The Second Nick Carter MEGAPACK®, page 33
Gordon nodded slightly, as if all this was quite a matter of course.
“I shall be glad to hear what it is about, Mr. Griswold,” he said. “Of course, I’m very busy, as always, but—”
“I understand that,” the newspaper proprietor broke in. “I’ll make this well worth while for both of you, though, if you can handle it without publicity.”
Green Eye smiled. “That sounds rather strange from the lips of our greatest apostle of publicity,” he commented.
Griswold gave a gesture of impatience. “Perhaps so,” he admitted. “I can’t help that, though. Facts are facts, and this would be most embarrassing to me if any of my competitors should get hold of it, or even if it were spread by word of mouth.”
He fixed Gordon with his eyes, looking him up and down, as if scrutinizing an applicant for the position of office boy—supposing a millionaire would descend to such trivialities.
But the bogus detective stood the scrutiny very well. To tell the truth, Ernest Gordon was really beginning to enjoy himself. Griswold’s first words could hardly have sounded more promising. They suggested all sorts of delightful and golden possibilities.
It seemed perfectly plain that this was just the sort of thing he was looking for—the case of a wealthy, prominent man, who had something to hide, and was willing to pay liberally to those who would keep his secret.
“I can trust you implicitly, whether you succeed or fail, to reveal no word of what I’m about to tell you?” Griswold asked sharply.
The man behind the desk shrugged his shoulders in a way that was characteristic of Nick Carter on occasion.
“I’ve been in the confidence of presidents and senators, ambassadors and noblemen—and millionaires,” he returned, tacking on the word “millionaires” as if it were an afterthought. “In fact, I may claim some knowledge of the secrets of royalty.”
It was all perfectly true from Nick Carter’s standpoint, but the detective himself would not have put it in that way, or boasted of it at all.
“Of course, you may confide in me or not, as you please,” Green Eye continued, warming up as he gained self-confidence.
“Tut-tut!” ejaculated Griswold, with a somewhat pained expression. He had come, with reason, to believe that wealth would buy anything, and he was not quite prepared for this show of indifference. “I meant no offense, Mr. Carter, you may be sure. As I said, though, this is a very ticklish business—”
“We’ll take that for granted,” Gordon quietly interrupted. “Were you going to give me the details, Mr. Griswold?”
His cool, almost insolent tone gave no hint of the turmoil of impatience raging within.
What was he about to hear, and what use would he make of it—in other words, how much could he make it yield him in cold, hard cash, or crackling bank notes?
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ABSCONDING TREASURER.
For a time it looked as if the millionaire newspaper proprietor meant to resent the supposed detective’s effrontery in some way, but he managed to swallow his wrath, and, after reseating himself and angrily fingering his watch chain, got down to business.
Probably he had decided that it would be very poor policy to have words with a man of Nick’s reputation, especially when he was badly in need of the detective’s services.
After clearing his throat, he began:
“I have explained it all to Mr. Cray, here, but perhaps I had better go over it again, in my own way. The case is in connection with the relief fund which my papers, headed by the Chronicle and Observer, have raised for the Hattontown sufferers.”
Gordon nodded almost imperceptibly. The terrible fire at Hattontown, which had destroyed a large part of one of New England’s busiest little manufacturing cities, had occurred while he was still in prison. He had read of it, however, in the papers to which he had access in the prison library, and for that reason he was familiar with the main facts.
Hundreds of residences and business blocks had been destroyed, with an appalling property loss and a considerable loss of life, as well. Thousands of persons, men, women, and children, had been rendered homeless and penniless.
That was where Griswold’s chain of newspapers had taken a hand. Always quick to respond to such emergencies—largely, it is to be feared, for the advertising it gave them—they had started to raise a fund for the destitute victims, and, thanks to their tremendous combined circulations, the amount had soon attained imposing proportions.
Part of it had been paid out for the immediate needs of the victims, but most of it, according to the latest reports Gordon had seen, was being retained for more permanent aid, to provide work, homes, et cetera.
What could there be about this fund, Green Eye wondered, that required investigation, particularly an investigation prompted by the proprietor of the newspapers responsible for it.
“As usual,” Griswold went on. “I started the fund by subscribing five thousand dollars, and many men of substance have contributed large sums, although none so large as that. You may or may not know that the receipts to date total a little over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“A very neat sum, indeed,” Gordon commented, “and one that is very creditable to those who have contributed, especially those who have done so anonymously.”
He could not resist that slight dig, for he knew perfectly well that Lane A. Griswold had never been guilty of making an anonymous contribution in his life. He was never satisfied unless his name could head the list.
Perhaps this baiting was unwise, but Green Eye did not think so. A little of it, he felt sure, would be good for the millionaire, and give him a wholesome fear of the supposed detective. He decided, though, to let it go at that, for the present, at least.
As for Griswold, after swallowing hard two or three times, he evidently determined to ignore the thrust.
“But how could a criminal case, delicate or otherwise, have arisen out of such a philanthropic enterprise?” Green Eye queried innocently.
If pressed, he could have given a pretty shrewd guess, but it suited his purpose just then to take another course.
“It’s simple enough—too infernally simple!” Griswold retorted feelingly. “The money has been stolen, that’s all!”
Gordon had suspected something of the sort, but it was pleasing to hear it put into words. A hundred-thousand-dollar relief fund reposing safely in some bank vault was of only theoretical interest to him, along with the hundreds of millions stored in similar vaults within a radius of a few miles of Nick Carter’s study. A hundred thousand dollars—or anywhere near that amount—in the hands of a fugitive from justice was a very different matter, however. There were possibilities in that situation.
“Ah, I’m not surprised!” Gordon remarked calmly. “How and when was the money taken? I assume you don’t know by whom?”
“But I do—I know only too well,” Griswold told him promptly.
“You do?”
“There’s no room for doubt about it. The money was taken by a man named John Simpson, an old and trusted employee of the Chronicle and Observer.”
“How did he happen to have access to it, may I ask?”
“I made him the treasurer of the fund. I never dreamed of anything of this sort. He had served in a similar capacity more than once in the past, and always with the most scrupulous fidelity.”
“But how did he have possession of the whole fund, if it was collected by different newspapers?”
“Daily drafts were sent to the Chronicle and Observer, as the parent newspaper of the chain. Our New York office is the general headquarters, you know.”
“I see. Simpson is missing, is he, along with the money?”
CHAPTER IX.
CHANCE PLAYS INTO GORDON’S HANDS.
The newspaper proprietor nodded gloomily in response to Gordon’s question.
“Yes,” he answered, “Simpson disappeared four days ago.”
“Has he a family?”
“A wife.”
“And she knows nothing about him, or professes to know nothing?”
“I feel sure she’s as much in the dark as we are.”
“Perhaps—perhaps not,” murmured the bogus detective, joining the tips of his fingers as he had seen Nick do. “Please tell me now how the fellow managed to get hold of the money, to get it out of the bank or banks in which it had been deposited to the credit of the fund. Surely, his wasn’t the only signature required, was it? The checks drawn against the fund must have been countersigned by some one else?”
“They were—by Mr. Driggs, the vice president of our organization.”
“Then how—”
“In a very ingenious way. I wouldn’t have thought John Simpson capable of so much adroitness. I was away at the time, but he prevailed upon Mr. Driggs to withdraw the fund from the two New York banks in which it had been deposited—the Broadway Exchange Bank, and the Hudson National—and to transfer everything to the Cotton and Wool National at Hattontown.”
“Thus making it possible to deal with only one bank, and that a smaller one whose officials presumably were not so wary,” Green Eye commented judicially. “What excuse did he give?”
“A most plausible one. He pointed out that the Hattontown sufferers and the citizens generally would feel more comfortable, more sure of the reality of the fund if they knew that it had been transferred to one of their local banks. ‘We aren’t ready to pay the money all over to them,’ he told Driggs. ‘Most of them would like to have it all at once, of course, and they’re somewhat dissatisfied, even though the more sensible among them realize that mere temporary relief isn’t a solution to their problems. If we transfer the fund to Hattontown, however, that will encourage them. They will feel it is almost in their hands.’
“Well, it looked like sound sense, and Driggs agreed, with the result that every cent was withdrawn from the two New York banks. As you say, that made it much easier for the thief. Still, the task that remained would have seemed big enough to most men. In fact, they would have passed it up as impossible. Not so our old, reliable John Simpson, though—confound him! After plodding along as methodically as any spiritless work horse for fifteen or eighteen years, he had suddenly developed a streak of lawlessness, and, along with it, in some unaccountable fashion, had come something approaching brilliancy of mind. The Hattontown bank was now the custodian of the entire fund, less what had been paid out to the victims for their immediate necessities. As the disbursements amounted to a little less than twenty thousand, there was a balance of about eighty thousand when the transfer took place. Naturally, Simpson then turned his attention to Hattontown.
“The Cotton and Wool Bank there, so far as I’ve been able to ascertain, is a fair sample of hundreds of good, average, conservatively conducted institutions of the kind of our smaller cities. Apparently there was no rottenness of which Simpson could take advantage, and evidently he didn’t waste time over that possibility. He seems to have felt himself quite capable of getting that money out by his own unaided efforts, and subsequent events prove that his confidence was far from misplaced.”
“What did he do?” Gordon urged eagerly.
He was greatly interested; not from the standpoint of law and order, but from that of one criminal studying the work of another. He had been inclined at first to think that the fugitive would be easy to catch, and easy to swindle out of the proceeds of the theft, but he was not so sure of that now.
“You would never guess in a hundred years, gentlemen,” Griswold assured his two hearers. “This is new to Cray, too,” he added in explanation, addressing Gordon. “I didn’t cover this point when I explained matters to him.
“This is the way he worked it: After getting the money where he wanted it, he went to Driggs with another adroit idea—a suggestion for the publicity stunt this time. One of the smaller papers under my ownership, as you probably know, is published in Hattontown—the Hattontown Observer. Well, Simpson went to Driggs and proposed that that eighty thousand dollars be temporarily withdrawn from the bank in gold, and exhibited under strong guard in the windows of the Observer office. See the point? He argued very convincingly that the sight of so much money would create the greatest possible local sensation, and give the people in Hattontown an exalted idea of the importance and power of the Observer. Driggs offered certain objections, but Simpson argued them away without much trouble. As a matter of fact, I have no doubt but that I would have fallen for it as readily as Driggs did.”
The millionaire paused and smiled in a rather grim fashion.
“To tell the truth, I’ve actually adopted the suggestion,” he informed them. “Eighty thousand dollars in gold is actually on exhibition at the present time in the windows of the Hattontown Observer—under the eyes of armed guards day and night.”
“But—” Gordon had started to speak, but a gesture of Griswold’s stopped him.
“Let me explain,” the great newspaper owner hastened to say. “The original fund has been stolen, but, of course, that fact is known only to very few, including the officials of the Cotton and Wool Bank in Hattontown. We cannot afford to let the truth get out, if we can possibly help it, for it would be a serious blow to the prestige of our organization; therefore I have duplicated the fund, drawing on my private account for the purpose, and, as Simpson suggested, the money has been placed on exhibition. It’s attracting an immense amount of favorable attention, and will doubtless mean a great increase in circulation for the Hattontown Observer. We have that much to thank Simpson for, at any rate.”
“Very extraordinary!” murmured the supposed detective aloud. “Better and better!” he commented inwardly. “I haven’t any scruples to speak of, but it goes without saying that I’d rather relieve this hog of a millionaire of eighty thousand than take it from a few hundreds of poor devils who have been cleaned out of everything. That money seems to be fatherless, and waiting to be adopted. It was contributed to the fund, but the fund is now complete without it. It doesn’t belong to Simpson, and Griswold doesn’t need it. Obviously, it’s mine, and I’m going to have it.”
“But you haven’t told us yet,” he added, addressing his visitors, “how the missing treasurer actually got his hands on the money. The bank in Hattontown naturally wouldn’t have turned any such amount over to a stranger.”
CHAPTER X.
THE IMPOSTOR’S CLEVERNESS.
“You may take that for granted, of course,” Griswold agreed, in reference to the bogus detective’s last suggestion.
“But Simpson was treasurer of the fund,” Cray interposed. “He worked it so the bank accepted his authority, and—”
Gordon was studying the millionaire’s face, and was clever enough to read what he saw there.
“By no means, my dear Cray,” he said. “Simpson didn’t approach the Hattontown bank in his capacity as treasurer of the fund. He knew better than to do that—knew that he would have no standing there, unless identified and backed up by the organization itself. He knew, too, as I reason it out, that the bank would look for any action to come from the local newspaper, and would be off its guard if it did, the Observer’s man being naturally known to the bank officials.”
He was watching Griswold narrowly all the time, and saw that he was on the right track.
“Mean he had an accomplice on the Hattontown paper?” demanded Cray, looking startled.
“By no means,” Gordon returned calmly, still using Griswold’s expression as a guide. “There’s such a thing, though, as impersonation, my friend.”
It was a venturesome leap, but it proved surprisingly successful.
“By Jove!” ejaculated the millionaire, looking at the supposed Nick Carter in amazement and with a new respect. “You have hit the nail on the head, Mr. Carter! How in the world—”
Gordon shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, it was very simple,” he confessed. “I read it all in your face.”
He rightly guessed that that would not make it seem any the less remarkable in Griswold’s eyes.
“I don’t see how,” declared the millionaire.
“Some stunt!” Cray commented admiringly.
“I did just that, though,” Green Eye assured the millionaire. “Of course, I saw in advance that Simpson would have been powerless unless introduced by the manager of your local paper, and supplied with credentials from the New York office. The credentials might have been forged, to be sure, but a local introduction would have been out of the question without the assistance of a confederate to impersonate the manager, or some one else in authority on the paper. And if there was any impersonating to be done, it was clear that Simpson could do it himself. For the rest, I depended upon your expression, Mr. Griswold, to tell me when I got off the track.”
“It is useless to try to belittle your achievements, sir,” the millionaire told him. “I consider it an evidence of most unusual ability. You have hit upon the truth in a manner that has taken my breath away. You are quite right, Mr. Carter. The trick was turned by means of impersonation, and the man impersonated was the business manager of the Hattontown Observer. Charles Danby is his name, and, as it happens, he and Simpson resemble each other more or less. Simpson pleaded overwork as a result of his extra duties in connection with the fund, and got permission to be away for a couple of days. Evidently he lost no time in going to Hattontown, and there he presented himself at the bank in the guise of Danby.”
“The fellow must have had nerve!” contributed Jack Cray. “Hard to believe he isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool crook.”
“It’s almost incredible,” Griswold agreed, “but apparently there’s no room for doubt that Simpson did the whole business. He was known at the bank, but no one suspected the deception, and the only thing the bank people can remember that was queer about him was his husky voice, which he attributed to a cold.
“In the character of Danby, he informed the bank people, and showed a letter addressed to Danby and signed by Driggs, our vice president. The letter was perfectly genuine, and had been dictated here, in our New York office, following Driggs’ acceptance of Simpson’s scheme for exhibiting the gold. Simpson had managed to get possession of it, however, before it was sent out, and the real Danby never got a sight of it. Naturally, the bank officials did not approve. The plan seemed too spectacular, and altogether too risky. It was none of their business, though, and they finally agreed to an immediate removal of the gold.”
