“I would, when I have proof—and I have that,” rejoined the detective. “The real Howard Milmarsh has changed considerably in experience in the years he has been away. You know that, because you saw him at Maple, and you’ve seen him elsewhere. It struck you that you knew a man who looked so much like him that he might pass for the missing heir if he were carefully coached.”
“Who is the man?”
“T. Burton Potter,” was the swift reply of the detective.
“Pooh!”
“That is the man,” went on Nick, disregarding the contemptuous ejaculation. “I don’t care how you may try to pretend otherwise. I know. He is so much like Howard Milmarsh, that, in the first few moments that I saw him, I was actually not sure myself. But soon I saw him doing things that I knew would be impossible to the man you want him to impersonate, and, besides, there are minute points of difference which anybody who knew Howard Milmarsh as well as I would distinguish immediately.”
“T. Burton Potter is a gentleman of leisure, I’ve been told,” grinned Andrew Lampton. “But as for his being like Howard Milmarsh, I don’t know anything about that.”
“I don’t mind your being a liar, Lampton,” retorted Nick quietly. “But I wish you would not pretend to be a stupid one. Did I not tell you that I know?”
“Why do you want me to go and see Louden Powers to-night?”
The question came abruptly. Andrew Lampton had seen that it would be useless to continue his bluffing tactics with the detective.
“Go and see him and find out, if you can, where T. Burton Potter is. I want him. And, before you go, give me those letters and papers. You can’t use them now, and Louden Powers might try to take them from you if he knew they were in your pocket.”