CHAPTER XVIII.

A LOVELY SCRAP.

For half an hour after the departure of Andrew Lampton, the detective sat at his table, reading letters and other papers, and occasionally making notes for answers to be returned or business to be done. He was a very busy man, and he was essentially methodical. Efficiency was his watchword, as it is that of most successful men.

“If I can get hold of this Potter, it won’t be long before I shall be able to trace Howard Milmarsh. It is absurd for a young man to remain out of his home and birthright for a mere idea. That Howard is somewhere in New York I am convinced. I am inclined to think this fellow Lampton knows also. If I were sure of it, he never would have left my house to-night. As it is, I must have patience.”

He lighted a cigar and smoked reflectively for ten minutes. Then, suddenly, there was a sharp tap at his door, and Chick came in, followed by Patsy Garvan. The faces of both indicated that they had news.

“I guess we’ve found T. Burton Potter!” cried Chick. “Although I never expected to see him settle down seriously to work.”

“What’s he working at?”

“He’s doing some kind of clerical work in Partrom’s steel works, in Harlem.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite. I saw him in the yard, moving about among the men. He was in a business suit, but he didn’t seem afraid to get his hands dirty. I saw him lifting some black timbers out of the way when he wanted to get to another part of the yard, and he helped some men to shove a truck along the rails when it got stalled.”

“Well, Potter is a well-built, powerful fellow,” observed Nick. “And we know he can jump. The way he went across that alley on the roofs would have stamped him an athlete without anything else.”

“He’ll need to be an athlete up there at Partrom’s,” put in Patsy. “I heard that a lot of the men are down on a certain foreman up there, and that Potter is taking his side against the others. That generally means a fight with a rough set of men like those at Partrom’s.”

“I suppose Potter works only in the daytime?” asked Nick.

“No. He’s on the night shift. You could get at him right now if you wanted to go up there.”

“I do want to go up there, and now,” interrupted the chief. “We’ll use the big car. Telephone the chauffeur to bring it around right away.”

While Patsy telephoned the chauffeur to come around with the big racing car that Nick used when he was in a great hurry to get anywhere, the detective put away his papers and got up, ready to go.

He wore the cap he had on when he went to the café after Andrew Lampton, but not the raincoat. He had given Lampton back his pistol, but he had his own in his pocket, although he did not expect to have to use it. But, then, he never did expect to use a weapon when he went out. If there were a fight, it was pretty sure to start up all in a hurry, without preliminaries.

The big car took them up to within four blocks of Partrom’s big steel mill and then Nick told his assistants to get out and walk the remainder of the distance with him.

“Stay here till we come back,” he directed his chauffeur.

It did not take the three long to get to the front gates of the mill. When they reached there, they found a lively scene, that none of them had anticipated. The yard was full of fighting men.

“What’s it all about?” asked Chick of the nearest man, who seemed to be trying to break into the row without knowing just whom to hit. “Who’s fighting?”

“Everybody!” howled the man. “It’s that guy, Gordon, who’s got the thing going. He and Douglas.”

Nick remembered that Milmarsh had assumed the name of Robert Gordon when working in the lumber woods at Maple, and he recalled also that there had been a foreman named Douglas out there. He wondered whether this was merely a coincidence, or whether it had some special significance.

There was no time for speculation on anything, however. The detective could see that about a dozen men were aiming at one young fellow, who, broad-shouldered and active as he was, found it difficult to stand off all his assailants at once.

The young man backed away from the crowd—not in haste or with any show of fear, however. As he came nearer to Carter and his two assistants, they were able to see his face in the red glow of the mill.

“T. Burton Potter!” cried Chick.

“That’s who it is!” agreed Patsy.

“Howard Milmarsh or his wraith!” breathed Nick.

Until now he had been a little doubtful as to the identity of T. Burton Potter, although his mind was pretty nearly made up. But he felt sure that this clean-limbed young man, who used his fists so scientifically, could not be any one but the heir to the Milmarsh fortune.

“Come on, boys!” cried Nick to his two assistants. “We’ll have to take a hand in this.”

Bob Gordon, as he chose to call himself, was holding back his foes with considerable skill and pluck, but one pair of fists, no matter how well they are employed, cannot do much good against twenty pairs.

The men opposing him did not care much about fair play. All they wanted was to beat down this bold young man, who set at defiance the whole crowd, and defended the name of the absent foreman, Douglas, with a courage worthy of one with eight generations of American blood in his veins.

Some of the men were trying to pin down Gordon’s arms so that he would have no driving room, while some of the others, reaching over, struck viciously at his head with their fists, knowing he could not reach them when hemmed in so thoroughly.

“They’ll be taking iron bars to him after a while, I guess, chief!” remarked Patsy. “Let’s get into this!”

Nick was already into it. A finished boxer, the detective bestowed a scientific tap here and there on the faces and necks of those who were crowding Gordon, thus compelling them to give him breathing room.

At this moment, Chick caught a mean-looking fellow trying to sneak in an uppercut on Gordon’s undefended face, while he was busy with half a dozen others.

“I reckon I’ll just hand you this!” observed Chick.

As he spoke, he sent a good, hard crack to the sneak’s chin, doubling him up like a jackknife, and sending him backward at full length. Chick’s jab had been a “rock me to sleep,” as Patsy expressed it.

“Keep back, some of you!” shouted Nick in a tone of thunder. “Twenty against one! Aren’t you men? You can’t be Americans, or you wouldn’t act like cowards!”

His taunt may have shamed one or two of the better sort. But, as a matter of fact, there were very few Americans in the mob. The effect of this speech was to bring half a dozen of the big fellows—ironworkers, and, therefore, powerful—against the detective.

These men had a rough idea of how to use their fists, and they pressed hard against Nick, who had to bring all his skill into play to defend himself. It was a lively battle, and the shouts of boys, girls, and men and women outside, together with the squeal of a police whistle, helped to make it more so.

Bob Gordon might have backed out now and got away if he had chosen to do so. He had a sprained wrist, and his wind had been mostly knocked out of him. But he came up to the side of Nick, anyhow.

Chick and Patsy were both fighting like heroes. But the weight of numbers was beginning to tell. There were too many for these four, especially with one of them practically disabled. It began to look dubious for Nick’s side.

It was at this moment that a tall, rawboned man of about thirty, in a blue sweater, who had been driving past the gateway on a truck, saw what was going on inside the yard, and decided that it was the place for him to break in.

He swung off his truck and hurled himself through the gateway as if he had been sent for. He was a big, two-fisted truckman, with a natural love of fighting, which had had plenty of encouragement in many a combat with other truckmen, and with rough-and-tumble battlers among longshoremen on the various water fronts.

“Come on, you dubs!” he bellowed. “Catch ’em as I hand ’em out. Take ’em anywhere you like—on your chin, in your eye, on the nose, or anywhere. They’re all free, and every one is warranted full weight and hundred per cent the real thing!”

Evidently overjoyed at the prospect of a scrap that might last for an hour, the big truckman, whose arms were long and his fists like wooden mallets, ranged himself alongside Nick and his forces, and soon turned the tide of battle.

Five minutes later it looked like a regular rout for the enemy.

But, just as the big truckman was beginning really to enjoy himself, the police arrived in force, and Nick whispered to Chick to “Get Patsy and come along. I don’t want to have to explain to the police now. Where’s that man Gordon?”

“I’m afraid he’s gone,” replied Chick. “I didn’t see him get away, but that’s what he’s done.”

“Too bad!” exclaimed the chief, allowing his chagrin to have voice for once. “We had him right here, and now he’s gone.”

“Well, anyhow, it was a lovely scrap!” chuckled Patsy, tenderly feeling a bump over his left eye. “Did you see who that truckman was? It was Bonesy Billings, who used to be a butcher in Fourth Avenue, and who always brought your meat. I guess he recognized you, and that’s what brought him into the fight.”

“It was not only that,” added Chick. “I heard him say that Gordon roomed at his house, and that he’d lick anybody who touched a roomer of his.”

“Do you know where Bonesy Billings lives?” asked Nick.

“No. But I’ll bet I can find out,” replied Patsy. “Bonesy has driven away now, or I’d ask him.”

“Well, if he lives in this neighborhood—as I suppose he does—we ought to get track of him. Look him up to-morrow, Patsy, and we’ll call on him in the evening. He may hold the key to the mystery we are trying to probe.”

“You mean the finding of Howard Milmarsh?” asked Chick.

“That’s it exactly,” replied the chief. “I am tired of this fooling. I want the case off my hands. Come along! Let’s get home.”