“Wait!” Nick cut in again. “I have adequate proof of all this. I am on the case and I’m going to sift it to the bottom. You, Garland, were near the scene of these two crimes. This torn letter written by Lottie Trent convinces me of that. I now can guess, too, with what object it was left there, and with what designs you were lured there. This girl is a sister of Larry Trent, now in prison for complicity with Andy Margate in the recent theft of your government plans. Now, Garland, you tell me the truth. I’ll stand for nothing else, nor can anything else save you. I once have pulled you out of the fire. I can, if necessary, do it again. There is no middle course for you. I must arrest you, or know the whole truth. Out with it. What is Andy Margate putting over on you?”
There was no resisting Nick Carter under such conditions, and Garland now seemed to realize it. A look of relief had appeared on his pale face, that relief with which one burdened with a terrible secret sees the way open to confiding in another.
“You are right, Nick,” he admitted, with sudden determination. “I am in just such a position as you suspect. I did fear that you had been seen coming here. Now that you are here, however, and can leave in disguise, as you entered, I will take a chance and tell you the whole business. I have, in fact, been tempted to send for you in spite of threats and warnings. Heavens, how I have longed for your aid and advice.”
“You now may have both,” said Nick. “Get right at it, then, and tell me the whole truth. You look like a nervous wreck.”
“I am,” Garland admitted. “I have suffered the tortures of hell for more than a week.”
“Omit nothing. Tell me the whole business.”
“It can be briefly told,” Garland began. “I was called up by telephone nine days ago by an unknown man. He stated that I was about to receive a package by mail, and that the sender of it insisted upon having a personal interview with me. I was warned against confiding in any one, and threatened with direful consequences if I did so. I was told that an automobile would arrive at the first corner east of the Grayling, where I am living, at precisely nine o’clock that evening, and I must be there[{23}] to immediately enter it, when I would be taken to the sender of the mailed package. I was repeatedly warned, mind you——”
“I understand,” Nick interposed. “Never mind the warnings. Let’s get at the facts. What followed?”
“I waited with indescribable misgivings, Nick, for the package said to have been sent to me,” Garland continued. “It came an hour later. I opened it and found—a photograph of the portfolio that contained the government plans of which I was robbed by Irma Valaska and Captain Casper Dillon, whose infamous designs you so successfully foiled.”
“H’m, is that so?” said Nick, with brows drooping. “A photograph of the portfolio, eh?”