CHAPTER IV.
A STARTLING REVELATION.
After turning Skip Brodie over to the authorities at police headquarters, Nick Carter began in earnest running down Elmer Greer.
He had all along felt satisfied that the abduction of the banker had never been planned by Brodie and his rough companions.
There was a master hand that pulled the strings, while the puppets danced.
Nick Carter felt certain that he had found the leader in the person of Elmer Greer.
For two days Nick haunted gambling saloons, theaters, sporting resorts and other places where Elmer was likely to be found, without success.
The detective was cleverly disguised as a fop, and his best friend would not have recognized in the dude the celebrated Nick Carter.
On the evening of the second day, the detective was sauntering across the park at Union Square when a gentleman, walking hurriedly, his eyes bent on the ground, collided with him.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the offending party.
“Don’t mention it.”
Carter walked on, but only for a few feet, then he turned.
“Shall I arrest him now?” he thought. “No, I will follow and see where he goes; he can’t escape me.”
The man who had accidentally knocked against the supposed fop was Elmer Greer.
The rascal walked very rapidly, but his pursuer never lost sight of him.
Greer entered a house in West Twenty-fourth Street—the same from which Mr. Hilton Field had been carried.
It was bitter cold and the detective more than once wished that he had arrested his man before he entered the house.
“I’m in for it,” thought the watcher, “if he doesn’t come out again to-night. He will hardly stay in, though; were it a gambling house he might stay until morning.”
The detective kept up a cheerful conversation with himself for about an hour, when Greer again appeared.
Now he was accompanied by a boyish-looking young man.
Nick drew into the shadow of a doorway and allowed the pair to pass.
Greer and his friend turned up Broadway and entered one of the leading hotels.
The detective was at their heels, and witnessed a meeting between them and a man he knew to be a Wall Street broker.
The latter went to the clerk’s desk and engaged a room.
While the porter was showing the guests to the apartment, Nick Carter went to the desk and glanced at the blotter.
The party had engaged room eighty-five.
“Is room eighty-four engaged?” he asked of the clerk.
“Yes.”
“Eighty-six?”
“You can have that.”
“Does it adjoin eighty-five?” asked the officer.
The clerk answered in the affirmative, wondering the while at the question.
Nick took the room and was immediately shown to it.
He was in luck.
A door connected his apartment with that occupied by Elmer Greer and his friends.
The door was locked, but the keyhole afforded him a good chance of listening.
“You have made a nice mess of this business, Greer,” were the first words the eavesdropper heard, and they were uttered by the broker.
“Why, my dear, Tom,” replied Elmer, “old Field hasn’t turned up yet.”
“But he has,” said the other; “read that ‘extra.’”
“It is impossible.”
Greer took the paper from the broker’s hand.
The article was headed “The Lost Millionaire Found.”
And it went on to describe the finding of the corpse of the missing banker floating in the East River.
Here is an extract: “Although the face was so battered that recognition would have been next to impossible, there were no doubts as to the identity of the body. The clothing was the same as that worn by the deceased, and his watch, money, diamond studs and a ring containing a portrait of his dead wife had not been removed. It is generally believed that Mr. Field had been murdered, but the object of the assassin or assassins was clearly not robbery. The police have not a clew to work on.”
“The devil they haven’t!” muttered the listener.
“How will that affect you?” asked Greer, eying the broker very closely. “That will send the stocks he was interested in still lower. You ought to clear a million.”
“I see through the game now,” thought Nick Carter.
For once the shrewd thief taker was in a measure at fault; he did not see through the game yet, by any means.
“What is the stock selling at now?” continued Greer.
“It’s down to thirteen.”
“What was it a week ago?”
“Ninety-two,” replied the broker.
“You must have made a heap of money,” said Elmer, “and I have had but a thousand dollars from you.”
“There are twenty thousand waiting for you, whenever you choose to call.”
“Give me a check for it. I can easily get it cashed. You stand well in financial circles.”
The man hesitated, but finally he filled out a check for the amount demanded and handed it to the other.
“We are doing well, Elmer.”
It was the young fellow who spoke.
“This thing is getting hot,” Nick Carter whispered to himself; “my fine young gentleman seems to be a lady in disguise. I must have that check and also my friend’s next door.”
“It will be a month before the stock will go up again,” said the broker, “and I can’t carry any considerable amount of it for a long time. The death of Hilton Field will send it below thirteen. I don’t care for the money so much.”
“What then?”
“It may be discovered I had a hand in this infernal business and then——”
“And then?” repeated Greer.
“State’s prison!”
The thought sent a cold chill down this highly respectable gentleman’s back.
Elmer placed his hands to his sides and laughed heartily, in which he was joined by his young companion, who was, as the reader must have guessed, Louise Calhoun.
“It is not a subject for mirth,” said the broker.
“That’s where you make a mistake,” said Greer. “I helped to dress that corpse found floating in the river myself.”
“Then Field is alive?”
“He was this morning.”
“Give me your hand,” cried the broker, and most joyously did he grasp the other rascal’s hand.
Nick Carter’s fingers itched to lay hold of the pair.
He took from his pocket a small phial filled with oil and a piece of wire.
After carefully oiling the lock of the door connecting the two rooms, he easily shoved back the bolt.
Then, opening the door, he quietly stepped into the room.
The word “surprised” will fail to describe the astonishment of the three persons.
“What means this intrusion, sir?” asked the broker, angrily.
“Where have I seen that young fop before?” was the question Greer put to himself.
“I dropped in to have a chat,” said Nick, seating himself in a chair near the door opening on the hall; he had locked the door of the apartment he had just left and the key was in his pocket; “I accidentally overheard your conversation.”
The two started as if they had been bitten by an adder.
“How dare you?” cried Elmer, approaching the officer in a threatening manner.
“Don’t come so close, please,” said Nick; “I dislike familiarity. There were some things you did not explain quite as clearly as I would have them.”
“What do you mean? are you a madman?” said the broker, quaking with fear. “Leave this room or I will call for help and have you put out.”
“No, you won’t, and, besides, three men, or two and a girl, ought to be able to handle me,” said the officer, pulling off his whiskers; “I guess Elmer Greer will tell me where the missing banker is.”
“Great heavens, we are lost!” cried Greer; “it is Nick Carter!”
“Not yet!” exclaimed Louise, springing upon the officer with a knife which she had concealed in the folds of her dress.
The detective had paid no attention to the girl’s movements. Had he done so, the three rascals would not have stepped over his bleeding body as they left the room.