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.
If your dealer cannot supply this book immediately, he will get it for
you.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
79 Seventh Avenue New York City
Everybody
Knows
Horatio Alger
But does everybody know that nearly all of his celebrated books may be
had in paper covers at a most modest price?
It would seem so, from the orders for the Alger books that are just
rolling in.
If you want to give your boy friends a big treat, ask any news dealer
to sell you a few of the Alger books he has in stock.
Big value in these days of high prices.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
79 Seventh Avenue New York City
A REQUEST
Conditions due to the war have made it very difficult for us to keep in
print all of the books listed in our catalogues. We still have about
fifteen hundred different titles that we are in a position to supply.
These represent the best books in our line. We could not afford, in the
circumstances, to reprint any of the less popular works.
We aim to keep in stock the works of such authors as Bertha Clay,
Charles Garvice, May Agnes Fleming, Nicholas Carter, Mary J. Holmes,
Mrs. Harriet Lewis, Horatio Alger, and the other famous authors who
are represented in our line by ten or more titles. Therefore, if your
dealer cannot supply you with exactly the book you want, you are almost
sure to find in his stock another title by the same author, which you
have not read.
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
substitution, because the books by the authors named are very uniform
in quality.
In ordering Street & Smith novels by mail, it is advisable to make a
choice of at least two titles for each book wanted, so as to give us an
opportunity to substitute for titles that are now out of print.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION,
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York City.