“Heavens, I heard somebody speak!” he muttered. “Lampton or——”
It was at this instant that he made out a shadowy form standing near the bed, and as he stared the light of the flash was turned full upon the figure of the ghostly visitor, and, traveling slowly upward, at last came to the face of the elder Howard Milmarsh. Then the light was blotted out, and the man in the bed, shaking with superstitious fear, fell back upon his pillow.
“Who are you?” asked the strange voice out of the gloom.
Hardly knowing what he said, the man in the bed replied:
“I am Howard Milmarsh. Who the deuce are you?”
There was a touch of defiance in the last sentence that did more to make Nick believe in the genuineness of this Howard Milmarsh than anything else he might have said. But he remembered that a man who would have the nerve to impersonate another to the extent of taking possession of a large estate, with an eye to an immense fortune in money later, would hardly be lacking in self-assurance.
“I am your father, Howard Milmarsh, who desires to see his son come into his rights. That is why I am here.”
“Ah!”
Nick realized that it would be impossible to frighten this rather cool individual very long. At first, when he had been awakened from his sleep in such a curious fashion, he had shown terror. But that was passing away, and the detective expected that soon he would be called on to deal with this young man in a material way, if at all.
“This looks as if he might be the real Howard,” was his inward comment. “Howard was never afraid of anything, and certainly he had no superstition in his nature. He would be quite likely to send a bullet through a ghost. Perhaps it is well this gentleman has no gun handy.”