“Yes, and I wish they weren’t in it. I’d rather do without the aid of the secret-service and the police, too, if I could. But it can’t be avoided. There’s one thing—the police over in Jersey City are a pretty bright lot of men. But they’ve been looking for Lampton some time, and they’ve never dropped on this crib of his yet.”
“Which shows the smartness of Lampton and his gang.”
“Well, criminals must be smart to some degree, or they never could pull off any job. Lampton is a clever fellow, because he can do so many widely different things. He is quite a good vaudeville performer, even though his singing voice is gone.”
“Ah, yes!” laughed Chick. “Joe Stokes! They seemed to think a great deal of him at Maple. I won’t go till it gets dark to-night. I suppose I may as well get ready, however. I’ve got to look like a decent kind of hobo, haven’t I? The sort of man who is willing to work if he can get a job?”
“That’s right. You put it very neatly. But you need not do it just yet. You are quite sure Lampton is still in that house?”
“Quite. That is, unless he’s got out while Patsy was here to-day. Patsy has been keeping as sharp an eye on the crib as any one could, and he knew, before he came away to-day, that Lampton had gone to bed for a few hours. You only want this one man, don’t you?”
“Well, he is the most important. But I want to see the whole gang caught. I have no mercy for a counterfeiter. It is a dirty, contemptible business, because it generally makes people suffer who cannot afford to lose money. The secret-service men will look after them, however—when they learn where they are.”
“Which will be thanks to Nick Carter.”
“Not to me alone,” was Nick’s modest correction. “I have two able assistants, and they have done as much of this work as I have.”