Chapter X: In the Nick of Time

It was after two o’clock that afternoon when Nancy Selig, following instructions received from Andy Margate, rang the bell at the Deland residence and prepared, with all the nerve and effrontery of one of her class, to carry out the coercive design of her knavish confederate.

A butler answered the bell--but not the usual butler.

“I would like an interview with Lady Deland,” said Nancy, bowing and smiling with affected gentility.

“I will take in your card, madame,” Nick replied, with blank countenance. “Or if you will state what your business is, I will inform her of your request.”

“She does not know me by name,” Nancy coolly announced. “I am soliciting contributions to a very worthy cause, and I was sent here by a friend of Lady Deland. Will you kindly tell her so, and say,” she added, quite pointedly, “that she may hear something greatly to her advantage.”

Nick Carter needed to hear no more than that. He bowed and vanished.

Two minutes later he returned, saying a bit stiffly:

“Lady Deland will see you.”

“I thought she would,” remarked Nancy, with covert dryness.

Nick conducted her to the library and ushered her into the room.

Lady Deland arose to receive her and pointed to a chair.

Nancy Selig took it without the ghost of a suspicion.

Nick withdrew and closed the door, then stepped noiselessly through the side hall and into the diplomat’s study.

The first words that fell upon his ears from the library told him that Nancy Selig had lost no time in approaching the business engaging her.

“You can safely admit it to me, since you say there is no one to hear us,” she was adding to what already had passed between them. “There is nothing in mincing matters. The question is--do you want to recover it?”

“Assuming that you really know what you have stated, and that I have lost such an article as you suggest, I naturally would be anxious to recover it,” Lady Deland replied.

“There’s just one way you can do it,” said Nancy.

“How is that?”

“By paying for it.”

“Pay whom? Are you the person who has it?”

“No. A man has it who----”

“Send him here, then,” Lady Deland interrupted. “I will talk with him.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Nancy said curtly. “And don’t pretend that the paper is of no great value to you. We know better than that, we who have it. You listen to me for half a minute and I’ll tell you just where you stand and what you must do.”

Lady Deland’s eyes drifted toward the mirror for an instant and she received from the listening detective a signal of assent.

“Well, I will hear you,” she replied, gazing at the crafty, determined face of her visitor.

What Nancy Selig had to say may easily be imagined, and she wound up her threatening remarks with the announcement that Lady Deland must pay ten thousand dollars for the return of the document and her letter to Senator Barclay, or that both would be sent to her husband the moment he returned to Washington.

Lady Deland played her part consistently, now and then receiving a signal from Nick, and evincing apprehensions that soon convinced Nancy Selig of her own ultimate success.

“All you need do is go with me and pay down the money,” she announced, at length. “When you return home, you’ll have the two papers.”

“But I haven’t so much money in the house,” Lady Deland protested.

“Draw it from the bank,” said Nance curtly. “There still is time.”

“Where am I to go with you?”

“To a house a few miles from the city.”

Lady Deland demurred over that, pretending that she feared to do so, and she wound up with insisting that she would go only in her own touring car, in company with her maid and chauffeur.

Nancy Selig objected strongly to that, and for several minutes the argument between the two women continued, but the outlook for success finally overcame Nancy’s objections.

“Well, I agree to that, then,” she said, with a threatening frown. “But you’re not to leave me, or have any talk with them that I cannot hear. I’ll ride with you and go into the bank with you. I’ll not stand for any monkey business, you can bet on that.”

“There will be no monkey business, whatever that is,” said Lady Deland coldly.

“Call your maid here, then, and give her your directions,” snapped Nancy. “Send for the chauffeur, too, so we can make a quick get-away.”

Lady Deland touched a bell on the library table.

Nick entered from the hall half a minute later.

“Send my maid, Hawley,” said Lady Deland; Nance constantly watching her.

“Yes, your ladyship,” bowed Nick.

Another half minute brought Patsy Garvan into the room, so cleverly made up as a girl as to have deceived the most discerning observer.

“Put on your outside garments, Lucy, and bring mine to the front hall,” said Lady Deland.

“Yes, madame,” said Patsy demurely.

“Also tell Hawley to send James to the front door with the touring car,” added Lady Deland. “I want both of you to go with me for a few hours.”

“Yes, madame.”

Patsy bowed and withdrew.

Nick already was on his way to the garage.

Lady Deland opened her desk in the library and removed a bank book.

“Now, woman, I am ready,” she said coldly.

She was not more ready than Nancy Selig, who now felt sure that she was not being tricked.

Five minutes later the touring car, driven by Nick, with Patsy on the seat beside him and with Lady Deland and Nance in the tonneau, sped away from the house and turned toward the business section of the city.

Nick had been quietly informed as to the bank and its location, at which they arrived twenty minutes later, and into which Nancy accompanied Lady Deland, leaving the supposed chauffeur and maid in the car.

“Gee! this looks like soft walking, chief, now,” remarked Patsy, while they waited.

“Quite so,” Nick replied. “I think we shall land the goods and arrest the gang. That woman hasn’t even the ghost of a suspicion.”

Nick was right.

With crafty foresight, bent upon not arriving at the road house until just after dark, Nancy Selig directed the supposed chauffeur over a roundabout course that thus served her purpose.

It was between five and six when the light from the touring car swerved quickly from the woodland road, and the car itself ran noiselessly in toward the shed and stable back of the road house.

“Come!” Nance said quietly, quickly alighting and addressing Lady Deland. “You two servants stay here.”

Nick Carter bowed, standing at the door he had alighted to open.

Lady Deland started to get out of the car.

Then came a crash from within the house, the thud of a fallen body, and then the fierce and furious shouts of Andy Margate, every word of which reached the detective’s ears.

Nick turned like a flash and seized Nancy Selig by the throat.

“Handcuffs, Patsy,” he muttered. “Be quick. Chick is here before us.”

Patsy was out and at work before the last was said, and in thirty seconds Nancy Selig was lying on the ground, manacled hand and foot.

Lady Deland was nearly fainting, but neither detective noticed her.

Both rushed to the back door, still ajar and showing a beam of light.

Nick was the first to reach and open it, dashing into the hall, revolver in hand. He saw Chick on the floor, the four men above him, and the hand of Andy Margate raised with a revolver to beat out the fallen detective’s brains.

Nick fired on the instant, and the bullet went true.

Margate pitched forward in a heap, with an ounce of lead in his brain, and instant consternation and dismay fell upon his three confederates.

“Hands up, you fellows, or there’ll be another corpse here,” Nick cried sternly, with the rascals effectively covered. “Look after Chick, Patsy. I can attend to these rats.”

The “rats” did not dare to show fight. They yielded with curses and imprecations, and within ten more minutes the case was practically ended. All were secured, followed later by Zeke Selig’s wife, and the entire family went to prison for a term of years for their work of that night.

Andy Margate did not revive from the dose Nick Carter had given him, as he had from that taken from his own hand. This time, indeed, he was as dead as a doornail.

The document, as well as the property stolen from Senator Barclay, were easily found and restored to proper hands, and the circumstances were never even dreamed of by Sir Edward Deland, much to the relief and gratitude of the beautiful girl whom Nick had served so cleverly.

He went even farther than that, moreover, interceding with a local judge for the medical students, with the result that their transgression was never made public, and the Dabney Medical College escaped without a smirch on its reputation.

So the strange case ended to the satisfaction of all--save the knaves responsible for it.

THE END.

“The Mark of Cain; or, Nick Carter’s Air-line Case,” will be the title of the long, complete story which you will find in the next issue, No. 148, of the NICK CARTER STORIES, out July 10th. You will also find several other articles of interest, together with the usual installment of the serial now running.

Sheridan of the U. S. Mail.

By RALPH BOSTON.