The distinguished actor clutched at one of the wings for support, and the letter fluttered to the ground. The manager stooped to pick it up, but with an oath the star forestalled him, seizing the letter hastily and thrusting it into his pocket. “Bad news?” the manager asked anxiously. “A rather disagreeable surprise,” Lumsden managed to say, making a strenuous attempt to control himself. “It’s nothing you know anything about, you know, and I’ll be all right, never fear.” Harold Lumsden played the part that night, for there was nothing else to do, and the traditions of his profession demand that an actor or actress should always appear, unless ill in bed, no matter what news may have been received, or what tragedy may have been left at home. But some idea of the sort of performance the famous star gave on that memorable occasion might have been gathered from the newspaper comments the following morning, for all the critics seemed to agree that Lumsden was far from himself, and that his conception of the part was strangely heavy and lifeless. Such was the effect of Green-eye Gordon’s second demand. There were other letters—several of them, in fact—but we need not trace their influence here. There was no doubt that the blackmailer had struck some stunning blows, expecting that gold would flow from the wounds thus inflicted. CHAPTER XLVII. THE BLACKMAILER ADVISES HIS VICTIM. Ernest Gordon was inclined to consider the world a pretty good place, as he finished his breakfast in Nick Carter’s dining room the following morning. Everything had gone very well, thus far, and he seemed to have reason for self-congratulation. He had peddled the letters around himself the night before, thus saving time, and making it more difficult to trace them, as he believed. He did not know that he had been shadowed throughout by Chick, who thereby knew just what victims the blackmailer had chosen for his first broadside. Later he had returned to the detective’s house, and so had Chick; then there had come a telephone message to the latter from Nick sending the young detective out of town for at least twenty-four, if not forty-eight, hours. That unexpected turn of affairs had caused Gordon great satisfaction when Chick gloomily confided the news to him. “The chief seems to think that fellow Gordon has doubled back, and is hiding not far from New Pelham,” the assistant informed “Gillespie.” “He still hopes he’ll turn up at your place, and is going to wait there all of to-morrow, if not longer, but he wants me to get busy, and see if I can locate Gordon independently. It seems unnecessary to me, but what he says goes. The worst of it is, though, I’ve got my orders to pull up stakes at once.”