NICK CARTER’S VENTURE.
Nick Carter’s project was a daring one, even though ventured against
crooks of ordinary caliber. Against as lawless, determined, and
desperate a knave as Andy Margate, who, if Nick’s deductions and
suspicions were correct, had not shrunk for an instant from killing a
priest and abducting a girl to prevent the perversion of his knavish
designs--against a man of that type, such a project was doubly bold and
hazardous.
Nick Carter realized from the outset that he would carry his life in his
hand. He realized, too, that it would be utterly vain to attempt to
pursue the man and the motor car described by Garland.
That they would guard against anything of that kind not only was obvious
to Nick, but he further reasoned that any attempt to do so would surely
be detected, and result only in perverting his own more promising
designs. He preferred to take his own chance, therefore, and to rely
upon the other work about to be done by Chick Carter and Patsy.
Shortly before eight o’clock that evening, a tall man clad in black,
wearing gold-bowed spectacles and a pointed beard, issued from the
Grayling as if he were a resident in the house, and sauntered away
through Vermont Avenue.
This man was Harold Garland, wearing the garments and disguise of the
detective, the same worn by Nick when he visited the office of the
government engineer the previous day.
Nearly an hour later, or close upon nine o’clock, the light in Garland’s
apartments suddenly vanished. Half a minute later, wearing a soft felt
hat, a long frieze overcoat, and a suit of plaid woolen, precisely the
same garments worn by Garland when he visited Margate, Nick Carter
emerged from the apartment house and strode toward the first corner
east.
A man who was turning it just as Nick was approaching it gazed at him
sharply, then smiled and bowed.
“Good evening, Garland,” he said familiarly.
“Ah, good evening,” Nick returned genially.
“I thought I recognized you. A misty night, this.”
“Yes, quite so,” said the detective.
They then had passed one another, scarce two feet between them, and in
the bright glare from a near arc light, and Nick halted on the corner.
“By Jove, that’s quite encouraging,” he said to himself. “That man
evidently is well acquainted with Garland. He felt sure that he
recognized me. He saw me plainly, too, in the bright glare from this arc
light. I also got by with the voice. Having done so under these
conditions, I ought to succeed in fooling Margate. Yes, indeed, it was
encouraging.”
Nick was justified in congratulating himself, in fact, for he had, with
consummate skill and artistic applications of paint and powder,
transformed himself into an almost perfect likeness of the man he was
aiming to impersonate.
It was, as the passing stranger’s remark implied, a fit night for such
an undertaking. A mist hung like a gray pall on the quiet night air. It
obscured all but the brightest stars. A half-filled moon shone through
it only faintly, surrounded with a great circle, like a halo around the
head of a saint.
It was, in fact, a damp, chilly, and disagreeable November night.
Nick gazed up and down the avenue and through the side street. The
latter was less brightly lighted. Lamps of motor cars could be seen in
each direction on the avenue. They came and went, many of them passing
him, but none showing any sign of stopping to pick him up.
Suddenly a clock on a neighboring church began to boom the hour--nine
o’clock.
Nick counted the slow strokes of the bell, falling with sonorous
reverberations on the night air. They brought to his mind the church and
rectory visited the previous morning.
Nick thought of the white, upturned face of the murdered priest, found
dead on his library floor. He thought of the missing girl and wondered
what her fate had been.
His features hardened under these contemplations. His eyes took on a
more threatening gleam and glitter. He was in a fit mood to face danger
in behalf of justice, and bring to righteous punishment the miscreants
guilty of these crimes.
A sudden glare of light shot across the avenue a block away. A limousine
came quickly around the corner and approached the Grayling, but it did
not stop. Its lamps, seen through the gray mist, were like the glowing
eyes of an uncouth monster.
“By Jove, there comes my man,” flashed through Nick’s mind. “He came by
the Grayling in order to see whether Garland’s rooms are lighted. I’ll
turn up my collar to offset the bright light from that electric.”
Nick did so, and then began to think he was mistaken.
The rapidly moving limousine was swerving toward the opposite side of
the avenue. Suddenly it made a quick turn, however, and sped directly
toward the curbing on which the detective was standing.
The door flew open and a man thrust out his head.
“Get in!” he cried sharply. “Be quick!”
Nick sprang into the car and sank upon the seat. The door banged behind
him.
“Let her go, Jimmy!” shouted his companion.
The car had not stopped, in fact, and it now sped on rapidly through the
side street.
Nick’s companion sprang up and gazed intently from the back window until
more than a hundred yards had been covered. Any pursuing car or motor
cycle would have been plainly visible to him. There was none, however,
and the limousine turned again and sped toward Florida Avenue.
The man sat down and leaned from the open window on his side of the car,
that on which Nick sat being closed.
“You’re well away, Jimmy,” he called to the driver. “There’s nothing
doing. Let her go lively.”
Nick had been quick to see that this man was not masked, as when Garland
had accompanied him. No sooner had he a good look at his dark,
thin-featured face, moreover, than Nick instantly recognized him. He
had arrested him in New York more than a year before.
“Bartholomew Lombard, better known as Batty Lombard,” he said to
himself. “The rat I took in for lifting a diamond in Tiffany’s. I’m
certainly in right for the present, at least. I wonder what other
jailbird is driving the machine”
Nick could see only the back of his head and broad shoulders, his woolen
cap and thick overcoat, with the collar turned up to his ears.
“What are you afraid of?” Nick asked, when the man turned and settled
down beside him.
Lombard glanced sharply at him.
“Can’t you guess?” he questioned, with a growl.
“I suppose you think I’ve put the police wise and that you may be
followed,” said Nick.
“That calls the turn,” Lombard nodded. “I’m guarded against that, all
right.”
“Well, that’s not my style,” Nick replied, cleverly imitating Garland’s
voice all the while. “I always do what I have agreed to do.”
“Is that so?” questioned Lombard, with a groan. “Well, you sure have got
a little something on most men, then.”
“Are you the same man who met me before?”
“Don’t I look it?”
“How can I tell? He wore a mask.”
Lombard chuckled oddly, with a mischievous gleam in his narrow eyes. He
drew from his pocket a black bag, replying a bit dryly:
“I’m the same gazabo and here’s the same bandage that you wore. If it’s
all the same to you, Mr. Garland, I will slip it over your block as
before.”
“It’s not all the same, by any means, but I suppose I must stand for
it,” Nick protested.
“Stand for it is right,” said Lombard, rising. “I have to guard against
your putting anything over on us. Safety first, you know. If you had the
use of your lamps, you might serve us some scurvy trick sooner or
later.”
“As scurvy a trick, perhaps, as you rascals are serving me,” Nick
retorted.
“That’s not half bad,” Lombard returned. “We’re letting you down easy.
Some ginks would bleed you to a standstill. You’re playing dead lucky,
Mr. Garland.”
“That’s not my opinion.”
“The which has not been asked for.”
“Are we going to the same place as before?”
“That’s what.”
“Why----”
“Cut it, now,” Lombard interrupted. “There’ll be time enough for a spiel
after you get there. Sit back and keep quiet.”
The rascal had drawn the black bag over Nick’s head while speaking, and
Nick was forced to comply with the last. He settled back in the
cushioned corner and relapsed into silence.
Though enough air entered from the bottom for him to breathe freely, the
thick black bag completely blinded him. It was like being enveloped in
Stygian darkness, and Nick bent his mind upon trying to determine the
course the limousine was taking.
That also proved entirely futile. He soon decided that many turns were
being purposely made, and that they were not going direct to their
destination.
For nearly half an hour, as well as he could judge, the car sped on and
not a word came from his companion.
Nick then felt through the open window a more damp and chilly air, as if
it came from the Potomac.
The varied noises of the city had been left far behind. Only the
occasional distant clang of a trolley-car gong reached his listening
ears. The road had become more rough. He knew that he was passing
through one of the less thickly settled outskirts.
The car at length turned sharply, and Nick sensed that it was entering
an inclosed area of some kind. Suddenly it stopped and he heard the
driver spring to the ground. Lombard opened the door and seized the
detective’s wrist.
“Steady, now, and keep your trap closed,” he said, with a growl. “Step
out of the car. I’ll guide you.”
Nick obeyed without replying.
He felt his way from the car, and then the hand of the driver gripped
his other arm. He felt the crunch of gravel under his feet, then the
stone step of a doorway.
The tread of all three then fell upon bare planking, and Nick could
sense that they had entered a building and were in a corridor of
considerable size, which he determined from the sound of their footsteps
on the floor.
Nick had taken only a few steps, however, when he felt the two men
thrust him through another doorway. Their hands left his arms. He heard
the crash of a closed door behind him--and then found himself alone and
in sudden silence.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he asked himself, recalling what Garland
had told him of his own experiences. “This isn’t quite in line with what
he stated. Have these rascals----”
Nick held his breath for an instant.
The floor on which he stood was descending.
“An elevator!” flashed through his mind. “Garland mentioned an elevator,
and that he was taken down to the room in which he met Margate. This
must be the same place.”
The descending floor stopped in a few seconds, so gently that Nick
rightly inferred that electricity was the motive power. He reached out
in each direction and could touch only--four bare walls.
“By Jove, I’ll find out what kind of a box I’m in,” he said to himself
abruptly. “I’ll not wait for these rats to show me.”
Nick removed the black bag and still found himself in inky darkness. He
could discover in no direction the faintest ray of light. He waited a
few seconds, thinking he might be released from these stuffy quarters,
but not a sound broke the tomblike silence.
Deciding not to use his searchlight, lest it might betray him if he was
being covertly watched, Nick fished out a match from his pocket and lit
it.
The flame revealed four bare walls of wood, a ceiling and floor of like
planking, the whole forming a boxlike structure about five feet square.
As well as he then could judge from the brief flickering light from the
match, there was no way to open it from the inside.
“Box is right, by Jove,” he said to himself, with increasing suspicions.
“I may be in more of a box than I bargained for right off the reel. Can
it be that these rascals already suspect----”
A quick, metallic snap cut short Nick’s train of thought.
A panel in one of the walls flew open, slipping quickly to one side. It
revealed a window about a foot square and nearly six feet from the
floor.
Through it came a flood of electric light from a corridor, only a small
part of which could be seen by the detective.
Nick’s attention was instantly claimed, moreover, by something more
portentous--the head and face of a man gazing through the bright
opening.
They were the head and face of--Andy Margate.