THE MAN WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE. CHAPTER I. AN INQUISITIVE CLERK. “Bureau of Secret Investigation.” Nick Carter glanced at the above sign over the door, an unpretentious and somewhat faded reminder of better days, while he descended the flight of stone steps leading into the basement offices of the Boston police department. The sunlight lay warm and bright in Pemberton Square at ten o’clock that May morning, shedding over the magnificent new court-house a golden glory consistent, no doubt, with the wise dispensation of justice, yet in monstrous anomaly with some of the dreadful experiences and grim episodes sometimes enacted within those splendid sunlit walls. Nick turned to the right in the main corridor and entered the adjoining office, quite a commodious room, in which the general business of this secret service branch of the local police department was conducted. The enclosure back of the chief clerk’s high desk, which also was topped with a brass grating, happened to be vacant when Nick entered. In one corner of the room, however, a subordinate clerk was busily engaged in attempting to repair a slight leak in the faucet of the ice-water vessel, and to this young man the famous New York detective addressed himself. “Has the chief been in this morning?” he asked. The clerk bobbed up from his work as if startled, drying his hands with his handkerchief, and stared sharply at Nick for several moments. But he saw nothing familiar in the stranger’s grave, clean-cut features. For all that this clerk knew, or surmised, Nick might have been an ordinary or very humble citizen, who had quietly dropped in there for want of something better to do. “Chief Weston?” he returned inquiringly, still sharply scrutinizing Nick. “There is no other chief in this department, is there?” was Nick’s reply, with a subtle tinge of irony. “Well—no.” “Chief Weston, yes,” bowed Nick. “Is he in his office?” “I believe so.” “Busy?” “I reckon he is, just now.” “Reckon, eh? Don’t you know?” “Yes, sir, he’s busy,” the clerk now said, a bit curtly, flushing slightly under the detective’s keen eye and quietly persistent inquiries. “He’s not too busy to see me, I think,” replied Nick, with dry assurance. “Go in and tell him I’m here.” “Who are you?” “Never mind who I am.” “I’ll take in your card.” “No card,” said Nick tersely. “Your name, then?” “Nor any name.” “But——” “Merely tell the chief that his friend from New York is here.” The expression in the eyes of the irritated clerk lost none of its searching interest, yet they now took on a rather different light, as if he had been suddenly hit with an idea. Yet he still frowned slightly and said: “If you object to having your name mentioned——”