Chapter X: How the Trap Was Sprung

Nick sat down and laughed. The over-acting of the cheap actor, hired for the occasion, was ludicrous. But the three ruffians, armed with revolvers, were ugly facts.

He now saw the game. The trap had been sprung. It was a device to get him under control while the big strike on Mountain was being worked.

Either the Brown Robin feared he had been retained by Mr. Mountain, or she had learned, despite his efforts to the contrary, that he really had been.

“Well,” he said, looking at the three brutes, “what is your game?”

“To keep you here all day,” replied one of them.

“Oh, is it?” asked Nick. “What has become of the woman that was here?”

“She has gone out with her husband.”

“Oh, drop that, my lads,” said Nick. “That was the Brown Robin. I knew that when I came in here with her.”

The three men grinned, and one said to the other:

“I told her she couldn’t fool him.”

“I suppose you mean to earn your money by keeping me here?” said Nick.

“Yer right, guv-ner.”

“Well, I don’t know that I can blame you,” said Nick, “but I want to know for sure that the woman is gone.”

“She’s gone, all right.”

“Well, take me through the house, and let me be certain.”

“There can’t be any harm in that,” said one. “Go ahead quietly, me and Smithy’ll go behind.”

Thus escorted, Nick went through and made sure the Brown Robin had fled the house.

After all, it was a vulgar trap which had been laid for him.

He returned to the parlors and sat down a while. Then he asked one of the men to open a window and let a little air in.

When this was done, he took some cigars from his pocket and handed them to his guards.

Then he went to the piano, and, seating himself, to the great pleasure of the three brutes, he sang:

“Come to me, darling, I’m lonely without thee,
Daytime and nighttime I’m dreaming about thee.”

He knew Patsy, and probably Chick, were without and would take his song as a call for them.

Nor was he mistaken. But a few minutes passed when his quick ears heard a sound at the front door that told him the lock was being picked.

Again he seated himself at the piano, and began to sing and play. The brutes were attentive upon him.

But, through the corner of his eye, he saw Chick at the hall door.

Wheeling about on the piano stool, he sprang to his feet, and, drawing his revolver, cried out:

“Down, you dogs!”

Chick sprang into the room from the front door and Patsy came in from the rear room, revolvers up.

The brutes, taken by astonishment, could not rally in time, and, seeing they were powerless, threw up their hands.

“Take their guns, Patsy,” said Nick.

This the lad quickly did, while Nick and Chick covered them.

“Boys,” said Nick, “I’m sorry to treat you so, but I must. You must be bound and gagged, but I’ll let you loose in time.”

The three did not dare to make resistance, and, making them as comfortable as circumstances would permit, the three detectives took care to carefully lock the house up. Then they quietly departed.

“It was a stupid way,” said Nick to Patsy and Chick, as they walked away, “and more like a cheap melodrama than anything else. Really, I believe the Brown Robin has been an actress some time in her life.”

* * * * * * * *

Shortly before five o’clock that afternoon Mr. Mountain, with a small package under his arm, appeared on the steps of the Park Avenue Hotel.

He had not been there long before the young man who had first called on him came up.

It was, of course, the Brown Robin. Her tactics were precisely the same as they had been with Mr. Cary the day before, that is, with Nick disguised as Mr. Cary.

And the same questions were put to him as to any person being in concealment.

When these had been answered as the person desired, Mr. Mountain was asked if he was ready to go and see the Brown Robin.

“Yes,” replied Mr. Mountain, “if it is to be done, let us do it right away. But first let me go into the hotel with this.”

The young man was reluctant, but yet he followed and Mr. Mountain, going to the desk, asked the clerk to place it in the safe and give it to no one but himself.

This done, the two walked out of the hotel.

As Nick had foreseen, their way was up to the Thirtieth Street house. What the young man did not see was a trick played by Mr. Mountain, a trick taught him by Nick.

Every three or four steps they took, a small piece of paper fluttered from Mr. Mountain’s hand. It was thus Nick could ascertain that the Thirtieth Street house was their destination.

Everything moved precisely as it had the day before. The young man showed Mr. Mountain into the parlor and disappeared to call the person Mr. Mountain had come to see.

There was a wait for some time, and then the Brown Robin swept into the room.

“I am very glad to renew your acquaintance, Mr. Mountain,” said the Brown Robin.

Mr. Mountain fairly staggered in his surprise.

“Why! Why!” he exclaimed. “Alberta Curtis!”

“The same,” said the Brown Robin. “Although I have had many experiences since I was your typewriter, my name has remained the same through it all.”

“Then it was you, after all, that stole the confession,” blurted out Mr. Mountain.

“Stole is an ugly word, my dear old employer,” said the Brown Robin. “Be more polite. Say I confiscated it when I found it among loose papers.”

Mr. Mountain, though he had suspected this, yet, when he learned that it was so, seemed amazed and stupefied.

But the Brown Robin soon brought him to his senses by asking if he had come to do business.

In her dealings with Mr. Mountain, there was none of the coquetry she had displayed with Mr. Cary.

Thus aroused, Mr. Mountain said:

“Your terms are outrageous!”

“Let us be plain and brief, Mr. Mountain. You have become a very rich man. Fifty thousand dollars will not even embarrass you. I have informed myself exactly as to your financial condition.

“You can afford to pay that to preserve your good name and your reputation.

“Now, read this.”

She took from her pocket a typewritten roll of paper, and extended it to Mr. Mountain.

“You will see that it is a carefully-prepared newspaper article, which embraces your confession.

“If you refuse to pay what I believe is the value of that confession, in your handwriting, to you, that will be published.”

Mr. Mountain read it over, and saw with what skill it was prepared, and how eagerly a paper would seize on it.

“You would not have the cruelty to do that?”

“You are mistaken,” said the Brown Robin, coldly. “I would have and will do what I say I will. Make not the least mistake about that.”

“But you will do it for less?”

“Fifty thousand or nothing.”

This was said with the utmost firmness. Then she added:

“But why shuffle? The very fact you are here shows that you are here to comply.”

“I am to have the original confession for that payment?”

“Yes.”

“Must I trust to your honor to get it?”

“Show me the money and I will show you the document.”

“Very well.”

“Understand,” said the Brown Robin. “I am well guarded. I can defend myself with this.”

She displayed a revolver.

“I stand on a push-button,” she went on, “and the slightest pressure will summon to my aid, if you attempt any tricks, those who will defend me.”

“Very good!”

Mr. Mountain placed his hand in his pocket, and, taking out an envelope, took out a check, holding it in his hand.

The Brown Robin, in the act of drawing a paper from the breast of her dress, stopped.

“A check! Is this a trick, or is it your ignorance?”

“Why, yes, a check drawn to my own order for fifty thousand dollars, and indorsed by me. You did not tell me in what shape you wanted it.”

“True. But you must have understood.”

Suddenly she flew into a violent passion, in which she declared that she would ruin him, really frightening Mr. Mountain.

He tried to soothe her, and in doing so admitted that he had thought a check would not do.

“I did bring fifty thousand in bills with me. It is in a package that I left in the Park Avenue Hotel. I can destroy this, and get the package in ten minutes.”

“And bring a horde of officers down on me?”

“No; you can accompany me, or that young man who brought me here can.”

“That young man was myself, you fool.”

“Then go with me yourself.”

The Brown Robin thought a moment, and finally said:

“I will.”

She called for her hat and coat, which was brought by a servant, and to that servant she handed the confession, to retain until she returned.

She led the way out of the house in an energetic way, and, when they reached the hotel, entered the office with the broker.

“Now get it,” she said, stopping within twenty feet of the desk. “No tricks. I shall watch, and my punishment will be swift, no matter what occurs to me.”

Mr. Mountain went off and passed into the private office behind the counter or desk, and for a brief second was lost to sight to the Brown Robin, as he passed behind a high safe.

But she saw him go with the clerk to the safe and receive a package, and return with it to her.

Without a word she led the way out of the hotel and back to the house they had just left.

Entering the parlor again, Mr. Mountain tore off the wrapper to show the bills within, and held it out to her.

She called for the confession, and, receiving it from the servant, held it out to Mr. Mountain, who took it as she took the package of bills.

Mr. Mountain assured himself it was the original by a hasty glance. The Brown Robin was tearing the wrapper from the package.

When she opened it and shifted the bills she fairly screamed.

The package was a dummy, only one bill being on the top.

She sprang forward, but she faced two revolvers leveled at her.

“You are my prisoner, Brown Robin. I am not Mr. Mountain, but Chick Carter, the detective. Mr. Mountain stayed at the hotel that he went to with you. I came in his place.”

The woman stepped on the button she had boasted of, and bells sounded in the house.

At the same instant Chick gave a shrill whistle.

A door crashed in and the plate glass of a front window was broken by the heavy blows of a hammer.

Patsy sprang through the window, with revolvers up, and Nick Carter through the door, followed by Mr. Mountain.

Nick met two men dashing down the stairs, the first one of whom he struck in the face with the butt of his revolver, knocking him senseless, and grappled with the other.

Patsy had sprung at the servant woman, who had shown fight, to find she was a man in woman’s clothes, and he found his hands full.

Chick had easy work in overcoming the Brown Robin.

It was a fight soon over, however. The two men Nick had attacked in the hall, finding the door open, fled through it.

The other man, in woman’s clothes, was overcome by Patsy, and, with Nick’s aid, bound.

Though beaten, the Brown Robin was game.

“Well, Mr. Carter,” she said, “I have come to the end. I was told you would overreach me if I met you. You have. I did not think you would. I thought myself smarter than you.”

“You were very easy,” said Nick, quietly. “I could have taken you yesterday, when I dined with you, in the Lexington Avenue house, as Mr. Cary.”

“You?” she cried. “You did that?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Clymer. You do not offer your cheek to me to-day.”

He imitated perfectly Mr. Cary’s voice.

This was too much for the Brown Robin. She seemed to feel worse over this deception than over her arrest and defeat. Nick saw that she had been wounded in her conceit. Finally she said:

“Well, if I am no better than that, I deserve to fail. Lock me up.”

The Brown Robin and her servant were taken to the station house and locked up.

“Your imitation of me,” said Mr. Mountain to Chick, “was so good that when I passed behind that safe and saw you there waiting for me I was startled, though I expected to find you there. It was capitally done. I congratulate you.”

“Congratulate the chief, Mr. Mountain. It was his play from start to finish, and he made me up.”

The compromising photographs of Mr. Cary, together with the plate, were easily recovered in the house in which they were taken.

Nick’s inquiries into the life of the Brown Robin showed that she had been engaged in a criminal career almost from the moment that she had eloped with the man Stymers from Mr. Mountain’s employ, though at one time she had been on the stage and at another time a newspaper writer.

Stymers was a bank burglar, who had led her into crime. Her criminal career had been most successful, and the first check called in it was when she met Nick Carter and his faithful band.

She received a long sentence, and it is hardly likely that she will ever again embark on a career of wickedness.