Chapter VIII: Face to Face

Nick Carter’s feelings upon seeing the sudden display of animosity by Pete Henley were not manifest in his face. He gazed at the swarthy ruffian with hardly a change of countenance, apparently indifferent to the double-barreled gun with which he was covered.

“What’s the joke, Henley?” he asked coolly.

The ruffian had murder in his eyes, and looked as black and threatening as a thundercloud.

“You’re the joke, Carter, if there’s any joke to it,” he replied, with a snarl. “You’ve barked up the wrong tree and tackled the wrong bunch. Stick up your hands, and be quick about it.”

“Certainly, Henley, since you insist so politely,” Nick rejoined, raising his hands as high as his head.

“Keep them there, now.”

“But you might answer my question, at least, and explain this sudden change of attitude on your part.”

“You’ll know soon enough,” was the reply, followed by a short, sharp whistle.

Ginger did not respond to it. He had disappeared around a corner of the house.

Instead, the back door was quickly opened and two roughly clad men appeared on the threshold, both still under thirty. One of them instantly darted back through the hall, and Nick heard him shout to another in one of the adjoining rooms.

Henley, meantime, growled harshly, with his evil eyes constantly on the detective:

“Come out here, Foster, and get behind the dick. Feel under his coat and get his guns. Kneel down while doing it, so I’ll not hit you. I’ll plug him, all right, if he moves a finger.”

“There will be no occasion, Henley, you rat,” Nick now said sternly. “I value a whole skin too highly to take any chance against that blunderbuss in such hands as yours. I see, now, that you have served me a scurvy trick. Go as far as you like.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” snapped Henley. “I’m on the way. Got ’em, Bill?”

“Both of ’em, Jim,” returned Foster, who had hurriedly disarmed the detective and was threatening him with his two weapons. “Who is he?”

“Nick Carter.”

“Thunder! Where did you run up against him? If he----”

“You’re to bring him in, Jim,” cut in the man who had briefly vanished, and now returned to the open door. “His jags says----”

“Is he out here, Brigham?” Henley interrupted, with countenance clearing.

“Sure. Been here ten minutes.”

“That’s more like it,” cried Henley. “He can now take the ribbons. Get a move on, Carter, and--stop a bit!”

Nick halted.

“Feel again, Foster, and fish out his irons. Snap them on his own wrists, hands behind him, as he will on ours if he gets a chance.”

“You’ve told the truth once, Henley, at least,” Nick put in dryly.

“But you’ll never get the chance,” Henley retorted. “Dukes down and behind you, Carter, or I’ll pull the trigger.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Nick, obeying. “Point the gun another way. It might go off by chance.”

Henley heard the snap of handcuffs around Nick’s wrists and saw Foster straighten up after having secured him, and he then lowered the shotgun and grinned maliciously.

“You thought you were the real thing, didn’t you, Carter?” he demanded. “Get a move on and I’ll show you what you’re up against and where you stand.”

“I can guess.”

“Into the shack, and no funny business, mind you, or you’ll hear something drop, if you live until you hit the floor. Lead the way, Brigham. Where’s his jags?”

“In the dining room, Jim.”

“Head that way. Plug along, Carter, where he leads.”

Nick felt the prod of the ruffian’s gun in the small of his back, but he had no intention of offering any objection. He followed Brigham into the house, a stocky, ill-favored fellow with fiery-red hair, and in another moment he heard the door closed and locked behind him.

The hall was dim when the sunlight was thus excluded. It ran straight through the spacious old colonial house to the front door. A broad, but angular stairway led up to the second floor. There was a damp and musty smell in the long-closed dwelling, and the rooms on each side of the broad hall looked dusty, gloomy, and deserted.

The exception, in the last respect, was the large dining room into which the detective was conducted by the three crooks.

That room contained only one occupant, however; the man in search of whom Chick Carter had left the Gordon residence more than an hour before--Mr. Edgar Hereford Dayton.

He was seated in one of the leather upholstered chairs, pushed back from the polished table. He did not appear disturbed by what had occurred or by the advent of the detective upon the scene, though he gazed at Nick curiously when he entered, flecking the ashes from the end of a cigarette.

His overcoat and hat were lying on a chair near the wall, and near it stood a closed leather suit case.

Nick Carter identified him instantly as Dayton--and somewhat more than that when he spoke.

Henley was the first to open fire, however, addressing Dayton and saying gruffly, the moment he entered:

“You’d better clean out that town office, old sport, or fight shy from it now on. I reckon this dick has sent his right bower to keep an eye on it. Leastwise, I don’t see where else he would have sent him in such a rush.”

Nick suppressed a smile. It amused him to find that Henley was a bit more discerning than he had thought him.

Dayton appeared unmoved by Henley’s announcement and advice. He glanced at the suit case mentioned, then responded with a curious mingling of coolness and assurance that Nick was quick to remember:

“He is welcome, Henley, to inspect that office. It already is cleaned out of all that would interest him. Suppose, instead of giving me needless advice, you tell me just what this meddlesome fellow is after, and what he has been doing.”

“By Jove, I’m not mistaken,” was the thought then in Nick’s mind. “This rascal has even more strings to his bow than I suspected.”

“That’s quickly told----” Henley began to reply.

“But better told first hand,” Nick cut in curtly, with his gaze intently fixed on the man he addressed. “I’ll give you the information you want. I’ll tell you what I’m after and what I’ve been doing.”

“Ah!” Dayton spoke with an icy drawl. “Better first hand, indeed, as you say. I do not yet place you, however, nor----”

“Oh, a truce to subterfuge,” Nick again interrupted curtly.

“Subterfuge?”

“You know me perfectly well--but not better than I know you.”

“Indeed?”

“You place me, all right, as I sooner or later will again place you where you belong.” Nick went on sternly, disregarding the other’s queries. “A wig, a beard, a reverse curve of the eyebrows, a more florid skin, an altered voice--it takes more than those to blind me, though you might get by others. Fly your true colors, Mr. Mortimer Deland, and I’ll tell you what I am after and what I’ve been doing.”

“Ah! That is a great inducement, so great that I find myself utterly unable to resist it.”

Deland replied with unruffled composure. He drew up a little in his chair, gazed steadily at the detective for a moment, then raised his slender white hands to his head, deftly removing the exceedingly artistic disguise which Nick alone had been able to penetrate, and which had fairly transfigured the mobile, sinister, clean-cut, yet strangely effeminate features of--Mortimer Deland.

Jim Henley and the two frowning crooks near by evinced no surprise nor made any comments. That Deland was the master, and they merely hirelings, was perfectly apparent to the detective.

It appeared obvious, too, that Chick Carter must have arrived too late to have picked up the supposed Dayton before he left his office--a mischance that would seem to have badly aggravated the present desperate situation of the detective.

Deland appeared to think so, too, for he smiled with vicious complacency while he tossed his disguise upon the table, saying with the same frigid voice and insolent assurance which was so characteristic of him that they had at once betrayed him to the detective:

“Now, having met you halfway, Carter, and complied with the stipulation you imposed, it is up to you to perform your part of the brief verbal contract. Sit down, if you prefer; there are plenty of chairs. I regret that I cannot release you, but that would be injudicious for obvious reasons. Tell me, now, as you promised, what are you after and what have you been doing, that my good friend Henley has rounded you up in this fashion?”