FACE TO FACE.
Nick Carter’s feelings upon seeing the sudden display of animosity by
Pete Henley were not manifest in his face. He gazed at the swarthy
ruffian with hardly a change of countenance, apparently indifferent to
the double-barreled gun with which he was covered.
“What’s the joke, Henley?” he asked coolly.
The ruffian had murder in his eyes, and looked as black and threatening
as a thundercloud.
“You’re the joke, Carter, if there’s any joke to it,” he replied, with a
snarl. “You’ve barked up the wrong tree and tackled the wrong bunch.
Stick up your hands, and be quick about it.”
“Certainly, Henley, since you insist so politely,” Nick rejoined,
raising his hands as high as his head.
“Keep them there, now.”
“But you might answer my question, at least, and explain this sudden
change of attitude on your part.”
“You’ll know soon enough,” was the reply, followed by a short, sharp
whistle.
Ginger did not respond to it. He had disappeared around a corner of the
house.
Instead, the back door was quickly opened and two roughly clad men
appeared on the threshold, both still under thirty. One of them
instantly darted back through the hall, and Nick heard him shout to
another in one of the adjoining rooms.
Henley, meantime, growled harshly, with his evil eyes constantly on the
detective:
“Come out here, Foster, and get behind the dick. Feel under his coat and
get his guns. Kneel down while doing it, so I’ll not hit you. I’ll plug
him, all right, if he moves a finger.”
“There will be no occasion, Henley, you rat,” Nick now said sternly. “I
value a whole skin too highly to take any chance against that
blunderbuss in such hands as yours. I see, now, that you have served me
a scurvy trick. Go as far as you like.”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” snapped Henley. “I’m on the way. Got
’em, Bill?”
“Both of ’em, Jim,” returned Foster, who had hurriedly disarmed the
detective and was threatening him with his two weapons. “Who is he?”
“Nick Carter.”
“Thunder! Where did you run up against him? If he----”
“You’re to bring him in, Jim,” cut in the man who had briefly vanished,
and now returned to the open door. “His jags says----”
“Is he out here, Brigham?” Henley interrupted, with countenance
clearing.
“Sure. Been here ten minutes.”
“That’s more like it,” cried Henley. “He can now take the ribbons. Get a
move on, Carter, and--stop a bit!”
Nick halted.
“Feel again, Foster, and fish out his irons. Snap them on his own
wrists, hands behind him, as he will on ours if he gets a chance.”
“You’ve told the truth once, Henley, at least,” Nick put in dryly.
“But you’ll never get the chance,” Henley retorted. “Dukes down and
behind you, Carter, or I’ll pull the trigger.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Nick, obeying. “Point the gun another
way. It might go off by chance.”
Henley heard the snap of handcuffs around Nick’s wrists and saw Foster
straighten up after having secured him, and he then lowered the shotgun
and grinned maliciously.
“You thought you were the real thing, didn’t you, Carter?” he demanded.
“Get a move on and I’ll show you what you’re up against and where you
stand.”
“I can guess.”
“Into the shack, and no funny business, mind you, or you’ll hear
something drop, if you live until you hit the floor. Lead the way,
Brigham. Where’s his jags?”
“In the dining room, Jim.”
“Head that way. Plug along, Carter, where he leads.”
Nick felt the prod of the ruffian’s gun in the small of his back, but he
had no intention of offering any objection. He followed Brigham into the
house, a stocky, ill-favored fellow with fiery-red hair, and in another
moment he heard the door closed and locked behind him.
The hall was dim when the sunlight was thus excluded. It ran straight
through the spacious old colonial house to the front door. A broad, but
angular stairway led up to the second floor. There was a damp and musty
smell in the long-closed dwelling, and the rooms on each side of the
broad hall looked dusty, gloomy, and deserted.
The exception, in the last respect, was the large dining room into which
the detective was conducted by the three crooks.
That room contained only one occupant, however; the man in search of
whom Chick Carter had left the Gordon residence more than an hour
before--Mr. Edgar Hereford Dayton.
He was seated in one of the leather upholstered chairs, pushed back from
the polished table. He did not appear disturbed by what had occurred or
by the advent of the detective upon the scene, though he gazed at Nick
curiously when he entered, flecking the ashes from the end of a
cigarette.
His overcoat and hat were lying on a chair near the wall, and near it
stood a closed leather suit case.
Nick Carter identified him instantly as Dayton--and somewhat more than
that when he spoke.
Henley was the first to open fire, however, addressing Dayton and saying
gruffly, the moment he entered:
“You’d better clean out that town office, old sport, or fight shy from
it now on. I reckon this dick has sent his right bower to keep an eye on
it. Leastwise, I don’t see where else he would have sent him in such a
rush.”
Nick suppressed a smile. It amused him to find that Henley was a bit
more discerning than he had thought him.
Dayton appeared unmoved by Henley’s announcement and advice. He glanced
at the suit case mentioned, then responded with a curious mingling of
coolness and assurance that Nick was quick to remember:
“He is welcome, Henley, to inspect that office. It already is cleaned
out of all that would interest him. Suppose, instead of giving me
needless advice, you tell me just what this meddlesome fellow is after,
and what he has been doing.”
“By Jove, I’m not mistaken,” was the thought then in Nick’s mind. “This
rascal has even more strings to his bow than I suspected.”
“That’s quickly told----” Henley began to reply.
“But better told first hand,” Nick cut in curtly, with his gaze intently
fixed on the man he addressed. “I’ll give you the information you want.
I’ll tell you what I’m after and what I’ve been doing.”
“Ah!” Dayton spoke with an icy drawl. “Better first hand, indeed, as you
say. I do not yet place you, however, nor----”
“Oh, a truce to subterfuge,” Nick again interrupted curtly.
“Subterfuge?”
“You know me perfectly well--but not better than I know you.”
“Indeed?”
“You place me, all right, as I sooner or later will again place you
where you belong.” Nick went on sternly, disregarding the other’s
queries. “A wig, a beard, a reverse curve of the eyebrows, a more florid
skin, an altered voice--it takes more than those to blind me, though you
might get by others. Fly your true colors, Mr. Mortimer Deland, and I’ll
tell you what I am after and what I’ve been doing.”
“Ah! That is a great inducement, so great that I find myself utterly
unable to resist it.”
Deland replied with unruffled composure. He drew up a little in his
chair, gazed steadily at the detective for a moment, then raised his
slender white hands to his head, deftly removing the exceedingly
artistic disguise which Nick alone had been able to penetrate, and which
had fairly transfigured the mobile, sinister, clean-cut, yet strangely
effeminate features of--Mortimer Deland.
Jim Henley and the two frowning crooks near by evinced no surprise nor
made any comments. That Deland was the master, and they merely
hirelings, was perfectly apparent to the detective.
It appeared obvious, too, that Chick Carter must have arrived too late
to have picked up the supposed Dayton before he left his office--a
mischance that would seem to have badly aggravated the present desperate
situation of the detective.
Deland appeared to think so, too, for he smiled with vicious complacency
while he tossed his disguise upon the table, saying with the same frigid
voice and insolent assurance which was so characteristic of him that
they had at once betrayed him to the detective:
“Now, having met you halfway, Carter, and complied with the stipulation
you imposed, it is up to you to perform your part of the brief verbal
contract. Sit down, if you prefer; there are plenty of chairs. I regret
that I cannot release you, but that would be injudicious for obvious
reasons. Tell me, now, as you promised, what are you after and what have
you been doing, that my good friend Henley has rounded you up in this
fashion?”