THE RIGHTFUL HEIR.
“Bring in that young lady and her father, with Chick,” ordered the
detective, as he swung the secret panel shut and nodded to Patsy.
“Gi’ me the key, Bonesy.”
Billings unlocked the door, and, while Patsy was absent, he stood
guard. Not that it was needed, for nobody made an attempt to get out.
“Here they are, chief!” cried Patsy, as he came in with the three
persons he had been sent for.
The girl would have run to the sick man as soon as she saw him, and it
could be seen that a cry of recognition was ready to spring from her
lips.
“Not yet!” warned Nick. “Patience for just a moment!”
She nodded obediently and sank into the chair Chick set for her. Her
father, bewildered, was already seated.
“Now, gentlemen,” went on the detective, “in the first place. I will
ask this man, who has been posing as Howard Milmarsh, what his name
really is.”
“What is the use of my saying?” grumbled the man he addressed. “You
know it, and, of course, these other fellows do.” He pointed to Louden
Powers and Andrew Lampton. “They thought it was a slick game, and that
we could get away with the bluff. I knew we couldn’t.”
“You could, if you’d had any nerve,” snarled Louden Powers. “But you
never could see a thing through. You are all right at the beginning.
But you haven’t the pluck to stay with a thing to the end. You’re like
a wet firecracker. There’s a whiz and a puff, and you’re done! You make
me sick, T. Burton Potter!”
Potter smiled. He did not care what was said, now that the truth had
come out.
“Then, if this guy’s name is Potter, the other one must be——” began
Bonesy Billings.
Nick held up a hand to silence him. Then he whispered to Bessie Silvius.
“Yes, Mr. Carter,” she answered aloud. “I believe he’ll know me. I’ll
try him.”
She stepped over to the man who had spent so long a time in the
Universal Hospital, and laid a hand on his arm. He started and looked
at her.
“Bob!” she whispered. “Don’t you know me?”
It was very difficult for him to draw his senses together, but it could
be seen that her voice had touched a responsive chord in his being. He
held out his hand to her.
As she took it, he murmured brokenly:
“Bob Gordon? Yes, that is what they call me. But—but—it isn’t quite
right. How is it—Bessie?”
She laughed half hysterically.
“Did you hear that, Mr. Carter? He knows me! He called me by my name!
He is coming to himself!”
The detective shook his head doubtfully. He was willing to admit that
remembering the girl’s name was a good sign, but it was not enough.
“Let me try,” he said.
Touching the young man on the shoulder, he bent over and whispered
sharply in his ear:
“Howard Milmarsh!”
There was a slight movement. But it could not be said that the name had
brought him to his senses. He slumped down in his chair again, and in a
weary voice murmured: “Bessie!”
“The only thing he can think of,” remarked Chick. “He’s a lucky man.”
“I don’t see where the luck comes in, if he’s off his nut,” rejoined
Patsy.
Bonesy Billings, Chick and Patsy were all gathered about him, each one
watching for some other indications of returning intelligence besides
that contained in the single word, “Bessie!”
It was this moment of which Louden Powers took advantage. With a sign
to Lampton, Louden crept toward the door.
But Nick was on the alert, even though so deeply engaged.
“Not yet, Louden!” he shouted, as he rushed forward to cut off the
rascal’s escape.
“Get back!” roared Powers. “You’d better, if you don’t want to get
this.”
He had picked up a heavy, cut-glass water bottle from the table, and
was swinging it around his head.
Nick dashed at him, and Louden let the bottle go with all his force.
The detective ducked, and the bottle went past.
A shriek from Bessie Silvius made him turn quickly.
Howard Milmarsh—the real one—was lying back in his chair, and a thin,
red stream trickled over his forehead.
“Get that fellow!” shouted Nick, over his shoulder, as he rushed to the
wounded man crumpled up in the big armchair.
“I’ve got him, all right,” replied Bonesy Billings.
Billings had backheeled Louden Powers just as he got to the door, and
now was kneeling on the chest of the discomfited scoundrel.
Lampton, scared, was in his chair. He had jumped up when Louden tried
to get away. Then, seeing that the attempt would fail, he prudently
resumed his seat in a hurry.
Nick was examining the wound, putting his handkerchief to it and noting
at the same time that the sufferer was talking rapidly.
“It just caught him with a glancing stroke,” announced the detective.
“It jarred him, but that is all. It is not serious. Just enough of a
concussion to——”
He stopped and looked around him, with a hopeful look in his keen, dark
eyes.
“What’s this?” the wounded man was saying, in a natural, though weak,
voice. “Are we off the roof? Is the fire still burning? We didn’t go
through, did we? Where’s Bessie?”
“Here I am! Here I am!” she answered eagerly.
He took her hand and stared into her face. Then he smiled. This time it
was with as much intelligence as her own.
“Mr. Carter! Mr. Carter!” she screamed.
“Yes?”
“He has got back his senses! Look at him!”
“Do you know who you are?” asked Nick, close to him.
“Howard Milmarsh to you, Mr. Carter. Howard Milmarsh! What is the use
of my saying my name if anything else? You know me. I don’t care who
knows it now, anyhow. I had determined to give myself up. I killed
Richard Jarvis.”
“No, you didn’t. You’re mistaken. You did not kill him,” declared the
detective emphatically. “You will take my word, won’t you?”
“Take your word, Mr. Carter? Of course I will—I must! But are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. I can prove it.”
“Then is Richard Jarvis alive?”
“No. But he died by an accident—after he had quite recovered from
the blow you gave him. It was only a knock-out. He came to in a few
minutes. You were scared unnecessarily. Now you will come into your
own.”
“But—my father? Ah, yes! I know! My poor father!”
Tears—real, comforting, natural tears—flowed from his eyes. They would
have proved, if there had been nothing else, that Howard Milmarsh was
again himself, and that he was prepared to face whatever might be his
fate.
Nick Carter turned away, to see what Bonesy was doing to the prostrate,
cursing Louden Powers.
“Take him away, Billings. Lock him up in a cellar, till the police
come.”
As Bonesy Billings promptly obeyed, by yanking Louden Powers to his
feet as if he had been a sack of oats, Andrew Lampton exclaimed, in a
terrified tone:
“Police? Have you sent for the police?”
Nick waited till Louden Powers was out of the room. Then he went close
to Lampton, and spoke to him quietly:
“Look here, Lampton. I promised that if you brought T. Burton Potter to
me, I would do something for you. I will keep my word by giving you
half an hour’s start of the police. Get out! I’d advise you to get over
the Canadian border as soon as you can do it. Don’t ever show up in New
York again. If you do. I won’t answer for the consequences. Understand?”
Andrew Lampton did understand. He was out of the house almost before
the detective had finished speaking.
“Are you going to bring any charge against me?” whimpered T. Burton
Potter. “Or may I go?”
“I know you are a crook, Potter. But in this case I recognize that you
were led into mischief by stronger wills than your own. Your attempt to
defraud Howard Milmarsh of his rights would mean, perhaps, ten years in
Sing Sing if the charge were pressed. But you helped me find the right
man at last, and I believe you are really sorry for what you have done.”
“Yes. And——”
“Get out of this house,” interrupted Nick. “The same advice I gave to
Andrew Lampton applies to you. Lose no time in jumping over the line
into Canada. You may escape that way. It is your own lookout. Go, and
may you lead a better life in future.”
“I will!” returned T. Burton Potter earnestly. “I have had such a scare
this time that I’m through with crookedness for all time.”
“I hope that’s true.”
“You bet it’s true,” insisted Potter, as he hurried from the room.
“It seems to me that you’re letting all the crooks get away, chief,”
protested Chick mildly. “I think both Potter and Lampton ought to have
been handed over to the police, with Powers.”
“Strictly speaking, according to the law, I suppose they should,”
conceded the chief. “But I have to consider Howard Milmarsh. He has
recovered his senses, it is true—thanks to that bottle over there—but
it will be some time before it will be safe to put him through another
mental strain.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Of course he’s right,” put in Patsy. “He’s always right. It seems to
me that you had a lot of nerve to tell him he wasn’t.”
“That will do,” interposed Nick, smiling. “I can’t afford to have
my two men—both of them the most loyal lieutenants a man could
have—arguing over me.”
“But he said——” blurted out Patsy.
“I know what he said, and he was right, in a way. But there are
circumstances that make it desirable that Howard Milmarsh should take
possession of his estate with as little fuss as possible. I promised
his father that I would see he was allowed to do so, and that’s what I
have to do.”
* * * * *
It was three months after that exciting night at the great Milmarsh
mansion on the hill. Another night of an exciting nature may be
mentioned. The excitement this time was of a much more pleasant kind,
however. The wedding of Howard Milmarsh and Bessie Silvius had just
taken place.
Nick Carter, Chick, and Patsy were all there, together with
Billings—who wore evening clothes, for the first and only time in his
life. Chick had been the best man at the ceremony, and a niece of
Captain Brown’s was the bridesmaid.
Among the guests were all the people who had been swindled over the
Paradise City land project. They had got back their money, with a large
bonus to each person in addition, and now were there to cheer the
finest man who ever had lived in that part of the country, in their
opinion, Howard Milmarsh.
“That’s all right, so far as it goes,” remarked Patsy Garvan to Chick,
sotto voce, “but where would Howard Milmarsh have been to-day if it
were not for the chief?”
“That’s so,” agreed Chick. “Howard is like all of us. He has to take
off his hat to Nick Carter.”
THE END.
No. 1002 of the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY, entitled “A Game of Craft,” is a
most exciting story in which Nick Carter displays his skill, as well as
his courage, in running down smart crooks.
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