Nick Carter Stories No. 156, September 4, 1915: Blood Will Tell; or, Nick Carter's Play in PoliticsCarter, Nicholas (House name)
General
Nick Carter Stories No. 156, September 4, 1915: Blood Will Tell; or, Nick Carter's Play in Politics
Carter, Nicholas (House name)
Detective and mystery stories, American -- Periodicals; Popular literature -- Periodicals
“No need to tell him that,” Hardy returned, as the woman swept out of
the office.
Patsy already had left the counter after lighting his cigar, and he
passed out only a few yards behind the woman.
“Now, by Jove, if she doesn’t take a taxi, I shall have soft walking,”
he said to himself. “Guy Morton, eh? I never heard of him. When I see
him, if so lucky, I may possibly know his face.”
Patsy’s wish was granted, in that Cora Cavendish did not take a
conveyance. She walked briskly through Forty-fourth Street to Sixth
Avenue, then turned north and increased her pace, gliding with a sort of
sinuous grace through the throng of pedestrians.
“Gee! she’s in some hurry,” thought Patsy, at a discreet distance behind
her. “If she can go to keep a date with the said Morton and return to
her apartments in twenty minutes, she cannot be going very far. To some
other hotel, perhaps, or some saloon with a side door for the fair sex.”
Patsy had hit the nail very nearly on the head. A few minutes later he
saw his quarry enter a popular café in one of the side streets, where
she paused and questioned a man seated at a high desk near the door.
She evidently obtained the information she wanted. For, passing directly
through the place, Cora entered one of the several private dining rooms
in the rear, quickly closing the door.
It was not done so quickly, however, as to prevent Patsy, who had
immediately stepped into the front saloon, from getting a momentary
glimpse of the interior of the private room.
He saw that the lace-draped window was partly open, that a man answering
Nick’s description of Hawley was seated at a damask-covered table, and
that on the latter stood a bottle of wine, partly drank, and two
glasses. He also saw, nevertheless, that there was no other occupant of
the room.
“He’s still waiting for her,” he reasoned. “Waiting for her with an
extra glass. That’s the reporter Nick described, as sure as I’m a foot
high, and probably Deland himself. I’ll mighty soon find out.”
Patsy turned and found the man at the desk eying him suspiciously, and
he took no chance of a subsequent warning being sent to the suspected
couple, but immediately seized the bull by the horns. Stepping close to
the desk, he displayed his detective badge and said quietly, but in a
way he knew would be effective:
“I am in Nick Carter’s employ, and I happen to know that you are the man
who runs this place. If you wish to continue running it, you hand me
straight goods and keep your trap closed. Whom has Cora Cavendish gone
in there to meet?”
The change that came over the man’s face convinced Patsy that he needed
to say nothing more threatening. The mention of Nick Carter’s name had
been enough. The man at once replied, moreover, with lowered voice:
“I’ll not yip; not on your life. She has joined a man named Morton. He’s
been waiting for her.”
“How long?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“What do you know about him?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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