, Griswold,” he said, with ominous quiet.
“I would advise you to restrain yourself. I’m not accustomed to being
approached in this way, and I’ve endured it thus far only because I’ve
made allowance for your obvious excitement. I supposed that a man in
your position would be sufficiently informed concerning me and my work
to have no such illusions, and sufficiently in command of himself to
conquer such heated impulse. A moment’s reflection ought to convince
you that my presence up the State for the last few days can easily be
verified.
“And now, if you’ll come to your senses, I shall be more than eager to
hear what you have to say about this extraordinary experience of yours.
First, though, tell me how seriously my friend is injured.”
During this speech, and for some moments afterward, the millionaire
newspaper man continued to gaze at the detective as if he were trying
to pierce his very soul, and when he withdrew his gaze at length, it
was only to shift it to Chick.
“You almost persuade me,” he told Nick at last. “Either I’ve been
dreaming, though, or I’m dreaming now. This is the most amazing
thing that has ever occurred in my experience. I want to believe in
you, Carter, I assure you. I have all along, and it was only with the
greatest reluctance that I accepted the conclusion which seemed forced
upon me by circumstances which I could not question.”
He paused for a moment, and then launched into an account of his
reasons for visiting Cray, the latter’s suggestion that they should
call upon Nick Carter and seek his aid, the interview in the
detective’s study, and so on.
“I can’t see any difference,” he declared. “So far as I can tell,
you are the same man I talked with there, and don’t forget that Cray
himself was evidently convinced that he was talking with you. Later,
you—or the man I took to be you—phoned me and asked further particulars
concerning Simpson. I hoped for speedy results, of course, with the
case in such hands, but I heard nothing more until the next morning,
when I was informed that a man named Jones, who had represented himself
as connected with the _Chronicle and Observer_ office, had been
seriously injured in New Pelham. The description suggested Cray, and
I hastened up into Westchester County. I found that it was Cray, and
learned that he had been muttering your name. He had been repeatedly
struck on the head with some blunt instrument, and the doctor feared
a fracture. He had not really been conscious, though, and hasn’t been
yet, to the best of my knowledge.
“I questioned Mrs. Simpson and the doctor, and learned that Cray had
been found in the back yard near one of those little portable garages.
Curiosity sent me out there, and, hearing a sort of groan, I broke
into the garage, and, to my amazement, found Simpson himself bound and
gagged.”
He then went on to repeat the treasurer’s story of his capture, and the
unseen conflict that had taken place between Cray and his companion—the
man whom Jack had referred to as Nick Carter.
Incidentally, he referred to the term “green-eyed,” which Simpson had
overheard.
“Now, that’s pretty strong circumstantial evidence, isn’t it?” he
demanded at the conclusion. “If you are really Nick Carter, and can
prove that you haven’t been in New York for days, no one will rejoice
more sincerely than I—although it would cheat me out of a tremendous
news sensation. Frankly, though, I still find it almost impossible to
believe you, despite your attitude and your appearance of sincerity.
How could your own servants have been deceived? How could any one have
lived in your house for days without betraying himself in some way? How
could Cray, a detective himself, and an old friend, have been so blind?”
Nick and his assistant had listened to the story with growing interest
and excitement. More than once they had exchanged meaning glances, but
when Griswold mentioned the compound word which had been part of Cray’s
last startled whisper, the faces they turned to each other were a study.
It seemed impossible for them to keep silence any longer, but they
managed to do so until the millionaire had finished.
“The ‘dead’ have come to life more than once, you know, in our
experience,” Nick said softly, looking at his assistant.
Chick nodded. “Yes, that must be it, I suppose,” he agreed. “I was
thinking all along that I knew of no one else who would possibly have
turned such a trick, and when it came to that ‘green-eyed’ business——”
“There wasn’t much room left for doubt,” Nick supplied.
“What in thunder are you two talking about?” Griswold broke in.
“Have you ever heard of Ernest Gordon, familiarly known as Green-eye
Gordon?” the detective asked him.
“Of course. I read my newspapers more carefully than any one else
does. Good heavens! Is it possible that you think Gordon could have
impersonated you?”
Nick nodded.
“That’s precisely what I feel obliged to think,” he answered.
“But—but Gordon is in prison, isn’t he? No, by Heaven, he’s dead! I had
forgotten for the moment, but he died in that fire up at Dannemora a
short time ago. Don’t you remember?”
“That was the report,” Nick admitted readily, “and naturally I accepted
it at the time, as every one else did. This astounding information you
have just given me, however, puts a very different face on the matter.
I believe Gordon would have been capable of that sort of thing—in
fact, I have evidence of similar stunts pulled off by him in the past.
Furthermore, I know of no one else with a criminal record who would
have been capable of such a performance—and no one without a long
criminal experience would have dared do such a thing. Finally, we
have Simpson’s testimony, which seems plain enough to me. When Cray
was first attacked, he naturally assumed that his assailant was I,
and he spoke my name in dazed incredulity. The next moment, however,
overwhelming doubt would naturally have assailed him, and, under the
influence of that, he must have obtained a closer glimpse in some way.
Or it may be that the scoundrel betrayed himself unconsciously. Jack
was about all in by that time, but he had strength enough to whisper
his enemy’s name. He wasn’t talking about green-eyed jealousy, you may
be sure, but about Green-eye Gordon!”
“Very ingenious,” Griswold admitted doubtfully.
“How could such a mistake have been made at the prison, however? The
report of Gordon’s death has never been corrected.”
“Probably because its inaccuracy has never been discovered,” Nick
told him. “A convict was burned unrecognizably, and the remains were
identified only by the number on the coat. Another convict escaped and
hasn’t been recaptured. Isn’t it easy enough to believe that a man of
Gordon’s stamp might have seen a fellow prisoner succumb to the choking
fumes, and, under cover of the excitement, might have managed to
exchange coats without being discovered?”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
NICK DISCOVERS HIS LOSS.
“By George!” ejaculated Lane Griswold.
He was beginning to see light.
“Is this Gordon of the same height and build as yourself?” he asked
eagerly a moment later.
“Quite near enough for the purpose, as I recall,” Nick replied. “More
than that, he’s a master of make-up, and would have had very little
trouble in copying my features. His eyes are light, nondescript, to be
sure, but——”
“Then I don’t see how it would have been possible for him to have
fooled everybody in that fashion,” the millionaire objected.
“The human eye is far from perfect, Mr. Griswold,” Nick reminded
him. “Besides, we have to allow always for the action of the mind
behind it—that mind which interprets everything it sees. In short,
we generally see what we expect to see. Such a successful masquerade
appears little short of miraculous to one who isn’t a special student
of such things, but it’s far from an impossibility. My butler and
housekeeper, and Cray himself, had no reason to suppose that it was not
I they were seeing; therefore, as I had been a familiar sight to them
for years, they would never have thought of examining the masquerader.
They merely gave him fleeting glances, and as those glances did not
detect any glaring defect, that was all there was to it.”
Nick paused and smiled.
“Well, are you as sure as ever that I’m a rascal?” he asked.
The newspaper proprietor held out his hand with an embarrassed air.
“I’m afraid you’ll never forgive me, Mr. Carter, for making such an
accusation,” he said apologetically. “You may be sure I shall never
forgive myself. I ought to have known better, of course, and I’m very
much ashamed that I didn’t.”
“Say no more, please!” the detective cried heartily, grasping the
millionaire’s hand and giving it a good shake. “I don’t blame you—I
can’t. There didn’t seem to be any other way out. Here we are, though,
at the house. Will you come in, Mr. Griswold? Then, a little later, we
can go up to New Pelham together, if you wish, and see if poor Cray is
any better? Naturally, I’m anxious to get his side of the story, in
order to make sure that he really did identify Green Eye.”
“That program suits me,” Griswold responded. “Naturally, if a man of
Gordon’s stamp has got hold of the fund, the chances of recovering the
money are slimmer than ever, and if you are willing to undertake the
case, there’s no time to be lost.”
“Of course, I shall undertake it,” Nick assured him. “You could not
drive me off with an ax. My honor and reputation are involved, and,
under the circumstances, I shall refuse to accept a fee.
“No, that’s final,” he insisted, in response to Griswold’s objections.
“I trust, however, that you will fully recompense Cray, no matter
whether he does anything more or not. He has earned it.”
They had reached the detective’s study by that time, and Nick and his
lieutenant were gazing about curiously. In a moment the former stepped
forward and snatched up a pair of gloves that lay on the desk.
“Look here, Chick!” he cried. “These are from my room up in Harlem. I
see I shall have to move it. I didn’t dream that any one had discovered
it, but Gordon must have done so, it appears, before he was sent up.”
Chick, meanwhile, had approached the safe, and was just about to
examine it, when his chief called his attention to the gloves. Now he
returned and pushed away the chair that Green Eye had placed in front
of it.
“Good heavens, chief!” he ejaculated a moment later. “He’s broken into
your safe!”
Nick reached the spot in one bound, and, after glancing at the
makeshift which Green Eye had employed to hide his handiwork, he pulled
the great door open, and, bending, pressed the spring that operated the
inner one.
The latter in turn clicked open, was seized, and drawn back.
A momentary glance revealed several empty pigeonholes, and a confused
mass of papers in others.
“Merciful Heaven!” exclaimed Nick, clenching his fists and raising them
aloft, while his face became as white as a sheet. “The fiend has taken
what he wanted here! I wouldn’t have had this happen for anything in
the world. It means—Heaven knows what it doesn’t mean!”
His assistant realized only too well what the catastrophe foreshadowed,
but, for the time being, he was stricken dumb. He could only look from
Nick’s shocked face to the gaping safe.
But, of course, Griswold did not fully comprehend, and managed to put
his foot in it again.
“It’s too bad that you have lost any valuable papers,” he said. “I have
lost eighty thousand dollars, though, and the sooner you get on the
trail of the fellow, the better.”
Nick turned on him with a look of scorn. “What do I care about your
infernal eighty thousand dollars!” he demanded fiercely, his patience
exhausted at last. “It doesn’t amount to a row of pins—or oughtn’t
to, at any rate. The papers in this safe, though—the most valuable of
which have doubtless been stolen—involve the honor and peace of mind of
scores of men and women who are prominent in all walks of life. Don’t
you understand, man? They are my private and most confidential records,
covering the most important cases of years—records which would mean
hundreds of thousands of dollars to the blackmailer. And that isn’t
all, for if used in that way, as this fellow doubtless intends to use
them, and will, if he isn’t prevented at once, they will bring anguish
to a great many people. Finally, the fact that they have fallen into
unscrupulous hands will work me more harm than anything else could
possibly do.”
His anger against Griswold had cooled while he was speaking, however.
“But, fortunately,” he went on in a calmer tone. “We have every reason
to believe that your gold is in the same hands as my papers; therefore,
the trail isn’t likely to fork.”
“That’s it,” Griswold agreed eagerly. “I beg your pardon again, Carter.
I didn’t realize what this loss meant to you and others. It gives you a
supreme incentive, however, to go after the fellow.”
Before he could add more, the desk phone rang, and Chick answered it.
“Yes, this is Mr. Carter’s house,” the young detective said. “You are
speaking from Mr. Griswold’s office? Yes, Mr. Griswold is here. Do you
wish to speak to him?... All right, I understand. I’ll tell him at
once. Good-by.”
The receiver clicked back into its place, and Chick turned to the
expectant listeners.
“They say that the doctor has phoned from Simpson’s house, at New
Pelham, Mr. Griswold,” he said. “Cray is conscious at last.”
“Good!” ejaculated Nick. “You and I will go there at once, Chick. How
about you, Mr. Griswold? Will you come along?”
“Certainly,” was the prompt answer.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CRAY’S LIPS ARE UNSEALED.
Despite his eagerness to see his friend Cray, and to get on the
fugitive’s trail, Nick remained at the house long enough to draft a
telegram to the warden of Clinton Prison, asking for further details
concerning the supposed death of Green-eye Gordon, and the escape of
one of the prisoners on the night of the fire.
The message was given to the butler, who was asked to phone it at once
to the telegraph office.
“They may have facts up there which they have been keeping from the
public,” Nick explained. “Even seemingly valueless facts may assume
great importance in the light of what has happened down here, for that
matter.”
Meanwhile, one of Nick’s fastest cars had been ordered around, and now
the familiar honk-honk was heard.
“There’s the machine,” Nick announced. “Come on.”
It was plain to be seen that both Nick and his assistant were laboring
under unusual excitement. The chauffeur was instructed to push the car
to the lawful limit, and although he did so, with his usual skill, the
detective seemed to think the car was creeping.
For miles and miles they had to traverse the streets of the city which
stretched out northward to the confines of the Bronx, and not until
these were passed, did they feel free to risk a faster pace—and even
then they had to slow down through the frequent villages.
It was not in reality a long drive, however, and in less time than
Griswold had made the trip the morning before, they had covered the
distance.
The chauffeur had slowed down considerably before entering the village
of New Pelham, but they were still going at a rapid rate, and Griswold
was obliged to raise his voice for his final instructions to the
chauffeur.
“The top of the hill!” he called out, leaning forward and pointing,
while he held his hat on with the other hand.
The usually easy-going millionaire was having some unusual experiences,
and had been pretty thoroughly shaken up in more ways than one.
Straight up the hill that led from the heart of the village, the great
car raced, and Griswold added that it was the last house. A few moments
later the machine came to an abrupt, but quiet, stop in front of No. 31
Floral Avenue.
Quickly the three men alighted and hurried through the gate. The door
was opened almost immediately by the maid, and behind her stood Doctor
Lord, who had evidently been impatiently awaiting Griswold’s arrival.
The doctor looked inquiringly at the others.
“Carter, shake hands with Doctor Lord,” he said informally. “Doctor,
this is Nick Carter and this is Chick Carter, his assistant.”
“I’m very glad,” the young physician said heartily, as he acknowledged
the detective’s greeting. “Frequently during the patient’s long stupor,
Mr. Carter, he mumbled your name.”
“Just how is he?” Nick asked eagerly, and, for the moment, concern for
his friend weighed with him more than anything else.
“He’s better,” was the reply. “He has taken the turn that I hoped for,
and now, although he may be laid up for some time, I think I may safely
say that the danger is over. You must not see him for long, however,
and you had better come at once. I’ve been afraid that he might lapse
into unconsciousness again before Mr. Griswold could get here.”
“You have questioned him as I suggested?” the millionaire put in, as
they moved toward the door of the room in which Cray was lying.
“Yes,” was the answer, “but he’s stubborn. He refuses to tell me
anything—said he would do so if he felt himself losing consciousness
again, but that he wanted to say what he had to say directly to Mr.
Griswold, if possible.”
They had reached the door of the room by that time, and Lord stepped
aside to allow the others to enter.
A nurse in a trim, crisp uniform was sitting beside the couch, but rose
and effaced herself quietly, thus giving Nick his first unobstructed
view of his friend.
The burly detective seemed to fill the narrow couch, and yet he
appeared, somehow, shrunken. His face was still very pale, and the big,
hairy hand that lay on his chest had a suggestion of helplessness about
it.
Cray turned his head slowly, and looked toward the door. Instead of
seeing merely the millionaire, as he had anticipated, he beheld two
other visitors, and identified them after a moment or two.
“Mr. Carter!” he exclaimed weakly. “And Chick, too! Is it really you
this time, Carter? This is more than I hoped for.”
He tried to raise himself on one elbow, but sank back faintly.
“Lie still, old fellow!” Nick said, quietly stepping forward and taking
Cray’s hand. “You are gaining, and must hold on to what you have
gained. Take your time, though, about——”
“I can’t take my time, Carter,” Cray said, feverishly clutching at
his friend’s hand with both of his. “This isn’t the worst yet. It was
Gordon—Green-eye Gordon—who did this to me, and he’s made off with two
suit cases crammed full of gold coins.”
Nick saw that it would be necessary to cut the interview short, but he
wished to test Cray, if possible. It might be that Jack had forgotten
about the fire and the reports of Gordon’s death. If he were reminded
of that, he might not be so sure about the identity of his assailant.
“But Gordon is dead, you know—burned to death in prison,” Nick said
quietly.
“No, no! Don’t you believe it, Carter!” the patient insisted. “There’s
no mistake about it. I forgot about all those reports when he struck
me; they don’t cut any ice. I have thought about them since I woke up,
and I’m just as sure as ever that it was Gordon.”
“What makes you so sure?” inquired Nick.
“He forgot himself when he cursed me,” was the reply, “and I thought I
recognized the voice; then I caught a glimpse of his eyes, and I was
sure. There’s only one man with eyes like that—cat’s eyes. They looked
green as he glared at me. He knows I recognized him, because I said his
name just before I got my knock-out. Probably he thought he had killed
me, for I don’t believe he would have left me to tell the tale.”
He paused for a moment, and one hand wandered weakly to his injured
head.
“I’ll never get over the way I was taken in,” he went on, more faintly.
“Most humiliating. Must say, he’s a wonder, though. Never imagined
anybody could pull off a stunt like that. The car is an electric—a
coupé, two or three years old, I should say. The gold was in a couple
of suit cases which had been buried in the ground. Can’t tell you any
more, I’m afraid—just about all in, you see.”
He looked about helplessly, and in a frightened sort of way, then, with
a sigh, lapsed into unconsciousness once more.
CHAPTER XL.
NICK OUTLINES HIS CAMPAIGN.
In a moment Doctor Lord and the nurse were back at the patient’s side.
“I must ask you gentlemen to go,” the physician said crisply. “This has
been too much for him, as it is, and any further excitement might cause
serious complications, if nothing worse.”
There was nothing for it but to withdraw, and to hope that the effect
of the interview would not be as serious as the doctor suggested.
Fortunately, the detective instinct had been strong in Cray,
notwithstanding his condition, and he had covered the ground pretty
thoroughly—surprisingly so, in view of the few words he had spoken. His
statement about the suit case, and his description of the car might
prove particularly valuable.
Nick took pains to interview Simpson, his wife, and the servant before
leaving the house and then paid a visit to the garage.
He smiled as he noted the subterfuge of the underground gasoline tank.
“Quite clever, on the surface,” he remarked, “but Simpson seems to be
a queer mixture. He impresses you at one time with his cleverness, at
another with stupidity.”
“I don’t see anything stupid about this,” Griswold objected. “It
strikes me as very ingenious. It permitted him to dig up the ground to
his heart’s content without arousing suspicion.”
“True,” conceded the detective. “The ordinary person would have seen
nothing strange about it; but doesn’t the presence of a gasoline tank
underground, or any other kind, strike you as a little peculiar when a
man owns an electric?”
The millionaire looked very sheepish. “I’m afraid I must plead guilty
to stupidity as well,” he confessed. “That didn’t occur to me, and I
doubt if it ever would.”
The two detectives made a thorough examination of the little garage,
the ground about it, and the pile of lumber, as well as the road at the
rear.
They found some finger prints, and photographed them carefully, after
bringing out other details by artificial means. They were inclined
to believe that some of them belonged to Gordon, and if so, their
discovery would prove valuable. Beyond that, however, they learned
little.
“Well, we had better part company here, Chick,” Nick told his
assistant. “I’m going to let you pick up the trail of the electric car
and follow it, if you can. See if you can locate the machine. Probably
it has been abandoned long before this, for it would have to be
recharged before it could go very far. Doubtless, Green Eye remembered
that, and deserted it before such attention was necessary. Still, if
you can find where he dispensed with it, you can get a clew to his
subsequent movements, especially as he was burdened with a couple of
very heavy suit cases.”
“Consider me on the job,” was Chick’s ready reply. “I’ll start work
right away, and keep going as long as the going is good. How about you,
though? What are you going to tackle?”
“I shall return home at once,” Nick replied, “and go through the safe.
I must find out which records are missing, and when I have learned
that, I ought to be able to catch the rascal sooner or later.”
“You mean that he’ll be sure to visit some of the people interested,
or write to them, and that you can nab him in that way?” his assistant
asked.
“That’s the idea. If Green Eye hasn’t learned of our return—and I
sincerely hope he hasn’t—he won’t lose much time in getting to work at
the blackmailing business, and you may be sure he’ll choose some of the
most tempting of the local people for his first victims.”
Chick held up his hand. “I get you,” he said. “That’s just what will
happen, unless he’s scared off, and he’ll work quickly, for fear you
may return earlier than you had expected, and get wind of the whole
thing. Alongside of that, my job seems pretty punk, but you’re the
general.”
“Your job is a necessary one, and we may need all the dope on Green
Eye’s movements that we can get,” Nick told him.
Very shortly afterward they separated, Chick remaining behind, while
Nick and the millionaire reëntered the car and started back to the city.
Very little was said on the journey. To be sure, Griswold seemed
willing enough to keep the conversational ball rolling, but he soon
found that Nick was of a different mind. He was glad, therefore, when
the detective’s house was reached, and Nick stepped out of the machine,
after instructing the chauffeur to take Griswold wherever he wished to
go.
“You think you can catch him, then?” the millionaire asked in parting.
Nick gave him a strange look. “If I fail in this, I’ll shut up shop,”
he replied.
It was said rather lightly, but Griswold was a shrewd student of
character, and knew that famous Nemesis of criminals was in deadly
earnest.
CHAPTER XLI.
WAITING FOR A NIBBLE.
Nick Carter hardly knew what to do about the members of his household.
They had not yet been informed of the way in which they had been taken
in, and it was difficult to decide whether they should be or not. After
some reflection, however, the detective decided to say nothing about
it, for the present.
They accepted his presence as a matter of course, just as they had done
in the case of the impostor, and if he told them the truth, they would
be plunged into a state bordering on panic.
Moreover, if Gordon should take a notion to return to the house, after
such a revelation, it would be almost impossible for the butler,
housekeeper, and the rest to be their natural selves in his presence.
If they betrayed their knowledge, they might scare him off just when
Nick wished him to be most at his ease.
Nick entered his study, and, after walking up and down for a few
minutes, seated himself in his desk chair.
There was a tenseness about his look and every movement he made. He
was like a perfectly trained athlete, crouched for a start of some
record-breaking dash.
The famous detective was well acquainted with danger, and to risk
his life was an easy matter of everyday occurrence. He took up the
most serious and dangerous cases without a thought of the possible
consequences to himself. Here, however, was something different.
This came nearer home, perhaps, than anything else had ever
done, for, through him the honor and peace of mind of numbers of
persons—conspicuous targets, all of them—were threatened.
Too late the detective recognized that his reputation was not enough
to protect his house and his private safe from violence, and that
he had no right to keep such records there. They should all be in a
safe-deposit vault.
The reports of his ordinary cases might continue to be kept in his
steel filing cabinets, where they were available for ready reference,
but those concerning persons of wealth and position—men and women who
were tempting prey, and whose secrets, if revealed in the newspapers,
would cause a widespread sensation—must be better protected in future.
That, however, would not help the present situation which Nick was now
forced to face.
He actually shrank from going over the disarranged papers which Green
Eye had left behind, but after a little delay he forced himself to open
the safe, empty the remaining pigeonholes, et cetera, and dump their
contents on the desk. That done, he sat himself down and went to work.
Fortunately, there was a comparatively small number of papers of
that description in the safe, therefore it did not take very long to
go through them and check off those which remained—for the methodical
detective had a list of all of them.
In this way, by a process of elimination, Nick quickly learned the ones
which had been stolen, and his expression grew grimmer than ever as he
realized the shrewdness of Gordon’s choice.
Most of the missing papers concerned individuals or families in
and around New York, which seemed to imply that a quick clean-up
was contemplated. Some few, though, involved persons farther away,
and these appeared to have been selected because they had offered
particularly tempting bait to the blackmailer.
It needed only the brief entries in the index to bring back to Nick’s
mind all of the important details of each case, and he ground his teeth
as he pictured the scoundrel gloating over those same details, and
cleverly scheming to demand the top price for their suppression.
“What a haul!” he murmured aloud. “All those papers, and seventy-five
or eighty thousand in gold, to boot! If it’s really Ernest Gordon with
whom we have to deal—and I’m morally certain it is—he must be drunk
with joy, for he has made blackmailing an art, and he could not ask
anything bigger or more promising of that sort. In his calmer moments,
though, he must realize that he won’t have the chance to hold up many
of these people.
“Doesn’t he know that the first man he approaches will in all
probability come running to me to demand an explanation, if nothing
more? And hasn’t it occurred to him that I would receive an urgent
summons home under such circumstances? Well, if it has, he’ll see all
the more reason for striking while the iron is hot.”
He had put the papers away temporarily, intending to find a safer place
for them at the earliest opportunity, when the butler entered the study
with a telegram. It proved to be from the warden at Clinton prison, and
was a long one—sent “collect,” of course.
It contained certain new and significant, though minor, details
concerning the supposed death of Green-eye Gordon, and the escape of
the yegg from Buffalo, which served to confirm Nick’s suspicions, but
the most striking thing about the message was the tone of it. It gave
the impression that the warden had been doubtful, or was doubtful now
concerning the identity of the man who had been burned. He did not say
so, of course, but Nick could read doubt between the lines.
Obviously, the identification had been a very careless one, or else the
prison authorities had deliberately winked at the misleading statement
which had found their way into the newspapers. Very likely they took it
for granted at first that the partially burned body was that of Gordon,
and afterward preferred to hush the thing up rather than let it be
known that there was any reason to believe that the redoubtable Green
Eye had escaped.
“Well, that settles it, I think, for all practical purposes,” the
detective told himself. “Cray’s identification was a very hasty one,
made under very unfavorable circumstances, but when it’s taken in
connection with this transparent telegram, and especially in connection
with the nature, daring, and adroitness of the crime itself, it seems
safe enough to conclude that Ernest Gordon is the man I must look
for—and find.”
Which would be the best course, though? To warn those who might be
expected to be approached by the criminal, or to wait until they came
to the detective?
After some thought, Nick decided on the latter course. Naturally, he
did not wish that every one concerned should know what had happened,
for that seemed unnecessary. He believed that Gordon would concentrate
on a few intended victims at first, and if the detective could discover
who those persons were, he ought to be able to trap the rascal without
allowing the others to know what had threatened them.
It was his confident belief that practically every one who might be
visited or written to by the blackmailer would try to get in touch with
him—Nick Carter—at once. That made him willing to play this waiting
game—at least, for a time.
“The first one who communicates with me,” he thought, “should give me
a line on the fellow’s methods and plans. No one is likely to yield to
his demands on the spot, and if I can learn of a proposed rendezvous
or two, the rest should be fairly plain sailing—unless the scoundrel
learns of my return and plays dead for a while.”
He had reached this point in his musings when he heard a furious ring
at the doorbell.
“Possibly that’s the first of the victims now,” he thought. “If it is,
I must prepare myself for some more or less well-grounded reproaches. I
can stand them, though, if in addition I’m put on the track of the man
I want to lay my hands on more than I ever wanted to lay them on any
one else.”
CHAPTER XLII.
THE FIRST VICTIM.
Shortly afterward the butler knocked at the study door and opened it.
“Mr. Chester J. Gillespie to see you, sir,” he announced.
Before Nick could reply, or the butler could get out of the way, for
that matter, the young man named pushed into the room, his face pale
with agitation.
“You must help me, Mr. Carter!” he cried excitedly. “I——”
He paused as Nick motioned the butler to withdraw and close the door.
When the servant had complied, Nick said quietly:
“Sit down, Mr. Gillespie. I’m very sorry to learn that some one has
attempted to blackmail you, but there’s no necessity for such great
haste.”
His caller had started to take a chair, but paused with his hand on the
back of it, and stared at Nick in the greatest amazement. Presently, a
spot of angry red appeared in each pale cheek, and his rather weak jaw
thrust out aggressively.
“By Heaven!” he breathed. “I believe you are in league with the fellow.
I’ll swear I do! How otherwise could you know that——”
“That will be about enough of that, Gillespie!” the detective said
sternly. He had heard too many such accusations in the last few hours.
“If you have come to me for help, as your rather abrupt opening words
would seem to indicate, let me warn you that you are not furthering
your case by insulting me.”
“I—I beg your pardon, Mr. Carter,” the bewildered young man stammered.
“I didn’t mean it, of course, but you are positively uncanny, and I
could not understand how——”
“It’s very simple, though,” Nick told him. “I’ve been robbed of some
papers, unfortunately, and those dealing with your case are among them.
Naturally, therefore, when you rushed in in that fashion, I concluded
that the thief had tried to bleed you.”
“Oh! So that was it?” Gillespie murmured somewhat sheepishly. Again his
anger and sense of injury got the upper hand. “Then it’s you I have to
thank for this, after all!” he cried. “I supposed my secret safe with
you, as safe as if it were buried with me. Now, you calmly announce
that it has been stolen from you. This is too much, Carter! Can’t you
keep your papers where they will be safe? What right have you got to
preserve such records, anyway? Why don’t you destroy them for the sake
of your clients? It’s unbearable! This will be the ruin of me! If
Florence finds out about it, she will refuse to marry me, and——”
The detective held up his hand commandingly, and the young man—he did
not appear to be over twenty-five—lapsed into silence.
“I have already told you, Gillespie, that I profoundly regret what
has happened. You are forgetting yourself, though, and wasting time.
I already know who made away with those papers, and, with your
assistance, I hope to lay a trap for him that will bring his schemes
to an end very quickly. I think I can promise you that there will be
no publicity, and that nothing need interfere with your approaching
marriage. Now, tell me precisely what has happened.”
Young Gillespie was several times a millionaire, having inherited a
large fortune from his father a year or two before. The responsibility
thus imposed upon him had sobered him down in a remarkable manner, and
he was looked upon in certain quarters as one of the coming leaders in
the financial world. Before his father’s death, however, he had sown a
lot of wild oats of one sort or another, and it was in connection with
one of these youthful escapades that Nick had been called in about four
years previously.
The affair threatened to be very serious, for the time, but the
detective’s skill had been brought to bear in a surprising manner, with
the result that everything had been smoothed out as well as possible
without the vaguest rumor having got abroad.
The young man fumbled in his pocket with a gloved hand, and produced a
sheet of notepaper, the top of which had obviously been cut away.
“That was found under the door when the house was opened up this
morning,” he said. “Here’s the envelope. It was not stamped, of course.”
Nick smoothed out the sheet of paper and looked at the sprawling,
uncertain writing that covered it. He read:
“I know all about the affair of four years ago. My price for silence is
one hundred thousand dollars. Have it ready when I call, or pay it to
any one who may present an order from me. Don’t think you can stop this
by trying to have me arrested. You will fail, and the whole story will
come out. I have fully arranged for its publication, no matter what
happens to me. The money is the only thing that will buy my silence.
Pay it, and your secret is safe. What is more, you will never hear from
me again. Refuse to pay it, and—ruin!”
It was a bold letter, but Nick saw that it was nothing but a bluff. He
said as much.
“I hope you haven’t been deceived by this,” he remarked, tapping the
sheet. “This fellow is working alone, you may be sure, and, therefore,
it isn’t at all likely that he has ‘arranged’ anything of the sort
in case he should be arrested. By this, as you ought to know, the
newspapers would not publish a story about you without warning. You
have too much money and too many friends. You would have an opportunity
to bring your influence to bear, and the story would be killed.”
“That sounds plausible enough,” Gillespie admitted. “That’s what
I would tell any one else in my position, if he were similarly
threatened. When this sort of thing comes home to a fellow, though, it
makes a lot of difference.”
“I know,” the detective replied, with a nod. “That’s the sort of mood
such a scoundrel counts on.”
He paused and thoughtfully fingered the letter.
“I must confess that this is a disappointment,” he resumed slowly. “I
had hoped that the blackmailer would set a definite time for his call,
or ask you to take the money to some specified place. This, however,
avoids anything of that sort, and leaves me nothing definite to go on.
All it tells us is that he expects to call at some unnamed hour—perhaps
to-day, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps not for several days. I think we
need not bother about the hint that he may send some one with a written
order, for if such a person presented himself, I feel sure it would be
the blackmailer, and no other. This absence of details, however, makes
it rather difficult to know just what to do.”
“How would this do?” Gillespie said hesitatingly. “You are a genius
at make-up. Why don’t you pass yourself off for me? Go to my place on
Fifth Avenue and wait for this fellow, whoever he is, to call? The
chances are that he won’t put it off very long, and even if you had to
remain there a couple of days, you would not mind, would you, if you
could nab your man at the end of your wait?”
CHAPTER XLIII.
AN ASTOUNDING RUSE.
Gillespie went on more confidently: “It ought to give him the shock of
his life to think he’s dealing merely with me, and then to have you
reveal yourself to him. Of course, we could both stay there, and you
could walk in and collar him while he was holding me up, but I’m afraid
he may be watching the house. In that case, he would be suspicious
if he saw any one else going in and not coming out again, no matter
whether he recognized you or not.”
Nick smiled slightly. “You must have been reading detective stories
lately, Gillespie,” he commented. “However, it isn’t a bad idea, and
I’m inclined to try it. There are certain other advantages about it
which make it appeal to me. How about you, though? You would have to
remain here as long as I found it necessary to stay at your place.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I don’t mind. I’ll promise to keep out of sight,
and if I have to stay overnight, I suppose I can find a bunk somewhere,
if you’ll explain my presence to your servants.”
“You certainly can,” Nick assured him; “and let’s hope that you won’t
have to kick your heels here very long.”
The detective conducted him into another room, and, seating him in
the light, proceeded to busy himself with his make-up materials and
appliances. At the end of half an hour, the transformation was complete.
“Will this do?” asked Nick, turning from the glass and facing his
visitor.
“By Jove, marvelous!” Gillespie cried enthusiastically. “By the time
you’ve got into my clothes, you’ll be able to pass for me anywhere.
Luckily, there’s only my old butler, Simms, and his wife, at the house,
as I’ve been abroad, and was not expected home as yet. The chauffeur
outside is a new man, and has never seen me before.”
“Good!” Nick answered. “Now for the clothes.”
Soon the disguise was complete, and after another careful inspection of
himself, Nick was ready to leave.
“I’ll explain matters to my people here as I go out,” he said. “Come
this way and I’ll show you the room you may occupy in my absence. I
hope you’ll find it comfortable. Don’t hesitate to ask for anything you
want, and I’ll let you know as soon as there’s anything to report.”
After conducting his guest to one of the spare bedrooms, the detective
parted with Gillespie, and ascended the stairs. Five minutes later he
stepped into the waiting car as if he owned it.
“Home!” he ordered, and the machine whirled away in the direction of
upper Fifth Avenue.
Meanwhile, from behind one of the curtains at the front of the
detective’s house, the young man had seen the car drive off, and as
it passed out of sight, a remarkable change came over him. He threw
back his head and laughed in a curiously noiseless way that many an
ex-convict has.
He laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks, and at last flung
himself into a chair and fairly panted for breath. At length, he
recovered himself and wiped his eyes. Simultaneously, his face took on
harsher lines.
The fresh complexion of youth seemed singularly out of place now, for
age and experience—and evil—peered through the veneer.
Had there ever been any doubt about Green-eye Gordon’s daring, there
could be none any longer, for this was the criminal himself.
In some manner best known to himself, he had managed to learn of
Nick’s return, and had taken this extraordinary means of fooling the
detective—an example of supreme audacity, in which he was manifestly
taking the greatest delight.
He expected to kill more than two birds with the one stone.
“Oh, what a sell!” he thought. “How are the mighty fallen! You don’t
happen to know, my dear Carter, that the real Chester Gillespie is
still abroad, and that while you are waiting for your bird in that
gloomy old mansion across from the park, your enterprising little
friend Ernest will be tapping the various other sources of income as
rapidly as he can.”
Nevertheless, when the first flush of triumph had passed, there seemed
to be an undercurrent of uneasiness in the scoundrel’s mood and manner.
Doubtless, he knew that in boldness lay his only hope, but perhaps he
allowed himself to fear for the time being, that even boldness would be
insufficient in the long run against such an antagonist.
Apparently, the great detective had been completely taken in by this
latest astounding ruse, but very likely Gordon realized that he was in
the lion’s mouth, and that there was no knowing when the jaws might
close with a snap.
Some time after Green Eye returned to Nick’s study, the door opened,
and Chick entered. He did not look any too well satisfied with his work
thus far.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, halting at sight of the supposed
Gillespie. “I didn’t know any one was here. Are you alone?”
“Yes,” Gordon answered coolly. “Mr. Carter has gone out. I think he
left word for you with the butler, but I might as well explain that
he’s absent on an errand for me, and that I’m to remain in more or less
close confinement here until he returns.”
And in response to a look of surprise on Chick’s face, he explained a
little further: “If you wish to call him up——”
“No, not now,” Nick’s assistant interrupted quietly. “I have nothing to
report as yet.”
That was good news to Gordon, for he felt sure that Chick had been
trying to pick up some clew to the whereabouts of the electric car, and
if so, it was plain that he had failed to make any headway.
“Well, I’ll leave you in possession here and go into the room Mr.
Carter placed at my command,” Green Eye remarked easily, rising to his
feet and helping himself to another of Nick’s cigars. “If there’s no
objection, I shall appropriate some writing materials.”
Chick supplied him with paper, envelopes, et cetera, and assured him
that the study was his to use if he wished, but the visitor would not
consent to “be in the way.” Three minutes later, he was in the bedroom,
with the door closed.
Quickly he removed the tapestry cover and droplight from the small
table between the windows, and, drawing up a chair, set to work.
It was clear that his desire to write some letters was genuine enough,
and the fact that he cut the engraved headings from several sheets of
paper suggested that the privacy of the room was welcome.
At the end of an hour he was still writing, and beside him were several
sealed and stamped envelopes addressed to a number of well-known names.
The campaign was going forward.
“I shall have to find some means of getting rid of this man Chick
Carter, though,” Green Eye told himself, as he finished one of the
letters and leaned back in a chair. “These fellows I have written to
will come flocking here before long, and I must be Nick Carter again,
in order to receive them properly.”
CHAPTER XLIV.
NICK’S SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED.
If the criminal could have read Nick Carter’s mind about that time, he
would have been still more uneasy—and with good reason.
Ernest Gordon had not been the only one who had played a part during
the interview which had ended in the detective’s act of copying his
caller’s features, and borrowing his clothes.
For the first few minutes, it must be confessed that the detective was
completely deceived. He knew Green Eye to be a master of surprises,
but it had not occurred to him to suspect that the clever rascal would
resort to anything so spectacular.
Besides, Gordon had placed himself so that the light did not fall
strongly.
It was not until the caller suggested a change of identities that the
detective began to question. It was very seldom that a client presumed
to offer such assistance, and Nick’s knowledge of Chester Gillespie had
not prepared him for such a proposition. He gave no evidence, however,
that the seed of suspicion had been planted, but fell in with the
suggestion, knowing that in carrying it out, he would have the best
possible opportunity of studying his visitor.
He noted a slight hesitation on the latter’s part when he had asked
him to take his place in the brightest light obtainable, and the
subsequent scrutiny had soon confirmed his suspicions. “Gillespie” was
plainly Ernest Gordon.
No make-up could have stood that test—at least, with Nick Carter at the
observer’s end.
“What fools the cleverest of us are sometimes!” the detective thought,
with an inward chuckle. “Gordon has such a good opinion of himself, and
is so certain that a man needs only to be daring enough in order to
carry everything before him, that he’s actually willing to undergo this
sort of thing—and he thinks he’s getting away with it!”
It was no part of the detective’s plan, however, to reveal his
knowledge of the deception. He wished to give the masquerader as much
rope as he could, in order to find out just what Gordon was trying to
do. Moreover, he was curious to visit Gillespie’s house and find out
how Green Eye had succeeded in making himself at home there.
Gillespie might have been overpowered and stowed away somewhere, or
even murdered—though that was unlikely, unless the crime had been
committed owing to an accident or miscalculation on Gordon’s part.
When the detective reached Gillespie’s house on Fifth Avenue, he found
the situation just as Gordon had described it. An aged butler answered
the bell, and, save for him, the big house seemed deserted.
Nick was about to question the old man in a roundabout way in order to
discover, if possible, whether there had been anything which might
seem suspicious or not. Before he could do so, however, the butler
offered a couple of letters on a salver.
Nick took them after a second’s hesitation, studying the butler’s face
as he did so. From the man’s squint and the lines about the eyes, he
saw that the butler was nearsighted. Probably he had been in the family
for a long time, but this defect in his eyesight explained his failure
to detect the deception.
But where was the real Chester J. Gillespie, whose second double was
now entering his house, and calmly inspecting his letters?
Gordon had given Nick certain necessary particulars concerning the
arrangement of the house, and, thanks to these, the detective mounted
the stairs with the utmost assurance, leaving the nearsighted old
butler bowing in the lower hall.
He found his way to Gillespie’s private room easily enough, the letters
still in his hand. After looking about him curiously, and noting
the certain evidences of recent occupancy, he sat down and glanced
mechanically at the letters.
One of them obviously was a business communication, but the other was
not.
The envelope was unusually large, and of the finest texture. As for the
writing, it was big, heavy, and sprawling.
In the lower left-hand corner were the words, “Important—please
forward,” and they were heavily underscored.
All is fair in love and war, they say, and if that is so, all is fair
in detection as well, especially when the detective is trying to
safeguard the man whose identity he has temporarily appropriated.
Under the circumstances, therefore, Nick felt justified in opening any
of Gillespie’s correspondence that seemed to promise a solution of the
mystery, just as he would have ransacked the house for a similar clew.
There might be nothing in it, of course, but this letter appeared to be
somewhat out of the ordinary, and might be valuable.
Consequently, after a little hesitation, Nick ripped the envelope open
without the slightest attempt at concealment, and drew the inclosure
out. Soon he was very glad that he had done so, for the letter read as
follows:
“DEAR OLD LUNATIC: You do not seem to have improved in the matter of
memory or level-headedness. You write me from some unpronounceable
place in South America—I judge solely from the postmark—and do not
tell me where to find you. How the dickens can I join you down there
for a month’s shooting, if you do not give me more particulars? I know
you too well, you see, to imagine for a moment that you stayed more
than a day or two at the place from which you wrote. That was nearly
two weeks ago, and by this time you may be thousands of miles away
from there.
“Your letter was forwarded to me up here in Maine, and the best thing
I can think of doing is to send this to your New York address, in
the hope that it will be forwarded to you with as little delay as
possible.”
There was a little more of it, but the rest does not matter. It was
signed by a well-known young man about town.
So that was it, was it? The only original Chester Gillespie was still
down in South America, and only about two weeks before had written to a
New York friend, inviting him down for a month’s shooting. That argued
that he did not expect to return for many weeks. In some manner, Gordon
must have learned that interesting fact, and, seemingly, had disguised
himself as Gillespie, with the aid of a photograph or photographs of
that young man.
So much for the way the trick had been sprung. For the rest, there
was no doubt in Nick’s mind as to Green Eye’s further intention. The
criminal had learned of the detective’s return, and had guessed what
Nick’s plan of campaign would be.
In other words, he had concluded that Nick had the index of the records
in the safe, and could easily find out which ones were missing. Knowing
by that means where danger threatened, Nick could set a trap for the
blackmailer, with the help of one or more of the latter’s prospective
victims.
“He knew just about what to expect,” the detective mused, “and when
he found that Gillespie was out of the country, having left only a
couple of old people in charge of the house, he hit upon this scheme of
circumventing me. If he’s left alone, he’ll find some means of sending
Chick off on a wild-goose chase, or otherwise dispose of him, and then
he’ll impersonate me once more, and in that disguise he’ll probably
advise his victims to pay the sums demanded.
“Oh, it’s a pretty smooth scheme—one of the smoothest anybody ever
thought out! I’m afraid, however, that he’s inclined to underrate my
intelligence, and to overrate his own ability.”
CHAPTER XLV.
COMPARING NOTES.
It was not until dusk that Nick Carter left the Gillespie house, and
when he did so, it was on foot. He had not gone more than a block or
so, however, before he hailed a passing taxi, and ordered the chauffeur
to drive to a certain corner of Madison Avenue. The corner named was
only a block from his own house.
Some hours had passed since Nick had read the letter which revealed the
whereabouts of the real Chester J. Gillespie, but he had been in no
hurry to act. For one thing, he wished to give the scoundrel a sense of
security in this new and climax-capping adventure.
Nick was still disguised as Gillespie, but he was wearing a golf cap,
which he had pulled down over his eyes, and a light overcoat, with
upturned collar. His purpose was to get in touch with his assistant in
one way or another, and his only anxiety concerned the possibility that
Gordon had already got rid of Chick.
Fortunately, that was not the case, and, after a wait of no more than
half or three-quarters of an hour, the young detective left the house,
and unconsciously approached his chief, who was lounging at the corner.
As he passed Nick, the latter said quietly: “Go around the corner and
wait for me.”
Chick stiffened slightly at the well-known voice, but that was the
only sign of surprise he gave. With a grunt and a nod, he turned about
at right angles into the side street, and along this Nick presently
followed him.
A short distance beyond the corner, well out of sight from Nick’s
house, Chick paused, and there his chief overtook him.
“I haven’t made any headway yet,” Chick announced, without any
preliminaries. “I located the car late this afternoon, but there I came
to a dead stop.”
“Never mind about that,” Nick said quickly. “It doesn’t matter in the
least. I can lay my hands on Green-eye Gordon at any moment.”
“The deuce you can!” ejaculated Chick. “Then I should certainly say you
don’t need me—for the sort of legwork I’ve been doing to-day, at any
rate.”
“What about my double, though?” Nick put in swiftly, without giving
Chick time to ask any questions. “Is he still at the house, and if so,
what has he been doing?”
“He’s there, all right. He’s been writing letters in the bedroom. He
declined to use the study.”
“Ah!” Nick murmured, in a peculiar tone. “Letters, eh? Has he mailed
them?”
“No. I offered to do it for him a little while ago, but he said he
would be going out himself later on.”
Nick thought over this information for a minute or two, while his
assistant watched him questioningly.
“Did you happen to see any of the letters?” Nick inquired at length,
rousing himself from his abstraction. “I mean, could you tell whether
they were stamped or not?”
His assistant nodded. “I got a squint at a little pile of them,” he
admitted. “The top one was stamped, but I could not say as to the rest.”
This required further thought on Nick’s part. He was tempted, of
course, to end matters then and there, before those letters could reach
their destination, and cause the consternation they were certain to
create. On the other hand, he felt it necessary to give Gordon a little
more leeway, and in order to do that, it seemed essential that the
letters be mailed.
He had searched Gillespie’s private rooms, on the theory that Green
Eye might have left the stolen papers there, but he had found nothing
of the sort. Yet, it was imperative that these papers be recovered, if
possible, at the same time the rascal was captured.
Unless that were done, the precious records might not be returned at
all, for certainly Gordon could not be counted on to restore them
voluntarily.
To be sure, the fact that he had been writing those letters—doubtless,
blackmailing ones—under Nick’s own roof, suggested that he had the
documents there to refer to. That, however, was by no means certain,
for he might have put the records in some remote place, perhaps a
safe-deposit vault, after making a list of the names and addresses
desired.
Therefore, it seemed wise to give the fellow his head, for the time,
and meanwhile to keep him under observation, in the hope that his
movements would give some hint as to his possession or nonpossession
of Nick’s papers.
The detective was about to explain this to his assistant when the
latter broke in excitedly.
“For the love of Pete! What’s up?” he demanded. “What are you cooking
up in that brain of yours, and why are you so curious about Gillespie’s
doings?”
“Gillespie is down in South America,” Nick returned quietly. “That’s
why. Our friend back there in the house is—well, you can guess, I
imagine.”
And then he proceeded to give his instructions to the dumfounded Chick.
CHAPTER XLVI.
GORDON’S LETTERS REACH THEIR MARK.
Ex-Senator William Deane Phelps smiled complacently as he stood before
a glass in his dressing room.
He was a tall man, and the sixty years that had passed over his head
had left him his rather slim and upright figure. His hair was white,
but abundant, and on the whole, he had good reason to consider himself
a handsome and well-preserved man.
“Is there anything else, sir?” his valet asked respectfully.
“No,” the ex-senator answered. “It’s probable that I shall be very
late, so you need not wait up.”
“Thank you, sir. Shall I ring for your car?”
“No, no! A taxi will do.”
Possibly the ghost of a smile curved the lips of the valet, but if
so, it was quickly gone. If his employer chose to keep his movements
secret, that was his employer’s business.
Ex-Senator Phelps took the light coat and silk hat that were handed
to him, and strolled toward the door. He was a single man, but his
position in the world had made it necessary for him to keep up a rather
pretentious establishment.
He stood in the doorway holding a cigar as the taxi drove up, but at
that moment his valet, who had followed him as if to close the door,
spoke up in a surprised tone.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “but this was lying on the floor.
You stepped over it just now without knowing it. It’s addressed to you,
and marked ‘Urgent.’ It’s stamped, but not postmarked—looks as if it
had been slipped under the door instead.”
Ex-Senator Phelps took the envelope with a careless air, and no
premonition chilled him as he stepped back into the light of the hall
and tore it open. As he glanced at the single sheet of paper, however,
his face turned ghastly, and he reeled against a small statue that
stood on a pedestal, throwing it to the floor and breaking it.
“After all these years!” he muttered hoarsely to himself. Then his eyes
fell upon the amazed face of his valet, and, as he crushed the letter
in his hand, he made a great effort to pull himself together. “I—I
shall not be going out, after all,” he said, in a curiously dead voice.
“I’m not—feeling well.”
Every year of the sixty seemed to weigh heavily upon the ex-senator
as he pushed open the door of the room on the left. His feet dragged
across the thick carpet so that he stumbled, and when he dropped into a
chair, buried his face in his hands.
* * * * *
The Forty-second Street Theater had been famous for years as the home
of light comedy of the more brilliant sort.
That night was to witness a new production, for which great things
were expected—for had the play not been written by one of America’s
cleverest and most experienced playwrights, and staged by a production
wizard? And was not the star Harold Lumsden?
Already the cheaper parts of the house were packed, and the orchestra
was filling up. Here and there a pair of white shoulders gleamed in
one of the boxes which would soon be filled—for it was a foregone
conclusion that the S.R.O. sign would have to be displayed in the lobby
that night.
Harold Lumsden himself was peering through a peephole in the curtain
at that moment, idly surveying the nucleus of what he knew would
prove to be an unusually brilliant first-night audience. For years he
had enjoyed great prestige, and this was to be his first appearance
following a successful invasion of London, which had added greatly to
his laurels.
“This is going to be some night, Harold!” his manager remarked
impressively, coming up from behind and putting his hand on the star’s
shoulder. “Dressed early, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I felt restless,” was the reply. “Hanged if I know why. This sort
of thing ought to be an old story to me by this time, if it’s ever
going to be.”
As he turned about to face the portly manager, he noticed an envelope
in the latter’s hand. Knowing the manager’s absent-mindedness, he
inquired:
“That letter isn’t for me, is it?”
“Why, yes, it is,” was the reply. “I had forgotten it for a moment.
It’s marked ‘Urgent,’ but I suppose it’s only from some friend of
yours—or, more likely, some friend of a friend—who aspires to the
deadhead class.”
“Probably,” Harold Lumsden agreed, as he glanced at the handwriting
for a moment, and then ripped the envelope open. “We haven’t needed to
‘paper’ our houses for the last few seasons, have we, old man? What’s
this! Great heavens!”
The distinguished actor clutched at one of the wings for support, and
the letter fluttered to the ground. The manager stooped to pick it up,
but with an oath the star forestalled him, seizing the letter hastily
and thrusting it into his pocket.
“Bad news?” the manager asked anxiously.
“A rather disagreeable surprise,” Lumsden managed to say, making a
strenuous attempt to control himself. “It’s nothing you know anything
about, you know, and I’ll be all right, never fear.”
Harold Lumsden played the part that night, for there was nothing else
to do, and the traditions of his profession demand that an actor or
actress should always appear, unless ill in bed, no matter what news
may have been received, or what tragedy may have been left at home.
But some idea of the sort of performance the famous star gave on that
memorable occasion might have been gathered from the newspaper comments
the following morning, for all the critics seemed to agree that
Lumsden was far from himself, and that his conception of the part was
strangely heavy and lifeless.
Such was the effect of Green-eye Gordon’s second demand. There were
other letters—several of them, in fact—but we need not trace their
influence here.
There was no doubt that the blackmailer had struck some stunning blows,
expecting that gold would flow from the wounds thus inflicted.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE BLACKMAILER ADVISES HIS VICTIM.
Ernest Gordon was inclined to consider the world a pretty good place,
as he finished his breakfast in Nick Carter’s dining room the following
morning. Everything had gone very well, thus far, and he seemed to have
reason for self-congratulation.
He had peddled the letters around himself the night before, thus saving
time, and making it more difficult to trace them, as he believed.
He did not know that he had been shadowed throughout by Chick, who
thereby knew just what victims the blackmailer had chosen for his first
broadside.
Later he had returned to the detective’s house, and so had Chick; then
there had come a telephone message to the latter from Nick sending
the young detective out of town for at least twenty-four, if not
forty-eight, hours.
That unexpected turn of affairs had caused Gordon great satisfaction
when Chick gloomily confided the news to him.
“The chief seems to think that fellow Gordon has doubled back, and is
hiding not far from New Pelham,” the assistant informed “Gillespie.”
“He still hopes he’ll turn up at your place, and is going to wait there
all of to-morrow, if not longer, but he wants me to get busy, and see
if I can locate Gordon independently. It seems unnecessary to me, but
what he says goes. The worst of it is, though, I’ve got my orders to
pull up stakes at once.”
Of course, Gordon did not know that this was all a put-up job. Nick, by
seeming to play into the rascal’s hands, had worked out this scheme,
in order to get Chick out of the way, so that Gordon would not feel
compelled to take strong measures to accomplish the same object.
As a result, Green Eye had slept alone at Nick’s house that
night—except for the servants—and now, after a good breakfast, looked
forward to a day of undisturbed peace and freedom to do whatever
circumstances might require.
First, however, it was necessary for him to absent himself temporarily,
in order to make up as Nick once more. Therefore, he made a flying trip
to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, and there disguised himself,
returning as fast as the taxi could carry him.
When he reëntered the detective’s residence, it was in the character of
the owner.
“Has any one called up or been to see me?” he asked the butler.
“No, sir,” was the reply, a welcome one to the scoundrel, for it meant
that none of his victims had yet sought the detective.
He did not have long to wait, however, for hardly more than half an
hour later the butler entered the study, and presented a card, which
bore the name of ex-Senator William Deane Phelps.
“Show him up,” the supposed detective said.
The butler turned on his heel to obey, and if Green-eye Gordon grinned
behind his back, his face was serious enough in expression as the
ex-senator nervously entered and closed the door behind him.
In the few hours that had passed since he had received the threatening
letter, a great change had come over this man, whose name was known
from one end of the country to the other. It was plain that he had not
slept, and there were heavy, loose bags of skin under his eyes. His
face was almost gray in hue.
“I feared that you would feel compelled to come here before long,
senator,” the impostor said gravely.
“Then you know?” his visitor asked, in surprise.
“Yes,” Gordon answered. “Some one knows the facts in regard to—well, we
need not go into the case—and is attempting to blackmail you.”
Phelps sank into a chair and drew a sheet of paper from his pocket.
“The infernal scoundrel demands one hundred and fifty thousand—no
less!” he said hoarsely. “It isn’t so much the money, but I—I naturally
assumed that you alone held my secret.”
Green Eye rose to his feet, and his face was very solemn.
“Until a short time ago that was the case,” he answered, and crossed
to the safe. “The records were here, and you will see that it has been
burgled. If it’s any comfort to you, though, I’ll tell you that you are
not the only one who will suffer.”
“I care nothing about that,” Phelps said angrily. “It’s my own plight
that interests me to the exclusion of everything else. Do you wonder?
This is terrible, Carter, terrible! I thought I could trust you, and
now, after all this time, I find that I’ve been living in a fool’s
paradise.”
The criminal interrupted him with a dignified gesture.
“I don’t think I deserve that, senator,” he said quietly. “Nicholas
Carter has never yet betrayed a secret. Much as I regret this
unfortunate occurrence, however, I don’t see how I can be held
responsible for it. I didn’t rob my own safe, and certainly I wouldn’t
have chosen to have it robbed, if I could have helped it.”
“That’s neither here nor there!” declared the ex-senator. “Why didn’t
you destroy the records?”
“Do you expect me to destroy my stock in trade, or burn up the
reference books I have had occasion to consult countless times?”
“I hadn’t thought of it in that light,” Phelps confessed. “Even that
doesn’t make it any easier to bear, however. What can I do?”
“I’m sorry to say that I see nothing for you to do, except to pay,”
Green Eye answered, fingering the letter which had been handed him.
Phelps looked at him in amazement. “_You_ actually give me that
advice!” he murmured.
Green Eye nodded. “I know I’m disappointing you,” he said, “but that’s
the best advice I can give under the circumstances. It may sound
strange, but we must face the facts. I know perfectly well who is
at the bottom of this, and I have to confess that he’s one of the
shrewdest men who ever defied the law. He’s amazingly daring, senator,
and you may be sure he means exactly what he says. He’ll drag this
whole unsavory business into the light, if you don’t stop his mouth
with gold, and stop it without delay.”
“But aren’t you going to——”
“Of course, I’m going to do everything I can to catch him, senator,”
the criminal interrupted, in a tone which seemed to imply that that
was a matter of course. “If possible, I shall try to trap him just
after you have met his demands, and while he has the money on his
person. I cannot promise, however, to catch him to-day, or this week,
and, knowing his methods as well as I do, I know that you can’t afford
to risk any delay. The chances are, of course, that I can make him
disgorge, and that you’ll get your money back, but the important thing
is to play safe, isn’t it?”
Ex-Senator Phelps nodded slowly and hopelessly.
“I suppose you’re right,” he agreed. “I had hoped for immediate help,
Carter, for something that would put new hope into me. Evidently, I
expected too much, though. I’ll do as you say, of course, and try to
believe that everything will come out all right. Good morning.”
And with that he left the room, walking as if he were seventy instead
of sixty.
“Number one!” Green-eye Gordon chuckled as he leaned back in his seat.
“A hundred and fifty thousand isn’t bad for a starter. I wonder who
will be the next?”
CHAPTER XLVIII.
UP AGAINST IT.
A few minutes later, the front-door bell rang again, and this time the
salver which the butler presented to his supposed employer bore the
card of Harold Lumsden.
Gordon nodded impassively. “Very well,” he said.
“I only hope he’ll prove worth the trouble,” he told himself, as the
butler left the room. “He’s a spendthrift, of course. Money turns to
water and runs through his fingers, no matter how fast it comes in.
He’s just back from London, however, and I hardly think he has already
squandered everything he picked up there.”
Then the door opened, and a tragic figure entered. The caller’s face
was haggard, his eyes wild, his hair disordered. Even his clothing
seemed carelessly worn and ill-fitting, though Lumsden had always been
considered one of the best-dressed men in the profession. Certainly he
did not look like a matinee idol now.
“Something terrible has happened!” he burst out. “Mr. Carter, I am
being blackmailed! Somebody has learned the secret which I thought safe
with you, and has demanded an enormous sum of money. It means my ruin,
unless——”
“I know all about it, I am sorry to say,” the bogus detective
interrupted.
Once more he gave a brief and very unsatisfactory explanation, pointing
to the rifled safe, and winding up with a statement of his belief that
there was nothing to do but to pay—“just as a temporary expedient, of
course.”
Naturally, that advice did not appeal to the actor any more than it had
to ex-Senator Phelps, but Gordon adroitly argued him into a somewhat
less impatient mood.
“How much does he want?”
“A cool hundred thousand,” was the bitter reply, and it did not convey
any real news to the man in Nick’s desk chair. “And I haven’t more than
eighty thousand to my name!”
“The devil you haven’t!” Green Eye exclaimed harshly. “Not after that
London engagement?”
He had spoken without thinking, and did not realize what he had said
until the caller looked sharply at him.
“I beg your pardon, Lumsden!” he hastened to say. “That must have
sounded impertinent, I’m afraid. I meant no offense, I assure you. It
was merely surprise. You know, we outsiders are inclined to think that
you popular actors are made of money.”
“Well, we’re not,” the other answered, as if slightly mollified. “What
shall I do?”
“Pay what you can,” Gordon answered promptly. “I know it doesn’t appeal
to you, my friend, but as I have said, it’s only temporary. I’ll have
the fellow where I want him in short order, you may be sure. This is
only in the nature of insurance to keep the rascal from carrying out
his threats before I can stop his activities.”
That seemed to appeal strongly to the actor.
“It’s asking a good deal to trust everything to you, including my whole
bank roll, when the trouble originated through you,” he said. “However,
I see nothing else to do. I’ll do as you suggest. Anything is better
than exposure, and I can always earn more money if I have to see the
last of this.” He paused for a moment. “By Jove!” he ejaculated. “You
have made me feel that I shan’t be comfortable until I’ve paid the
money over. If you don’t mind, I’ll make out a check to self right
now, and take it to the bank to be cashed, so that I can turn over the
currency to the scoundrel when he comes.”
Green Eye had no objection to that, of course; in fact, it brought an
anticipatory glitter to his eyes. With shaking hands, Lumsden took a
check book from his pocket, seating himself in the chair which Gordon
vacated for the purpose. When he tried to write, however, he found it
exceedingly difficult to do so.
“Confound it!” he cried impatiently. “See how infernally nervous I am!
Would you mind filling this in for eighty thousand, Mr. Carter, and
then I’ll try to sign it.”
“Gladly,” Green Eye said, with alacrity, reseating himself in the
vacated chair, and taking the pen from his visitor’s trembling hand.
The masquerading criminal held down the cover of the little check book
with his left hand, while he began to write with the other. Lumsden
leaned over his shoulder, watching him, as if ready to try his luck at
signing his name as soon as the rest of the check was filled in. His
hand slipped into his pocket, however, and when it came out silently,
there was something in it which had a metallic gleam.
“Ah! Thanks!” he exclaimed, a moment or two later. “You have made it
very easy for me, Gordon!”
Simultaneously there was a sudden, unlooked-for swoop, followed quickly
by the click of a pair of handcuffs as they closed on Green Eye’s
wrists.
And the voice which uttered the mocking words was not the voice of
Harold Lumsden, but that of Nick Carter himself. Gordon knew it after
the first word or two, and even if he had not done so, the action which
went along with it would have been enlightening enough.
“Nick Carter, by Heaven!” the rogue cried hoarsely, jumping to his feet
and overturning the chair.
“Nick Carter—exactly,” the detective agreed, removing the wig which
had played such a large part in transforming him into Harold Lumsden.
“You didn’t think you were going to have this little masked ball all to
yourself, did you?”
After the first dazed shock—a merely momentary one—had passed, Gordon’s
face seemed to grow actually black with rage and hatred.
“You may think you have me, curse you!” he snarled. “But I’ll show
you——”
He leaped forward, his manacled arms raised to strike together. Nick
quietly sidestepped the mad bull-like rush, but Green Eye turned and
charged him again.
There was one more surprise awaiting him, though. The door opened, and
Chick entered, coolly fingering an automatic.
“Pretty neat weapon, isn’t it, Gordon?” he asked, in a matter-of-fact
tone, then stopped in feigned surprise. “Oh, you and the chief are
having an argument? Hope you don’t think I’ve butted in. Now that I’m
here, though, I think I might as well stay. You look as if you needed
your wrists slapped, and the chief may not care to bother with it.”
The escaped convict had halted in his tracks at the first interruption,
and was now looking from the detective to his assistant with baffled
rage. He would have liked to fight it out to a finish, but his
shrewdness told him that he would gain nothing by such a course, and
it was one of his rules never to exert himself unnecessarily. The
consequence was that he merely shrugged his shoulders.
“So be it,” he said quietly. “You fellows can trump my ace, I see. Let
me remind you, however, that you haven’t got that gold that our mutual
friend, John Simpson, took such a liking to. Likewise, you’re a long
way from the possession of those papers which you were foolish enough
to keep in a more or less ordinary safe.”
The detectives looked at each other and grinned.
“Think so?” queried Nick. “I’m afraid, in that case, that you are
scheduled to receive another disagreeable surprise or two. I located
the gold yesterday afternoon—in one of Gillespie’s closets. As for the
missing records, I feel very sure that we shall discover them on you.”
And they did.
Therefore, there was no need of delay, and No. 39,470 Clinton was
shipped northward to Dannemora the next day, under escort.
“Lucky for us that he belonged to the ‘Gray Brotherhood,’” Nick
remarked to Griswold, when he turned a little over seventy-five
thousand dollars in gold over to him. “Otherwise, he would have
gone scot-free, just as in the case of Simpson. As it is, he’ll get
something extra for his escape, at least, and I don’t believe he’ll
have a chance to slip away again.
“But another case like this would give me heart disease, I’m afraid,”
he added to himself.
THE END.
No. 990 of the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY, entitled “The Deposit Vault Puzzle,”
introduces the reader to a new phase of the famous detective’s
versatile personality and his seemingly unbounded resourcefulness.
Nick’s adventures and the means by which he solves this particular
puzzle make splendid sitting-up-at-night reading.
READ!
The Chain of Clues
By NICHOLAS CARTER
New Magnet Library No. 1030
A gamblers’ club with sixteen entrances through sixteen different
houses on three streets, where gambling is prohibited, is certainly an
interesting background for a detective story.
Nick Carter becomes a member of such an organization to trap a crook
who held human life so cheaply that his devilish crimes went unpunished
for a long time.
Nick matched his wits against those of the criminal and won out—but how
he did so will hold your undivided interest.
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you.
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In short, we are asking you to take what your dealer can supply, rather
than to insist upon just what you want. You won’t lose anything by such
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