CHAPTER XXII.

ANOTHER SCHEME.

The weeks went slowly by, and the patient in the private room at the Universal Hospital remained in the bewildered condition in which he had been since the night of the fire. He improved physically, but his mind was still a blank.

“Have you seen this, chief?” asked Chick one morning, as, after breakfast, he opened the morning paper, which Carter had been too busy to look at yet. “Another scheme to open up a beautiful section in Muddyford or Eden-in-the-Swamp. It’s an advertisement, and it reads like a romance. Listen!”

He read the principal display lines in a full-page advertisement, as follows:

“‘The new Paradise City! Artistic Homes for Everybody, which are paid for the same as rent. A bower in the midst of nature’s loveliness.’ And so on. Get on to that old gag, chief, ‘Paid for the same as rent?’ That’s a lulu.”

“Advertisements of that kind are always in the papers,” remarked Nick carelessly. “Some of those real-estate developments are all right, too. Others are not, of course.”

“I don’t know anything about this one,” went on his assistant. “But I couldn’t help noticing it, because it’s the same one we’ve been getting booklets about. Here’s one that was in the mail box yesterday. It was just shoved through the slit by hand. That’s what makes it look fishy. As if they were afraid to use the mails, in case of government inquiries.”

“You may be wrong about that, Chick,” answered his employer absently, as he lighted his after-breakfast cigar. “What’s the booklet about?”

“Well, the heading looks as if it might possibly interest us. It reads: ‘The Lost Heir Found! The Story of a Great Estate to be Given to the Use and Benefit of Everybody.’”

“What’s that?” demanded Nick, suddenly interested.

“Well, there’s a lot in it about a long-lost heir having suddenly returned and claimed his own. He has traveled far during his years of absence, and, while away, he has made a deep study of country homes for the masses at a low cost. It is a hobby with him.”

“Go on. Are you reading from the book?”

“I am picking out the important parts,” returned Chick. “Do you want to see it? Here it is.”

He handed the gaudy-covered pamphlet to his chief, who rapidly absorbed the salient points of its contents. He had the faculty of skimming pages and getting their purport in a few hasty glances.

One paragraph that particularly interested him explained things in these rather bombastic terms:

“The long-lost heir of this estate—which is within a few miles of New York City—has resolved that some of the broad acres which have now become his shall be surrendered to the people. Upon these acres he will build a model settlement, a city of beautiful homes, each set in a fair garden of its own. To these he invites those who have heretofore been cooped up in city flats to come and live, really, in the lap of bounteous nature. Come to the new Paradise City and see for yourselves.”

The exact situation of the new Paradise City was not given. Those who were interested could call at room No. 2006 in one of the great skyscraping office buildings downtown, and there learn all they might wish to know. It was also stated that a small sum down would be required. After that the property could be paid for in monthly payments.

“There is nothing remarkable about this,” remarked Nick, “except about the long-lost heir. That gives me a feeling that it may be the Milmarsh estate somebody is playing with. I don’t see how it is, exactly, unless some one has seen the attorneys, Johnson, Robertson & Judkins, and persuaded them that Howard Milmarsh has turned up.”

“How can that be?” asked Chick.

“Do you know for certain whether it is T. Burton Potter or Howard Milmarsh lying in that room at the Universal Hospital?”

Nick put this query significantly, and Chick immediately screwed up one eye.

“We might call up the lawyers on the telephone and find out something about it,” he suggested.

“We might. But I prefer to look into it myself. The lawyers will take what evidence is presented, and act upon it. They may have done so already. It looks to me as if they have. If I were to call them up there would be a lot of bustle immediately, and the scoundrels, if they really have tried to steal a march on me, would be on their guard.”

“It’s Lampton, I suppose.”

“And Louden Powers,” added Nick. “I have not much doubt about that. We’ll go up to room No. 2006 in that building and see what we can find out.”

“What are we to look like?” asked the young man, quite as a matter of course.

“I’ll be an old man, in shabby clothes. You can be my son, with spectacles and a cap pulled down low. That will be disguise enough. They would spot us at once if we didn’t do something to change our appearance. I hate to do that kind of thing, but it can’t be helped in this case.”

Half an hour later a feeble old man, in a long, thin overcoat and wearing a soft, black hat with a wide brim, was helped upon a Broadway car by a young man with dark spectacles and wearing a cap. The rest of the young fellow’s apparel was a shabby sack suit and a blue necktie under a frayed collar. His shoes were of tan leather and badly scuffed.

The look of the two suggested that they had a little money saved, but were the kind of people who were obliged to watch their nickels carefully.

They found that there were three offices belonging to the Paradise Improvement Company, although only one was open to the public. It was a sort of anteroom, and there were a number of people waiting to see the big man in the inner office when Nick Carter and his assistant forced their way in through the throng.

“Say, chief!” whispered Chick. “There’s Billings!”

Sure enough, Bonesy Billings was there to purchase a lot at Paradise City. He did not care who heard him talk about his business. He was telling a chance acquaintance that his house had caught fire, but that his furniture was all insured, and he had enough money now to go and live in the country, to raise chickens and garden truck and keep a cow. He figured he could make a fair living that way and wouldn’t have to work as he had in New York.

“I’d like to warn him to be careful,” remarked Chick, in a low tone, to his chief. “He’s just the kind of simple fellow to swallow all that is told him, and I don’t like the general look of these offices. They are too gorgeous to be entirely honest, I’m afraid.”

Bonesy Billings went into the inner sanctum, and after about fifteen minutes came out with a quantity of “literature” in his hands. This consisted of booklets, circulars, statements of what had been done to improve the plots to be sold, and plenty of gay-colored pictures.

“Well, I’m going to look it over,” announced Bonesy, to anybody who would listen. “It’s out in the country, all right, and it’s been a private estate for a hundred years. But it’s such a big place that the present owners can afford to have this Paradise City built in one part of it without its ever being seen from the windows of the big house. The folks in that mansion will be neighbors of them that buys in Paradise. I guess I’ll go up there of evenings and hear the daughter of the family—if there is one—play the pianner. Good old ragtime, I hope.”

“Where is the place?” ventured Chick.

“Why, it’s a family by the name of Milmarsh,” replied Bonesy. “Howard Milmarsh, who has been away for three years or so, is home again, and it’s him that’s laying out this new place. He’s all right, Howard is.”

“Is he inside the offices now?”

“No, I guess not. It’s the manager who does the business. He’s a lawyer, I was told.”

“I’d like to see him,” put in Nick, in a quavering voice. “I hope I shan’t have to wait long.”

There was a note of appeal in this from the seemingly old man that touched the hearts of most of the people waiting to see the manager.

“Let him go in first. I’m willing,” declared a man who evidently was one who worked hard with his hands, and who was the next in line. “If everybody else is agreeable, let the old gentleman go right in.”

There was no dissent, and Chick, taking his chief by the elbow, propelled him into the inner office.

Three persons were in the room, but none of them were known to the detective or Chick.

“Too slick to give themselves away,” whispered the latter, as they entered. “I half expected to see Louden Powers or Lampton.”

“They are in the background, I guess,” was the hasty reply.

They advanced into the large room, and Nick bowed humbly to a portly, dignified man behind the large table. On either side of him were younger men, who appeared to be assistants. There was a typewriter in front of one of them.

It would be tedious to describe the interview in detail. Suffice it that when Nick and his assistant came out of the offices, they had a bundle of circulars and booklets, and had learned positively that somebody who called himself Howard Milmarsh had taken possession of the estate.

One thing rather relieved Nick, and that was the admission from the big man behind the desk that Mr. Milmarsh had not formally taken possession of his property yet. There were some legal matters to be adjusted, he said, which might take a month or more. But Mr. Milmarsh was selling plots now, with the understanding that buildings would begin after the settlement of his estate.

“It’s a swindle, of course. But it is in the hands of good lawyers, and they know just how to smooth over the rough places for their clients,” remarked Nick. “I should like to see Lampton.”

Little more was said until the two were again at home. They had not used the street cars this time. Chick caught a passing taxi, and they rode quickly home.

“Let Patsy run over to that café and find out something about Andrew Lampton. I understand he has lost sight of him in the last three weeks.”

“Well, you did not want him to spend any more time watching the fellow,” Chick reminded him.

“I know that. We traced him to a hotel uptown, and he was living there till three weeks ago. Then he vanished, and I did not think it worth while to trouble Patsy about it any longer.”

Chick looked at his chief in a peculiar way. He felt convinced that there was something passing in the detective’s mind that he had not chosen to divulge. He was right, as his next words showed.

“I had information that he was in the neighborhood of the Milmarsh home. Captain Brown is an old friend of mine. I telephoned him, and he said a man who did not give his name, but who, he since has learned, calls himself Powers, stayed at the Old Pike Inn one night. After that he went up to the Milmarsh home, and is believed to be the guest of Howard Milmarsh. If Louden Powers is there, the chances are that Andrew Lampton is not far away.”

Patsy hastened out on his errand, and in about half an hour returned with the information that Andrew Lampton had gone to the country, but that no one knew what was his destination.

“That will do, Patsy. You will have to remain on watch here for a few days. Chick and I are going out to the Old Pike Inn on the midnight train.”

“There’s a train two hours earlier than the ‘Owl,’” suggested Patsy.

“I know that,” was Nick’s reply. “But I do not care to reach there while many people are about.”

“I see,” said Patsy with a grin. “You want to sneak in on rubbers.”