CHAPTER III.
A FAMILIAR FACE.
“Bring him up,” said Nick, to the servant.
When the servant had gone, the detective opened the door of an adjoining apartment.
“You will have to step in here for a few minutes, Mr. Lansing,” said he. “Your man Yasmar has come to see me.”
“Yasmar!” exclaimed Lansing.
“Yes. Step in, quick. Be quiet, and do not come back until I open the door.”
“But what can he want?” murmured the astounded youth, passing into the other room.
“I shall find out very soon.”
Nick closed the door, and was seated at his desk, writing, when his second caller entered the study.
“Mr. Carter?”
Nick dropped his pen, whirled around in his chair, and got up.
He saw before him a man of forty, or thereabouts, tall, muscular, smooth shaven and wearing a long frock coat, dark trousers, patent leather shoes and a flowing necktie.
In his left hand he held a black “slouch” hat. His right hand was extended and an amiable smile wreathed his face.
Nick took the extended hand, and was surprised to find the palm hard, as though roughened with manual labor.
For a “promoter,” dressed as this man was, the fact might have been significant.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Yasmar?” asked Nick, when they were both seated.
“I have a case, and there is no one in the city, except yourself, whom I desire to handle it.”
“Excuse me a moment while I finish this letter, and then I will give you my attention.”
Yasmar nodded, picked up the paper Nick had recently laid down, and the detective touched a bell.
“Send Patsy to me,” he said to the servant.
He scribbled away for a few seconds, folded the sheet and put it in an envelope, sealed the envelope and wrote the following:
“Look at this man well. He may be Ramsay, but I’m not sure. Shadow him.”
Patsy stood beside the desk when Nick faced around, the letter in his hand.
“Here’s a letter, Patsy, which I wish you to deliver immediately. You know the party, I think?”
The assistant studied the writing on the envelope.
“No, Nick,” he answered, “I don’t know him; but I know the address.”
“You’ll attend to it?”
“Sure.”
Patsy left.
“Now, Mr. Yasmar,” said Nick, “I’m at leisure for a few minutes.”
“I only read this morning that you were expected back from your trip West, and I hate to trouble you, but the matter is very important. Have you seen to-day’s paper?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps you recall my name in connection with the disappearance of young John Lansing.”
“Oh! Are you the Adolphus Yasmar mentioned in that account?”
“I am. And it is in relation to John Lansing that I have called on you this morning.”
“You want me to find the young man?”
“Yes. I want you to go to Boston by first train and begin a search for him. Lansing’s sister and uncle are very much worked up over the young man’s disappearance, and I told them I would call here and put you on the case—providing I could get you.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Nick, “but I could not take the case for two or three days. As you say, I have just returned from the West, and you can easily understand how work has accumulated during my absence.”
“You will be well paid——”
“That is a minor consideration. In two or three days, if you like, I will——”
“That will be too late. In cases of this kind, as you perhaps know, little time should be lost.”
“Exactly. For that reason it is strange that you allowed Tuesday to pass without coming to me.”
“I knew you had not returned home, sir; and, besides, I was in Boston Tuesday, Mr. Carter.”
“There are detectives in Boston—good ones.”
“But Nick Carter doesn’t live in Boston,” said Yasmar, with a flattering smile. “The police there are doing their best. Still, the young man’s relatives would feel better to know that you had taken the case.”
“That is out of the question, unless you wait for two or three days.”
“Would not a large retainer tempt you to lay aside your other work and give your immediate attention to this matter?”
“No, sir.”
Yasmar got up.
“Then I suppose there is nothing else for it but for me to wait.”
“Or get some one else,” added Nick.
“Who shall I go to?”
“The New York chief of police.”
“I’ll think about it. Good-morning, Mr. Carter.”
He left.
When the front door had closed, the detective admitted John Lansing from the other room.
“The infernal scoundrel!” cried Lansing. “He dared to come here to you to get you to look for me—a man whom he believes he murdered.”
“He’s a pretty smooth rascal,” said the detective.
“Will you help me out in the mine matter, Mr. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“Good! My sister’s money and mine is as good as saved. I thank you very much, and your bill will be met as soon as presented.”
“That will come later. For the present, carry out your present policy—keep in the background, and don’t go about the city very much. Do not even communicate with your sister. Leave that part of it to me, and I will see that she does not worry about you. Where will I be able to communicate with you?”
Lansing wrote his address on a card.
Then, after thanking Nick again, he left the house.
The detective lighted a cigar and threw himself into a chair.
“He certainly had his nerve with him, to call on me as he has done,” thought Nick.
“It’s plain that he wants to get me out of town, and at once.
“I wonder if he knows Nick Carter never forgets a face?
“I have seen his face before—but whether that is the face of the tough-looking Westerner called Ramsay, who is ‘wanted’ in Montana, I can’t say for certain.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE ROLL-TOP DESK.
On leaving Nick Carter’s house, Yasmar walked rapidly off down the street.
At the first corner he passed a typical East Side tough, leaning against a lamp-post, rolling a huge cigar between his teeth.
Stepping out into the street, Yasmar hailed an open electric car.
As he got aboard, well forward, the tough jumped on the rear and took one of the seats reserved for smokers.
At Canal Street the Western man changed to a cross-town car, getting off again at Vestry Street.
He had not looked behind him, or displayed any nervousness whatever.
But, nevertheless, it seemed as if he had an idea he might be followed.
Vestry and Canal meet at an acute angle, forming a “V” shaped point.
Yasmar walked down Vestry Street for a few doors, then hastily turned to the right, mounted a short flight of steps and vanished through a dingy doorway.
The tough was close after him.
Passing through a long, dark hall, he made an exit through a door opening on Canal Street.
The tough, apparently, did not come out of the building.
The man who did follow Yasmar out onto Canal Street looked more like a laborer than he did like a tough.
The Westerner, walking leisurely, made his way to the next block and halted in front of a four-story building.
There was a moving van backed to the curb in front, and at the very top of the building two men were engaged in rigging a block and tackle.
Yasmar came to a halt before a door leading into a hallway, and from there, for the first time, he took a survey of the street behind him.
The laborer, his hands in his pockets and a corncob pipe in his mouth, was watching the riggers at work on the roof.
There was nothing suspicious about the laborer, and Yasmar passed into the building and started upstairs.
When he reached the head of the first flight, the laborer was in the doorway.
Something had been shouted by one of the men on the roof.
“All right,” the laborer called back, “I’ll bring it up to ye.”
Thereupon Patsy—for, of course, the supposed laborer was none other than Nick Carter’s assistant—rushed upstairs with a coil of rope.
He passed Yasmar on the second flight.
At the top of the third flight, he waited and listened until he heard the Westerner start up from the foot.
That was Patsy’s signal to make for the narrow passage leading to the skylight and the roof.
“There ye are,” he said, as he tossed the coil of rope to the riggers.
Then, without loss of a moment, he returned to the fourth floor.
A door was just closing down the hall as Patsy stepped out of the passage.
The detective was too late to see the man who entered the room, but he was fairly certain it was Yasmar.
Proceeding noiselessly to the door, he halted and listened.
Voices, pitched in a low key, reached him.
It was impossible to distinguish the spoken words, although Patsy strained his ears in the attempt.
He was anxious to overhear something which would make it absolutely sure that he was on the right trail.
Stooping, he tried the old-fashioned trick of looking through the keyhole, but found that a hat had been hung from the knob inside, effectually covering the small aperture.
Raising himself erect, Patsy made a quick survey to left and right.
Instinctively, he came to the conclusion that the door to the right of the one before which he was standing was more promising than the one on the left.
He went to the door and tried it, but found it locked.
A skeleton key admitted him with very little trouble, and he found himself in an empty room.
A door led from this room into the one which Yasmar had entered, but it was closed and probably fastened.
Again Patsy tried to look through the keyhole, but this time he found the opening stuffed with paper.
“It’s dead sure they do things in that room they don’t want people to get onto,” thought Patsy, “and that proves, in a way, that my man is there. Still, I’d like to get a fair and square look at him.”
Sinking down on his knees, he laid his ear against the crack at the edge of the door.
The talkers were still guarded in their tones, and he could hear nothing.
He remained on his knees, however, and presently he heard a movement as of some one rising.
“This is getting infernally tiresome,” said a voice. “Gillman is slow in keeping his appointment.”
“Something has happened to detain him,” said another voice.
“Let’s go out and get a drink. Probably he’ll be here by the time we get back.”
“I’m with you, old man.”
Some one else arose and crossed the floor.
Then the door was unlocked, opened, closed and locked again, and steps could be heard passing down the hall.
Rising quickly, Patsy went to a window overlooking the street, raised it, and looked down.
He was rewarded by seeing Yasmar come out, accompanied by a short, thickset man with an iron-gray mustache.
The second man looked like another Westerner.
“Bully!” exclaimed Patsy, withdrawing and closing the window. “When Gillman gets here, I must be in that other room.”
He went back to the door communicating with the other room.
A few moments’ work with a knife blade sufficed to pick out the paper, and a skeleton key did the rest.
After closing and locking the door from the other side, Patsy carefully replaced the paper in the keyhole and turned for a look at the room he was then in.
It was almost as bare as the apartment he had just left.
A huge roll-top desk was in evidence, and three common chairs—nothing more.
The roll-top of the desk was pushed half up.
Patsy pushed it all the way and looked into the pigeon-holes.
They were empty.
He opened the drawers.
They were empty, too.
“It looks as though this might be moving day,” thought the detective, thinking of the van he had seen out in front. “Gee, but that’s a regular granddaddy desk. They never got it in through the hall door, and I’ll bet on it.”
While he stood there, taking in the situation, his quick ear caught the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
The Westerners were coming back.
The detective looked around for a place to conceal himself.
Opposite the door by which he had entered there was another, leading into the room on the other side.
But even if that door was unlocked, and he could get into that room, he would be no better off than he was a little while before.
He flashed another inquiring look around.
There was absolutely no place in which he could hide himself, unless——
He looked at the desk, and then measured himself with his eyes.
The steps were coming along the hall, now, and it was too late for him to use the skeleton key and get out of the room, even if he had wanted to.
Without pausing another instant, he crawled into the desk and pulled at the roll-top until he got it down.
It was a tight squeeze, and when the roll-top descended the lock snapped.
But Patsy did not care for that.
The only thing that worried him was that one of the two men might notice that the roll-top was shut, and not half open.
That was not a very long chance, however, and, anyway, Patsy had to take it.
CHAPTER V.
BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY.
The door was unlocked, opened, and the men came in.
From the footfalls alone, Patsy’s keen ear could tell that there were three men instead of two.
“We were up here waiting for you, Gillman,” said a voice.
“If I had come any sooner, I’d have missed that highball,” answered a second voice.
“When you turn the key, Ramsay,” observed a third voice, “don’t neglect to hang that slouch of yours over the knob.”
The wearer of the slouch hat was the man Patsy was shadowing, so he had learned the fellow’s true name.
The key scraped in the lock.
“There you are, Starlick,” answered Ramsay. “The key fills up the hole enough, I should think. Besides, we won’t keep Gillman over two minutes.”
“Long enough to give me a retainer,” chuckled Gillman.
“How much of a retainer do you want?”
“Five hundred. After that, and before these capitalists turn over their good money, I want forty-five hundred more.”
“That’s big pay for fifteen minutes’ work.”
“It’s no pay at all for the risk I run.”
“Well, well, never mind. Here’s your five hundred.”
“Thanks. And the cigarettes?”
“Here; two boxes of them.”
“Heavens, man! How many do you expect me to smoke during that fifteen minutes?”
“As many as you can. The more the better.”
“Where do I get the forty-five hundred?”
“At Boucicault’s, Hamilton Street, Brooklyn.”
“Don’t try any of your Montana tricks with me, you two. I won’t stand for it, and I’ll queer your game if it lands me in the pen.”
“Don’t squeal till we throw you down,” put in Starlick.
“Bring a duplicate assay certificate, Gillman,” said Ramsay, “and you’ll get your bonus without any question.”
“Then I’ll pull out. You fellows may depend on me.”
“If you queer this deal, without our throwing you down, you’ll never live to queer another.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m out for the stuff, and this looks like easy money. What time shall I be at Boucicault’s?”
“Be there at ten.”
“Good!”
Gillman went away, and Ramsay and Starlick continued their conversation.
“I’m scared all the while I’m in New York, Starlick,” said Ramsay.
“On account of this deal?”
“Thunder, no. On account of Nick Carter. He only saw me for about a minute, some time ago, and a clean shave and these clothes have changed me. Besides, I introduced myself as Yasmar, not as Ramsay. I’d be willing to take my oath that he never recognized me when I called on him this morning, and yet——”
He paused.
“Yet what?” urged Starlick.
“I’m losing my nerve, I reckon. But you never can tell what Carter thinks, or what he’s going to do. If I could have got him out of town for the next forty-eight hours, I’d be feeling easier, this minute. Hello! What’s that?”
A hand tried the door. Failing to gain entrance, the same hand banged on the panel.
“It’s all right,” answered Starlick. “No need putting your hand to your hip, old man.”
Patsy heard the door open and a gruff voice from the hall:
“We’ve got the riggin’ fixed and are all ready ter lower the desk.”
“All right. There it is.”
“Any idea how long it’ll be kept in storage?”
“No. A year, perhaps.”
Patsy was doing some hard thinking.
He had no desire to spend a year in storage, and it was necessary for him, somehow, to separate himself from the desk.
To do it then was out of the question.
The workmen went to the windows and took out the sash.
Patsy could hear them, and he could also hear Ramsay and Starlick moving about the room.
Finally the workmen came to the desk, took hold of it, and shoved it across the room.
“Empty, boss?” queried one of the men.
“Yes,” answered Starlick.
“Mighty heavy for an empty desk.”
“It’s an old-fashioned roll-top, and that’s the reason.”
“I guess the riggin’ll hold it, all right, but I didn’t figger on havin’ quite so much heft.”
“Better be sure, my man. I wouldn’t want the desk smashed.”
“I’ll risk it. If it’s smashed, it comes out o’ my pay.”
There were other things that couldn’t come out of the man’s pay, if the rigging let go, and Patsy was as near in a flutter as his nerve ever allowed him to be.
A hawser was put around the desk both ways.
Then Patsy heard a hook made fast.
A moment later one of the men went down.
In three minutes, the big roll-top desk was out of the window, swinging in mid air.
The rope creaked and something gave so that the piece of furniture dropped a foot.
“Steady!” whooped the man whose pay was to be docked in case of accident.
“Yes, for Heaven’s sake,” muttered Patsy.
Down went the desk, the man inside breathing only when necessary until it safely rested on the walk.
To load the desk in the wagon did not take much time, and the van hadn’t gone a block before Patsy had exerted sufficient pressure to break the lock.
The rattle of the vehicle drowned the noise he had to make, and he pushed up the top, slipped to the floor of the van, and dropped out.
The two men on the seat of the van drove on, all unconscious of what had happened, and Patsy, the moment he struck the sidewalk, drew a sleeve across his dripping forehead.
“That was a corker!” he muttered. “I wonder if I’ve lost the trail?”
He had lost the trail, as he quickly found, for Ramsay and Starlick had vanished from the building in which they had been but a few minutes before.
“I’ll slide around to the house and tell Nick about it,” said Patsy to himself. “He may want to give me fresh instructions.”
Nick Carter was not at the house, however, nor was Chick.
They had gone out together, Patsy was told.
He waited a long time for one or the other to return, but they did not come.
“I’ll have to go to Boucicault’s,” thought Patsy; “and I can’t wait any longer for Nick.”
Before he went, he left the following memorandum on Nick’s desk:
“Yasmar’s real name is Ramsay. Latter name used by his pals. Guess he is one of the two men you want. Ramsay and his side partner, Starlick, are to meet a man named Gillman in Boucicault’s place, Hamilton Street, Brooklyn, at ten to-night. Look out for a couple of boxes of doped cigarettes.
CHAPTER VI.
A SMOOTH GAME.
On Wednesday afternoon a prosperous-looking gentleman, of apparently about fifty years of age, entered the private offices of Cruse & Cupell, on Twenty-Third Street.
“Mr. Cruse?” he asked, halting at a desk.
“Mr. Cruse is out,” answered a man at the desk. “I’m Mr. Cupell.”
“My card.”
The caller handed over a bit of pasteboard bearing the name, “Mr. Jefferson Jones.”
“I’m from Albany,” went on Mr. Jones, “and I have run down to be present at the assay of the Royal Ophir ore.”
“Ah,” murmured Mr. Cupell. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Jones? There’s a paper at your elbow. I expect Mr. Bates and the other gentlemen at any moment.”
Jefferson Jones took the chair and the paper.
In a few minutes the expert entered with three other gentlemen, the expert carrying a small bag, bound with a cord and sealed in half a dozen different places.
Cupell welcomed the party, and then presented Jefferson Jones.
Jones did not pay much attention to the Boston men, nor to Bates, the expert, but he gave more than casual attention to Mr. Horace Montgomery.
“Why do you wish to see this assay, Mr. Jones?” asked Montgomery.
“Merely to satisfy myself as to the value of the Royal Ophir mine.”
“With a view to investing?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“I don’t think there will be any chance for you. The Royal Ophir, I am satisfied, is a good thing, and myself and these other two gentlemen want it all to ourselves.”
A slight smile wreathed about the lips of Jefferson Jones.
“I suppose you won’t object to letting me see the assay made?” he asked.
“Certainly not; only don’t deceive yourself with false hopes, that’s all.”
Bates, the expert, here interjected a few remarks.
“This is the Royal Ophir ore, gentlemen,” said he. “I took a fair sample from the main vein of the mine, sacked and sealed it on the spot, and the sample was not out of my hands until deposited in the bank, from which we just took it.
“I will take an oath that it has not been tampered with in any way. On the result of this assay I assure you that you can spend one million, or ten millions, and be perfectly confident that you are going into the deal with your eyes open.
“There, Mr. Cupell.” The expert handed the sack to the assayer. “It is understood that we are all to be present during the assaying.”
“That is my understanding,” said Cupell. “This way, gentlemen.”
He opened a door leading into one of the workrooms.
A dark-faced young man of twenty or thereabouts, wearing a white apron and smoking a cigarette, was busying himself about the room.
On an iron slab Cupell opened the ore sack and emptied the pieces of ore out on the slab for general inspection.
Jefferson Jones, Montgomery and the two Boston men began to look at the samples.
“I don’t think you ought to touch this rock, gentlemen,” said Cupell.
Examination of the ore was instantly stopped.
“I don’t think any of us would put ‘salt’ into this proposition,” said Montgomery.
But, even as he spoke, he cast a suspicious look at Jones, of Albany.
Jones looked innocent enough.
Humming to himself and holding his hands behind him, he was giving his attention to the strange instruments arranged around the room.
Suddenly he asked if there was any drinking water about the place.
Cupell told him he would find a water cooler in the office.
Jones sauntered into the office, took a drink, and then passed into the hall.
“Here, Chick,” he said to somebody who was waiting there, “take this to Clarkson, around the corner on Sixth Avenue, and have him rush the assay through.”
“Sure.”
“Then wait for me downstairs.”
“I’ll be there.”
Nick—for, of course, “Jones” was none other than the detective—gave his assistant two small pieces of Royal Ophir ore.
Chick went away, and Nick returned to the workroom, drying his lips on a handkerchief.
The ore was being put through a small crusher by the young man who wore the apron and was smoking the cigarette.
Cupell watched every move of the young man with eagle-eyed vigilance.
“That’s fine enough, Gillman,” said Cupell; “now use your muller.”
The “muller” was a heavy, iron roller that worked on the slab.
Gillman took the crushed ore, held it on the slab, and then went over it again and again with the roller.
This part of the operation took some time, and Gillman smoked three cigarettes.
Nick noticed that he never removed a cigarette from his mouth, after once lighting it, until it was smoked almost to the gold tip.
When the ashes accumulated, he gave his head a shake and they fell into the ore he was crushing.
“You’ll smoke yourself to death, Gillman,” said Cupell.
“I expect so,” was the lugubrious answer. “I’ve formed the habit, though, and I can’t break myself.”
“I haven’t any patience with a cigarette smoker,” said one of the Boston men, with a shudder.
“Give me a cigar, every time,” said the other Boston man.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Nick; “I enjoy a cigarette now and then myself. If Gillman would oblige me with one, I believe I’d keep him company.”
“Certainly,” answered Gillman, readily enough.
Taking the cigarette box from his pocket, he handed it to Nick.
Nick took one of the “paper pipes,” lighted it, and returned the box.
A moment later the detective sat down, a little way from the group around the muller-board.
When ready to knock the ashes from the cigarette, he brought out a silver match case, emptied it of matches, and carefully deposited the ashes inside.
When he had finished the cigarette, Gillman was “quartering down” the sample.
The powdered ore was then mixed with fluxes, put into little, earthenware dishes, and shoved into a furnace.
When the dishes were drawn from the furnace, there was a drop of bullion in each one.
This drop was put into a glass parting flask with nitric acid, the flask was heated, and the gold in the drop of bullion was separated from the other metals.
All that then remained was to weigh it.
This was done on a pair of scales so finely adjusted that they would weigh a pencil mark on a scrap of paper.
In two hours’ time Cupell had signed the assay certificates, and Montgomery and the Boston men were wildly jubilant.
The assay ran nine hundred and sixty dollars to the ton!
CHAPTER VII.
SHIFTING THE RESPONSIBILITY.
“There’s a five-foot vein of that rock!” declared Bates, “and it’s a true fissure—which means that it will ‘go down’ and get better with every foot.”
“I wonder if I could get a little of that good thing?” Nick inquired.
“No, sir, never!” cried Montgomery.
“We want it all for ourselves,” said one of the Boston men.
“Sure thing,” averred the other.
“We’ll close the deal to-morrow at ten o’clock, at my house,” said Montgomery. “You’ll be there, gentlemen?”
“Certainly we will,” answered the first Boston man.
“And bring our certified checks with us,” added the other.
The capitalists went away, Bates soon followed, and Nick sat down in Cupell’s private office.
“A great mine, that, Mr. Jones,” said Cupell.
“Looks like it,” returned Nick. “Could you do a little assaying for me, Mr. Cupell?”
“Why, yes, certainly. I’ll have Gillman——”
“No, not Gillman. I want you to attend to it personally and send Gillman out somewhere while it’s being done.”
“It isn’t possible you suspect there is anything wrong with that assay?”
“It’s immaterial what I suspect, Mr. Cupell.” The detective walked close to the assayer and bent over him. “My real name is not Jones but Carter——”
“Nick Carter?”
“Yes.”
“And you were here to watch and see that the assay was properly made?”
“I was here for a purpose. How long will it take you to make the assay?”
“Is it an assay of ore?”
“Of cigarette ashes.”
Cupell jumped from his chair.
“Great heavens!” he exclaimed. “Can it be possible that—— No, no! You are wrong, Mr. Carter. Gillman has worked for me for two years and he’s as straight as a string.”
“How long will it take you to make the assay?”
“An hour.”
“Then send Gillman out somewhere for an hour. Be sure and have him come back here this afternoon, however, and don’t give him cause to think that there is anything wrong. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“All right. I will return presently.”
Nick put the silver match case in the assayer’s hands and left the office.
Downstairs, near the edge of the sidewalk, a shabbily dressed man was selling some mechanical toys that ran by clockwork.
Nick kicked over one of the toys as it ran in front of him.
“Ain’t you got no eyes?” blustered the curbstone merchant. “That’ll stand ye in fifty cents.”
Nick picked up the broken toy and saw a folded paper inside of it.
He deftly abstracted the paper and tossed the tin automobile at Chick’s feet.
“Here’s your money,” he said, tendering a bill. “There’s no sense in running those things all over the walk.”
Chick dived into his pocket for change.
“There’s a man in a brown derby and gray clothes around the corner keeping track of this doorway,” said Chick, in a low tone.
“No, short and thickset.”
“Keep your eye on him. Also take a good look at that young man who’s just coming out of the doorway now.”
Gillman came out and Chick took his measure.
Nick walked back into the building and was soon in the assay office.
On his way he looked at the assay certificate brought by Chick.
“No trace of metal,” read the certificate.
Nick gave a whistle as he dropped into a chair in Cruse & Cupell’s office.
“Salted for a million,” he muttered. “It’s a smooth game.”
In a little while Cupell rushed into the office excitedly.
“What’s the result?” asked Nick, calmly.
“Those cigarette ashes assay close to fifty thousand to the ton!” declared the assayer.
“I wish I had a few tons,” remarked Nick, with a dry laugh.
“To think that I have been bamboozled by that assistant of ours! I must call in those assay certificates and——”
“Do nothing of the kind, just yet,” cut in Nick.
“But are you aware of the position it places me in? Every assay certificate is vouched for by us the moment it is signed. And then, to have the hocus-pocus worked right in our own office—— But, by Jove, it was clever!”
“Certainly it was,” said Nick, “and Gillman was only a tool and not the leader in the swindling game. What I want to do is to get the whole gang. If you’ll lay back on your oars a little while, I shall succeed.”
“But to-morrow morning at ten o’clock a million dollars will be paid over to these swindlers for the Royal Ophir mine.”
“It won’t be paid over,” averred Nick.
“You assure me of that?”
“Yes. What I want you to do is to keep this to yourself. Don’t let Gillman suspect that you know what he has done. Keep him here until five o’clock and then let him go.”
“But my responsibility——”
“I’ll take your responsibility on my own shoulders.”
“Very well, Mr. Carter, I will do as you say.”
Nick went away.
“The young fellow had a talk with the man in the brown derby,” Chick said, as his chief walked slowly past.
“Stay here and watch,” Nick returned. “I’ll be back in an hour. You’ll recognize me. I’m going to shadow the young fellow, and if the man in the brown derby follows me you follow him.”
Nick went to police headquarters and made a few changes in his disguise.
When he came out he looked at least twenty years younger.
There was a cigar store opposite the building in which Cruse & Cupell had their assay office, and Nick stepped in there, bought a weed, and stood leaning on the counter, smoking and watching the doorway across the street.
It was five o’clock and time for Gillman to show himself.
Nick had not long to wait.
The clerk came briskly out and Nick went after him.
Just beyond the corner a man in a brown derby dropped in behind Nick.
Chick, keenly alive to the situation, picked up the single tin automobile that he had left, pushed it into his pocket, and trailed along in the rear of the man in the brown derby.
From the opposite side of the street a neatly dressed man in a sack suit and black Fedora hat took in the situation and gave vent to a muttered oath.
“I like the layout, Mr. Nick Carter,” he said to himself. “Keep on after Gillman and you’ll find yourself in a hornet’s nest. You’ll never live to put those Boston men next to my game, or to bring me to book for that Montana job. Now for Hamilton Street.”
CHAPTER VIII.
BOUCICAULT’S.
At certain times Nick Carter had intuitions that amounted almost to positive knowledge.
It was the “detective instinct,” amplified by years of intelligent practice.
In the present instance he believed that he would be shadowed, and he even figured out to himself the successive links in the chain that brought the conclusion.
Gillman had suspected him and had conveyed his suspicions to the man in the brown derby at the same time that he had reported the result of the assay.
It was this man in the brown derby whom Nick had cast for the part of a shadow, and hence Chick’s instructions to “shadow the shadow.”
The one uncertain element of the situation was Ramsay, or Yasmar, but Nick was depending on Patsy to take care of the Westerner.
Could Nick have been made familiar with the contents of a certain note, at that moment lying on his desk at home, there would have been a decided change in the plan of operations.
Gillman appeared to be very well satisfied with himself, for he carried a cane and swung it jauntily as he walked.
He paid no attention to the ground behind him, and that might mean one of two things—either he did not think he was followed, or did not care.
At Sixth Avenue he hailed a downtown car.
It was an open car, and Nick got aboard three seats behind him.
The man in the brown derby followed the car in a hansom, a difficult but not impossible task considering the slow speed at which the car had to travel in that part of the city and at that busy hour.
The hardest part of the work fell to Chick.
He could not very well get aboard the car with Gillman and Nick, and, as there was no cab in sight which he could hire, he slipped a five-dollar bill to an expressman and told him to keep the hansom in sight.
Thus Gillman, virtually shadowed by three, made his way to his destination, which proved to be a restaurant in the lower part of the town—a place famous for the low price of its “table d’hote dinner with wine.”
There he and Nick had dinner, the man in the brown derby remaining on the walk outside and Chick watching from across the street.
The meal over, the tactics were continued, Gillman leading the chase to Brooklyn, crossing by ferry and winding up at Boucicault’s on Hamilton Street.
It was between eight and nine in the evening, and Hamilton Street was just “waking up.”
A sleepy and quiet thoroughfare by day, it is anything but sleepy and quiet under the gas and electric lights.
“Speak-easies” and other haunts of vice abound, and not the least among the lawless resorts was Boucicault’s.
There were three stories to the building, and Boucicault’s occupied all three, in addition to a good-sized basement.
Of the basement more will be said hereafter.
The main floor was given up to a saloon and restaurant.
The floors above constituted the hotel part of the establishment, and here many a drunken victim had been plucked by the human harpies who made the place their rendezvous.
If darker crimes than robbery were meditated, the intended victim was conducted to the gloomy and vault-like regions under the saloon.
A long, low bar ran along the left-hand wall; off to the right were half a dozen tables; in the rear were four or five small rooms partitioned off.
When Gillman entered the dive it was half filled with a roaring complement of sailormen, every one in the lot considerably more than “half seas over.”
The air was thick with tobacco smoke, heavy with the fumes of cheap beer, and resounding with sea songs—every song pitched in a different key and sung in a different language.
Nick Carter had established his case and was ready to arrest his man.
What he wanted, however, was to make a clean haul of the entire gang, and to this end he had shadowed Gillman.
He was now certain that Boucicault’s was the rendezvous of the swindlers, and he followed Gillman through the fog of smoke, and saw him vanish into one of the rear rooms.
The time had come when the detective thought it would be as well to bring matters to an issue with the assayer’s clerk, to find out what he could from him, and then turn him over to the police for safe-keeping.
Advancing to the door of the room entered by Gillman, Nick tried the knob.
The door was locked, and he applied his knuckles to the panel.
“Who’s there?” called a voice.
“What do you want to give that name for? Haven’t you got another?” asked the voice, anxiously.
Nick saw that Gillman was very suspicious.
He felt, too, that he must act quickly. He had already guessed that Yasmar’s true name was Ramsay, but had never verified it. Now he was face to face with the question.
He took a long chance, and called out:
“Ramsay.”
To his delight he heard the bolts being drawn back, and the door was thrown open.
“You know, Ram——” Gillman began, then he stopped dead, for the man who had entered was not Ramsay, but Nick Carter.
Without taking his eyes off Gillman, Nick closed the door and locked it.
The room was about ten feet square, had paneled side walls and contained a table and four chairs.
It was lighted by an incandescent bulb, pendant from the ceiling.
Gillman showed a good deal of surprise when he discovered that the newcomer was not Ramsay.
“Well, well!” he exclaimed, his right hand groping under his coat. “Who are you and what’s your game?”
“My game is to call yours, Gillman,” answered Nick, sternly, his right hand in his coat pocket. “Bring that hand out in front of you! I’m covering you with a gun.”
Gillman brought the hand slowly to the required position.
“You’ve been crowding me pretty close for the last hour or two,” said he. “What do you want, anyhow?”
“I want you.”
With his left hand Nick brought out a pair of handcuffs.
“What do you want me for?” queried Gillman, sweeping his eyes shiftily around the room.
“For smoking that brand of gold-filled cigarettes this afternoon.”
That was the point where Gillman began to lose his nerve.
“I—I don’t understand,” he stammered.
“Yes, you do,” answered Nick. “Put up your wrists.”
“Don’t you do it, Gillman!”
This counter-command came from the side of the room.
Out of the corners of his eyes Nick could see that a panel in the wall had slid noiselessly back.
A square opening was revealed, framing a man’s head and shoulders.
The man wore a brown derby hat and held a revolver, whose point was leveled at the detective’s breast.
A triumphant smile began to show itself on Gillman’s face; but the smile vanished as a second head appeared in the opening and another voice echoed sharply through the room.
“Put on the darbies, Nick! If this fellow tries to pull the trigger it will be all over with him.”
It was Chick.
He was behind the other man, and was pressing the muzzle of a revolver against the back of his head.
A baffled oath broke from the man in the derby hat.
Nick, realizing that there was no time to be lost, was about to adjust the handcuffs.
Before he could do it, however, a rap fell on the door.
Silence followed.
The rap was repeated more emphatically.
“Ask who’s there, Gillman,” whispered Nick, bringing the weapon out of his pocket and making a significant movement with it.
“Who’s there?” inquired Gillman.
“Ramsay.”
Quick as lightning. Nick put away the handcuffs and developed a second revolver.
Covering Gillman with the gun in his right hand, Nick turned partly around.
“Tell him to come in,” he whispered again.
As Gillman carried out the order, Nick pushed back the bolt with the muzzle of the weapon held in his right hand.
Then two things happened, and happened simultaneously.
The incandescent light was turned off, leaving the room in total darkness, and a rush of heavy feet followed the bursting in of the door.
Nick discharged his revolvers, but the rush of his enemies was not stayed.
He was assailed from all sides, and when he found the quarters too close for revolver work, he gripped the weapons by the barrel and clubbed them to right and left.
But the odds were overwhelming.
In the midst of his desperate struggle, a savage blow on the head sent him down.
The shouts and curses of his assailants died away in his ears, he felt them piling on top of him, and then he remembered nothing more.
CHAPTER IX.
THE DEATH CHAMBER.
Nick opened his eyes in darkness.
Not a ray of light could be seen at any point in the surrounding gloom, and a silence as of the grave reigned all around.
Under him was a hard stone floor, and from the dank, moldy smell of the place he thought he must be in a cellar—presumably the basement under Boucicault’s.
His head was throbbing painfully, and he was lying on his bound arms and wrists.
His ankles were also bound.
“Well, here’s a go!” he exclaimed, aloud.
The words echoed hollowly through the place, and had hardly left Nick’s lips before another voice came from a little distance.
“Hello! Is that you, Nick?”
“Chick! What are you doing here?”
“Not a thing. Can’t.”
“Trussed up?”
“Wrist and ankle.”
“The same gang that laid me out took care of you.”
“We had an enemy in our rear, and he set the longshoremen onto us.”
“The enemy in the rear was Ramsay.”
“Sure,” said Chick. “And that’s one good thing about this little adventure—we have learned that Yasmar is really Ramsay. He has shaved off his beard since we knew him in the West.”
“Where was Patsy that he couldn’t take care of Ramsay?” asked Nick.
“Something may have happened to the boy. These Westerners weren’t born yesterday.”
“They’re clever in their way; but they overshot the mark when they put you and me in the same cell.”
“You bet! If I can’t get you loose with my teeth, I’ll write myself down as a has-been. Roll over this way.”
Nick rolled toward the point from which Chick’s voice came.
As his body turned, he felt something in his pocket.
It was his pocket lamp, undoubtedly, and its presence proved that Ramsay and his pals hadn’t had time for a very exhaustive search through their victims’ clothes.
“This must be the cellar under Boucicault’s,” remarked Chick, as he twisted his body around until it lay parallel with Nick’s, and directly behind.
“When Ramsay and his pals brought us down here,” returned Nick, “they evidently planned that we weren’t to leave until we were carried feet first.”
“Ramsay wants you out of the way, Nick, so he can work his million-dollar graft without being bothered.”
Chick’s hands were bound behind him, just as Nick’s were, and he had to locate the cords by brushing his face against his chief’s arms.
Presently he got to work with his teeth.
“This will be a good, long job,” he said, pausing. “Some sailor put on this rope, and the easiest way to get it off is to chew it in two.”
“All right,” answered Nick.
After half an hour of hard labor, Nick pulled his hands apart and brought them around in front of him.
“Now for a little light,” said he.
Sitting upon the stone floor, he brought out his little pocket lamp—which was one of the things he always carried with him—and pressed the spring that released the electric current.
A shaft of bright light pierced the gloom.
Nick flashed the gleam slowly around.
He and his assistant saw that they were in a vaulted chamber, perhaps a dozen feet square.
The walls and roof were of stone.
There were no openings anywhere—that is, none that could be seen.
“How the dickens did they get us in here?” asked Chick.
“Possibly they lowered us down from the top. There may be a trap in the roof of the vault. Hello! What’s this? A knife, by George!”
In sweeping the ray of light across the floor, it had struck upon a gleaming object that lay less than a half-dozen feet away.
Nick reached for it.
It was a pearl-handled knife, such as gentlemen carry.
On a piece of silver set into the pearl there were two initials.
“‘W. H., said Nick, reading the letters. “Thunder!”
“What now?” inquired Chick.
Nick turned the knife over so that the position of the two letters were reversed.
“Upside down,” said he, “W. H. becomes H. M.”
“What of it?”
“Nothing now,” Nick answered, quietly, opening the knife’s largest blade. “One of the men who brought us here must have dropped the knife. Turn over, Chick, and I’ll cut off your ropes.”
Chick whirled over, and was soon freed of the bonds about his wrists and ankles.
Nick then cut the cords from his own feet, and the two detectives arose and stretched their cramped limbs.
“Wonder if I shot anybody up there during the set-to?” Nick muttered, closing the knife blade and slipping the knife into his pocket.
“Give it up,” answered Chick. “I was down and out about as soon as you were. The instant the light was turned off, somebody let me have it full from behind. Great Scott! My head’s buzzing yet.”
“Mine, too.”
“I wonder if I’ve been touched?” Chick began, turning his pockets inside out. “Oh, no, I haven’t been touched,” he remarked, dryly; “I’ve been grabbed. I haven’t got so much as a toothpick left. Those longshoremen probably got the rake-off for their trouble.”
“I have nothing left but the pocket lamp,” said Nick. “In some way they overlooked that. The thing for us to do is to get out. I have a pressing engagement at Montgomery’s house, in Forty-fourth Street, to-morrow morning at ten. What time do you think it is now?”
“No idea.”
“It can’t be more than nine or ten.”
Picking up a small piece of stone that lay on the floor, Nick started along one of the walls, tapping on every rock.
Chick took his cue, and began doing likewise.
Suddenly Nick paused.
“Smell anything, Chick?”
“I was just going to ask you the same question.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Gas.”
“That’s what I think.”
Nick flashed the light on his assistant’s face and saw that it had become exceedingly grave.
Chick realized what the game was, and it was enough to make him sober.
“They intend to kill us with that gas,” said he.
“And they’ll do it,” answered Nick, grimly, “if we can’t find the jet and plug it up.”
The incandescent light in the pocket lamp, of course, would not ignite the escaping gas, and Nick flashed the penciled beam to every point of the side walls, the floor and the roof.
Not a sign of a gas pipe could be seen.
But the gas was coming from somewhere, and coming in a quantity that would soon fill the chamber.
Breathing was already exceedingly difficult.
“Go on tapping the walls,” gasped Nick. “If we don’t find a way to escape, or get next to that gas plug, we’ll be laid out cold.”
Goaded by the foul atmosphere, which was rapidly becoming more and more poisonous, the two detectives hastily tapped the walls to their full extent.
They found nothing.
“It must come from the roof,” said Nick.
His voice was hoarse and rasping, and his lungs felt as though compressed under a ton’s weight.
“How are we going to do any searching up there?” queried Chick, rising on his tiptoes and stretching his arms. “I can’t come within three feet of the ceiling.”
“Take me on your shoulders,” said Nick.
This plan was carried out without loss of time.
Sitting astride Chick’s broad shoulders, Nick was able to reach the roof.
Beginning at one of the end walls, they proceeded to cover the flat stones of the ceiling with the utmost care.
“I can’t stand this much longer,” said Chick, staggering, and only saving himself and Nick a fall by a quick effort. “This gas seems to sap all my strength.”
“Hang to it, old man,” returned Nick. “By Jupiter! I’ve struck it! Let me down, Chick.”
“If you’ve found the pipe, Nick, plug it up.”
“I haven’t found the pipe, and we can’t stop the escaping gas.”
“Can’t?” echoed Chick.
“No.” Nick jumped from his assistant’s shoulders. “It comes between the joints of those roof stones. If we had tow, and could calk up every crack in the roof, we might save ourselves. But that’s out of the question.”
“What a devilish contrivance!” exclaimed Chick.
“It’s devilish enough to do for us if we can’t find our way out of this hole.”
“You might look for a trap in the roof.”
“As soon as you’re able to bear my weight again, I’ll try.”
“Try now, old man. Every second is worth its weight in gold.”
Nick tried to mount Chick’s shoulders, but Chick was too far gone and could not hold him up.
“You get on my back,” said Nick.
But the deadly fumes had already weakened the detectives so that it was impossible for them to continue their search for an exit.
“Slip off your coat, wrap it around your head, and get down on your knees, your face to the floor.”
Nick made the suggestions in a quick voice, at the same time carrying them into effect himself.
In this manner a temporary relief was obtained.
The foulest air lay near the roof.
It would be only a question of time, however, until every particle of air in the chamber would be too deadly to sustain life.
The light was still burning, and Nick, with an awkward movement, turned the ray upon his companion.
Chick had straightened out along the floor, and was lying still and motionless.
“I guess it’s all day with us,” thought Nick. “To think that we are to be done to death like this, and die like rats in a trap!”
He felt his senses going and fell from his knees.
As he did so, and just at the last moment of consciousness, he thought he saw one of the blocks in the floor begin to rise.
Was it an illusion of his disordered senses?
It could not be!
For, as the stone arose, a draught of fresh air came through the opening it left in the floor.
Nick inhaled a great draught of it, and started to his knees once more.
The ray from the pocket lamp was focussed upon the stone.
Nick turned the ray slightly, and saw the face of a man standing with head and shoulders through the trap.
“Patsy!” he called, in a hoarse voice.