“Don’t make any fuss, gentlemen!” begged Nick blandly. “You are all prisoners! Lieutenant, you and your men attend to these parties. I have something else to look after.”
“All right, Carter.” Then, to the prisoners, the lieutenant went on: “The house is covered, back and front. Don’t try to make a get-away. If you do, some of you will get hurt, as sure as you’re here!”
“Here! Quit that!” shouted Nick. “Look out, lieutenant!”
The detective had seen one of the raided counterfeiters reaching for an iron bar under the bench, and he gave instant warning. None of the others had noticed the movement, but the detective had sharp eyes and sharp wits. He was not to be fooled by any such attempt as this.
Without waiting for the lieutenant or his men to take action, Nick sprang upon the rascal even as he shouted. By the time Brockton and his men had hurled themselves into the fracas, Nick had taken away the bar of iron, and the man who had wielded it was lying on his back.
But Nick did not give much time to this little incident. He disposed of it as a matter of course, and, having seen that the man was in the hands of two of the policemen, he turned to the rocker in which the elegant T. Burton Potter still slumbered as sweetly as if he had been in a comfortable bed in a silent room. He seemed to have heard nothing of the noise of the raid.
“This will end a puzzling case,” muttered the detective, as he pushed his way through the struggling men—for all of the bench workers were at grips with the police by this time. “Who would have expected this? If I can only get to him before he wakes, why I can——”
But Nick was not to have so much luck. The man who called himself T. Burton Potter was a very wide-awake young man, indeed, when once he was awake. At a glance he saw what had occurred. He knew there was a police raid, and he did not want to stay and see how it would come out. He preferred to find his way out himself.
“Deuce take him!” muttered Nick. “He always was as quick as a cat! If he’d only stand still for a second, he’d save me a great deal of trouble—and himself, too.”
But T. Burton Potter did not see it that way. Leaping from his chair, he swung it around, so that it would be right in the detective’s way, and pushed in between the bench and press.