Chapter XIV: At the Obelisk

At eight-thirty sharp a “four-wheeler” dashed up the east drive of Central Park and came to a halt opposite the Egyptian relic known as the Obelisk, otherwise “Cleopatra’s Needle.”

Three men got out of the carriage.

An electric light faintly illuminated that particular spot, and the forms looked dark and indistinct.

But their general outlines were plain enough.

Three more men sat on a park bench hard by the Obelisk.

One of them was tall and wore a slouch hat.

“Here they come,” he said, in a low voice to those near him.

At the same moment Nick Carter had breathed to his two aides:

“Get the cuffs on them as soon as we get within arm’s reach. I’ll take Ramsay. Chick, you’ll attend to the man in the brown derby. Patsy, take the third.”

The three men on the bench got up and spread out, separating so that there were two or three yards between each of them.

The detectives also separated, each making for the man that had been picked out for him.

A mounted policeman, further along the drive, was approaching at a trot.

He had seen the four-wheeler driving faster than the park regulations allowed, and had started after it at a gallop.

Now that the carriage had stopped haste was not necessary, and he came on at a more leisurely gait.

Nick and Ramsay came close together at the railing about the base of the monument, Nick with his right hand thrust into the breast of the frock coat and holding the second pair of cuffs.

“On time, I see,” said Ramsay.

“Always on time,” answered Nick, edging closer.

“Are those fellows all right?”

“Whisper,” said Nick, bending forward.

Ramsay brought his face close.

Snap!

Almost before he could realize what was up the cold steel was about his wrists.

“You’re my prisoner, my dear Ramsay,” said Nick, calmly. “Make a break and you’ll stop a bullet.”

“Nick Carter!” cried the amazed Westerner.

“The same.”

“Curse you!”

He sprang at Nick furiously.

Nick grabbed him by the collar, but he wrenched away, fighting like a demon with his manacled hands.

“Here, none o’ that!”

It was the officer.

He had dismounted to read the riot act to the driver of the carriage, the latter having jumped from the box to fix one of the harness tugs.

Seeing that a row, as he supposed, had started up the incline, toward the monument, he ran in that direction.

“Stop!” shouted Nick to Ramsay, who was a yard or more away. “Stop or I’ll shoot you.”

Nick had a revolver in his hand, but the officer was close enough to grab it.

“Don’t you know better than to----”

“Nick Carter, officer!” exclaimed Nick. “I’m after that man--he’s a thief.”

“Je-ru-sa-lem!” gasped the astounded bluecoat.

By then, Ramsay, making good use of his legs, had reached the officer’s horse.

Without touching his manacled hands to the saddle he sprang to the animal’s back, gave a yell, and dug in with his heels.

Away went the horse at a wild gallop.

Half a dozen jumps carried Nick down the hill.

Another jump landed him on the seat of the carriage.

Grabbing up the lines and the whip, with one movement he plied the lash and the startled horses leaped madly away.

The policeman was close behind Nick, more than anxious to help undo the evil results of his mistake.

He was athletic enough, and he grabbed at the carriage as it started, rested one foot on the turning hub, and gained the box.

“We’ll get him,” he said. “Let me use the whip and you do the driving.”

The horses tore away at a mad gallop, the officer slapping them right and left.

Pedestrians scampered in every direction, but, owing to Nick’s skillful handling of the lines, no one was injured.

Nick did not think he could overtake the fugitive, but he knew that something would happen to the fellow, and he wanted to be near enough to see that he did not escape, in case of accident or other misadventure.

Suddenly a mounted officer appeared in the roadway directly ahead of Ramsay.

Taking in the situation, the officer turned his horse across the road and drew a gun.

“Halt!” he cried.

Ramsay halted, but he did not surrender.

Owing to the nature of the ground on each side of the driveway he could not turn from the road, so he whirled the horse sharply and started full tilt in the direction of the carriage.

Nick divined his object.

He counted on passing the carriage and making off in the other direction--a desperate expedient at best.

In order to keep those on the carriage seat from shooting him, Ramsay leaned down and shielded the upper part of his body behind the horse’s neck.

“I’ll have him now,” muttered Nick, pulling the carriage team to a halt. “Officer, take the lines.”

The officer took them, and Nick made ready for a spring.

On came the horse at a gallop, heading to pass within a few feet of the carriage, on Nick’s side.

The detective watched his chances, and, when the right moment had arrived, hurled himself outward and downward, grabbing the horse’s bits.

The weight on its head brought the animal to an abrupt stop--so abrupt that Ramsay was thrown from the saddle into the road.

Before he could rise, Nick was on top of him, pinning him down.

Ramsay, in spite of the handcuffs, had drawn a revolver from a breast pocket, and Nick jerked it out of his hand.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Nick. “You might have been killed!”

An oath was Ramsay’s only response.

Nick, groping about under the frock coat, found another revolver in his prisoner’s hip pocket and a knife and sheath in the breast pocket.

Both weapons he abstracted and threw to the policeman who had jumped down, caught his horse, and was standing near, ready to lend a hand in case help was needed.

But Nick did not require assistance.

“It’s up to you, Carter,” said Ramsay. “You’ve got me and I cave.”

“Get up, then.”

Nick got off the fellow’s prostrate form, thrusting a hand through his arm.

The policeman picked up Ramsay’s hat and put it on his head, and Nick marched his man over to where Chick and Patsy were holding Gillman and Starlick.

The capture was safely effected, but the great detective had had an exciting three minutes.

Patsy had had no trouble at all in getting the darbies on Gillman, and Chick had not had enough to speak of in making the capture of Starlick.

Starlick showed fight and tried to run around the Obelisk, an empty handcuff dangling from his right wrist.

Chick caught him in two leaps, threw him down, and put on the other bracelet.

The manacles had a quieting effect, and Starlick undertook the rôle of an “innocent bystander.”

“What does this mean?” he cried, angrily.

“If you don’t know you’ll find out quick enough,” replied Chick.

“It’s an outrage, an infernal outrage. Officer,” he turned to the man who accompanied Nick and Ramsay, “I demand that you have these handcuffs taken off my wrists.”

“Keep still!” exclaimed the officer, sharply. “Nick Carter knows well enough what he’s about.”

Starlick toned down, the very name of Nick Carter having a quieting effect.

An hour later the men were in the police station, and Nick had sent a telegram to the chief of police, Helena, Mont., telling of the capture of Ramsay.

Not one of the prisoners was brought to book on account of the clever swindle which would have been perpetrated but for the skill and vigilance of Nick Carter and his assistants.

Starlick was found to be an old offender and badly wanted for a safe-cracking job in Chicago.

He went that far West on the same train that took Ramsay back to Montana.

Both men were tried and sent over the road.

Gillman had all the elements that go to the making of a daring and successful crook.

But there was little to be brought against him, and he was allowed to go his way.

As for Montgomery, he shot himself the day following and was found leaning over his desk, dead.

The revolver was still clutched in his hand, and a letter lay in front of him addressed to his two wards.

A portion of the letter ran as follows:

“I used your money in my speculative schemes without your
knowledge. I believe I had a right to do this, for under the terms
of your mother’s will I had an absolutely free hand to make use of
the money as I saw fit.

“For a time I made money on Wall Street. But my fate was the
common fate of all stock gamblers. My own earnings went, and then I
used your funds and they went, too.

“I could not bear to have it known that I had lost your inheritance
on the stock market, and so connived at this other operation. I was
to help Ramsay. Ostensibly the Royal Ophir was to cost a million,
of which I was to put up five hundred thousand dollars and the two
Boston men the remaining five hundred thousand dollars. Really,
only the money of the Boston men was to go into the deal.

“It was my business to interest them and to help on the ‘salting’
operation to the extent of preparing the loaded cigarettes. For
this I expected to receive one hundred thousand dollars--which sum
I intended turning over to you.

“But I have failed in that, and now the utmost I can do is to die
so that you may have the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
insurance which I have taken out on my life. That and this home is
to be yours. It is all that is left of your inheritance.”