NICK CARTER STORIES _Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post Office, by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Ave., New York. Copyright, 1915, by_ STREET & SMITH. _O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors._ =Terms to NICK CARTER STORIES Mail Subscribers.= (_Postage Free._) =Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each.= 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 One year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =How to Send Money=--By post-office or express money order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage stamps in ordinary letter. =Receipts=--Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. =No 157.= NEW YORK, September 11, 1915. =Price Five Cents.= A HUMAN COUNTERFEIT; Or, NICK CARTER AND THE CROOK’S DOUBLE. Edited by CHICKERING CARTER. CHAPTER I. WHY WAS IT DONE? “Extraordinary--that doesn’t half express it. I know of no word that would. To some extent, Nick, at least, men’s motives are usually discernible in their conduct. But in this case--why, there was nothing to it. It is utterly inexplicable. It was like a horrid dream, a hideous nightmare, or the mental abnormalities of a dope fiend.” Nick Carter laughed and spread his napkin, with a significant glance at his chief assistant, Chick Carter, who sat at one side of the table, that of a private dining room in a new and fashionable New York hotel. “Well, Mr. Clayton, if the story you have to tell warrants so remarkable a preface, it will be interesting, at least,” said the famous detective. “Yes, Nick, and then some,” Chick agreed, smiling. “He so has aroused my curiosity that I really am all ears.” “I don’t think I shall disappoint you,” said their companion, more gravely. He was a fashionably clad man of thirty-five, of medium build and with clean-cut, attractive cast of features, smoothly shaved. There was in other respects nothing specially distinctive about him. He was the type of well-bred, well-informed, and thorough business man with which New York City abounds.