NICK CARTER STORIES

New Magnet Library

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Not a Dull Book in This List

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Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from all sorts of trouble, and landed the criminal just where he should be—behind the bars.

The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories than any other single person.

Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth covers which sells at ten times the price.

If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

{3}

A Sharper’s Downfall

OR,

INTO THE NET

BY

NICHOLAS CARTER

Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures,
which are published exclusively in the New Magnet Library,
conceded to be among the best detective tales ever written.




STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
{4} 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

(Printed in the United States of America)


All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
{5}

A SHARPER’S DOWNFALL.

CHAPTER I.

A SUCCESSFUL BURGLARY.

In Thirty-fifth Street, east of Fifth Avenue, there is a house conspicuous among its neighbors in that it differs in construction by being of the variety known as the English basement style.

Entrance to the house is secured through a door reached by one or two steps from the pavement. The dining-room of the house is nearly on a level with the street, while the parlors are on the second floor, reached from the lower hall by a flight of stairs.

The front parlor is enlarged and the front of the house ornamented by a bay window extending some three feet beyond the line of the house.

It was not so long ago that, at an early hour in the morning, a man carefully and cautiously lifted a sash in this bay window, and, thrusting out his head, sounded a low whistle as a signal.

Had any one been present on the opposite side of the street, or looking from the windows of the houses opposite, they might have seen another man cautiously come from a corner of the little courtyard in front, and, after a careful look up and down the street, return the signal in the same cautious manner.

Thereupon a bundle was let down from the bay win{6}dow, which was quickly detached, the rope drawn back and another bundle lowered, which, as the other had been, was detached and the rope drawn up again, and this time to lower what appeared to be a heavy box.

Immediately after, something was thrown from the window which in shape looked like an old-fashioned portmanteau, but was smaller.

Then a man rapidly let himself down from the window until he was within four feet of the ground, when he drew a knife, cutting the rope above him.

This gave him a drop of at least four feet, but it left only a short end of the rope dangling from the bay window at a height not likely to attract the attention of a passer-by, the evident object of cutting the rope.

In the meantime, the man below had shouldered the heavy box and rapidly run down to the east, to the corner below, where he had been met by a man who had come from a carriage standing around the corner.

This one took the box from him, and the man rapidly returned to pick up one of the bundles concealed behind the fence and the article that had been thrown from the window.

As rapidly he ran down the street as before, the while the other man, who had come from the parlor floor by the rope, stationed himself across the street and anxiously looked up and down as if standing ready to make a signal.

As the man with the bundles disappeared around the corner, with no interference, the other dashed across the street, and, seizing the last bundle left, hurriedly ran to the east.

He had hardly shouldered this bundle and set out on his run when a man came into view at the corner on the west, quickly catching sight of the fellow running to the east.

He came from the west on a run, and, arriving opposite{7} the house where these strange things had occurred, stopped a brief instant to look. He noted the open window and the dangling rope.

Without hesitation he hastily ran down the street to the east, but reached the corner too late for any purpose except to see a carriage some distance off, going at full speed.

This man was Nick Carter, the famous detective.

Nick immediately realized the folly of attempting to follow the carriage, which had so great a lead, though he was satisfied that there had been a robbery of the house and that the carriage contained the booty as well as the thieves.

He contented himself with sounding an alarm, in the hope that the attention of the policemen on the beats along which the carriage traveled might be directed toward it and their suspicion excited.

But, so far as he was able to judge, the only result of his alarm was to call to him a policeman from another direction than that in which the carriage went.

“What is it, Mr. Carter?” asked the officer, coming up on a run, and recognizing the famous detective.

“Robbery, I fancy,” replied Nick; “and that carriage contains the thieves and what they’ve stolen.”

“We’d have to be race horses,” said the officer, looking after the carriage now disappearing in the distance, “to overcome that lead.”

“No; it is useless to attempt to follow it,” replied Nick.

“Where was the job done?” asked the officer.

“Up there in Thirty-fifth Street,” replied Nick. “Is that your beat?”

“Yes, and I was over it half an hour ago.”

“They waited for that,” replied Nick. “Come with me and let us look at the house.”

They went back to the house, where Nick pointed out{8} the open bay window and the short end of the rope dangling therefrom.

The officer went inside the little yard and found the rope that had been cut off lying on the ground.

He picked it up, and, looking at the end, said:

“This rope has been cut with a sharp knife.”

Nick joined him, and, looking at the end, agreed with the officer, while both wondered why it had been cut.

“Do you know who lives here?” asked Nick.

“Yes; the man’s name is Jacob Herron.”

“What is he?”

“A Wall Street man.”

“A broker or banker?”

“I don’t know what he is. A sort of speculator, I guess. Anyhow, he’s a pretty big man.”

“Well,” said Nick, “we ought to arouse the family and make an investigation.”

The two went to the front door, where the officer rang the bell several times without securing a response.

Then he beat on the door with his night stick, sounding an alarm on the stoop as well.

This finally aroused some one in the upper story, who raised a window to ask what all the row was about.

“Come down and let us in,” replied the officer. “You have been robbed.”

“Who are you?” asked the voice above.

“A police officer, and Mr. Carter, the detective,” was the officer’s reply.

The head was quickly withdrawn from the window, and, after the two on the stoop had waited what seemed to them a long time, a light flashed up in the hall and the door was immediately opened.

The two stepped in to see a young man of possibly twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age standing there{9} with neither coat nor vest and his bare feet thrust into slippers.

“You say the house has been robbed?” asked the young man. “I see no indications of it.”

“They are not likely to be found in the halls,” said Nick. “But I should judge they are to be found in the parlor above.”

The young man without a word led the way up the stairs to a furnished hallroom, into which the stairs opened. Here he lit one of the lights of the chandelier, and Nick saw in a glance that the parlor in the front communicated with this furnished hall, occupying the whole width of the house.

They entered the parlor to discover little that was noteworthy. The window was open in the bay, and they could see in the parlor, what was not observable from the street, that a side window of the bay had been raised sufficiently to permit a rope to pass under the sash, and that the rope had been made fast around the division between the windows.

There had been little, if any, disturbance of the furniture. On a sofa in the corner lay a silver mug.

Nick pointed to the mug, without making comment upon it, however.

“What room is that at the rear of the house?” he asked.

“I suppose it might be called the library,” replied the young man, “since all the books that are in the house are there. It is the largest room in the house, and is occupied by the family in the evenings when the folks are at home.”

“Then the family is not at home?” asked Nick.

“No, Mr. Herron has gone to Chicago, and took his wife and daughter with him as a sort of a pleasure trip for them.”

“Who are you?{10}”

“I am George Temple, a nephew of Mr. Herron.”

“Are you a member of this family?”

“In a way,” replied the young man Temple. “I am very intimate here, but I am here now only because the family are away. Uncle Jacob asked me to sleep here and guard their house in his absence.”

“Well,” replied Nick, “it doesn’t seem as if you guarded it much.”

“No,” laughed the young man, “I never heard anything until I heard the sound of the officer’s club on the door.”

“Take us into that rear room.”

Temple led the way across the hall to this room, which occupied the whole width of the house, lighting a jet of the chandelier.

If there had been no indications of a robbery elsewhere, there were plenty to be seen in this room.

Two handsome desks had been forcibly opened and rifled, the contents being scattered on the floor; that is to say, such as had not been carried away.

The drawers of the bookcases had been pulled out, their contents hastily pulled over, much having been thrown on the floor.

In a hasty glance about the room it did appear as if every object in it had passed under the hands of the thieves.

There was not a picture hanging straight on the walls, and there were many in the room.

“Mr. Temple,” asked Nick, “did your uncle keep anything of special value in this room?”

“What do you mean by special value?” asked Mr. Temple.

“Something which your uncle especially valued, was very careful of and generally kept hidden.{11}”

“I know of nothing of the kind,” replied Temple. “Why do you ask that particular question?”

Nick pointed to the pictures, saying:

“It would look as if the thieves, in hunting for some special things which they did not find, had hunted behind every picture in the room. The inference is that they knew that some object of value, which they were anxious to obtain, was concealed somewhere within this room.”

The young man, Temple, looked curiously at the detective, as if the remark of Nick indicated a shrewdness not known to him, but he made no reply.

“Do you miss anything from this room?” asked Nick.

The young man closely examined the room, and, completing his investigation, came back to Nick to say:

“I miss two rather valuable bits of bronze that my uncle picked up abroad. However, it may be that before leaving on this journey these bronzes and other valuable things were picked up and locked away. You see, I only stay at the house occasionally, and though I am here nearly daily, I am yet not as familiar with it as if I was living here all the time.”

“What room were you occupying when we aroused you?”

“The front room on the fourth story.”

“Were there any servants in the house?”

“No; you see I only sleep here, and Uncle Jacob gave his servants a sort of vacation until his return.”

“The rooms on the floor above, who are they occupied by?” asked Nick.

“The front room by Uncle Jacob and his wife; the rear room by his daughter; and the room between as a nursery.”

“Take us to those rooms.”

The three mounted to the third floor, and on enter{12}ing the front room the first thing that attracted Nick’s attention was a little house safe in the corner.

The door stood wide open and the safe itself was empty.

Nick examined the lock and saw that it was of the combination order.

Apparently the safe had been opened by one familiar with the combination.

“What was kept in this safe?” asked Nick.

“I don’t know; I never knew the safe was here. I have not been in this room in a long time.”

It was clear that every drawer and receptacle in the room had been rifled in great haste, articles having been thrown upon the floor in the most reckless manner.

Investigation showed that the daughter’s room in the rear had been treated in the same manner.

The little party now went down to the first floor, and, entering the dining-room, saw that it had been literally stripped of its plate.

“Was it valuable?” said Nick.

“On my word,” replied Temple, “I couldn’t tell you whether it was genuine silver or merely plated ware. My impression is that there was a great deal of silver here.”

“When will Mr. Herron be back?” asked Nick.

“He’s expected back to-morrow.”

Nick turned away after saying to the policeman that he had no further business there, and that the officer should make his report to the station house as quickly as he could.

He then left the house.{13}

CHAPTER II.

ANOTHER PHASE.

The next morning Nick Carter had hardly concluded his breakfast when a card was brought to him by the servant.

He smiled as he read it, and, tossing it to his wife across the table, said:

“I expected that call, but hardly so early.”

He went into the parlor, where a middle-aged man rose to greet him.

“Mr. Carter, I presume,” said the visitor.

Nick bowed and requested his visitor to be seated, seating himself in such a position that the light fell on the face of his caller.

“My card has given you my name,” said the gentleman.

“Yes, Mr. Herron,” replied Nick; “I visited your house last night, or, rather, early this morning, but you were not at home.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Herron, “and under circumstances that are not at all to my liking. I arrived home early this morning, and, on learning that my house had been robbed in my absence and that you had been promptly on hand to investigate, I have lost no time in coming to you, for I understand, from something you said to the officer, that you had no intention of following up the case.”

“That is so,” replied Nick; “unless I am especially retained in the case, it is without my province.”

“I am here to retain you, if you will take my retainer.”

“I should like to hear more about the case before I{14} either accept or decline,” said Nick. “If it is an ordinary case of robbery, the police will deal with it.”

“First,” said Mr. Herron, “I would like to ask you what impression was received by you on your investigation last night. Evidently you think it is more than an ordinary robbery.”

“That was my impression last night,” replied Nick. “It seemed to me as if the men who robbed that house were searching for some one particular thing.”

“You are entirely correct,” replied Mr. Herron. “So well satisfied am I of that, that I believe that such things as were taken from the house, other than that particular thing, were so taken for the purpose of leading to the belief that it was a common burglary.”

“I should hardly go so far as that, Mr. Herron,” said Nick. “There were too many evidences of the work of skillful and professional burglars to justify that belief. But give me the facts.”

“Silver plate and jewelry were taken from the house to the value of probably $8,000. The jewelry was taken from a small safe standing in my wife’s bedroom.”

“Was that safe locked when you left town?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Herron, “and the curious thing is that, before leaving town, I changed the combination without informing my wife of the change—a habit of mine always on leaving town.”

“Did you tell no one of that change?” asked Nick.

“I told no one, but, making a memorandum of it, placed it in my pocketbook.”

“And yet the safe was opened?” asked Nick.

“Yes, and without force.”

“I observed that your plate was kept in a dining-room safe?”

“Yes; and that has, also, a combination lock. That,{15} however, was not changed, and was in the possession of the butler, who is an old and trusted servant.”

Mr. Herron paused a moment, and then went on:

“Of course, no one likes to lose a value of $8,000, but I would have been quite willing to have sustained that loss if that which I believe was the sole purpose of the burglary had been left me. It was for that that the desks and drawers were ransacked. That cost me, in actual outlay, $25,000, and, in the loss of its possession, deprives me of what I feel that I am justified in calling a large fortune.”

“What was that?” inquired Nick.

“The story is a long one to tell in all its details. But I will give it to you as briefly as I can.

“Some five or six years ago an acquaintance of mine, whom I knew to be a worthy man—an electrician of the name of Pemberton, who was a great experimenter—came to me with the statement that he was satisfied that he had discovered the practical principles of storing electricity and of operating a motor with a minimum of leakage, by an invention of his own.

“He had not the money to continue the experiments necessary to bring it to perfection.

“Becoming convinced of the value of the idea, I loaned him the money he required, with the understanding that, if it was successfully accomplished, upon the investment of a sufficient amount of purchase money, I should become interested and have a part ownership in the complete invention.

“From time to time I was forced to advance more money. But finally the experiments ended in complete success. Drawings were made, with a view to obtaining the patent rights, and even the papers which were to make me a half owner in the invention were drawn.

“About the time that everything was in readiness, the{16} model even being completed, the electrician was taken suddenly ill and as suddenly died. The drawings and models were all in the possession of his widow. As soon as I could, properly, I made known to the widow what rights I had in the invention. While neither denying nor admitting my rights, she consulted a lawyer who had done business for her husband, who advised her not to admit my rights, but to see if she could not dispose of the invention in a more profitable way.

“However, by showing her that I had already advanced to her late husband some fifteen thousand dollars and the papers of co-ownership, which were drawn, but not signed, whereby I was to pay the expenses of obtaining the patents, and subsequently to invest fifty thousand dollars in the manufacture of the machine, I persuaded her to admit that I had actual rights.

“To bind and confirm her in this position I paid her ten thousand dollars, and thus got possession of the drawings and models.

“But she had already consulted some promoters, and the very day that she concluded this arrangement with me and delivered the models and drawings, on receiving my ten-thousand-dollar check, an offer, on its face more advantageous to her, was made.

“An effort was made by her and her friends to get out of the bargain entered into with me and a suit to recover the models from me was begun.

“At this time a new difficulty arose, and that was the doubt and difficulty as to the procedure in obtaining the patents. There had been, upon the part of my deceased friend, no assignment to me, and who was to act in obtaining those patents was a question.

“I was advised by my lawyer that the executors of the estate were the ones to move in it and that executor was{17} the widow, who was in an antagonistic position to me, and refused to take the necessary steps.

“But the secrets of that invention—all the drawings, models, statements, papers relating to it—were in my possession.

“I carefully guarded these, going to the lengths of having a case built which should accommodate and keep safe all of them, under lock and key.

“And then I sat down to await developments.

“Various efforts have been made by the widow, through her lawyer, and by a number of promoters who, at least, know the value of the invention, to obtain possession of these things, but I have defeated every effort until now.

“That case, containing the drawings, models and all the papers relating to it, was stolen from my house last night.”

“And you desire to retain me to recover that case?” asked Nick.

“That is my purpose and the reason of my call.”

The great detective arose from his seat and began pacing the apartment, as was his custom when deeply thinking.

Several times Mr. Herron attempted to break him from his thoughts, but Nick imperatively motioned him to silence. At length, he stopped short, and, turning to Mr. Herron, said:

“Under your statement, there is justification for your belief that the sole object of that burglary was the obtaining of that case, which, you say, contains all the matter relating to the invention. Still, I am inclined to believe that that burglary was the work of professionals.”

“Then we are far apart in the way we look at it,” said Mr. Herron.

“Not necessarily,” replied Nick, sharply. “Let me ask{18} you, are these promoters you speak of as desiring possession of this invention men who have a fair standing before the world?”

“Yes; I must admit that,” said Mr. Herron.

“Are they men, do you think, who would, in their great desire to obtain possession, themselves commit a burglary?”

“Oh, no; and I don’t want you to think that they are banded together against me. They are as antagonistic to each other as they are to me.”

“I should assume that, in any event,” said Nick. “But suppose that there was one so much more desirous than the other to obtain possession that he would even engage in desperate means, do you think he would commit a burglary? To take the chances of ruining his reputation by entering a house at night?”

“It is very hard to believe it, in the way you put it.”

“Very well, then. For the sake of my argument, let us assume that there is one among them who is unscrupulous enough to take desperate means, and see if we cannot get together on common ground. Suppose that, instead of committing a burglary, he hired some one to get possession of that case. Could we not, therefore, account for the disappearance of that case as being the real reason of the burglary, and yet meet my statement that the tracks of professionals were seen in the house?”

Mr. Herron leaped to his feet in excitement, crying:

“You’ve hit it! you’ve hit it exactly!”

“Don’t go so fast,” said Nick. “That is only a shrewd guess on my part, a supposition likely to be changed at the very first step that I make in a serious investigation. However, your case appeals to me, and I will take it. As a first step, I want you to go with me to my desk, and there carefully note down the names of all those promoters who you say have been trying to get posses{19}sion of those papers. Write down, also, the name and address of the widow, of her lawyer and yours, and as full a description of the case you had made to contain those papers and models, together with a full list of the contents of that case.”

Nick took Mr. Herron into the room in which he did his work, and placed him at his desk to comply with his request.

While Mr. Herron was thus at work, Nick busied himself with summoning his three faithful aids—Chick, Patsy and Ida—by telephone.

By the time Mr. Herron had completed his writing, the three detectives had arrived, and Nick, dismissing Mr. Herron with the remark that three lines of investigation must be begun at once, devoted himself to a consultation with his three assistants.{20}

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST STEPS.

Nick related to his three aids, in the first place, his experiences of the night previous, when he had happened on the heels of the burglary.

This he followed by a statement of the information that had been given him by Mr. Herron, and, concluding, said:

“This promises to be a most interesting case. I am impressed with the straightforwardness of Mr. Herron. Still, there may be another side of his statement, or case, and he may not have been wholly frank with me, though I am inclined to believe he was. I shall immediately set out on that point.

“Under Mr. Herron’s statement, suspicion naturally turns to one of the parties anxious to obtain possession of that invention.”

“And to the widow,” said Ida.

“If not to the widow,” said Nick, “to some one representing her, or standing as a representative of her. But we must not lose sight of the fact that, after all, this may have been the commonest kind of a burglary and that the burglars took the case they found in the house simply because it was in their way to do so, and without the slightest knowledge of the value Mr. Herron and the others put upon it.

“To look after that end of it—that is, after those who actually did enter the house—must be Patsy’s work. It is a difficult job, Patsy, and I hardly know how to give you a starting point. But, if you will go to the neighborhood of Thirty-fifth Street and make careful inquiries,{21} you may be able to find some one who saw something of those men and the carriage that will give you a starter.”

Patsy nodded, but seemed to be thinking of something else.

“Well?” asked Nick. “What is it, Patsy? You’ve got something on your mind. Out with it.”

“It’s this, chief,” replied Patsy. “Say, didn’t you say that his nibs, this Herron, had a case made to hold those papers?”

“Yes,” replied Nick.

“Well, then,” said Patsy, “the thing is whether anybody, except Herron, knew of this case.”

“You mean,” said Nick, “whether any of those who are opposing Mr. Herron knew that the models and papers were kept in a case especially made for them by Mr. Herron?”

“That’s what I mean,” said Patsy.

“It’s a very good point,” said Nick. “If they didn’t know, and if the knowledge of such a case was confined to Mr. Herron, it would go far toward throwing a doubt on his suspicions.”

“Yes,” said Chick, “it would raise a doubt; but, after all, there is that search through all the drawers and desks that you say was so plain and that made you think when you saw it that the thieves were looking for some one particular thing.”

“That’s just what I was thinking of,” said Ida. “If they were so strict in their search that they even looked behind pictures hanging on the walls, you may be sure that they didn’t leave any trunks, satchels, dress-suit cases or any other kind of cases unsearched, and, in doing that, might have hit upon this case, and, opening it and seeing the model, found just what they were after.”

“Nevertheless,” said Nick, “Patsy’s point is a good one,{22} and, working on that line, he is quite likely to hit up against something. And so, Patsy, you would do well to see Mr. Herron, find that out and get from him the name of the person who made the case, and, perhaps, from that person you may find something of value. However, that is your line.”

Turning to Chick, he said:

“You take this list of promoters, Chick, and find out all you can about them—what sort of men they are and what their associations are.”

To Ida, he said:

“I want you to get acquainted with the widow and find out what you can. It is even hard to suggest what it is you are to find out. But if you get her confidence, she may tell you some things as to those who have made her offers that will be valuable in this inquiry. As for myself, I shall again go to the Thirty-fifth Street house to make a closer investigation, and I will take up the lawyer with whom Mr. Herron has consulted.

“Now, let us scatter and meet later in the day to compare notes and determine upon a plan of action in the light of more knowledge than we have now.”

Nick Carter’s first step was a visit to the house in Thirty-fifth Street, where he found Mr. Herron awaiting him.

“Since my return, I have carefully figured the value of the articles taken from the house,” he said to Nick. “All of the jewelry left in the safe in my wife’s room is missing. The value of that is about five thousand dollars. All of the plate that was genuine silver has also been taken. The value of that does not exceed twenty-five hundred dollars. Fortunately, Mrs. Herron had deposited in the safety deposit vaults the more valuable part of her jewelry some two weeks ago, as not being required for some months to come. Thus, the loss is figured down to{23} about seven thousand five hundred dollars, apart from the case, concerning which I am so anxious.”

“Then,” asked Nick, “apart from that case, what was taken was from the safe in Mrs. Herron’s room and from the dining-room safe?”

“That is all,” replied Mr. Herron. “Now, I want to say that, with that case out of my hands, there stands me, in an actual loss, about thirty-three thousand dollars. My anxiety to-day is to secure the return of that case and its contents. In securing that I secure what represents to me an outlay of twenty-five thousand dollars. I am quite willing to sacrifice the other valuables in order to get that case back again. Indeed, I am willing to spend more money, and, with this statement, I turn the matter over to you to do as you think best, pledging myself to respond to any demand you may make upon me.”

Nick looked at Mr. Herron very seriously for a moment or two, and then said:

“I presume you know, Mr. Herron, that there is such an offense in the eyes of the law as compounding a felony.”

Mr. Herron nodded his head rather doubtfully, as if he did not comprehend wholly the words of Nick. The detective went on:

“Your words might be tortured into the meaning of instructions to me to compound this felony.”

“I do not intend,” said Mr. Herron, “to do anything wrong. I want to impress you with the idea that my main desire is to recover that case and its contents intact, even if it be at a considerable cost to myself.”

To this Nick made no reply, merely bowing, and said:

“There was a young man in the house last night with whom I talked, Temple by name.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Herron, “a nephew of mine—the son of a sister—who, though not living with us, is, never{24}theless, very intimate in the house. He slept here during the absence of the family, at my request.”

“Do not think, Mr. Herron,” said Nick, “that I am pointing to, or giving expression to, any suspicions in the questions that I shall ask. I am seeking all sorts and every little bit of information in them. Now, then, you trust this young man?”

“Utterly.”

“What are his habits?”

“Excellent.”

“He does not dissipate?”

“No; not in any direction. If he is under any criticism as to his course of life, it is that he is too much devoted to athletic sports, and that they have the only interest he has outside of his business relations.”

“What are his business relations?”

“He is the secretary and treasurer of a small manufacturing concern, of which I am the chief owner, and he is my representative in that affair.”

“Now, as to his associations?”

“He is a member of an athletic club and spends most of his leisure hours with its members, and, I have inquired to learn, they are a very proper set of young men, whose chief aim is to bring their physical powers to as near a point of perfection as possible.”

“What is that organization?”

“The Grecian Athletic Club.”

Nick made a memorandum of this club, and turned his attention to the safe in the dining-room.

A close investigation satisfied him that, by some means, the combination had been found, and the safe opened without force. He also found what had not been observed by Mr. Herron—that the draperies in the parlor had been used to wrap up the plate taken from the safe.{25} Going to the smaller safe in Mrs. Herron’s room, there were also indications that that safe had been opened in a like manner.

Mr. Herron had stood by silently while the detective was making these investigations, and when Nick turned from them he asked:

“Well?”

“I told you this morning,” said Nick, “that I believed skillful and professional burglars had been at work here. A second examination satisfies me that I was right in that statement, and I go further and say that a skillful lockman was at work.”

“Ah!”

Mr. Herron made this exclamation, but in a tone that suggested to Nick that he did not comprehend its significance.

“You do not take in all my meaning,” said Nick; “it means that I can narrow the search for the burglars to a comparatively small circle. There are not so many skillful lockmen among the burglars who are not pretty well known to the authorities.”

Nothing had been changed in the house since the arrival of Mr. Herron and his wife, and Nick again went over the work done by the burglars in searching the desks, drawers and other receptacles in the house.

Though he made no comment, he was satisfied that while an exhaustive search had been made for some particular thing, it had been made without method or purpose. In other words, the thieves had proceeded to a search without definite information as to the place wherein the thing sought was kept.

Evidently, all that was known was that Mr. Herron kept these drawings and models within his dwelling-house, and that information might have come from Mr. Herron himself.{26}

Nick questioned Mr. Herron on this point, but, when the gentleman could not recollect that he had ever told any one the fact, neither could he assert that he had not mentioned it.

As a matter of fact, the second examination of the house had not added to the great detective’s knowledge, although it had confirmed him in certain beliefs.

“This house was entered by professional burglars,” he said to himself. “Whether they entered simply for the purpose of burglary, and, finding the case, carried it away with them, or whether they were employed to enter this house to obtain that case, and took the plate and jewelry because they could do so easily, are questions which I cannot determine on this showing.”

He was in Mrs. Herron’s room when he said this to himself, and, thinking it over, he went to the front window and looked out.

On the opposite side of the street, seated on the lower step of a house immediately opposite, was Patsy, talking to an ill-favored specimen of a man similarly seated.

A single glance assured Nick that Patsy was not idling his time, but was there for a purpose.

Whether he was watching for him or not, Nick could not tell, but he drew the curtains aside and placed himself close to the window.

Patsy saw him at once and made a series of rapid signals to Nick.

They meant to Nick that Patsy had hit upon a man important in their search, that he wanted the man followed while he, Patsy, could make a change in his appearance.

Telling Mr. Herron that he had no more business in the house and would at once begin the search, Nick descended the stairs, and, opening the front door, stood{27} a moment within the vestibule, where he signaled to Patsy with his hands that he had understood him.

Patsy immediately got up, and, after a word or two with the fellow beside him, walked off in the direction of the west without looking behind.

The fellow slouched down the street to the east and Nick went after him at a safe distance, taking the precaution to cross the street, so as to be on the same side with him.

Nick did not know the purpose of the shadow, but he had confidence enough in Patsy to take up the lines suggested blindly.

The man led Nick to Third Avenue, where he turned to the right, or, toward Thirty-fourth Street. Here Nick made a mark in red chalk on the corner, which should indicate to Patsy the direction in which they turned.

At the corner of Thirty-fourth Street, the fellow crossed to Third Avenue and stationed himself against a pillar of the elevated railroad, from which point he could keep an eye on each of the four corners. He watched each of these corners as if he were waiting for some one.

Nick put himself out of sight, after he had made a mark on the pavement with red chalk, that would tell Patsy, on his return, that he was there, and waited.

But he did not wait long, for Patsy, in an excellent make-up of an east-side tough, slouched up.

Seeing the mark on the pavement, he looked about, first to locate the man followed, and then for his chief.

Nick beckoned to him from a doorway, and Patsy went to him.

“What is it, Patsy?” asked Nick.

“He’s a crook,” said Patsy. “I’ve known him this long time. He wasn’t in the Thirty-fifth Street job, but he’s on to it and is doing a little fly-cop work himself.”

“I don’t catch your meaning,” said Nick.{28}

“It’s this way: The fellow is Spike Thomas. He suspects that two men that he has worked with sometimes, had a job last night. He suspects that that job was the Thirty-fifth Street house. He’s wanting to get on straight, so as to get into the divvy. He tumbled to me as being on your staff and he tumbled to you at the door. He knows we’re working on the case, and he tried to put it over me to find out how much we’d found out.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That we had found out nothing and suspected nobody. And that was dead right, for we don’t, yet.”

“Did you find out whom he suspects?”

“Oh, no. He’s too fly for that. But I’m certain he’s laying for the two that he thinks did it.”

“He probably thinks right,” said Nick. “He makes a starter for you, Patsy.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Patsy. “Anyhow, I’ll stick to him and see who he talks to and how he talks.”

“That’s right,” said Nick, “and I’ll leave it to you, while I go on other lines.”

Nick went away, and Patsy placed himself for a long watch.

Spike Thomas still stood at the corner, keeping a sharp eye on all who passed or appeared on any of the four corners.{29}

CHAPTER IV.

OVERREACHING A SHARPER.

An hour passed, during which Spike Thomas waited as patiently as Patsy, on the opposite corner, patiently watched him.

At the end of that time Spike showed by his action and his vigilance that the person or persons for whom he had watched had come into view.

Presently two men crossed from the lower side of Thirty-fourth Street to the corner where Spike was standing, and as they passed him, carelessly nodded to him.

Spike spoke to them and they halted.

What passed between them of course Patsy could not tell, but it evidently ended in an invitation to drink on the part of one of the two strangers, a man who in his outward appearance looked like everything else but a thief and burglar.

As Patsy was preparing to follow, he suddenly became aware that a man had stopped on the pavement immediately in front of him and was regarding the group across the street most intently.

Looking at this man closely, Patsy quickly recognized a celebrated detective from Chicago.

Stepping up to him, Patsy called him by name, revealing himself to the Chicago sleuth.

“What do you know of those men over there?” he asked.

“Are you after them?” asked the Chicago man in return.

“I am after the one who is on the corner that they{30} spoke to. He is Spike Thomas, a New York crook, second-story man.”

“That dressy man that’s talking to him,” said the Chicago man, “is Jimmy Lannigan, the swell crackman of Philadelphia. He’s the best lock man in the world. I was surprised to see him here, for I supposed he was in St. Louis. He was in Chicago all last winter, and while we suspected him of several jobs, we couldn’t fix it on him.”

By this time the three men had entered the liquor saloon on the corner, and Patsy said:

“I’d like to talk to you a little longer, but I must get closer to those people.”

He slipped across the avenue and the Chicago sleuth went his way.

Peering into the saloon, Patsy saw the three men standing in a little group at the bar.

There was no one else in the saloon, and Patsy did not dare to enter lest his appearance should be noted. But he did see that Spike Thomas was urging something strongly on the one the Chicago sleuth had called Lannigan, and he heard the latter say in a rather loud voice:

“We can’t talk about it here. Let’s go to another place.”

Patsy retired from the door and took such a position on the corner that he could observe both the front and the rear doors.

In a few minutes the three men appeared at the front door and, turning the corner, walked down Thirty-fourth Street in the direction of the East River.

Patsy sauntered after them. It was not a difficult matter to keep them in sight, although from time to time both Thomas and Lannigan looked behind them. Patsy thought it was more because of habit than in a belief they were followed.{31}

Their way took them to the last block of the street, and here they turned into a saloon which was well filled with customers, and where they could easily talk without attracting attention.

At the rear of this saloon, in the corner, was a table and some chairs.

At it Spike Thomas, Lannigan and his companion sat down and immediately entered into a close conversation.

In the beginning the talk was almost entirely conducted by Spike Thomas, Lannigan’s replies seemingly being a series of denials.

By and by, Patsy drifted to the table next to the party but which was still some little distance from it, too far away, indeed, to hear what was said by the three, as they talked in a low tone.

Finally, however, Spike Thomas raised his voice a bit, apparently a little angry, and said:

“What are yer givin’ me. I know you was into it. And yer had a right to take me in. It’s no way to treat a pal. I got something up me sleeve, and if you don’t take me in on de level I’ll make trouble for yer.”

Lannigan merely laughed and called for some more drinks, but the third man was evidently inclined to regard seriously the threat conveyed in Spike’s words.

Speaking to Lannigan in a low tone he rose from his seat and took Lannigan apart and talked earnestly and vigorously.

Whatever it was that was said made an impression upon Lannigan, and he turned abruptly and went back to the table.

“See here, Spike,” said Lannigan. “You don’t want to do anything ugly until you know what you’re doing. Billy and I can’t talk with you until we’ve been across the river. We’ll be back inside of an hour and see you{32} right here. If there’s a whack into anything you’ll get your share.”

The two tossed off their drinks, and rising, immediately left the saloon.

Spike Thomas remained at the table, looking, as Patsy thought, much dissatisfied with the outcome.

“Anyhow,” said Patsy, “Spike will remain here for an hour or two.”

Suddenly Patsy rose to his feet and sauntered from the saloon.

He ran up the street hastily and turned the corner.

Half an hour later a young fellow, rather jauntily dressed but, nevertheless, one in whom the east-side tough showed, came down the street and turned into the saloon where Spike was awaiting the return of Lannigan and his companion.

Arriving in the center of the barroom he gave a flip to the brim of his hat with a snap of his finger, sending it back on his head, gave a characteristic hitch to one shoulder and, with a protruding chin, walked over to the table where Spike Thomas sat.

“Say, Spike, I’ve been lookin’ for youse,” said the newcomer.

Spike looked up with a frown on his face and curiously regarded the other fellow.

“Well,” he said, “youse has found me. What’s de trouble?”

“Say, Spike,” said the new man. “Does youse know anything about dat job of crib-cracking up in Thirty-fifth Street?”

Spike partly closed his eyes and regarded the other keenly and suspiciously. At length he replied:

“Naw! Nor youse eder, Bally Morris.”

“Dat’s right,” replied the other, “I don’t know much{33} for a fact. But I got a couple of lines onto it dat you can work if yer knows who did the job.”

Again Spike looked at the young fellow, but this time it was not alone suspiciously, but with an evident desire to have him show his hand. He altered his tone and manner toward the newcomer.

“Have some booze?” he asked.

As the lad he called Morris sat down at the table he said a little more genially:

“What about dem lines youse has got?”

“Dey’s all right if yer knows who did the job,” replied Morris.

“S’pose I did it, meself,” said Spike, with a wink.

“Well, I knows youse didn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause de job was done before one o’clock dis mornin’ and youse was wid yer rag down to Rivington Street along about dat time.”

“Dat’s right,” exclaimed Spike, with an oath, “and if it hadn’t bin for de rag I’m t’inkin’ I’d been into de job. She got me out of de way of it.”

“Den,” said Morris, eagerly, “youse does know who did it?”

Spike gave a huge wink and smiled a knowing smile.

“I’m kinder onto it meself,” said Morris. “I’m t’inkin’ I ain’t guessin’ far wrong when I’m sayin’ it was de swell lag Lannigan.”

Spike gave such a start as made Morris say:

“Dat’s de way you t’ink, too.”

“Well, I’ve got a squint dat way,” reluctantly admitted Spike. “But, wot’s dem lines youse got?”

“Well, de first one is dat Nick Carter is in de case and Patsy Murphy wid him.”

“I got dat line meself,” said Spike. “I knows Patsy,{34} dis long time. I seed him dis mornin’ an’ I tumbled to de job.”

“Well, here’s a line you ain’t got. De lags took out of de house a case wid some papers in it wot’s worth more’n fifty times what all de odder things is.”

“Wot’s dat you’re givin’ me?” asked Spike, roughly. “Wot are yer gittin’ to?”

“It’s dis. Some big feller in de dark put up de job of gittin’ de lags to git hold of dat case. Dey put up for it, but nothin’ like wot it’s wurth. Why, man, dere’s thousands and thousands in dat case and dere’s more’n one dat would put up big for it.”

Spike pricked up his ears, for he began to see what was meant and of what use the knowledge of it would be to him in his contest with Lannigan.

“Oh, gwan!” he cried. “You’re dopey. Youse dreamin’.”

“Naw, I ain’t dreamin’,” exclaimed the other. “His nibs dat lives in de crib dat was cracked would give enough to make us all rich, to git dat case back wid wot’s in it.”

“Say,” asked Spike, “where did you get dat line?”

“De same where you got your line,” said Morris.

“Patsy Murphy?”

“De same.”

“How did he come to do dat?”

“Dat’s wot he’s lookin’ for,” said Morris. “Yer see, he’s lookin’ for dat and nottin’ else. You know Patsy is an east sider, an’ he tackled me to know if I knew who did de job, den he’d give all his insides to me about it.”

“Yes, he did!” said Spike, incredulously.

“Dat’s right. He did. An’ he said dat he was talkin’ wid you afore he seen me and if he hadn’t been a chump, he’d split to you to see if you wouldn’t give him a pointer on de fellers into de job.{35}”

“Dat’s right,” said Spike, thoughtfully. “An’ I give him de chance when I was pumpin’ him as to whether he knew who did de job.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Well,” said Morris, “I was t’inkin’ dere was somethin’ into it for you and me if you handled it right. I was t’inkin’ if you was dead onto de right lags, dat youse could go to ’em an’ give ’em a tip about the wuth dere was into de case and get ’em to hold it up; den youse who wasn’t into de job could dicker between dem as wants it bad and Patsy’d be one to dicker wid.”

Spike slapped the table with his hands so hard that every one in the room turned to look, but Spike was too earnest to notice this. To Morris he said:

“Yer right, kid, yer dead right. Yer’ve got a big line. Now, see here, I know who did de job. I’m dead certain of that, dough dey won’t say dey did. But wid what you give me I’ll make ’em talk on de level. Now, kid, youse must git out of here, for dem as I t’inks did it will be here soon. I’m on de dead level wid youse and you got yer rake in whatever I pulls off.”

“All right,” said Morris.

He got up from the table, pulled his hat over his brows, and then swaggered out of the barroom.

Reaching Thirty-fourth Street he walked to the west quite rapidly and on the second corner above as he turned to the left he came into close contact with another, an encounter which caused him to step back with a decided start.

Then he laughed aloud, most heartily, and if at nothing else, at the look of vast astonishment which spread over the face of the other person. Both the laugh and the look of astonishment were justified.

The man he had encountered was an exact duplicate{36} of himself. They needed but a band between them to become Siamese twins.

Finally, recovering from his astonishment a bit, the other reached out as if he would take Morris by the shoulders, saying:

“Here, cull, wot’s all dis?”

“It’s all right, Bally Morris,” replied the other, who himself had been called by that name by Spike Thomas.

Suddenly the other bent forward, peering keenly into the face of his counterpart and almost shouted:

“Hully chee! It’s a plant. De cull is painted for me. Dat’s right.”

Again the other laughed so heartily that he could not reply, and while he was holding his sides his counterpart cried out:

“Wot’s de game? Give up now. Who’s youse?”

“Patsy Murphy, Bally Morris,” replied Patsy, for it was Patsy. “I didn’t think I’d run up agin’ you so far away from de Bowery. But come along till I get dis make-up off me.”

Somewhat dazed and wholly bewildered, the east-side tough followed obediently the one who had made himself into such a skillful resemblance.

“But I say, Patsy,” he asked, “what was you up to?”

“Nothing that’ll hurt you,” replied Patsy, “but if you’ll play up to de line it may put some dollars into your pocket.”

Patsy found on the corner below a drinking-place and, going into the washroom, quickly removed the make-up that had made him look like Bally Morris.

Then he took Billy into the barroom and told him just what he had done in his disguise.

“Now, Billy,” he said in conclusion, “I haven’t made you do anything that’ll hurt you or any one else. If you’ll take up my lead now and not let Spike know that{37} I faked him so, there’ll be some boodle for you from somewhere. Do yer see?” He continued: “I’m tryin’ to stop that case from going into the hands of people that, if it ever reaches them, can’t be got out of by the right owners.”

When the real Bally Morris comprehended the whole scheme he was quite willing to fall into it and do as Patsy wanted him to do since there was no danger for him, but a chance of profit.

“Are you goin’ to be on the level with me?” asked Patsy.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” replied Morris. “Dere ain’t anyt’ing in it for me any odder way.”

“Then,” said Patsy, “get down to that place and watch Spike. And meet me on the other corner an hour from now. Wait for me till I come.”

Patsy hastened to report, for he believed that he had made most important discoveries.{38}

CHAPTER V.

DRAWING THE LINES.

While Patsy was meeting with his experiences, Chick had been making inquiries as to the five promoters, each of whom had been endeavoring to obtain possession of the drawings and models of the deceased inventor.

Inquiry, skillfully conducted, had satisfied Chick that at least four of them had gone no further than to make offers to the widow for possession of the drawings.

In these offers, there may have been no regards for the rights of Mr. Herron, and, if the widow had accepted one of them, they would have taken an unfair advantage of that gentleman. But, as to going any further and taking a step into crime for the purpose of securing them, Chick was well satisfied they had or would do nothing of the kind.

They were men of standing and reputation.

He did find out that these four had banded together in a new offer to the widow if she could obtain possession of the drawings and models again to deliver to them, and that this offer was made peculiarly advantageous to her in order to induce her to stronger efforts to regain them from Mr. Herron.

As to the fifth, whose name was Mortimer Seaman, Chick was by no means so well satisfied.

He found by inquiry that Seaman was regarded by those who knew him best as a keen, sharp, unscrupulous man, who was reckless in his methods and who, more than once in his career, had trod so near the line dividing honesty from dishonesty that he had barely escaped punishment.{39}

He was charged, in more than one instance, of having robbed inventors of the fruits of their labors and discoveries, and had, in one case, openly boasted of the shrewdness with which he had secured certain patent rights without paying for the same.

Indeed, a cloud of scandal and doubt and suspicion seemed to surround the man, and Chick also learned that his credit at the banks and other financial institutions was by no means of the best.

Pursuing his inquiries into his private life, he found that Seaman had two sides therein. One, that he was interested in athletic sports, and the other, a rather rapid side, since he was much given to gambling.

In short, in the daytime he was a projector of commercial schemes and a promoter of stock companies, while at night he was a man about town familiarly known in the Tenderloin.

“If any one undertook such desperate means to secure those papers as hiring burglars,” said Chick, to himself, “Mortimer Seaman is the man.”

He went to Nick Carter to report his inquiries to his chief.

“Chick,” said Nick, “what you have discovered fits in very well with some things I have learned to-day, and together the two discoveries make a pretty strong showing.

“Before calling on Samuel Elwell, who is the lawyer who acted for the inventor and is now acting for the widow, I made some pretty close inquiries as to his standing. In those inquiries I have learned that, since the death of the inventor, Elwell and Seaman have been seen together very frequently, but almost wholly in the evenings and uptown. I cannot learn that Seaman ever called at Elwell’s office.

“The fact that they met at night would in itself be of no sort of consequence, perhaps; but when I called on{40} Elwell he denied ever having seen Seaman, saying that he was unacquainted with the person. This looks bad on the face of it, and, at all events, shows that Elwell is an unreliable person.

“Elwell is the man who drew up the articles of agreement between the inventor and Mr. Herron, which had not been signed at the time of the death of the inventor. He, therefore, well knew what the intention of the inventor was, and what value the inventor had received from Mr. Herron. Yet it is he who advised the widow to accept the offer Seaman made and who had been trying in her name to recover the drawing and models from Mr. Herron.”

“And your conclusion is—what?” asked Chick.

“My conclusion is,” replied Nick, “that Elwell is not acting sincerely for the widow, is advising her badly with the intention of profiting in the enterprise himself.

“Mr. Herron’s lawyer tells me that Elwell had abandoned his suit against Herron for the recovery, since he found he had no standing in court; and, when Mr. Herron’s lawyer refused to make such concession as would enable the case to be tried, Elwell lost his temper, declaring that if they were not permitted to proceed on legal lines they were not to be blamed if they took to illegal ones. In short, Chick, Mr. Seaman and Mr. Elwell are both men to be watched.”

They had arrived at this stage of the consultation, when Patsy came in, in great haste.

“I have got to get back again as quick as I can!” he exclaimed, “so let me spiel first.”

Consent having been given him, Patsy told his story—a story that elicited the heartiest praise and laughter from Nick and Chick.

That which struck Chick as the most humorous was that Patsy, after having assumed the disguise of an east{41} side crook, and as he was hastening away with a view of getting rid of it, should run against the original himself.

When the story was ended, Nick said:

“If I had been at your elbow, Patsy, to have you do exactly what I wanted you to do, you could not have done better than you have done. It was a bright idea of yours, having found out pretty closely who the men were who did the job, to make them hold on to the case, and not deliver it.

“From what Chick and I have learned to-day, added to your very important discoveries, I think we can set out on the line, and not be very far wrong, that Seaman employed Lannigan and his companions to go into that house for that case.

“That’s the line that we have got to work on now. If we can connect Seaman and Lannigan, I think our theory will straighten out into fact.”

“I wish,” said Chick, “I had known all that we now know before I left the neighborhood of Seaman’s office.”

“Why so?” asked Nick.

“Because,” replied Chick, “I fear that that trip of Lannigan and his companion across the river, that Patsy tells of, was to meet Seaman and, perhaps, to deliver to him there that case.”

“I don’t think so,” said Patsy, positively.

“And why not, youngster?” asked Chick.

“Because the biggest ‘fence’ there is around here is on that side of the river, in Long Island City. I don’t know how long it has been there, but a crook told me about it a week ago, and, when I heard Lannigan and the other fellow say they were going over to the other side of the river, I dropped that they were going to make arrangements for taking the stuff they took out of that house in Thirty-fifth Street over there.”

“I think Patsy is right,” said Nick. “I hardly think{42} that they would cross the water to meet Seaman. But I do fear that that case has already been delivered to Seaman—was delivered before day broke.”

Chick looked up quickly at Nick, and said:

“Then it is your plan to make the fight on the Seaman line.”

“Yes,” said Nick; “after the developments of to-day I am satisfied that if we recover that case, it will be from Seaman. However, we are hardly in deep enough to be positive about anything. I have great hopes from what Patsy may learn this afternoon. And, Chick, I think the thing for you to do now is to put yourself on Seaman’s trail and follow him up to see where he leads you.”

“If that is so,” replied Chick, “I had better get to him as soon as I can.”

“And I must get back to my assistants,” laughed Patsy.

Without further delay, both Chick and Patsy left the room and hurried off in their different directions.

The two young detectives were hardly out of sight when Ida made her appearance to report the results of her labor during the day.

As she entered, Nick said:

“I hardly expected to see you to-day, Ida. But your coming now would indicate that you have something to say.”

“I have,” replied Ida. “I have seen and had a talk with the widow, Mrs. Pemberton.”

“So soon?” said Nick, highly pleased. “That is very quick work, Ida.”

Ida laughed, and replied:

“I had unusual good luck. Finding out where Mrs. Pemberton lived, I saw at once that her next door neighbor was a friend of mine. Going there, to that friend, I{43} found out that the two—my friend and Mrs. Pemberton—were quite intimate friends. At all events, very neighborly—frequently exchanging calls. That is how I came to meet her so quickly. While I was in the rooms of my friend, Mrs. Pemberton ran in, and it was not a difficult matter to get Mrs. Pemberton to talk of that which is nearest to her heart.”

“That was, indeed, unusual luck,” said Nick.

“Nick Carter’s luck,” said Ida, with a laugh.

“No,” replied Nick; “if it was anybody’s luck, it was your luck; but I don’t think luck has anything to do with it, after all. It is hard work and quick seizure of opportunities when they present themselves. And your luck was in seizing quickly the opportunity you saw. But what did you learn?”

“The chief thing that I learned,” said Ida, “is that Mrs. Pemberton is beginning to believe that she has been badly advised and that she believes that it would have been better for her had she followed the intentions of her husband and stuck to Mr. Herron. She is poor and without money.”

“But she has the ten thousand dollars that Mr. Herron gave her for the drawings and models.”

“No, she has not,” replied Ida; “that was returned to Mr. Herron when she decided to accept the offer of the other people and demanded the return of the models and drawings?”

“But it was not returned,” replied Nick.

“She said to-day that it was,” replied Ida.

“She gave the check to Mr. Elwell, her lawyer, who says that he returned it to Mr. Herron.”

Nick started to his feet, crying:

“The infernal rascals! They mean to rob her of everything. If they have got those drawings and models{44} through the robbery of last night, she will not get a single penny.”

The detective began to pace up and down the room hurriedly. Suddenly he stopped and asked:

“Did she mention a man of the name of Seaman in her talk?”

“Yes; he is the man who made the offer that induced her to go back from the arrangements with Mr. Herron.”

“Was Mr. Elwell with him at the time?”

“Yes; she mentioned him as being present at the time they concluded the arrangements with Mr. Seaman. Mrs. Pemberton said that Mr. Elwell wrote a paper in her rooms at the time, binding her to let Seaman have the drawings and models, and Seaman to the payment of certain sums of money at certain periods, which they both signed.”

“They are a pack of rascals!” again exclaimed Nick. “Elwell knew that Mrs. Pemberton was in honor bound to let those drawings and models go to Mr. Herron, and that, in accepting the check of ten thousand dollars, she was legally bound. But he has stolen that check and left her without a cent. I must prevent him from realizing on that check if it is not too late. Follow up your acquaintance with Mrs. Pemberton, Ida.”

Nick hurried to the office of Mr. Herron and learned from him that up to twelve o’clock that day, the check for ten thousand which he had given to Mrs. Pemberton had neither been received nor tendered to him, and that it had not been presented for payment.

Under Nick’s advice, he hurried to the bank to stop its payment unless it was presented by the one in whose favor it was drawn.{45}

CHAPTER VI.

A STRANGE MEETING.

When Patsy returned to the place he had appointed to meet Bally Morris he was surprised to find that person waiting for him with Spike Thomas.

So warm was their greeting of him that Patsy began to think that they regarded him as one of their pals.

As the proper way to open up the business of such importance, Spike asked Patsy to join him in a drink, and when they were ranged at the bar, Spike said:

“I say, Patsy, was youse on the dead level or was youse givin’ Bally a stiff about dat case?”

“No,” said Patsy, soberly, “I was on the dead level about it. Say, I’m givin’ it to you straight when I’m tellin’ you me boss is only in the case for to get that leather case with the papers in it. He’s got to git it some way, and he’s sizin’ it up that it’s got to be got by comin’ down wid de dust.”

“Dat’s straight talk,” said Spike.

“Of course it’s straight,” said Patsy. “It’s one of the cases where you play your cards wid the faces up. Somebody swiped the papers. The man from whom the papers was swiped wants ’em bad and they’re wuth more to him than to anybody else. To get ’em back he’d forget in a minute that his crib was cracked. Now that’s all there is in it.”

“Does youse know for sure dat de leather case was swiped?” asked Spike, earnestly.

“Sure.”

“Does youse know who did the swiping?” asked Spike.{46}

“No; I don’t know anything about it,” said Patsy. “But you do.”

“I think I do, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Oh, come off,” said Patsy. “You know that Lannigan and another fellow did the job.”

“Dat’s just what I think,” said Spike, earnestly. “I’m dead certain of it, but not knowin’ it for sure. Dey won’t say so.”

“Say,” asked Patsy, “didn’t they come back as they agreed to from the other side of the river?”

“Yep, dey come back all right, all right, but dey wouldn’t talk.”

“What did they go across the river for?”

“I’m blessed if I know.”

“Then I’ll tell you what for,” said Patsy. “They went across there to stow the sparklers and the tin. The fence, you know.”

Spike started up with great interest.

“Oh, come now,” said Patsy, “you don’t want me to t’ink, Spike, that you’re so far behind that you don’t know that the safest fence around here is across de river.”

“Oh, I heard so,” said Spike, humbly. “But, honest, Patsy, I ain’t never been dere, for there ain’t been nothin’ doin’ wid me so long dat I’m parched back to the roots of me tongue.”

“Well,” said Patsy, “that’s what they went across the river for. But I ain’t got nothin’ to do about that. My peepers are on that leather case.”

“Well, anyhow,” said Spike, “when dey come back dey wouldn’t talk any more than before dey went.”

“You mean,” said Patsy, “that they wouldn’t say whether they were in that job in Thirty-fifth Street or not.”

“Dat’s what I mean,” said Spike.{47}

“But, say,” said Bally Morris, speaking for the first time, “Spike put it at ’em anyhow.”

“Put what at them?” asked Patsy.

“Oh, I put up de story as to dat case and wot there was into it if dey held on,” said Spike.

“How did they take it?” asked Patsy.

“Dat’s just it,” said Spike. “Dey took it all in and dey swallowed it for gospel truth. Den de two culls looked at each other and I seed dey meant to freeze on it, but was goin’ to freeze me out. Say, Patsy, it was a clean trow down. Dey’s goin’ to play dere own hands on de tip I give dem and freeze us out.”

“Are you goin’ to let ’em?” asked Patsy.

“Not on yer solid nut,” said Spike. “You stand by and see what de next shuffle of de cards turns up for trumps.”

Spike and Bally Morris winked at each other and laughed.

“We ought to take Patsy in,” said Bally Morris.

“No, no,” said Spike. “Patsy don’t want to be in on dis game. He don’t want to know nothin’ about it, but all de same we’re on de dead level with him. You don’t want to be in dis shuffle, Patsy, but you’ll be in all de same on de scoring.”

Patsy understood by this that something was going forward that, in the opinion of the two, it was best for him to know nothing about until it was all over, but that it was in the line of his wishes.

Spike drew himself up, and, with a wink and a leer, said:

“I’m a little of a fly-cop meself and we ain’t doin’ so bad after all; are we, Bally?”

“Not on your life,” said Bally.

The two toughs laughed heartily, and Spike added:

“I give Lannigan de glad hand and put him on to de{48} boys when he landed here. But he’s trowed me down. Maybe he’ll want to know who trowed him up.”

To this Patsy made no remark.

He was anxious to get away in order that he might follow the two toughs, for he knew that they had entered into some sort of a scheme in connection with this matter.

“Well, Spike,” he said, “if you don’t want to let me in to what you’re up to, all right. I’ve been on the dead level wid you and, anyhow, you ought to be with me.”

The tough made the strongest protest in his own language that he had no idea of going back on Patsy, and the young detective slipped away.

He did not go far, however, but, concealing himself in a place where he could not be observed, watched to see the two toughs come from the drinking place where he had left them.

They came out in a short time and went in the direction of Thirty-fourth Street, turning to the east.

Patsy slipped after them and cautiously followed down the block in Thirty-fourth Street to see them meet, on the next corner, a young lad of their own kind, not more than sixteen or seventeen, who told something to Spike which gratified him to such an extent that he grasped Bally Morris’ hand and shook it hard as he capered a clumsy dance on the sidewalk.

The two then turned on their heels, walking in the direction whence they had come.

Patsy was put at some difficulty to get out of sight in time, and only did so by hiding behind a signboard leaning against a grocery store.

The two passed on to Third Avenue, Patsy in fairly close pursuit.

Reaching Third Avenue, Bally Morris made an inspec{49}tion of the drinking saloon on the corner and soon came out shaking his head at Spike.

The two then walked up Third Avenue rather leisurely, followed by Patsy, until Forty-second Street was reached. Here again Bally Morris went into the liquor saloons on the corner and came back to report to Spike standing on the upper corner.

The place was not an easy one for Patsy to keep the two in sight.

For a time the two manifested no disposition to leave that corner and, while Patsy was wondering what their purpose was, he caught sight of Chick coming down Forty-second Street rather stealthily. Patsy looked around to see whom he was following, and finally hit upon a low-sized, broad-shouldered man, dressed in the extreme of fashion, who was walking down the street in a vigorous and self-satisfied way.

Patsy at once put himself in a position where he could signal Chick that he was nearby.

Chick caught the signal and immediately returned one which meant that Patsy should come to him if he could.

As the man Chick was following reached the corner of Forty-second Street and Third Avenue—that is to say, the northeast corner—he stopped and looked about in every direction.

Apparently he did not see the person he was looking for, because he settled himself for a wait. This gave Chick an opportunity to cross the street to where Patsy stood.

As he came up he asked:

“Shadowing?”

“Yes,” replied Patsy.

“Who?”

Patsy grinned and replied:

“My two assistants.{50}”

“What are they doing?”

“I don’t know, but they are up to some game that I can’t see through. Who is your man?”

“Seaman.”

“The deuce!” replied Patsy. “What is he here for?”

“I don’t know,” replied Chick, “but I followed him here from Broad Street.”

“He is waiting for somebody?” asked Patsy.

“It looks that way,” said Chick, “and I think it’s Lannigan.”

At this moment Patsy caught the arm of Chick, and giving it a hard grip, nodded his head up the street.

Chick turned to see Nick Carter coming down on the same side of the street on which he had followed Seaman.

“He’s on the shadow,” said Patsy.

“Yes; but who?”

“I ain’t sure,” said Patsy, “but I’ll bet that it’s that man with the black frock coat, black hat and full beard.”

Chick and Patsy both separated in order that they might give the signal to Nick that they were in the neighborhood.

But each kept their eyes upon those they were following.

Spike Thomas and Bally Morris were still standing on the corner they had selected, and Seaman was on the corner opposite them.

As Nick neared the corner he made a rapid signal which showed that he had received theirs, but made no effort to join them.

In the meantime the man Chick and Patsy had selected as the one followed by Nick went on to the corner, where he went to Seaman, touching him on the shoulder and shaking hands with him.{51}

“I’ll bet,” said Chick, “that the man is the lawyer, Elwell.”

“How do you know?” asked Patsy.

“I don’t know,” said Chick, “I am only guessing.”

In the meantime, Nick Carter had concealed himself at a point from which he could watch the man he had followed.

Seeing that he was in conversation with some one on the corner, he called Chick and Patsy to him.

“Elwell?” asked Chick, as he came up.

“Yes,” said Nick. “Do you know who he is talking with?”

“Yes,” said Chick. “It is my man Seaman.”

“Seaman?” repeated Nick. “That is strange. They have met here by arrangement.”

“To meet some one else,” said Chick.

“And why are you here, Patsy?” asked Nick.

“I followed my two assistants here,” said Patsy, “from the foot of Thirty-fourth Street.”

“It is very strange that following men from different parts of the city we should all meet here,” said Nick. “But we must separate. It won’t do for us to bunch together here. But keep in touch with each other, boys.”

Chick slipped across the street, closely followed by Patsy, but on the other side Chick took up a station near the elevated railroad pillar, while Patsy, going further, crossed Third Avenue and took a station there, where he could more easily watch the two who were his especial charge.

He had been there but a moment or two when he saw signs of excitement in Spike Thomas and Bally Morris.

They evidently were trying to conceal themselves from the view of some one on the opposite side of the avenue.

Patsy made an effort to see if he could determine who or what was the cause of this excitement, and saw Lanni{52}gan coming down the avenue with the same man he had seen in the saloon in Thirty-fourth Street.

It struck him at once that Chick and Nick did not know Lannigan, and so he slipped across the avenue again, using a passing street car for a cover, and reaching Chick, said to him:

“Lannigan and his pal are coming down the street.”

At this moment, Lannigan came into view and immediately went up to Elwell and spoke to him.

“That’s him,” said Patsy, “speaking to Elwell. Let the chief know who it is.”

He stepped back to look at his own men and saw that they were hastening up Third Avenue at a rapid gait.

Without waiting further, he darted after the two, well satisfied that the one they had concealed themselves from, and from whom they were now running, was Lannigan.

In the meantime, the four men on the corner had exchanged a few words, and then Lannigan and his companion turning, followed by Seaman and Elwell, led the way into the saloon on the corner near them.

Chick crossed Forty-second Street to Nick, saying:

“The two who met our men were Lannigan and his pal.”

“Does Seaman know you?” asked Nick.

“I do not think so,” replied Chick.

“Then slip into that saloon and see if you can get near enough to hear what their talk is about.”

Chick walked away hurriedly and entered the saloon.

Nick took up a position on the street, where he could watch both entrances, and waited for developments.{53}

CHAPTER VII.

TAKING CHANCES.

In the meeting of Seaman, Elwell and the one Patsy said was Lannigan, Nick saw strong confirmation of the theory that he had been inclined from the first to believe.

That was that one at least of the promoters who, on the inventor’s death, had tried and failed to get hold of the drawings and models through the widow, was now engaged upon the desperate enterprise of hiring a burglar to enter the house of Mr. Herron and steal them.

As a result of Chick’s investigation, it appeared that Seaman was the only man likely to engage in such an enterprise, although nothing had been discovered that in the slightest degree connected him with that burglary.

His own investigation as to Elwell, the lawyer, had led him to suppose that the lawyer had seized in the death of Pemberton, the inventor, and the ignorance of the widow as to business matters, an opportunity to increase his own financial gains by a control of the model and drawings.

But all of this was simply the result of shrewd suspicion, in which there had been nothing pointing to who had entered the house, nor anything even hinting at a conspiracy between the lawyer and the promoter on the one side and the burglars on the other.

Patsy’s experiences of the day, however, had supplied, if not knowledge, at least suspicion as to who that burglar was.

Now, the meeting of the three in a part of the city so remote from the haunts of at least two, indicated that they{54} were on the right track. And what had been mere suspicion was rapidly getting into the shape of fact.

Lannigan was a new hand in New York. That he had even come to the city had been unknown to Nick. He had never seen him nor come in contact with him, but he had heard of him as a most skillful thief whose line of work was principally that of opening safes, as some of the Philadelphians knew to their cost, for it was in that city he was suspected of making his headquarters.

Nick had heard that he had learned the trade of safe-lock making and had become an expert in opening safes where the combination had been lost. That the expertness he had reached in this had been his undoing, as he had been persuaded into doing this work for burglars who had opened the way for him to enter banks and other places where money was stored.

Nick had sent Chick into the saloon for the reason that he feared he would be recognized by Elwell, on whom he had called earlier in the day.

He had supposed that they had entered this saloon only for the purpose of taking a drink, and would soon come out again, for he believed that the meeting was for the purpose of receiving from Lannigan the drawings and models.

But as the time was prolonged, he began to believe that matters were taking a shape quite different from what he had supposed.

Finally, by the aid of a wig and a false mustache and a change of hat, he made a sufficient change in his appearance to prevent Elwell from recognizing him, and then he entered the saloon himself.

There were a number of persons standing about and ranged along the bar, but in a hasty glance around he could see none of the three under suspicion, nor was Chick at once visible.{55}

At the rear of the saloon there was a partition about man high that formed of the corner a small private room.

The door of this room was open, and as Nick pushed his way cautiously toward the rear, he could see that the three men were seated about a small table in the center of that room.

A glance at them was sufficient to see that matters were by no means moving along smoothly between them.

Lannigan and his companion seemed to be opposed to Elwell and Seaman, the first of whom was apparently pleading with the other two.

Looking around quickly for Chick, Nick saw in the angle made by this partition and the side wall, and not far from the door of the small room, a man intently engaged in reading a newspaper held in such a manner as to utterly conceal his face and body.

Nick surmised that the person behind this paper was Chick, and that he had gotten as close to the party within the room as he could without discovery.

Going back to the front of the saloon, Nick gave a whistle, which was one of the signals between himself and his assistants, and, watching the paper held by the man in the corner, saw a peculiar flirt of it, which assured him that he was right in supposing Chick was behind him.

From the fact that Chick did not change position, he was also satisfied that Chick was on the track of something which he regarded too important to leave.

And so, working himself down by degrees to the rear of the room, he began an examination to see if it were possible for him to get close to this room at a point where he also could hear what was going forward within it.

He observed that at the end of the bar was a large ice box in which the larger beer kegs were put, and that{56} at the back of that was a small room where was the washstand. Between this ice box and the small room and the one in which the four were seated, was a small passageway which led to a door, which, in Nick’s judgment, opened into a hallway from which the upper part of the building was gained.

Nick immediately left the saloon by the front door, and, walking along Forty-second Street, found a rear door at the end of the building, which, on trying, he found opened into the hallway he had supposed was there.

On his right, a few feet further on, was a door, and on trying this he found it to be the one he had seen from the barroom.

Cautiously passing this, he turned quickly into the small room where was the washstand. In the corner of this room was a chair, which he mounted and saw that he could climb to the top of the ice chest where, lying at full length, he would be well concealed.

It was but the work of a moment to place himself in that position.

When there he found that he could hear quite well, though the people within the room were talking in a low voice.

Finally Lannigan spoke in a tone made louder by his irritation. And his words fell quite distinctly on Nick’s ears.

“What’s the use of going over that again,” said Lannigan. “You didn’t give it to me straight in the beginning. You gave me a stiff that the papers wasn’t of much value, of no value to the man that had them, but only to you, and that the best they would do if they were in your hands would be to save you time.”

“Well, that is true,” said Seaman. “We were bound to get them by law, but it would take a year or more to do so.{57}”

“Stop it,” said Lannigan. “There’s no use of lying any more about it. You played me for a chump. You never came to me on the job until you found out there was no way in law by which you could get them. If there had been you wouldn’t have come to me at all.”

“You have been misinformed,” said Elwell.

“No, I haven’t,” said Lannigan. “I’ve got it all straight. And you lied to me about the money there was into the papers. There’s been a big race for these papers, and there’s more than one that’ll bid high to get them. I am on to it straight when I say that the man from whom they was took would put up fifty thou. to have them back.”

“Oh, you’re wild,” said Seaman.

“Wild nawthin’,” said Lannigan, angrily. “Yer tried to give me a gold brick, and if it hadn’t been for what I found out this morning you would. No thousand casenote is goin’ to get that thing from me.”

“A thousand dollars for an hour’s work at your own trade, with six or eight thousand dollars of stuff besides that you took out, isn’t much of a gold brick,” said Seaman.

“It’s the chances I took,” said Lannigan, “that puts the price on.”

“You got away with the chances all right,” said Seaman.

“No,” said Lannigan, so sharply that his voice rang. “Nick Carter is on the hunt at this minute. Do you know what that means?”

“I suppose it means,” said Seaman, carelessly, “that he’s trying to find out who went into that house during the night.”

“I’ll tell you what it means,” said Lannigan. “It means that the smartest man on earth is right at my heels, and{58} that I’ll be lucky if I get out of town without being nabbed.”

“But——”

“It means that to get for you what will make you big rich, I may have to do time in the cage. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m not goin’ to do that for any little thousand casenote, now that I know how much those papers are worth to you and others.”

“Lannigan,” said Elwell, “there’s a side to this that you don’t seem to look at. You are striking so high that the people I represent, and Seaman here, can’t reach it. Now, we will admit for the sake of argument that there are others that will pay well for those drawings, perhaps more than we will pay. But if you go back on the bargain that you entered into, there is no reason why, if we lose the papers, that we should keep our mouths shut about the thefts of those jewels and silver plate. The taking of them was all outside of our bargain.”

“You mean,” said Lannigan, “that you would peach on me?”

“If you go back on your word and your bargain, there is no reason why we should have any friendship for you. This game isn’t all your own.”

There was a moment’s pause in the conversation, and then Lannigan said, in a most threatening tone:

“There are sharp knives and straight-shooting revolvers, and all the undertakers are not dead.”

“So,” replied Elwell, “you are threatening to add murder to your list.”

“No,” replied Lannigan; “I am only telling you that you can’t fool me. That’s all.”

There was a movement and sound as if somebody had thrust back a chair and risen to his feet.

“But what’s the use of talking?” said Lannigan. “You got my say. If you want them papers what’s into that{59} leather case you can get them for fifty thou. I’ll give you until to-morrow, this hour, to think it over, and if you don’t come down I’ll make the best deal I can with the man I took them from, and I know how to do it.”

There was the sound of a step or two and Seaman’s voice was heard.

“Wait a moment, Lannigan,” it said, “I want just a word.”

There was silence some four or five minutes, when Seaman was heard again:

“Lannigan,” he said, “we’ll make you a new offer. We haven’t got the money you demand. It’s a big sum. But I stand ready to make this deal with you now, if you’ll take it. If you will deliver those drawings and the model to me this afternoon, I’ll give you five thousand dollars in cash and my promise in writing, well indorsed, to give you fifty thousand dollars when this thing is sold to the company that stands ready to buy and manufacture.”

There was no reply to this for a moment or two, and Seaman added:

“It’s the best I can do, and in giving you five thousand I give you every cent I have. I can’t make the sale, which is all ready to make for big money, unless I’ve got these things in my hands. And that’s all there is about it. If you don’t take this offer we’ve got to throw up our hands and we won’t owe you a cent.”

There was silence following this, which lasted a long time, and it seemed to Nick that Lannigan and his companion must have been consulting over this last offer.

Finally there was a step or two heard and then Lannigan’s voice, saying:

“Is that five thou. to be laid down to-day?”

“On the delivery of that leather case with all that’s in it.{60}”

“How soon can you do it?” asked Lannigan.

“As soon as you can deliver the goods.”

“That’s now.”

“And I have the funds with me now.”

“Well, then, if you close up the first part of the bargain right away, we’ll do it.”

Everybody apparently rose from their feet, and amid the scuffle and movement was heard Seaman’s voice:

“Let’s get about it at once.”

“Come with me, then,” said Lannigan.

“Where to?” asked Elwell.

“You will know when you get there,” replied Lannigan, gruffly.

Nick slipped off the ice box and regained the floor of the little washroom quickly.

Slipping out of the door and through the hall he was on the corner of Forty-second Street and Third Avenue before the precious quartet came from the saloon, for they had stopped to take a drink to bind their bargain.

Leaving the saloon, they turned to the left, going up Third Avenue to the north.

Close behind them came Chick.

Nick and Chick exchanged signals and, at Nick’s suggestion, made by a wave of the hand, Chick rapidly crossed to the other side of the avenue, while Nick followed up after the four on the same side they were traveling.

The way of the four was up half a dozen blocks, where they turned into a cross street going to the right, or in the direction of the East River.

Two or three blocks were passed and they came to the end of a block where, on the corner, was a three-story brick building which did not occupy the whole of the lot on which it was built. Between the end of the house and the adjoining one was a yard of some ten feet in width,{61} which was separated from the street by a high, board fence.

In this fence was a gate, and Lannigan led the way through the gate, standing by to close it after the last one had passed through.

Standing on the other side of the street, Nick saw that there was a closed staircase built on the outside of the house in the rear, by which each floor above the liquor saloon, which occupied the first floor, was reached.

Chick came up and Nick said to him:

“They have gone into that house and by those stairs from the outside.”

“Do we raid them?” asked Chick.

“Yes,” said Nick, sharply; then he added: “But I wish Patsy were here.”

“First,” said Chick, “we ought to look to see what other outlets there are to the house.”

“Go into the barroom,” said Nick, “and see if you can find inside stairways. I’ll take a look about the outside.”

The two started for the purpose.{62}

CHAPTER VIII.

THE YOUNG GALLANT.

As the four men under the watch of Nick and Chick had entered the saloon as described in the last chapter, Patsy was hurrying up Third Avenue after the two crooks, Thomas and Bally Morris.

What their purpose or intentions were Patsy had no idea. But as he believed that whatever errand they were on was the result of what he had told them, he suspected that in some way it was connected with the burglary in Thirty-fifth Street. In what way, however, he could not even guess.

When they had left Thirty-fourth Street, after receiving word from the young fellow which had so excited Spike, and had turned to go up to Forty-second Street, Patsy had supposed that they were searching for Lannigan and his companion.

But when to that corner came Lannigan and he saw how anxious they were to escape the observation of that swell cracksman, and how, as quickly as they could, they got away from the neighborhood, he was confused and could do no more than follow them to see what they were about.

The route they took was not very different from that later followed by Lannigan, Seaman, Elwell and the unknown.

However, they did not go up Third Avenue as far as the four, but turned to the east a block short, going down to Avenue A, where they turned to the left and entered a house midway in the block.{63}

“Now,” said Patsy to himself, “what are they going to do here?”

On the first floor, on the street, was a small store devoted to the sale of butter, cheese and eggs. Beside this store was a door which entered into a hallway, and it was through this door that Spike Thomas and Bally Morris passed.

“They’re going upstairs,” said Patsy to himself. “Anyhow, I’ll sneak after them.”

Waiting only long enough for them to climb the first flight of stairs, Patsy dashed into the hall and cautiously followed up the stairs.

As he went up this flight he could hear them mounting the second flight and he said to himself:

“They’re going to the upper floor.”

Reaching the second floor he followed the banisters to the foot of the second flight, and there stopped to listen.

He could hear them rap at a door on the floor above him and, in a moment or two, the door was opened and the voice of a woman, in strong English accents, was heard:

“Oh, Harry, is it you? It’s a long time since I saw you. Who is this with you?”

“It’s me friend, Mr. Morris, Aunt Emma. It isn’t often I get so far uptown, but, being up here, I thought I’d drop in on yer. I s’pose Uncle Joe is gone to work.”

“Yes,” replied the voice of the woman, “but come in.”

The next moment the noise of the closing of the door was heard and Patsy said to himself:

“Hang it. I don’t believe it’s anything, after all.”

He stood a moment or two hardly knowing what to do. Then he said:

“I don’t think there’s any use going up there. I had better go down and watch for them to come out.{64}”

He went as far as the head of the stairs with this intention when he stopped, saying almost aloud:

“But what was it that tickled Spike so down in Thirty-fourth Street. He didn’t shake hands with himself because he knew his aunt was at home this morning.”

He stood still a moment thinking and again spoke aloud:

“But, mebbe it was Lannigan coming to Forty-second Street that threw them off.”

He made another motion as if to go down the stairs, but halted.

He was debating what to do. But the matter was settled for him at this instant.

The door on the second floor opposite where he stood was suddenly opened and a rather flashily dressed young girl of nineteen or twenty appeared. Casting a glance at Patsy, she gave a cry and, jumping backward, closed the door instantly.

Before Patsy could recover from his surprise the door was swung open and a tough-looking young man came into the hall, demanding in rough tones to know what he was doing there.

“I guess I’ve lost my way,” said Patsy.

“Well, you want to find it right away,” said the young fellow.

Patsy wanted no row at this time, for he did not want Spike Thomas and Bally Morris to know that he had followed them.

So by the showing of good humor he tried to get out of his difficulty as easily as possible.

“Then I’ll make my way down the stairs,” he said, laughingly.

At that moment the door opened again and the young girl appeared for a second time. As she did so she said to the young fellow:{65}

“He’s Patsy Murphy. Nick Carter’s kid.”

“What are you doing here, then?” asked the young fellow of Patsy.

“Nothing you need get hot over,” said Patsy.

“You ain’t goin’ to get off so easy as all that,” said the young fellow. “You can’t take anybody out of this house, not while I’m here.”

“I don’t want to take anybody out,” said Patsy.

“Then what are yer here for?”

Patsy looked at the girl and made a bluff.

“Well,” he said, laughing, “a feller can foller a pretty girl even if he is one of Nick Carter’s squad.”

If Patsy squared himself with this left-handed compliment with the girl he certainly did not with the young fellow.

“Say, dis goil is me sister,” he said, “an’ dere ain’t no chump goin’ to follow her up here. I’ll trow you downstairs.”

“Look out,” said the girl, “Patsy Murphy ain’t no easy thing.”

While this was going on, Patsy was trying hard to figure out how it was that he was known to this girl, whom he did not recollect ever having seen before.

Though the young man was threatening in his manner, he had as yet made no move to attack Patsy.

On his part, though, he was quite anxious to leave the house before any outbreak could occur, yet he saw that such was the position of the young man that if he were to attempt to go downstairs, he could be easily attacked from above and behind.

“Oh, say,” he said, assuming the east-side dialect, “what you chewin’ about? All dere is of it is I saw dis goil on de street, got mashed, and was tryin’ to get de glad hand from her. Well, I’m up against it, dat’s all dere is of it.{66}”

“No, it ain’t,” said the young fellow. “You’re up here after somethin’ else.”

“Honest,” said Patsy.

“Don’t lie.”

Patsy turned on the young fellow shortly and said:

“I’ve given it to you straight. Now don’t come back to me wid dat or I’ll wipe that ugly mug of yours off your face.”

The young fellow staggered back a step and Patsy went on:

“I don’t believe dis goil is any sister of yours. She’s too pretty and you’re too ugly.”

Patsy was playing to get into such a position that he might slip down the stairs without further trouble, all the more as he saw that he had made a point with the girl. But the unexpected happened. The young fellow made a queer sort of a call, which was immediately responded to from several rooms on that floor and, in a moment, two men and three women were in the hall, immediately roused by the young fellow’s declaration that they must smash one of Nick Carter’s kids.

One man, without waiting further, made a rush at Patsy who, in self-defense, was compelled to strike out, which he did with such accuracy that the fellow was knocked backward against one of the women and together they fell to the floor.

The woman thus thrown down began to scream at the top of her voice, in which she was joined by the others, while the two men left, both closed up in an endeavor to rush Patsy at the head of the stairs.

The very thing that Patsy had hoped to escape had occurred. He wanted to get out of the house without it being known to Spike Thomas and Bally Morris that he had followed them in.

He now believed that all this noise on the second floor{67} must attract the attention of those on the third floor and that all that he had hoped to gain had been lost.

He thought this rapidly, and also that there was no use of further trying to quiet the people and that he must defend himself.

So he squared himself to meet the rush of the two young men but, as they began it, the girl, who had first given the alarm that he was Patsy Murphy, threw herself in front of him in an effort to stop the rush of the fellow who said he was her brother, and his companion.

Patsy instantly saw that she was likely to be hurt, and catching her with his right arm about her waist, he quickly put her to one side and, springing forward, struck out with both fists, hitting the brother squarely in the face with his right fist and warding off a blow from the other with his left.

The brother fell to the ground. The other one made a second dash at Patsy.

In the meantime the two women who had come at the call attempted to take a hand, but were opposed by the young girl.

Patsy did not wait for the second attack, but went at the second man hammer and tongs, and soon beat him back to the wall.

Evidently the brother had gotten all that he desired in his first knockdown, for he made no effort to get up from the floor.

The girl swung herself in front of Patsy and said, in a low voice:

“Now’s your chance; git down the stairs.”

Patsy turned and went down the stairs not hurriedly, but watchfully.

He was trying to see if Spike Thomas and Bally Morris had been attracted by the rumpus.

He could see nothing of them, but he could not be{68}lieve that they had not heard the noise and had not seen him.

However, he reached the street without further interference, and, placing himself in a position where he could watch the door without being seen himself, waited to see the two crooks come from the house.

He had waited for some time, when the girl who had first given the alarm as to himself, and then seemed to act as his friend, came to the door and stood looking about as if for some one.

Patsy laughed to himself as he said:

“Hang me if I don’t think she’s looking for me. I must have jollied her for fair.”

After waiting a few minutes the girl went up the street slowly a few doors, when she stopped and again looked around.

Patsy stepped out of his concealment, and going toward the girl saw her brighten up and nod at him.

“I guess you got me out of a bad scrape,” he said, as he came up to her.

“Oh,” she replied, with a smile, “it wasn’t so bad. They’re only chumps there. You was too much for them. Say, what was you in there for, anyway?”

“To see you,” said Patsy.

“Ah, go on!” cried the girl, with a laugh. “That was only a guy of yours. I saw that and it was a good one. What was you in there for, honest?”

“I’ll give it to yer straight,” said Patsy, “but I don’t want to stand here, for somebody might see me that I don’t want to know me.”

“Come into the candy store, then,” said the girl, leading the way into a little store where candies, cheap toys, newspapers and cigars were sold.

Patsy stood near the door, where he could watch, and said to the girl:{69}

“Yes, I’ll give it to you straight. I have followed two fellows into that house who went up to the third floor, and when you came out of the door I was thinking whether I would go up or go down.”

“What had they been doing?” asked the girl.

“Nothing that I know of,” replied Patsy, with a laugh. “I was wanting to know what they were going to do.”

“Crooks, were they?” asked the girl.

“Friends of mine,” replied Patsy, “and I thought that they were going to do something about a thing I had told them of, leaving me out. I was just following them up to see what they were going to do.”

“Oh! And I interfered,” said the girl.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was going away when you opened the door. What I was afraid of was that the row would let them know that I was after them.”

“I don’t think it did,” said the girl.

“Didn’t anybody come from the third floor?” asked Patsy.

“No,” said the girl.

“Who lives up there?” asked Patsy.

“An old woman and her husband. They have the whole floor. They are very quiet people, but they say when the old woman was young that she was a crook—a shoplifter. But I don’t know.”

All this time Patsy had been keeping a sharp watch on the door of the house in question to see if Spike Thomas and Bally Morris would come from it.

But now, to his astonishment, there suddenly appeared before the door of the store the two men, Spike Thomas and Bally Morris.

They were coming from an entirely different direction—that is to say, from the corner above—and were walking at a gait that was almost a run in their hurry.

Turning to the girl, Patsy said, hurriedly:{70}

“There are my men now, and they’re coming from another way. I’ll see you again soon.”

He dashed out into the street and followed after the two.

The way pursued by the two young men, Thomas and Morris, was straight down the avenue until they reached Forty-second Street, when they hurried up that street to Third Avenue, where, Patsy was certain, they meant to board a car.

On reaching the avenue he put himself in such a position that he could board the same car the two young crooks did.

This he successfully accomplished and rode with them as far as Rivington Street, where they got out and hastily went down that street.

“They’re going to Spike Thomas’ own house,” said Patsy to himself, as he rapidly followed.

He was right, for reaching the tenement house in which Thomas lived, the two crooks hurried upstairs and into one of the rooms.

Patsy had fairly followed them to the door unknown to them and seeing them safely in, he turned and went down the stairs into the street, saying to himself:

“Now, what was it all about? I must lay by to get a chance to talk to Spike when they come out.”

He made his way to a drinking place which he knew to be one of the haunts of Spike and Bally Morris, to wait for them.{71}

CHAPTER IX.

A THIEF ROBS A THIEF.

The result of the investigation of Chick within the barroom, and of Nick without the house, was to show that there were two entrances to the upper story.

One was by the outside staircase at the rear, which had evidently been used by the four, and the other by a hallway, the door of which was on the avenue.

Nick had tried and found that the door at the front of the house was locked and bolted on the other side.

Chick had found that there was a door at the rear of the barroom which opened into this hall from which a flight of stairs ran up to the second floor.

Chick joined Nick in the cross street near the rear door that led from the street into the barroom. They exchanged their information, and Nick said:

“We will go into the barroom, Chick, and while there I will manage in some way to divert the attention of the barkeeper so that you can slip through that door into the hall and unbolt the front door.

“Our plan shall be that I will enter from the rear and climb those outside stairs while you shall enter the front door, bolt it behind you and bolt the door leading into the barroom. Then going up the stairs from the front, we will take them front and rear.”

Entering the saloon, it did not take Nick long to get the barkeeper so engrossed in conversation that Chick slipped through the door into the hall unseen, unbolted the front door, turning the key he found there so as to unlock it, and was back again in the barroom beside Nick before his absence had been noticed.{72}

Having tipped the wink to Nick that it was all arranged, the two passed out and separated at the door, after having agreed upon a signal that should inform each that they were in their proper places.

Seizing a favorable opportunity when no one was looking, Nick passed the door in the fence and went to the rear of the outside staircase.

He met with a temporary check.

The staircase was closed at the bottom by a door bolted from within.

Having no tools with him and seeing nothing by which he could open the door or force it, he took the chances of being heard and, placing his shoulder against the part where he thought the bolt was—that is to say, just above the lock—he gradually applied his strength until he forced it in.

The door was not strong and, as a matter of fact, gave way quite easily under the pressure he could apply.

Waiting a brief instant to see whether he had attracted attention, and becoming satisfied that he had not, he swung the door back to see that the stairway was covered with a cheap carpet.

Cautiously ascending the steps he found himself on a landing which was below a door closed and, as he quickly found, locked.

A trial of it satisfied him that it was not bolted, and as the lock was of the ordinary kind he had no difficulty in picking it.

In this it differed from the one at the foot of the stairs, which had no keyhole on the outside.

Cautiously opening this door, he found that he was in a small-sized entry—so small, indeed, that it was almost impossible to stand within it, and shut the door again. On his right was another door, which was doubtless always opened before the outer door was closed.{73}

But by dint of squeezing himself into the corner Nick succeeded in closing the door and with his pick relocking it.

Then he cautiously opened the door before him to find that it was a bedroom, and vacant.

Stepping within it lightly, he listened and heard voices in the room in front. There were two doors in this room, one clearly communicating with the front room, and the other, Nick thought, might open into a closet. But, on trying it, he found it opened into the hall of the second story, and saw Chick standing at the head of the stairs waiting to give the signal which should announce his presence there.

Nick beckoned to Chick, who came stealthily to the door.

“They are in that front room on this floor, chief,” said Chick. “There is nobody upstairs, for I have been through that floor. I have barricaded the top of the stairs so they cannot escape that way.”

“All right,” said Nick. “Now take your stand at that door leading from the bedroom. I will leave this door open and when you hear me mew like a cat, burst into the room.”

Chick went to his position and Nick to his.

Nick was about to give the signal, when he heard the voice of Lannigan saying:

“I suppose I’ve got to take it this way.”

“I don’t see how else it is to be done,” said Elwell. “The paper is drawn in such a way as to show that the fifty thousand dollars due you is for value received. You must rely upon me to get the proper acknowledgment of this when you bring the paper to me to-morrow. I will do that and have it properly indorsed by responsible people, who will give a bond for the faithful execution of the requirements of this paper by Seaman. It is the best{74} I can do. We have had business before together and you have found me a man of my word. That ought to stand for something now.”

“I s’pose it must go,” returned Lannigan, in a doubtful and dissatisfied tone. “I suppose I must take my chance that you’re acting on the level.”

“I’m on the level,” said Seaman. “You wouldn’t want me to bring my bondsman here, would you?”

“Not on your life,” said Lannigan. “Anyhow, I’ll take the chance. I may be done out of the money and you may not make the bond good to-morrow, but if you don’t——”

He stopped talking suddenly and there was a pause that lasted some time. Then Elwell spoke:

“There’s no use of your making such threats as that, Lannigan. They are not pleasant.”

“No,” laughed Lannigan, bitterly, “and they won’t be pleasant for either you or Seaman here, if I carry them out.”

There was another silence, during which there was the rustling of paper. Then Elwell spoke again:

“There, Lannigan, is the paper signed by Seaman and witnessed by me. Bring it to me to-morrow as agreed and I will see that it is acknowledged and the bond given to you.”

“Very well,” said Lannigan. “Now about the five thou.”

“Here it is,” said Seaman.

“Let me count it,” said Lannigan.

“You can see me count it. There are fifty one-hundred-dollar bills here.”

Again there was a brief silence, during which the rustling of paper was heard.

“Hand it over,” said Lannigan. “It’s all right.”

“Produce the goods first,” said Seaman, with a laugh.{75}

“Oh, they’re here all right,” Lannigan said. “I’ll get it.”

Again there was a brief silence, during which the steps of some one across the floor could be heard.

Nick got ready to give the signal, for he believed that the point was at hand when the burst into the room should be made, to find before them the very article that was the object of their search.

“Open it,” said the voice of Seaman, “and let us see that it’s all right.”

Again there was a brief instant of silence, when there was a sudden start, followed by an unusual commotion, cries and oaths, above which rang the voice of Lannigan, crying:

“The game’s up!”

“What trick is this?” cried Seaman, angrily.

“We’ve been robbed!” cried Lannigan and the unknown together.

Seaman laughed loud and bitterly, and said:

“It’s a plant. A dirty plant. Now I suppose you’ll undertake to rob me of this five thousand.”

“Before Heaven!” cried Lannigan, most earnestly, “it’s no plant. I tell you we’ve been robbed and since we left here this afternoon to meet you.”

“Nick Carter!” exclaimed a voice that had not yet been heard in all the talk.

“Do you think so?” asked Elwell.

“Who else? Who knew of it being here but Lannigan and I,” said the same voice.

“Has everything been taken out?” asked Elwell.

“Every blessed scrap of paper,” replied Lannigan. “And a lot of newspapers put in their place.”

“Lannigan,” said Elwell, “I believe that both you and your friend are square in this matter. I believe that you have really been robbed. This makes it all the more{76} serious. For we now do not know in whose hands they are.”

“Nick Carter’s, I tell you!” exclaimed the strange voice again.

“Perhaps,” said Elwell. “If they are, then we are all of us done.”

“Beat to a finish,” said Seaman.

“He’ll die for it if he has swiped them,” almost shouted Lannigan, wild in his anger.

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Elwell. “You may think yourself a bad man, Lannigan; but you had better keep out of the way of Nick Carter. If he has tracked that case here and got possession of the things within it, the next thing will be that he’ll have the handcuffs on you. He fears no mortal man and he has captured single-handed half a dozen men, each one worse than you. But I don’t think Nick Carter has got those papers.”

“Why?”

“Let me ask you first, whether when you last saw these, they were all in this case and the case locked?”

“Yes; every blessed paper and the models as well.”

“Well, then, if Nick Carter had entered the room in search of that case and had found it, he would not have stopped to take the things out and substitute papers in their place, but would have taken out of the house the case and all.”

“That’s sense,” said Seaman.

“Let me ask you another question,” said Elwell. “Did any one besides Seaman and myself know that you had this case and its contents?”

“No—stop—yes—hold on! It’s not quite that way. There are two men who thought we had it. They thought we had cracked that crib in Thirty-fifth Street and, that being so, they knew that we had the case. But{77} we never let on to them that we did the job. They only thought so.”

“Who are those men?” asked Elwell.

“Never you mind who they are,” said Lannigan, ferociously. “Before the lights go out to-night, I’ll know whether they’ve got that case, or what was in it, or I’ll have their lives.”

Again there was silence of speech, but there was a movement as if the party had risen to their feet.

Nick slipped to the open door leading into the hall and, beckoning to Chick, said to him when they met:

“Did you hear?”

“Plainly.”

“The drawings have disappeared.”

“Yes. There’s no use of making a raid now.”

“You’re right; get out of the house by the front way as quick as you can and get on the watch. I’ll go down by the way I came.”

Chick slipped down the stairs and out of the front door, while Nick, crossing the bedroom, picked the lock of the outer door again, closed the door leading into the bedroom behind him, closed the outer door and locked it, and slipped down the outer stairs and so into the street, where he went into concealment to watch for the men to come out.

He did not wait long before Elwell and Seaman came down the stairs, passed out of the door in the fence and went up the street to Third Avenue and disappeared at the corner.

“No use to follow them,” muttered Nick, “for I can find them when I want them.”

It was a longer wait, however, for the other two, and Nick was made aware of their coming by a string of oaths from inside the fence which he knew to be from Lannigan.{78}

Straining his ears he found that Lannigan was swearing over the door at the foot of the stairs.

He was attributing the broken door to the thieves who had robbed him, assuming that that was the way in which they had gotten in.

To have heard him swear and talk one would have supposed that he was an honest man and there had never been such an outrage before, or so dishonest a thing, as that of robbing him of what he had robbed Mr. Herron.

Nick, laughing at this, nevertheless by a long whistle gave Chick the signal to be on the alert, as their birds were coming.

The next instant Lannigan and the unknown stepped out into the street and hurried in the direction of Third Avenue.

Nick hung back, fearing that he was known by one or both of the two, and signaled to Chick to take up the shadow.

Chick promptly appeared at the corner and, seeing the two men now pretty nearly at the other end of the block, hurried along past Nick and heard Nick say that he would follow behind him.

Thus the four went to Third Avenue, where the two men, Lannigan and the unknown, boarded a street car.

A coach and pair stood at the corner, and Nick, calling to Chick, sprang in after telling the driver he should have double fare if he kept the passing car in sight.

It was a somewhat difficult matter, but when Thirty-fourth Street was reached they were near enough for Nick to see Lannigan and the unknown descend from the car and go down Thirty-fourth Street.

“They are going to the place Patsy told about,” said Chick.

“Then,” said Nick, “they are looking after the two Patsy calls his assistants.{79}”

“Spike Thomas and Bally Morris?”

“Yes. And——”

“They are the two Lannigan suspects of robbing him,” quickly put in Chick.

“That is the only conclusion.”

All this time Nick and Chick had been rapidly following the two down Thirty-fourth Street.

Reaching the last block they drew aside to watch the two, and saw them searching every one of the numerous saloons on that block without finding, apparently, what they sought for.

Having found nothing, they retraced their steps and again hurried in the direction of Third Avenue.

As they stepped out, Nick said to Chick:

“They have not found their men here and are going to try somewhere else.”

Then they set out to follow.{80}

CHAPTER X.

IN CLOSE PURSUIT.

It was some time before Patsy’s patience in waiting in the saloon he knew to be the hang-out of Spike Thomas was rewarded.

But at length Spike and Bally Morris made their appearance, and on seeing Patsy went over to him, and said:

“I say, cull,” was Spike’s greeting, “get out of here with us to another joint, where we can patter a bit.”

Without knowing why they wanted to go to another place, nevertheless he got up willingly and followed them out into the street.

Spike led them to a place in Bond Street, not far from the Bowery, and evidently one which he knew only from the outside.

“Yer see, cull,” he said, “I don’t know much about dis place, but it’s quiet, and there’ll be no mix-up wid de rounders and de culls.”

“What are you wanting to hide for, Spike?” asked Patsy.

“Oh, there’s nothin’ doin’,” said Spike. “Only I want to talk to you about de things you was puttin’ up to me dis morning.”

“Well, what of it?” said Patsy.

“Didn’t you say,” said Spike, “dat there was some dollars for me if I could get something for you?”

“Yes,” replied Patsy, “that’s what I said.”

“You said it was a leather case, with somethin’ into it what you wanted; ain’t dat right?”

“See here, Spike,” said Patsy, “what are you getting to?{81}”

“I want to git dem dollars you was talkin’ about,” said Spike. “Dere’s been nothin’ doin’ for me dis long time, and I’m broke. So if you give me de right steer, I’m goin’ for dem dollars.”

“Well,” said Patsy, “all there is of it is that a leather case, with some things in it, was taken out of that house in Thirty-fifth Street last night. The man from whom it was taken will put up good money to have it back.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Herron, and he lives in that house.”

“What does he do downtown?”

“Oh, he’s a broker or something in Broad Street.”

“Say, I want ter git de rights of dis,” said Spike, in a businesslike way.

“I’m givin’ it ter you as much as I know.”

“Well, what was in de case? Money, checks? What?”

“Why,” said Patsy, “as I understand it, it was some drawings and a model of a new invention, which is valuable.”

“Well, wasn’t his nibs tryin’ to rob the inventor of it?” asked Spike, shrewdly.

“The inventor is dead,” said Patsy, wondering where Spike got all his knowledge from.

“Den it was his widder?” said Spike.

“See here, Spike,” said Patsy, “what is this you’re givin’ me? What I know is that Mr. Herron paid the widder his good money for those things, and that they were stolen from him. Now, Spike, it was you who put it into my head from the first that a swell cracksman from Philadelphia, Lannigan, cracked the crib and took that case.”

“Dat’s right,” repeated Spike.

“Then you give it me that when you ran against Lannigan he wouldn’t cough up and let you in.”

“Dat’s right,” repeated Spike.{82}

“Now I’m goin’ to speak a little piece,” said Patsy. “Spike, you have seen Lannigan since I saw you last, and you’ve got into the job.”

“You’re away off, Patsy,” said Spike.

“I don’t think I am,” said Patsy. “Lannigan has let you into the job, and you’re tryin’ to pump me as to who will give up the best for that case.”

“Oh, yer away off, Patsy,” repeated Spike; “ain’t he, Bally?”

The crook turned to the other one for confirmation of his words, which was readily given.

“Mebbe I am,” replied Patsy, “but if it isn’t that, what is your little game?”

“I am just tryin’ to loin a little somet’in’ to see if I can’t work dat bloke, Lannigan, for a show at dem dollars.”

All this seemed to be very plausible on the part of Spike, and was said with a very frank manner.

But Patsy was not deceived. He knew something had occurred since he had last seen Spike, but just what it was he was not able to tell.

“Well, Spike,” he said, after a few moments’ thought, “it all comes back to what I told you in the beginning. There’s one man who’ll give up more for those papers than any one else, and to get them back I don’t think he’ll ask any questions.”

“Dat’s de point,” said Spike. “I was wantin’ to know what kind of a hole I was gettin’ meself into if I did get me hooks on those papers and go talkin’ to his nibs about ’em.”

Patsy thought rapidly. He began to believe that the crook already had the papers in his possession, or that he was in a position to obtain them whenever he could drive a proper bargain with those who would pay for their return.{83}

Recalling that Ida had been told by Nick that she must try to get on terms of good standing with Mrs. Pemberton, the widow of the inventor, a bright idea struck him.

It was ten o’clock in the morning when Ida had received her orders from Nick, and it was now nearly six o’clock in the evening. Such was Patsy’s faith in Ida that he actually believed by this time Ida was installed as a member of Mrs. Pemberton’s family.

Seeing that Spike was reluctant to go to Mr. Herron, it occurred to Patsy that, having possession of the papers, as he believed, or knowing how he could get possession of them, something Spike would not admit to Patsy, Spike could be more easily persuaded to go to the widow with them. Then if he, Patsy, were to notify Ida of the intended call, they would be in a pretty fair position to recover the papers.

Acting on this thought, Patsy said:

“Of course, Spike, my boss is working for Herron. I am working for my boss, so I’m workin’ for Herron, too. Now, if you can get your hooks on that case, or what’s in it, and you don’t want to tackle Herron, why not tackle my boss.”

“What?” cried Spike, in horror. “Tackle Nick Carter? Nit, nit, Pauline.”

“Well, then, if that don’t suit you,” said Patsy, “I’ll give you another steer. The widder will put up for them papers, and put up big.”

“Now, you’re shouting,” said Spike. “Dat’s de lay. Now, where is she?”

“Her name is Pemberton, but you can’t get to her before ten o’clock to-morrow morning,” said Patsy, anxious to get enough time to notify Ida and to let her arrange for the part she was to play in the matter.

He was thoughtful a moment or two, and then he said:{84}

“If you can work the Lannigan end, Spike,” he said, “you come to me to-morrow morning at nine o’clock and I’ll give you the place where Mrs. Pemberton lives; and, say, Spike, if you pull it off, you ought to do something square with me for putting you on and giving you the straight steer.”

“Sure,” said Spike. “Dere ain’t nothin’ in de hull shootin’ match dat I didn’t get from youse. I’ll give yer a whack if I pulls anything off.”

Patsy now believed that he had gotten from Spike all that was possible, and that he had laid a train in which Spike could be used which would lead to good results, and he was anxious to get away and hunt up Nick to report to him what he had done.

Seeking the best excuse he could, he left the two and went over to the Bowery.

In doing so, his purpose was to take one of the uptown lines of cars and then cross to the west side, but on reaching the corner of Bond Street, and the Bowery, he saw some one on the opposite side of the street that looked to him very much like the one he had seen on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and who the Chicago detective had told him was Lannigan.

The distance across the Bowery at that point was long, and he hurried across it in order to be certain that he was right.

He had so crossed the Bowery as to come up behind Lannigan, and as he stepped up on the sidewalk a hand was laid on his shoulder.

He turned and saw Chick.

“What is it, youngster?” asked Chick.

“Are you following that man?” asked Patsy.

“Lannigan? Yes.”

“Then, it is Lannigan?” asked Patsy.

“Yes,” replied Chick. “But where are your men?{85}”

“Over here in a saloon nearby.”

“Lannigan is looking for them,” said Chick.

“The deuce! What for?”

“To put holes in them,” laughed Chick.

“What does he want to do that for?” asked Patsy.

“He thinks they stole that case of the drawings from him,” said Chick.

“Say!” exclaimed Patsy, “where’s the chief?”

“He’s right here,” said Chick.

“Here!” said Patsy. “Show me where he is—quick!”

Seeing that Patsy was unusually earnest, Chick gave the signal, which brought Nick into sight in an instant. As he came up Chick said:

“Patsy’s got something on his mind and wants to talk.”

“Chick, you keep your eye on Lannigan, and I’ll see what Patsy has to say,” returned Nick.

He then turned to Patsy, asking what had excited him.

“Well,” said Patsy, “I hardly know where to begin, but I’ve been following Spike Thomas and Bally Morris all day. I’ve been thinking that Spike had put up a job with Lannigan to get the most money he could for those drawings, but Chick tells me that Lannigan has been robbed of them that he thinks Spike did it.”

“Well, Patsy,” said Nick, “tell me the whole story and we’ll see how it fits in with what we know.”

Patsy then recited to Nick all that had occurred between himself, Spike and Bally Morris, from the time they had met in Thirty-fourth Street up to the time they had been traced by him to Avenue A, their brief disappearance, the row he had had in the house in Avenue A, the surprising appearance of the two from a direction he least expected them, his tracing them to Spike’s home, with the subsequent interview which he had just had with Spike in the saloon in Bond Street.{86}

Patsy told this rapidly, but clearly, and Nick was an attentive listener.

On his part, Nick related to Patsy all that had occurred from the time they had parted on the corner of Forty-second Street and Third Avenue, including, of course, the astonishing theft from Lannigan of the contents of the leather case, concluding with the statement that Chick and he had followed Lannigan in the belief that the cracksman was hunting for Spike Thomas and Bally Morris.

It did not take long for these two bright-minded people to fit in the two stories into a complete whole.

“It’s all straight as a whistle, chief,” said Patsy. “Lannigan threw Spike down. Spike, from what he had learned from me, made up his mind that he would rob Lannigan of that case. To get on a track of him and know what he was doing and when he was out of his room, was what he was laying on the corner of Forty-second Street and Third Avenue for. Just as soon as he saw Lannigan with your men, the two of them scampered off to Avenue A.”

Here Nick stopped Patsy to make sure by inquiry that there was no mistake as to the locality that both had tracked their people to on Avenue A. That being settled to the satisfaction of both as being the same, Patsy went on:

“Between the time I saw them go into the house where I had that row, and when I saw them coming down in such a hurry, they had got into Lannigan’s apartments and swiped those papers. I’ll bet my stockings, chief, that all those things are in Spike’s rooms now, down here in Rivington Street.”

“I think that is about the size of it,” said Nick. “But that is a good job that you have put up to send Spike with the things to Mrs. Pemberton. Mrs. Pemberton{87} has recently got some sense, and believes that Elwell is trying to do her. Ida is in a position to get close to her, and I think, after all, that is the best way to handle it.”

“Yet we might get them quicker by making a raid on Spike’s rooms,” said Patsy.

“And we might lose them all, too. The first thing we’ve got to do, Patsy, is to take care of Spike, for if Lannigan meets him there will be trouble to pay, if there is not a dead Spike.”

“Then,” said Patsy, “I’d better hunt up Spike and warn him to keep out of Lannigan’s way, although I think that’s what he’s doing now.”

He turned to cross the Bowery, but, in doing so, saw both Spike and Bally Morris crossing diagonally toward the drinking saloon which was Spike’s hang-out.

Without saying a word to Nick, he darted off to intercept Spike, while Nick hurried along toward the corner.

As Nick approached the corner he saw Lannigan rush across the sidewalk in the direction from which Spike Thomas and Bally Morris were approaching.

Chick was in close pursuit, and Lannigan seemed to be pulling at his pocket as if trying to draw a revolver.

Nick also sprang in pursuit, and so it was that as Spike and Bally approached, all unconscious of the danger they were in, three from different points were approaching to their rescue.

It was no part of Nick’s plans to have Spike put out of the way at a time when he could be most useful to him.

As Lannigan left the sidewalk, reaching the roadway, he brought his revolver out, being then not more than twenty feet from Spike.

But, as he lifted his revolver to fire, Chick sprang on his back, and at the same instant Nick was beside Lannigan, seizing his revolver arm.{88}

In the meantime, Patsy had reached the two young crooks and in the most energetic manner had ordered them to drop.

However, the danger was over, for Lannigan was in the hands of two men, and was a child in strength compared with either one of them.

By the time Nick had taken the revolver from Lannigan and forced him back to the sidewalk, Spike and Bally had taken to their heels, closely followed by Patsy.

Nick had now no doubt, as a result of the investigations of the day, that Lannigan and the one they had came to call the Unknown were the ones who had robbed Mr. Herron’s house, but it was not in his plans yet to make an arrest—not, at all events, until after the papers and drawings Nick had been retained to recover were in their hands. Nor was it in his plans to let Lannigan know that he had been interfered with by Nick Carter, if he did not then know it. So he said:

“You must be a fool, to try and shoot a man in daylight like this. You want to thank your stars that there was somebody here to stop you. Now, get away quick, before a policeman comes, or you’ll be nipped as it is.”

Lannigan looked at him with a malignant glance, but, making no reply, turned and walked up the Bowery.

Nick signaled Chick not to lose sight of him, and he himself went off to find Ida and post her as to the part she was to play when Spike opened up his negotiations with the widow for the return of the precious drawings.{89}

CHAPTER XI.

A CHIMNEY CLEW.

Patsy followed Spike Thomas and Bally Morris in their mad run from the vengeance of Lannigan.

His purpose was not so much to protect them as it was to get an explanation of a matter which puzzled him.

He was now convinced that Spike Thomas and his companion had entered the apartments of Lannigan and had stolen the drawings and models.

But what puzzled him was when it was done.

The two had been under his eyes almost continuously all day, and it vexed him to think that it should have been done without his even suspecting it.

He soon caught up with the flying crooks and followed them into a small saloon in the neighborhood of Chatham Square.

Both Spike and Morris had been badly frightened by the attack made on them by Lannigan, but when they realized that they were safe from pursuit, and that Lannigan’s murderous assault had been prevented by Nick Carter and his aids, their courage returned.

Their cunning, as well as their desire to profit by their theft, led them to conceal or deny the theft.

In view of the fact that Lannigan had made a vicious attack upon them, they could no longer maintain the story they had given Patsy that they had entered into an arrangement with Lannigan by which they could negotiate the return of the papers for him.

This troubled Spike somewhat in his talk with Patsy, but, by some skillful lying, he got up a story that some{90}body had been fooling Lannigan with the tale that he and Morris were going to sell him out.

His cunning and, perhaps, fear of Lannigan, led him to deny the theft from Lannigan’s rooms.

“See here, Spike,” said Patsy, “you may lie as much as you want to, but I know that you got into Lannigan’s rooms and took those papers and models. I know when you did it, and I saw you coming away from there.”

Both the young crooks looked at Patsy curiously, but without replying.

They did not know how much Patsy really knew, and they had convinced themselves that they had made the entry into Lannigan’s rooms unknown to any one but themselves.

“Now,” continued Patsy, “you can keep up your lying if it will do you any good. You ain’t level with me when you don’t give me the game, after me putting you on. I’m going to know all about it, and you can’t stop me. The only thing is now, are you goin’ to throw me on the deal or not.”

“Goin’ to throw nothin’,” said Spike. “Say, how much do you t’ink I ought to strike de old dame for, if I can make de deal?”

Patsy could hardly restrain a smile, for in this question Spike was admitting what he had been denying, and that was the possession of the drawings and models. He did not appear to notice it, however, and replied:

“Strike her for twelve thousand dollars.”

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed both Spike and Bally in a breath.

When they had recovered a little from their astonishment, Spike asked:

“Will de old dame stand a strike of such big figures?”

“Sure,” replied Patsy.

In view of the fact that Lannigan had struck Seaman{91} for fifty-five thousand dollars, as Nick had told Patsy, the surprise of the two young crooks over the sum named by Patsy showed clearly to the lad that there was no relation at all existing between Spike and Lannigan, if he had needed such a showing.

However, he got up, saying:

“You’re going to work the racket on the dame to-morrow?”

“Sure,” replied Spike.

“Then you’ll come to me for the number and street of her house at nine to-morrow morning?”

“Sure.”

Patsy did not like the tone and the manner of the crook, and he stood still a moment, looking sternly into the eyes of Spike, and said:

“Spike, if you round on me, I’ll spoil your game. I’ll do more; I’ll put you in the jug. You have got no right to throw me down, for I put you next in this game, and I saved your life this afternoon. If you throw me down it’ll be the worst day’s work you ever did for yourself.”

He turned from the table at which the two crooks were sitting, and walked out of the saloon without another word or turning to see the effects of his words.

Patsy was intent on filling up the gap in the story of the day, which was complete and connected except as to the taking of the drawings and the models from Lannigan’s rooms.

That this had been done by Spike Thomas and Bally Morris there was no doubt in the minds of any one having knowledge of the affair. But, after all, it was, at best, suspicion.

Leaving the saloon in which the two young crooks had hidden themselves from Lannigan, Patsy took the elevated railroad train to Forty-second Street.

Leaving the train here, he went immediately to Avenue{92} A, and to the block where he had had his “row,” as he called it.

His intention was, if possible, to find or to account for the disappearance of the two crooks from the house into which he had followed them.

It was his good fortune that, as he passed the door of that house, that he should see in the doorway the girl whose alarm had been the cause of the row in the house.

She recognized him as quickly, and stepped forward to greet him.

“Say,” she said, “was them two fellows that you trotted after this afternoon, when you was chinnin’ with me, the two you followed into our house?”

“Yes,” said Patsy. “It gave me the jumps when I saw ’em coming down from the corner when I thought they were in the house yet.”

“Are dey crooks?” asked the girl.

“That’s what they are,” replied Patsy.

“Well, say,” said the girl, “I can give you a steer. Dem fellers was upstairs on de floor above us when we had dat scrap in de hall. But dey climbed de ladder to de roof when de scrap was goin’ on and got away.”

“How do you know that?” asked Patsy, eagerly.

“Me little sister, who was up dere on dat floor, seen ’em do it. She tole me just after you run away so sudden.”

The whole thing then burst upon Patsy. Everything was explained to him. The two crooks, taking advantage of the row going on on the floor below, had climbed to the roof, and, making their way over the other houses to the corner, had descended into the apartments of Lannigan through the scuttle of the corner house.

What had been mysterious to him was now as plain as day.

{93}

He looked along of the houses on the street, to see that there was no break in them to the corner, and said:

“Do you know the store on the corner?”

“The saloon? Sure.”

“You ever go in there?”

“Sometimes,” said the girl.

“If you’ll go there with me now, I’ll blow you off.”

The girl without a word turned, and the two walked up to the corner and entered the place by the rear door.

“Say,” said Patsy, “that brother of yours will be wanting to put up another fight if he finds me here with you again.”

The girl laughed merrily, and replied:

“Oh, he’s a great chewer, but there’s more in his bark than there is in his bite. He ain’t around now, for he’s trotting after his own rag. Anyhow, after the way you put him on de floor dis afternoon, he won’t want to chew wid you any more.”

It was clear that Patsy’s compliments of the afternoon had won the girl’s favor, and the manner in which he had defended himself when attacked, her admiration.

This Patsy saw, and he determined to take advantage of it.

“Say,” he said, “do you know the people here?”

“Yep; he’s a nice man what keeps dis place.”

“Is he straight?”

“Straight as a die.”

“Then this isn’t a hang-out for crooks?” asked Patsy.

“Naw. He won’t have dem around. Dere’s lots of dem on dese corners, but he won’t have dem here.”

Patsy was silent a moment as he thought over a plan which had entered his head. Then he said:

“Call him here and tell him who I am. I want to ask him something.{94}”

The girl did so, and the proprietor, a rather rough-looking but honest man, came to him.

“Mike,” said the girl, “this is me frien’, Patsy Murphy.”

“Not Nick Carter’s man?” said the one called Mike, extending his hand.

“De same,” said the girl, proudly.

The man looked doubtfully between the two and asked:

“How’d you get in wid him, den?”

“Oh, we got acquainted dis afternoon,” replied the girl, tossing her head.

“I heard something about it,” said the saloon-keeper; “will yer have a drink?”

“No,” said Patsy, “but I wish you would answer me some questions. Do you know that there was a robbery in this house this afternoon?”

“I heard something about it,” said the saloon-keeper, “but I don’t know anything about it.”

“There was,” said Patsy, “and from the floor above.”

“I heard a little about it,” said the man, “but I’ve nothing to do with the people upstairs.”

“Then you don’t have the whole house?” asked Patsy.

“No, I only rent this store.”

“Do you know anything about the man who lives upstairs—the one who was robbed?”

“No; he never comes in here, and he rented the two floors above from the same man I rent this store. He’s only been here about six weeks or two months.”

“Well,” said Patsy, “I think I know pretty well who did the job. I think I know how they got into the house.”

“Oh, that’s clear enough,” said the saloon man. “They broke in that stairway door in the rear and picked the lock of the upper door.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Patsy; “in fact, I know{95} they didn’t break the door in, for I know how that was done. But, I would like to get up to the top part of this house to see if I can find traces of the way I think they did get in.”

“How was that?”

“Through that scuttle,” said Patsy.

“There’s nothin’ to stop your goin’ up there,” said the man. “There ain’t nobody up there now, for the two men livin’ there are out. If you should go out of that door opening into the hall, nobody would shoot you for doing it.”

Patsy got up and said:

“I’ll try it.”

“And I’ll go with you,” said the man.

“And so will I,” said the girl.

Thus followed, Patsy mounted the stairs to the top floor and, reaching the hall on the top of the house, soon found the scuttle-hole in the roof.

But there were no steps or ladder leading to it.

Looking about, he saw a broken wooden chair in the corner and, bringing it into the light, saw that the fracture of the top of the back was a fresh one. The scuttle-hole was close to the wall and, looking at the wall directly under it, he saw marks on it which indicated that the chair had been placed against the wall and used as a means of reaching the scuttle.

He put the chair at that place and saw that the chair and the marks fitted.

Mounting the chair, he found that the scuttle cover was loose, and had not been precisely fitted when it was put on.

A mere pressure of the hand slid the scuttle aside and, making a spring, he caught the upper edges of the scuttle-hole with his hands and drew himself so that his head was above the roof.{96}

Immediately his attention was attracted to a piece of paper clinging to the chimney nearby.

He clambered through the hole and, going to the chimney, found that it was a small piece of that kind of paper known as tracing paper, used by draftsmen.

On it was a drawing of what was apparently machinery.

He jumped to the conclusion that it was a part of the missing drawings that had been searched for all day.

Thrusting it in his pocket, he returned to the scuttle-hole and let himself drop down to the floor as he had supposed Spike and Bally had done.

Remounting the chair he placed the scuttle cover in position again and put the chair back where he had found it.

Turning to the two who had been silently waiting, he said:

“I’m satisfied. That’s the way those fellows got into the house. They went into the house in which this girl lived, got out on to the roof from the scuttle of that house, crossed over and came down this way. They did not go down that way, but went out to the street down the stairs and through the front door.”

“You’re right,” cried the saloon man. “That accounts for the bolts being off the front door.”

Patsy smiled, but made no reply, yet he thought that the bolts were off because Chick had taken them off when he went out of the house.

The little party returned to the barroom and, after Patsy had spent a little time in making himself agreeable to the girl, whose friendliness had given him the clew to the manner in which the two young crooks had gotten into the house, he went away.{97}

CHAPTER XII.

ON THE SEARCH.

While Patsy was on this search, Chick had been following Lannigan, whose movements about the city seemed to be marked by neither purpose nor intention.

Nevertheless, Chick kept close at his heels.

Nick had found Ida, and from her had learned that she had had another talk with Mrs. Pemberton, and had convinced her that Elwell, the lawyer, whom she had trusted so much, was playing her false.

The principal thing to bring her into that frame of mind was the belief that he had taken the $10,000 check which Mr. Herron had given her from the drawings and models of her husband, with the intention of cheating her out of it.

She was now quite certain that she had done wrong, and was willing to carry out the intentions of her husband and deal with Mr. Herron, as the unsigned articles of agreement provided.

Nick had sought Ida with a view of preparing her for the visit of Spike the next morning.

He had intended to let Ida arrange with Mrs. Pemberton for this, and meant that Ida should, as Mrs. Pemberton, receive Spike.

This was in accordance with the job that Patsy had put up. And finding that Mrs. Pemberton had changed her position entirely in regard to Mr. Herron, he proposed to Ida that he should go with her to Mrs. Pemberton at once, and tell her all that had occurred during the day, and thus show to her the kind of people into whose hands she had fallen.{98}

This was done, and Mrs. Pemberton, under the showing of Nick, saw clearly that her only hope of receiving any profit from her late husband’s work was first in the recovery of the papers of Mr. Herron, and secondly through Mr. Herron.

Becoming convinced of this, she was not only willing but eager to assist in carrying out the plans which Patsy had formed and which had been approved and adopted by Nick.

So it was arranged that when Spike called, Ida, made up for, and pretending to be, Mrs. Pemberton, should receive and dicker with Spike.

That there should be no hitch in this programme, Ida remained in Mrs. Pemberton’s house over night.

It was Nick’s purpose to be in the house also in the morning so that if, as a consequence of those negotiations, Spike brought the drawings, he could seize them.

The matter being thus arranged, Nick returned to his home.

The next morning, before Patsy was fairly dressed, Spike Thomas, followed by Bally Morris, burst into his room in a state of wild excitement and rage.

A glance of Patsy’s was sufficient to assure him that both Spike and Bally were more than half drunk.

They were so excited that for a moment neither could speak, but stood gasping in an effort. Finally Spike blurted out:

“We’ve been robbed.”

Patsy turned sharply on him and said:

“Not of the drawings and models?”

“Yes, de same!”

Patsy’s disappointment was great, but, checking himself, he said, with forced calmness:

“Tell me all about it.”

It was not so easy for the two crooks, and they began{99} such a mixture of oaths, assertions and contradictions of each other that Patsy was forced to stop them; and, telling Morris to be quiet and not say a word, instructed Spike to tell the tale.

Under his statement, it appeared that, being afraid of Lannigan, they had kept away all night, not alone from their usual haunts, but from their homes. They had spent the night in obscure, and, to them, strange places, drinking.

When daylight had come, and they thought it safe to venture into the part of the city where they lived, they had gone to Spike’s rooms to get the drawings and models here hidden away, with the intention of carrying them to a place where they could easily get them if the bargaining with Mrs. Pemberton turned out as Patsy had assured them it would.

But, on reaching that room, the drawings and models were not in the place where they had been deposited.

They had made a most exhaustive search of the room without a discovery or a trace of them, and, having roused up everybody in the house, had pushed their inquiries without receiving any information as to the disappearance of the drawings.

But they had learned that one of the tenants in the house, at a late hour in the previous night, had seen two men enter Spike Thomas’ rooms, supposing one of them to be Spike Thomas.

As neither Spike Thomas nor Bally Morris had been near the rooms during the night, the conclusion was that somebody had entered for the purpose of stealing those drawings and models, and had obtained them.

That was the whole story, although it was garnished with oaths and guesses and charges.

Patsy at once formed an idea as to who those thieves were, but he made no remark to Bally Morris or Spike.{100}

Sending them away, with instructions to hold themselves in readiness to obey any call that he might make on them, he hurriedly finished his dressing and went to the room of Chick, who had quarters in the same house.

Rapping on Chick’s door, he received, however, no response.

The door was locked, and, as Chick was a light sleeper, Patsy felt that Chick was not within his room. In his own room there was a key to Chick’s, as there was in Chick’s a key to his, that each might enter the other’s room when necessity required.

Obtaining that key and entering the room, Patsy saw at a glance that Chick had not occupied it during the night.

“Holy smoke!” he said aloud, to himself, “I don’t like the looks of this. I must tell the chief.”

Dashing downstairs into the street, Patsy went to a drug store where there was a telephone that he frequently used, and obtained communication with Nick at his home.

Telling his chief what had occurred, the third theft of the papers, he also said that Chick had not returned to his room during the night.

“Chief,” said Patsy, over the wire, “I’m going to try and pick up track of Chick.”

“Where?” asked Nick.

“I shall strike Rivington and the Bowery first, then Thirty-fourth Street, and then Forty-second Street.”

“Right,” replied Nick. “Stay about the Bowery and Rivington until I get over there. I shall come over at once.”

Patsy hurried over to the Bowery, and sought the corner of Rivington Street, where the first thing that attracted his attention was a red chalk mark on the pavement.

Many feet had passed over the mark since it had been{101} made, and it required close observation to discover its meaning.

Finally, Patsy determined that it had been made the evening before, and that it was a notice to himself and the chief that Chick was on the shadow, and going up the Bowery.

He crossed to the upper side of the street, and there found another mark, so dim, however, that he could not tell what its meaning was, but the indication seemed to be still pointing up the Bowery.

He went to the next corner, and there found another mark. This was plainer, and still indicated that Chick was going up the Bowery.

“These are last night’s marks,” said Patsy to himself. “If he has kept it up all night, we must get to him in time.”

He pursued his inquiries up the Bowery as far as the old armory, and there, seeing that the marks still tended to the north, returned to Rivington Street to meet the chief.

Arriving on that corner, he found Nick awaiting him.

It did not take the two long to exchange the additional information that had been gained by each since they had parted.

“You have been right from the beginning in this matter, Patsy,” said Nick.

“The two men who stole those papers from Lannigan’s room were Spike Thomas and Bally Morris. They carried them to Spike’s rooms and hid them away there. Still, I yet think we followed the proper course.”

“But the question now is,” said Patsy, “who has got the papers now, and who were the third thieves?”

“Who does Spike think were the thieves?” asked Nick.

“He thinks they are two young toughs who live in the{102} same house, and who saw them stowing away these things.”

“Do you believe that?” said Nick.

“Not hardly,” said Patsy, emphatically.

“Neither do I,” replied Nick, quietly. “But our business now is to find Chick and learn what he has been doing all night.”

Patsy laughed as he looked up at Nick, saying:

“I think that’s the straight road to the papers.”

The two now hurried up the Bowery to its end to pick up the trail Chick had left behind him.

Arriving at the last mark Patsy had observed, they soon discovered that the next one led them up Third Avenue, and, following them, which grew plainer as they proceeded, they were carried to Thirty-fourth Street, where the marks indicated that Chick had passed to the east.

But as they turned to go down that street, Patsy dashed across the street to look at something tied to the rail of the steps leading to the elevated railroad station.

It was a string of yellow cotton cloth.

Carefully examining the pavement, he ran up and down a short distance, like a dog getting the scent, and then, stepping to the curbstone, vigorously beckoned to Nick to come to him.

“Chick has been down Thirty-fourth Street,” he said, “and back again to go up Third Avenue. A sign on the elevated railroad station rail gives us the tip.”

Nick nodded, and the two hurried up Third Avenue.

“This trail will lead us to Forty-second Street, chief,” said Patsy, as they hurried along.

But he had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth when they struck a mark on the sidewalk that sent them down the side street to the east.

It was a change of direction for which neither was prepared.{103}

They did not expect to see any other mark until they reached the corner below, but in the center of the block they came on another which indicated a stop, and a little farther on another sign showing that the chase had been continued.

Looking about, they found that they were directly in front of a livery stable.

One of the stablemen threw open the great doors as they looked. Instantly Nick sprang inside, closely followed by Patsy, and went to a carriage standing on the floor, travel stained, the wheels covered with dust and mud.

On the hind axle was loosely tied a bit of yellow cotton cloth, to which he directed Patsy’s attention.

Turning to the man who had followed them, Nick said:

“That carriage has been out nearly all night?”

“Well, is it any business of yours?” replied the stableman, in a surly tone.

“Answer my question,” sternly demanded Nick.

“Didn’t know that you asked the question,” replied the man.

“Has that carriage been out over night?” asked Nick, in a calm, icy voice.

The man was overawed, and replied that it had been out all night, not getting back until after daylight.

“Did you drive the coach?” asked Nick.

“No; the man who drove it has just gone to lie down.”

“Go call him.”

“What for?”

“Because I tell you. I’m Nick Carter.”

The man started on hearing this, and went to the rear of the floor, where a man was lying on some carriage cushions which he had piled up in the corner.{104}

Nick and Patsy had followed, and Nick said to the man:

“Don’t get up, but answer a few questions of mine. You had a party out last night. How many were there of that party?”

“Two.”

“What did they look like?”

The man laughed, and replied:

“Hard to tell. They changed their looks two or three times.”

“Where did they go?”

“One man came here first and hired the coach,” said the man, “and he was a black-haired, black-eyed man. Then he drove up to Forty-second Street and Avenue A, where he took in another man. Then they drove down to the Bowery and into Fourth Street, where they left the coach and told me to wait for them. They staked me to wait until they came back.

“It was near daylight when the second one came to me and, getting in the coach, went down to the corner of Rivington Street.

“Waiting there ten minutes, the first one came up running, jumped into his coach with something in his hands, and told me to drive like the devil up Fourth Avenue.

“When we got as far as Twenty-third Street, they stopped me, gave me a twenty-dollar bill, and went off down Twenty-third Street to Third Avenue.

“I drove home.”

“Were you followed by anybody?”

“Yes,” replied the man, with a look of surprise. “There was a coach that stuck close to us all night.”

“Did the men you were riding know it?”

“No,” replied the man. “A fellow came out of the other coach when I was in Fourth Street and told me{105} he’d break my head if I let the other fellows know that he was following—and he meant it, too.”

Patsy laughed.

“It wasn’t anything to laugh about,” said the man. “If you’d seen him, you wouldn’t have laughed.”

Nick was satisfied the man had nothing more to tell, and he turned away, followed by Patsy, to whom he said, as he walked across the floor of the carriage-room:

“Chick tied that cloth on the axle in a chance that we might run up against it during the night.”

“No doubt of that,” said Patsy. “Where now?”

“To Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue,” replied Nick. “Chick has been on the track of these people, whoever they are, and it’s dollars to cents that when they left their coach at Twenty-third Street, he left his, in pursuit.”

Nick and Patsy hurried to the point indicated, and, as Nick had foreseen, they found on the corner one of the red chalk marks that gave them the direction.

The signs were fresh, easily seen, showing that they had been made within a recent time.

The signs led them over a crooked way, in which there were many stops, nearly all being in front of liquor stores, but finally ended in Avenue A, on the block below that on which Patsy had twice been in the twenty-four hours previously.

Here the signs ended, nor were there any indications of anything but a stop.

“Surely,” said Nick, “after giving us such a good trail for so many hours, Chick can’t have thrown it up at a late hour.”

“Unless,” said Patsy, “something has happened to him.”

He suddenly darted forward, and bent down to look on the sidewalk near the curb. He picked something up and{106} looked at it, and then ran along a few steps, looking in the curb or gutter.

Nick followed after him, and when he reached him, Patsy said:

“Here’s the trail. Little pieces of this yellow cloth. Chick was on the sneak here, and not in the open.”

Hurriedly, they followed this new trail, and it led them to the middle of the block on which was the house in which Patsy had his “row,” as he called it.

Indeed, when they came to a stop, they were almost opposite the door of that house.

Here, carefully placed against the bottom of a lamppost, was a ball of yellow cloth, about the size of a baseball.

“The end of the trail,” said Patsy.

“And Chick is somewhere about,” added Nick.

“I’ll give a signal that Chick will know if he’s here,” said Patsy. “Hide yourself.”

Nick went into a neighboring doorway, and Patsy, slipping into the street, got between two covered wagons that stood there, backed up to the curb, without horses in front of them.

Suddenly there sounded on the air the sharp, yelping bark of a frightened dog, ending in a prolonged howl.

Patsy slipped back to the pavement and to the cover of some boxes that were piled nearby.

The two waited but a moment, when Chick came down the street, looking in every direction.

Nick gave a low signal, and Chick darted into the hallway where Nick was, Patsy quickly joining him.{107}

CHAPTER XIII.

A DESPERATE STRUGGLE.

“I have been following Lannigan and the unknown all night,” said Chick.

“What have they been doing?” asked Nick.

“Something that they have regarded as important, but what I am not certain.”

He rapidly told his experiences of the night, the important feature of which, to Nick, was Lannigan’s visit to Rivington Street, and his entrance to a house there with the unknown, his long stay, and, finally, the hurried departure of the unknown and his running up to Fourth Street for the coach, which was brought down to Rivington Street.

It was there that Chick had sneaked up behind it and tied the yellow cloth to the hind axle, on the chance that Patsy or Nick, or both, might see it, and know that it was one followed by Chick.

He had hardly done this when Lannigan hurried up to the Bowery with something in his arms and under his coat, jumped into the coach, and was driven rapidly away.

After that it seemed to be merely an effort to get back to Lannigan’s apartments in Avenue A in a way that could not be tracked.

Patsy, by questions, soon settled that the house which Lannigan had entered was the tenement house in which Spike had his rooms, and said so positively.

“Then,” said Nick, “it is settled. Lannigan entered that house to steal from Spike Thomas what Spike Thomas in the afternoon stole from Lannigan.{108}”

The two then told to Chick that which had been learned from Spike Thomas and Bally Morris, and together the two stories made a complete one.

“Are you satisfied,” asked Nick, “that Lannigan carried those drawings and the model to his rooms?”

“Yes,” said Chick. “Now, with what you tell me, I know that they are in Lannigan’s rooms at this moment. What has bothered me all night, and why I clung to him so, giving you the trail, was that I knew he was up to some game that was important, but I couldn’t tell what. You see, I never knew that Lannigan suspected Spike Thomas of that theft, nor that you did. You sent me off on the trail of Lannigan before I had learned that. I was beginning to fear you would not pick up my trail, and when I heard Patsy’s signal, was going to chance a rush into Lannigan’s rooms.”

“We’ll make the rush now,” said Nick.

“Where is the unknown?” asked Patsy.

Chick laughed.

“He’s lying under the stairs, at the rear of that house on the corner, bound and gagged.”

“Why?” asked Patsy and Nick together.

“You see, it’s like this,” said Chick, laughing. “After I had tracked them to that corner and saw them both go into the house, I sneaked into that back yard, and was going to try the stairs, when I struck the unknown coming down. It was him or me right on the jump. I was afraid he would give the alarm, and I gave him the garrote so that he couldn’t holler. I went through him to see if he had anything we wanted, and, finding nothing, I tied him up and put a gag on him and threw him under the stairs, where he couldn’t make any trouble for a while.”

“Come on, boys,” said Nick. “We’ve got no time to lose.{109}”

The three detectives hurried to the corner, and entered the barroom, stopping only long enough for Nick to say to the barkeeper:

“I am Nick Carter. These are my two aids, Chick and Patsy. We’re going upstairs, and if you give so much as a whistle of alarm, it will be all day with you. Do nothing, say nothing, and stay right here.”

The three then rapidly passed through the door into the hall, and so upstairs to the second floor. Here Nick said:

“Go to that front door in the hall. When I whistle, break it in. Patsy, follow me.”

Chick did as he was directed, and Nick, followed by Patsy, went to that door which led from the hall into the bedroom.

Together both placed their shoulders to the door, and, exerting their united strength, burst it open with a crash.

They sprang into the room, with a loud whistle from Nick, and had hardly landed on their feet when they heard the crash of the door burst in by Chick.

Lannigan was in bed, and he sprang up into a sitting position with an oath.

He seemed to take in the situation instantly, for he reached under his pillow with both hands, and drew forth two revolvers, both of which he leveled at the two intruders, discharging them at once.

The balls went wide of the mark, doing no damage to either Nick or Patsy.

Lannigan immediately sprang out of bed to his feet in another effort, but as he raised his arms to level his revolvers again, Chick burst through the door leading into the front room, and, springing forward, struck Lannigan on the head with the butt end of his revolver.

He did not prevent Lannigan from discharging his revolvers again, but he did prevent him from taking true{110} aim, and thus, for a second time, the balls went wide of the mark.

Chick attempted to take the revolvers from Lannigan, and succeeded in wrenching one from him.

The other one, however, Lannigan was desperately endeavoring to use, and this time on Chick.

The bed was between Chick and Lannigan on the one side and Nick and Patsy on the other.

Patsy sprang on the bed to cross it to go to Chick’s assistance, while Nick attempted to pass around the foot of the bed.

Grappled by one, with two approaching him from different directions, Lannigan, for a brief instant, seemed to hesitate on which he should use his revolver.

The hesitation was fatal to him, for, as a matter of fact, in his doubt he aimed nowhere, discharging it between Nick and Patsy.

The next moment Patsy had seized his arm that held the revolver, and, with a quick wrench, he took it from his hand.

Without weapons, Lannigan made even then a desperate effort at a fight.

He was a powerful man, with muscles like steel, wiry and active. But he was not a match in strength or skill for even Chick, and when Patsy’s strength was added, he was as a child between them.

The two threw him over on the bed, where they held him down.

“You’d better give up,” said Nick. “You’re done, and you can’t make any fight. You’ve lost the game. It’s all up with you.”

“Who are you?” panted Lannigan. “What do you want?”

“Those drawings and the model that you stole from{111} Mr. Herron’s house night before last, which were stolen from you by Spike Thomas yesterday afternoon, and which you stole from Spike Thomas this morning.”

Lannigan stared at Nick, leaning carelessly over the foot of the bed, and breathed rather than said:

“You must be Nick Carter.”

“You’re quite right, Lannigan,” replied Nick, with a smile. “Where are those papers?”

“They’re not here,” replied Lannigan, “and you’re vastly mistaken if you think I will tell you where they are.”

“Roll him over, Chick,” said Patsy.

The two rolled Lannigan over to the other side of the bed, and Patsy, thrusting his hand under the sheet, pulled out a flat bundle of papers he had felt when they had thrown Lannigan on the bed.

He handed them over to Nick, who laughed as he said:

“Here they are.”

But Lannigan swore like a trooper.

Nick looked them over carefully, comparing them with the list Mr. Herron had given him, and said:

“The drawings are all here except one.”

“And here is that one,” said Patsy, taking it from his pocket. “I found it on the roof of this house yesterday afternoon.”

Nick took it, remarking that it made the set complete, and added:

“Now for the model.”

He began a search of the rooms, and finally, turning to the two, who were holding Lannigan, said:

“Handcuff that man and tie his ankles, while we search for that model.”

This was done, and the three began an exhaustive search of the rooms, which ended in finding the model,{112} badly broken, in a pasteboard hatbox in the bottom of a closet, covered with clothes.

“I think this can be patched up by a skillful man,” said Nick, after examining the model. “At all events, we have got all that we started out to get. Now, then, loose that man’s feet and we will take him around to the station house and lodge a complaint against him.”

By this time Lannigan seemed to realize that the game was up, as far as he was concerned, and he tamely submitted.

“Chick,” said Nick, when they were on the sidewalk, “you’d better get your man that you laid away on the stairway.”

Chick, followed by Patsy, went to get the unknown, but on arriving there found that he was no longer there.

Whether he had succeeded in getting loose from his bonds and gags, or whether some one had found him there and had released him, could not be told.

He was gone, and, so far as Nick Carter and his aids were concerned, he was never seen in New York again.

The three detectives then went to Mr. Herron’s house and delivered to him the drawing and the model.

That same day both Seaman and Elwell were arrested for complicity in the burglary. They easily obtained bail, and when the trial came off escaped punishment for the want of sufficient evidence to connect them directly with the crime.

The jewelry and silver plate taken by Lannigan and the unknown, who remains unknown to this day, were recovered from the fence in Hunter’s Point, which was searched on Patsy’s suggestion. So that Mr. Herron’s loss in the end was little or nothing.

Ida was not compelled to play the part set for her, but Mrs. Pemberton allied herself to Mr. Herron’s interest{113} on receiving another check for $10,000, the payment of the one Elwell had stolen being stopped at the bank.

Since that time, she has taken out the patents which secured to herself and Mr. Herron the control of the important invention, and a company has been organized, with Mr. Herron at the head, to put it into execution.{114}

CHAPTER XIV.

A MYSTERIOUS WARNING.

As for Lannigan, the swell cracksman of Philadelphia, Nick had conceived an idea that there was real worth in the man, despite his bad record.

He had a long talk with him, in which he pointed out that a trial could not but result in imprisonment.

“I am absolutely sure,” Nick declared, “that if I brought you into court, you would spend the next half a dozen years in jail. There is no reason why I should let you go free, except that I believe you could be a wonderfully brilliant man and a good citizen if you liked. I am going to give you that chance. You are free to go—no, no, don’t make any protestations. Get out of here as quick as you like and become an honest man. Let me warn you, however, that if I ever catch you engaged in any crooked work again, I will see that your due punishment is meted out. Now go.”

The man slunk away with a hunted expression in his eyes.

Little did Nick guess that within a very little while he would be on the track of Lannigan again.

He was sitting at breakfast one morning, when the first mail arrived, bringing with it the following singular letter, unsigned:

Nick carefully read the letter, even studied it, and the{115} paper on which it was written. But he gained nothing from such examination.

A close inspection of the envelope showed that it had been deposited in the general post office before six o’clock on the previous evening.

While the letter did not specify which Sanborn it was, and while a hundred of that name, perhaps, were to be found in the directory, Nick had no doubt that Harmon Sanborn was the one meant.

Harmon Sanborn was a very rich man, worth many millions, and in very active business life. The relations between this multi-millionaire and the famous detective were close, having been begun several years before when Nick was retained to trace a peculiar defalcation occurring in one of the many business enterprises of Sanborn.

Nick knew that Mr. Sanborn had more than one daughter unmarried, but he had not heard that the wedding of one was about to take place, as his anonymous letter indicated.

Chick was sitting nearby, wondering whether Lannigan would ever cross his path again, and inwardly chafing because of his chief’s generosity in not pressing charges against the fellow.

He was aroused from his reverie by Nick’s asking:

“Chick, you know Harmon Sanborn, of course. Have you heard that one of his daughters is to be married?”

“Why, yes,” replied Chick. “There’s been a great deal in the newspapers about it.”

“Which daughter is it?”

“The eldest.”

“Whom is she to marry?”

“A young Englishman who has been in this country for some years, and who is said to be related to some of the noble families on the other side.”

“Has there been much said about presents?{116}”

“Yes; half the millionaires of the country are giving diamonds and emeralds and what not to the bride.”

Nick handed the anonymous note that had reached him in that morning’s mail to Chick, asking:

“What’s your idea about that, Chick?”

Chick read the note carefully, and said:

“No name. It’s queer. I hardly know what to say about it. Yet, I think I’d act on it.”

“As a matter of prudence?” asked Nick. “When does this wedding take place?”

“At noon to-day.”

Nick looked at his watch.

“It is nine now,” he said. “There is plenty of time to take measures, if such are necessary. I wonder where Sanborn is at this time?”

“At his house, probably, on such a day,” replied Chick.

“Probably.”

Nick went to the telephone, and, calling up Mr. Sanborn at his home address, finally got into communication with him.

Asking Mr. Sanborn whether he would remain at his home for a short time, he received the answer that the millionaire would remain at his house until noon, when he would leave it only to go to the church to be present at the marriage ceremony of his daughter.

Nick told him that he had a matter of some possible interest to Mr. Sanborn, of which he could not speak over the wire, but that he would call upon him at once.

Asking Chick to accompany him, the famous detective immediately set out for the palatial residence of the rich man, which fronted on Central Park.

Reaching the house, the two detectives were immediately taken to a room on the first floor, which Mr. Sanborn used as his working room when at home.

“I don’t know,” said Nick to the millionaire, “but that{117} I am bringing a mare’s nest to you. This came to me in the morning’s mail. I know no more than that.”

He passed the letter he had received to Mr. Sanborn.

That gentleman, after reading it carefully, laid it down, saying:

“Well, it tells some truths. That I’m a friend of yours, Mr. Carter, is one truth, and the other is, that the presents are many and, in the main, pretty valuable. My little girl has been greatly favored by my friends and associates in business. What is your opinion about it?”

“It seems to be a note of warning,” replied Nick, “and I suppose prudence suggests that you should take measures, at all events, to protect the presents.”

“Well,” said the millionaire, “these newspapers have been advertising the number and kind of presents in the most annoying manner. Those who would do such a thing as steal them have had all the knowledge they could want of them reading those papers. And there is this thing, a very great number of invitations for the reception, after the wedding in the church, have been issued. I presume the house will be thronged this very afternoon, even overcrowded.”

“Under such circumstances,” said Chick, “it would be easy for swell crooks to push their way into the house. Many of the best, who do this kind of work, are women who can make a front, so far as dress goes, with the best ladies in the land.”

“What arrangements have you made, Mr. Sanborn?” asked Chick, “to guard your house during this pressure?”

Mr. Sanborn looked up, a little surprised, and said:

“I must confess that I have made none. Indeed, I gave it no thought.”

He laughed a little as he continued:

“All this is new business to me, and I have done nothing but blunder in it from the start. I can run a railroad,{118} two or three of them, perhaps, but a wedding seems to be a little too much for me.”

The two detectives laughed not a little over this confession, and Nick said:

“It is not too late for you to make arrangements yet, Mr. Sanborn, and you should do so without delay.”

“Yes,” put in Chick, “don’t make any mistake about thinking that the gang don’t know of this wedding and the valuable presents. Nor to the other thing, that you have made no provision to protect them.”

“Do you mean,” asked Mr. Sanborn, “that thieves would know that I have not done so?”

“Sure,” said Chick.

Nick nodded his head emphatically in support of his assistant’s statement.

Mr. Sanborn was visibly annoyed and perplexed. Finally, he turned sharply to Nick and said:

“I say, why can’t you take charge of this thing and do what is proper.”

Nick smiled a little as he replied:

“We could do so, but it is hardly in our line. This work, as a rule, is done by the officers of the Central Detective Office. What surprises me is that they have waited there for you to ask them. Usually, on such occasions, they come to ask what provisions you desire to have made.”

Mr. Sanborn frowned and looked rather grave. Then he replied:

“I could give you the reason why they have not done so, Mr. Carter, if I thought it wise to do so. While it is not in your line, is it too much to ask you to take charge for me to-day?”

“It is not too much for you to ask, Mr. Sanborn, in view of our friendship and relations, though it might be for others. Under all the circumstances, if you desire{119} us to do so, we will take charge to-day and carry the thing through.”

“Do so,” replied Mr. Sanborn, his face lighting up, “and you will lift a heavy load off my shoulders.”

“Then,” said Nick, “we will begin without delay.”

He went to the telephone that was in Mr. Sanborn’s room, and, calling up Patsy, told him to dress himself as if he were going to a fashionable morning wedding, and to report as soon as he could to Mr. Sanborn’s house, where he would find either Chick or himself, or both, to explain matters to him.

He then sought Ida, and, getting her, told her the same thing as he had told Patsy.

Turning from the telephone, Nick said to Chick:

“I think, Chick, you had better go and rig yourself for this thing. Put yourself in your best shape, for you will have to mix with the guests as one of them.”

Chick went away, replying that he would return within an hour.

He had not been away more than five minutes, when a card was brought to Mr. Sanborn with the word that the caller had come from the Chief of the Detective Bureau.

“A little late, perhaps,” said Mr. Sanborn, “but they are here with their offer of protection.”

He was about to turn to the servant and tell him that all provision had been made, and that the services of the Detective Bureau would not be required, when Nick stopped him.

“Wait one moment, Mr. Sanborn,” said Nick. “Let that man come in here and let’s have a look at him. The tricks of these fellows are many and shrewd.”

Mr. Sanborn was again about to instruct the servant to that end, when Nick stopped him a second time.

“Don’t be so hasty,” said Nick. “I don’t want you to offend the Detective Bureau, if the call is a straight{120} one. And, if it is not a straight one, I don’t want the fellow calling to recognize me. Where can I conceal myself and yet see him and what is going on?”

Mr. Sanborn went to a corner of the room, and, drawing out a large and costly screen, placed it so that one window was concealed by it.

“I have this screen so that I can throw up the window and get the fresh air without its blowing on me. You can sit behind that and be perfectly concealed, hearing everything, and for seeing, why, you can cut a hole through it.”

“Rather a valuable thing to cut a hole into,” said Nick, as he looked behind it.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Mr. Sanborn. “I fancy if I were to try hard I could buy another.”

“Now, then,” said Nick, “listen to what this man has to say, and if you hear three taps behind this screen, that I shall make by rapping my penknife on the back of the chair, you say to the caller that you will be very glad to have the Detective Bureau send three men in plain clothes.”

Nick looked around the room, and seeing that he could step out through the window into another room, said:

“But if you hear me whistle a bar or two of any tune, in the next room, say positively that all provision has been made and the services of the bureau will not be required.”

Nick now placed himself behind the screen, and a moment later the man who had presented his card was brought into the room by the servant.

He told his story to the millionaire glibly, and had hardly finished it when some one in the adjoining room whistled the tune of a popular air.

Whereupon Mr. Sanborn very sharply said that the bureau’s services were not required, and he imagined{121} that none of his guests were going to rob him on such an occasion.

The man calling tried to persuade Mr. Sanborn that he was running a great danger, but Mr. Sanborn would have nothing of it, and cut the interview short rather arrogantly:

There was nothing for the man to do but to leave, and so he went out of the house.

Nick returned to the room, saying:

“I supposed,” he said, “that I would recognize any one the Detective Bureau might be likely to send to you. But what I did recognize at a glance was that this man, who has just left us, is one of the most dexterous crooks, who works in large cities. He is a Philadelphia man, and I am sure he is the one who conducted those robberies at the great receptions last winter in Washington.”

“Then,” said Mr. Sanborn, “you believe your note of this morning was a good warning?”

“I must,” replied Nick, “under the circumstances, and I will be prepared to meet any effort made to-day.”

Mr. Sanborn, after producing a box of cigars, said to Nick:

“I must go and prepare for this affair. I shall leave you here to do as you see fit. If you desire to see me at any time, call a servant and send for me.”

He went out of the room. Nick took up a book and sat himself down to await the arrival of his assistants.

The first to arrive was Patsy, who, on appearing at the door, was at once taken to the room where Nick was waiting.

As he entered, Nick looked up in genuine surprise. Patsy had made the effort of his life, and would have been taken, in the care and correctness of his dress, for one of the fashionable swells of the city.

“You do me proud,” said Nick. “I was going to do{122} something of that myself, but, after looking at you, I’m afraid I’ll never be able to get to that perfection.”

“Oh,” replied Patsy, a little embarrassed under his chief’s teasing, “I guess I know how to get myself up to do credit to my chief. I’m only obeying orders, though.”

“As you always do, Patsy,” replied Nick. “You’ve obeyed orders to the very letter.”

Nick now got up, and, taking his hat, said:

“I’m going away to try to rival your elegance. Now, Patsy, I leave you in charge, and you must keep a good watch over the house. Already an effort has been made by Lannigan——”

“What, is that man at work again?” cried Patsy. “I thought you had frightened him off.”

“I thought so, too, but you know a leopard can’t change his spots. Lannigan is supposed to have made an attempt to get into the house, but failed, and escaped before he could be captured again. I fancy he is again employed by somebody who knows his ability as a cracksman; so if you spot Lannigan, keep close to him and see where the trail leads.”

He then told Patsy in detail what had already passed, and added a word of warning that, if the Detective Bureau did send a straight person there, Mr. Sanborn was not to be allowed to offend them by driving them off.

As Nick was about to leave the house, Chick and Ida arrived in quick succession, and he stopped long enough to instruct them and post them in their proper places.

He went down the steps, walking toward the corner. There he saw Lannigan at a distance talking with another, who, leaving Lannigan, jumped into a cab and was driven away rapidly.

Lannigan turned in another direction and disappeared, despite Nick’s efforts to keep him in sight.{123}

“Where have I seen that man who was with Lannigan? His face is familiar, but I can’t place him.”

Dismissing the matter for the time, however, he hurried home to prepare himself to figure as one of Mr. Sanborn’s guests at the wedding.{124}

CHAPTER XV.

A MISSING BRIDEGROOM.

When Nick returned to the house of Mr. Sanborn, it had already taken on a festive air.

The decorators had completed their labor and the florists had, at last, taken themselves off.

It was not long after Nick had returned that the bridal party set out for the church.

Within a few minutes three men made their appearance and said that they had come from the Central Detective Office, under the instructions of the authorities, to take charge of the house in the absence of Mr. Sanborn and his family.

Nick was called to the door by the servant. Listening to the story of the man presenting himself, he said:

“You are not of the detective force. Get away from here, and, if you make another attempt to enter, I will take you in.”

The men, evidently astonished, hurried away with such haste as to show that their reception was unexpected.

After they had gone Nick said to Chick:

“That is the second attempt that has been made to enter the house, the same means being used, the pretense that they are police detectives.”

“They will make another attempt,” said Chick.

“Yes,” replied Nick, “but it will be in a different way. They will hardly try the same thing again.”

“They seem to be pretty determined,” replied Chick.

“The haul is a big one, if they can make it,” replied Nick. “We must post Patsy at this door, and I will instruct the servants, on no account, to allow any one to pass{125} the doors until the return of the wedding party, unless one of us is called.”

“There is a good deal of going in and out of the basement door in the rear of the house,” said Chick. “I fancy that I had better post myself down there for the present.”

“It is a good plan,” said Nick. “Where are the presents displayed?”

“On the second floor in a rear room,” replied Chick. “Finding that out, while you were gone, I put Ida in that room to maintain a close watch.”

“It could not have been better,” replied Nick.

Thus they waited, but not for long, before there was another diversion.

A florist wagon drove up rapidly to the door with two men in it. Hardly had they stopped and gotten down from it, than a third man rushed up in great haste.

Throwing open the rear doors of the wagon, the three took out a variety of flowers and ascended to the top of the steps, ringing the bell hurriedly.

The doorman threw open the door, and one man, rushing through, with his arms full of flowers, said:

“These are for the rear room on the second floor. Come along, men. Bring those other flowers quick.”

Patsy stepped forward and said:

“What is this?”

“We are very late, we know,” replied the man, “but Mr. Sanborn did not order these flowers until this morning.”

“Mr. Sanborn never ordered them,” cried Patsy.

“Do you know all that Mr. Sanborn does,” replied the man, rather indignantly.

In the meantime, the other two men had pushed forward and the three now tried to go by Patsy.{126}

“Stand back,” said Patsy. “You can’t go by here. Now get out.”

“We’re goin’ to do what we were paid to do,” said the leader, “and you mustn’t stop us.”

Nick, upstairs, hearing the altercation, hurried forward. He was about halfway down the stairs when he saw Patsy catch the leader by the throat with both hands, and pushing him against the others, shove all of them, with their flowers, out through the door.

“Take ’em in,” cried Nick. “That’s the third attempt they’ve made.”

One of the men whom Patsy had shoved out, hearing the voice within, turned and caught a glimpse of Nick, who had reached the door by this time. He dropped the flowers on the stoop, running down hastily, at the same time crying out:

“It’s Nick Carter!”

With this, the other two dropped their flowers, and, jumping for the wagon, clambered into it, to be driven away in hot haste.

“That is the third attempt, Patsy,” said Nick. “I don’t think they will attempt it again. If there is another attempt, it will not be until after the house is filled up with guests.”

Nick was right, for no other efforts were made during the time the bridal party was away.

It was after one o’clock before the bride and bridegroom, with the guests bidden to the wedding breakfast, returned to the house. And it was fully two hours later before the guests to the reception began to arrive.

While keeping close watch on all those who entered, Nick Carter and his aids, nevertheless, kept themselves out of sight as much as possible.

Nick had taken for his own post the hallway on the second floor leading to the room where the presents were.{127}

A room in the front of the house on that floor had been set apart for the use of the groom, and, after the breakfast was over and the reception was about to take place, the groom, whose name Nick had learned was Mr. Norman Ellison, entered that room for a short time. Coming from it, he met Nick, face to face, at the door.

There was something strangely familiar to Nick in the face of the groom. For a moment it occurred to him that it was some other person than Mr. Ellison. With the recognition, recollections of London were presented to the mind of Nick.

On the part of Ellison, on meeting Nick Carter, there was an unmistakable start and an expression of surprise on his face.

The young man regained possession of himself, however, instantly, and advancing with a pleasant manner to Nick, extended his hand, saying:

“The celebrated Mr. Carter, I presume.”

Nick bowed, making no reply.

“I was a little astonished at seeing you here, until I recollected that Mr. Sanborn told me that he had secured your services this morning.”

He laughed a little and went on:

“All these things seem to be necessary at modern weddings. Mrs. Ellison tells me that her father forgot all about making the provision until this morning.”

This was all so true that Nick laughed with the groom, and answered that Mr. Sanborn had even neglected to take the proper precautions until after he, Nick Carter, had warned him that an attempt would be made to steal the jewels, of which he, Nick Carter, had had intimation.

The groom looked keenly into the eyes of Carter as he said these things, but merely remarked:

“That is serious.”

Then hastily saying:{128}

“But I must not linger here and keep the bride waiting,” he ran down the stairs.

Nick turned away, his mind busy with recollections of London. The face of the young man, Ellison, was familiar to him.

It was one of Nick’s characteristics that he never forgot a face that he had once regarded earnestly. In fact, his memory in this respect was actually an embarrassment to him, for in his travels in many parts of the world he had met faces that had attracted him, or, under circumstances, had impressed them on his mind which were by no means associated with his business. Something of this he expressed in the words he muttered to himself:

“This habit of suspicion is all very well, but I am letting it run away with me. Because I have seen this young fellow’s face before is no reason why I should suspect him of anything.”

He walked off toward the room over which Ida was on guard.

In the meantime, Ellison had descended the stairs, and, at the foot of it was met by a servant, who stopped him, speaking in a low tone of voice.

This was observed by Patsy, who, standing near the doorman, asked what servant it was, since he had not seen him before.

The reply was that it was Mr. Ellison’s own servant, his valet.

Whatever was communicated by this servant to the young man, at least it gave no little concern to him.

He knitted his brows, bit his lip and looked down on the floor in thought for a moment.

Then he said to the servant:

“Take him into some room where I can see him alone. I will excuse myself to the bride for a moment or two.”

The two turned away, the servant to run downstairs{129} into the basement, and the young man to push his way through the hall to a rear room on the first floor.

All this time the guests were arriving in increasing numbers for the reception, but the bride and groom, however, had not yet taken their places in the great parlor, where Mr. and Mrs. Sanborn were already in place.

Patsy, watching, saw the servant of Ellison come up the stairs from the basement, leading a man who was carrying his hat with him, and who wore a long cape overcoat.

This man was ushered by the valet into a small room at the extreme end of the hall. Then the servant returned to the bridegroom.

Together, the two entered this small room, as Patsy could very well see.

Only a moment or two elapsed before the stranger, who had called on the bridegroom at such an inopportune time, came out of the room, accompanied by the valet, who led him downstairs into the basement again, and, of course, out of sight.

Something occurring at the door attracted Patsy’s attention for a moment, so that he did not see Mr. Ellison emerge from that room.

The house was gradually becoming filled, and the ways of the stairs and the hall much crowded.

By and by Patsy became conscious that something extraordinary had occurred. In a few moments he saw Nick Carter hurriedly descend the stairs and push his way through the hall into the parlor.

While wondering what had occurred, he saw Chick push his way through the hall toward him. Reaching him, Chick bent over and said:

“The work has begun, Patsy. Get into that room, the third down on the right.{130}”

“They haven’t nipped some of those jewels, have they?” asked Patsy, eagerly.

“Oh, no,” said Chick, moving off, “it’s worse than that.”

Patsy threaded his way through the throng, and entered the room spoken of by Chick.

There he found the bride in hysterics, being cared for by her bridesmaids and an elderly woman, whom he recognized to be Mrs. Sanborn.

Nick was already there in close conversation with Mr. Sanborn, and, a moment later, Chick entered.

Patsy looked around for some explanation of the singular scene, but could find none.

Presently Nick beckoned him, and, as he approached, said:

“Perhaps Patsy can tell us something. Mr. Sanborn, this is one of my valued aids, Patsy Murphy.”

Mr. Sanborn, extending his hand, took that of Patsy’s, and the young detective felt that it was trembling with agitation.

“Patsy,” said Nick, “the bridegroom has mysteriously disappeared. The house has been searched and he cannot be found. Did you see him pass out of the door you were guarding?”

“No,” replied Patsy, “he did not pass out of that door.”

“Nor did he go out through the door that Chick was guarding,” said Nick.

“Say,” said Patsy, “who made the search of the house?”

“Some of Mr. Sanborn’s people,” replied Nick, “and a nephew of Mr. Sanborn.”

“Say, chief,” said Patsy, “I saw something. Where is Mr. Ellison’s valet?”

“What was it you saw?” asked Nick.

“I saw Mr. Ellison come down the stairs. His valet met him at the bottom of the steps and whispered some{131}thing to him. Then Mr. Ellison told him to take a man into a room where he could see him alone, while he himself came into this room to excuse himself to the bride.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Sanborn, “that’s what he did, saying that he would not delay the bride but a minute.”

“Then,” said Patsy, “I saw the valet come to the door of this room for him and take him to meet the stranger.”

“A stranger?” said Nick, sharply.

“Anyhow,” said Patsy, “he didn’t look like a guest, for he wasn’t rigged for it, and he had on a long cape coat. But, anyhow, it wasn’t a minute after they went in before the man in the big cape coat came out and was taken downstairs by the valet.”

“Did you see Mr. Ellison come out of that room?” asked Nick.

“No,” replied Patsy, “I did not.”

Chick, who had been standing within hearing, now said:

“I saw such a man go out of the door below.”

“Mr. Ellison said,” put in Mr. Sanborn, “when he came into this room to ask my daughter to wait a moment, that he was called to a matter of immense personal importance.”

Mrs. Sanborn at this moment called her husband to her, and Patsy, taking the arm of Nick, asked:

“What is it all about?”

“Mr. Ellison, the bridegroom, has singularly disappeared,” said Nick, “or is missing.”

“Do they think he has skipped?” asked Patsy.

“They do not say so,” replied Nick. “But it looks that way to me.”

“But,” put in Chick, “nobody saw him leave the house, and it is believed he is stowed away somewhere in it.”

“Well, look here,” said Patsy. “I’ve got a pointer.{132} Look for the feller the valet brought in. And look for the valet himself.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Nick.

“Well, I’ve only just tumbled now,” said Patsy, “but when that big cape coat went out of the house, it didn’t have the same man inside of it that it had when it came in.”

“You mean?” asked Nick.

“I mean that Mr. Ellison went out of the house in that big cape coat. I recollect now thinking how much bigger the man appeared going out than when he came in.”

“Good boy, Patsy,” said Nick. “You’ve answered one question right away.”

Turning to Chick, he said:

“Now, Chick, go through the house and make a thorough search for the valet.”

He stopped a moment, and then said to Patsy:

“Patsy, go into that room where you saw the man taken and see what you see there. Anyhow, look for the man that stayed behind.”

The two assistants dashed out of the room and began their respective duties.

It soon became apparent to Chick that the valet of Mr. Ellison had disappeared with his master.

As for Patsy, on entering the room, the first thing that attracted his attention was an open window.

Going to the window and looking out, he saw that it would not have been very much of a drop for a man to let himself out of it.

Leaning out he saw that there was a gate in the fence that led to the cross street, for Mr. Sanborn’s house was on the corner.

He heard a voice, and, looking up, saw a man at the open window of a house fronting on the cross street, but{133} which looked out upon the yard in the rear of Mr. Sanborn’s house.

The person opposite was a very young man, not more than a boy. He asked if Patsy were looking for anybody.

“Yes,” replied Patsy, “I am. Have you seen him?”

“I saw a man drop out of that window,” said the young lad, “and go out of the gate into the street.”

“What sort of a looking man was he?” asked Patsy.

“He wasn’t a very big man,” replied the lad, “but he had black whiskers all around his face and long black hair.”

“That’s my man,” replied Patsy. “Was anybody with him?”

“I didn’t see anybody,” replied the lad; “he went into the street through that door in the fence. He had no hat on. Did he steal anything?”

“Great Scot, no!” said Patsy. “His skipping was only a joke.”

Patsy left the window, for he had found out all he could hope to learn.

It was clear to him that Mr. Ellison had taken the man’s coat and hat and left the house, his valet being in the scheme.

Mr. Ellison once out of the house safely, the man who had come to see him had taken his chances for escaping in a bolder and more dangerous manner.

He went back to Nick and reported what he had learned.

“There is no doubt that you have hit the very way in which it was done,” replied Nick. “Chick reports that the valet has made his disappearance as well. The question is now, why have these two men fled? There is a great mystery here somewhere.”

The assurance that the bridegroom had deliberately{134} fled the house, within an hour after he had been married, and immediately after the wedding breakfast, at which he had made a speech expressing his happiness in securing so lovely a partner for life, by no means contributed to the peace of mind of the bride.

She fainted away on hearing it, and remained so long in a state of unconsciousness that the doctor was summoned to attend her.

In the meantime, the guests who crowded the house were wondering over the extraordinary delay.

Rumors were flying, the chief of which was that the bride had been taken violently ill. The nephew of Mr. Sanborn, a young man of the same name, and who alone of the family seemed to keep his head, took advantage of the rumor and of the fact of the calling of the physician to make it the excuse for dismissing the guests from the house.

It was not so easily done, but, in the course of an hour, all the strangers were gotten away, leaving only Nick and his assistants there.

On the first intimation that Ida received that the bride was ill, and the guests were being dismissed, she cleared the room wherein the presents were displayed, and, locking the door, sat there to guard the presents.

Once the house was cleared, Mr. Sanborn pulled himself together and said to Nick Carter:

“This is a most mysterious affair. I am much humiliated over the action of the man to whom I had given my daughter. But I am willing to suspend my judgment until such time as I find whether or not he is really guilty of wrong. I place this case in your hands and I ask you to unravel the mystery, and spare no expense in doing so.”

“The case shall be taken up immediately,” replied Nick. “Now, as the first thing, I wish to call your attention to the fact that one of my assistants is guarding{135} that treasure above, and I want her relieved at once. Is there no place here in which they can be placed in safety.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Sanborn, “there are safes here in which the valuables may be placed.”

Nick and his assistants superintended the transfer of the jewels from the room to the safe pointed out by Mr. Sanborn, and, having done so, Nick said to the millionaire:

“Roughly estimating, I should say that at least there is a million of value in those jewels and that plate. Your safes are not a sufficient guard for so much value. Let me urge you to take immediate measures toward a better care of them.”

With this Nick went away with Chick, Patsy and Ida for a consultation as to the best means of proceeding to unravel as strange and peculiar a mystery as they had met with in a long time.{136}

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. ELLISON’S PAST.

Nick and his assistants had returned to Nick’s apartments, which were not far distant from Mr. Sanborn’s house.

There, settling themselves down to look over the new case on which they were engaged, the first thing that they were confronted with was a want of knowledge as to the antecedents of Norman Ellison, who had so mysteriously disappeared.

“Although Mr. Sanborn,” said Nick, “confided this thing to our hands immediately, it was no time, when he was so agitated and so anxious over the condition of his daughter, to ask him the questions which immediately leaped into my mind. But, what is apparent is, that we cannot even make a place of beginning until we know more about this man, Norman Ellison.”

He got up and paced up and down his room for a while, and finally, stopping at the table, he said:

“His face haunts me. I have seen it somewhere before. Where, I cannot determine. But it is associated with London, and, not only with London, but with the Criterion restaurant, in Piccadilly. But it is all so vague that I can fix nothing.”

“Well,” said Chick, “Ellison is an Englishman and a Londoner. The Criterion is one of the chief restaurants of London, and its bar a great gathering place for the young bloods at night.”

“Yes,” replied Nick, “and I have been there many times. It was there that I caught Commerville, who had run to England after that big forgery of his. But I have{137} seen, perhaps, a thousand faces in that place, first and last, and why should Ellison’s face stick out more prominently than any of the others, if there was nothing wrong in it?”

Further conversation on this head was stopped by the coming of young Mr. Sanborn, the nephew of the millionaire.

He was immediately admitted, and told Nick that his cousin, the young lady who had been married that day, had recovered consciousness, and, though weak, and much agitated, was yet very desirous of seeing him.

Her father had told her that he has committed a search into the hands of the famous detective, and had assured her that nothing that brains, skill, energy and money could accomplish would be left undone to solve the mystery of the disappearance of her newly-made husband. Learning this, the young lady was anxious to have a talk with Nick Carter as soon as she could.

To take the famous detective to her was the reason of young Mr. Sanborn’s call.

“Mr. Carter,” said the young man, “this match between my cousin and Ellison was a love match. At all events, it was so on the part of Elsie.”

“Would you have us understand,” asked Nick, “that it was not so on the part of Ellison.”

“Oh, no,” quickly responded the young man. “I did not mean to give you that impression. I have always thought that Ellison was very keen about this matter from the first time that he met Elsie, which is two years ago. But he is the typical Englishman, one of the kind that is never enthusiastic about anything, and who would take his time to turn around and see what the matter was, if a pound of dynamite was exploded at his heels.”

“Was this match approved from the beginning by the parents?” asked Nick.{138}

“By Mrs. Sanborn, always,” replied young Sanborn. “But my uncle never liked it. His objection was only that Ellison was an Englishman, and, if not a nobleman himself, was very closely related to those moving in such circles.”

“Indeed,” continued young Sanborn, “a few deaths, three or four, and Ellison would come into a title and an estate. That he was a man of only small property did not weigh so much with uncle as the fact that Elsie would be taken to England and into a life for which she had not been trained.”

He laughed a little, and then went on:

“But the objection was not serious, for uncle has never denied Elsie anything she wanted, and she wanted Ellison very badly. So she married him.”

“Of course, if Mrs. Ellison wishes to see me,” said Nick, “I will go to her. But, before I do, I should like to ask you some questions as to things I must know, if I am to undertake this search.”

“I will answer anything I ought to,” said young Sanborn.

“In the first place, what do you know about Ellison?”

“Well,” replied Sanborn, rather doubtfully, “I know a good deal about him, and yet I don’t know much.

“I first met him four years ago in London. We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, a young Englishman of his walk of life, who had spent some time in this country, and with whom I was well acquainted.

“I saw a good deal of Ellison in London at that time. He was very nice to me in showing me around.

“As a matter of fact, he went over to Paris with me, and, on our return, took me down with him to his relative’s place, the Earl of Kerleigh’s.

“So you see that I know there’s nothing bogus about his position. But he is one of those fellows, so reserved{139} and so quiet, that you may say you never know him. I should say, however, that he was as straight as the majority.”

“When did you next see him?” asked Nick.

“Two years ago,” promptly replied young Sanborn. “He came over here with a shooting party, and, having written me that he was coming, and with some fellows of his kind, most of whom I knew, and that they were going into the West to shoot, I used my influence with my uncle to get up a special car to take them out there in style.

“When they arrived and found what I had done, they made me go with them.

“Returning to New York, I did the best I could to entertain them, and it was then that Ellison met Elsie.

“When the party was to start back to England, Ellison said he was going to remain here. And he did so. He has never been back since.”

“How did he support himself here?” asked Nick.

“Oh, he has an income of his own,” replied Sanborn, indifferently. “I gave him a few tips occasionally, when I had them, and he did a little in the street. Not much, for he didn’t go in very heavy. He couldn’t. He didn’t have the money.”

“What was his life here?” asked Nick.

“All right,” said the young man, “so far as I can tell. He was a member of a club or two, went into society, was well entertained, and moved around with the young men of the day.”

“Anything fast in his life?” asked Nick.

“Oh, no. He didn’t plunge any in anything.”

“Was he attentive to Miss Sanborn during all this time?” asked Nick.

“From the first. He asked her to marry him within the first year he was here, and she referred him to her{140} father. I have told you that Uncle Harmon didn’t fancy the match, but he had a talk with the young Englishman, and, as he told me afterward, Ellison came out of the talk in a straight, manly fashion. In fact, he made a better impression on uncle in that talk than he had made before. But uncle insisted that, while they might consider themselves engaged, the wedding should not take place for a year. And so Ellison settled down in New York for that year to pass.”

“There doesn’t seem to be much in your tale to give me a hint,” said Nick. “Now let me ask you a leading question. I beg you will not evade it through any friendship for Ellison, whom you evidently like, or feeling of loyalty to your cousin. Here is a mysterious thing in which a man does the very thing you would expect him not to do, and at the very time it would be supposed that the object of his life was accomplished, defeating that object. If I am to solve this mystery, I must find the reason for it in his life prior to his marriage. It is, therefore, not idle curiosity that prompts me to ask you.

“Now, then, do you know of anything, even the slightest, irregular, mysterious or complicating circumstance in the life of Mr. Ellison?”

“Mr. Carter,” said Mr. Sanborn, “if I have asked that question of myself once to-day, since all this happened, I have asked it twenty times. And I have been unable to answer it other than that his life has been a straight, open book.”

He bent his head in thought for a moment or two and continued:

“I see your position and your point. I am earnest and sincere in what I say. If, when I can give calmer thought to this thing than I have yet been able to do, and some things occur to me that I cannot now recall, I promise you that I will come to you with them at once.{141}”

“Very well,” said Nick, “as we seem to have exhausted the subject for the present, I will go with you to see Mrs. Ellison.”

Telling Chick, Patsy and Ida to remain until he should return, Nick went off with young Mr. Sanborn to the home of the millionaire.

Arriving, he was taken at once to the apartments of the young lady who, as he entered, was reclining upon a lounge.

She rose immediately, and, crossing the room to meet him, said:

“Dear Mr. Carter, I want you to understand from the first that I have every faith in my husband. Don’t let anybody, no matter who, make you believe that Mr. Ellison is not a good man. I wanted to say this to you in the beginning. What has occurred, or why he has done this, of course, I don’t know. But, whatever it is, it has been done because he could not help himself, not from any intention to leave me. He loves me, I know, and I know it as well as I know that I love him. I can tell you nothing to help you in your search, but I did want you to know my faith in him, and I wanted to see and talk with the man who has my faith and future in his hands. That is you. Whether life will be of any value to me will depend entirely on what you do and what you discover. And, having seen you, I know I can trust you to do all that can be done.”

The young lady had been so earnest and had worked herself up to such a degree of agitation that, at the conclusion of her words, she swooned again.

But she soon recovered, and Nick, perceiving that she was again herself, went downstairs to Mr. Sanborn’s room to have an interview with him.{142}

CHAPTER XVII.

PATSY’S POINTER.

Nick returned to his assistants after his interview with Mr. Sanborn.

He was thoughtful and perplexed.

Mr. Sanborn had been unable to contribute a single idea or additional bit of information that would help Nick to a starting place.

“In all my experience,” said Nick, “I have never met with just such a case.

“All that we have is that a man has mysteriously disappeared at a most unexpected moment, and when his disappearance is likely to lose him all he had been striving for for two years.

“Those who know the man best, who for two years have been his intimate associates, cannot even suggest a notion as to what might be the cause of it.”

“It’s a great big stone wall,” said Patsy, “and we’re up agin’ it with our noses scratching against the rough edges.”

Patsy’s terse description caused them all to laugh.

“Chief,” asked Chick, “do you think that you know the whole of the life of this man, Ellison, here in New York for the past two years?”

“Perhaps not so well,” answered Nick, “as I might know if we had made a careful search into it. But, before Mr. Sanborn consented to his daughter’s marriage, and, subsequent thereto, he had inquiries made as to the young man and how he was living, what he was doing, and he became satisfied that there was nothing wrong in it.{143}”

“Well,” said Chick, “it goes that a man don’t disappear as Ellison did without a reason.”

“That is true,” said Ida. “Had he left at any other time, or any other place, there would not have been so much in it.”

“What is your point?” said Nick, stopping in his pacing up and down and standing before Ida.

“What I mean,” said Ida, “is this. If Mr. Ellison had been in his room, say three months ago, reading, or smoking, or passing his time away until bedtime, and had been called upon by some one who came to see him, and, going out with him, had not returned, it might have been said that he had allowed himself to drift away without strong reasons. But to leave a house under the circumstances Mr. Ellison did, within two hours after his marriage, and just as he was prepared to take his place at the reception to receive his many wedding guests, shows that there must have been reasons so strong that he dare not pass them by.”

Nick nodded his head as if agreeing with this, and Chick said:

“And crime of some kind is at the bottom of those reasons.”

Nick turned sharply on Chick and asked:

“What do you suspect?”

“I suspect nothing,” replied Chick. “I am trying to say that nothing but a crime, or, a wrong, would make a man like Ellison leave as he did.”

“The reasoning is good,” said Nick. “Let us see. The most important thing that could occur to Ellison, as we know it, is the possible succession to the title and estate of his family. Now, the Earl of Kerleigh is alive, and there are three lives between him and Ellison. Suppose, for instance, that all of those four men were on a yacht and were drowned at one and the same time. That{144} would make Ellison the Earl of Kerleigh and change him from an unimportant person to a very important person in England; in other words, changing the whole course of his life. It is hard to conceive anything more important to occur to Ellison. Suppose that the big cape man Patsy saw, brought him that information. While it would shock and excite him, there could be no reason why he should not tell his newly-made bride and her family, even if it were necessary for him to leave on the minute.”

“And that,” said Ida, “forces us to believe that there was some wrong or some crime back of this hasty departure.”

“I say, chief,” said Patsy, “did any steamer sail to-day since twelve o’clock?”

Chick jumped for the morning paper and quickly looked at the shipping news.

“No,” he said, “no steamer left port to-day after twelve o’clock.”

“What time does the next steamer go out?” asked Nick.

“Every one that leaves to-morrow,” replied Chick, “must sail before nine in the morning.”

“You have made a good suggestion,” said Nick. “I wish, Patsy, you would take care of that end of it, and see that every steamer is properly watched to-morrow morning.”

Patsy smiled with pleasure. The chief had acknowledged that he had made the first practical suggestion in the work.

“It comes down to this,” said Nick, “we must set out upon the theory that something wrong, some crime, some misfortune, or some complication, exists in the life of Ellison that is unknown to his best friends.{145}”

“Chief,” said Ida, “I believe that that is to be found not here in this country, but in England.”

“Since he has lived so good a life here,” said Nick, “it would seem to be so.”

The famous detective stood still a moment and said:

“I must appeal to my friend, Inspector Mostyn, of Scotland Yard, again. Chick, write a cable to Mostyn and ask him to send all information that is queer about Ellison. Tell Mostyn what family he belongs to.”

He turned to Ida and said:

“I don’t suppose there is a man in England who knows as much about the noble families and their concealed histories as Mostyn does.”

“If you are to have a starting place at all,” said Ida, “I think you will find it in what Mostyn tells you, and——”

Ida hesitated a moment, and Nick asked:

“And what?”

Ida laughed in a somewhat doubtful manner and replied:

“And I am afraid that you will find that it is something in which one of my sex is involved. I have noticed that nearly all the trouble which a sprig of the nobility gets into, is because of some woman.”

There was a tap at the door. Patsy opened it and found there a servant, who passed in a letter, with the remark that it had just been received.

It was addressed to Nick.

Handing it to Nick, the famous detective opened it and said:

“It is the same handwriting.”

“The same as what?” asked Chick.

“The same writing as the note of warning of this morning.”

Reading it, he passed it to Chick, saying:{146}

“Read it aloud.”

Chick read:

“‘A famous judge, having a man brought before him and listening to the charge made against him, asked: “Who is the woman?” If you are wise, you will take this as a pointer for the beginning of your new case.’”

The four detectives looked at each other, and then Nick took from his pocket the letter of warning of the morning, and together they compared the handwriting of the two letters.

“It is the same,” said Nick, positively.

“It was written by the same man,” said Chick.

“It is not the writing of a man, but of a woman,” said Ida.

Nick caught the two letters, and, carrying them to the window, where the light was strong upon them, carefully examined them.

“You are right, Ida,” he said, as he returned to the table. “Though the character of the writing is heavy and masculine, yet it is clear that a female hand wrote both notes.”

Chick took them up again and carefully examined them.

“Ida,” said Chick, “while you are undoubtedly right in this, it would seem to upset your theory that we must look for the reasons of this mysterious disappearance in the life of Ellison in England, prior to his coming to this country.”

Ida took up the envelope of the last letter, and, inspecting the postmark, replied:

“Yes, since a woman is involved, as these letters show, and she is in this city now. This letter was mailed this afternoon by three o’clock.”

Nick turned with a start.

“By three o’clock?” he asked. “Are you sure?{147}”

Ida handed him the envelope, saying:

“Look for yourself. And it was from the General Post Office.”

“Then,” said Nick, “the writer of this letter knew of the disappearance as quickly as we did.”

“It’s my guess,” said Patsy, “before.”

“You mean,” said Nick, “that she was a part of it?”

“Perhaps,” said Patsy; “anyhow, she knew it was goin’ to take place.”

“And it is my guess,” said Ida, “that the woman who wrote this letter is not the woman that Ellison is mixed up with, but is a woman who is in love with Ellison and who wants to get the other woman in trouble.”

“How in the world do you figure that out?” asked Chick.

“I don’t figure it out,” said Ida. “I’m guessing, like Patsy.”

She looked up at Nick and laughed as she continued:

“It is a guess based on my understanding of my own sex.”

“It is something to pay attention to,” said Nick, “especially in a case so dark and difficult as this is. But, Ida, if we are to guess on the probable actions of women, we could do a great deal more guessing.”

“As for instance, how?” asked Ida.

“We might guess that the woman who writes to us wishes to strike the one Ellison married to-day, and that the job put up was to prevent the marriage taking place, but that it miscarried.”

“Oh, if you’re going to guess,” said Chick, “you can guess anything, but the real thing is to find the writer of these letters as a beginning.”

“See here, chief,” said Patsy, “are not we losing sight of one thing in thinking only of this mysterious disappearance?{148}”

“In what way?” asked Nick.

“Well,” said Patsy, “what was the start of this game, anyhow? Wasn’t it a warning that the Sanborn house was to be robbed to-day?”

“If you’re never more wrong than you are in that, Patsy,” said Chick, teasingly, “you’ll always be dead right, my laddy buck.”

“You’re getting gay, Chick,” replied Patsy. “I’ve got a notion in my think box that I know where the start is in this case.”

The three turned with interest to Patsy, and Chick, inclined to jolly Patsy, said:

“Expatiate, my brilliant statesman, expatiate.”

Patsy turned to Chick with a merry twinkle in his eye and asked:

“Did it hurt yer much to cough that up?”

“Come,” said Nick, “say what’s in you, Patsy.”

“Well, see here, chief,” Patsy went on. “You say both these letters were sent by the same person.”

“Yes.”

“Well, the woman, if it is a woman, as Ida says, was dead right, wasn’t she, when she said it was goin’ to be tried on.”

“You mean the attempt to rob the Sanborn house of the jewels, the wedding presents?” asked Nick.

“The same,” said Patsy, eagerly. “Well, it was tried on, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then the moll what wrote this letter knew all about it beforehand, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” replied Nick, smiling as he recognized that Patsy was slipping back into his east-side talk as he always did when he grew very earnest.

“Well, then,” continued Patsy, “it goes, doesn’t it, that she must know the people what was goin’ to work it?{149}”

“Yes,” replied Nick, eagerly, for he saw Patsy was getting to a point.

“And,” went on Patsy, “the moll has given you the warning that there was a woman behind Ellison’s runnin’ away?”

“Yes.”

“And she must know who that moll is?”

“Yes.”

“And if yer could get on ter her, you’d get a line on the whole biz, wouldn’t yer?”

“Yes.”

“But the thing is, Patsy,” said Chick, “to get to the woman who wrote the letters.”

“That’s what I’m gettin’ at,” said Patsy. “The chief knows that the man Lannigan, the swell cracksman of Philly, led off in this biz of tryin’ ter nip the jewels. And it’s dollars to doughnuts that Lannigan knows the moll what writ these letters. So, Lannigan is the startin’ point ter turn the lamps onto.”

Nick brought his hands together with a resounding clap and replied:

“You’ve hit it, Patsy, and you have given us what we have been fishing for, a starting place. Now, Chick, you and Patsy start right out and see if you can’t find Lannigan, and put him and his fellows under watch. Don’t lose them until you know all they’re doing.”

Without waiting for anything else, Chick and Patsy went out.

“I fancy, Ida,” said Nick, “that there will be a good deal of work for you to do in this case. You had better go home and spend the night in getting a good rest. What you have to do will depend upon what the boys will find out to-night.”

Ida went away, and Nick busied himself with a new make-up.{150}

CHAPTER XVIII.

IN THE TENDERLOIN.

Chick and Patsy relied upon their knowledge of the haunts of criminals and crooks in the city to give them trace of Lannigan.

It was nearly seven o’clock when they left Nick’s apartments.

“I’ll bet you, Patsy,” said Chick, “that the gang working the Sanborn residence this morning was governed by our old friend Lannigan.”

“I’m thinking so myself,” replied Patsy.

“If that’s so,” replied Chick, “and they’re in the city yet, the place to find them to-night is in the Tenderloin, where they’ll be rolling about for a bit of a spree.”

“If they’ve got the price,” replied Patsy. “Their little show didn’t come off according to the bill of play. They may be broke.”

“Oh,” replied Chick, “they’ve got enough for a roll, and I think the best place to look for Lannigan is among the music halls.”

“It’s a little early,” said Patsy, “to take up that hunt.”

“Yes,” said Chick, “but that will give us a chance to get something to eat, and I’ve had nothing since breakfast.”

“I’m with you,” said Patsy.

Accordingly, they turned into a rather well-known eating saloon in Broadway, not far from Thirtieth Street.

They had not been seated at their table long, before they saw a man enter who was a prominent member of the police detective force.

His name was Merton, and the two, Chick and Patsy,{151} were on good terms with him. Attracting his attention, they called him to their table, asking him to dine with them.

When he was seated, they asked him if he was on any special business.

“A very easy lay,” replied Morton. “A young fellow, from an Eastern city, who has got more money than brains, is down here on a high-pressure spree. His folks, who can’t switch him, have appealed to the department to put him under watch so that nothing bad will happen to him. That’s my lay. The chief says it’s a kind of a vacation for me.”

“Merton, did you folks have an eye to the Sanborn wedding this morning?”

“In a way,” said Merton. “When the papers put up the story about there being so much value in the presents that were given to the bride, the chief had a look over the crooks working in that line to see if they were going to do anything about it.”

“And they were not?” asked Patsy.

“No; the lads believed there was no use of trying it, because the presents would be too closely watched and they came to know that the chief was looking after them, so they steered clear away.”

“Then,” said Chick, “if any one did make the attempt, it was not local lags.”

“That’s dead certain,” said Merton. “If any one did, they were outsiders. But did any one try it on?”

“We think they did,” said Chick, cautiously.

“Well, if any one knows anything about it,” said Merton, “you ought to. You were on guard there.”

“Oh,” said Chick. “You know that, then.”

“Yes,” replied Merton. “The chief was certain that Sanborn would call Nick Carter in, for he always does{152} that when he has got any work to be done. That’s why the chief didn’t send anybody there.”

“Well,” said Chick, “Sanborn did not call on the chief. But the chief got a tip that an effort was going to be made to nip some of those presents and warned Sanborn only this morning. That’s how we happened to be there.”

“Say,” asked Merton, suddenly, “what’s that story about the bridegroom, Ellison, disappearing? Is there anything in it?”

Chick was a little puzzled to know how to meet this direct question. It had been the hope of Nick and the Sanborn family as well, that the dismissal of the guests would be attributed to the sudden illness of the bride, and that, for a time at least, the disappearance of the groom could be concealed. So he asked:

“What do you know about it?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Merton. “But a friend of mine, who was there as a guest, said he heard Sanborn say something to his nephew that made him believe that it was the running away of Ellison from the house that made the bride sick. In other words, my friend thought that there had been a big quarrel somewhere and that Ellison left the house in a huff before the reception.”

This was enough to justify Chick in a denial, and he promptly made it.

“Well,” said Merton, “if there was an attempt made on the house, what gang was it?”

“The chief thinks,” said Chick, “that Lannigan tried to get inside the house, pretending to be one of your plainclothes men.”

“Lannigan? The man that Nick Carter had his hands on a little while ago and let him off with a caution. Is it possible that he can be fool enough to butt himself against the law again?”

“That’s what the chief thinks.{153}”

“Well, I saw Lannigan on the street not an hour ago. You can find him almost any minute in the Tenderloin somewhere. Both nights that he has been about here he has had a woman with him, who is as swell as they make ’em.”

Chick turned to Patsy and said:

“You see, Patsy, my guess was right. The Tenderloin is the place to look for him.”

“Who is the woman that is traveling with him?” asked Patsy.

“She’s a stunner,” replied Merton. “She’s tall, slim, handsome, with a face white, like marble, red lips, round blue eyes, and wavy, light fluffy hair. She is dressed in the highest style. She looks to me like a lady who is trying to see the wrong side of New York without being in it.”

Chick and Patsy instantly exchanged glances.

“Are you looking after such a woman?” said Merton.

“The chief wants to know all about such a woman,” said Chick. “He fancied that she was with Lannigan, and I guess they want evidence for a divorce suit.”

“I thought Nick Carter never touched such cases,” said Merton.

“Oh,” replied Chick, carelessly, “it’s only my guess, but the work of Patsy and myself is to get on to this couple, and put them under watch.”

“Then,” said Merton, “the best thing you can do is to travel with me to-night, for, if they are here in town when the lights are lit, we’ll run against them for sure.”

Having finished their meal, the three started out on their travels.

Merton had little difficulty in finding the man over whom he had watched, but the two that Chick and Patsy were anxious to find could not be found in any part of that gay section of New York.{154}

All places, possible and impossible, open and concealed, were visited, but no trace of Lannigan could be found. The hours passed and midnight was nearly reached when Patsy said:

“I’m afraid, Chick, that our man has got out of New York after his failure to do the work that he came here to do.”

“You mean the robbing of the Sanborn wedding presents?” said Chick.

“Yes,” said Patsy. “Very likely he has got to know that Nick Carter is on his track again, and he doesn’t want any more hot encounters with the chief.”

This had passed between Chick and Patsy as they were walking along Broadway above Thirty-fifth Street.

Suddenly Merton halted the two, and, pointing to the other side of the street, said:

“There’s your couple now.”

Looking across they saw a man and a woman, both stylishly clothed, crossing Broadway to the corner on which they stood.

The three, dropping back out of sight, watched them cross. Standing on the corner for a moment, the two seemed to discuss which way they should go, then they turned up Broadway.

Following them, the detectives learned that their destination was a restaurant whose principal business of the twenty-four hours was done after midnight.

It was the resort of the gay people of the town, and, as other places darkened, this one became brighter and gayer.

They waited on the outside long enough to make it appear that they had not followed the pair into the place.

“It was worth waiting for,” replied Chick, “and we’ll probably get a line on them before we are through with them.{155}”

Finally, Chick said to Merton:

“We’d better go in now.”

He made the motion to lead the way up, when a young woman stepped up, and, addressing Merton, said:

“Anything for me to do to-night, Mr. Merton?”

“No, Bess, I think not. I haven’t anything on to-night of any importance.”

The girl stepped away, and Chick asked who she was.

“She is a girl,” said Merton, “who is employed by me a good deal.”

“You use her, then, in your work?”

“Yes; she’s as good as a directory. She knows everybody, who they are and what they do.”

“Fetch her back,” said Chick. “We’ll take her in, and she may be of use to us.”

Merton ran after her and brought her back. The four then entered the restaurant.

The place was already more than half full, and there was some difficulty in finding a table which was near enough to Lannigan and the woman who was with him to make observation easy and yet not be too conspicuous.

When, at last, the table was selected, it was found to be well placed for their purpose.

They not only commanded a good view of the table occupied by Lannigan and his companion, but of the whole room.

“Chick,” said Patsy, “Lannigan isn’t broke, by any means. He’s doing the swell caper. Nothing but champagne and Burgundy does him. See him mix the fizz and the red.”

“Nothing less than seven and a half for that tipple,” said Merton.

“And nothing less than birds, as well,” said the girl Merton had called Bess.{156}

“His layout will knock spots out of a ten-dollar note,” said Patsy.

“You know who it is?” asked Bess.

“Know the man,” replied Chick; “his name is Lannigan.”

“That’s right,” said Bess.

“Do you know the woman who is with him?” asked Chick.

“No. She was never seen here until three nights ago, and she was with him then.”

“See here, Bess,” said Merton. “These two friends of mine are on the same lay that I am. They want to know all about a woman traveling with Lannigan. I don’t know why, and I ain’t asking. And you don’t want to ask why, either. But if you can help them, you’ll be helping me.”

“And the price will be the same from me,” said Chick, “as it is from Merton when you are working for him.”

“The price isn’t much,” said Bess, with a laugh. “It’s only a tenner for an evening’s work. I think I can help you, but I don’t know. I’ll try.”

“Then I’ll pay you now and take the chances,” said Chick, thrusting a ten-dollar bill into the hands of the girl.

“Whether I can help you depends whether the girl with Lannigan is known in Philadelphia, where Lannigan originally came from. A girl will come in here some time to-night who will know her, if she is known in that city. If she does, she’ll tell me.”

The little party of four then gave themselves up to the enjoyment of their supper, which had been ordered by Chick. In the meantime, the room gradually filled until all the tables were occupied; the place became redolent with tobacco smoke and gay with the chatter of voices and laughter.

As they watched the other table, they saw a man make{157} his way through the room, and, going to Lannigan, lean over him and whisper.

Lannigan seemed to be much annoyed, but, nevertheless, he took a bill from his pocket and handed it to the man, who went out.

Patsy said to Chick:

“I flung that fellow out of the door at Sanborn’s this morning.”

“Was he the one who came with the flowers?”

“Yes. He’s the one who cried out when he saw Nick Carter.”

“He’s a New York crook,” said Merton.

“A second-story man,” said Bess.

As she said this, she jumped to her feet and began to beckon to some one who had entered the saloon.

The one to whom she was beckoning was a rather flashily dressed young woman who was of a party of three women and two young men.

“Hello!” exclaimed Merton. “There’s my man, and since he’s come in, I’m neglecting no business.”

The party found a table at the other side of the room, which had just been vacated. The girl whose attention Bess had been trying to attract, finally, seeing Bess, came over to her and Bess asked:

“Is that party very dear to you, over there?”

“Oh, no,” said the girl. “I’m only trying to make it very dear for the two willie boys in tow.”

“Are they friends of yours?” asked Bess.

“No; they’re friends of the other two girls. They just roped me in.”

“Shake them and join us,” said Bess. “I want to ask you something.”

The girl went back to the party. Apparently excusing herself, she came back and sat down at the table as requested by Bess.{158}

“Alice,” said Bess, “look at that man and woman over on that side.”

Bess pointed out the couple the party had under observation.

“Jimmy Lannigan,” said the girl called Alice. “He’s been rolling about the Tenderloin for three nights. But he’s spending no money except on the woman that is with him.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“Yes, I do,” replied the girl Alice, with a laugh. “She comes from our old city, Bessie, and if she keeps this racket up much longer, if there won’t be a swell divorce case with fine trimmings, I’m no guesser.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Chick.

“The thing with me is,” said Alice, “why the burst hasn’t come long ago. She is the wife of a rich young fellow in Philadelphia. She is herself of a good family and she’s going with the best. Her husband is a man engaged in business and lets her go her own gait, while he is working night and day to get rich. This young woman has been sporty for two or three years; but I don’t think she’s guilty of anything worse than a keen desire to have a good time. She respects the moral code, though she goes into places which the majority of wives avoid.”

“How is it,” asked Chick, “that she’s in with such a fellow as Lannigan?”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” said Alice. “I don’t know how much she knows of Lannigan. But you know Lannigan is very swell. He’s a handsome fellow, so I suppose that he’s caught her fancy.”

“She’s taking big chances,” said Patsy, “in traveling around with a fellow so well known as he is.”

“She’s taking big chances all the time,” said Alice. “The wonder is that she hasn’t been dropped to. Up to two or three months ago she was traveling around in all{159} sorts of places with a young Englishman. But then he was one of her kind.”

“You mean,” said Merton, “that he moved in her circle of fashionable life.”

“Yes,” said Alice, “and there was a lot of talk about her in her own circle then. I had a friend who was one of the young sports in that circle who told me all about it. This young Englishman had her out on a yacht for a week, and her husband never knew anything about it.”

“Not alone?” asked Merton.

“Oh, no,” said Alice, “there was quite a party.”

“When was this?” asked Patsy.

“Let me see,” said Alice. “I can get pretty close to the time. It was last September.”

“Do you know the name of the young Englishman?”

“No, I’ve forgotten it if I ever heard of it. Anyhow, he was here in New York and used to run over to Philadelphia to see her.”

“What is her name?”

“Ladew. Her husband’s name is Thomas. That won’t be her name long,” continued Alice, with a laugh, “if she let’s Jimmy Lannigan show her around New York very often. She’s taking chances I wouldn’t dare to take, if I were in her place.”

It seemed to Chick and Patsy as if they had secured all the information which they were likely to obtain at that time.

Bess looked at Chick meaningly, as if to ask if he had gotten all he wanted, and Chick nodded in reply.

The conversation was then changed, and Chick gave the signal to Merton that he would like to get out.

Merton took the lead and the party rose.{160}

CHAPTER XIX.

CHICK’S STRANGE ENCOUNTER.

The three detectives went to the door, but on reaching it, Merton said:

“I think I’ll have to leave you here. My business will make me stay here, for I see that my man is getting pretty well loaded, and I must keep an eye on him.”

Chick and Patsy therefore shook hands with him, thanking him for the assistance he had given them.

While they talked at the door, a young man and a young woman entered from the street and, walking some distance into the place, suddenly stopped, peered forward earnestly, and then hastily turning, went out into the street again.

The action had been observed by Patsy, who made up his mind that they had seen somebody at the tables they desired to escape. He watched them go to the corner and engage in earnest conversation.

After a moment, they went under the cover of the corner, where Patsy could see that she took off her hat.

A moment later, they stepped out again into the light and, to Patsy’s great surprise, she was a very different looking person.

Before she had been a blonde, and now she seemed to be dark haired.

“She had a wig on,” said Patsy to himself. “Now I wonder what was the meaning of that?”

The couple stood on the corner a little longer, then the two went to the curbstone and, entering a hansom cab, were driven off.

Patsy turned to Chick and Merton, who had been con{161}versing while he had thus been watching the couple, thinking that strange sights were to be seen in the Tenderloin late at night.

Chick, slipping his arm under Patsy’s, now led him to the sidewalk, and the two turned down Broadway.

“Well, Patsy,” said Chick. “I don’t know how much we have gained to-night, but I take it that it is a good deal.”

“Do you think,” asked Patsy, as they walked along, “that the young Englishman, the girl Alice talked of, was our man Ellison?”

“That notion has got into my head,” said Chick. “And if it is so, it will be a big opening for us. We’ve got a way of finding out, however, and that is, by finding if Ellison was on a yachting trip last September.”

“And,” added Patsy, “whether he was in the habit of running over to Philadelphia much.”

“That’s so,” said Chick, “I don’t think there is any use of following up Lannigan and the woman, Ladew.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Patsy. “We might stumble on their associates if we did.”

“Well,” said Chick, “if that is so, we had better go back and watch the front of that place to see them come out.”

They had walked along as they had thus talked and had, therefore, gotten something like two blocks below.

Chick turned about, suddenly, saying:

“You’re right about that, Patsy, and we won’t drop them until we see where they go.”

They walked back hastily until they reached the corner on which Patsy had seen the couple that had attracted his attention.

Here they heard a voice calling some one, and, turning to look, saw a woman beckoning to them from a hansom cab drawn up to the sidewalk.{162}

Although she was in the shadow of the cab, Patsy thought that it was the one whom he had been watching while at the restaurant door, and who he had seen put on a wig.

They went to the cab, and the woman, addressing Chick, said to him:

“I want to speak with you a moment, and alone.”

Hearing this, Patsy stepped aside and Chick went up closer.

“I know who you are,” said the woman.

“But I don’t know who you are,” answered Chick.

“It is not necessary that you should,” replied the woman, “and, as a matter of fact, I don’t intend that you shall.”

Chick looked up at her quickly and saw that the woman was earnest in her manner, by no means coquettish or trifling. He said:

“What is it you want to say to me?”

“I know that you are one of the assistants of Nick Carter,” the woman said. “Your name is Chick, and I know that you are looking for Mr. Ellison, who disappeared so suddenly from the Sanborn house to-day.”

Chick thought rapidly, and concluded that more was to be gained in admitting the fact than in denying it.

“Won’t you enter this cab and talk with me?” said the young woman.

Giving a signal to Patsy which meant that Patsy was to follow wherever he went, Chick called out, loudly:

“Good-night, old boy, I’ll see you some time to-morrow.”

He climbed into the cab and took the seat as the young woman made way for him.

Patsy turned after calling back a good-night and walked hastily up the street until he reached a dark door{163}way into which he quickly dodged, from which point he watched the cab.

“Tell the driver,” said the young woman, “to drive away from here.”

“Where?” asked Chick.

“Anywhere, so that we will not be so conspicuous.”

Chick told the driver to cross Broadway and, driving to Sixth Avenue, to go down that avenue until the Herald Building was reached.

Having done this, he asked the young woman what was the meaning of her movements.

“I want you to tell me,” she said, “whether you have found anything about the whereabouts of Mr. Ellison.”

“No,” replied Chick, “we have only just begun the search.”

“Do you know why he so suddenly disappeared?”

“No,” replied Chick, “if we did, we would not be long in finding where he is.”

“You will find it difficult to find him. You are following up the Ladew woman for that purpose.”

Chick turned to look at the woman, but her head was turned away, as if she was in deep thought. She continued:

“I don’t think you will find much in following her up. He has broken with her.”

“Then he knew her and was in relation with her?” asked Chick.

“It was only a foolish flirtation on his part,” said the young woman, and Chick noticed that there was a great deal of bitterness in her tone.

She paused for a moment or two, and then went on:

“The Ladew woman is an eccentric person, and she followed him up so that he could not get away from her. But he had to break when his marriage with Miss Sanborn approached; there was a great row.{164}”

By this time Chick was much puzzled to know what relation this woman bore to Ellison and what her interest in the matter was. The question entered his mind as to whether or not this was not the woman who had written to Nick the two letters which had so excited their curiosity.

He knew from what she had said in the beginning that it was useless to ask who she was, or what her name was, but he determined upon a sudden and bold play.

“Who were you trying to strike,” he asked, “when you wrote those two letters to-day to my chief, Nick Carter?”

The young woman started violently, turning to Chick in a frightened manner.

“What do you mean by that? What letters?”

“The letters which warned the chief that an attempt would be made to rob the Sanborns and that a woman was at the bottom of Ellison’s disappearance.”

“How do you know that I wrote them?”

The question was almost gasped out.

“I don’t know,” replied Chick, “but I do know that the chief knows who wrote them.”

“Does he know me?”

“The chief knows everything,” replied Chick. “No sooner had he received those letters than he started to find out who wrote them.”

“And he found out?”

“Of course he did.”

“And it was me?”

The woman suddenly laughed a mocking laugh, and Chick knew that whether the woman had written the letters or not, his play had not counted.

“If you knew as much as all that,” she said, “you would know who I am, and that’s what you don’t know.”

To this Chick could make no reply, for he felt that though her first fright indicated that she was indeed the{165} woman who had written the letters, she had now regained possession of herself and that it was useless for him to hope to surprise her into an admission. He took another tack.

“What interest have you got in this matter?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t anybody be interested in so mysterious a thing as happened at the Sanborns?”

Again she laughed mockingly at Chick.

“How did you come to know me?” asked Chick.

“Are you not a celebrated person, and doesn’t everybody know Chickering Carter, the great Nick Carter’s chief assistant?”

Chick knew now that the young woman was playing with him, and that he did not have easy game before him.

“No,” he said, “I am not so celebrated in the circles in which you move that you would know me.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the young woman.

“I mean that you saw me for the first time to-day, and that it was at the Sanborn house where I was on duty and you were there as a guest.”

By the way the young woman took this reply, Chick knew that he had scored a point, but did not know how much of a one it was.

“Did you see me there?” she asked.

“Not that I recollect,” replied Chick. “Perhaps it is very wrong for me that I should have failed to observe so charming a person as yourself.”

“None of that, please,” sharply returned the young woman.

She was silent a moment, and then said:

“Yes, I was there, and one of the few who knew that Mr. Ellison left the house.”

Chick started. It suddenly broke on him that the person beside him was one of the bridesmaids, and yet he could not be certain.{166}

While he was thinking this over, she asked:

“Do you know how Mr. Ellison left the house?”

Again Chick thought rapidly, and concluded that he would gain more by answering the question straightly.

“We think,” he said, “that he left concealed by a great cape coat that had been worn into the house by another man, and that he had a wig and beard on to resemble that man.”

“Who was that man?”

“We don’t know.”

“He was left in the house after Mr. Ellison went out. Was he not seen?”

“No, he escaped from the house by a back window into the back yard, and so into the cross street.”

“What sort of a man was he?”

“A man with a pointed, glossy black beard, black eyes, heavy black eyebrows and long black hair, curling a little at the ends.”

The young woman was thoughtful for a moment or two, sitting with her finger to her lips, which she bit nervously, while her brows were knitted.

Chick broke in on her thoughts.

“Was this man connected with the robbery or the attempt to rob?”

“I don’t think so,” said the young woman; “that was another part of it.”

“You mean,” asked Chick, “that the robbery was connected with Mr. Ellison’s disappearance?”

“Oh, no,” said the young woman. “The robbery was a consequence of Mr. Ellison’s knowing certain people——”

She started suddenly, and, facing Chick, said:

“You’re clever. You nearly trapped me. I will confess to you that I wrote both those letters. I learned{167} by accident of this robbing attempt, and tried to stop it by informing Mr. Carter.”

“That’s what you said,” said Chick. “You did stop it.”

“I know nothing of those people,” she said, “except that, through a certain connection, they were attempting to use Mr. Ellison.”

“Do you want Mr. Ellison found?” suddenly asked Chick.

“Yes. I am——”

She stopped and, looking Chick keenly in the eyes, said:

“I will talk no more to-night. I was anxious to know what you have told me. I do not know enough to tell you anything more of importance. I may learn something, and, if I do, I will manage to make Mr. Carter know it. Now, get out, and let me go away.”

Believing that he could accomplish no more, and certain that Patsy was not far away, Chick descended from the carriage, lifted his hat, and walked away.

The hansom cab, containing the young woman, immediately went over to Broadway and, turning up that street, was driven quite rapidly.

But it had not gone the space of a block when another cab drove after it, and Chick saw a hand wave from the window.

Jumping across the street, Chick found a cab on the corner, and, hastily calling the driver, said:

“Follow that cab, and don’t lose sight of it. If you kill your horse, I’ll pay for it.”

And an instant later, and as the clock over the Herald office sounded the hour of two, he was following in hot haste the cab containing Patsy, which, in turn, was following the one occupied by the young woman.{168}

CHAPTER XX.

A FEMALE BOXER.

The cabs pursued their way up Broadway until Forty-second Street was reached, when they turned, the leading cab going up that street to Fifth Avenue.

As the one containing the young woman turned the corner into that avenue it halted. A young man stepped out from the shadow and entered the cab.

Patsy’s cab was at a discreet distance behind it, yet Patsy thought that the young man was the same one with whom, earlier in the evening, on Broadway, he had seen the young woman when she made the change in her hair.

The cab now went on up Fifth Avenue, and at a slower pace than it had previously been going.

Thus Sixty-eighth Street was reached, and, when near the corner, the cab drew alongside the curbstone, the two occupants alighting and proceeding on foot.

Patsy was out in a moment. As the two disappeared around the corner, he ran at full speed; Chick, a little distance behind him, also following rapidly on foot.

When Patsy reached the corner the pair were nowhere to be seen. For the moment the young detective was at a loss to know what to do.

Thinking that if they had entered any one of the houses it must have been one very close to the avenue, and that, if so, they would have hardly had time to pass through the door, and were under the concealment of a vestibule, he ran down the street hastily in the hopes that he might discover them.{169}

Just as Chick reached the corner, two figures leaped out at Patsy.

They were the pair he had been following.

The young man went at Patsy rather viciously, crying, as he did so:

“What are you following us for?”

Though the attack was unexpected, Patsy was not unprepared, and, squaring himself, warded off the blow the young man had aimed at him.

It was apparent to Patsy in a moment that the young man was no novice at the game of the fists.

Indeed, he was an adept in the art of boxing and, for a moment or two, Patsy was kept quite busy in defending himself.

In the meantime, the young woman was a silent and inactive witness.

After the first few moments of surprise had passed, and, as he thought, he had obtained the measure of the young man, Patsy changed his tactics from defending himself to going at the other one fiercely.

He soon demonstrated his superiority, and was fast overcoming the young man, when, to Patsy’s intense astonishment, the young woman danced up at him in approved pugilistic fashion and landed a stinging blow in his face.

The young detective was astonished at the force behind the blow. Though he was busy with the young man, he did not fail to observe that the young woman, lady, and daughter of wealth as she seemed to be, was, nevertheless, a good deal of a boxer.

“Hello!” said Patsy to himself. “I have heard of these women athletes among the swells, but this is the first one I ever saw.”

In the meantime, the young woman was dancing up,{170} letting out a blow, dancing away again to come back with another blow.

Some of these blows landed on Patsy’s shoulder and chest, blows which the young fellow cared nothing for. But some of them came too close to his eyes and mouth to be comfortable.

Patsy hardly knew how to deal with this assailant. While boxing with the young man, he had warded off a number of the blows of the young woman, and, though opportunity was given him, he had returned none, nor had he even attempted to.

He could not bring himself to fight a woman, however annoying and irritating she might be.

In the meantime, Chick had stolen down on the other side of the street, and, perceiving the curious fight in which Patsy was engaged, was doubled up with laughter.

His quick eye had shown him that Patsy was in no need of help so far as the young man was concerned, and he believed that, as energetic as the young woman might be, Patsy could find a way to evade her.

As a matter of fact, he wanted to be free to follow the young woman were the two to escape Patsy.

This curious fight went on in that quiet street for some little time, little or no noise being made, since the combatants did not speak.

At length Patsy, having become tired of the game, devoted himself wholly to the young man without regard to the young woman. Finally, he got in a blow on the young man that sent him down to the pavement.

Turning to the young woman as she came up to him, he caught her by the wrists, and, holding her fast, said:

“It’s about time you stopped this.”

The young woman struggled to release herself, and found that she was as a mere child in the grasp of the athletic and trained young detective.{171}

It seemed as if she was more angry in finding herself so helpless in his grasp than she had been before. She said:

“Release me. I command you. I’ll have you punished.”

Patsy merely laughed in her face, and, having shown her how helpless she was, threw off her hands, saying:

“You can fight very well, my lady, so long as nobody fights back. Now don’t try any more of it again, if you please.”

The woman’s anger was too great for her to speak. Suddenly she turned on the young man, who was still lying as he fell, and hissed out:

“Get up, you coward! Do you leave me to be so insulted here?”

But the young man made no reply, and Patsy said:

“I must have hit him too hard.”

Disregarding the young woman, he went to the young man and bent over him. He was unconscious. After trying to lift him to his feet, Patsy said to the young woman:

“I cracked him harder than I thought, or else his head hit the pavement when he fell. I’ll take him to the drug store around the corner.”

The young woman, forgetting her anger, went hurriedly to the young man. Bending over him, she first felt his pulse and then his heart.

“You have killed him!”

But the next moment she peered eagerly into the eyes of the young man and exclaimed:

“No. He’s coming to.”

She rubbed his forehead and chafed his hands.

“Who is he?” asked Patsy.

“My brother,” she replied, sharply.{172}

After a while the young man was sufficiently restored to stand on his feet when helped up by Patsy.

“You’ve done damage enough,” said the young woman, “and you can now go away.”

“I’ll help you home with him,” said Patsy.

“No, I don’t want you to do that.”

She stood up and looked Patsy straight in the eyes and said:

“You shall not see me go home to-night. If you don’t go away, I shall stay here, or else go somewhere where you can’t find me. I know you. You are one of Nick Carter’s people. Go away. You can do nothing to-night, and you can’t find out anything about me.”

Casting a glance about, Patsy was satisfied that he saw Chick on the other side of the street. Indeed, he had been conscious during the time that he was defending himself from the assault of this athletic brother and sister that Chick had come down on the other side.

Believing that they did not know that Chick was ready to follow, he thought it best to end the affair by walking off.

“All right, if you say so,” said Patsy. “Only, you might have said so from the first, and not kept jabbing me in the face.”

He turned and sauntered up the street. Reaching the corner, he turned backward and saw that the young man and woman were watching him.

He turned the corner and went out of sight.

No sooner was he gone than the pair hurriedly ran down the street to about the middle of the block, and as hastily climbed the steps of a rather imposing mansion, disappearing behind the doors.

If the pair thought they had done so undiscovered,{173} they were greatly mistaken, for Chick from his place had seen them and had carefully noted the house they had entered.

Cautiously and stealthily, Chick crept down the street, and, reaching the house, climbed the steps sufficiently to see the number. Then perceiving that there was a doorplate on the door, he went up to the top step, and, with a lighted match, found the name. It was merely that of Rainforth.

The end had been gained. The young woman had been tracked to her home.

He went back to Fifth Avenue, and, turning the corner, came on Patsy awaiting him there.

As soon as he saw the young detective he began to laugh.

“You’ve struck a new kind of a boxer, Patsy,” he said.

“That’s right,” said Patsy. “And she can hit, too. Hanged if I don’t think she can hit harder than the young fellow she calls her brother.”

“Her brother?” asked Chick.

“That’s what she said he was.”

“Wasn’t it a stall?”

“They went into the same house together.”

“Perhaps so,” said Chick. “As a rule, however, brothers don’t usually run around at this hour of the night with a sister.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Patsy. “Anyhow, they’re the queerest brother and sister that I ever ran up against. Say, Chick, is it the fashion for women to box?”

“I hear it is,” said Chick.

“Well,” said Patsy, “that little one is no fool at the game. And she has got the pluck of a professional.{174}”

“I got the name on the plate of the house they went into. It is Rainforth.”

“Then you got the house they went into?” asked Patsy.

“Yes, and the number,” replied Chick. “Now we have got to find out something about the people who live in that house.”

“Small chance of finding anything to-night, or rather this morning,” said Patsy. “That’s a job for to-morrow.”

Patsy had hardly spoken these words when a policeman turned the corner, and, seeing the two young men there, stopped, casting suspicious glances at them.

“What are you loafing there for?” he asked.

Instead of replying, Chick said:

“Officer, is Sixty-eighth Street your beat?”

“Yes; and what of it?”

“Do you know all the families that live on Sixty-eighth Street?”

“Most of them.”

“Do you know a family by the name of Rainforth?”

“Yes; I know there is such a family there. But what is that to you?”

“We are two of Nick Carter’s people,” said Chick.

He made that fact plain to the officer, who quickly changed his manner, and, from being suspicious, became confidential.

“Yes, I know that family Rainforth,” he said. “Rainforth is Colonel Rainforth, a rich man, living on his money. A widower, and pretty old.”

“Who lives in the house with him?”

“A son and a daughter.”

The officer began to laugh and finally said:

“They are a queer pair, that son and daughter. They travel around together late at night. I don’t know how{175} many times I have seen them go into the house at two or three o’clock in the morning.”

“Coming home from parties and receptions and balls, I presume,” said Chick.

“Mebbe; but I don’t like that. It looks to me as if they had been roaming. Say, the daughter is a thoroughbred. She does almost anything a man does. She rides, and there isn’t any horse too bad for her. She rows a boat, she works in a gymnasium, and I know for sure that she’s taken boxing lessons. They say she’s awful good with her fists.”

“Is she straight?” asked Chick.

“Ain’t heard anybody say she wasn’t. She’s just queer; that’s all.”

This was all the officer could tell them, and, after a few more words, he strolled away.

The two young men stood a while longer conversing, and were themselves about to move away, when young Mr. Sanborn came tripping hurriedly along the pavement.

Chick stopped him, saying:

“Mr. Sanborn, will you stop a moment?”

The young man stopped, and, perceiving who it was who had addressed him, called them by name and laughed:

“A little too late for much conversation, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it is,” said Chick; “but we want to have a little information which we think you can give, and we don’t want to be asked why we want it.”

“Oh,” said young Sanborn, “if it is a matter of business, I’ll give it if I can, and I won’t ask why.”

“Will you tell us if you know a family of the name of Rainforth?”

“I know of a family of that name living down here in Sixty-eighth Street.{176}”

“Colonel Rainforth, a widower, with one son and a daughter?” asked Chick.

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me anything about the daughter?”

“I know her quite well,” said young Sanborn; “have known her a good many years, and have never known anything against her.”

“Isn’t she rather queer?” asked Chick.

“Oh, I don’t know but that she is in some of the things she does. She goes in for things that most of the young women do not. She rides, fences, drives tandems and four-in-hands, shoots, is gymnastic, and boxes—in fact, she goes in for all sorts of out-door sports. In that way, she is one of the new women.”

“She and her brother are great chums?” asked Chick.

“There’s no doubt of that,” said young Sanborn. “They’re very chummy. Travel together a good deal.”

Young Sanborn suddenly turned sharply on Chick, looking at him very intently, and then said:

“Oh, I say, here! Why, yes, I forgot.”

He stopped a moment to think, and then said:

“I see that you have got onto a little thing that escaped my memory. A year ago or more Julia Rainforth made a dead set for Ellison. She was so sweet on him that she followed him up constantly, put herself in his way to such an extent that people talked about it. But it’s all over, and has been since the time the engagement of my cousin and Ellison was announced.”

“You are sure of that?” asked Chick.

“There’s no doubt about it at all,” replied Sanborn, positively.

Chick had no further questions to ask, and, a few moments later, young Sanborn went his way.{177}

Turning to Patsy, Chick said:

“Well, Patsy, we’ve got something to report to the chief at last.”

Then, they, too, walked away in the direction of their homes.{178}

CHAPTER XXI.

IDA SEES MISS RAINFORTH.

The next morning Nick Carter listened with surprise and deep interest to the tale which his two efficient aids had to tell him.

“When we parted last night,” he said, “there hardly seemed to be an opening anywhere in this case. The only one was that which Patsy had suggested as to Lannigan. Now, after a night’s work, there seems to be so many that they are conflicting.”

“Yes,” said Chick, “it seemed very straight when Patsy suggested that we could get to the woman who had written those letters by following up Lannigan. Well, we have found the woman who wrote the letters, but have learned nothing to show that she was connected with Lannigan, while the woman who is connected with Lannigan does not seem to have had anything to do with the letters, although if the string is right, she did have to do with Ellison.”

“That’s why I say that our openings conflict,” said Nick.

“Well, boys,” continued Nick, “it is for you to follow up what you have begun. You must follow up the Lannigan end to-day. That will take you to Philadelphia, for Lannigan went over there this morning. I know that. Find out, while there, about Ellison’s associations in Philadelphia, and whom he visited in that place.”

“You have no doubt, then,” asked Chick, “that the Englishman the girl Alice talked of was Ellison?”

“I have no doubt,” said Nick, “for the reason that, while you were busy in one direction last night, I was{179} pushing inquiries in another, and I learned that Ellison did charter a yacht last summer, and that he did spend a good deal of time in Philadelphia, off and on.”

He got up from his chair, and, pacing up and down a little while, at length said:

“I don’t quite know how to size up young Sanborn. For a man who is well acquainted with Ellison as he pretends to be, he is singularly ignorant of the man, or else he refuses to tell all that he knows. In his talk yesterday he dropped the name of a man as one of those with whom Ellison spent much of his time, and that man I am very well acquainted with.

“While this young man made no pretentions to intimate friendship with Ellison, yet he knew enough about him to know that his life was not quite as correct as Sanborn would have us believe.

“It is from him that I learned about the yacht, the Philadelphia trips, and that Ellison was involved in two or three scrapes that did not become public. I take it young Sanborn is no longer important to us.”

“The girl Alice,” said Chick, “said that he, if he is the young Englishman, was very attentive to Mrs. Ladew. She told the truth there, because Miss Rainforth admitted to me that Ellison had been in a foolish flirtation with her.”

“It’s all over,” cried Patsy. “That settles it.”

“Settles what?” asked Chick.

“Why, that the young Englishman is Ellison.”

“Quite right, Patsy,” said Nick.

Nick thought a moment or two, and then said:

“Philadelphia is the place where you must look for a day or two. Keep your eyes open for traces of Ellison’s valet, and for the man who came to see Ellison, and in whose cape coat Ellison went away. Patsy saw them both, and that is an advantage.{180}

“I will follow up the Rainforth matter here, but that, in my judgment, is where Ida will have to do most of the work. You can’t get away any too quickly.”

“I suppose,” said Chick, “what we’ve got to work on there is how Lannigan came to get a line on the wedding presents at Sanborn’s.”

“Of course,” said Nick, “there is a connection there with Ellison, somehow. Whether with Ellison’s knowledge or not is a question, but on working in Philadelphia on the line of Ellison’s doings, and on the line of how Lannigan was steered to the wedding, you may find out much that is valuable for us to know in tracing the mystery of Ellison’s disappearance.”

The two young detectives went away to prepare for their trip to Philadelphia.

As soon as they were gone, Nick summoned Ida.

She was not long in coming, and, when she did arrive, Nick said to her:

“Ida, I have got something for you to do which, I think, is about as difficult as anything you have undertaken.”

He told her the experiences of Chick and Patsy with the young Rainforth woman, and the discovery that she was the writer of the two anonymous letters.

“That young woman puzzles me,” said Nick. “I know something about her. Her father is an old army officer, very rich, who long since retired. The young girl, with her brother, was brought up at army posts in the West, in the wild Indian fighting times, and learned many things there that are not usually a part of a fashionable young lady’s education.

“She learned how to ride vicious horses and how to use firearms. She is an expert shot with both rifle and revolver. Besides, she can wield the sword as well as a soldier.{181}

“Where she learned the accomplishment of boxing that she made a display of with Patsy, I don’t know. Probably after she returned to the East, and as a consequence of having already certain manly attainments.

“She is good at many of that sort of thing—lawn tennis, golf and yachting.

“All these things, although they have made her much talked about, have not given her the reputation of being fast. But it a queer story that Patsy tells of her, and it is borne out in Chick’s interview with her.

“The fact which concerns us is, that she knew about the attempt or intention to rob the Sanborn house, and that she knows more about Ellison’s private life than his associates do.”

“I should think,” said Ida, “from what you say, that she was involved with Ellison herself, and that the knowledge she obtained came through that connection.”

“It may be so,” said Nick, “but I am inclined to believe that all there was of that connection was a desire on her part to capture Ellison for herself.”

Ida laughed and said:

“Our sex is a queer thing. This Miss Rainforth seems to be a very bold, energetic and courageous young woman. If you are right, and she has been scorned by Ellison, there is no knowledge to what lengths she will go.”

“Well,” said Nick, “it is for you to get into relations with her, and find out what you can. It is a difficult thing. How will you go about it?”

“That does not seem to me to be as important,” replied Ida, “as to know how to deal with her when I do get to her.”

“Getting to her is no small matter, Ida,” said Nick. “Miss Rainforth is a fashionable young lady. Usually, her movements are wholly within fashionable circles of{182} the most exclusive kind. Her escapade of last night is not usual, and you cannot count on getting to her by finding her outside of her own circles.”

“Leave it to me,” replied Ida, “to get to her. The thing in my mind is, as I said before, how to deal with her when I do get to her.”

“Well,” asked Nick, “have you any theory?”

“From what has been told me,” replied Ida, “I don’t think that gentle methods, or wheedling, or coaxing, will accomplish anything. Unless she has no sort of regard for her private character, I think we will have to try to frighten her.”

“Well,” said Nick, “we will have to leave that to you, and you must be governed by your judgment of her when you reach her.”

After some further talk, Ida left Nick, still undetermined as to the methods she would use in getting to the singular young lady.

As she was thinking on the street, her steps were led almost involuntarily to Sixty-eighth Street. Standing for a moment on the corner of that street and Fifth Avenue, she suddenly made up her mind, and, walking rapidly down the street, went to the Rainforth house and rang the bell.

When the door was opened, Ida said to the servant:

“Is Miss Julia Rainforth in?”

“What name am I to present?” asked the servant.

“My name will mean nothing to Miss Rainforth,” said Ida. “Tell her a lady would like to see her on a matter of much importance.”

The servant ushered Ida into a small reception-room on one side of the hall, and disappeared.

He was back again in a few moments with a message that Miss Rainforth desired to know the business of the person who had called.{183}

“Inform Miss Rainforth,” said Ida, “that the business I have come about is that which Miss Rainforth will not care to have known to her servants.”

The servant went off, and was back again in a few moments, bringing with him some paper, a pencil and an envelope.

“Miss Rainforth,” he said, “orders me to say that, if the business cannot be stated to a servant, it can be written on this paper.”

Ida was about to return the paper with the word that a personal interview alone would do, when a thought struck her.

She took the paper and pencil and hastily wrote on it:

As she wrote this last name, some one passed through the hall of whom Ida caught but a glimpse through the openings of the portières.

Yet that glimpse suggested to her the man who came to see Ellison on the day of his wedding, as described by Patsy.

Not that she believed that it was the man, but the fancied resemblance suggested an idea.

She added hastily to what she had already written on the paper the following:

She folded the paper, inclosing it in the envelope, sealed it, and gave it to the servant.

In a very short time the servant was back again to say that Miss Rainforth would see the caller in her own apartment.{184}

CHAPTER XXII.

IDA’S TRIUMPH.

The servant led Ida up the stairs to the second floor and into a room in the front of the house, furnished most luxuriously as a sitting-room.

A young woman, rather under-sized, but well proportioned, and with some claims to beauty, stood in the center of this room.

Ida regarded the young woman intently. She saw that, though the features of the young lady were somewhat hard, and the expression of her face not wholly agreeable, yet she was one who would be attractive to the other sex. Her eyes were dark, and there was in them a rather steely gleam as she turned them keenly on Ida.

“I don’t know you,” was her salutation.

Looking about the room, Ida saw there were two doors therein, both open. Without replying to the abrupt and ungracious greeting of the young lady, Ida went to the one which seemed to lead into an inner apartment, and, closing it, shot the bolt she found on it.

“You are impertinent,” said Miss Rainforth.

Nor to this remark did Ida reply, but went to the door leading to the hall, closed that, and turned the key in the lock.

“What do you mean to do?” asked Miss Rainforth, so much astonished that she had not as yet interfered.

“I mean,” said Ida, “that we shall not be interrupted during our interview.”

Ida now went to a chair in that part of the room which brought her back to the light, and forced Miss Rain{185}forth to stand, or sit, as she chose, with that light full on her face.

“You do not ask me to sit down, Miss Rainforth,” said Ida. “So I shall take a seat uninvited. But, before I do, I wish to say that I know that you are an expert in shooting. I would have you know that I am also. You can take your revolvers, if you choose to do so, for I shall sit with mine in my lap ready to check any use of yours on your part.”

With that Ida took her revolvers from her pocket, and, sitting down, laid them upon her lap.

“Well,” said Miss Rainforth, with a long breath, “of all the impudent things I have ever met, you are the most impudent.”

“Oh, no,” replied Ida, “I am merely a determined person who will not be denied in the matter I have come about.”

“Leave the room,” said Miss Rainforth, suddenly losing her temper.

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Ida.

Miss Rainforth made a motion as if she would run to the door, but Ida sternly commanded her to stop.

Apparently unused to such a tone, Miss Rainforth stopped, turning more in surprise and astonishment than in submission.

“Miss Rainforth,” said Ida, “you will please to return to your seat.”

The young lady continued to stare at her visitor, and Ida went on:

“It is useless for you to call any one, for that will only result in your ruin and disgrace. As I told you, you have met with a person even more determined than yourself. You must submit.”

“Who are you?” the young lady blurted forth.

“My name is of no consequence,” said Ida. “It is{186} enough for you to know that I am one of Nick Carter’s people. I have something to learn from you which you must tell.”

“‘Must! Must! Must!’” repeated the young lady, now nearly beside herself with anger. “In all my life, I have never permitted any one to say ‘must’ to me. How dare you, when my father never dared to say it to me?”

“Simply because,” said Ida, very quietly, “I am determined that you shall tell me what you know about Mr. Ellison.”

The manner of Ida, so calm, determined and selfpossessed, made an evident impression upon the young lady.

She came across the room, standing almost directly in front of Ida, and calmly studied the face of her visitor, as if it were new to her experience.

“I know that you are supposed to be a bold and courageous young lady,” said Ida. “I know it is commonly reported that you are not unaccustomed to scenes of danger. You are in no danger here, except such as may result from your refusal to tell me what justice demands you should tell. Now, please sit down and let us get this matter over.”

The mood of the young lady changed, and she laughed aloud, sarcastically rather than otherwise, saying, when she had had her laugh out:

“Well, this is a new experience. Really, it is entertaining. I think I shall enjoy it.”

She went back to a chair, and sat down.

“Now, Miss One-of-Nick-Carter’s-People, what is your business with me?”

“Miss Rainforth, you notified my chief that a robbery was to be attempted at Mr. Sanborn’s house yesterday. Subsequently, and almost immediately after the singular disappearance of Mr. Ellison, you wrote another letter{187} to Mr. Carter, telling him a woman was at the bottom of that disappearance. Later in the evening, you made your appearance, in disguise, in places in the Tenderloin, under circumstances which, if known publicly, would ruin the most respectable young lady.”

Miss Rainforth sprang to her feet, this time genuinely alarmed.

“How do you know that?” she exclaimed. “What do you know? How much do you know?”

Ida saw that she had made a point much stronger than she knew.

Evidently, the young lady had been engaged in something the night previous, had been somewhere, and had been involved in something, the concealment of which was far more important to her than of her entrance to the all-night restaurant at midnight.

Ida was quick to use the advantage she had gained, though she recognized that she was on dangerous ground, and was ignorant of what had so excited the young woman.

“You know little of Nick Carter and his perfect system,” she replied, “if you do not know that he is aware of the movements of any one who is of concern to him.”

Miss Rainforth fell back in her chair, muttering, rather to herself than to Ida:

“I had heard so. I had been warned. But I did not believe it.”

Then she turned to Ida.

“Talk plainly,” she said. “What is it you want to say? What is it you want of me?”

Ida stood up, deliberately replaced the revolvers in her pocket, and as calmly sat down again.

She felt that she had already won her victory; if she managed the rest of the interview with skill that the{188} reckless, courageous and masterful young woman was already cowed.

In the meantime, Miss Rainforth, settling back in her chair, was regarding her visitor with apprehensive intentness.

“Mr. Carter,” said Ida, “has neither wish nor disposition to do anything to your injury. You are of no consequence to him, as important as you doubtless regard yourself, except as you bear a relation to the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Ellison, and have knowledge of events leading up to that disappearance.”

“I am sure,” replied Miss Rainforth, with a sneer, “I’m obliged to the consideration of Mr. Carter.”

Ida gave no heed to the sneer, but went on:

“In the first place, I want to know how you came to have knowledge of the intended robbery of the wedding presents.”

“Really?” sneered Miss Rainforth.

Ida saw that the young lady was recovering from the panic into which she had been thrown, and was regaining possession of herself. She made an attempt to frighten the young lady again.

“I presume, Miss Rainforth,” she said, “that you are intelligent enough to understand that you are at present in the position of one who is in relations with a notorious thief and burglar, one Lannigan?”

The young lady started violently.

“Lannigan!” she repeated.

“Lannigan made the attempt to enter the house of Mr. Sanborn yesterday morning,” said Ida. “Indeed, he did enter it, and was recognized by Mr. Carter. He was driven off at that time and, though his gang made two other efforts later, they also were defeated.”

“They did make the attempt?” said Miss Rainforth. “I thought they had not done so.{189}”

Ida made a bold play.

“Oh, they kept their part of the bargain,” she said.

It was a false play, for the young woman looked at Ida with a puzzled face.

Ida instantly saw it, and hastened to regain her ground.

“You do not answer my question,” she said. “How did you come to know of this intended robbery?”

“You are looking for Mr. Ellison,” said Miss Rainforth. “Of what use is that knowledge to you in such a search?”

“It is a step in the beginning,” replied Ida. “Understand, Miss Rainforth, you are related to this search, and to the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Ellison, either remotely or intimately, and evasion on your part will only involve you in trouble—in all the shame and disgrace that publicity of the matter, which will soon be a sensation, will involve.”

The young woman winced, an anxious expression appearing on her face, and Ida knew that the string upon which she must pull was the one of the young lady’s fear of notoriety.

“I must insist upon an answer to that question,” she said. “There are many ways of conducting our business. As a rule, we work in secret, but there are times when we are forced to take the public in our confidence, and make a part of our search through the newspapers. We have no desire to do that at any time, but it begins to look as if we would have to do so in this case, and you can see the position you would be in—you, a young lady of fashion, placed before the public as an associate of thieves and the frequenter of fast places at midnight.”

The young woman leaped to her feet with the remark:

“You would not dare do such a thing.{190}”

Ida laughed, scornfully.

“Dare?” she repeated. “We spend our lives in daring.”

“The men of my family would kill you, if you did such a thing.”

Ida laughed again.

“Half the thieves and half the fast people, whether rich or poor, are always threatening that. We are used to it.”

The young woman began to walk rapidly up and down the room, and then stopped suddenly in front of Ida. She said:

“It was by an accident.”

“You mean,” said Ida, “that you obtained the knowledge of the intended robbery by accident?”

“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth.

“Under what circumstances?” asked Ida.

“I cannot tell you that,” replied the young woman. “It is too much of a confession.”

Ida took a new tack.

“Miss Rainforth,” she said. “I have already said there is no desire on the part of Mr. Carter to do you injury. You are in a peculiar position, and a dangerous one for you. You are liable to that kind of notoriety in an extraordinary case which, to one like you, will be ruin. Your course in self-protection is not in striving to conceal your part in it from us, but, rather, to ask our assistance and our help in keeping your name out of an unpleasant matter.”

The young woman undertook to say something, but Ida went on:

“Wait and hear me out,” she said. “The fact that you won’t speak or will not give the information you evidently are possessed of, and which it is necessary for us to know, will have no effect in preventing us from going{191} on to the end. If we do not find out by one means, we will by another. We never fail.”

These words seemed to impress the young lady, and she stood for a moment silent, with her head bent. Then she said:

“I went to see Mr. Ellison at his apartments the night before the wedding. He was not in when I first entered. Afterward, two men were shown into the room, and I, not desiring to be seen, hid myself from them and heard their conversation while they waited.

“I soon learned that their business was to force Mr. Ellison to help them enter Mr. Sanborn’s house the following day. I also heard that they had learned from Mr. Ellison, a little time previous, the value and kind of the presents that were to be displayed at the reception.

“And I also learned that it was the intention of these men to rob the house at the time of the reception, and that that was the reason for forcing Mr. Ellison to help them to enter.”

“Do you mean,” said Ida, not a little surprised, “that Mr. Ellison was a party to that robbery?”

“I mean nothing of the kind,” said the young lady. “I am sure he was not.”

“Yet it was from him that they obtained knowledge of these presents?” persisted Ida.

“That, I am sure,” responded the young lady, “was only a matter of accident, as he had been associating with those people, and talked about them.”

“Mr. Ellison an associate of thieves?” asked Ida.

“I am sure he did not know them as thieves,” said Miss Rainforth, “but as gamblers.”

“Gamblers?” inquired Ida.

“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth. “Gambling is Mr. Ellison’s weakness. It has brought him into great trouble{192} in the past, and I should not be surprised if his present trouble could be traced to it.”

“Explain yourself,” said Ida, believing that she was now on the line of a new discovery.

“Mr. Ellison’s weakness is a love of gambling, and, though his New York friends know little or nothing of that side of him, yet he used to go to Philadelphia frequently to play. There he gambled most heavily, with a certain poker set in that city, of whom this Lannigan was one. He is very heavily in debt to some of that party.”

“Were you present when Mr. Ellison come in and saw these men?”

“Yes.”

“Did you overhear their conversation?”

“Yes; I could not help it, situated as I was.”

“Was Mr. Ellison made aware of the intention to rob the Sanborn house?”

“No.”

“What reason did they give for desiring to enter the house?”

“Merely the wish to be present.”

“Did they give no reason for it?”

“No.”

“Did Mr. Ellison refuse their request?”

“Very promptly.”

“And what then?”

“They attempted to force him to consent by threatening that, if he did not, they would inform Mr. Sanborn of his gambling habit and his gambling debts.”

“What did Mr. Ellison do?”

“Mr. Ellison is a brave man. He told them that he would not be forced by anybody; that, if they wanted to do that, they could do so, but he would not consent to their being present at the wedding reception; and that{193} they were presuming in attempting to lift a gambling acquaintance into a social relation.”

“Then what did the men do?”

“They went away, threatening.”

“Do you think Mr. Ellison had a suspicion of their intentions?”

“I don’t know.”

“Now, Miss Rainforth, what was your purpose in going to Mr. Ellison’s apartments at such a strange hour?”

Miss Rainforth turned a startled look on Ida, took a turn or two up and down the room, and came back. She said:

“I was not alone. My brother was nearby. He knew of my going there.”

“Even so,” said Ida, “it was a remarkable thing for a young woman to go to a young man’s apartment on the night before his wedding at nearly the midnight hour.”

The young woman blazed up into a passion.

“I went there in a last attempt to prevent his marriage.”

“To prevent his marriage?” repeated Ida.

“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth. “By all rights, he was bound to me, and it was I whom he should have married.”

“Do you mean to say that you were engaged?”

“Yes; if promise is an engagement.”

The young woman paused a moment and then said, passionately:

“It was that wretch, that Ladew woman, who interfered. But he never loved her.”

“Miss Rainforth,” said Ida, “I fear you have been laboring under a strange delusion. You evidently do not know that, almost from the moment of his arrival in{194} New York, Mr. Ellison was a suitor for the hand of Miss Sanborn.”

“It is not so,” said Miss Rainforth. “He was entangled by her family, pursued and hunted by Elsie Sanborn herself.”

“In your last letter to Mr. Carter,” said Ida, “you hinted that a woman was at the bottom of the disappearance of Mr. Ellison.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Miss Rainforth, “and it is the Ladew woman. She was at the reception and she was in the house when he went away.”

“And you were, too,” said Ida.

“I was, and it was from the Ladew woman that I found out that he had run away. If she wasn’t at the bottom of it, how did she know of it when nobody else did?”

Ida now made up her mind that she had gotten at the bottom of Miss Rainforth’s connection with the matter.

She was certain that Miss Rainforth was in love with Ellison and had herself hoped to be Mrs. Ellison; that, possibly, there had been tender passages between herself and Ellison which had been interrupted by Ellison’s intrigue with Mrs. Ladew, and, escaping from that, he had not returned to Miss Rainforth, but had devoted himself to Miss Sanborn; and that, in her jealousy and disappointment, Miss Rainforth had first tried to break up the marriage and, secondly, punish Mrs. Ladew by directing Nick Carter’s suspicions to her.

Ida’s substantial gain had been knowledge of Ellison’s relations to a gang of sharpers in Philadelphia, of whom Lannigan undoubtedly was one. And she believed that nothing more of value was to be obtained from the young woman.

“You have been wise,” said Ida, “in being plain with{195} me. We shall be able to protect your name and reputation. And that we will do.”

She rose from her seat, and, as she did so, Miss Rainforth said:

“What I did last night that brought suspicion on me was to try and find where Mr. Ellison was taken.”

“Taken?” repeated Ida.

“Yes, taken,” continued Miss Rainforth. “I am satisfied that Mr. Ellison was lured from the house to be seized and carried off.”

However startling this idea was, Ida found, on pursuing it, that the young lady, Miss Rainforth, had nothing better than her suspicion to base it on.

Therefore, Ida went away, but not until Miss Rainforth had promised that, if anything additional came to her knowledge, she would send word of it to Nick Carter.

But Ida thought that, as a person of concern in the case, Miss Rainforth had now ceased to be important.{196}

CHAPTER XXIII.

ON LANNIGAN’S TRAIL.

While Ida had been having her forceful interview with Miss Rainforth, Chick and Patsy had journeyed to Philadelphia.

On their way thither, on the train, they had become aware that the woman, Mrs. Ladew, was also a fellow passenger.

She was alone, having no attendant.

Chick had said to Patsy:

“I don’t know what value there will be in following Mrs. Ladew. What she probably will do will be to go directly to her home. However, I think one of us ought to follow her to see if she has any communication with the parties we are after.”

Patsy had said that he would undertake that work and they made arrangements for meeting after he had finished the shadow.

But, as the train drew into the Broad Street station, Patsy, looking out of the window, caught the glimpse of a man trying to board the train before it had fairly stopped. It seemed to him that the man was Lannigan.

Quickly warning Chick, they both of them ran back to the car in which Mrs. Ladew was seated and were in time to see Lannigan hastily pass through the car, stopping only long enough to whisper something in the ear of Mrs. Ladew and hurriedly pass on.

He went by both Chick and Patsy so closely that their clothes touched, but he did not recognize either and was soon out of sight.

Chick and Patsy kept Mrs. Ladew under close ob{197}servation and saw from her manner that she had evidently been prepared for something by a warning from Lannigan.

As the train stopped and Mrs. Ladew descended, they followed her along the stone platform until the iron gates were reached, where were gathered the friends of the arriving passengers.

Keeping close enough to Mrs. Ladew to watch all that occurred to her, they saw a gentleman step out from the throng, as she passed through the gate, and, kissing her warmly, ask:

“Did you have a pleasant trip?”

“Very pleasant, indeed,” replied Mrs. Ladew. “But, Tom, I am surprised and delighted at your meeting me. I did not suppose you would give up so much of your morning to me.”

“Oh,” responded the gentleman called Tom, “I was not so busy this morning, and I am glad to get you back.”

He laughed a little and added:

“You see, I did not know but that Ellison would marry you instead of Miss Sanborn.”

“Oh, Tom,” replied Mrs. Ladew, “There has been an awful, awful happening. Ellison disappeared right after the ceremony and the reception guests were dismissed because of it.”

By this time the crowd had grown so great about the two that Chick and Patsy could hear no more that passed between the husband and wife.

But they followed to the street and saw the pair enter a handsome private carriage.

“There’s no use in following them,” said Chick, “for that is Mr. Ladew with her and they will go straight home.{198}”

“And she’ll have no chance to talk to any of the people we are after.”

“No,” replied Chick.

They turned to move away and, in doing so, saw Lannigan watching the carriage drive off, a little way apart.

“S—sh,” warned Chick. “There’s Lannigan. He evidently warned Mrs. Ladew that her husband was waiting for her. We must follow him.”

“I’m glad of it,” said Patsy. “I was thinking one of us ought to have kept a peeper on him.”

Drawing back under the cover of a pillar, they watched to see what direction Lannigan would take.

It seemed as if he were waiting for some one, for he did not move until nearly all of those who had been attracted by the incoming train had moved away.

But others were gathered to meet another train and so neither Lannigan nor the two young detectives were conspicuous.

A moment or two later, a man hurried up and spoke to Lannigan. Lannigan greeted the man warmly and taking his arm, led him aside, talking very earnestly to him.

Whatever was said by the chief was not received pleasantly by the other, but, in the end, they walked away together, followed by Chick and Patsy.

They passed out to Filbert Street, where they stood for some little time in further conversation, when the man who had met Lannigan left him with the remark:

“I suppose it couldn’t be helped, but better luck next time.”

The man went in one direction and Lannigan in another.

The direction of the latter led him to the front of the City Hall, at the bottom step of which he stopped, and{199} then, as if thinking better of his intention to enter the hall, turned and went up the street.

If he was aware that he was being followed by the two young men, he gave no indication of it in his manner, but walked along steadily without looking behind him.

He went on until a drinking saloon was reached which was, as Chick knew, a favorite resort for sporting men.

He entered this as if familiar to the place and the two, Chick and Patsy, undisguised as they were, entered also.

Lannigan, on entering, stood still a moment or two, looking over the room. Seeing two persons standing on one side, he went to them and entered into conversation with them.

They were too far away for Chick and Patsy, who had gone to the bar, to hear.

But, a moment later, the three came to the bar, also, and standing near Chick and Patsy, ordered drinks.

The two young detectives overheard Lannigan say, as if it were the conclusion of his previous conversation:

“They will be over with him to-night and the thing ought to be fixed now. I will go with you right away.”

They took their drinks and went out of the place without noticing Chick or Patsy.

As they went out, Chick said:

“Follow them, Patsy, and leave a trace behind you. I will stop long enough to change a bit and will pick you up so that you can change.”

Patsy started off and Chick, finding a convenient place, changed his appearance in so short a time that he had little difficulty in soon coming up with Patsy.

In fact, the slow progress of the three and their frequent stoppages for drinks on the way, helped him greatly.

Indeed, after Chick had come up with Patsy, they{200} stayed so long in one saloon that Patsy was enabled to slip away, make a change in his own appearance, and join Chick.

After this, their way was more rapid and led to the outskirts of the town until a house, standing almost alone in its square, was reached.

Into this house the three entered.

“Well, we’re here,” said Patsy, “and what now?”

“I’m hanged if I know,” said Chick. “I should like to know what this house is and what goes on in there.”

“It looks all right,” said Patsy, “and is a regular Philadelphia house with its red brick, and white trimmings.”

“Who’s coming on to-night?” asked Chick.

“And what ought to be fixed right away?” added Patsy.

“Well, it isn’t the stuff that’s coming on,” said Chick, “for there was nothing doing for Lannigan and his lads when we got in.”

“No,” replied Patsy. “I don’t suppose there’s anything else for us to do but to hold and keep Lannigan under watch.”

“We can hardly undertake to enter that house,” said Chick; “but we’re on to it, and, perhaps, we can find something out about it afterward.”

This conversation had taken place in a doorway on the other side of the street in which they were hiding.

In a moment or two their appearances were wholly changed and they were ready when Lannigan and the two who had entered with him came out with a fourth and went up the street.

The two detectives followed, of course.

“I say, Chick,” said Patsy, “did you see how Lannigan came out of that house and how he looked to see if anybody was about?”

“Yes, I saw that,” said Chick. “He was suspicious.{201}”

“Of being followed?”

“Not of us, probably, but of anybody seeing where they go.”

The way of the four was now back in the direction of the more thickly settled part of the city.

Finally they reached a corner house, the lower part of which was a drinking place.

The house was a peculiar structure, entrance to the upper story being gained by a high stoop from the outside. Back of it was another building, separated from it by narrow iron bridges on every one of the four floors.

This rear building was not as wide as the one in front, so that there was a space of a few feet between that building and the cross street.

This space was concealed by a high board fence, which, to the two young detectives, looked more like the side of a house than a fence.

There were large double doors in this fence. But they were closed.

The fourth man stopped the three on the corner and seemed to direct attention of the three to these double doors.

Lannigan walked up several steps and looked at the doors more closely. Then he went back to the three, saying something.

A little later, the four entered the drinking saloon.

The two detectives stood still in their place of concealment, wondering what all this meant.

“Chick,” said Patsy, “this is the place that Lannigan said he would go to with the others.”

“We must go in and see what it’s like,” said Chick.

Certain that they had not been observed, they stepped out on the sidewalk and inspected the house more closely.

A man came up and stood near them. The two detectives, looking at him closely, satisfied themselves that{202} he had no purpose in this, but was merely lounging there.

“Live about here?” asked Patsy, of the man.

“Yes, all my life,” replied the man.

“That’s a queer place over there,” said Patsy, pointing to the saloon they had under watch.

“Fly-cops?” asked the man, in return.

Chick turned sharply on the man and then laughed.

“What makes you ask that question? Do we look like fly-cops?”

“No,” said the man, “I don’t know that you do. But that might be the very reason why you are.”

The man laughed a little bit, and added:

“I was a cop myself, for a while, but I got broke for letting a prisoner get away from me. It wasn’t my fault and I had only been on the force a month. But they broke me all the same, and I hadn’t pull enough to fix it up.”

“But what made you ask us if we were fly-cops?” asked Patsy.

“Oh, it was only because you asked about that house. There’s hardly been a time since that house was built that the fly-cops haven’t been hanging about it. That was fifteen years ago.”

“Tough place?” asked Patsy.

“Well,” replied the man, doubtfully, “it’s always been under sort of suspicions. It was built, and is owned now, by a man they call Stumpy Herrick. He’s got a sort of a club foot. That’s why they call him Stumpy.

“They say he used to be a maker of the queer and that he built this house out of a big rake off in shoving a lot of it.”

“Does he keep that saloon?” asked Chick.

“Oh, no,” replied the man. “He doesn’t do anything now but take care of his property and collect his rents.{203} He owns not a little around here. No, the first man that kept the place was Fillingham. He rented it from Stumpy, and the next thing they knew the Secret Service men made a raid on the place and found a whole plant for printing notes in that rear building.

“Fillingham was sent up, you know. Then the house was kept by another man by the name of Locke. Everything was quiet for a year or two and then the fly-cops made a raid on the place and they found that it was a fence, and Locke doing more business in taking in swag in that rear building than in the saloon.

“They sent him up, and the saloon changed hands again.

“Things was quiet for two or three years and then there was another raid of the place. A man was taken out of that rear house that was in hiding there for having killed somebody downtown. I forget now who. Then it was shown that it was a great loafing place for crooks. And the business ran down and that man had to give up the place.

“By this time the place got a bad reputation and it was empty for several years.

“Now this man has taken it and, for anything that anybody knows, it’s all right. But I don’t like the crowd that hangs around here.”

“What’s the man’s name that keeps it now,” asked Chick.

“His name is Dempsey,” said the man. “My brother was telling me yesterday that, some years ago, he used to keep a game downtown which was a crooked one. But I don’t know about that.”

“The house has had a curious history,” said Chick. “I’m going in to look at it. Will you go over and have a drink?”

“I don’t care if I do,” said the man.{204}

The three crossed and entered the saloon.

It was an ordinary drinking place, not well kept, and the floor was covered with sawdust. In the rear of the room were several tables, one of which was near a door.

At this table were seated the four men Chick and Patsy had followed, and another, who, from the fact that he was in his shirt sleeves, seemed to be the proprietor of the place.

Lannigan and the man in his shirt sleeves were in close conversation.

“That man in his shirt sleeves,” said the man, who had entered with Chick and Patsy, “is Dempsey. The man he is talking with is a rounder downtown—a swell gambler. I don’t know what his name is.”

While the three stood at the bar drinking, Lannigan and Dempsey arose from their seats and, leaving the others at the table, passed through the door near them, the door being closed after them.

Some minutes passed and then the other two men also passed through the door, this time leaving it partly ajar.

Chick and Patsy exchanged glances and, by moving about the room, managed to get to the rear of it without attracting attention.

Standing at the other end of the bar, they ordered more drinks, and as they were served, several entered from the street and claimed the attention of the barkeeper.

Chick seized the opportunity to open that door and saw that it opened into a little courtyard on which the rear building was and that the lower floor of that rear building seemed to be a private stable.

He saw also that there was a winding iron staircase from the courtyard to the balcony or bridge, connecting with the house in front, so that access to the rear building could be obtained from that courtyard.{205}

He came back and said to Patsy:

“Patsy, I think we ought to make a break for that rear building. That’s where Lannigan and his party have gone.”

The man with them overheard the remark and said, warningly:

“Easy goes in this place.”

Neither Chick nor Patsy understood his meaning, but were satisfied that the man knew more of the place than he had been willing to tell them, though he did not seem to be a friend of the house.

Disregarding his warning, whatever it was, they passed through the door.

They had hardly gotten into the courtyard when they saw Dempsey and Lannigan with the others behind them, appear on the little bridge above them.

At the same moment, the large doors of the lower floor of the rear house were thrown open and a man appeared before the two detectives, who said:

“What in creation are you doing here?”

“Only looking around,” said Patsy.

“Well, look around somewhere else,” said the man.

“What is it, Tom?” asked Dempsey from the bridge.

“Oh,” said Chick, “he’s growling about our coming out here.”

“Well,” said Dempsey, “what are you doing there?”

“Nothing,” replied Chick. “We went out of the wrong door and are going back.”

Followed by Patsy, he returned to the saloon.

Once inside, Chick whispered to Patsy:

“Did you know that man in the stable?”

“No,” replied Patsy.

“It’s Tom Driscoll, an old New York crook. He hasn’t been long out of Sing Sing.”

They went to the bar again, where their acquaintance{206} of the day was yet standing, and ordered some more drinks.

Dempsey and Lannigan came in.

“At ten to-night, you say?” asked Dempsey.

“In a close carriage,” was Lannigan’s reply.

Chick gave a signal to Patsy and walked out into the street.{207}

CHAPTER XXIV.

A NEW MOVE.

When they were out in the street, Chick said to Patsy:

“Something’s coming off to-night at that place.”

“And something’s going to be brought in a closed carriage,” added Patsy.

“And we have got to be on hand to see what it is,” added Chick.

The man with whom they had been talking had lagged behind a bit and now came from the saloon and joined them.

“Say,” he said, “you haven’t said whether you was fly-cops or not. Well, I don’t care whether you are or not, but I give it to you straight that Dempsey stopped me to ask who you were.”

“What did you tell him?” asked Patsy.

“I told him you were friends of mine that I had brought in for a drink here.”

Chick and Patsy had no reason to disbelieve the man, but, nevertheless, they felt, if he had not told them the truth, that by this time Lannigan had become suspicious of them.

However, acting upon the notion that the man had done nothing to arouse suspicions of themselves, they asked him to step down the street with them and, while they went into a doorway, to keep an eye on the saloon.

Dodging into this doorway, they made a rapid change, thus confessing to the man that they were, indeed, detectives.

“There’s a five-dollar bill for you,” said Chick, “if you will give us a little help.{208}”

“I’m with you,” said the man.

“Well, then,” said Chick, “we know who your swell gambler is. That’s the fellow we are following.”

At that moment Lannigan appeared in front of the saloon and alone.

“Get on the other side of the street,” said Chick to the man, “and follow after him. We will be behind.”

The man went off readily enough and Chick and Patsy followed some little distance after.

“I put that man to work,” said Chick, “so that he wouldn’t go back to the saloon and blab.”

Lannigan moved rapidly and it was with difficulty that they could keep him in view. His way took him to a large department store in the lower part of the city, into which he hurried, going at once upstairs to the ladies’ parlor.

He had been followed by Patsy, as he went through the store, Chick remaining with the man outside.

To Patsy’s surprise, Lannigan’s purpose in going to that place was to meet Mrs. Ladew. He sat down with that person on a circular cushioned seat that surrounded a pillar, and engaged her in earnest conversation.

On the other side of this circular cushion sat an elderly gentleman engaged in reading his newspaper.

The interview between Lannigan and Mrs. Ladew was brief. Whatever passed between them, unheard, of course, by Patsy, was most disagreeable to Mrs. Ladew, but she yielded, apparently, to whatever was urged by Lannigan.

Having obtained her consent, Lannigan arose to his feet, as if to go away, but stood a moment longer to talk with Mrs. Ladew.

The elderly gentleman, rising and folding his paper, sauntered leisurely toward the door of the parlor and passing Patsy, said:{209}

“Put Chick on Lannigan and come back here to me.”

Patsy gasped:

“Holy smoke, the chief!” he said, to himself.

But he did not wait to say more, but hurried after Lannigan, who had gone out.

Mrs. Ladew, waiting a reasonable time, also undertook to leave the apartment, when she was met by the elderly gentleman.

He addressed her politely and said:

“Mrs. Ladew, if I am not mistaken.”

Mrs. Ladew looked up at him in some surprise, vainly trying to recollect whether she knew the gentleman, but admitted that was her name.

“Permit me,” said Nick, “to have a few moments’ conversation with you.”

“Really sir,” replied the lady, “you have the advantage of me, since I cannot recollect ever having seen you before.”

“You have not,” replied Nick.

“Then, sir, I cannot talk with you. You have mistaken the woman.”

“Pardon me,” said Nick. “I must talk with you. My name is Nick Carter.”

Mrs. Ladew fairly staggered back, and, indeed, would have fallen had not a chair been within easy reach which she could grasp.

“For your own sake,” said Nick, hurriedly, “make no scene here, but submit to my request. It will be far better for you in the end.”

Mrs. Ladew looked helplessly about, as if not knowing what to do, but Nick read her thoughts.

“It is useless to attempt to call assistance,” said Nick. “Such an act would only bring you into trouble. Come with me to the other side of the room.{210}”

Mrs. Ladew, as if not knowing what else to do, followed him to the place indicated.

Nick placed a chair for her and she sat down, frightened.

“Mrs. Ladew,” said Nick, as he drew a chair, placing himself in front of her, “I am disguised, and no one will know that you are talking to Nick Carter, the detective. I want to say to you that you are a very foolish woman and in a very serious and dangerous position. Do you know the man with whom you just talked in this room?”

Mrs. Ladew nodded her head, but did not speak.

“You are a woman who has a good position in the world, a devoted husband, all that wealth can give you, and you are endangering everything by your association with this man. I doubt if you really know who and what he is. I have no wish nor intention of exposing you to your husband, or to the world.”

By this time Mrs. Ladew had had time to think, and she made an effort to master the situation. With no little haughtiness, she said:

“Your words are very singular, sir, as addressed to me. Exposure? I am a woman of position, sir.”

Nick stopped her sternly. He said:

“Mrs. Ladew, I know your whole life for the past three days. You went to New York to attend the wedding of Mr. Ellison to Miss Sanborn, but you took occasion to travel about with Jimmy Lannigan, gambler, thief, burglar.”

Mrs. Ladew leaped to her feet, horror-stricken.

“Thief! Burglar!” she exclaimed. “You tell what is not true.”

“Sit down, Mrs. Ladew,” said Nick. “Lannigan is just what I say he is. A thief and a burglar, known to the police as the swell cracksman of Philadelphia. He attained an unenviable reputation a short time ago, and{211} I could have landed him in prison; but I was lenient with him. I wanted to give him a chance to reform; but this is the outcome. He is a scoundrel of the worst type and I want to tell you that I shall have him arrested and imprisoned before many days. He has served a term in the State’s prison. He is an ex-convict.”

He paused to see the effect of his words on this lady of fashion.

“You think,” he went on, “Lannigan went on to New York to meet you and have a spree with you. That was not his real reason. His purpose was to rob the Sanborn house of the wedding presents. You had your spree, as I know, and I can give you every hour and minute of your movements with him through the Tenderloin.”

Mrs. Ladew fell back in her chair, her face ashen gray, as she heard Nick say these things. Nick went on:

“It is not for me to object to the way of life you have chosen, but I can say, as I did before, that you are a very foolish woman, and, especially, to endanger your reputation by being seen in the company of such a miserable scamp and rascal as this contemptible Jimmy Lannigan.”

“I have done nothing wrong,” she said.

“Perhaps not; but how would your husband like to know that your escort in New York was a burglar?”

“And what do you want of me?” piteously asked Mrs. Ladew.

“I might say,” replied Nick, “that I wanted to save you from him, but, to be honest, I have no such purpose. I have told you these things to show you that I know how dangerous is your position. You are in the possession of certain information which I must have and, I tell you now, Mrs. Ladew, that I will use my knowledge of your past three days if you do not give me that information.”

“What can I tell you?{212}”

“You know that Mr. Ellison mysteriously disappeared from the Sanborn house after the wedding breakfast.”

“Yes.”

“You know,” Nick went on, “that a man came to the house to see him and that Mr. Ellison left that house in the disguise that man had brought for him.”

“Yes.”

“Who was that man?”

“He was a man from England,” said Mrs. Ladew.

“What was his message to Mr. Ellison that made that gentleman so quickly respond?”

Mrs. Ladew hesitated a moment and said, finally:

“Why do you ask me these questions?”

“Because I believe you know them all.”

“I do, I do. But they were told me in confidence. And now I see how I am entangled by them.”

She got up and walked to the window and looked out a moment. Then she came back, evidently making a severe effort to control herself. Suddenly she turned to Nick and said:

“You are no friend of mine. There is no reason why I should trust you. I am in a great trouble. I see that now. And I have no way to turn.”

“I have said before, Mrs. Ladew, I have no wish to injure or expose you. I say now that, if you will reveal to me all you know, I will protect you and help you.”

“But how can I trust you? How do I know that I can trust you?”

“If you know anything about me,” said Nick, “you must know that I am a man of my word. I am accustomed to hold the secrets of many persons, and no one has ever heard that Nick Carter has betrayed them.”

Mrs. Ladew stood a moment in thought and, at length, said:

“I must trust you. I have no one else to trust, and I{213} must escape from this horrible entanglement that I am in. But I cannot talk to you here. Come with me and we will drive in my carriage. There we can talk.”

Nick rose, and together they left the room.

As they passed out through the store, Nick saw Patsy and gave him the signal to follow them.

Then he went downstairs with Mrs. Ladew and entered her carriage with her.{214}

CHAPTER XXV.

THE TRUTH AT LAST.

While Chick and Patsy and Ida had been engaged on their various branches of the work, Nick had been busy in following up some clews that had drifted into his hands.

So that, with what his assistants had discovered and reported to him, he had come to learn the full story of the relation of Ellison to Mrs. Ladew and of Mrs. Ladew with Jimmy Lannigan. And, when Ida reported the results of her interview with Miss Rainforth, Nick realized that the rest of the story could be pieced out by Mrs. Ladew, if he could induce her to talk.

Without delay, then, he had hurried at once to Philadelphia, and had followed Mrs. Ladew to the department store where she met Lannigan.

Believing from what he had learned of Mrs. Ladew that she would not talk to him willingly, he had determined that he would use the knowledge of her escapade in New York with Lannigan as the means of compelling her.

His success he now felt was as great as he could have hoped for.

During the brief space of time taken to go from the ladies’ parlor into the carriage, Mrs. Ladew had evidently thought that her whole safety lay in giving her utmost confidence to the famous detective.

A part of this lay in that impression of trustworthiness that Nick made upon all with whom he came in contact.

And so it was that, when they were in the carriage and{215} had driven out of the crowded streets into Fairmount Park, Mrs. Ladew said, impulsively:

“I shall tell you all, Mr. Carter. But if I do so, can I rely upon you to save me from the consequences of my folly?”

“You can rely upon me to the uttermost. I have no commission except to find Mr. Ellison and discover the mystery of his disappearance. I have no duty to perform in punishing anybody. But I will protect you and safeguard you from any trouble that may come out of your relations with Lannigan or with Mr. Ellison.”

Mrs. Ladew turned on him, astonished.

“And do you know of that, too?”

Nick bowed his head and said:

“I do know of that. Now, please answer the question I asked you before we left the ladies’ parlor of that store. What message did that man bring to Mr. Ellison that made him respond so promptly?”

“The message was that if Mr. Ellison did not at once go to see the wife he had married in England six years before, and who was then nearby, she would appear at that reception and expose him in the presence of everybody.”

This reply was as near a shock to the famous detective as he, used to startling announcements, could have. He had not contemplated any such complication. But he promptly asked the next question:

“Did you know of that previous marriage?”

“Not until that afternoon.”

“What did you then learn?”

“I learned that Mr. Ellison had married, secretly, a young woman of great beauty who was a barmaid in England, but from whom he had been separated almost immediately; that, for a large sum of money, she had{216} consented to consider the marriage annulled, and that for several years he had seen nothing of her.

“Very shortly after Mr. Ellison came to this country I made his acquaintance, and he began to come to Philadelphia quite frequently to see me.

“Our relations were quite intimate and he was a frequent visitor at my house and was on good terms with my husband.

“It seems that a brother of this girl lived in Philadelphia and one day met him on the street, recognizing him as the young fellow who had been married to his sister and who had paid a large sum to be free from that marriage.

“Just how Mr. Ellison became acquainted with a set of men of whom Mr. Lannigan was one, I don’t know, but he did, and, being fond of cards and gambling, he began to gamble with them. I have been told that he lost large sums of money to them, and that they hold his notes for sums to be paid when he was married to Miss Sanborn.

“This man, the brother of his former wife, while not of the party with whom he gambled, was yet in close relations with Lannigan, to whom he told his story. I had had a bitter quarrel with Mr. Ellison before I ever met Mr. Lannigan, or even knew there was such a person. It was not until some time after that that I even knew Mr. Lannigan was acquainted with Mr. Ellison. But I have come to know that Mr. Lannigan knew of my relation with Mr. Ellison.

“What I do know is that this brother, whose name is Clowes, wanted to blackmail Mr. Ellison. But Mr. Lannigan simply told Clowes that, even if he did expose Mr. Ellison, the result would not be money, but merely the breaking off of his match with Miss Sanborn. It is{217} only since the marriage that I have known all these matters.

“Under the guidance of Mr. Lannigan, Clowes put himself into relations with Mr. Ellison and told him that he was free to go on with the marriage of Miss Sanborn, because his sister was dead. But he sent for that sister hurriedly to come to this country.

“As I learned, the intention was to have her here a day or two prior to the marriage and then force him, on the eve of his marriage, to another compromise or payment of a large sum.

“Their programme was checked by the non-arrival of the sister in time.

“About the attempt of Mr. Lannigan to rob the Sanborn house of the jewels, I know nothing; but, now that you tell me such was the case, I can see that that was intended and that I was to have been made use of to that end.

“It was at first arranged that Mr. Lannigan was to attend the reception with me. But the fact that I learned that some Philadelphia people were to be there who knew him broke up that arrangement.

“The sister of Clowes, Ellison’s wife, arrived in this country on the morning of the wedding.

“That morning Mr. Ellison was informed that she was not dead, but was in this country and demanded to see him.

“Mr. Ellison refused to believe it.

“Mr. Lannigan says that the plan of summoning him from the reception was decided upon very hastily and that his valet was bribed to assist in it.

“Clowes was sneaked into the house by the aid of the valet, and Mr. Ellison was taken to him in a room in which he had been placed.

“There Clowes showed Mr. Ellison a letter from his{218} wife, who declared that if he did not immediately see her in a carriage that was in a nearby street she would make her appearance and prove her former marriage to Mr. Sanborn.

“Mr. Ellison, convinced that she was there, yielded, and took the coat and wig and false whiskers that Clowes had bought for the purpose and slipped out of the house, intending to return very quickly.

“He entered the carriage, and, being an obstinate and high-spirited man, by the time the brother reached them they were in a bitter quarrel, in which Mr. Ellison had recklessly defied them to do their worst, declaring that he would lock them both up for extortion and conspiracy.

“Then the brother, finding that Mr. Ellison was not to be handled, chloroformed him and drove him away. The valet, frightened over the result, fled from the city.”

Nick had listened to this story in utter astonishment. The facts, as they had been revealed, were wholly different from what he had imagined.

It was true, as Miss Rainforth in her second anonymous letter to him had hinted, that a woman was at the bottom of the disappearance. But the woman was by no means the one she had supposed.

Miss Rainforth had believed that Mrs. Ladew was concerned in that disappearance, and such belief had been inspired by her jealousy of that woman.

In the recital of Mrs. Ladew it was clear that she had no part in the disappearance, but only a guilty knowledge of the event.

All that she knew had been told her by Lannigan, who had either given this to Mrs. Ladew for a purpose not apparent to Nick or in that weakness strong men often show in their relations with women.

“What was expected to be gained by taking Mr. Ellison off?” asked Nick.{219}

“Nothing,” replied Mrs. Ladew. “The abduction, if you can call it abduction, became necessary because of the attitude that Mr. Ellison assumed. He is a man slow to anger, but, when aroused fully, almost a lunatic in his temper. At such times he casts all thoughts of prudence aside and becomes utterly reckless and unmanageable.

“Mr. Lannigan tells me that when he discovered the plot, and that it was the intention to force him to sign a legal document that would compel him to pay a large sum of money for their silence, he fell into one of those ungovernable fits of passion, so that there was nothing else to do but to chloroform him to keep him quiet. It was that which made the mysterious disappearance.”

“Mr. Lannigan must have been in the plot,” said Nick.

“He was.”

“Did you not know of it?”

“Not until the evening of that day—last night.”

“Did you, then, not know that Mr. Lannigan was not a straight person?” asked Nick.

“I could not help but know it then,” replied Mrs. Ladew. “I knew that he was a gambler, but I did not know that he was a thief and a burglar, as you say he is, and yet it must be so.”

“What is the plan now?”

Mrs. Ladew shuddered.

“Here is where danger is to me,” she said. “After having chloroformed him and carried him away, they did not know what to do with him. Their whole plans were upset. But they have now determined to hold him until he is ransomed.”

“And you have been made a party to this?” asked Nick, jumping to a conclusion.

“Yes.”

Mrs. Ladew startled Nick by bursting into a passion,{220} the depth of which Nick, who had judged her to be a weak, superficial, reckless woman, did not think her capable of.

“Oh the blackness of it! The humiliation! The degradation! Lannigan showed himself to me to-day in all his villainy, and would have pulled me with him if you had not interfered.”

“What was it he proposed?” asked Nick.

“Using the power over me he has gained, he called me to him where you saw me and forced me to consent to see Mr. Ellison to-night to act as the means of getting the money they desire.”

“See him to-night?” asked Nick. “Where could you see him?”

“Here in Philadelphia. He is to be here.”

“Where?”

“I do not know, but Mr. Lannigan is to let me know and to take me to the place where Mr. Ellison is to be, or is now, for all that I know.”

Nick was thoughtful for a time and then he said:

“Can you go with him without discovery?”

“Easily.”

“Then do so,” said Nick. “I shall be on hand to protect and save you. I promise you that you will not even be compelled to meet Mr. Ellison. But you will be followed to the place where you are to meet him, and rest assured that I will protect you to the very last.”

He turned sharply to the lady and said:

“Are you ready to break with this man Lannigan, or are you anxious to continue your friendship with him?”

“No, no,” she cried; “after what you have told me I do not wish to see his face again.”

“Then rest assured that you will be free of him, if you will do this as I want you to do. I pledge you my{221} word that afterward you will not be troubled by Lannigan.”

This being arranged, Nick asked Mrs. Ladew to hurry back to the city, as he had much to do in preparing for the night’s work.

Half an hour later he left the coach with the understanding that she was to communicate with him the hour at which she was to meet Lannigan for the purpose he had asked her.

As he stepped from the coach he saw Patsy, who had faithfully followed him as Nick had directed.

He went to him, saying:

“Hot work to-night, Patsy, but we will end it before midnight.{222}”

CHAPTER XXVI.

CONCLUSION.

When Patsy had met Nick at the department store, he had no opportunity to tell him of the experience of himself and Chick that day in Philadelphia.

He did so now, however. Nick listened intently, and at the conclusion said:

“Good. You and Chick have found out the very thing to make my story complete. We could get along without Mrs. Ladew.”

Patsy was surprised at this remark, for he did not know then what had passed between Mrs. Ladew and his chief.

“I guess this is where I need some information,” he said.

“Well, then, Patsy, I’ll make you as wise as myself,” said Nick Carter.

He then told Patsy in brief the story he had learned from Mrs. Ladew.

At its conclusion Patsy exclaimed:

“I see it all! The thing that is coming in a covered carriage to that place at ten to-night is his nibs, the Englishman.”

“That’s what it is,” said Nick.

“And they’re going to stow him in that back building. That’s the game.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Well, it’s a nasty place. It’s a nasty place to bring a woman, and it won’t be an easy thing to get that fellow out of it.”

“Easy or not,” said Nick, calmly, “we have got to{223} go through it. I guess we’ve been in worse places and come out whole.”

After a moment he said:

“I wonder where we can pick up Chick.”

“Don’t know,” said Patsy. “The last I saw of him he was trailing Lannigan, holding fast to the man he had in tow.”

“He’ll turn up in time,” said Nick. “Chick is always on hand at the right time. But come with me now, Patsy. I must see Ida.”

“Is Ida here?”

“Yes; she came over with me, for I did not know but that she would have to do the work of Mrs. Ladew. As it is, she must go to her.”

They hurried to the hotel where Nick had left Ida, and there, having written a note to Mrs. Ladew, Nick gave it to Ida and told her that she must accompany Mrs. Ladew when she was called by Lannigan.

This Ida did at once, and saw Mrs. Ladew without difficulty.

It was well for Nick’s plans that he did send Ida to the lady, for, on arriving, Ida found Mrs. Ladew almost in a state of collapse, as a reaction from the excitement of the day, and disposed, if not determined, to go no further the matter, refusing to have anything further to do with Lannigan, on the ground that Nick Carter was on their trail.

Ida devoted herself toward soothing and encouraging Mrs. Ladew, and had the satisfaction of presently seeing the woman in a better frame of mind, and with courage to go through the ordeal before her.

While this was going on, Nick and Patsy set out on the rather hopeless task of trying to find Chick in a large and strange city.

It was nearly night when they set out, and they wan{224}dered about an hour without discovering trace of Chick. Finally they reached the Broad Street station in their wanderings, and as they stood in front of it they saw Lannigan approach and enter.

“Chick’s somewhere around,” remarked Patsy.

“Unless he’s lost Lannigan,” said Nick.

“Chick never loses anybody,” said Patsy.

And to confirm his statement, Chick walked up to them.

“You can drop Lannigan,” said Nick, “for we have got on to his movements and know he will be where we want him to-night.”

“Don’t you think,” said Patsy, “it would be just as well to find out what Lannigan is doing here in the station?”

“Perhaps so,” said Nick. “It will do no harm.”

“Lannigan has been as busy as possible,” said Chick. “He’s led me a chase up and down into all sorts of queer places. He’s got a funeral on hand.”

Patsy laughed aloud.

“He’ll be lucky,” he said, “if it’s not his own funeral. That’s what I think he’s going to.”

“What do you mean by saying he’s got a funeral?” asked Nick.

“Because he’s been running among the undertakers and to the Health Board. I know he has got a permit to transport a body across town.”

“A permit?” asked Nick.

“Now what does that mean? And what has that to do with this thing?”

“Cæsar’s ghost!” cried Patsy, “that Englishman hasn’t spoiled our fun by croaking, has he?”

“Follow him, Patsy,” said Nick, “and see what he’s doing here. Then come to the hotel.”

Patsy was off like a flash, and Nick, taking Chick by the arm, took him to the hotel, on the way telling him{225} of all the developments with which Chick was unfamiliar.

Arriving at the hotel, Nick found a note from Ida saying that Lannigan had called Mrs. Ladew to meet him in a carriage at a certain corner of the street she named, at half-past ten that night, and that Ida was going with her as her maid.

“That is all settled and according to programme,” said Nick.

Patsy now rushed in to tell them that Lannigan had been making arrangements to receive a corpse coming from New York on the train arriving at nine-thirty.

The three detectives dined and discussed this last movement of Lannigan, but they could conceive no reasonable explanation, finally reaching the conclusion that it had nothing to do with their affair.

As the hour approached, Nick sent Patsy to the corner where Lannigan was to meet Mrs. Ladew with a coach, while he and Chick went out to the house that he had visited with Patsy in the earlier part of the day.

“It is somewhat of a chance,” said Nick, “that we are taking, but I have no doubt that that is the destination of Lannigan with Mrs. Ladew.”

“At all events,” said Chick, “if he’s going to take her anywhere else, Patsy and Ida will be on hand.”

Arriving at the spot, they took a careful survey of the house and the place, and made the discovery that the double doors in the fence, which Chick and Patsy had observed, were slightly open.

“Ready for the covered carriage to drive in,” remarked Chick.

It was then after nine o’clock, and the two settled themselves for a wait until ten, the hour at which Lannigan had told Dempsey the covered carriage would reach there.{226}

A few minutes before ten the doors were swung open and, as Chick was quick to recognize, by Tom Driscoll.

It was almost on the very hour that they saw a hearse approaching. As it turned the corner the horses were whipped up suddenly and they dashed through the gates, which were closed immediately after the hearse passed through.

“Oho!” exclaimed Chick. “Now, what is the meaning of that?”

“A part of your undertakers’ work to-day,” said Nick. “But what of it? What scheme is this?”

“Nick,” said Chick, earnestly, “do you think they could have killed Ellison?”

“And brought his body all the way over to Philadelphia?” said Nick. “That is hardly possible.”

They stole up the street to a point opposite the gates.

From that point, however, they could see nothing.

A tree was immediately opposite the courtyard on the side of the street on which they stood.

“Give me a back,” said Chick, in a whisper. “I’ll climb up and see if I can look over the fence.”

Nick made a back for Chick, and in a moment Chick was up in the branches overlooking the fence.

While he was there the gates were suddenly opened, and a flood of light shone out. The hearse came from the yard and was rapidly driven away.

The gates were then immediately closed again. In a moment or two Chick slipped down from the tree. He said to Nick:

“A box like those they put caskets in was brought in that hearse. It was heavy; it took six men to draw it by ropes from the pavement to the bridge. It was then carried into the rear room of that house in the rear, the lights of which you can see.{227}

“Then they brought out the box light, for they let it down easily and carried it into the stable.”

“Something mysterious here,” said Nick. “Is it possible that they have brought Ellison over from New York in that box?”

“Drugged, so as to be unconscious?” asked Chick.

“It begins to look like that,” said Nick. “They could do it by perforating the casket with air holes.”

He was silent a moment or two, deeply thinking. At last he said:

“It must be so. They say they will have Ellison here to-night. Mrs. Ladew has been forced by Lannigan to meet him to-night. Ellison would hardly come over here willingly, and the chances of his escape, of being recognized or of alarming the public, would be too great for them to attempt to force him over. Chick, the only way in which they could get him over is to bring him unconscious and as a corpse.”

“It must be so,” said Chick. “Ellison was in that box. They have lifted him out and he is in that room where the lights are.”

“Then we have located our man.”

“And we’ll be sure of it, if Lannigan comes with Mrs. Ladew here.”

“I presume,” said Nick, “if we are right, that they are busy now in restoring Ellison to consciousness.”

“Our trick,” said Chick, “is to wait here and watch for the coming of Lannigan with Mrs. Ladew.”

It was half-past ten by this time and, according to their calculations, Lannigan could not reach there before eleven.

They settled themselves for the wait, and promptly on the hour of their calculations they saw a coach round the corner.

The doors in the fence swung open again, and as the{228} coach turned into the gate Nick and Chick sprang behind and close to it.

The wheels had not rolled over the sidewalk before Patsy came up on a run and joined them.

As the coach cleared the gates they were swung to as before. But not quickly enough to shut out the three detectives.

The moment it stopped the door of the coach was opened and Lannigan stepped out.

Nick, with a bound, was beside him and, striking him heavily with the butt of his pistol on the head, knocked him clean over. At the same moment he called to Ida to guard Mrs. Ladew in the coach.

Driscoll, who was in the courtyard to receive the carriage, seeing the attack on Lannigan, rushed forward, but was met by Patsy, who hit him squarely in the face, but not until Driscoll had recognized Nick Carter and cried out his name.

Though he had fallen under the force of Patsy’s blow, he picked himself up and took to his heels without waiting for anything further to occur.

Under the lead of Nick, Chick and Patsy rushed to the winding stairs and reached the bridge before an alarm had been given to any of the others.

Who they were to meet they had little idea, but Chick thought they would have to encounter not less than six.

As they entered that rear building from the bridge they met a man whom Nick concluded at once was the man Clowes and, without waiting for any act upon that man’s part, he sprang forward and struck him a terrific blow in the face which toppled him over.

“Take care of that man, Patsy,” cried Nick.

He dashed along the hallway, closely followed by Chick.{229}

Patsy stopped to look at the man and saw at a glance that he was unconscious. He called after Nick:

“You’ve done that already. I couldn’t take better care of him if I was to hit him with a sledge-hammer.”

And he ran after the other two.

At the door of the room where they supposed Ellison had been taken they met two or three, who had been attracted by the noise and scuffle in the hall.

Nick sprang forward, striking with both hands, and Chick was beside him in the effort.

The force with which they had jumped forward carried them into the room. A hasty glance showed them a man bound on the bed, while one was bending over him.

They waited for nothing, but each of the three detectives selected a man and toppled him over with blows.

The onslaught had been so rapid, and so vicious, as well as unexpected, that the men were hardly prepared to defend themselves.

Nick sprang to the bedside and, whirling the man who stood there aside, and who, as they subsequently learned, was a physician, said to the prostrate man:

“We are your friends, Mr. Ellison.”

He could see the man’s eyes flash with intelligence and, whipping out a knife, Nick cut the bands that confined him and, thrusting a revolver in his hand, said:

“Help to defend yourself.”

Ellison sprang from the bed as soon as his feet were released, while Nick turned to help Chick and Patsy, on whom the men, now recovered from their confusion, were attempting to make a combined attack.

They had been joined in the meantime by Dempsey.

Chick recognized him at once, and he went at that man, who had already drawn a revolver, striking him in the face with the butt end of his own.{230}

Ellison joined them instantly, and, weak as he was, quickly showed his fighting power.

Though there were seven of them in the room, the four soon overcame them, driving them before them out of the room and into the passageway.

There they were at the mercy of the four behind them, for the way was narrow, and in their efforts to escape they blocked each other against the wall.

There were broken heads in plenty, but they managed to reach the bridge, some of them escaping over it and some down the winding stairs, among them Clowes, who, recovering consciousness, ran away.

The four went down the stairs into the courtyard, but by the time they had reached it the men who had fled from them had entirely disappeared.

The coach was still standing there, the driver sitting contentedly on his box, while Lannigan was sitting on the pavement.

For a moment Nick could not imagine what he was doing there, and thought that he must be yet dazed with the blow he had given him.

But, passing the heads of the horses, he saw the reason for Lannigan’s attitude.

Ida was sitting on the coach step covering him with a revolver, having threatened to put a ball into him if he stirred.

“Get up, Lannigan,” said Nick. “You can put up that revolver, Ida.”

Turning to Ellison, Nick said:

“Mr. Ellison, I was only commissioned to discover the mystery of your disappearance and find you. I shall not attempt to do anything to these rascals on my commission. It is for you to determine whether you will make a charge against them and arrest them. I want to say to you that if you care to consider the wishes of Mr. Sanborn and{231} the lady you married yesterday, you will do nothing. It is for you to determine whether you can go clean handed to your friends.”

“I think I understand you,” said Mr. Ellison, “you refer to the story of my having been married some years ago in England.”

“I do,” replied Nick.

“It is true that I was married, most unfortunately. I was informed months ago that my wife was dead, as I had heard two years or more before.”

“I understand that,” replied Nick; “and that your wife made her appearance in this country on the day of your wedding to Miss Sanborn.”

“That is what I was informed, and the fact that she was nearby induced me to leave the house as I did. But the fact is, Mr. Carter, the woman I met in that coach was not my wife. She was my wife’s sister, who looks much like her. It was a fraud played upon me. It was my discovery of it that led to my being chloroformed and kept in confinement. My wife is dead.”

“And you are, therefore, legally and fairly married to Miss Sanborn,” said Nick. “It is not for me to advise you, Mr. Ellison, but my duty to Mr. Sanborn leads me to say that I know, if his wishes are to be consulted and those of the lady who is now your wife, everything will be done to prevent publicity and notoriety, even if it results in the escape of these rascals from the justice they so richly merit.”

“That accords with my feelings,” returned Mr. Ellison, “though my first impulse was to seek revenge on them.”

Nick then went to the coach door and spoke to Mrs. Ladew, saying:

“My aid, Ida here, will return with you to your house, Mrs. Ladew. You may go in the full assurance that you will not be bothered by Lannigan.{232}”

To Ida he said:

“As soon as you leave Mrs. Ladew, come to the hotel. We shall go back to New York as soon as we can. A new case awaits us there.”

He then directed the driver to drive off with the two occupants, and when the courtyard was cleared of the coach he turned to Lannigan, saying:

“Jimmy Lannigan, I have always heard that your luck is very great, but this time it has deserted you. Some time ago I let you slip out of my hands, believing that the warning would keep you straight. I was wrong. I know now that you are crooked all the way through. You would be a menace to the community if I let you off again, and this time I’m going to run you in—under the old charge.”

Lannigan, who thought he had escaped again, was so much confused that he simply stared at Nick and made no movement until he felt the cold steel on his wrists and knew that he was handcuffed and in Nick’s power.

Then his passions let loose and he turned a flood of abuse upon the detective. But Nick quickly stopped the fellow with an effective gag and prepared to remove him in custody.

Subsequently he was taken to New York and Nick Carter’s testimony was so damaging that Lannigan was sentenced to ten years in the State’s prison.

THE END.

No. 1099 of the New Magnet Library, entitled, “A Race Track Gamble,” by Nicholas Carter, is a great story, and tells how the quick-witted Nick caught a gang of race-track crooks, after much trouble and many dangers, and sent them where they could do no more harm for some years to come.

All classes of fiction are to be found among the Street & Smith novels. Our line contains reading matter for every one, irrespective of age or preference.

The person who has only a moderate sum to spend on reading matter will find this line a veritable gold mine.

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