"Oh, I’m not after your coin," the holdup man retorted, with bitter asperity. "I’ve not run you in here to lift anything. I’ve got you where I want you, at last, and you’re going to hear my little verse. I’ll finish you later." "Why finish me?" Nick coolly inquired. "What have I done that you want to finish me?" "You’ve done me, blast you," was the reply, with suppressed ferocity. "You twice have crossed my path and turned me down. You have sent me from bad to worse and made me what I am. I know you, Carter, hang you, in spite of your disguise. I have been watching for you, lying in wait for you, and I’ve got you where I want you." "Which seems to please you mightily," Nick said dryly, trying vainly to recall the rascal’s identity. "When did I----” "Oh, I’ll tell you when," interrupted the other, with unabated bitterness. "You’ll know when, Carter, when you see my face. I’ll reveal it to you. I want you to see it, that I may laugh at you, mock you, and tell you face to face how deeply I hate you. Sooner or later, too, I’ll hand you yours and send you to the devil. "But not to-night--no, not to-night!" he went on, when Nick viewed him in silence. "I want you to anticipate it, to live in fear of it, to be racked mind and nerves until my bullet finds you. I’ll send it into you sooner or later, Carter, as sure as my name is--Gaston Goulard." He removed his Vandyke beard while speaking, thrusting it into his pocket, and Nick Carter was given an almost incredible surprise. "Gaston Goulard!" he exclaimed involuntarily. "The dead alive!" Nick recognized him now. There was no mistaking his hard-featured, white face, its sinister scowl, its expressive cruelty. To have seen a ghost, however, would not have been more amazing. For Nick last had seen this man less than a month before, when cornered with the notorious Badger gang of crooks in an old lime loft leased by one of their number, to which the detective’s assistants had traced Nick and the criminals--Nick last had seen him plunge bodily through one of the windows and disappear into the swirling waters of the East River. Though a sharp watch had been kept by Patsy Garvan, moreover, who also had seen the rascal sink from view, Goulard did not reappear on the surface, and there had seemed to be no reasonable doubt that the knave had drowned. Naturally, therefore, Nick was more than surprised upon seeing his sinister, malevolent face again; nor was it strange that, supposing him dead, he had not penetrated his exceedingly clever disguise, or recognized his evil voice. It fell again upon the detective’s ears, echoing his last impulsive remark. "The dead alive--yes!" Goulard hissed triumphantly. "I fooled you, balked you, eluded you, Carter, and I finally will send you to the devil, where you supposed you had sent me. But the devil serves his own at times, and that was one of them. He gave me a new lease of life--that I might finally take yours. But not to-night, Carter, not to-night!"