Chapter VII: Nick Carter’s Venture

Nick Carter’s project was a daring one, even though ventured against crooks of ordinary caliber. Against as lawless, determined, and desperate a knave as Andy Margate, who, if Nick’s deductions and suspicions were correct, had not shrunk for an instant from killing a priest and abducting a girl to prevent the perversion of his knavish designs--against a man of that type, such a project was doubly bold and hazardous.

Nick Carter realized from the outset that he would carry his life in his hand. He realized, too, that it would be utterly vain to attempt to pursue the man and the motor car described by Garland.

That they would guard against anything of that kind not only was obvious to Nick, but he further reasoned that any attempt to do so would surely be detected, and result only in perverting his own more promising designs. He preferred to take his own chance, therefore, and to rely upon the other work about to be done by Chick Carter and Patsy.

Shortly before eight o’clock that evening, a tall man clad in black, wearing gold-bowed spectacles and a pointed beard, issued from the Grayling as if he were a resident in the house, and sauntered away through Vermont Avenue.

This man was Harold Garland, wearing the garments and disguise of the detective, the same worn by Nick when he visited the office of the government engineer the previous day.

Nearly an hour later, or close upon nine o’clock, the light in Garland’s apartments suddenly vanished. Half a minute later, wearing a soft felt hat, a long frieze overcoat, and a suit of plaid woolen, precisely the same garments worn by Garland when he visited Margate, Nick Carter emerged from the apartment house and strode toward the first corner east.

A man who was turning it just as Nick was approaching it gazed at him sharply, then smiled and bowed.

“Good evening, Garland,” he said familiarly.

“Ah, good evening,” Nick returned genially.

“I thought I recognized you. A misty night, this.”

“Yes, quite so,” said the detective.

They then had passed one another, scarce two feet between them, and in the bright glare from a near arc light, and Nick halted on the corner.

“By Jove, that’s quite encouraging,” he said to himself. “That man evidently is well acquainted with Garland. He felt sure that he recognized me. He saw me plainly, too, in the bright glare from this arc light. I also got by with the voice. Having done so under these conditions, I ought to succeed in fooling Margate. Yes, indeed, it was encouraging.”

Nick was justified in congratulating himself, in fact, for he had, with consummate skill and artistic applications of paint and powder, transformed himself into an almost perfect likeness of the man he was aiming to impersonate.

It was, as the passing stranger’s remark implied, a fit night for such an undertaking. A mist hung like a gray pall on the quiet night air. It obscured all but the brightest stars. A half-filled moon shone through it only faintly, surrounded with a great circle, like a halo around the head of a saint.

It was, in fact, a damp, chilly, and disagreeable November night.

Nick gazed up and down the avenue and through the side street. The latter was less brightly lighted. Lamps of motor cars could be seen in each direction on the avenue. They came and went, many of them passing him, but none showing any sign of stopping to pick him up.

Suddenly a clock on a neighboring church began to boom the hour--nine o’clock.

Nick counted the slow strokes of the bell, falling with sonorous reverberations on the night air. They brought to his mind the church and rectory visited the previous morning.

Nick thought of the white, upturned face of the murdered priest, found dead on his library floor. He thought of the missing girl and wondered what her fate had been.

His features hardened under these contemplations. His eyes took on a more threatening gleam and glitter. He was in a fit mood to face danger in behalf of justice, and bring to righteous punishment the miscreants guilty of these crimes.

A sudden glare of light shot across the avenue a block away. A limousine came quickly around the corner and approached the Grayling, but it did not stop. Its lamps, seen through the gray mist, were like the glowing eyes of an uncouth monster.

“By Jove, there comes my man,” flashed through Nick’s mind. “He came by the Grayling in order to see whether Garland’s rooms are lighted. I’ll turn up my collar to offset the bright light from that electric.”

Nick did so, and then began to think he was mistaken.

The rapidly moving limousine was swerving toward the opposite side of the avenue. Suddenly it made a quick turn, however, and sped directly toward the curbing on which the detective was standing.

The door flew open and a man thrust out his head.

“Get in!” he cried sharply. “Be quick!”

Nick sprang into the car and sank upon the seat. The door banged behind him.

“Let her go, Jimmy!” shouted his companion.

The car had not stopped, in fact, and it now sped on rapidly through the side street.

Nick’s companion sprang up and gazed intently from the back window until more than a hundred yards had been covered. Any pursuing car or motor cycle would have been plainly visible to him. There was none, however, and the limousine turned again and sped toward Florida Avenue.

The man sat down and leaned from the open window on his side of the car, that on which Nick sat being closed.

“You’re well away, Jimmy,” he called to the driver. “There’s nothing doing. Let her go lively.”

Nick had been quick to see that this man was not masked, as when Garland had accompanied him. No sooner had he a good look at his dark, thin-featured face, moreover, than Nick instantly recognized him. He had arrested him in New York more than a year before.

“Bartholomew Lombard, better known as Batty Lombard,” he said to himself. “The rat I took in for lifting a diamond in Tiffany’s. I’m certainly in right for the present, at least. I wonder what other jailbird is driving the machine”

Nick could see only the back of his head and broad shoulders, his woolen cap and thick overcoat, with the collar turned up to his ears.

“What are you afraid of?” Nick asked, when the man turned and settled down beside him.

Lombard glanced sharply at him.

“Can’t you guess?” he questioned, with a growl.

“I suppose you think I’ve put the police wise and that you may be followed,” said Nick.

“That calls the turn,” Lombard nodded. “I’m guarded against that, all right.”

“Well, that’s not my style,” Nick replied, cleverly imitating Garland’s voice all the while. “I always do what I have agreed to do.”

“Is that so?” questioned Lombard, with a groan. “Well, you sure have got a little something on most men, then.”

“Are you the same man who met me before?”

“Don’t I look it?”

“How can I tell? He wore a mask.”

Lombard chuckled oddly, with a mischievous gleam in his narrow eyes. He drew from his pocket a black bag, replying a bit dryly:

“I’m the same gazabo and here’s the same bandage that you wore. If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Garland, I will slip it over your block as before.”

“It’s not all the same, by any means, but I suppose I must stand for it,” Nick protested.

“Stand for it is right,” said Lombard, rising. “I have to guard against your putting anything over on us. Safety first, you know. If you had the use of your lamps, you might serve us some scurvy trick sooner or later.”

“As scurvy a trick, perhaps, as you rascals are serving me,” Nick retorted.

“That’s not half bad,” Lombard returned. “We’re letting you down easy. Some ginks would bleed you to a standstill. You’re playing dead lucky, Mr. Garland.”

“That’s not my opinion.”

“The which has not been asked for.”

“Are we going to the same place as before?”

“That’s what.”

“Why----”

“Cut it, now,” Lombard interrupted. “There’ll be time enough for a spiel after you get there. Sit back and keep quiet.”

The rascal had drawn the black bag over Nick’s head while speaking, and Nick was forced to comply with the last. He settled back in the cushioned corner and relapsed into silence.

Though enough air entered from the bottom for him to breathe freely, the thick black bag completely blinded him. It was like being enveloped in Stygian darkness, and Nick bent his mind upon trying to determine the course the limousine was taking.

That also proved entirely futile. He soon decided that many turns were being purposely made, and that they were not going direct to their destination.

For nearly half an hour, as well as he could judge, the car sped on and not a word came from his companion.

Nick then felt through the open window a more damp and chilly air, as if it came from the Potomac.

The varied noises of the city had been left far behind. Only the occasional distant clang of a trolley-car gong reached his listening ears. The road had become more rough. He knew that he was passing through one of the less thickly settled outskirts.

The car at length turned sharply, and Nick sensed that it was entering an inclosed area of some kind. Suddenly it stopped and he heard the driver spring to the ground. Lombard opened the door and seized the detective’s wrist.

“Steady, now, and keep your trap closed,” he said, with a growl. “Step out of the car. I’ll guide you.”

Nick obeyed without replying.

He felt his way from the car, and then the hand of the driver gripped his other arm. He felt the crunch of gravel under his feet, then the stone step of a doorway.

The tread of all three then fell upon bare planking, and Nick could sense that they had entered a building and were in a corridor of considerable size, which he determined from the sound of their footsteps on the floor.

Nick had taken only a few steps, however, when he felt the two men thrust him through another doorway. Their hands left his arms. He heard the crash of a closed door behind him--and then found himself alone and in sudden silence.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he asked himself, recalling what Garland had told him of his own experiences. “This isn’t quite in line with what he stated. Have these rascals----”

Nick held his breath for an instant.

The floor on which he stood was descending.

“An elevator!” flashed through his mind. “Garland mentioned an elevator, and that he was taken down to the room in which he met Margate. This must be the same place.”

The descending floor stopped in a few seconds, so gently that Nick rightly inferred that electricity was the motive power. He reached out in each direction and could touch only--four bare walls.

“By Jove, I’ll find out what kind of a box I’m in,” he said to himself abruptly. “I’ll not wait for these rats to show me.”

Nick removed the black bag and still found himself in inky darkness. He could discover in no direction the faintest ray of light. He waited a few seconds, thinking he might be released from these stuffy quarters, but not a sound broke the tomblike silence.

Deciding not to use his searchlight, lest it might betray him if he was being covertly watched, Nick fished out a match from his pocket and lit it.

The flame revealed four bare walls of wood, a ceiling and floor of like planking, the whole forming a boxlike structure about five feet square. As well as he then could judge from the brief flickering light from the match, there was no way to open it from the inside.

“Box is right, by Jove,” he said to himself, with increasing suspicions. “I may be in more of a box than I bargained for right off the reel. Can it be that these rascals already suspect----”

A quick, metallic snap cut short Nick’s train of thought.

A panel in one of the walls flew open, slipping quickly to one side. It revealed a window about a foot square and nearly six feet from the floor.

Through it came a flood of electric light from a corridor, only a small part of which could be seen by the detective.

Nick’s attention was instantly claimed, moreover, by something more portentous--the head and face of a man gazing through the bright opening.

They were the head and face of--Andy Margate.