The Second Nick Carter MEGAPACK®, page 45
“Consider me on the job,” was Chick’s ready reply. “I’ll start work right away, and keep going as long as the going is good. How about you, though? What are you going to tackle?”
“I shall return home at once,” Nick replied, “and go through the safe. I must find out which records are missing, and when I have learned that, I ought to be able to catch the rascal sooner or later.”
“You mean that he’ll be sure to visit some of the people interested, or write to them, and that you can nab him in that way?” his assistant asked.
“That’s the idea. If Green Eye hasn’t learned of our return—and I sincerely hope he hasn’t—he won’t lose much time in getting to work at the blackmailing business, and you may be sure he’ll choose some of the most tempting of the local people for his first victims.”
Chick held up his hand. “I get you,” he said. “That’s just what will happen, unless he’s scared off, and he’ll work quickly, for fear you may return earlier than you had expected, and get wind of the whole thing. Alongside of that, my job seems pretty punk, but you’re the general.”
“Your job is a necessary one, and we may need all the dope on Green Eye’s movements that we can get,” Nick told him.
Very shortly afterward they separated, Chick remaining behind, while Nick and the millionaire reëntered the car and started back to the city.
Very little was said on the journey. To be sure, Griswold seemed willing enough to keep the conversational ball rolling, but he soon found that Nick was of a different mind. He was glad, therefore, when the detective’s house was reached, and Nick stepped out of the machine, after instructing the chauffeur to take Griswold wherever he wished to go.
“You think you can catch him, then?” the millionaire asked in parting.
Nick gave him a strange look. “If I fail in this, I’ll shut up shop,” he replied.
It was said rather lightly, but Griswold was a shrewd student of character, and knew that famous Nemesis of criminals was in deadly earnest.
CHAPTER XLI.
WAITING FOR A NIBBLE.
Nick Carter hardly knew what to do about the members of his household. They had not yet been informed of the way in which they had been taken in, and it was difficult to decide whether they should be or not. After some reflection, however, the detective decided to say nothing about it, for the present.
They accepted his presence as a matter of course, just as they had done in the case of the impostor, and if he told them the truth, they would be plunged into a state bordering on panic.
Moreover, if Gordon should take a notion to return to the house, after such a revelation, it would be almost impossible for the butler, housekeeper, and the rest to be their natural selves in his presence. If they betrayed their knowledge, they might scare him off just when Nick wished him to be most at his ease.
Nick entered his study, and, after walking up and down for a few minutes, seated himself in his desk chair.
There was a tenseness about his look and every movement he made. He was like a perfectly trained athlete, crouched for a start of some record-breaking dash.
The famous detective was well acquainted with danger, and to risk his life was an easy matter of everyday occurrence. He took up the most serious and dangerous cases without a thought of the possible consequences to himself. Here, however, was something different.
This came nearer home, perhaps, than anything else had ever done, for, through him the honor and peace of mind of numbers of persons—conspicuous targets, all of them—were threatened.
Too late the detective recognized that his reputation was not enough to protect his house and his private safe from violence, and that he had no right to keep such records there. They should all be in a safe-deposit vault.
The reports of his ordinary cases might continue to be kept in his steel filing cabinets, where they were available for ready reference, but those concerning persons of wealth and position—men and women who were tempting prey, and whose secrets, if revealed in the newspapers, would cause a widespread sensation—must be better protected in future.
That, however, would not help the present situation which Nick was now forced to face.
He actually shrank from going over the disarranged papers which Green Eye had left behind, but after a little delay he forced himself to open the safe, empty the remaining pigeonholes, et cetera, and dump their contents on the desk. That done, he sat himself down and went to work.
Fortunately, there was a comparatively small number of papers of that description in the safe, therefore it did not take very long to go through them and check off those which remained—for the methodical detective had a list of all of them.
In this way, by a process of elimination, Nick quickly learned the ones which had been stolen, and his expression grew grimmer than ever as he realized the shrewdness of Gordon’s choice.
Most of the missing papers concerned individuals or families in and around New York, which seemed to imply that a quick clean-up was contemplated. Some few, though, involved persons farther away, and these appeared to have been selected because they had offered particularly tempting bait to the blackmailer.
It needed only the brief entries in the index to bring back to Nick’s mind all of the important details of each case, and he ground his teeth as he pictured the scoundrel gloating over those same details, and cleverly scheming to demand the top price for their suppression.
“What a haul!” he murmured aloud. “All those papers, and seventy-five or eighty thousand in gold, to boot! If it’s really Ernest Gordon with whom we have to deal—and I’m morally certain it is—he must be drunk with joy, for he has made blackmailing an art, and he could not ask anything bigger or more promising of that sort. In his calmer moments, though, he must realize that he won’t have the chance to hold up many of these people.
“Doesn’t he know that the first man he approaches will in all probability come running to me to demand an explanation, if nothing more? And hasn’t it occurred to him that I would receive an urgent summons home under such circumstances? Well, if it has, he’ll see all the more reason for striking while the iron is hot.”
He had put the papers away temporarily, intending to find a safer place for them at the earliest opportunity, when the butler entered the study with a telegram. It proved to be from the warden at Clinton prison, and was a long one—sent “collect,” of course.
It contained certain new and significant, though minor, details concerning the supposed death of Green-eye Gordon, and the escape of the yegg from Buffalo, which served to confirm Nick’s suspicions, but the most striking thing about the message was the tone of it. It gave the impression that the warden had been doubtful, or was doubtful now concerning the identity of the man who had been burned. He did not say so, of course, but Nick could read doubt between the lines.
Obviously, the identification had been a very careless one, or else the prison authorities had deliberately winked at the misleading statement which had found their way into the newspapers. Very likely they took it for granted at first that the partially burned body was that of Gordon, and afterward preferred to hush the thing up rather than let it be known that there was any reason to believe that the redoubtable Green Eye had escaped.
“Well, that settles it, I think, for all practical purposes,” the detective told himself. “Cray’s identification was a very hasty one, made under very unfavorable circumstances, but when it’s taken in connection with this transparent telegram, and especially in connection with the nature, daring, and adroitness of the crime itself, it seems safe enough to conclude that Ernest Gordon is the man I must look for—and find.”
Which would be the best course, though? To warn those who might be expected to be approached by the criminal, or to wait until they came to the detective?
After some thought, Nick decided on the latter course. Naturally, he did not wish that every one concerned should know what had happened, for that seemed unnecessary. He believed that Gordon would concentrate on a few intended victims at first, and if the detective could discover who those persons were, he ought to be able to trap the rascal without allowing the others to know what had threatened them.
It was his confident belief that practically every one who might be visited or written to by the blackmailer would try to get in touch with him—Nick Carter—at once. That made him willing to play this waiting game—at least, for a time.
“The first one who communicates with me,” he thought, “should give me a line on the fellow’s methods and plans. No one is likely to yield to his demands on the spot, and if I can learn of a proposed rendezvous or two, the rest should be fairly plain sailing—unless the scoundrel learns of my return and plays dead for a while.”
He had reached this point in his musings when he heard a furious ring at the doorbell.
“Possibly that’s the first of the victims now,” he thought. “If it is, I must prepare myself for some more or less well-grounded reproaches. I can stand them, though, if in addition I’m put on the track of the man I want to lay my hands on more than I ever wanted to lay them on any one else.”
CHAPTER XLII.
THE FIRST VICTIM.
Shortly afterward the butler knocked at the study door and opened it.
“Mr. Chester J. Gillespie to see you, sir,” he announced.
Before Nick could reply, or the butler could get out of the way, for that matter, the young man named pushed into the room, his face pale with agitation.
“You must help me, Mr. Carter!” he cried excitedly. “I—”
He paused as Nick motioned the butler to withdraw and close the door. When the servant had complied, Nick said quietly:
“Sit down, Mr. Gillespie. I’m very sorry to learn that some one has attempted to blackmail you, but there’s no necessity for such great haste.”
His caller had started to take a chair, but paused with his hand on the back of it, and stared at Nick in the greatest amazement. Presently, a spot of angry red appeared in each pale cheek, and his rather weak jaw thrust out aggressively.
“By Heaven!” he breathed. “I believe you are in league with the fellow. I’ll swear I do! How otherwise could you know that—”
“That will be about enough of that, Gillespie!” the detective said sternly. He had heard too many such accusations in the last few hours. “If you have come to me for help, as your rather abrupt opening words would seem to indicate, let me warn you that you are not furthering your case by insulting me.”
“I—I beg your pardon, Mr. Carter,” the bewildered young man stammered. “I didn’t mean it, of course, but you are positively uncanny, and I could not understand how—”
“It’s very simple, though,” Nick told him. “I’ve been robbed of some papers, unfortunately, and those dealing with your case are among them. Naturally, therefore, when you rushed in in that fashion, I concluded that the thief had tried to bleed you.”
“Oh! So that was it?” Gillespie murmured somewhat sheepishly. Again his anger and sense of injury got the upper hand. “Then it’s you I have to thank for this, after all!” he cried. “I supposed my secret safe with you, as safe as if it were buried with me. Now, you calmly announce that it has been stolen from you. This is too much, Carter! Can’t you keep your papers where they will be safe? What right have you got to preserve such records, anyway? Why don’t you destroy them for the sake of your clients? It’s unbearable! This will be the ruin of me! If Florence finds out about it, she will refuse to marry me, and—”
The detective held up his hand commandingly, and the young man—he did not appear to be over twenty-five—lapsed into silence.
“I have already told you, Gillespie, that I profoundly regret what has happened. You are forgetting yourself, though, and wasting time. I already know who made away with those papers, and, with your assistance, I hope to lay a trap for him that will bring his schemes to an end very quickly. I think I can promise you that there will be no publicity, and that nothing need interfere with your approaching marriage. Now, tell me precisely what has happened.”
Young Gillespie was several times a millionaire, having inherited a large fortune from his father a year or two before. The responsibility thus imposed upon him had sobered him down in a remarkable manner, and he was looked upon in certain quarters as one of the coming leaders in the financial world. Before his father’s death, however, he had sown a lot of wild oats of one sort or another, and it was in connection with one of these youthful escapades that Nick had been called in about four years previously.
The affair threatened to be very serious, for the time, but the detective’s skill had been brought to bear in a surprising manner, with the result that everything had been smoothed out as well as possible without the vaguest rumor having got abroad.
The young man fumbled in his pocket with a gloved hand, and produced a sheet of notepaper, the top of which had obviously been cut away.
“That was found under the door when the house was opened up this morning,” he said. “Here’s the envelope. It was not stamped, of course.”
Nick smoothed out the sheet of paper and looked at the sprawling, uncertain writing that covered it. He read:
“I know all about the affair of four years ago. My price for silence is one hundred thousand dollars. Have it ready when I call, or pay it to any one who may present an order from me. Don’t think you can stop this by trying to have me arrested. You will fail, and the whole story will come out. I have fully arranged for its publication, no matter what happens to me. The money is the only thing that will buy my silence. Pay it, and your secret is safe. What is more, you will never hear from me again. Refuse to pay it, and—ruin!”
It was a bold letter, but Nick saw that it was nothing but a bluff. He said as much.
“I hope you haven’t been deceived by this,” he remarked, tapping the sheet. “This fellow is working alone, you may be sure, and, therefore, it isn’t at all likely that he has ‘arranged’ anything of the sort in case he should be arrested. By this, as you ought to know, the newspapers would not publish a story about you without warning. You have too much money and too many friends. You would have an opportunity to bring your influence to bear, and the story would be killed.”
“That sounds plausible enough,” Gillespie admitted. “That’s what I would tell any one else in my position, if he were similarly threatened. When this sort of thing comes home to a fellow, though, it makes a lot of difference.”
“I know,” the detective replied, with a nod. “That’s the sort of mood such a scoundrel counts on.”
He paused and thoughtfully fingered the letter.
“I must confess that this is a disappointment,” he resumed slowly. “I had hoped that the blackmailer would set a definite time for his call, or ask you to take the money to some specified place. This, however, avoids anything of that sort, and leaves me nothing definite to go on. All it tells us is that he expects to call at some unnamed hour—perhaps to-day, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps not for several days. I think we need not bother about the hint that he may send some one with a written order, for if such a person presented himself, I feel sure it would be the blackmailer, and no other. This absence of details, however, makes it rather difficult to know just what to do.”
“How would this do?” Gillespie said hesitatingly. “You are a genius at make-up. Why don’t you pass yourself off for me? Go to my place on Fifth Avenue and wait for this fellow, whoever he is, to call? The chances are that he won’t put it off very long, and even if you had to remain there a couple of days, you would not mind, would you, if you could nab your man at the end of your wait?”
CHAPTER XLIII.
AN ASTOUNDING RUSE.
Gillespie went on more confidently: “It ought to give him the shock of his life to think he’s dealing merely with me, and then to have you reveal yourself to him. Of course, we could both stay there, and you could walk in and collar him while he was holding me up, but I’m afraid he may be watching the house. In that case, he would be suspicious if he saw any one else going in and not coming out again, no matter whether he recognized you or not.”
Nick smiled slightly. “You must have been reading detective stories lately, Gillespie,” he commented. “However, it isn’t a bad idea, and I’m inclined to try it. There are certain other advantages about it which make it appeal to me. How about you, though? You would have to remain here as long as I found it necessary to stay at your place.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I don’t mind. I’ll promise to keep out of sight, and if I have to stay overnight, I suppose I can find a bunk somewhere, if you’ll explain my presence to your servants.”
“You certainly can,” Nick assured him; “and let’s hope that you won’t have to kick your heels here very long.”
The detective conducted him into another room, and, seating him in the light, proceeded to busy himself with his make-up materials and appliances. At the end of half an hour, the transformation was complete.
“Will this do?” asked Nick, turning from the glass and facing his visitor.
“By Jove, marvelous!” Gillespie cried enthusiastically. “By the time you’ve got into my clothes, you’ll be able to pass for me anywhere. Luckily, there’s only my old butler, Simms, and his wife, at the house, as I’ve been abroad, and was not expected home as yet. The chauffeur outside is a new man, and has never seen me before.”
“Good!” Nick answered. “Now for the clothes.”
Soon the disguise was complete, and after another careful inspection of himself, Nick was ready to leave.
“I’ll explain matters to my people here as I go out,” he said. “Come this way and I’ll show you the room you may occupy in my absence. I hope you’ll find it comfortable. Don’t hesitate to ask for anything you want, and I’ll let you know as soon as there’s anything to report.”
After conducting his guest to one of the spare bedrooms, the detective parted with Gillespie, and ascended the stairs. Five minutes later he stepped into the waiting car as if he owned it.
