CHAPTER XVII.

WHAT NICK CARTER KNEW.

For two days Nick Carter and his assistants tried to find T. Burton Potter, but without result.

Chick had not been able to follow the man who escaped from the third-story window of Louden Powers’ house. In the darkness and among the crooked streets that run west from Sixth Avenue, in the neighborhood of Jefferson Market, it was not difficult for a quick-moving fellow like Potter to elude even such a keen pursuer as Chick.

Nick did not reproach Chick for his ill success. After his first disappointment, the famous detective took his usual philosophical view of the set-back. He never mourned over what could not be helped.

It was on the evening of the second day, while Chick and Garvan both were out, trying to get some clew to the whereabouts of the much-wanted Potter, that Nick strolled over to the East Side, and dropped into a rather pretentious saloon—one of the kind that calls itself a “café”—in Third Avenue.

The detective had not disguised himself in the ordinary sense. But he wore a cap, instead of his usual well-brushed hat of latest style, and he had on a long raincoat, which concealed the rest of his attire. It had been raining a little, which gave him an excuse for the raincoat.

There were a number of men in the large, overdecorated barroom, and it was easy for him to step up to the bar and order a Scotch highball without being observed particularly.

He sipped his highball slowly, while his keen eyes gazed over the rim of his glass, taking in the whole assemblage, one by one.

At last he picked out a rather burly man, who was sitting at a table by himself, with an evening paper held up so that only occasional glimpses of his face could be obtained. One of those glimpses had told him who the man was.

“Andrew Lampton!” he breathed softly. “And, in the same person, my old friend, Joe Stokes! I thought I might catch him here. That is the advantage of having friends in the underworld.”

He strode over to the table, and looked over the top of the paper, and said, in low, distinct tones:

“Lampton, I want you!”

The man made a quick movement toward his side pocket. As he did so, the muzzle of an automatic pistol broke its way through the paper, and he kept his hand still.

“All right! I cave!” he growled. “Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know me,” was the detective’s reply. “But I believe you do. Wait a moment!”

Dexterously, Nick dipped into the coat pocket from which Lampton had meant to take something, and from it lifted a businesslike automatic.

“Any more besides this, Andrew?”

“A knife in my inside waistcoat pocket,” he replied briefly. “It’s in a sheath. Take it out if you like, but I don’t mean to use it.”

“It would be foolish if you did,” returned Nick. “Anyhow, I’m not here to arrest you. I want to talk business.”

“Why didn’t you say so at first?”

“I haven’t had time to say anything, first or last,” rejoined the detective. “Have you anything on for to-night?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, you may as well pick up that bundle of money you’ve just dropped under the table. We can burn it later.”

Andrew Lampton grinned and picked up a roll of counterfeit bills which had been noticed by the sharp eyes of the detective as soon as they were put on the floor.

“Can’t fool you, Mr. Carter!”

“Not on some things, I hope. We are going to my house. Any of your pals in this house?”

“Not that I know of. Some of them were taken in the raid in Jersey City the other night, and the others are lying low for the present. I wasn’t in that thing, but I heard about it.”

“I supposed you would,” said Nick, with a smile. “Where’s T. Burton Potter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell the truth, Lampton.”

“I am telling it. Potter has vanished, and there isn’t any of the gang know where he is exactly.”

“Well, come on. We’ll walk across. You don’t mind the exercise, do you?”

Nick asked this question as politely as if he had been addressing some intimate friend. Lampton grinned, as he answered, with equal courtesy:

“Not at all, I assure you. It will give me pleasure, especially with an agreeable companion.”

They strolled out of the café together, and any person who observed them might have said they were on the best of terms. Nobody would have suspected that Carter was keeping a sharp eye on the smiling man at his side, and that he would have used his pistol if that had been necessary to prevent his running away.

But nothing of the kind happened. Andrew Lampton chatted on the topics of the day—the theaters, politics, literature, and so forth. He did not mention criminal matters, nor speak of anything that might have the slightest bearing on his own favorite occupation, “shoving the queer.” And yet the roll of phony notes was still in his pocket, waiting to be burned as soon as they should be in Nick’s home.

Once seated in the library, in an easy-chair, Lampton handed the bills to the detective. The latter placed them in a small brazier, and, with the aid of a certain chemical, reduced them to ashes in an infinitesimal space of time—much quicker than he could have done it with simple fire.

“Rather a pity to see such good stuff burned up,” remarked Andrew Lampton, with a wry smile, as he began to puff on the perfecto Nick had passed to him. “I don’t think better hundreds and fifties were ever turned out, even in Washington.”

“It would have been more of a pity if they had been left in your pocket,” answered the detective. “They might have meant a five years’ stretch for you in a Federal prison.”

“That’s immaterial,” laughed Lampton. “I expect to be taken in sooner or later, if I stay in the game. It’s only a question of time. Now, what do you want me for?”

“I want those papers you took out of Howard Milmarsh’s trunk in Maple, for the first thing.”

“Go on,” said Lampton, smoking comfortably. “What next?”

“You are to go on with that trick you have arranged with Louden Powers, to beat Howard Milmarsh out of his fortune. You got the idea while you were in the Northwest, the night we chased you through the window.”

“I didn’t know it was you who did it,” snarled Lampton, frowning for the first time. “What do you know about Louden Powers and me?”

“Everything!” was the quick reply. “You were to see him to-night, at eleven o’clock. You’ll keep that appointment, and, if you are wise, you won’t tell him that you saw me this evening. Now, where is Potter?”

“I don’t know! Curse him!”

There could be no doubt of the sincerity with which Andrew Lampton uttered this malediction. Carter was sure the fellow did not know what had become of the man who seemed to be as slippery as a greased pig.

“Give me those papers belonging to Howard Milmarsh. They are of no use to you now.”

“How do you know?” grinned Lampton, recovering his equanimity a little. “A man with those letters and other documents would have no difficulty in proving himself the real Howard Milmarsh, especially when nature had made them so much alike that it is difficult to tell one from the other.”

“Give me the papers!” repeated Nick, apparently undisturbed by what the other had said. “I shall produce the real Howard Milmarsh when the time comes, never fear.”

“I don’t know now what you’ve brought me up here for,” complained Lampton wearily. “I’ve had a pleasant smoke—this cigar is excellent—but I would rather have been left alone, to spend my evening in my own way. What is the game?”

“I’ll tell you,” replied Nick, leaning easily back in his chair and placing the end of his cigar in an ash tray. “It’s a pretty story, and some people would call it a romance.”

“Drive on!”

“Howard Milmarsh disappeared a few years ago, just after his father died. Howard did not know of his father’s death, but he knows of it now. He hesitates to come back and claim his estate for reasons I need not repeat.”

“No, you need not repeat them,” broke out Lampton. “I know them well enough. Keep on talking.”

“So you and your rascally friend, Louden Powers, decided to produce a Howard Milmarsh, who might claim the property, giving you and Powers each a fair share—or what you would consider a fair share—of the estate.”

“That’s nonsense, Mr. Carter. Who’d believe such a wild tale as that?”

“I would, when I have proof—and I have that,” rejoined the detective. “The real Howard Milmarsh has changed considerably in experience in the years he has been away. You know that, because you saw him at Maple, and you’ve seen him elsewhere. It struck you that you knew a man who looked so much like him that he might pass for the missing heir if he were carefully coached.”

“Who is the man?”

“T. Burton Potter,” was the swift reply of the detective.

“Pooh!”

“That is the man,” went on Nick, disregarding the contemptuous ejaculation. “I don’t care how you may try to pretend otherwise. I _know_. He is so much like Howard Milmarsh, that, in the first few moments that I saw him, I was actually not sure myself. But soon I saw him doing things that I knew would be impossible to the man you want him to impersonate, and, besides, there are minute points of difference which anybody who knew Howard Milmarsh as well as I would distinguish immediately.”

“T. Burton Potter is a gentleman of leisure, I’ve been told,” grinned Andrew Lampton. “But as for his being like Howard Milmarsh, I don’t know anything about that.”

“I don’t mind your being a liar, Lampton,” retorted Nick quietly. “But I wish you would not pretend to be a stupid one. Did I not tell you that I _know_?”

“Why do you want me to go and see Louden Powers to-night?”

The question came abruptly. Andrew Lampton had seen that it would be useless to continue his bluffing tactics with the detective.

“Go and see him and find out, if you can, where T. Burton Potter is. I want him. And, before you go, give me those letters and papers. You can’t use them now, and Louden Powers might try to take them from you if he knew they were in your pocket.”

“Looks to me as if this game were about up,” commented Lampton, as he handed over the bundle of papers. “There they are! Just as I got them from the trunk. I’ll have to depend on your good nature now.”

“If you help me with this case, I’ll wipe everything off the slate to date,” replied Nick. “Of course, what you may do afterward is at your own risk.”

“I’ll go and see Powers,” promised Lampton, rising from his chair. “But I don’t believe he knows where Potter is. By the way, what earthly use is T. Burton Potter to you, if he is not the real Howard Milmarsh?”

“I think Potter knows where Howard is,” answered Flint. “He is a pretty slick scoundrel, and can keep a secret. But I think I can swing some influence with him, considering what I have found out about him.”

“Ah! I tumble,” laughed Lampton. “Another thing I wanted to ask you. When you were chasing him so hard on the night of the raid, didn’t you, honest, believe he was the real Howard Milmarsh?”

“I did at first. I’ve already told you that.”

“And when did you find out that he wasn’t?”

“That’s my own private business,” rejoined the detective. “Report to me here to-morrow night. That’s all.”

He pointed to the door as a sign of dismissal.

“You’re not afraid that I’ll work up some scheme against you, or beat it for parts unknown?” asked Lampton, smiling. “You seem to feel sure I’ll obey your orders.”

“I think you have too much regard for your own good to do otherwise,” answered the detective, without looking up from the letter he was reading.