“You have taken him on all sides at once,” exclaimed the inspector.
“The trap has been sprung and Helstone is in it. Come, my man, what have you to say?”
These last words were addressed to Parks.
“I have this to say,” said he, boldly, “that this identification is meaningless. The detective has painted my face to represent a well-known criminal, and I am mistaken for him, that’s all.”
“Don’t be foolish, Doc,” said Miller. “We all know you. Now tell us why you sold us.”
“He didn’t sell you,” said the inspector. “This gentleman sold you”—pointing to Nick—“but it was a different kind of sell.
“And, speaking of sells. I have cells for every one of you. Shall we march them away, Nick?”
“As you please. Ah! Chick, what is that?
“A message from the hospital.”
“Let me see it.”
Nick tore the envelope, glanced at the contents, and then said:
“She is fully conscious. She knows everything.”
Morton Parks’ face became ashen. Then for an instant it cleared. If his wife was conscious he was not yet a murderer, at least he could save his life out of the ruin of his fortunes.
“Do you still deny your guilt?” Nick said, addressing Parks.
“It is fate,” the man muttered. “I have never for an instant expected to escape it.”
Doc Helstone and his friends were taken to police headquarters.
Reeves, the witness, was released.
“How did you get your clew to this riddle?” asked the inspector of Nick.
“I found it in the character of Mrs. Parks,” said Nick. “She could not be a thief or willingly the associate of thieves. She was not the sort of woman who leads a double life.
“Yet she was proved to have been in a resort of thieves. What motive could have carried her there?
“I answer, only love, or what was left of it after respect had been destroyed—the love of some man.
“What man? To know her character was to answer that question. It must be her husband.”
“But, how did you learn her character so quickly?”
“For that I must thank my assistant, Ida Jones. I sent her on that part of the case as soon as the identity of the woman was known. She reported to me from time to time. It was easy enough to trace her, she had so many friends among the poor. Ida had only to get a tip from Park’s coachman and the thing was done.”
“How did you persuade him to walk into your trap?”
“I told him I would show him the murderer of his wife. He could not refuse to come.
“Once here, I asked him if he dared to meet the Helstone gang. Could he say that he did not dare? That would have been confession.
“The disguise was merely a trick to make the recognition more sure.”
“But how about the diamonds, Nick?”
“Why, I take it that when Mrs. Parks tracked her husband to the resort of his gang and entered it after him there was wild confusion.
“Very little was said that anybody understood or remembered. There was a heap of plunder on the table for the gang was ready to move.
“Mrs. Parks snatched these diamonds as a corroboration of the story she intended to tell to the police. So tremendous was the excitement that nobody noticed her action.
“When Parks followed her out and murdered her, he dared not remove the diamonds for fear somebody would see him. The horror that comes on all murderers came on him.”
“But why did Parks tell that false story about a robbery at his house?”
“In order to get hold of the gems before the rightful owner could identify them and in order to make the police believe that Mrs. Parks was a thief and a companion of thieves. It gave him a chance to tell this lie about stock gambling.”
Mrs. Parks recovered, but she declined to appear against her husband.
“I never wish to look on his face again,” she said. “He is a bad man and deserves punishment, but you must deal with him on a charge of robbery, not on a charge of assault.”
And from this position she refused to be moved.
But Nick did not press the matter.
As the leader of a gang of burglars, Parks was put on trial and sentenced to ten years.
Nick thought he had seen the last of him when he saw him go on board the train in charge of Special Detective Jones, who was to convey the criminal to Sing Sing.
But Parks was not a man to take his punishment without an effort to escape it.
He had prepared for this trip to Sing Sing.
Docilely he took his seat alongside the plain-clothes man in the smoking car, which was then empty.
Jones took out a paper and settled himself back for the long ride; glancing once or twice at the placid face of the man beside him.
Truth to tell, he had an immense respect for this criminal leader, and he appreciated the responsibility of the task that had devolved upon him in lieu of the deputy sheriff who usually escorted prisoners to Sing Sing.
The car began to fill, but no one glanced at the detective and his prisoner, for Jones was in plain clothes, and his newspaper covered the handcuffs that linked Parks’ right hand with the left hand of the detective.
Parks ventured a word or two and presently led Detective Jones into a conversation. He was a highly educated man, and he had the gift of telling a story in an interesting fashion.
“By the way,” he said; “have you any objection to my smoking?”
“No; go ahead,” said Jones, pleasantly.
With his unfettered left hand Parks drew from his pocket a cigar case, fumbled with it a minute or two, and soon had a long, black weed between his teeth.
“Can I offer you a smoke?” he asked, hesitatingly.
The cigar case stopped on its way to his pocket, while he waited for the detective’s answer.
“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”
There was a peculiar gleam in his eyes as the detective struck a match and lit up.
Parks talked on pleasantly for a little while, but soon relapsed into silence as the train rushed on, carrying him nearer and nearer to Sing Sing.
The car was uncomfortably warm. There was a drowsiness about the air that made it difficult to keep the eyes open.
At any rate, that was how Detective Jones felt.
He tried to fasten his attention on a particularly thrilling newspaper story, but the letters danced before his eyes; his eyes closed; he was asleep.
Parks emitted a grunt that might mean anything, then stretching out his legs and resting his head on the back of the seat, he followed his escort’s example and closed his eyes.
The train sped on. Passengers came and went, but Detective Jones still slept.
Mr. Parks seemed to be asleep, too, but there was no one more awake than he at that moment.
“The drugged cigar has done its work.”
This was the thought that surged in his brain. He mentally repeated the phrase over and over again, then cautiously he opened his eyes.
Just across the aisle were two Italian workmen, too much engrossed in reciting their individual woes to notice anything else.
Over his shoulder he got a glimpse of a commercial man, studying his notebook. There was no danger to be apprehended from this quarter.
Under cover of the newspaper he slid his left hand over to the detective’s waistcoat.
It was a moment of horrible anxiety as his fingers touched a key.
But Detective Jones was still dead to the world.
Next moment the key snapped in the lock and Parks was free.
A swift glance around assured him that his actions had not been observed.
Emboldened by his success, he rifled the pockets of the sleeping detective.
“I’ll need a few extra dollars,” he told himself, though he despised this petty theft.
At the next stop he left his seat, and, mingling with the other travelers, passed out.
“Now where am I to go?”
Morton Parks asked himself this question as he sat down on a fallen tree to rest.
He had rubbed the dust of the road on his face and had considerably altered his whole appearance by tearing rents in his clothing and pulling the crown out of his hat.
He looked like a tramp, and it was in this character he hoped to escape the vigilance of the police who were now scouring the country for him.
“I would like to get back to New York,” he mused, “and yet I daren’t show up as Doc Helstone, and nobody knows Morton Parks.
“Stop! I had forgotten Gilmore and Geary, the high-power burglars. They know me in both characters. But they have left New York by this time. When I saw them last they were making arrangements for a big bank robbery in Chicago, and I remember they said they were going to bore into the vault with an electric drill.
“I laughed at the scheme, but I hadn’t any intention of joining them then. Why shouldn’t I get to Chicago and give Gilmore and Geary a hand? Yes, by jingo, that’s my plan.
“I’ll have to beg or steal my way there, but I ought to know how to do that.”
* * * * * * *
“Talk about nerve!”
“What is it now, Mr. Smith?”
“Burglars!”
“What, again?”
“Yes, last night, at my residence.”
Mr. Chester Smith, the wealthy Chicago banker, threw himself into an easy-chair in the office of the chief of police, and looked decidedly ugly.
“What did they get?” asked the chief.
“I’d like to know what they didn’t get,” was the excited reply, “and I was at home every minute of the time, too.”
There was a quiet smile on the chief’s face as he sat looking at his excited friend.
“They entered my house while I was at home,” continued the banker, “ransacked every room in it, took my watch and pocketbook from under my pillow, and my revolver from a table drawer near the bed.”
“You were right in calling them nervy,” said the chief.
“But that isn’t half of it. They went from my room to the kitchen, and what do you think they did there?”
“Surely they didn’t find much there.”
“Well, they lit a fire and cooked breakfast. Then they went to the cellar and tapped my wine.”
“And no one heard them?”
“Not a soul.”
“Go on.”
“Then they rigged themselves out in my clothes and put their own old duds in the clothes press. But the worst is yet to come, and for iridescent audacity, it breaks the record.”
“Proceed.”
“Last week I bought a bulldog, whose sole duty it is to watch the premises. This morning I found him shut up in the coalhouse, with a heavy rubber band around his jaws, and a tag tied to his tail. The tag reads as follows:
“‘We didn’t take yer purp, ’cos we thought mebbe as how he wos raised a pet, an’ you might be fond of him.’”
The chief laughed heartily for a moment, and then his face grew grave.
“We are having a great deal of trouble with burglars lately,” he said, “and I am often at a loss what to do.”
“And nearly all recent burglaries are unusually daring and successful, are they not?”
“They are all daring, and I am sorry to say that nearly all are successful.”
“You’ll have to send to New York for Nick Carter.”
“I can’t always get Nick Carter.”
“Well, we ought to have a few men like Nick on the Chicago detective force.”
The chief smiled.
“There is only one Nick Carter,” he said.
The banker gave a few additional details regarding the burglary at his residence, and went away.
* * * * * * *
John Mitchell, returning to his residence on Boston Avenue one evening, saw that he was being followed by several men, and started off on a run.
It was quite dark, but Mitchell could see the men plainly every time they came to a street lamp.
He started to run.
They did the same.
At last he came to the steps of his own residence.
Then the toughs seemed to understand that they were likely to lose their prey, and one of them darted forward and dealt him a stunning blow on the side of the head.
When Mitchell fell, he went through the door of his home, and landed in the hallway.
He was partially stunned, but grappled with his assailant.
The struggle which followed attracted the attention of two men who resided in the family.
But the highwayman was a desperate fellow, and seemed to be fighting for his life.
With the full weight of the three men upon him, he still struggled to his feet, shaking the men from his back as a huge dog throws off water.
Then he made for the door. His companions had disappeared, and the patrolman on the beat had been attracted to the spot by the noise of the combat.
The robber sprang past the officer and went, panting, up a dark alley.
Pursuit soon died out, and the fellow stopped to rest in the shelter of a cluster of stables.
His clothes, though of good material, were of the cheapest, and in shocking condition.
His broken shoes were soaked with mud and water, and his crownless hat afforded little protection from the weather.
When, occasionally, the light of a street lamp shone upon him, it revealed a countenance haggard and worn, yet it was the face of Morton Parks.
In all the city of Chicago that night there was probably no more piteous object than the escaped criminal. For lack of money this leader of criminals had become a common highwayman.
Dodging here and there through the semi-deserted streets in the banking and real-estate district—for it was now after ten o’clock—the fugitive at length entered a prosperous-looking oyster and chophouse and asked for the proprietor.
The waiter looked at the disreputable figure in amazement for a moment and then pointed toward the door.
Then a handsomely dressed fellow with a long, drooping mustache and flowing side whiskers of the Dundreary type, stepped into the room.
A signal passed between the robber and the keeper of the restaurant, and the two men were soon closeted in a private room.
“Now, Parks, explain.”
“It’s easy, Gilmore. I was on the road to Sing Sing. I escaped. I only had a dollar or two, that I stole from the detective.”
“Go on; don’t worry about the details. We can fill them in afterward. How do you come to be here in this plight?”
“My New York gang had been run in. I knew you had come to Chicago. I became a tramp, got in with a lot of thugs and finally landed here because it’s the only place where I expect to meet a friend.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said Gilmore, brutally. “Nobody likes to have an escaped criminal on his hands.”
“How about your own record?” asked Parks.
“That’s nothing to do with the case. Who sent you to Sing Sing?” he asked, suddenly.
“Nick Carter.”
The restaurant man walked up and down the floor for a moment with a heavy frown on his face.
“How do you know Nick Carter did not follow you here?” he finally asked.
“I saw him last at Detroit,” was the calm reply.
“Then you think he is after you?”
“I am certain of it.”
“And yet, you come here?”
“I told you before I had no other place to go.”
“I’ll murder you if he follows you to my place.”
“You seem to be doing pretty well here,” said Parks.
“No man with my police record—as you hinted—can do well anywhere,” was the angry answer.
“I noticed a bank next door,” said Parks. “I presume this place is a starter for the electric-drill scheme you once spoke of.”
“It is nothing of the sort,” said Gilmore. “I have decided to have nothing to do with that scheme.”
“It is strange that you should locate a place like this—next door to a bank, then. There can’t be much money in the trade you get here.”
“There is money enough here if the sneaks of the profession would only let me alone.”
Parks sprang to his feet.
“Another word like that,” he shouted, “and I’ll give you dead away to the police. You can’t talk to a man of my stamp in that fashion.”
“But suppose Nick Carter follows you here, and recognizes me? I’ll be pulled in, too.”
“Have you any idea that Nick Carter knows where you are?” asked Parks.
“I don’t think he does.”
“Drop Nick Carter. Lend me some money. I need a complete outfit, and something to buy food and drink with.”
“I won’t give you a cent.”
Parks started for the door.
“Where are you going?” demanded Gilmore.
“To the police.”
Gilmore opened the door.
“I don’t care how quick you go,” he said.
As Parks stepped out, a waiter walked up to the door of the room.
“Did you ring?” he asked.
Gilmore turned him away with an oath, and pulled Parks back into the room.
“You see how it is,” he said.
“See how what is?”
“That is a detective.”
“Who hired him?”
“I did.”
“Knowing him to be a detective?”
“Of course not. I found that out just now.”
“How?”
“By his coming here and asking that question.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There is no bell to this room. He came here for the purpose of spotting you.”
Parks threw himself back into his chair with an oath.
“We can’t afford to quarrel,” he said, “if that is Nick Carter, or one of his assistants.”
Parks pondered for some moments.
“Help me out,” he said, “and I’ll get rid of the fellow. Then we can put up the electric-drill burglary, and make enough money to get out of the country.”
“Have you tried to turn any tricks since you came here?” Gilmore asked.
Parks hesitated.
He had once been a leader of crooks, and disliked to mention the incident on Boston Avenue.
At last, however, he explained just what had taken place, and was roundly cursed by Gilmore for coming to his place after having attempted so daring a crime.
“You will be sure to be tracked,” Gilmore said, “if you remain in your present condition, and that will endanger my place. How much cash do you want to fix yourself up with?”
“Fifty dollars will do for the present. It’s a change for Morton Parks to be begging a paltry fifty-dollar bill, but my luck has turned—that’s all.”
“And you will help me to get rid of these people, and also assist in the electric-drill scheme?”
“So you are into that, after all,” said Parks. “I thought so all the time. Yes, I will help you all I can in both directions if you stake me now.”
Gilmore counted out the sum named, and handed it to his companion.
“Now,” said Parks, “tell me about this electric-drill scheme.”
Gilmore took a folded paper from his pocketbook and spread it out on the table. It was nothing more nor less than a carefully drawn plan of the buildings surrounding the bank which adjoined the restaurant.
“Here is the bank vault,” explained Gilmore, “and here is my place. The plan is to break through the cellar wall under this floor, and cut through the granite and steel walls of the bank with an electric drill. It can be done in two hours.”
“But won’t you strike too low in the vault?”
“No. The vault is two feet lower than the floor of the bank above, and we shall strike it just about right.”
“Where does your power come from?”
“Oh! I put in a patent electric motor for a dishwasher, and contracted for electric fly fans for next summer. So that is all right.”
Parks laughed heartily, and declared that it was a great scheme.
While the men were figuring over the plan, the sound of breaking crockery came from the front end of the place.
They both dashed out, for it was quite evident that there was serious trouble in the main dining room.
“One of the waiters threw a server of dishes at a customer,” explained an employee.
“Where is that waiter?” thundered Gilmore. “I’ll take care of him.”
“I don’t know, sir,” was the reply. “He was here a moment ago.”
“There on the floor, sir. He was knocked down.”
The proprietor stepped forward and lifted the fallen man’s head.
It was Geary, his rascally partner in the electric-drill scheme.
“They had some words, sir,” continued the waiter, “and the customer tried to grab the waiter.”
Geary was revived, and the three men went back to the private room together. There a new surprise awaited them.
The plan they had been examining was not there, although Gilmore and Parks had left it on the table when they rushed out.
There was a movement by the door, and Geary turned, to see the man who had struck him stealing out of the room.
“There’s that detective again,” he yelled. “Grab him.”
“Don’t allow him to escape,” roared Gilmore. “He has the missing paper. Shoot him down.”
The proprietor drew a revolver as he spoke, but Geary caught his hand in time to prevent the shot.
“Do you want the police down here?” he said, with an oath.
“I don’t want him to escape,” said Gilmore, making a dive for the young man, who was just passing out of the doorway.
The burglar was a powerful man, but he was little more than a baby in the hands of the man he sought to detain.
He was whirled from his feet in an instant, and thrown against his two companions, who were now advancing to assist him.
Before the three men could do anything more to keep the young man from leaving the room, he had closed the door with a bang and darted through the restaurant to the street.
When Gilmore opened the door the fugitive was out of sight.
“Why didn’t you catch him?” demanded the proprietor. “The man is a thief, and the racket out here was nothing but a scheme to steal some private papers from my room.”
“He went through like a flash,” explained the cashier.
“Nixon followed him,” replied a waiter.
“I am glad that one employee has some sense,” growled Gilmore. “When Nixon comes back, send him to my room.”
Nixon was an old crook, who had been brought on from New York to keep track of things in the restaurant.
“I told you he was a detective, didn’t I?” demanded Gilmore of Parks, as soon as the door of the private room was closed.
“How did you know that?” asked Geary.
“Because he stood in front of the door when I opened it a few minutes ago. Then, to account for his presence there, he asked if I had rung for him.”
“Well?”
“Well, there is no bell in the room. He was there listening.”
“I spotted him when I came in to-night,” said Geary, “and accused him of trying to pick my pocket. He threw the dishes at me, and I made a grab for him. That’s all I know about it. He strikes a hard blow, whoever he is.”
“How long has he been here?” asked Parks.
“Only two days,” was the reply.
“Then he followed me here, and spotted this place the first thing, knowing that I would be likely to come here,” said Parks.
“But what did he dodge into the room for as soon as we left it?”
“To find out what we were up to; and he found out, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Gilmore, lifting a piece of paper from the floor as he spoke.
The paper was the missing plan, which the intruder had undoubtedly dropped in the scuffle.
“So the electric-drill scheme is safe for the present, at least,” said Parks, “but there is no knowing how long it will remain so, for the man just in here was Chick, Nick Carter’s assistant.”
“Then you make a skip,” said Geary, “and don’t come here again. We can communicate by letter.”
Parks did not move, but stood pointing toward the now open door.
“Hello! What’s up, now?”
Nick Carter, sitting in his room, at the Windsor Hotel, on Dearborn Street, looked up with a smile, as Chick rushed into the room and hastened to the window.
“Nothing special.”
Chick peered carefully through the blinds as he spoke.
“I’m glad you came in early to-night,” said Nick, “for I am feeling a trifle annoyed.”
“About what?”
“It’s taking altogether too much time to get this man Parks back to Sing Sing.”
Chick turned out the gas, threw the window blinds wide open, and sat down in front of the window.
“I have a little surprise for you. Parks is at present trying to renew acquaintance with two famous high-power burglars, Gilmore and Geary.”
“What! Have you see him—Parks, I mean?”
“He is there at the Gilmore chop house.”
Chick then explained all that had taken place in the restaurant that evening.
“And what was the paper you got hold of in the room?” asked Nick.
“That’s just what I’d like to know. You see, I dropped it in the scuffle before I had a chance to look at it.”
“What did it look like?”
“It was a drawing of some kind.”
Nick pondered a moment.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “that there are no charges against Gilmore and Geary. I’d run them in to-night.”
“Were they acquitted when last arrested?”
“Yes; by perjury.”
“Well, there will soon be a charge against them,” said Chick.
“What do you mean?”
“The paper I found on the table was a drawing of some kind.”
“You said that before.”
“Yes, and that Gilmore chophouse is next door to a bank. Do you begin to catch on?”
“I was wondering if you had the same idea as myself,” said Nick. “I see you have. We will postpone the rearrest of Parks until we get ready to bag the other villains. What are you looking at out there?”
Chick pointed across the street.
“Do you see that man standing there by the cigar store?” he asked.
“Certainly.”
“Well, that’s the man who followed me from the chophouse.”
“You know who it is, of course?”
“No,” said Chick, with a laugh, “my acquaintance with crooks is not so extensive as is that of my chief.”
“Well, it’s Nixon, the all-around crook from New York,” replied the detective. “I wonder what he’s up to now?”
This last remark was caused by Nixon stepping out on the walk and stopping two men who were passing.
“They’re a tough-looking pair,” said Chick, “and he seems to be well acquainted with them. I believe they are going away together.”
Instead of starting away, however, the three men stepped into the cigar store and stood there by the counter, Nixon never taking his eyes from the doorway through which Chick had entered the hotel.
Nick began to change his clothes.
In about five minutes he looked like the prosperous advance agent of a negro minstrel company—one of the fellows who always talk show, no matter where they are, and who want everybody with whom they come in contact to know that they belong to the “perfesh.”
“How’s this?” he asked. “This will be apt to take down there in the chophouse, won’t it?”
“I should say so. Shall I go along?”
“Not with me, and not in that rig,” was the reply, and the next moment the detective was on his way across the street to the cigar store, having left the hotel by a side entrance.
It took but a moment for Nick to get into conversation with Nixon, for the crook was quick to recognize “one of the boys,” and Nick declared, on entering the cigar store, that there wasn’t a decent chophouse in the whole city of Chicago.
The two toughs stepped back, and the detective and Nixon were soon on their way to the restaurant.
The first thing Nick saw, on entering the place, was the open door of the private room.
Parks stood there pointing out.
Behind him were Gilmore and Geary.
“There comes Nixon now,” Nick heard Parks say, “and we may as well see what he has to say.”
Nick seated himself at a table and ordered a chop, and Nixon went back to the private room.
In a moment the two men who had left Nixon at the cigar store entered the place and sat down at the rear table.
The waiter seemed to know them, for he went back and opened a conversation with them.
Nick could not hear what they were saying, for the distance was too great, but he could now and then catch a word.
The men were talking of highway robbery and burglary.
In a few moments Nixon joined the two men, and then the waiter went away.
“I tell you, it’s a sure thing,” Nick heard Nixon say; “for he’s up there at the Windsor Hotel.”
“How you goin’ ter git ’im out?” demanded one of the men.
“That’s easy enough,” was the reply, and then the men talked in whispers again.
The detective laughed, softly to himself.
“They’ll have a nice job coaxing Chick to come out and be killed,” he thought.
Presently a muscular-looking young fellow entered the room and seated himself at a table not far from that occupied by Nick.
His oily trousers were thrust into the tops of a pair of heavy, unpolished boots, and he wore a baggy, blue woolen shirt under his rough coat, which smelled of machine oil. No vest or suspenders were in sight, and his closely cropped head was covered with a greasy felt hat.
He looked like an iron worker out for a midnight lunch.
He ordered a light meal and took out a huge roll of bills, as if to pay for it in advance.
Nick saw Nixon watching the money enviously.
“Now there’ll be a picnic,” he thought, wondering how the attempt to rob the young mechanic would be made.
He did not think Gilmore would allow any work of the kind on the premises, for it would be certain to become known, and would direct the attention of the police to the place, a thing which the burglar could by no means afford to have done.
Nick’s chop was finished by this time, but he ordered a cup of coffee and a cigar, and sat there smoking and waiting.
Before long one of the toughs walked over to where the young mechanic was sitting.
“I’ve just been strikin’ de boss fer a lunch,” he said, with a grin, “an’ I couldn’t make it stick. Can’t you help me out?”
The mechanic motioned the bum to take a chair, and beckoned to a waiter.
“Fill him up,” he said, shortly. Nick started at the sound of his voice, and then a pleased smile crept over his face.
In a moment the seeming mechanic took out his money again to pay for what the tough had ordered.
The tough sprang from his chair and made a grab for the roll of bills.
The next moment he was one of the most surprised men in Chicago.
His hand did not get within a foot of the coveted prize.
His intended victim had been expecting just such a move.
As the tough leaned forward he caught the other’s right square on the throat, and went down to the floor like a log.
The mechanic went on eating his lunch.
But the affair was not to be allowed to pass off so quietly.
The fallen man’s companion, Nixon, and three or four waiters made for the seeming mechanic, and in a moment all was confusion.
The young fellow put up a hot fight, and the chophouse people were sent tumbling around on the floor in great shape.
Nick watched the battle curiously for a moment, and then sprang to his feet with an exclamation of anger.
There were five to one, and yet the waiters were arming themselves with clubs and meat cleavers.
The detective reached the scene just in time.
A cowardly waiter was aiming a blow at the seeming mechanic from behind, which would have ended the fight right there.
He was not striking with his fist, but held a heavy hatchet in his hand.
Without saying a word, Nick struck out, and the waiter went halfway over a table before he fell.
The dishes, with which the table had been loaded, struck the floor about the time the waiter did, and there was a great crash as the fellow floundered around among the damaged crockery.
The door of the private room was now opened, and the three high-power burglars, who had been perfecting their schemes there, rushed out.
Nixon and his gang drew back, leaving Nick and the seeming mechanic standing by the overturned table.
Gilmore dashed forward and seized the young man by the collar.
“You’ll go over the road for this,” he shouted.
The young fellow threw out his hip and caught the burglar around the body.
It was a pretty case of hip-lock, and Gilmore carried another table to the floor when he went down.
“It’s a conspiracy to rob the place,” cried Geary. “Throw them out and call the police.”
But the employees had had enough of trying to throw the two men out of the place, and they held back.
Geary began pounding on the floor of the room.
“That’s a signal,” whispered Nick, to the seeming mechanic. “If a door leading into the cellar is opened now, get down there, if you can, while I amuse the people up here.”
“All right,” replied Chick, “but you ought to be getting out before long. They’ll suspect it’s a scheme.”
Gilmore arose from the floor, brushing milk, butter and sugar from his clothing, and started for the door.
“This is no chance fight,” he shouted. “These men came here on purpose to get up a row.”
“You lie,” said Chick, coolly, “one of your toughs tried to rob me, and this gentleman came to my assistance.”
Before Gilmore could reply a back door was opened, and three hard-looking men rushed into the room.
“There come the men who are putting in the electric-drill machinery,” whispered Nick. “Now, look out for hot work.”
The two detectives moved toward the door, but the gang closed in upon them.
“And I tell you they were both detectives.”
“You are crazy on the subject of detectives.”
Gilmore sprang to his feet with an oath and pointed around the room.
“You’ll soon be telling me that no damage has been done here,” he said, “and that the hot fight those fellows put up was all by way of amusement.”
“And you’ll be telling me,” said Geary, “that the advance agent brought in was Nick Carter, and that the mechanic was Chick.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Geary laughed long and heartily.
The men were still in the chophouse.
The large dining room still showed that a desperate fight had taken place there, for the floor was covered with broken dishes.
The waiters and cooks had taken their departure for the night, and Parks and Nixon had gone out.
“What strikes me as peculiar,” said Geary, “is the way the fellows got out of the place.”
“The men you named a moment ago have a way of doing such things,” replied Gilmore.
“I stood right there by the stairs,” said Geary, “and I’ll take my oath that only one of them went in that rush.”
“Which one?”
“The advance agent.”
“Then, where did the other go?”
“I give it up.”
“I’m afraid the electric-drill scheme is busted,” said Gilmore. “If the detectives are onto us, we certainly can’t carry out the plans made in New York.”
“But there are three millions in that bank vault.”
“If we can’t get them out they may as well be in India.”
“We must get them out.”
“By the old plan.”
“With those fellows watching us?” sneered Gilmore.
“I wish Parks had gone all the way to Sing Sing.”
“What’s he got to do with it?”
“The detectives followed him here. They have known where we were all the time,” said Geary, “and when Parks led them here, they guessed he was steering for some more of the ‘crooked’ family, and probably decided they’d look into our history, and run us in with the man they want.”
“Have you any idea they are watching the drill scheme?” questioned Gilmore, anxiously.
“How could they be?”
“There is no knowing what those fellows will find out.”
“The drill scheme is all right, notwithstanding what took place here to-night,” said Geary. “How much money have we?”
“Mighty little. Parks pulled out fifty to-night.”
“Then he must earn some and replace it.”
“How can he earn money, after what has happened to him?”
“In the old way, I guess.”
“Burglary?”
“Of course.”
“But will he do it?” asked Gilmore.
“Of course he will. Morton Parks is not Doc Helstone, leader of criminals, now. He’s just an everyday crook, willing to do anything for money till he gets another gang under his thumb, and that will take time. Didn’t he try to hold a man up in his own house to-night?”
“All right, then; just put him onto that South-Side scheme.”
During the short silence that followed the sound of a scuffle came from beyond the door leading to the cellar.
Then there was a faint cry, and all was still.
Geary started to his feet and turned pale.
“What was that?” he asked.
Gilmore walked to the door and swung it open.
There was the dark staircase leading to the equally dark cellar below, and nothing else.
The two men looked tremblingly in each other’s face for a moment. They were both longing, yet fearing, to ask the same question.
Finally Gilmore spoke.
“Can it be possible,” he asked, “that one of those fellows got down there during the fight?”
“It is possible,” replied Geary. “Get a candle and we’ll go down and look the place over.”
In the cellar everything looked as usual.
There was the double partition which had been built to shut the noise of the motor and the drill from the street, there were tools, pipes and iron bands lying around, and there, just beyond the broken cellar wall, was the heavy granite foundation of the bank vault.
The two men searched through every inch of the place, and then turned to the double wall.
“There is a door through here somewhere,” said Gilmore.
“Yes,” was the reply, “but it fastens from the other side as well as this, and we can never get through without breaking it down.”
“Well, if we can’t get through no one else can, that is one sure thing,” replied Gilmore. “It must have been the rats we heard.”
“Help! Help!”
The men were about to ascend the stairs to the room above when the cry reached their ears.
They drew their revolvers and stepped back.
Again the place was still.
There was no motion anywhere in the cellar.
“The place is haunted,” whispered Geary.
“I shall be glad if it turns out to be ghosts,” was the reply.
While the men waited and listened, the sound of blows and low-muttered curses came from the other side of the double partition.
“One of those detectives did get down here,” said Gilmore. “If he gets out there is an end of our scheme, and all the money we have put into it.”
“You stay here,” whispered Geary, “and I’ll go around in front and get into the other room that way.”
“Well, hurry.”
Geary darted away, and Gilmore stood watching the door.
Then the latter heard steps and voices in the dining room above, and for a single instant left his post of duty.
As he crept to the head of the stairs to look into the dining room, he thought he heard the creaking of a door behind him, and stopped to listen.
The noise was not repeated, and he went on.
Had he returned to the cellar at that instant, he would have found the door in the double partition wide open.
He would have seen the body of one of his pals lying for an instant on the narrow threshold.
He would have seen the body drawn through into the rear basement, and the door softly closed and fastened.
He would have seen a dark figure in the dress of an iron worker lift the body and carry it through the broken cellar wall.
Then he would have seen two figures, one always carrying the other through the almost pitchy darkness, hiding in a corner near the granite wall of the bank vault.
But he saw nothing of this.
He went on up the staircase and stood for a moment on the last step.
Parks and Nixon had returned, and were walking about the place.
The former had procured a new suit of clothes and looked more like himself, though his growing beard and mustache served as a sort of disguise.
“What’s up here?” he demanded. “Where’s Gilmore?”
“Here,” called that gentleman from the head of the stairs. “Did you see Geary as you came in?”
“Yes. What’s he rushing around in that way for? Anything wrong?”
“I should say so. Come into the cellar. Turn the key in the front door first.”
Parks did as requested, and then all three men hastened down the cellar stairs.
“Hello, there!”
It was Geary, calling from the other side of the double wall.
“Well?”
“Everything all right there?”
“Yes.”
“It’s O. K. here. I wonder what it was we heard?”
As he spoke, Geary placed his hand on the fastening of the door and opened it.
“It wasn’t fastened on this side,” he said, stepping through.
“It was on this side, though,” replied Gilmore, “so everything must be all right, after all.”
“Did you look in the space around the vault?”
“Yes; don’t you remember going in there with me?”
“Of course. Then the noise we heard must have been out on the street, or in some adjoining cellar.”
“I suppose so,” replied Gilmore.
Then he turned to Parks.
“Did you find out about that place?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you work it?”
“Yes; but it must be done to-night, and I must have help.”
It was long past midnight, and a slow, winter rain was falling.
Shivering with the cold, and muttering imprecations against the weather, Parks and Nixon left the shelter of the chophouse and walked rapidly toward Wabash Avenue.
“We ought to have been out an hour ago,” muttered the former, “then we shouldn’t have missed the cable.”
“The owl car’s all right for a job like this,” was the sullen reply. “You’ll be wanting a hack next.”
“Why not take a hack down as far as Thirty-ninth Street?” demanded Parks. “It will be daylight before we get there at this rate.”
“Have you the price?”
“Of course.”
“Then call a cab.”
In a moment the two men, fairly well housed from the storm, were whirling southward.
“Who first got onto this plant?” asked Parks, as they rode along.
“Gilmore.”
“He’s a cute one.”
“You bet he is.”
Nixon did not seem disposed to talk.
“How much is there of it?” asked Parks.
“About five thousand dollars, besides the jewelry.”
“The fellow’s a fool to keep so much stuff in his room.”
“He is all of that.”
“And you know the plan of the building well?”
“I was there to-day.”
“And the old man sleeps alone on the third floor away from the rest of the family?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Well, you needn’t be so mighty short about it. Do you want to go in and get the stuff while I watch outside, or shall I go in?”
“Gilmore arranged for you to go in.”
“All right.”
“And there is to be no slugging.”
“Suppose he wakes up and kicks?”
“Snatch all there is in sight and git out.”
“I guess I’ll run the job in my own way,” growled Parks. “I was in the business when Gilmore was working on a farm.”
“Suit yourself.”
The men were so busy talking, and the night was so dark and rainy, that they did not notice that one cab passed them several times, went on south for a block or two on each occasion, and then turned north again.
The man seated in the cab strained his ears each time in the endeavor to hear what the men in the other vehicle were saying, but he could only catch a word now and then.
The pursuing cab finally fell in behind the other, and the two vehicles proceeded together at a fast trot toward Thirty-ninth Street.
There Parks and Nixon got out, and without once looking around to see if they were followed, walked rapidly toward Forty-third Street.
The man in the second cab never lost sight of them.
He, too, left his cab at Thirty-ninth Street and walked south.
About halfway between Cottage Grove Avenue and the Illinois Central Railway tracks Parks and Nixon stopped and slunk into a stairway.
Their “shadow” was not twenty feet behind.
While they consulted together, he passed the spot where they stood, and entered the next stairway to the east.
The apartments in the row—an entire block in length—were all exactly alike.
There were three flats in each division, and each flat had seven rooms.
There were in each one a front and a back parlor, a dining room, a kitchen, a bedroom off the front parlor, one off the kitchen and a bathroom off from the hall leading to the kitchen.
In each instance the back parlor and the bathroom were lighted by an air shaft running from the first floor to the roof.
The men talked for some time in the hallway and Nick, for it was he, at last succeeded in getting near enough to hear what they were saying.
“He sleeps in the back parlor on the third floor,” Nixon was saying, “and he always leaves his watch and diamonds on the dresser, and places the money under his pillow.”
“Give me the key.”
Nick heard the jingle of keys, and then Nixon said:
“His son sleeps in the hall bedroom. Don’t make any noise at the door. When you get the stuff make a run for it if there is any kick made.”
Nick darted away, and entering the next stairway, ascended to the second floor.
Here he rapped softly on the door leading into the flat on the right of the hall.
In a moment the door was opened about an inch.
“What do you want?” demanded a gruff voice.
“Are you alone in the room?”
“Yes; but I have a good gun with me. Keep away.”
“You’ll do,” said Nick, with a laugh. “You won’t get scared if I tell you something?”
“I hope not.”
“Well, they are burglarizing the flat opposite, and I want to get where I can see what’s going on, and make an arrest when the time comes.”
“Who are you?”
“An officer.”
The fellow was becoming more and more suspicious, and Nick was becoming more and more impatient.
“Will you let me in?” Nick finally asked.
“I don’t believe you are an officer,” was the reply. “If the flat over there is being robbed, you must be in with it.”
“In that case I wouldn’t be likely to be here telling you about it, would I?”
“That’s very true, unless you mean to rob this flat, too.”
The fellow finally opened the door, and Nick stepped through the back parlor, passed into the hall leading to the kitchen, and entered the bathroom, from which a full view of the flat across the way could be had.
There was no light in the place, except such as crept in from the street lamps, but this was enough to show the detective that the man who had admitted him was dressed from head to foot, even to his collar and necktie.
“This is a strange time of night for a man to be sitting all dressed in a dark room,” thought the detective. “Perhaps I have come to the wrong place for help in capturing these burglars.”
Nick stood looking across the airshaft to the window of the back parlor opposite, but there was nothing to be seen there.
The window shades were drawn, and there was no sound of life in the dark space beyond them.
Then the detective heard a voice at his elbow:
“What are you doing?”
Nick did not like the fellow’s tone.
“Waiting,” he replied, shortly.
“You can’t wait much longer in my rooms.”
“Why not?”
“I want to go to bed.”
“With your clothes on?”
The fellow muttered something, and struck a match.
“What are you going to do?” asked Nick.
“Light the gas.”
The detective stepped forward and extinguished the flame of the match.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “You will only warn the men who are on their way into the next flat.”
“What do I care about the next flat? I don’t believe there are any burglars about, anyway.”
Nick thought the fellow spoke unnecessarily loud.
He did not like the way he crowded against him.
There was still no light or motion from across the airshaft.
The detective, standing with one hand resting on the window ledge, felt his fingers come in contact with some metallic substance.
He picked it up, and tried to discover its nature by the sense of feeling.
But that was a hard thing to do.
He could hear the occupant of the flat moving away toward the windows facing on Forty-third Street, and, in a moment, lit a match.
The thing he held in his hand was evidently a revolving armature, and in one end was a “chuck,” into which a diamond-pointed drill could be fitted. Nick slipped the article into his pocket and turned away from the bathroom window.
“There is no use in staying here,” he thought, “for the burglary was probably planned in this room. I was a fool to come in here looking for help.”
He had no doubt that the burglars had in some way been warned before he was well in the rooms.
“Where are you going?”
The occupant asked the question as Nick reached the door.
“Going home.”
“Not yet.”
There was a tone of triumph in the fellow’s voice.
“And why not?”
“I want to know who you are, and why you came here with such a story at this time of night.”
Nick was about to brush past the fellow and pass on downstairs, when a low cry came from the direction of the bathroom.
He placed his hand on his weapon and hastened back.
The occupant of the flat kept close to his heels.
“You seem to have changed your mind,” he said, with a sneering laugh.
For a single instant the bathroom was flooded with light.
The window shades across the airshaft were up, and the gas in the back parlor of the opposite flat was burning brightly.
The detective saw a white-haired man sitting up in bed with a look of terror on his wrinkled face.
In front of the bed stood a masked man, holding a revolver within an inch of the old man’s forehead.
By the side of the dresser stood another masked figure, eagerly raking off the articles of jewelry which the old man had placed there on retiring.
The thief’s hand was, for an instant, clearly outlined against the pure white marble of the dresser.
In a second the light went out and the place was in darkness once more.
Nick sprang toward the door.
His purpose now was to reach the stairway below before the burglars descended, and there arrest them both.
As he sprang through the bathroom door he felt himself seized from behind.
The detective had never before met a strength equal to his own.
He tried to dash his assailant aside, but found that he could not do so.
He tried to bring his revolver to bear, but his arms were bound to his side by that terrible grasp.
He raised his feet from the floor and threw his whole weight downward, thinking that a roll and a struggle on the carpet might break the other’s hold.
The two men went to the floor together.
Nick fell on top, but he could not hold the advantage for a single instant.
The next instant he realized that he was fighting three men instead of one, and that they had him in their power.
He knew that he was being beaten about the head, and that a long-bladed knife was flashing before his eyes.