“There is nothing in that kind of a bluff. This is Chick Carter talking to you, Sloan, and you’d better make a clean breast of it. What do you know about that Manhattanville murder?” “Nothing at all about it,” Sloan declared, but every vestige of color left his sinister face. “Your looks give your words the lie, Slugger,” Chick said sternly. “You were out there last night, and you had a hand in the job.” “You’ve got another guess, Carter,” Sloan coldly asserted. “Why were you sizing up Badger’s house, then, and Dakin’s lime building?” “Was I doing that?” “I saw you doing it. We know, too, that they were in the job.” “You’re a couple of wise ginks,” Sloan observed, with a sneer. “You’re not going to open up, eh?” Chick questioned. “Not so you’ll notice it.” “That’s final, Slugger, is it?” “What I say always goes,” scowled the gunman. Chick turned abruptly and pointed to a telephone on one of the walls. “Get next, Patsy,” he commanded shortly. “Call up the precinct station. Get a wagon and a dozen men here as quickly as possible. We’ll raid that house and building on the jump.” CHAPTER IX. THE LAST RESORT. Nick Carter was not long in learning whither he was bound. The jostling of the truck over the uneven ground in the narrow passage between the buildings ceased in a very few moments. Nick then felt himself rudely lifted from the truck and carried under cover. Through the burlap in which he had been wrapped he could detect the pungent scent of lime, which confirmed his earlier suspicions. “They’ve brought me to that building close to the river,” he said to himself. “The outlook isn’t very promising, unless Chick or Patsy had picked up the trail of Goulard before he started for the Badger house. There is a reasonably fair chance of that, in which case----” Nick’s train of thought was abruptly broken. Four of the ruffians had raised him again and were taking him up a flight of steps leading to the loft of the building. There they dropped him on the floor and removed the burlap with which he was half smothered. Nick sat up and turned his shoulders to the near wall. Gazing around, he saw a large, unfinished room, partly filled with unopened barrels of lime. Cobwebs hung in festoons from the roof and beams. The only light came through two windows overlooking the river, the swash and swirl of which could be plainly heard. Gaston Goulard came up the stairs at that moment and at once flashed a sharp glance around the dismal place. He then strode quickly across to one of the windows and looked out. Nick and Ben Badger, also, guessed what the rascal had in mind, and the latter said, with a grim laugh: “That would be out of the frying pan into the fire, Goulard. Better take chances with the police, than with the East River.” “I’m not looking to take either chance,” Goulard replied, with a frown settling on his white face. “There’s no danger here,” Badger said confidently. “This place is not suspected.”