The reporter, who was acquainted with the officers, ran over and hastily explained the situation to them.
They at once went around the square, where they could head off the men when they got near Nick’s house.
Nick Carter, walking along the street busily engaged in thinking over the events of the day, did not for an instant suspect that he was being followed.
Nick stopped to relight his cigar, when the four rascals jumped upon him.
Nick barely had time to turn and avoid a blow that had been aimed at him by the man that he had noticed in the café.
The man, with an oath, started to strike again, when the sharp crack of a pistol rang out in the night air.
The man fell to the sidewalk, with a scream of agony.
The policemen rushed up and attacked the remaining three men with their nightsticks.
Two of the men took to their heels, and made their escape; the other man was captured, and made a prisoner by the officers, while the reporter turned in a call for the ambulance, that the injured man might be removed to the hospital.
Nick bent over the wounded man. He noticed that the hair which he wore was false. Pulling it off, he saw that the man that had tried to kill him was the very man that he had been looking for.