“I don’t know in the least what you are hinting at, Mr. Griswold,” he said, “and this is hardly the place for explanations. Will you do us the honor of sharing our taxi with us? Perhaps we can come to some understanding on the way home.”
Certainly, there did not seem to be anything menacing in his attitude, and in that of the younger detective at his side. Both appeared to be genuinely mystified. Griswold attributed it to good acting, nothing more, but after a few moments’ hesitation, he decided to accept the offer.
They would hardly dare attack him in a cab in broad daylight, and he need not enter the detective’s house, if he did not choose to do so, when they reached their destination. Accordingly, he bowed, and, in response to Nick’s gesture, stepped into the taxi, after which the others followed.
“Now, you’ll greatly oblige us, Mr. Griswold, by explaining what you are driving at,” Nick said, with courteous firmness.
The millionaire was a little too impetuous now and then, and this was one of the occasions. His reason told him that he had been misled in some unaccountable way, and that this was the real Nick Carter, but reason spoke in a very small whisper, and he did not choose to listen—in fact, he hardly heard it.
He had kept his rage and sense of injury bottled up, thus far, but now it exploded.
“I’m driving at just this, Carter,” he said hotly. “You are found out—the game is up! I don’t know whether this is the first time temptation has been too much for you, or not, but I have you where I want you, you thief! Your spectacular career is at an end. My papers have a circulation well into the millions, you know, and as soon as I say the word, the greatest broadside of publicity that was ever fired will be hurled at your crime of the night before last! Oh, you need not glower at me! I’m not in the least afraid of you, and what I say, I mean, as you will learn to your cost.”
Any one who knew Nick Carter well would have seen that he was growing dangerously warm, but the increasing tension was much more noticeable in Chick.
That young man wore his “fighting face,” and was bending forward longingly, with twitching hands on his knees.
Nick, seeing his assistant’s attitude and look, laid a restraining hand on Chick’s arm.