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?”