With an abrupt turn to the left, as he walked off the stone steps of the mansion, it seemed as if he were going to make his way on foot down the avenue, notwithstanding that a taxicab was waiting for him half a block up the thoroughfare. But this was only a ruse. As he got to a dark spot, where big trees overshadowed the roadway, he suddenly darted across to the other side. “I thought so,” he remarked, behind his closed teeth. “But he’s inside the park railings. By the time I got to a gate he’d be far away, and the fence is too high to climb over--unless there were an absolute necessity. Even if I were to climb, it would take me too long to get that fellow.” Nick Carter continued his stroll toward downtown, in the hope of deceiving the watcher, whoever he might be. Then, swinging around, he ran back. So sudden was this move, that he actually got to the railings and found himself close to the eavesdropper before the latter had time to get away. As the detective reached the spot, he turned on a strong white light from his electric flash lamp, full on the lurking figure inside the park. He saw a man in the blue blouse, loose trousers, and felt-soled slippers of an ordinary Chinese laundryman. But he could not see the man’s face. It was obscured by the shrubbery, and the fellow was cunning enough to keep it there while the light was turned on him. “Who are you?” demanded the detective sharply, in the Chinese tongue. The man was taken aback at hearing a Caucasian address him in his own language, and he blurted out a Mongolian oath of dismay. Nick Carter took no notice of this--although he understood its purport well enough. Instead, he asked the Chinaman if his name wasn’t Pon Gee. This was the first name that came to his tongue, and he merely wanted to get the fellow into conversation. But the wiles of the Chinese coolie have been proverbial ever since--and before--Bret Harte wrote his famous poem. The man did not reply. He put up one arm, so that the long, hanging sleeve of his blouse completely covered his face, and ran away into the blackness. Nick Carter could not follow him with the light, and he knew it would be waste of time to hunt in the park for such an elusive object as a Chinese laundryman. So he shut off his flash and walked thoughtfully across the road to his waiting taxi. “I knew it was the work of the crossed-needles gang, anyhow,” he reflected. “That fellow was only a look-out. The Yellow Tong has hundreds of such men in New York--fellows who do not understand what they are doing for the organization, or why. He was told to watch Anderton’s house, of course, and to report if the murderers of my poor friend were interfered with. Poor Anderton! He was too good a man to be done to death in that ghastly fashion.”