HOW NICK GOT A LIGHT.
It was two days later. Nick Carter, his two assistants, and Paul Clayton were in the bedroom of Nick in the Ionic Hotel.
All four looked perplexed and disgusted. Patsy Garvan, who was standing at the window, gazing moodily across the harbor, indulged in various expletives in an undertone, and wished he had somebody whose head it would be permissible to punch.
“If I don’t get a chance to lick somebody soon,” he muttered, “I’ll get a cramp in my elbow. This case is the kind of thing that makes a man go stale. Gee! To think that a dub like John Garrison Rayne can keep out of our way on an island that you can almost spit across! Jumping cats! I’d rather go out and——”
“Patsy!”
It was the voice of Nick Carter. Garvan swung around.
“What is it, chief? Anything I can do?”
“Only stop your growling over there,” answered the detective, good-humoredly. “It’s got on your nerves, I dare say. But so it has on those of the rest of us. Grumbling and complaining never moved even a pebble out of the road yet. Brace up, and let’s talk about it in a sensible way.”
Nick Carter was not obliged to mollify his younger assistant in this way. A gruff order would have quieted Patsy Garvan just as effectively. But it was a principle with the eminent detective to make his subordinates feel that they were his partners, rather than just his employees, and he had found that it paid.
“We’ve been pretty nearly all over Porto Rico, looking for this fellow,” returned Patsy. “I was thinking we might as well try somewhere else.”
“We’ve only looked through San Juan,” corrected Chick. “Even in a city of some fifty thousand people, it is not easy to get into every nook and cranny. Besides, there isn’t any doubt that Rayne has changed his appearance since he left the Cherokee.”
Nick Carter nodded approvingly.
“That is as certain as that he stole that suit case,” he declared. “It is possible that we pass him several times a day without knowing him.”
“Oh, chief! Come off!” exclaimed Patsy. “That couldn’t be. I never saw the make-up that would fool you.”
“That’s because you don’t know,” rejoined Nick Carter. “Don’t think you or I know it all, Patsy. The men who do things are those who think they may still learn. What you all need now is a little rest.”
“That’s so!” yawned Chick. “We are about all in, it seems to me. Still, if there is anything we can do, we ought not to waste time resting.”
Nick Carter smiled and slapped Chick on the back, in appreciation of his pluck, as he answered:
“Go to bed, Chick. And you, Patsy. It won’t be dark for another hour. But you are so tired that you need not wait for that.”
“And what about yourself?” asked Patsy. “Are you going to sit up?”
“Indeed I’m not,” was the quick reply. “I’m going to tumble into this bed as soon as you get out.”
“There doesn’t seem anything for me to do to-night, either,” remarked Paul Clayton. “But I do not feel as if I ought to sleep until I have got back the Stephen Reed jewelry.”
“That may be a matter of days—or weeks—yet, Clayton,” the detective warned him. “You must try to forget it sometimes.”
“How can I?” was the dejected response. “If I had never touched it, nothing of this would have happened. I am the person responsible, and it is I who must make good.”
For three hours all four of the men who were trying to hunt down John Garrison Rayne lay quietly in their respective bedrooms in the Ionic Hotel.
Nick Carter was the only one of the three who did not undress entirely. He contented himself with removing part of his clothing and taking off his shoes.
Lying on the outside of the bed, he slept as soundly as any of his associates.
It was about eleven o’clock when he awoke. Immediately he sat up, with all his faculties about him.
The famous detective had long before trained himself to wake at the very instant he desired, without any outside help. When he lay down he impressed it on his mind that he must arouse at a certain time. Never yet had he failed to do so.
So, when he woke up now in the darkness, he knew, before he turned his pocket flash lamp on his watch, what the time would be.
Pulling down the window shade in the darkness, he switched on two electric lights at the dresser and smiled at his own reflection.
“I’ll have to change this a little,” he muttered. “Just a gray mustache and goatee, with a few lines on my face, will make me safe. My clothes will do, I think.”
Porto Rico is one of the most healthful climates on the American side of the world. The mean temperature in San Juan is officially a little over eighty degrees, and it never goes above ninety-five at any time. So the costume worn by Nick Carter was a business suit of light cloth, such as might be suitable for New York or Chicago in the summer.
The detective was careful in making up his face to represent a man in his sixties.
Crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, a deep line on either side from the nose to the corner of the mouth, and gray brows, as well as mustache and beard, made him look the part.
He topped it off by adjusting a well-made gray wig, which fitted so well that it appeared actually to grow on his head.
When he put on his broad-brimmed panama hat, so that it shaded his eyes, he was a typical Porto Rican, and nothing at all like the Nick Carter familiar to so many people in New York.
He moved about very quietly, for he did not want to disturb either of his assistants, who occupied a double-bedded room adjoining his own.
When he was ready to depart, he listened, for an instant, at the communicating door. Then, satisfied that nobody was stirring within, he went down the stairs to the office of the hotel, and out to the beautiful, verdure-scented avenue.
He had gone two blocks along the avenue on which the hotel stood, and was turning a corner, when he noticed two persons walking slowly along the other side, shadowed by the trees.
“Taking an evening stroll for their health, I reckon,” he thought.
He turned to see what had become of them when he had gone down the side street some distance. As they were not in sight, he decided that they had kept along the main avenue, to enjoy the breeze from the sea that swept gustily across the thoroughfare at intervals.
In all cities, no matter how well regulated, there are drinking resorts that have not the entire approval of the police.
It was into one of these that Nick Carter stepped at last. The place was not far from the water front, but the patrons were not of the rough class one so often finds in saloons near the wharves in larger cities. It is doubtful whether they were so good at heart, however.
There was a porch in front of the place. Several men were sitting there, lazily tilted back in their chairs, with cigarettes in their teeth and a cool drink at their elbows on the small tables.
Nick seated himself on the porch, and told the waiter to bring him a lemonade.
In the absence of the serving man to get the drink, Nick looked about him casually.
The half dozen men on the porch beside himself all appeared to be giving themselves up to the enjoyment of the hour. Tobacco and drinks kept them mildly amused, it seemed.
Every lounger looked as if he might be in fairly comfortable circumstances. The detective put them down as storekeepers, mechanics—cigarmakers, probably—and men connected with the shipping of the harbor.
Next to him was a dark-complexioned individual, who looked like a Cuban, with a mixture of West Indian negro blood. Such persons are rather frequent in Porto Rico.
He was dressed in a linen suit, with a panama hat and white shoes. There was a diamond ring on one of his brown fingers, and another diamond sparkled in the bosom of his narrow-plaited, soft, white shirt bosom. Prosperity oozed from him.
He had just lighted a long cigar as Nick Carter sat down by his side.
The Cuban did not look up. As he smoked, he seemed to have enough affairs of his own to occupy his mind, without wasting any time on a stranger.
Nick Carter took one of his own favorite perfectos from a cigar case and bit off the end with a snap of his even, white teeth. Then he felt in his pockets for a match.
He brought out a silver match box first, and, finding it empty, explored his clothing with what appeared to be rapidly increasing vexation. Not a match could he find.
He looked on the tables, but no matches were there.
“Deuce take it! I wish I had a match!” he muttered, in a carefully disguised tone. “Where’s that confounded waiter?”
The Cuban turned and looked Nick Carter over with a gaze that took him in from head to foot. Then, moved by a sudden impulse, he said, in a voice with a strong Spanish accent:
“May I give you a light?”
“Thanks!” answered Nick.
“I am sorry I have no match,” went on the Cuban. “Will you honor me by taking a light from my cigarro?”
“If you will favor me.”
The little dialogue had been carried on with the punctilious politeness that usually distinguishes the intercourse of Latin peoples.
The detective fell easily into it, while to the Cuban it appeared to be entirely natural.
Both men arose from their chairs, and the Cuban drew up his cigar with several strong inhalations. Then he bowed, as a signal that he was ready.
Nick Carter stepped in front of him, and, while the Cuban held his cigar between his teeth, the detective, perfecto in mouth, came close.
“Now!” smiled the Cuban.
“Thanks!”
“I’ll draw up a little more.”
“All right! I can get it,” replied Nick.
With the ends of their cigars touching, as the detective drew some of the fire from the Cuban’s to his own, the two men stared directly into each other’s eyes.
The glow of the cigars lighted up their faces, and each had an opportunity to study the other at very close range.
Somehow, it was difficult for Nick Carter to get his cigar alight. Once, when he thought he had it, he was obliged to go back again.
The Cuban did not show or express any impatience, however. He seemed to be desirous only to oblige his casual acquaintance.
For more than half a minute they stood with their faces only the combined length of the two cigars apart—that is to say, about six inches.
Then, as Nick Carter slowly drew back, his cigar burning brightly, he suddenly shot out both hands and gripped the Cuban by the shoulders!
“What does this mean?” hissed the dark-visaged stranger indignantly.
“Only that I want a little conversation with you, John Garrison Rayne,” replied Nick Carter.