CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN WITH A MASK.

Nick Carter met with a surprise when he went down to dine with Chick, after the hurried departure of Patsy Garvan. The office clerk, seeing them going to the dining room, took a letter from a rack and beckoned to the detective, saying, when he approached:

“This appears to be for you, Mr. Blaisdell.”

Nick took it and glanced at the pen-written address--Mr. John Blaisdell, Wilton House.

He saw that it was not stamped, however, and wondered who had left a letter for him, instead of seeking a personal interview. Much more to his surprise, upon removing the inclosed sheet, he found that it bore no signature and was addressed, not fictitiously, but to--Mr. Nicholas Carter.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he muttered, frowning. “Has it leaked out that I am in Madison?”

He lingered in the office and read the letter, while Chick approached and joined him, noting his ominous expression. For the letter read as follows:

“MR. NICHOLAS CARTER: You may fool others with a false name, but not the writer. He is not so easily blinded. Your identity is known, also your mission, but you are barking up the wrong tree and are booked for failure. You will make the mistake of your life, a fatal mistake, if you remain here and persist in the work you have undertaken. It will cost you what man holds most dear--your life.

“I am very well aware, Carter, that you are not easily influenced by threats, and ordinarily ignore them. I want to impress it upon you, therefore, that I am not an ordinary person, and that I invariably do what I threaten.

“You will doubt my ability to do so. Your abnormal bump of conceit will cause you to think you can protect yourself and avert your impending fate. Disabuse yourself of that idea. You cannot possibly escape me.

“On the other hand, Carter, I do not wish to wipe you off the map unless you force me to do so. Don’t make it imperative. Don’t fly into the face of fate. Your safety lies in returning to New York and minding your own business. Madison is too small for both of us.

“Lest you underestimate your danger and disregard this warning, however, and that I may be spared needless bloodshed, if possible, I will try to convince you that I am right, that I am vastly your superior, and that I hold your life in my hand. You are said to be a past master of the art of detecting and preventing crime.

“On Thursday evening next an elaborate reception and ball are to be held by the National Guards. Mrs. Mortimer Thurlow will be among the guests. She is very wealthy. She owns a superb rope of pearls. It is worth eighty thousand dollars. She will wear it that evening.

“I am going to steal it.

“I invite you to prevent me.

“If you succeed, you will have convinced me that you are capable of guarding yourself from the fate I have threatened.

“If you fail--you should be wise enough to realize your peril and take my advice. I repeat it. Lose not a moment in leaving Madison--or you will return to New York in a coffin.”

Nick Carter’s brows knitted closer while he read this threatening letter. He had turned so that Chick might also read it, and the latter muttered, when both had finished:

“Great guns! Who the devil wrote that?”

“It comes suspiciously soon after my call on Doctor Devoll,” Nick said pointedly.

“Do you think he sent it?”

“I don’t know, of course, nor do I care.”

“It’s an infernal bluff.”

“Less a bluff than you suppose,” corrected Carter, a bit grimly. “The writer means what he says.”

“That he will kill you?”

“If I give him a chance or don’t kill him.”

“You will ignore it, and----”

“And accept his challenge--surely!” Nick cut in. “Wait one moment. I want to question Burton.”

They had remained near the office inclosure, to which he now turned and called the clerk, asking quietly:

“Who brought this letter, Mr. Burton? I see it is not stamped.”

Burton laughed a bit oddly and shook his head.

“I don’t know, Mr. Blaisdell,” he replied. “I found it on the cigar case. I was somewhat mystified when I saw it, for I had sold two men some cigars only a moment before, and the letter was not there.”

“One of them left it there, perhaps,” Nick suggested, intending to get a description of the men, in that case.

“Impossible.” Burton spoke decidedly. “They walked away before I closed the show case, and I saw them leaving the house.”

“Did you see any one else near the show case?”

“Not a person. I discovered the letter, nevertheless, within a couple of minutes.”

“How long ago?”

“Not more than five minutes. I was intending to send the letter up to your room. I hope the delay is of no consequence,” Burton added.

“None whatever,” Carter assured him. “Come, Chick, we’ll go in to dinner.”

“It’s plain enough that some one slipped in here and seized an opportunity to leave the letter without being seen,” Chick remarked.

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Will you do anything more about it?”

“Not at present.”

“Or change your plans?”

“Not an iota,” said Carter decidedly. “I am not to be intimidated by threats. I may decide, however, to attend the ball of the National Guards. If Mrs. Mortimer Thurlow wears her rope of pearls, and the writer of this letter attempts to steal it, he will end with having it stuffed down his knavish throat. Vastly my superior, eh? We’ll see about that.”

The detective thrust the threatening letter into his pocket with the last, obviously averse to further discussing it, and the subject was abruptly dropped.

None could have sized up the letter more correctly or more keenly have realized its full significance. Carter knew that his identity had been discovered by the very crooks he was seeking, by the evil genius directing them, in spite of his precautions to prevent it. He knew that a ball had been set rolling which, urged on by the mysterious criminal forces back of it, would tax his utmost powers to successfully oppose.

It was about eight o’clock when Chick left the hotel, suitably clad and well equipped for the stealthy work assigned him. A brisk walk of about ten minutes took him to Dale Street, in a desirable residential section, and presently the lofty brick walls and numerous lighted windows of the Studley, a somewhat exclusive apartment house, loomed up on the opposite side.

He paused and viewed it briefly, noting that a narrow court flanked one end of the building. He saw that there was no public office, also that the broad, main entrance and vestibule were brightly lighted.

“A suite on the second floor,” he said to himself. “The windows don’t appeal to me. It ought not to be very difficult to get into an unoccupied suite without being seen. I believe it can be more easily done from within than without. I’ll have a look.”

Crossing over, he entered the vestibule and consulted the tiny placards under the numerous electric bells, on one of which he presently found the number of Todd’s suite. At the same moment he heard the heavy inner door opened, and two fashionably clad women came out.

“Pardon!” Chick approached them, instantly seizing the opportunity presented. “If you will be so kind, it will save me from using my key.”

“Certainly.” One of the women smiled, while she prevented the door from closing.

The other eyed Chick a bit sharply, but he bowed and murmured a word of thanks; then passed both and entered, as complacently as if he owned the house.

“Very opportune,” he muttered dryly. “They would think me a crook, all right, if they were to see the key I intended to use. Without having seen it, in fact, one appeared to have a vague impression that I had no legitimate business here. I must contrive to avoid other eyes.”

He had closed the door and was gazing up a broad, dimly lighted stairway while indulging in these reflections. He could hear no sound from the corridor of the second floor. He stole up noiselessly and found it deserted.

Glancing at the numbers on the nearest doors, he quickly learned in which direction he must turn, and he brought up within a minute at the door he was seeking--that of the suite lately occupied by the murdered man. It adjoined a diverging corridor, and its windows overlooked the narrow court mentioned.

In the meantime, for so fate sometimes brings opposing forces together, and often with disastrous results, a man moving with the stealth of an evil shadow, which any chance observer would surely have thought him, had entered the narrow court and paused under one of the several small platforms some ten feet above the ground, each the base of a rise of iron stairs forming a fire escape.

This man was clad from head to foot in black. It seemed to mingle with the almost ebon gloom in the court. He lingered only briefly. He quickly fastened a black mask on his bearded face; then took a coiled rope from under his coat. He cast it deftly around a corner standard of the platform railing, up both lengths of which he then drew himself, with the wiry strength and agility of an ape. Kneeling on the platform, he quickly drew up the rope and laid it aside; then turned to crouch with a thin strip of steel at the near window.

It was at precisely the same moment that Chick Carter, alone in the corridor, set to work with a picklock to open the door of the suite. It took him about a minute. The bolt of the lock was shot back with a sharp, metallic sound--just as the fastening of the window was forced aside with an audible snap.

Each sound was mingled with the other. Each stealthy intruder heard only that which he had caused. The window was noiselessly raised, moreover, just as Chick entered and quietly closed the door.

He had stepped into a handsomely furnished parlor. The other had entered a dining room. Between the two rooms was an open door, with a drawn portière. The feet of both men fell noiselessly on the carpets and rugs.

Chick moved toward the middle of the room and took out his electric lamp. Its beam of light leaped outward--just as the portière was drawn and a second beam of light appeared.

The two lenses were illumined at the same moment; in fact, confronting one another like two startled, suddenly opened eyes, with a glare that completely dispelled the gloom.

Two more astonished men seldom met. For an instant the sudden glare blinded both.

Chick’s first thought was that he had flashed the light upon a panel mirror, reflecting it and himself. On the instant, however, he saw the door, the black-clad figure, the masked face and the glittering eyes gleaming through it.

“Great guns!” he gasped involuntarily. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

The question was echoed with icy composure by the man backed by the swaying portière. His voice came with a sinister, metallic ring through his black mask. He did not stir from his position or move foot or finger.

Chick watched him to be sure of it. If a gun was to be drawn, he was resolved to be the first to draw it. He kept the glare of his searchlight on him, distinctly revealing him, while the masked unknown used his with like effect, but neither reached for a weapon. It impressed Chick as one of the most singular and sensational situations in which he had ever figured with a solitary man.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“What are you doing?” demanded the other.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Nor have you answered mine.”

“I don’t intend to answer yours,” Chick said sternly.

“Nor I yours,” the masked man retorted coldly.

Chick felt almost inclined to laugh. He would have done so, if the case engaging him had been a less serious one, his mission less important, and with no occasion to conceal his visit. He frowned, instead, however, and shaped another course.

“You’d better change your mind,” he advised. “If you don’t----”

“Hold on,” snapped the “mask.” “Don’t you reach for a gun. I can pull one as quickly as you and shoot as straight. You keep your empty hand in sight or you’ll be a dead one.”

“You do the same, then,” Chick said sharply.

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“Watch your step, then, and see that you don’t slip.”

“I’ll watch you, all right. You can bet on that.”

“You talk like a crook,” said Chick tentatively.

“You’ve got nothing on me in that respect,” the mask retorted dryly. “You sneaked in here like a thief.”

“But I’m not a thief--nor are you.”

“Is that so?”

“Not of the ordinary type. I’m hit with the truth.”

“That beats being hit with a club. What’s the big idea?”

“I know, now, why you are here.”

“Solomon had nothing on you, then.”

“Not much.”

“Come on with it. What’s the brainy hunch?”

“You are one of the gang that killed Gaston Todd,” Chick again said sternly, and the shot was not entirely a random one. “You have come here to search his rooms, and to see whether he has left evidence that might expose you. You are here to find it and get away with it.”

“You’re a real Willie Wisewinker,” the masked man said with a sneer, and a threatening hiss crept into his voice. “But you have got nothing on me. I know you, too, all right. You are one of the Nick Carter bunch, out to cut a wide swath in Madison, if your tools don’t go dull. You state only your own mission. You are here to search for evidence, hoping to find and get away with it unsuspected--but you have slipped a cog. You’ll not search for it, much less get it.”

“Oh, yes, I will,” said Chick, who now had decided how he best could end the situation and quietly accomplish his object. “I’m going to get it, all right--and get you.”

“Get me, eh?” The masked man laughed icily. “You have as good a chance of getting me as a hailstone would have on a red-hot stove.”

“That so?”

“I know so.”

“Why so confident?” Chick was edging nearer the man by imperceptible degrees. “You must have pals in the next room.”

“No, no pals,” sneered the other. “I don’t need any.”

“You’re game to play a lone hand, eh?”

“Bet you! I’m the gamest ever.”

“Nevertheless, I shall get you.”

“Not much! You have not a look in, not even the ghost of a chance. You have not----”

“Haven’t I? We’ll see.”

Scarce six feet divided the two men, and Chick had steadied himself for a lightninglike leap. He felt sure that he could quickly overcome the unknown man, despite his brazen assurance, if he could grapple with him before a revolver could be drawn, the discharge of which he wished to prevent, knowing it would alarm the house and be contrary to his chief’s instructions.

He leaped while he spoke, and covered the distance with a single bound, dropping his searchlight.

The masked man dropped his, venting a wolfish snarl, and on the instant the two men were grappling in close embrace in the almost inky darkness.

Chick aimed to seize and confine both arms of his antagonist, but in the sudden gloom he missed them. The masked man had instantly raised both above his head, and the detective’s muscular arms closed only around his black-clad figure.

It was a lithe, wiry figure, one that Chick felt sure he could crush and bend at will in his viselike embrace. Contrary to what he expected, however, and which he lurched to one side to avoid, no blow was dealt, no fist fell upon his head, no fierce fingers sought his throat.

Instead, the hands of the masked man dropped quickly and found those of the detective.

Then Chick felt a wire touch each wrist. Instantly ten million needles seemed to have been thrust full length into him. He tingled from head to foot with excruciating pain. His every muscle relaxed as if palsied. He gasped, tried vainly to shriek, and then the darkness of the room was turned to that of utter oblivion--and the masked man dropped him, as inert as a bag of sand, on the carpeted floor.