TRACED BACK.
It was six weeks after the disappearance of Andrew Lampton and Howard
Milmarsh from Maple, following their jumping through the window, and
Nick Carter was again in his own home in New York.
He sat in his usual place, at the back of the heavy table in his
library, looking through some papers. Facing him were Chick, with Patsy
Garvan, the latter in a rough and ragged disguise.
Patsy had the ability to “make-up” for any age, from fifteen to seventy
or eighty. He had a youthful face, with a roguish, turned-up nose, and
bright eyes, so that it was easy for him to be a young boy.
That was the character he had now, and he smiled cheerfully as his
chief gave him some instructions.
“This man. Andrew Lampton—who is passing by the name of Joe Stokes,
according to my information—is the main worker in this counterfeiting
affair. Is that what you have heard, Patsy?”
“I’ve heard somebody called ‘Joe’ in that house,” replied young Garvan.
“But I never saw the man himself.”
“Well, that does not make any difference. After all, I don’t want
you to do anything more than be in the house, to let Chick in when
he comes. You are sure nobody followed you when you came away this
afternoon?”
“I’ll bet on that,” replied Patsy. “I know Jersey City like a book, and
if there’s any one can shadow me in that burg without my finding it
out, I’d like to see him. I know twenty ways of gettin’ out of Jersey
City without no one knowing which way I went.”
“The street is a quiet one, and it is rather away from Montgomery and
the other thoroughfares where a newsboy might be expected to be trying
to do business.”
“A newsboy who wants to sell papers doesn’t stay on any particular
street,” replied Patsy. “He follows up his business, no matter where
it may lead him. That’s the kind of newsboy I am,” he added, with
a cheerful grin. “This Salisbury Street is long enough—and ugly
enough—for any kind of business.”
“It is No. 25 Salisbury Street. That’s the address,” remarked Nick,
referring to a memorandum on his blotter. “All right! That will do. Get
over there and lie low. When Chick comes, be ready. And, above all, be
sure you’re not seen going in.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll go in like a shadow under a door. I’ve been hiding
there for five days without anybody getting on. I am not going to fall
down now, just before the blow-off. Not much!”
With this earnest assurance, Patsy nodded to Chick, waved his hand to
the chief, and slipped away.
“It’s a good thing we have Patsy to help,” remarked Nick, when the door
had closed. “This man Lampton is a keen rascal, and if he had the least
suspicion we had traced him from Maple to New York, we should not get
him this time, I’m afraid.”
“Perhaps we should not get him at all,” ventured Chick.
“Yes, we should get him some time. You ought to know that. When we go
after a man as determinedly as we have for Andrew Lampton, his capture
is never more than a question of time—and perseverance.”
“I hope that will be true about Howard Milmarsh.”
“It will. Strange that we should have so much trouble to find a man
just to hand a fortune to him. But this is a world of strange things.
Anyhow, I promised his father to see that he got his rights, and I will
go through with that, just as steadily as I will keep after Andrew
Lampton till I have him.”
“The secret-service men will help. That’s one thing.”
“Yes, and I wish they weren’t in it. I’d rather do without the aid of
the secret-service and the police, too, if I could. But it can’t be
avoided. There’s one thing—the police over in Jersey City are a pretty
bright lot of men. But they’ve been looking for Lampton some time, and
they’ve never dropped on this crib of his yet.”
“Which shows the smartness of Lampton and his gang.”
“Well, criminals must be smart to some degree, or they never could pull
off any job. Lampton is a clever fellow, because he can do so many
widely different things. He is quite a good vaudeville performer, even
though his singing voice is gone.”
“Ah, yes!” laughed Chick. “Joe Stokes! They seemed to think a great
deal of him at Maple. I won’t go till it gets dark to-night. I suppose
I may as well get ready, however. I’ve got to look like a decent kind
of hobo, haven’t I? The sort of man who is willing to work if he can
get a job?”
“That’s right. You put it very neatly. But you need not do it just yet.
You are quite sure Lampton is still in that house?”
“Quite. That is, unless he’s got out while Patsy was here to-day. Patsy
has been keeping as sharp an eye on the crib as any one could, and he
knew, before he came away to-day, that Lampton had gone to bed for a
few hours. You only want this one man, don’t you?”
“Well, he is the most important. But I want to see the whole
gang caught. I have no mercy for a counterfeiter. It is a dirty,
contemptible business, because it generally makes people suffer who
cannot afford to lose money. The secret-service men will look after
them, however—when they learn where they are.”
“Which will be thanks to Nick Carter.”
“Not to me alone,” was Nick’s modest correction. “I have two able
assistants, and they have done as much of this work as I have.”
“Strange the secret-service men did not find them,” remarked Chick.
The detective laughed quietly, as he took a perfecto from his drawer
and clipped off the end.
“It was,” he admitted. “They would have found it soon, no doubt. But
Lieutenant Brockton certainly opened his official eyes when I told him
you and Patsy had discovered the den. It’s a feather in the caps of
both of you.”
“I should like to have seen him.”
“Brockton wanted to make a raid right away. But I persuaded him to
wait,” went on Nick. “I know what these raids are. There’s a forcible
entry, generally with the breaking down of an iron-lined door, which
attracts the attention of the whole neighborhood. Then there’s a rush,
and, as likely as not, the very man you want most of all gets away. No
raid for mine.”
The detective had his cigar alight by this time, and as he pulled at it
steadily, to make sure it would draw properly, he gathered up some of
his memoranda and stowed it away carefully in a secret recess under the
table.
“It’s true enough that raids don’t always work out well,” agreed Chick
thoughtfully. “We lost Bill the Bum just that way. And he got away with
about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry, too.”
“He was drowned in that wreck off Sandy Hook, though,” remarked Nick.
“So it didn’t do him much good. You remember that tramp steamer, the
_Lovely Maud_? It was in a collision with a tank steamer. The _Lovely
Maud_ went down like a stone, and Bill the Bum, with all his loot, went
down with her. Talking about raids, however, we may have to make one,
if our own plan doesn’t work out.”
“It will work out!” was Chick’s positive assertion.
“I hope so. Lieutenant Brockton and the chief of police in Jersey City
are willing to let me try, at all events.”
“And the scheme is to decoy them out one by one, and pinch them in
detail? Isn’t that it?”
“No. That would be too long and doubtful a process. I have promised
Brockton that you will let us quietly into the house.”
Chick started. He had not worked out the matter along those lines. At
least, he had not put it into those words, and he was not sure that he
could do what was required. But he did not raise any objection. He knew
better than to do that when his chief laid out a program.
“How am I to do it?” he asked calmly.
“I don’t know. That’s your business,” was the cool reply. “I shouldn’t
wonder if you will find it rather difficult. But it’s your business, as
I have said—not mine. I’ve promised in your name that you will do it,
so, of course, you have to manage it somehow or other.”
“Somehow or other?” murmured Chick inaudibly. “I wish I knew just how
it’s to be done.”
“We shall be ready a little before midnight,” continued his chief. “I
shall expect a sign from you that everything is clear for us.” He took
out his watch and looked at it thoughtfully. “I guess you’d better get
into your hobo outfit. By that time it will be nearly dark, and you can
get over to Jersey. By the time you are walking off the ferry on the
other side of the river, it will be as black a night as you can want.
Get busy as soon as you are over there.”
“I will.”
“And keep it in mind that, when once things begin to move, they have
to keep on rapidly till we have nabbed our man.”
Chick felt that he was being loaded with a heavy job. But it was
not his disposition to back down on anything. He had the fighting
disposition, and, besides, it pleased him that his chief had so much
confidence in him.
“I’ll make it or bust!” he declared.