A few minutes later, the front-door bell rang again, and this time the salver which the butler presented to his supposed employer bore the card of Harold Lumsden.

Gordon nodded impassively. “Very well,” he said.

“I only hope he’ll prove worth the trouble,” he told himself, as the butler left the room. “He’s a spendthrift, of course. Money turns to water and runs through his fingers, no matter how fast it comes in. He’s just back from London, however, and I hardly think he has already squandered everything he picked up there.”

Then the door opened, and a tragic figure entered. The caller’s face was haggard, his eyes wild, his hair disordered. Even his clothing seemed carelessly worn and ill-fitting, though Lumsden had always been considered one of the best-dressed men in the profession. Certainly he did not look like a matinee idol now.

“Something terrible has happened!” he burst out. “Mr. Carter, I am being blackmailed! Somebody has learned the secret which I thought safe with you, and has demanded an enormous sum of money. It means my ruin, unless——”

“I know all about it, I am sorry to say,” the bogus detective interrupted.

Once more he gave a brief and very unsatisfactory explanation, pointing to the rifled safe, and winding up with a statement of his belief that there was nothing to do but to pay—“just as a temporary expedient, of course.”

Naturally, that advice did not appeal to the actor any more than it had to ex-Senator Phelps, but Gordon adroitly argued him into a somewhat less impatient mood.

“How much does he want?”

“A cool hundred thousand,” was the bitter reply, and it did not convey any real news to the man in Nick’s desk chair. “And I haven’t more than eighty thousand to my name!”

“The devil you haven’t!” Green Eye exclaimed harshly. “Not after that London engagement?”

He had spoken without thinking, and did not realize what he had said until the caller looked sharply at him.

“I beg your pardon, Lumsden!” he hastened to say. “That must have sounded impertinent, I’m afraid. I meant no offense, I assure you. It was merely surprise. You know, we outsiders are inclined to think that you popular actors are made of money.”

“Well, we’re not,” the other answered, as if slightly mollified. “What shall I do?”

“Pay what you can,” Gordon answered promptly. “I know it doesn’t appeal to you, my friend, but as I have said, it’s only temporary. I’ll have the fellow where I want him in short order, you may be sure. This is only in the nature of insurance to keep the rascal from carrying out his threats before I can stop his activities.”

That seemed to appeal strongly to the actor.

“It’s asking a good deal to trust everything to you, including my whole bank roll, when the trouble originated through you,” he said. “However, I see nothing else to do. I’ll do as you suggest. Anything is better than exposure, and I can always earn more money if I have to see the last of this.” He paused for a moment. “By Jove!” he ejaculated. “You have made me feel that I shan’t be comfortable until I’ve paid the money over. If you don’t mind, I’ll make out a check to self right now, and take it to the bank to be cashed, so that I can turn over the currency to the scoundrel when he comes.”

Green Eye had no objection to that, of course; in fact, it brought an anticipatory glitter to his eyes. With shaking hands, Lumsden took a check book from his pocket, seating himself in the chair which Gordon vacated for the purpose. When he tried to write, however, he found it exceedingly difficult to do so.

“Confound it!” he cried impatiently. “See how infernally nervous I am! Would you mind filling this in for eighty thousand, Mr. Carter, and then I’ll try to sign it.”

“Gladly,” Green Eye said, with alacrity, reseating himself in the vacated chair, and taking the pen from his visitor’s trembling hand.

The masquerading criminal held down the cover of the little check book with his left hand, while he began to write with the other. Lumsden leaned over his shoulder, watching him, as if ready to try his luck at signing his name as soon as the rest of the check was filled in. His hand slipped into his pocket, however, and when it came out silently, there was something in it which had a metallic gleam.

“Ah! Thanks!” he exclaimed, a moment or two later. “You have made it very easy for me, Gordon!”

Simultaneously there was a sudden, unlooked-for swoop, followed quickly by the click of a pair of handcuffs as they closed on Green Eye’s wrists.

And the voice which uttered the mocking words was not the voice of Harold Lumsden, but that of Nick Carter himself. Gordon knew it after the first word or two, and even if he had not done so, the action which went along with it would have been enlightening enough.

“Nick Carter, by Heaven!” the rogue cried hoarsely, jumping to his feet and overturning the chair.

“Nick Carter—exactly,” the detective agreed, removing the wig which had played such a large part in transforming him into Harold Lumsden. “You didn’t think you were going to have this little masked ball all to yourself, did you?”

After the first dazed shock—a merely momentary one—had passed, Gordon’s face seemed to grow actually black with rage and hatred.

“You may think you have me, curse you!” he snarled. “But I’ll show you——”

He leaped forward, his manacled arms raised to strike together. Nick quietly sidestepped the mad bull-like rush, but Green Eye turned and charged him again.

There was one more surprise awaiting him, though. The door opened, and Chick entered, coolly fingering an automatic.

“Pretty neat weapon, isn’t it, Gordon?” he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone, then stopped in feigned surprise. “Oh, you and the chief are having an argument? Hope you don’t think I’ve butted in. Now that I’m here, though, I think I might as well stay. You look as if you needed your wrists slapped, and the chief may not care to bother with it.”

The escaped convict had halted in his tracks at the first interruption, and was now looking from the detective to his assistant with baffled rage. He would have liked to fight it out to a finish, but his shrewdness told him that he would gain nothing by such a course, and it was one of his rules never to exert himself unnecessarily. The consequence was that he merely shrugged his shoulders.

“So be it,” he said quietly. “You fellows can trump my ace, I see. Let me remind you, however, that you haven’t got that gold that our mutual friend, John Simpson, took such a liking to. Likewise, you’re a long way from the possession of those papers which you were foolish enough to keep in a more or less ordinary safe.”

The detectives looked at each other and grinned.

“Think so?” queried Nick. “I’m afraid, in that case, that you are scheduled to receive another disagreeable surprise or two. I located the gold yesterday afternoon—in one of Gillespie’s closets. As for the missing records, I feel very sure that we shall discover them on you.”

And they did.

Therefore, there was no need of delay, and No. 39,470 Clinton was shipped northward to Dannemora the next day, under escort.

“Lucky for us that he belonged to the ‘Gray Brotherhood,’” Nick remarked to Griswold, when he turned a little over seventy-five thousand dollars in gold over to him. “Otherwise, he would have gone scot-free, just as in the case of Simpson. As it is, he’ll get something extra for his escape, at least, and I don’t believe he’ll have a chance to slip away again.

“But another case like this would give me heart disease, I’m afraid,” he added to himself.

THE END.

No. 990 of the New Magnet Library, entitled “The Deposit Vault Puzzle,” introduces the reader to a new phase of the famous detective’s versatile personality and his seemingly unbounded resourcefulness. Nick’s adventures and the means by which he solves this particular puzzle make splendid sitting-up-at-night reading.