Chapter X: Breaking the News

Patsy had arrived right in the nick of time.

He had not tried to get to the saloon before ten o’clock, and he showed up there in the guise of a Swede sailor, “three sheets in the wind.”

Ramsay was not there, and neither was Gillman, nor Starlick--the man in the brown derby hat.

Patsy, of course, knew only Ramsay by sight, but he felt sure that he could recognize the others by their voices.

Failing to find all or either of the three, he caught a low-pitched conversation coming from two longshoremen in one corner.

One remark, which he caught in passing, electrified him.

“It was that prize landlubber, Nick Carter, and his mate, that’s who it was.”

Feigning drunkenness, Patsy flopped into a chair and sprawled out on a table, his head in his arms.

“Was the pickin’s good?” asked one of the men.

“Tollable.”

“And what was done with ’em?”

“They’re down below.”

“Will they ever show above the hatches ag’in?”

“Not this v’yage?”

Marking the first speaker well, Patsy got up and staggered out.

His manner changed when he got clear of the dive, and he rushed away in the direction of the corner.

He was not long in finding an officer, and, after showing his badge and telling who he was, he informed the policeman that Nick Carter was in a bad way at Boucicault’s.

The officer gave a low whistle, a couple of patrolmen were picked up, and the four of them returned to the dive.

To arrest the man whom Patsy had heard telling about Nick to his companion was the work of only a few moments.

The fellow resisted and denied strenuously having raised a hand against the detective.

A search of his clothes, however, developed Nick’s watch and one of his revolvers.

Patsy recognized the articles, and the longshoreman was scared into leading the officers to the place where the two detectives had been confined.

They came up under the chamber and effected an entrance by means of a rusty old lever which worked the movable stone slab.

Nick and Chick were dragged out into the fresher air.

While Patsy was busying himself with them, the officers went upstairs and began a hunt for Boucicault and for any other men connected with the outrage.

Boucicault had vanished--a habit he had when any particularly murderous bit of work had been “pulled off” in his den.

When he appeared in court he usually proved an “alibi,” and--some said--a political pull did the rest for him.

Boucicault could not be found, but three ruffians were discovered with incriminating evidence concealed in their clothes.

Two of them had a pair of nickel-plated handcuffs, one the mate to Nick’s revolver found on the first man, and one had Chick’s revolvers and his watch.

The articles were all identified, the prisoners were taken to headquarters in a patrol wagon, and Nick, Chick and Patsy started for home.

There was nothing more to be done that night, Nick said, and they might as well go home and catch forty winks of sleep before morning.

In truth, Nick and Chick were both in need of a quiet time, for they were still weak from the rough treatment they had received, and dizzy from the effects of the gas.

A few hours’ rest put them in shape, and next morning at nine, Nick started Chick and Patsy off for Forty-fourth Street, suitably disguised.

Chick was to post himself at the front of the Montgomery House, and Patsy at the rear.

When they had been gone a half-hour, Nick left the house in his make-up of “Jones of Albany.”

He hired a cab, and was driven to the Montgomery House.

A man in a white suit was working in the street in front of the house, and this man was Chick.

Nick told the cabby not to wait, paid him and ascended the steps and pushed the electric bell.

A housemaid came to the door.

“I would like to see Mr. Montgomery,” said Nick.

“He’s not at home, sir.”

“Then I would like to speak with Miss Louise Lansing.”

“She is not well this morning.”

“I think she will see me. I wish to talk with her about her brother.”

A voice from the second floor came down the stairway behind the maid.

“Have the gentleman come in, Mary. Show him up to uncle’s study--I will see him there.”

Nick was admitted and ushered up the broad stairs into a large room, lined with books and comfortably furnished.

An open desk, strewed with papers, was at one end of the room.

A young lady of eighteen or nineteen, very pretty but very much depressed, as Nick could see, met him as he came in.

Her eyes were red, and it was evident that she had been weeping.

“Miss Lansing?” the detective asked.

“That is my name, sir.”

“My name is Jones; I’m from Albany, and----”

“I heard you tell the servant that you wished to speak with me about my brother,” broke in the girl, eagerly. “Do you know anything about him? He has been gone since Monday night, and the suspense of not knowing whether he is living or dead is more than I can bear. He disappeared from Boston, as perhaps you know.”

“I will tell you about your brother in a few moments, Miss Lansing. First, however, I would like to ask about your uncle, Mr. Montgomery.”

“Do you know whether John is alive? Oh, tell me that before anything else!”

“Is your uncle in the house?” asked Nick.

“Did not the servant tell you he was gone?”

“When a servant tells a caller that her master is out, it does not always follow that he is.”

“My uncle is not in the house, Mr. Jones.”

Nick passed to the study door and closed it.

Then he came back and took a chair by the desk.

“Your brother, Miss Lansing, is alive and well.”

Louise clasped her hands, and a sigh of intense relief escaped her lips.

“Oh, I am so happy!” she murmured. “You cannot tell, Mr. Jones, what a relief it is to me to know that. I will tell uncle just as soon as he comes.”

“You must not tell your uncle, Miss Lansing,” said Nick, firmly.

“Not tell uncle Horace?” she cried. “Why, what can you mean?”

“Just what I say. In a little while your uncle will know everything, but just now he must know nothing. It is your brother’s wish as well as mine.”

“But I cannot see why you make such a request,” said the girl, perplexedly.

“Jones is not my real name, Miss Lansing,” said Nick.

He had been studying the girl and felt he could trust her.

“No?” she asked.

“I am Nicholas Carter.”

“You don’t tell me! John said he was going to secure your services to look into this mine matter.”

“That is what he did, and that is why I am here now. It is also the reason why I ask you to keep from your uncle the knowledge that your brother is alive and well.”

“Of course, Mr. Carter, if you desire it, I will say nothing.”

“I do desire it. Call me Jones, Miss Lansing, just as though you did not know my real name. If you could continue to act as though depressed and anxious about your brother, whenever you meet your uncle, it would be well.”

Her eyes opened very wide, but she did not ask Nick why he desired all this.

It was evident that she thought it was all in the line of his duty and that questioning would be out of place.

“I will do as you say, Mr. Car--Mr. Jones.”