Chapter IX: The Acme of Knavery

Nick Carter ignored Mortimer Deland’s mocking suavity, the miscreant’s manifest air of superiority and contempt. He sat down directly opposite the notorious crook, replying sternly:

“That may be quickly told, Deland, and I’m right here to tell it.”

“I am listening.”

“You wish to know what I am after. I am after a rascal who has been playing a very extraordinary game, so extraordinary that he might have won out and accomplished his evil designs--if I had not butted into the game to thwart it.”

“Ah!” drawled Deland. “That makes it very unfortunate for him--but doubly unfortunate for you, perhaps.”

“That last word is well added.”

“Indeed?”

“You will agree with me later.”

“I seldom agree with men of your vocation,” said Deland, smiling ironically. “Be good enough to explain, Mr. Carter. I do not quite get you. For whom are you seeking?”

“For Pauline Perrot--said to have been murdered by Arthur Gordon,” Nick replied curtly.

“Dear me, is that so?” smiled Deland, with eyes narrowing. “I remember Gordon. It was he who started you on my track several months ago, with very disastrous results. I would not grieve deeply, Carter, if evil did befall Mr. Arthur Gordon.”

“I am very well aware of that, Deland,” Nick said dryly. “Your assurance of it is entirely unnecessary.”

“Pauline Perrot, eh?” queried Deland, unruffled. “Said to have been murdered. She is Gordon’s stenographer, I believe. I think I have seen her coming from his business office. Murdered, eh? What are the circumstances, Carter? Have you succeeded in finding her--or what is left of her?”

“Yes,” Nick said shortly.

“Dear me, is that so?”

Deland did not, in fact, then suppose it was so, Henley being the only one of the four crooks then informed of what the detective had discovered.

“I not only have found all that is left of her, but also all that she left behind her,” Nick pointedly added.

Deland’s eyes took on a sharper gleam and glitter, his thin lips a more sinister and threatening curve. The tinge of color in his cheeks waned perceptibly. His long, slender fingers closed involuntarily, until their carefully manicured nails bit into his palms. He laughed, nevertheless, in a cold and mirthless fashion, while he echoed inquiringly:

“All that she left behind her?”

“Exactly,” said Nick.

“You mean----”

“The garments she left in the home of Mrs. Lord, with whom she has been boarding.”

“You have been there?”

Deland’s brows knit closer and fell to a settled frown over his steadily dilating eyes.

“How else could I have found the garments?” Nick demanded. “Yes, I have been there and----”

“And that’s not the only place he’s been to, nor all he----”

“One moment, Henley,” Deland coldly interrupted. “I will hear you presently. Permit Mr. Carter to have his say. What more, Carter; what more?”

“Oh, there is a good deal more, Deland, if I chose to tell you all of my discoveries and deductions,” Nick now said, more sternly.

“Ah, indeed?”

“So much, Deland, that it would reveal in every detail the knavish game you have been playing,” Nick went on forcibly. “But you have overplayed yourself, over-estimated the value of your cards.”

“My cards?”

“Have you not learned in all the years you have lived in vice and crime that three kings, well played, will invariably beat three knaves?”

“See here, Carter----”

“Oh, you wanted me to have my say,” Nick went on sternly, interrupting. “The three kings you have been up against, Deland, are Patsy Garvan, Chick Carter, and myself--three kings in the detective deck. You, Deland, are single-handed the three knaves--yourself, the man Dayton, and the supposed murdered girl, Pauline Perrot. Three knaves, Deland, never beat three kings.”

“You say--you say that I am Pauline Perrot?” gasped Deland, with his wonderful nerve shaken for the first time.

“I not only say so, but I can also prove it,” cried Nick. “I say, too, that you now have Arthur Gordon confined in this house, and that you and these three rascals----”

“Stop!” Deland leaped to his feet. “I have heard enough from you, Carter. Keep an eye on him, Foster, with a weapon ready. If he utters another word, or makes an aggressive move, shoot him instantly. This way, Henley, into the hall. I prefer to hear your story.”

An expression of devilish ferocity now had settled upon his vicious white face. He strode into the hall, Henley following, and for several minutes the two remained there in a whispered discussion.

Nick Carter waited with apparent indifference.

“There soon will be something doing, I imagine,” he said to himself. “I wonder whether Chick arrived in time to pick up his quarry. That now appears very improbable. Fortunately, however, I have another string to my bow, one that Henley does not even suspect. The odds are considerable, but--ah, well, I have never known him to fail to make good.”

There was a still more vicious look on Deland’s face when he returned with Henley. It was like that which it had worn when, having caught Patsy Garvan as he now had cornered Nick, he left him to die in the Barker tomb.

He came and stood directly in front of Nick, gazing down at him and saying, with icy severity:

“Henley has made it perfectly plain to me. There is no occasion for you to say more.”

“Very well,” Nick returned indifferently.

“You are very clever, Carter, very clever,” Deland went on. “I have never in Europe encountered an inspector who compared at all with you. You are so dangerous, Carter, that the world is too small for both of us.”

“Why don’t you move out?” Nick coolly inquired.

“You have exposed my game, indeed, and thwarted part of it,” Deland went on, as if there had been no interruption. “But I have, at least, the money and bonds stolen from Gordon’s vault. They are in yonder suit case.”

“Thanks for the information,” Nick again put in. “It will save me from searching for them.”

“I also have Gordon, here, as you have inferred,” continued Deland icily. “And, best of all--I have you!”

“I would be foolish to deny it,” Nick dryly allowed.

“And here, Carter, before we bolt for parts unknown, is where I shall get even with you and with him, where I will forever wipe you out of my path. Gordon is bound hand and foot in a room on the top floor.”

“Thanks again, Deland.”

“I will send you both to the devil.”

“By what route, pray?”

“In a chariot of fire!” cried Deland, with a sudden outburst of ferocity.

“Well, well, that will beat walking,” Nick declared, not in the least daunted by the significance of the miscreant’s threat.

Deland swung around to Foster and Gribham, who had stood listening with stoical indifference to the foregoing colloquy.

“Go and get him, you two,” he fiercely commanded. “Bring Gordon down here. We will wipe them out together. We will leave no evidence here to tell the story. We will bind both, lock them in the library closet, and then fire the house.”

“That’s the stuff!” Henley said, with a growl. “It will burn like tinder. That will finish them.”

“Get Gordon--get Gordon!” Deland fairly shrieked. “Bring him to the library. We can be out of here with our plunder, with the deed done, in less than a dozen minutes. Go and get Gordon. Bring Carter after me, Henley. Bring him into the library. I’ll do it--I long to do it! It shall be my hand that starts the flames!”

In another moment all of them, Nick Carter included, were striding into the dimly lighted hall.