CHAPTER XII.

NICK SPRINGS A SURPRISE.

During all this excitement, Patsy was trying to find out where Chick was.

Patsy had found Nick and Lieutenant Brockton, in charge of the squad that was to take part in the raid, sitting in the captain’s room, smoking and wondering how long it would be before Chick would give them the signal.

They had expected it by telephone—that having been the orders to Chick—and the lieutenant hardly ever took his eyes off the instrument on the desk before him.

When Patsy came bounding in, after a brief explanation to the sergeant behind the desk, Nick was glad his young assistant had taken this course. It enabled Nick, as well as the lieutenant, to get a better idea of the situation than if they had had it over a wire. Besides, this way made it certain there could not be any “leak.”

Lieutenant Brockton did not quite like putting himself and the policemen told off to him under the orders of Nick Carter. But the detective would not consent to any other arrangement, and the lieutenant was obliged to comply. He could not afford to antagonize Carter, who seemed to have a knowledge of everything in the underworld, although he never boasted of it.

As they hurried to the house on foot—for Nick would not allow the use of a patrol wagon, which would have attracted general attention—Patsy gave the detective a very good idea of the general plan of the house.

“It’s just a few little things that ought to make it easier to put one over on the gang,” he explained. “You can’t know too much about a house when you are going to get in suddenlike,” he added, with his usual good-humored grin.

“You’re quite right, Patsy,” agreed Nick. “And, as you say, the point we have to look out for particularly is at the back. They might go scooting over the back fence and get away by the other street.”

Lieutenant Brockton stationed a couple of his youngest and most agile men in the back yard. They were down the alley at the side, and climbed over the side fence.

A third man was placed in the alley, to remain there, and two more went into the front yard, below the level of the street. It was one of these two who afterward distinguished himself by capturing Chick.

The remaining three men, with the lieutenant and Nick Carter, went into the house, going in by the front yard door, which Chick had carefully left unfastened, as has been described.

Carter was in the lead. He pushed open the door in the yard without difficulty, and swiftly mounted to the floor above, where the artists in rascality were at work.

They found the room at once. It was the only one which showed a light under the door. Listening intently, they made out voices and the click of tools inside.

“Now,” whispered Nick to the men behind him. “Follow close when I open the door. Don’t give them time to rally from their first surprise! Get all that?”

“We have it,” grunted the lieutenant. “Drive on, Carter!”

The detective turned the handle without any sound, and flung the door wide open.

“Drop everything!” he commanded, in sharp, metallic tones.

He had stepped into the room as coolly as if he lived there. The lieutenant and his men were on his heels, and they were prepared to subdue any of the operators who might show signs of resistance.

For a moment there was nothing of the kind. The surprise was complete. The advent of the detective and his men had been like a thunderbolt dropped into this hive of misdirected industry.

The two men still at work on the polished plates at the bench leaped up as if their chairs had suddenly become red-hot. The fellow who had been examining and passing upon the spurious bills sprang into the middle of the room. With the movement, he scattered thousands of dollars’ worth of phony money, like leaves in a wintry gale. At the same time he grunted a fierce but futile oath.

“Don’t make any fuss, gentlemen!” begged Nick blandly. “You are all prisoners! Lieutenant, you and your men attend to these parties. I have something else to look after.”

“All right, Carter.” Then, to the prisoners, the lieutenant went on: “The house is covered, back and front. Don’t try to make a get-away. If you do, some of you will get hurt, as sure as you’re here!”

“Here! Quit that!” shouted Nick. “Look out, lieutenant!”

The detective had seen one of the raided counterfeiters reaching for an iron bar under the bench, and he gave instant warning. None of the others had noticed the movement, but the detective had sharp eyes and sharp wits. He was not to be fooled by any such attempt as this.

Without waiting for the lieutenant or his men to take action, Nick sprang upon the rascal even as he shouted. By the time Brockton and his men had hurled themselves into the fracas, Nick had taken away the bar of iron, and the man who had wielded it was lying on his back.

But Nick did not give much time to this little incident. He disposed of it as a matter of course, and, having seen that the man was in the hands of two of the policemen, he turned to the rocker in which the elegant T. Burton Potter still slumbered as sweetly as if he had been in a comfortable bed in a silent room. He seemed to have heard nothing of the noise of the raid.

“This will end a puzzling case,” muttered the detective, as he pushed his way through the struggling men—for all of the bench workers were at grips with the police by this time. “Who would have expected this? If I can only get to him before he wakes, why I can——”

But Nick was not to have so much luck. The man who called himself T. Burton Potter was a very wide-awake young man, indeed, when once he _was_ awake. At a glance he saw what had occurred. He knew there was a police raid, and he did not want to stay and see how it would come out. He preferred to find his way out himself.

“Deuce take him!” muttered Nick. “He always was as quick as a cat! If he’d only stand still for a second, he’d save me a great deal of trouble—and himself, too.”

But T. Burton Potter did not see it that way. Leaping from his chair, he swung it around, so that it would be right in the detective’s way, and pushed in between the bench and press.

Nick was not foiled by the chair, however. Agile as a panther, he placed one hand lightly on the back of the chair, and vaulted completely over it, at the same moment stretching forth a hand to seize Potter.

But Potter had vaulted over the table and was through the doorway before the detective could get him, notwithstanding that he leaped over the table just the splinter of a second behind the man he wanted to capture.

But the rascal’s luck was with him. He reached the top of a long flight of stairs to the basement, and went down them in a huddled heap, part of the time on his feet, and the rest of it rolling down like a ball.

Again Carter was so close to him that he almost had him, when a big man, with a knife in his hand, rushed up from the bottom, and came right between them.

It was the man Chick had seen trimming off the plaster molds in the old kitchen, while the metal boiled on the stove that had so nearly been the death of Carter’s principal assistant.

“Look out, Davis! The cops!” bellowed T. Burton Potter. “It’s a raid! Hand him one! Croak him!”

The big man, whose name, it seemed, was Davis, made a lunge at Nick with his long, dirty knife.

The detective was too quick for him, however. Dodging the knife stroke, he feinted with his right fist, and then sent his left straight into Davis’ face, between the eyes.

The blow was a magnificent one from a boxer’s point of view. Not only did it send Davis down the few stairs up which he had come, but it drove him six or eight feet along the hall.

It was not altogether satisfactory to Nick, however. He had to dispose of the big man, of course. But, in the meantime, T. Burton Potter was getting away.

Flying up the stairs, three at a time, the elegant-appearing crook ran into the first room he came to, which looked over the back yard.

Skipping to the window, he unlatched the sash and threw it wide open. He intended to drop out to the back yard. But just as he was ready to do so, he saw two officers waiting to receive him, and he ran back into the room.

“Euchred that way!” he muttered. “But I don’t know. There are others. They haven’t landed me yet.”

By this time Nick was at the doorway. He was just in time to see Potter’s head and shoulders in outline against the dim light of the window, and made a spring to make him prisoner.

There was a derisive chuckle, and Potter slithered around the dark walls of the room. The next moment, as Nick advanced to the center of the chamber, Potter had slipped out of the door.

“Confound the fellow! I almost had him!” exclaimed Nick, in a low tone, and half inclined to laugh at the slipperiness of the fellow. “He’s gone! Well, I’ll have to begin all over again. If he knew what I wanted him for, perhaps it would be different. But I can’t tell him till I’ve had a chance to talk to him and make a few notes for comparison.”