Chapter VII: Shifting the Responsibility

“There’s a five-foot vein of that rock!” declared Bates, “and it’s a true fissure--which means that it will ‘go down’ and get better with every foot.”

“I wonder if I could get a little of that good thing?” Nick inquired.

“No, sir, never!” cried Montgomery.

“We want it all for ourselves,” said one of the Boston men.

“Sure thing,” averred the other.

“We’ll close the deal to-morrow at ten o’clock, at my house,” said Montgomery. “You’ll be there, gentlemen?”

“Certainly we will,” answered the first Boston man.

“And bring our certified checks with us,” added the other.

The capitalists went away, Bates soon followed, and Nick sat down in Cupell’s private office.

“A great mine, that, Mr. Jones,” said Cupell.

“Looks like it,” returned Nick. “Could you do a little assaying for me, Mr. Cupell?”

“Why, yes, certainly. I’ll have Gillman----”

“No, not Gillman. I want you to attend to it personally and send Gillman out somewhere while it’s being done.”

“It isn’t possible you suspect there is anything wrong with that assay?”

“It’s immaterial what I suspect, Mr. Cupell.” The detective walked close to the assayer and bent over him. “My real name is not Jones but Carter----”

“Nick Carter?”

“Yes.”

“And you were here to watch and see that the assay was properly made?”

“I was here for a purpose. How long will it take you to make the assay?”

“Is it an assay of ore?”

“Of cigarette ashes.”

Cupell jumped from his chair.

“Great heavens!” he exclaimed. “Can it be possible that---- No, no! You are wrong, Mr. Carter. Gillman has worked for me for two years and he’s as straight as a string.”

“How long will it take you to make the assay?”

“An hour.”

“Then send Gillman out somewhere for an hour. Be sure and have him come back here this afternoon, however, and don’t give him cause to think that there is anything wrong. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“All right. I will return presently.”

Nick put the silver match case in the assayer’s hands and left the office.

Downstairs, near the edge of the sidewalk, a shabbily dressed man was selling some mechanical toys that ran by clockwork.

Nick kicked over one of the toys as it ran in front of him.

“Ain’t you got no eyes?” blustered the curbstone merchant. “That’ll stand ye in fifty cents.”

Nick picked up the broken toy and saw a folded paper inside of it.

He deftly abstracted the paper and tossed the tin automobile at Chick’s feet.

“Here’s your money,” he said, tendering a bill. “There’s no sense in running those things all over the walk.”

Chick dived into his pocket for change.

“There’s a man in a brown derby and gray clothes around the corner keeping track of this doorway,” said Chick, in a low tone.

“Tall?”

“No, short and thickset.”

“Keep your eye on him. Also take a good look at that young man who’s just coming out of the doorway now.”

Gillman came out and Chick took his measure.

Nick walked back into the building and was soon in the assay office.

On his way he looked at the assay certificate brought by Chick.

“No trace of metal,” read the certificate.

Nick gave a whistle as he dropped into a chair in Cruse & Cupell’s office.

“Salted for a million,” he muttered. “It’s a smooth game.”

In a little while Cupell rushed into the office excitedly.

“What’s the result?” asked Nick, calmly.

“Those cigarette ashes assay close to fifty thousand to the ton!” declared the assayer.

“I wish I had a few tons,” remarked Nick, with a dry laugh.

“To think that I have been bamboozled by that assistant of ours! I must call in those assay certificates and----”

“Do nothing of the kind, just yet,” cut in Nick.

“But are you aware of the position it places me in? Every assay certificate is vouched for by us the moment it is signed. And then, to have the hocus-pocus worked right in our own office---- But, by Jove, it was clever!”

“Certainly it was,” said Nick, “and Gillman was only a tool and not the leader in the swindling game. What I want to do is to get the whole gang. If you’ll lay back on your oars a little while, I shall succeed.”

“But to-morrow morning at ten o’clock a million dollars will be paid over to these swindlers for the Royal Ophir mine.”

“It won’t be paid over,” averred Nick.

“You assure me of that?”

“Yes. What I want you to do is to keep this to yourself. Don’t let Gillman suspect that you know what he has done. Keep him here until five o’clock and then let him go.”

“But my responsibility----”

“I’ll take your responsibility on my own shoulders.”

“Very well, Mr. Carter, I will do as you say.”

Nick went away.

“The young fellow had a talk with the man in the brown derby,” Chick said, as his chief walked slowly past.

“Stay here and watch,” Nick returned. “I’ll be back in an hour. You’ll recognize me. I’m going to shadow the young fellow, and if the man in the brown derby follows me you follow him.”

Nick went to police headquarters and made a few changes in his disguise.

When he came out he looked at least twenty years younger.

There was a cigar store opposite the building in which Cruse & Cupell had their assay office, and Nick stepped in there, bought a weed, and stood leaning on the counter, smoking and watching the doorway across the street.

It was five o’clock and time for Gillman to show himself.

Nick had not long to wait.

The clerk came briskly out and Nick went after him.

Just beyond the corner a man in a brown derby dropped in behind Nick.

Chick, keenly alive to the situation, picked up the single tin automobile that he had left, pushed it into his pocket, and trailed along in the rear of the man in the brown derby.

From the opposite side of the street a neatly dressed man in a sack suit and black Fedora hat took in the situation and gave vent to a muttered oath.

“I like the layout, Mr. Nick Carter,” he said to himself. “Keep on after Gillman and you’ll find yourself in a hornet’s nest. You’ll never live to put those Boston men next to my game, or to bring me to book for that Montana job. Now for Hamilton Street.”