WITH LINKS OF STEEL (Detective Nick Carter Mystery). John R. Coryell
will you advise me of any steps that you may take?” persisted Venner, briefly detaining him by the arm.
“Very probably,” nodded Nick, though really he probably would do nothing of the kind. “And now good-day, gentlemen. If reporters call upon you, you may give them all of the facts, and state that Nick Carter is at work on the case. I want this Kilgore diamond gang to know at the outset that I am after them—and fully resolved to land them where they belong.”
“Behind prison bars, eh?” inquired Venner, with an odd smile.
“Yes, sir! Behind prison bars!” declared Nick, forcibly. “Again, gentlemen, good-day. You will hear from me later.”
Mr. Rufus Venner, with his partner at his elbow, stood in the office door and silently watched the two celebrated detectives as they strode quickly through the elegant store, from which they presently vanished into Fifth Avenue.
There was a smile of subtle cunning, combined with cruel and malicious determination, on Venner’s dark face and he muttered under his breath, as the store door closed upon Nick’s imposing figure:
“Hear from you later, eh? Very good. Very good, indeed, Mr. Detective Carter! Hear from you again—that is precisely what I want! Early and often, Detective Carter; early and often, if you please! It is precisely for what the little robbery of this April morning was invented!”
“But was it necessary—was it really necessary, Rufus?” whispered Garside, who alone had overheard, and whose paler face and tremulous figure betrayed fears which his swarthy senior partner would have scorned to feel. “This Carter is a most artful and discerning man. I am so afraid you have barked up the wrong tree. Was it necessary, really necessary, Rufus?”
Venner turned upon him with a half-smothered snarl of contempt.
“Bah! You’d be afraid of your own shadow, Garside, if left alone with it,” he sneered, between his white, even teeth. “Necessary—of course it was necessary! Otherwise, I should not have adopted the ruse. We are about to attempt a big game—an infernally big game! When it matures, when it is finally launched, the very first concern that finds itself bitten will rush to Nick Carter for aid.”
“There is no doubt of that, Rufus.”
“Surely no doubt of it! He is the greatest detective in the country—and the greatest will be none too clever, nor too expensive, for those who find themselves duped by our unparalleled design.”
“I should say so.”
“What will be the result, Philip?—what will be the result?” added Venner, with a curious mingling of exultation and asperity. “If our victims appeal to Nick Carter for help—are we not also already in his good graces? Have we not insured his confidence in us by this little move of to-day? Will he not reveal himself and his suspicions to us, just as I have designed, and keep us posted about his every move, and so forewarned and forearmed? Of course he will—to be sure he will!”
“But he is such a crafty and daring—”
“Bah! Is he more crafty than Dave Kilgore?” demanded Venner, significantly. “Is he more daring than Spotty Dalton, or more determined than anyone of the Kilgore gang? Not by a long chalk, Philip, and I know of them of whom I speak. Ay, as much and more of them than does Detective Nick Carter.”
“Perhaps you are right, Rufus,” murmured Garside, nodding. “We certainly are about launching a tremendous, an utterly unparalleled, swindle. The like of it was never, never known. There should be millions in it. Yes, yes, Rufus, you are right. It was wise to preface our gigantic operations by getting well in touch with Nick Carter.”
“To be sure, it was wise, Philip, or I should not have taken the trouble to do so,” said Venner, with much less acrimony. “So be a man always, Philip, and never a flunky. You have played your part admirably this morning. Let it be played as well, Philip, even to the finish—even to the last ditch!”
Philip Garside’s color had returned, and he smiled confidently and nodded in approval.
Plainly enough, this hushed yet emphatic intercourse between these two indicated one fact—that Detective Nick Carter was up against a far deeper game than he then imagined.
Chapter IV.
Getting Down to Work
“Well, Nick, old man, what have you made of it?”
The question came from Chick Carter, in his familiar and cheerful fashion, several hours after the interview held by the two detectives with Rufus Venner and his partner in their Fifth Avenue store.
It was now about six o’clock in the evening, and Chick had just returned from having a confidential talk with one of the stage hands of the theater in which the then famous attraction, the mammoth European and American vaudeville troupe, of which Señora Cervera was a star attraction, had for several months been playing to crowded houses.
Chick found Nick seated at the table in his library, with a powerful magnifying glass in his hand, while the table was strewn with the papers he that morning had brought from the office of Venner & Co.
Nick looked up with a laugh, and knocked the ashes from his cigar.
“Well, there’s no doubt about it, Chick,” he replied. “We are finally up against them.”
“The Kilgore diamond gang?”
“Precisely.”
“I’m glad of it, Nick, as you remarked this morning.”
“Well, I’ve not changed my mind since then. So am I.”
“We shall now find out whether they are as crafty and desperate as they have been painted.”
“I guess there is no doubt about it, Chick.”
“Well, if we fail to throw them down, Nick, my money shall go on Kilgore from that moment,” declared Chick, with a grin. “What have you dug out of that mess of papers, Nick? Have you arrived at any conclusions?”
“Rather!” smiled Nick, significantly. “Did you ever know me to study for five hours over anything of this kind without arriving at some conclusion?”
“Never!” laughed Chick. “And the best of it is, Nick, your conclusions nearly always prove to be correct. What’s the verdict, old man?”
Nick glanced at the French clock on the mantel.
“Sit down and light up,” he replied. “We have half an hour before getting down to work against this push. I will devote it to informing you of the case as it now appears.”
“Good enough!” exclaimed Chick, drawing up a chair and lighting a cigar. “Let her go, Nick. I am all ears, as the donkey said to the deacon.”
“To begin with,” began Nick, more gravely, “this order sent to Hafferman, for the diamonds which he delivered at Venner’s store, is merely a forgery. Neither Venner nor Garside wrote it, that’s as plain as the nose on an elephant’s face.”
“Which is plain enough, surely,” nodded Chick.
“Furthermore,” continued Nick, “the forgery was not the work of any clerk employed in either store. I have compared the writing of each and every clerk with that of the forged order, and I will stake my reputation upon my conclusion. The forgery was committed by some outside party.”
Nick was an expert chirographist. To have deceived him with a disguised handwriting would have been utterly impossible, and none knew it better than Chick, who now nodded approvingly.
“Some outside party, eh?”
“There is no doubt of it, Chick. And this conclusion