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Title: The Babbington case: Or Nick Carter's strange quest
Author: Carter, Nicholas (House name)
Language: English
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NICK CARTER STORIES
New Magnet Library
_Not a Dull Book in This List_
ALL BY NICHOLAS CARTER
Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that the
books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the work of
a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no other type of
fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of new plots and
situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from all sorts of
troubles and landed the criminal just where he should be--behind the
bars.
The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories
than any other single person.
Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been
selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of them
as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth
covers which sells at ten times the price.
If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet
Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.
_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_
901--A Weird Treasure
902--The Middle Link
903--To the Ends of the Earth
904--When Honors Pall
905--The Yellow Brand
906--A New Serpent In Eden
907--When Brave Men Tremble
908--A Test of Courage
909--Where Peril Beckons
910--The Gargoni Girdle
911--Rascals & Co.
912--Too Late to Talk
913--Satan’s Apt Pupil
914--The Girl Prisoner
915--The Danger of Folly
916--One Shipwreck Too Many
917--Scourged by Fear
918--The Red Plague
919--Scoundrels Rampant
920--From Clew to Clew
921--When Rogues Conspire
922--Twelve in a Grave
923--The Great Opium Case
924--A Conspiracy of Rumors
925--A Klondike Claim
926--The Evil Formula
927--The Man of Many Faces
928--The Great Enigma
929--The Burden of Proof
930--The Stolen Brain
932--The Magic Necklace
933--Round the World for a Quarter
934--Over the Edge of the World
935--In the Grip of Fate
936--The Case of Many Clews
937--The Sealed Door
939--The Man Without a Will
941--A Clew from the Unknown
948--A Mixed-up Mess
945--The Adder’s Brood
947--For a Pawned Crown
949--The Hate that Kills
951--The Needy Nine
953--Outlaws of the Blue
955--Found in the Jungle
957--Broken Bars
958--A Fair Criminal
959--Won by Magic
960--The Plano Box Mystery
961--The Man They Held Back
962--a Millionaire Partner
963--A Pressing Peril
964--An Australian Klondike
965--The Sultan’s Pearls
966--The Double Shuffle Club
967--Paying the Price
968--A Woman’s Hand
969--A Network of Crime
970--At Thompson’s Ranch
971--The Crossed Needles
972--The Diamond Mine Case
973--Blood Will Tell
974--An Accidental Password
975--The Crook’s Double
976--Two Plus Two
977--The Yellow Label
978--The Clever Celestial
979--The Amphitheater Plot
981--Death in Life
982--A Stolen Identity
983--Evidence by Telephone
984--The Twelve Tin Boxes
985--Clew Against Clew
987--Playing a Bold Game
988--A Dead Man’s Grip
989--Snarled Identities
990--A Deposit Vault Puzzle
991--The Crescent Brotherhood
992--The Stolen Pay Train
993--The Sea Fox
994--Wanted by Two Clients
995--The Van Alstine Case
996--Check No. 777
997--Partners in Peril
998--Nick Carter’s Clever Protégé
999--The Sign of the Crossed Knives
1000--The Man Who Vanished
1001--A Battle for the Right
1002--A Game of Craft
1003--Nick Carter’s Retainer
1004--Caught in the Tolls
1005--A Broken Bond
1006--The Crime of the French Café
1007--The Man Who Stole Millions
1008--The Twelve Wise Men
1009--Hidden Foes
1010--A Gamblers’ Syndicate
1011--A Chance Discovery
1013--A Threefold Disappearance
1014--At Odds with Scotland Yard
1015--A Princess of Crime
1016--Found on the Beach
1017--A Spinner of Death
1018--The Detective’s Pretty Neighbor
1019--A Bogus Clew
1020--The Puzzle of Five Pistols
1021--The Secret of the Marble Mantel
1022--A Bite of an Apple
1023--A Triple Crime
1024--The Stolen Race Horse
1025--Wildfire
1026--A Herald Personal
1027--The Finger of Suspicion
1028--The Crimson Clew
1029--Nick Carter Down East
1030--The Chain of Clews
1031--A Victim of Circumstances
1032--Brought to Bay
1033--The Dynamite Trap
1034--A Scrap of Black Lace
1035--The Woman of Evil
1036--A Legacy of Hate
1037--A Trusted Rogue
1038--Man Against Man
1039--The Demons of the Night
1040--The Brotherhood of Death
1041--At the Knife’s Point
1042--A Cry for Help
1043--A Stroke of Policy
1044--Hounded to Death
1045--A Bargain in Crime
1046--The Fatal Prescription
1047--The Man of Iron
1048--An Amazing Scoundrel
1049--The Chain of Evidence
1050--Paid with Death
1051--A Fight for a Throne
1052--The Woman of Steel
1053--The Seal of Death
1054--The Human Fiend
1055--A Desperate Chance
1056--A Chase in the Dark
1057--The Snare and the Game
1059--Nick Carter’s Close Call
1060--The Missing Cotton King
1061--A Game of Plots
1062--The Prince of Liars
1063--The Man at the Window
1064--The Red League
1066--The Worst Case on Record
1067--From Peril to Peril
1068--The Seal of Silence
1069--Nick Carter’s Chinese Puzzle
1070--A Blackmailer’s Bluff
1071--Heard in the Dark
1072--A Checkmated Scoundrel
1073--The Cashier’s Secret
1074--Behind a Mask
1075--The Cloak of Guilt
1076--Two Villains in One
1077--The Hot Air Clew
1078--Run to Earth
1079--The Certified Check
1080--Weaving the Web
1081--Beyond Pursuit
1082--The Claws of the Tiger
1083--Driven from Cover
1084--A Deal in Diamonds
1085--The Wizard of the Cue
1086--A Race for Ten Thousand
1087--The Criminal Link
1088--The Red Signal
1089--The Secret Panel
1090--A Bonded Villain
1091--A Move in the Dark
1092--Against Desperate Odds
1093--The Telltale Photographs
1094--The Ruby Pin
1095--The Queen of Diamonds
1096--A Broken Trail
1097--An Ingenious Stratagem
1098--A Sharper’s Downfall
1099--A Race Track Gamble
1100--Without a Clew
1101--The Council of Death
1102--The Hole in the Vault
1103--In Death’s Grip
1104--A Great Conspiracy
1105--The Guilty Governor
1106--A Ring of Rascals
1107--A Masterpiece of Crime
1108--A Blow for Vengeance
1109--Tangled Threads
1110--The Crime of the Camera
1111--The Sign of the Dagger
1112--Nick Carter’s Promise
1113--Marked for Death
1114--The Limited Holdup
1115--When the Trap Was Sprung
1116--Through the Cellar Wall
1117--Under the Tiger’s Claws
1118--The Girl in the Case
1119--Behind a Throne
1120--The Lure of Gold
1121--Hand to Hand
1122--From a Prison Cell
1123--Dr. Quarts, Magician
1124--Into Nick Carter’s Web
1125--The Mystic Diagram
1126--The Hand that Won
1127--Playing a Lone Hand
1128--The Master Villain
1129--The False Claimant
1130--The Living Mask
1131--The Crime and the Motive
1132--A Mysterious Foe
1133--A Missing Man
1134--A Game Well Played
1135--A Cigarette Clew
1136--The Diamond Trail
1137--The Silent Guardian
1138--The Dead Stranger
1140--The Doctor’s Stratagem
1141--Following a Chance Clew
1142--The Bank Draft Puzzle
1143--The Price of Treachery
1144--The Silent Partner
1145--Ahead of the Game
1146--A Trap of Tangled Wire
1147--In the Gloom of Night
1148--The Unaccountable Crook
1149--A Bundle of Clews
1150--The Great Diamond Syndicate
1151--The Death Circle
1152--The Toss of a Penny
1153--One Step Too Far
1154--The Terrible Thirteen
1155--A Detective’s Theory
1156--Nick Carter’s Auto Trail
1157--A Triple Identity
1158--A Mysterious Graft
1159--A Carnival of Crime
1160--The Bloodstone Terror
1161--Trapped in His Own Net
1162--The Last Move in the Game
1163--A Victim of Deceit
1164--With Links of Steel
1165--A Plaything of Fate
1166--The Key Ring Clew
1167--Playing for a Fortune
1168--At Mystery’s Threshold
1169--Trapped by a Woman
1170--The Four Fingered Glove
1171--Nabob and Knave
1172--The Broadway Cross
1173--The Man Without a Conscience
1174--A Master of Deviltry
1175--Nick Carter’s Double Catch
1176--Doctor Quartz’s Quick Move
1177--The Vial of Death
1178--Nick Carter’s Star Pupils
1179--Nick Carter’s Girl Detective
1180--A Baffled Oath
1181--A Royal Thief
1182--Down and Out
1183--A Syndicate of Rascals
1184--Played to a Finish
1185--A Tangled Case
1186--In Letters of Fire
1187--Crossed Wires
1188--A Plot Uncovered
1189--The Cab Driver’s Secret
1190--Nick Carter’s Death Warrant
1191--The Plot that Failed
1192--Nick Carter’s Masterpiece
1193--A Prince of Rogues
1194--In the Lap of Danger
1195--The Man from London
1196--Circumstantial Evidence
1197--The Pretty Stenographer Mystery
1198--A Villainous Scheme
1199--A Plot Within a Plot
1200--The Elevated Railroad Mystery
1201--The Blow of a Hammer
1202--The Twin Mystery
1203--The Bottle with the Black Label
1204--Under False Colors
1205--A Ring of Dust
1206--The Crown Diamond
1207--The Blood-red Badge
1208--The Barrel Mystery
1209--The Photographer’s Evidence
1210--Millions at Stake
1211--The Man and His Price
1212--A Double-Handed Game
1213--A Strike for Freedom
1214--A Disciple of Satan
1215--The Marked Hand
1216--A Fight with a Fiend
1217--When the Wicked Prosper
1218--A Plunge into Crime
1219--An Artful Schemer
1220--Reaping the Whirlwind
1221--Out of Crime’s Depths
1222--A Woman at Bay
1223--The Temple of Vice
1224--Death at the Feast
1225--A Double Plot
1226--In Search of Himself
1227--A Hunter of Men
1228--The Boulevard Mutes
1229--Captain Sparkle, Pirate
1230--Nick Carter’s Fall
1231--Out of Death’s Shadow
1232--A Voice from the Past
1233--Accident or Murder?
1234--The Man Who Was Cursed
1235--Baffled, But Not Beaten
1236--A Case Without a Clew
1237--The Demon’s Eye
1238--A Blindfold Mystery
1239--Nick Carter’s Swim to Victory
1240--A Man to Be Feared
1241--Saved by a Ruse
1242--Nick Carter’s Wildest Chase
1243--A Nation’s Peril
1244--The Rajah’s Ruby
1245--The Trail of a Human Tiger
1246--The Disappearing Princess
1247--The Lost Chittendens
1248--The Crystal Mystery
1249--The King’s Prisoner
1250--Talika, the Geisha Girl
1251--The Doom of the Reds
1252--The Lady of Shadows
1253--The Mysterious Castle
1254--The Senator’s Plot
1255--A Submarine Trail
1256--A War of Brains
1257--Pauline--A Mystery
1258--The Confidence King
1259--A Chase for Millions
1260--Shown on the Screen
1261--The Streaked Peril
1262--The Room of Mirrors
1263--A Plot for an Empire
1264--A Call on the Phone
1265--Nick Carter’s Convict Client
1266--The House of the Yellow Door
1267--Nick Carter’s Round-up
1268--A Masterly Trick
1269--For a Madman’s Millions
1270--The Four Hoodoo Charms
1271--The Man in the Auto
1272--The Jeweled Mummy
1273--The Vanishing Emerald
1274--A Live Wire Clue
1275--The Vampire’s Trail
1276--The Crimson Flash
1277--The Vanishing Heiress
1278--The Red Triangle
1279--Nick Carter’s Subtle Foe
1280--Nick Carter’s Chance Clue
1281--A Master Criminal
1282--The Silver Hair Clue
1283--Written in Blood
1284--Bandits of the Air
1285--Nick Carter’s Last Card
1286--The Taxicab Riddle
1287--A Stolen Name
1288--A Play for Millions
1289--The House of Whispers
1290--The Woman in Black
In order that there may be no confusion, we desire to say that the books
listed below will be issued during the respective months in New York
City and vicinity. They may not reach the readers at a distance
promptly, on account of delays in transportation.
To be published in July, 1930.
1291--Nick Carter’s Egyptian Clue
1292--The Connecting Link
1293--A Woman of Mystery
To be published in August, 1930.
1294--The Dead Accomplice
1295--Nick Carter’s Counterplot
To be published in September, 1930.
1296--The Seven Schemers
1297--The Mysterious Cavern
To be published in October, 1930.
1298--The Crime of a Century
1299--The Man with a Crutch
To be published in November, 1930.
1300--Out for Vengeance
1301--The Poisons of Exili
To be published in December, 1930.
1302--A Double Identity
1303--The Babbington Case
1304--The Midnight Message
If your dealer cannot supply you with the S. & S. novels, write to the
publishers.
STREET & SMITH
79 Seventh Avenue New York City
The Babbington Case
OR
Nick Carter’s Strange Quest
By NICHOLAS CARTER
Author of “A Double Identity,” “The Poisons of Exili,”
“Out for Vengeance,” etc.
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS
INCORPORATED
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y.
Copyright, 1911
By STREET & SMITH
The Babbington Case
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
Printed in the U. S. A.
THE BABBINGTON CASE.
CHAPTER I.
A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR.
“A man and a woman together; then a man alone.”
Nick Carter thought this remark rather than uttered it in words, as he
came to an abrupt pause in his walk and looked down upon the tracks in
the snow.
There were no other tracks than those anywhere visible, save only his
own, which he had made in his approach to the spot, and he was careful
not to approach too near while he made the examination which only his
curiosity suggested--for there could have been no other reason at the
moment than curiosity to attract him.
But before him was a huge iron gate between two enormous posts; a gate
which had the outward appearance of not having been opened in a long
time, and, indeed, upon it now, as the detective looked at it, there was
a formidable padlock, with its heavy chain, to hold the great barrier
against all comers.
Nick Carter could see from where he stood that the lock was securely
locked, that the chain had been drawn tightly around the spindles of the
iron gate, and, therefore, that the man who had come out of the place
alone, after having passed inside with the woman not very long before,
had locked it.
There were the tracks he had made when he had turned about to fasten the
gate when he came out alone, and there were his tracks when he walked
away from the place.
But where was the woman? and why had she not come again with the man?
These were perfectly natural questions which the detective asked
himself; natural, because he knew something about the grounds upon which
those gates opened, and also something about the house within those
grounds.
Still more, he knew something about the people to whom the magnificent
residence and grounds belonged.
He remembered also that the light flurry of “sugar” snow which now
covered the ground like a white sheet of tissue paper--and it was
scarcely thicker than that--had fallen within the last hour.
So it followed that those tracks must have been made within that hour.
Within an hour a man and a woman had entered the grounds of
Pleasantglades--for that is the name by which the magnificent estate was
known, or, at least, it is the one that we will use here to represent
it--within an hour the two had entered together, and the man had come
out alone, locking the gate after him, and, therefore, leaving her
there.
And Nick Carter knew that the great house was unoccupied; that there was
not even a caretaker there, so----
Why had two gone in and only one come out?
Curiosity gave place to interest; and as he studied the footprints with
still more care, interest became absorbtion.
Both persons had been well shod. The woman daintily so, for, as the
detective looked even more closely, he came almost to the opinion that
she had been wearing slippers.
And the tracks of the man suggested dress shoes, even pumps, if one was
to call upon one’s imagination just a trifle.
The hour, be it said, when the detective discovered the tracks in the
snow, was between two and three o’clock in the morning, and a hundred
feet away from the gate an arc light glowed brightly. Otherwise, the
place would have been intensely dark, for, although that flurry of snow
had lasted but a few minutes, it was still cloudy and threatening.
If Nick had approached the gate from the opposite direction, he might
not have noticed the tracks at all; but, as it happened, he had
approached toward the light, and had looked directly down upon them,
plainly revealed.
The place was quite near to New York; near enough so that the detective
had gone there in his car since dark that night.
The business that had taken him there had nothing to do with this thing
that now interested him, and, if it seems strange to the reader that he
should have been strolling along such a thoroughfare alone at that hour
of the morning, we need only to say that that is quite another and
different story.
What would be your impulse, reader, if you made just such a discovery as
this one?
Would it not be to follow the footprints of the man without delay, to
find out where he had gone, and with the probability of learning his
identity? Probably. And yet Nick Carter knew at once how fruitless such
a pursuit would be, since at the next corner toward the direction the
man had taken, which was approximately three hundred feet distant, two
trolley tracks passed, and it was upon a thoroughfare where there was
considerable travel; the tracks left by this strange man, therefore,
would be quickly lost at that point, even if he had not succeeded in
stepping upon a trolley car, and being borne away in one direction or
the other.
Nevertheless, after a moment of thought, Nick ran along the street to
that corner, for it had occurred to him that possibly the two, the man
and the woman, had come to that point in a motor car, and if that were
so there would still be evidence of the fact that such a car had stopped
there.
He found that much evidence, too, but no more.
There, beside the curb in this same street upon which the gate was
located, were the plain tracks in the snow, showing where the car had
pulled out after the man had returned to it, although there were no
tracks to show its approach.
And this demonstrated the undoubted fact that the motor had arrived
there just about at the beginning of the fall of snow.
Nick remembered that it had continued to snow not more than ten or
fifteen minutes at the most, and so it was at once apparent to the
detective that the car had arrived at the corner just before the snow
began to fall; that the two had remained in the car for several moments
thereafter, probably discussing the trip from the car to the house, and
had finally left it while the snow was still falling rapidly.
Well, all that was not important save to demonstrate that one of the
persons, probably the woman, had not left the car to go to the house
willingly, but that persuasion of some sort had been resorted to.
If the car arrived at the corner before the snow began to fall--and Nick
knew that it had done so--and if the snow had ceased to fall while they
were midway of the distance of three hundred feet, it followed that they
must have remained talking together in the car for at least eight
minutes, and, at the most, thirteen minutes.
And yet there was no evidence anywhere to be seen that the woman had not
accompanied the man willingly enough.
It was apparent that she had walked along by his side even without
clinging to his arm, for the tracks were not close enough together to
suggest that; there was no place where it appeared that she had made any
effort to turn back; there was no suggestion anywhere, that the
detective could see, save the one of the hesitation, while still in the
car, that the woman had not gone willingly enough.
The car itself, upon leaving the corner, had been driven upon the
trolley tracks where it had been turned southward toward the city.
It must not be supposed that the detective wasted any time in making
these discoveries. A glance at the tracks in the snow as he ran to the
corner, then at the tracks left by the car, was all that was needed to
inform him of the points already made, and he turned and went toward the
great gate again, thinking.
Plainly, as a humane man, if not as a detective, it was his duty to
enter the grounds of Pleasantglades and to find out what had become of
that woman who had entered there with a man, at or soon after two
o’clock in the morning, and who had not come out again.
He decided, as he again approached the gate, to go inside.
To decide to go inside, and to get inside were quite two different
things.
Nick decided that the top of the wall was quite fourteen feet above the
pavement where he stood. He could see that it was guarded by that most
effective of all means for such a guard--by broken glass set in cement.
The gate between the two high posts was a double one, which opened at
the middle, and the tops of the highest spears were nearly as high as
the posts themselves, while the shortest ones were only a trifle lower
than the walls.
Plainly the only method of entering the grounds was by opening the gate,
and that meant that he must either pick the lock, or file through the
chain that held the two gates together, for, although he had his
nippers with him, they were by far too small and delicate to bite
through a chain of that size.
And his picklock, which he was never without, had not been intended for
locks of that sort, for he found when he examined it that it was of the
most complicated pattern of padlock, and that it had probably been made
to order for the owners of the place.
Indeed, as he examined it more closely, he found it to be one of those
rare locks which require the use of two, and sometimes three, keys, to
open them.
His picklock was therefore out of business for once.
But he had his pocket case of delicate tools with him, and among those
tools was a file which would eat through that chain, or any other one,
in short order; and so, at last, he took it from the case and adjusted
it.
It was the last extremity to which he resorted, for he disliked the idea
of filing his way into the place, necessary as it seemed to be, that he
should enter. He would greatly have preferred to scale the wall, or to
pick the lock if either had been possible.
He did not like the idea of leaving the place unguarded even
temporarily, when he came out again, for, after all, there was no
certainty that he would find anything wrong, and it was quite possible
that there might be a plausible and logical reason and explanation for
all the things he had discovered that had interested him so greatly.
But he had decided that he would go inside, and, therefore, he went
inside with no more delay than was absolutely necessary.
That little file of his, no larger than the blade of a penknife, and not
much longer, ate through the chain cleanly and rapidly, and, although we
have taken so much time and space to describe his discovery of the
tracks in the snow and to explain his reasonings upon that discovery, it
is doubtful if more than fifteen minutes had actually elapsed after he
first saw the footprints, until he opened one of the gates, passed
through, and closed the gate after him.
Then, having rearranged the chain again with great care so that it would
not be noticed that it had been tampered with, he turned to follow the
tracks in the snow, that led toward the great mansion.
CHAPTER II.
WHERE THE FOOTPRINTS LED.
Pleasantglades, although located directly within a large community which
has lately taken upon itself the dignity of a city, and situated almost
at the center of it, is as isolated, in more senses than one, as if it
were in the midst of a forest. There are many who will read what is
written here who know the place perfectly well, and have often admired
it--and who would recognize it at once if the right name of it were
given.
But there are reasons, which will develop later in the story, why the
exact name and locality cannot be given here. Suffice it to say that it
is within an hour of New York City by motor car.
The high wall that has already been described incloses six acres of
beautiful grounds, which the owner always referred to as “The Park.”
From the great gate, which strangely enough is the only entrance to the
grounds, or park, the roadway winds in two directions, to the right and
to the left, among splendid trees, and in the summertime there is no
more beautiful and spacious home to be found anywhere near the
metropolis.
The owner, J. Cephas Lynne, was justly proud of it--almost as proud of
this possession, as of one greater one that was his, his daughter.
We have to mention her here and now, because it was Edythe Lynne, or,
rather, all that remained of her--her dead body--that Nick Carter
speedily found when at last he forced his way into the house just as a
burglar would have done it, only more expertly even than that, and
penetrated to the beautiful room which he judged to have been one of her
own private suite.
She was in the parlor or boudoir of her suite; she was lying peacefully
upon a large couch among a myriad of pillows, which had been tastefully
and comfortably arranged to support her body in a comfortable and
graceful position.
She was reclining entirely at ease, as if she had arranged herself there
to rest, having first fixed the pillows so that she could do so in
comfort, fully dressed as for a party or a wedding, as she was.
One hand, the left one, rested upon a pillow that was partly behind her,
the arm being stretched out to its full length; the other one hung
partly over the edge of the divan couch, as if it had fallen there in
that position of its own weight.
And just beneath that right hand, upon the rug, was a tiny glass vial
capable of holding thirty to forty drops of liquid--and the room was
pungent with the odor of almonds.
It was not difficult to guess, because of that odor, what the vial had
contained: Prussic acid. Nor was it difficult to understand that the man
who had taken her there and murdered her had carefully arranged
everything so that it should appear to be an undoubted suicide.
To understand and appreciate everything just as Nick Carter found them,
and as he discovered them, it must be remembered that it was still
pitchy dark outside, and that there were no light connections in the
great mansion at that time. As a consequence, the detective’s only means
of searching the place was by the aid of his electric flash light, which
he always carried with him when engaged upon business--and he had been
on business of quite another nature, when he discovered those tracks in
the snow.
When he forced his way into the house by picking the lock of the same
door to which the tracks had led him, traces of the snow that those
other two had brought into the house with them led him speedily enough
to the scene we have already partly described.
And when he opened the door to that room, and threw his light from point
to point about it, the shaft of illumination at last rested directly
upon the beautiful face of the dead girl on the couch.
Such was the picture he saw before he made further investigation.
Then came the other details that we have told about, and some others
that are yet to be told.
A long coat of sable, that might have reached to the young woman’s
ankles, had been carefully laid across the back of a chair, and upon
that were the scarf and veil that she had worn as a head covering, and
they had been put there with exactly the same degree of careless
attention that she might have used in doing so.
A fan, her gloves, and a gold vanity box set with jewels were upon the
table in the middle of the room, and, beside them, was a sealed
envelope addressed to J. Cephas Lynne.
The writing on the envelope was in the bold, rather large feminine hand
that was in vogue at that time, and was presumably her own--or an
imitation of her own handwriting; underneath the address was written the
one further word, “Personal.”
There was not a thing about the room to indicate that another person
than herself had visited it, and, although the detective searched
diligently for such evidence, he could find no trace of the man who had
accompanied her to the house which had been her home.
Never in the experience of Nick Carter had he known of a clear case of
murder like this one, where the murderer had left absolutely nothing
undone to demonstrate a suicide; but Nick Carter, because of those
tracks in the snow, because he had arrived upon the scene at precisely
the psychological moment to understand them, and because he had read the
other signs that we have described, knew it to be a deliberately planned
and executed crime.
There was not the slightest doubt of that in his mind, and, therefore,
he did not hesitate to break the seal of that letter which otherwise
would have been sacred.
But there was no time to be lost in getting a trace of that man who had
accompanied the young woman to the house.
One who could plan and execute a crime in such a masterly manner would
have planned much farther ahead of him than that, also, and would have
arranged to cover his tracks so that if the accident of Nick Carter’s
passing that way at the moment he did so had not happened, it is
doubtful if the crime and criminal would ever have been discovered, and
the young woman who died that night in all the glory of her young
womanhood would have been remembered only as a suicide.
Therefore, the detective broke the seal and read the letter--after which
he returned it to the envelope and put it carefully away in one of his
pockets, already determined that no eyes but his own and his assistants
should see it until he had run down the man who had committed the awful
outrage.
The contents of that letter are not important save to demonstrate the
cleverness of the murderer; but we will give them as the detective found
them:
“DARLING PAPA: I will not ask you to forgive me for this act, for I
know you will do that. I also know that I will have made you suffer
deeply by it. Yet I do it with deliberation--because I feel that I
must do it. The reasons why I have decided that there is no other
way, you will discover soon enough, and you will feel deep regret
because I did not go to you and tell you all about it, instead of
doing this thing. Yet there are some things which one cannot face,
and the one thing that I cannot face is your sorrow when you come
to know what I have done. I would never have believed it possible
that I could be brought to this pass, but here I am, and soon I
shall be only a memory. I hope you will cherish only the tenderest
parts of that memory, and that you will always believe that even in
taking my own life, I love you.
EDYTHE.”
Such was the letter that the detective read and then hid away in his
pocket; but there was one sentence of the letter that burned itself upon
his memory, one sentence that must be the explanation of the crime
itself. It was:
“The reasons why I have decided that there is no other way, you
will discover soon enough, and you will feel deep regret because I
did not go to you and tell you all about it, instead of doing this
thing.”
In that sentence was concealed, doubtless, the secret of why the crime
had been committed, and Nick Carter felt as certain as he had ever felt
assured of anything in his life, that the dead girl on the couch, if she
could have come to life at that moment, would have been utterly ignorant
of what those reasons were.
In other words Nick Carter read the scene in this manner:
This crime was committed to conceal another crime, and the murderer,
knowing that his lesser crime would presently be discovered, determined
to fix it upon this innocent girl, the daughter of the house.
Therein existed the nucleus of the whole affair as the detective saw it.
It was plain, of course, that the man who could have induced Edythe
Lynne to go with him to her out-of-town home in the dead of night must
have been a near relative, or a person who was entirely in the
confidence of the family--otherwise she would not have consented to
accompany him.
And even then there must have been a powerful motive beyond any that
could appear on the surface.
Was the man who had done this thing young or old, or middle aged? There
was no present means of ascertaining that, but that he must be one who
stood upon terms of at least cordial familiarity with J. Cephas Lynne
and his daughter was beyond doubt.
The detective made one further hasty survey of the room, throwing the
beam of his flash light again upon every detail that he had discovered;
and then he left the room, leaving every detail as he had found it, save
only the letter which he carried away with him in his pocket.
It was snowing hard when he got outside, and he nodded, as if to say:
“The murderer foresaw this additional fall of snow, and hence took no
trouble to cover his tracks.”
Then he went on through the gate, fixing the chain again after him as he
had done upon entering the place, and he hurried in the direction from
whence he had first approached the gate, less than an hour before.
He walked rapidly onward a quarter of a mile or more, and presently came
upon his own car, to discover that Danny, his chauffeur, and his two
assistants, Chick and Patsy, were already there, awaiting him.
He looked at his watch before he spoke to them, and they had a fashion,
born of long experience, of never addressing him on such an occasion
until he had spoken. It was not always well to break in upon Nick
Carter’s preoccupation.
“It is now a quarter to four,” he said; “a good two hours and a half
before daylight. Danny, I want you to remain here with the car until we
return, which will be within three-quarters of an hour. And, lads, I
want you both to come with me. I have made a discovery that I want you
both to see.”
Then, without further words, he led them both back to the house where he
had discovered the crime, led them inside with the same care that he had
used in the first place, making them dust the snow from their feet and
clothing before they entered the house, and then he piloted them
straight to the room where all that remained of beautiful Edythe Lynne
awaited them.
Not until they were all inside that room and Chick and Patsy had looked
upon the sad scene that was there, did he offer the slightest
explanation; but then, in detail, just as it has been told here, he told
them everything that had occurred, and everything that he had found
since he first saw the tracks in the snow. But he expressed no opinions
upon any of the incidents, for it was their separate opinions that he
wanted, unbiased by his own. But he gave each of them the letter to
read; and after that they left the house again, together.
CHAPTER III.
A MORNING CALL.
“We won’t discuss this affair just yet,” said the detective, as they
hurried along together toward the place where the car was awaiting them.
“There are other things to be considered first. But I want you both to
think it over--all that you have seen and all that I have told you about
it--so that later we can talk it over understandingly. Just now I have
an idea in mind which is about the most absurd thing, on the surface,
that I ever did in my life.”
Chick glanced around at him with sudden understanding, but it was Patsy
who replied.
“I think I can guess what that is,” he said.
“Well, what is it?”
“It isn’t snowing so very hard just now,” said Patsy. “Those tracks that
we have made in going to the house and coming away from it, while they
will be covered, will not be entirely obliterated--not if six inches of
snow should fall over them. There would still be the indications of
footprints in the snow; of the ones we left there, eh?”
“Sure,” said the detective. “You’re on, Patsy.”
“You had more reasons than one in taking us back to the house with you,
chief,” the second assistant continued. “You wanted to leave those
tracks, didn’t you?”
“I’ll confess that I did, Patsy.”
“Just to mystify--who?”
“Who should you say, Patsy?”
“Well, the first thought would be that you preferred to mystify the
police, than to tell these local chaps all you know; but there is more,
isn’t there?”
“Yes; there is much more; but in order to accomplish it I am compelled
to mystify the local authorities--until they have made their first
report on the matter; after that I will be glad to take them into our
confidence.”
“In other words,” said Chick, “you want to puzzle the murderer himself,
but you want the local police out here to do it for you.”
“That is precisely the idea. Now, in the first place no one at the local
headquarters, where I think they have about four policemen on duty,
would think of questioning a report that you or I, Chick, would leave
with them. So we will drive directly to the local headquarters, where I
want you, Chick, to go inside while Patsy and I remain in the car. Do
you know the rest?”
“You had better tell me so that I will get it exactly as you want it.”
“They know that we were out here to-night, and they know what for, don’t
they? I told you to go there.”
“Yes.”
“Say to the officer in charge at the desk merely that in passing the
gate at Pleasantglades you noticed that there were tracks in the snow,
showing that several men had passed in and out of there during the
night; that you thought it best to mention the fact--and that is all.
Come back out and get into the car, and we will drive away.”
“You mean for them to find the body, and to report that three men had
been in the house and had come out again.”
“Just that.”
“But I don’t quite see the point,” said Patsy, as he climbed into the
car, and Danny, having received his directions, started forward.
“It is this: The local police of course know that Pleasantglades is at
the present time unoccupied, and, doubtless, it is up to them to keep it
free from molestation. Your report will hurry them around there to see
what the tracks in the snow mean. They will find that the chain on the
gate has been filed; they will follow the tracks to the door where we
entered; they will find the body of the young mistress of the house, as
we saw it; they will find no indications of violence anywhere, and yet
the undisputed proof that men have been there.”
“Well?” said Patsy, when he paused.
“The afternoon papers to-morrow--to-day, rather--will teem with this
greatest of all recent mysteries, and whatever conclusions the local
police draw from what they find, there will be the statement that at
least three men entered the house. I want the murderer to see that, and
read it.”
“And also to fail to find any mention of the letter, eh?”
“Precisely. I want to puzzle him, and worry him. So much for that. Here
we are at the station. Go on in, Chick, and get through with it as
quickly as possible.”
Chick was gone only two or three minutes, and he returned with a half
smile on his face.
“Well?” asked the detective, as they started to drive on.
“The information that there were tracks in the snow, showing that men
had passed in and out of the grounds over there to-night, was like an
electric shock to that copper,” said Chick. “He asked me if I had
examined the tracks, and I truthfully told him that I had not. Then he
thanked me and I came out.”
Nick leaned forward in his seat and spoke to Danny.
“I want you to make as good time as you can to the city,” he said. “The
snow is a little heavy, I know, but you ought to get there by seven,
Danny.”
“Easy, sir,” was the reply.
“When you do, drive directly to the residence of Mr. J. Cephas Lynne. It
is on Riverside Drive. Do you know just where it is?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you can’t get there any too quickly to please me.”
When the detective leaned back in his seat again, Chick said to him:
“Won’t the police up there already have telephoned to him, don’t you
think?”
“Sure thing,” replied the detective. “I am going there in order to see
Mr. Lynne as soon as possible after he gets the information. It may be
that they will be slow up there about sending it.”
“Do you mean to tell him the entire story, just as it is?”
“That is my present intention; but I haven’t finally decided upon it. I
shall be governed by circumstances in that matter. Have you ever seen
this J. Cephas Lynne, Chick?”
“N-no; I don’t think I have.”
“Have you, Patsy?”
“No; not that I know of. I might have seen him without knowing who he
was.”
“Exactly; that is an unaccountably brilliant remark for you to make. The
point is this: I have never seen the man, either. I have seen his
so-called pictures, in the papers, and so have both of you, I suppose,
and I have always heard the very nicest things about him that one could
hear of a very rich man who is rather in society, but who keeps out of
it as much as possible. I want to see him, and talk with him, and size
him up, and see how he withstands this blow, before I decide just what
to say to him.”
“But,” said Patsy, “you will have to give an excuse for going there at
all, won’t you? We are not supposed yet to know anything about the
murder--or suicide, whichever it will be called in the newspaper
reports.”
“I shall go there,” replied Nick quietly, “merely as a matter of duty,
to report to him what Chick has already reported at the police station
up there; merely that there were tracks in the snow, showing that some
persons had entered his country home.”
“It may be,” said Chick, “that he will not yet have been notified of the
tragedy.”
“I think it very likely that we will find it so.”
“I don’t see----” began Patsy.
“It is this way,” said the detective, interrupting: “In this snow it
will take us, from the time we left that police station, about an hour
and a half to get to his house. Now, up there it will be at least half
an hour before those local police find the body; they will use up
certainly an hour in looking about them before it will occur to them to
telephone to Mr. Lynne, and probably more; so it is likely that we will
get to his house before he hears anything about it. That’s all. Think
that over; and now let’s ride on in silence for a while.”
Nick told Danny to stop the car directly in front of the residence on
Riverside Drive, and, leaving the others to wait for him--it had long
since stopped snowing--he ran up the front steps and pressed the button
of the electric bell.
But he had to ring again and again before a sleepy butler at last
appeared at the door and demanded, in a tone that was both haughty and
surly, to know what was wanted.
“I must see Mr. Lynne at once,” said Nick, who knew by the very attitude
of the butler that no intelligence of the crime had yet reached that
house.
“Well, you cawn’t see him--at seven in the morning--the idea. Mr. Lynne
never leaves his room in the morning till nine, and----”
“Look here, my man,” Nick interrupted, for he had already stepped inside
the doorway, and so was well inside the house, “this is a matter of the
utmost importance to Mr. Lynne, and you are to take this card to him at
once, and tell him that it is extremely important that he should see me
with as little delay as possible. If you don’t do it, I will find my way
to his rooms myself--and you will probably lose your job.”
There seemed to be no help for it, and, besides, Nick spoke with a quiet
assurance that visibly impressed the butler.
Rather ungraciously he took the card, which was one of Nick Carter’s
own, and departed.
He returned, too, very quickly; much sooner than Nick had anticipated.
“Please come with me, sir,” he said, with more graciousness than he had
shown before.
He offered no explanation of his change of manner, but, nevertheless,
the detective was not surprised to find that Mr. Lynne was dressed and
was engaged in sipping his morning coffee, when he was shown into the
private morning room of the master of the house.
Mr. Lynne left his chair and greeted Nick pleasantly, then indicated a
chair and asked him to be seated.
“I know your name, Mr. Carter, of course,” he said, “and I cannot
imagine your coming to see me at this time of day unless something of
the utmost importance sent you. It is fortunate that I am about rather
earlier than usual this morning, otherwise you would have had to wait.
I was trying to get an early start to visit my country place. May I
offer you a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you,” replied Nick, seating himself in another chair than the
one that had been indicated. He always liked to sit, if he could, so
that the light shone upon the features of the man he was talking with.
“What is the important business that brought you to me, Mr. Carter?” Mr.
Lynne asked, affably enough, but with much of the air of one who was
bored by the entire proceeding--and as if nothing could convince him
that it was really of vital importance.
Somehow Nick did not like the man, although there was no reason why he
should not do so.
But there was something about him which did not seem to the detective to
be quite genuine.
“In referring to your country place, you mean Pleasantglades, I
suppose?” Nick asked, in reply to the question.
“Most certainly,” raising his brows.
“In that case, and if you were going there at once, it was perhaps
unnecessary that I should have called at all, for you would presently
have discovered for yourself what I have come to tell you,” said the
detective. “I have just come from there, and I came to tell you
that----”
The cup of coffee which Mr. Lynne was holding in one hand unaccountably
slipped from it and crashed to the floor, and, as that gentleman bent
forward to pick it up, he said:
“How stupid of me. Please go on, Mr. Carter.”
CHAPTER IV.
A MAN, OR A MONSTER?
Nick Carter looked at the man closely.
“Mr. Lynne, were you out with your car last night?” he asked abruptly.
“Really, Mr. Carter,” was the slow reply, given with another raising of
the eyebrows, “you amaze me. You send up word to me that you have
information of the utmost importance; I receive you because I recognize
the name on your card as representing one of the greatest detectives of
modern times, and I assume that your important news must really be
important, or you would not have come here at all; then you say that the
important information you have has something to do with Pleasantglades,
and in the next breath you ask me if I was out with my car last night.
Will you be good enough to tell me why you are here?”
The cordiality and affability had all gone from his voice now, and it
was cold, distant, and genuinely the one of a man who is not accustomed
to being intruded upon for nothing.
“Would you mind answering the question?” Nick replied, with equal
coldness. “My important information will follow at once.”
“Before I reply to any questions at all, Mr. Carter, I must ask for the
information; or, at least, for the character of it,” was the reply.
“Very well. Pleasantglades was entered last night, I believe. One of my
assistants has already given the information to the local police.”
“Is that all?” exclaimed the millionaire, with an air of great relief.
“I really thought it might be something else; that the place was burned
down, or something of that sort. It was good of you to come here
yourself to tell me, however. I appreciate it.”
“Thank you. Now, will you reply to my question?”
“About the car? What has that to do with it?”
“Merely that it might have been yourself who visited Pleasantglades last
night--or very early this morning.”
“Oh! I see. No, I was not there, nor near there, in fact.”
“Nor your car, either?”
“My dear, sir, I have three cars. Which one do you refer to?”
“To any one of them. Do you know where all three of the cars were last
night?”
“No; but I could easily ascertain, if it is important.”
“It may prove to be quite important, sir. One of your cars was there
last night.” This was merely a guess on Nick’s part, but he thought best
to make it at that point.
“At Pleasantglades?” asked the millionaire, elevating his brows again.
It seemed to be a favorite gesture of his.
“Yes; or near there.”
“Then it was entirely without my knowledge. I will inquire about it at
once;” and he started to leave his chair.
But the detective interrupted him.
“Please keep your seat a moment longer, Mr. Lynne,” he said. “Of course
it is not likely that you will know just what happened at your country
place last night, until the local police have investigated, but there
are a few questions which you might answer me, if you care to do so,
which might be important.”
“Pardon me, but I don’t quite see what you have to do with it, Mr.
Carter. You have not been asked for an opinion.”
Nick shrugged his shoulders, determined not to pay any attention to this
man of so many attitudes.
“You have a daughter, Mr. Lynne. Do you happen to know where she is at
this moment?” he asked.
The man sat up straight in his chair, grasping both arms of it tightly
so that his knuckles stood out white and distinct. His brows drew
together in a straight frown, and in a voice that was entirely unlike
any that he had used before, so harsh was it, he exclaimed:
“Really, sir, you go too far. You exceed----”
“Do you know if your daughter went to Pleasantglades last night?” Nick
interrupted him.
“I know that she did not go there. But what----”
“She did go there.”
It was an interruption, but it was a very quiet one; yet the four words
were said with such a precise enunciation that the man stared at the
detective for several seconds before he at last exclaimed:
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. Your daughter went to Pleasantglades last night. I
wished to know if you were aware of the fact, and if you could tell me
who accompanied her.”
The reply was cool, cutting, and precise.
“I will answer no to both your impertinent questions, and will ask what
the devil business it is of yours, anyhow. You have intruded here upon
my quiet morning, and now I will ask you to----”
“Just one moment, Mr. Lynne, if you please. If you could forget your
dignity, and the position you occupy, and the millions you possess for
just a moment, and come down to earth, it would not be amiss. I have
heard many things about you, sir, and never an unkind one. I have had
the highest estimate of your personal character until this moment, when
you fly into a rage over nothing at all. You received me pleasantly
enough when I came, but the moment I mention Pleasantglades, your entire
attitude changes. Is it because you were going there, to-day?”
The millionaire had leaned back in his chair again while the detective
was talking, and was smiling now, with a certain superciliousness that
would have been an insult under any other circumstances.
“I am greatly indebted to you for your good opinion of me,” he said,
with cool insolence. “Have you been--er--drinking?”
“No,” replied the detective calmly.
“Then will you be good enough to tell me exactly why you have made this
call upon me?”
“I came, Mr. Lynne, to tell you that your daughter did go to
Pleasantglades last night; that she arrived there about two o’clock
this morning; that she entered the grounds and the house; that she is
there now.”
“That she is there now? What do you mean? Has something happened to her?
Has she been injured? And why should she go there at all?”
“Something has happened to her, Mr. Lynne,” said Nick slowly--for the
life of him he could not feel sympathy for this man whom he had gone
there prepared to like immensely, and to sympathize with greatly, and to
offer every talent that he possessed--“something very serious indeed has
happened to her.”
The man got upon his feet, white now to the lips, and the hands with
which he grasped the back of the chair upon which he had been seated,
trembled visibly; and all the while the detective never took his eyes
from Lynne’s face. He wanted to sympathize with the man and could not,
and for once in his life he was entirely at fault as to what judgment to
pass, or to understand why he hesitated to form one.
There was not an expression of feature, not a line of the face, not a
motion of any part of the body of the man before him that was lost upon
the detective at that moment, for he could not believe that any man
could be guilty of connivance at the death of his own daughter--and yet
had he been a stepfather instead of a father, or had he borne any other
relation than he did to that beautiful dead girl, Nick Carter would
unhesitatingly have pronounced him the murderer then and there.
“What--what has happened to her--to Edythe?” faltered Lynne.
“She--is--dead,” was the slow reply.
“God!” cried the man, and dropped again upon the chair, and then his
arms upon the tray filled with dishes, scattering them right and left,
and burying his face in his arms; and Nick Carter could not help
thinking that John Drew or Bob Hilliard could scarcely have done it
better.
The reader must not misunderstand.
Nick Carter did not really suppose that this man was the murderer of his
own daughter--but the only reason why he did not was because he could
not bring his mind to believe such a monstrous thing.
But, all the same, the detective could not get it out of his mind that
this millionaire had been acting a part from the moment the detective
entered the room; and that the dramatic climax that had just occurred,
with the scattering of the dishes, and all, was not in keeping with the
attitude of thoroughbreds, when they receive a blow.
They take it standing, full in the face, and there is never even a touch
of the dramatic about it.
The detective made no move forward. He waited; and presently, after a
moment of silence, Lynne raised his head, then got upon his feet again,
and with an apparent effort at calmness he said, half brokenly:
“Tell me about it.”
“I have told you about it, Mr. Lynne.”
“But--what does it mean? What killed her? What happened?”
“Who can know what happened, who was not there to witness what
happened?”
“But--you keep me in doubt. I do not know what you mean.”
“The body of Miss Lynne is in the parlor of her own private suite of
rooms; it is upon the divan couch, among the pillows, as if she had
thrown herself there to rest. Her left arm extends along the top of the
pillows; her right one hangs over the edge of the couch, and on the rug
beneath the right hand there is an empty vial that has contained prussic
acid. That is as much as I can tell you.”
“Suicide? Do you mean that she killed herself?”
“Appearances would point to such an answer, Mr. Lynne. Do you know of
any reason why your daughter should have killed herself? or why she
should have thought of doing so?”
“No, no, no! Why should she do such a thing?”
“That is what I came here to ask you?”
“But, if she did not do it herself, who could have done it?”
“That is another question that I wished to ask of you.”
“But there is no one, no one.”
“Are you quite sure of that?”
“Oh, you have shocked me so that I do not know what to answer. It is all
so amazing; so unbelievable. Was there nothing--did you find nothing to
indicate that another, or others, had been there with her?”
“The local police, up there, will report to you on that point, Mr.
Lynne. They were going to the house to investigate when I started for
the city to tell you about it. It seems to me that you should have
heard from them before this; but, perhaps, they would consider it a
wiser course to send a messenger to break the news.”
And then, as if in reply to the thought of Nick Carter, there was a tap
at the door, and the butler again made his appearance.
“An officer of the police to see you, sir,” he said to his master.
“Show him up; show him up at once,” was the reply, and the owner of so
many millions began to pace the floor, wringing his hands, and showing
every appearance of great excitement.
“If I were you, sir, I would calm myself, and hear quietly what this man
has to report,” said the detective, at the same time drawing back toward
a far corner of the room.
CHAPTER V.
TRAGIC NEWS.
The officer who came from the local police near Pleasantglades was of
that stolid order which, while they can perform a duty perfectly, and
carry out orders to the letter, have little originality, and no
initiative.
If this man had possessed either he would have noticed the great
excitement under which Mr. J. Cephas Lynne seemed to be laboring, and
which he was apparently trying hard to suppress; but, seemingly, he did
not see either, but, the moment he entered the room, began:
“I have come, sir, to report to you that Miss Lynne was found dead in
the parlor of her own rooms at Pleasantglades shortly after four o’clock
this morning.”
It was evident that he was awed to be in the presence of the “great
man,” the millionaire of the neighborhood, where he had been born and
had lived all his life, which had not been so many years at that.
This time Mr. Lynne did not go to pieces as he had done before; there
were no more dramatics; no more theatricals--for Nick could not but
regard them so, although he tried to tell himself that he must be
mistaken.
But there was no doubt of the fact that Lynne’s hands were shaking, and
that he found it difficult to steady himself properly. He motioned
toward a chair--which, as it happened, stood with its back toward the
detective, and so it was that the messenger had no idea of the presence
of Nick Carter in the room.
“Sit down,” said the millionaire. “Now, tell me all you know.”
“Yes, sir. It was this way. At four o’clock this morning word was
brought to the station house that tracks had been discovered in the
snow, showing that some person, or persons, had passed through the gate
at Pleasantglades. Our captain was immediately called from----”
“Oh, never mind that. What did you find?” interrupted the stricken
father.
“We found, sir, the tracks where four men had gone into the place and
come out again.”
“Four?”
“Yes, sir. It had been snowing, so we could tell that one of them had
gone in and come out again, before the visit of the other three.” (That
meant Nick’s first entrance.)
“Well, go on.”
“It wasn’t very long after the first one came out, to judge by the
tracks, before the other three came along, and maybe they only found the
gate open--we can’t say as to that. But they went inside, and into the
house, too.”
“How did they get into the house? Quick. Tell me what you found inside
the house.”
“They picked the lock, sir. They had all been to the room where we
discovered the dead body of Miss Lynne.”
This time Lynne bowed his head upon his hand, where his arm rested upon
the table, and the detective felt a qualm of pity for him then, for the
first time, for he could see that the man was trembling violently, and
he wondered if it had been acting after all, and if the grief of the man
had not been real.
“Tell me about that,” said Lynne. “You can give me the other particulars
later.”
“Yes, sir. Our chief thinks it likely that she killed herself, sir; he
told me to say to you that he would suppose there was no doubt of it at
all, if it were not for the tracks in the snow.”
“What have they to do with his opinion?” demanded Lynne.
“Well, sir, the chief doesn’t think that they would likely have anything
at all to do with it, if it were not for those other tracks--of the man
who went there first, and who came away before the other three got
there.”
Nick saw Lynne clutch the table, then rise to his feet and cross the
room, where he opened a cabinet, and helped himself to a glass of
brandy; and the policeman from the outlying district went stolidly on:
“Our chief thinks, sir, that the other three were probably tramps who
happened along, and, finding the gate open, went inside; that they
followed the tracks to the door, and found, perhaps, that the door was
left open, too, and so they went on in. At least, that is his opinion,
sir.”
“I understand. Well, what more?”
“The chief wanted me to tell you, sir, that, while everything there
gives the appearance of suicide, there is still a large chance that it
may be a case of murder.”
“Murder? Murder? No, no, not that. Not murder.”
“Yes, sir, that is what our chief told me to tell you; but he wanted me
also to ask you what you thought about it. If you think it was suicide,
why, then, it is suicide. That is what he said, and I was to take back
your say so as to that.”
“My say so? What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, the chief thought that perhaps you might know something to
lead you to express an opinion one way or the other, and that he would
be glad to follow your opinion, no matter what it is.”
“You--you haven’t--told me yet what was found in the room. Was there
evidence of a struggle?”
“No, sir; nothing at all of that sort. Everything was as orderly as
possible, and we could not find that a single thing had been stolen or
disturbed. There was only the young lady upon the couch with the little
bottle under her right hand on the floor, and she was as peaceful and
still as if she was asleep.”
“Was nothing else found there?”
“No, sir; and that is what puzzles the chief. He thinks that if the
young lady went there to kill herself, she would have left a letter or
something of the sort. But there was nothing of that kind, at all. She
was just there; that’s all.”
“But who could have murdered my daughter?” It was almost a cry, and yet
Nick Carter could not rid himself of the idea that the emotion of it was
not entirely real.
“The chief thinks, sir, that if it was a murder--and he is inclined to
think it was--the man did it who went there with her.”
Nick could have smiled under less tragic circumstances, so pleased was
he by the turn that the talk had taken.
“By the man who went there with her? What----” began Lynne.
“Yes, sir. There weren’t any tracks of hers to be found, of course, but
we figured it out that her feet are so small and she is so light in
weight, that the snow would have hidden her tracks so that we were
unable to find them, while the tracks of the man, when he went to the
house, can still be seen.”
The reader will understand that this man was referring to the tracks
that Nick Carter had made when he first entered the house, and to the
tracks that he made again when he came away from it and went after his
two assistants to take them back there with him. The tracks that Nick
had found, that took him into the house, could no longer be discovered,
of course.
“Does the chief think that some person, a man, went to that house
with---- What are you talking about, man?”
“That is what the chief thinks. That somebody went there with her--or
took her there by force.”
“By force?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But that is preposterous.”
“Drugged her, sir, maybe, and carried her there; or carried her there
without drugging.”
“It is outrageous!”
“Yes, sir. You see, sir, she wouldn’t go there alone, at that time of
the night, unless she did it with the intention of killing herself--and
to tell you the honest truth, sir, the chief doesn’t think she did kill
herself--unless you prefer that he should think so, Mr. Lynne.”
“Do you mean----”
“Wait a minute, sir. I’ll try to explain.”
“Do so, then.”
“Down on the corner we found the tracks of an automobile, where it had
been standing a long while. There were tracks of men’s feet around it,
where they had stood beside it, and smoked and talked while they were
waiting for somebody. Whether that has any connection with the case, or
not, the chief does not know, but he suggests that the men there,
waiting, were confederates of the one who went into the house with Miss
Lynne, or who carried her there, and that they took her there for the
purpose of robbing the house.”
“This is a fine case that you and your chief have built up over the body
of my poor daughter, isn’t it? You may return to your chief and say to
him that no man went to that house with my daughter, unless she was dead
before they went there--and in such a case it would hardly be necessary
that she should be taken there. I do not know of any reason why she
should have killed herself, but I presume a letter will be found
somewhere which will tell me about it, if such was her intention.”
“Yes, sir; I suppose so, sir.”
“Thank the chief for his courtesy. Ask him, also, to guard the place
thoroughly. I shall start at once, and possibly will arrive there before
you do--and here is something to pay you for your trouble in coming
here.”
“Oh, sir, I assure you----”
“That will do for the present.”
The policeman from the country district backed himself out of the room
with a twenty-dollar bill in his hand, and so he did not see Nick
Carter; and Nick was glad that he had not been seen, for he had already
surmised that Lynne supposed Nick to have been present when all that the
policeman told him had taken place.
In fact, the very first words uttered by Lynne, when they were again
alone, proved that.
“Why could you not have told me all this at once?” he demanded; and
then, without waiting for a reply, he sprang to his feet and dashed from
the room.
Nick Carter followed him slowly, anticipating where he had gone, and,
true enough, found him at the telephone impatiently awaiting an answer
to the call he had given.
But it was evident that Lynne had in part recovered himself, even in
that short time, for, half turning, with the receiver at his ear, he
placed one hand over the transmitter, and motioned to the detective.
“Please don’t go, Mr. Carter,” he said. “Wait until I have finished here
at the phone.”
“Very well,” said the detective, and was turning away when Lynne spoke
again.
“You must pardon me,” he said, “if anything that I have said or done
this morning has given you offense. I don’t think I have been quite
myself. Will you wait until I am done at the phone, so that I may talk
with you a few minutes before starting?”
“Certainly, Mr. Lynne.”
“This is all so horrible, so unreal, so incomprehensible. I want to know
all the particulars as you know them, and something tells me that you
know more than that officer told. At all events you are an experienced
man, and you can---- Hello!” He turned to the phone.
“This is Mr. Lynne,” Nick heard him say. “Is that the police station?”
Evidently assured that it was, he went on:
“The officer you sent to me has just been here and gone. I have called
you up to let you know that I am starting at once, in my car, for
Pleasantglades, but before I start I desire to be assured that nothing
whatever will be done there until I arrive. Thank you. Say to Doctor
Kuhn, the coroner, that I will be grateful if he will defer all
investigation in this matter until I get there. He has already decided
to do so? Thank him for me. Say that I will not forget his
consideration. Say to your chief that I am bringing Nick Carter, the
detective, out there with me, and for that reason, if for no other, I
deem it wise.”
CHAPTER VI.
A VITAL QUESTION.
“You heard what I said over the phone, Mr. Carter?” Lynne said, turning
about and facing the detective. They were in a room which opened off
from the library of the mansion.
“Yes,” said Nick, “I heard.”
“You will go out there with me?”
“I am not sure,” replied the detective. “I have been thinking about it
since I heard you assure them that I would come. I have been up all
night, Mr. Lynne, and have driven a good many miles in my car since dark
last night--and I am not at all sure that I can be of any benefit to
you.”
“But--Mr. Carter, if I particularly request it? If I assure you that
money is no object to me in this matter, and----”
“Neither would it be any object to me, Mr. Lynne,” the detective
interrupted him. “If I go there at all, it will be in behalf of justice
to the beautiful girl who was your daughter.”
“That is precisely why I wish you to go, sir. I hope that you will
consent to do so.”
“I will consent to go with you on one condition, Mr. Lynne,” was the
reply.
“What is that?”
“That during the ride out there you will freely and frankly reply to
any and every question I may ask you, without offense, without
considering any of them an impertinence, and with an eye single to
discovering the truth about this mystery--and I warn you that I may ask
questions that will both startle and offend.”
“Very well, sir; I accept the condition.” He spoke with a quiet dignity
now that entirely changed the man; that made him appear for the first
time just as Nick Carter had expected to find him.
“And there is one more, Mr. Lynne; a very small one this time.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“It will be nearly an hour before I will be ready to start. My own car
is in front of your door, and my two assistants are waiting for me. I
must drive with them to my house. If you care to pick me up with your
car, there, in just three-quarters of an hour from now, I will be ready
to accompany you.”
“So be it, Mr. Carter. At eight-forty-five, then, I will call for you.”
Nick got into his own car in silence, and said nothing at all until,
with Chick and Patsy, he was in his own house, where he led the way at
once to his study. Then----
“Lynne has asked me to take the case--or, rather, he has asked me to
drive out there with him, and I have consented. I will tell you both,
frankly, that I do not know what to make of Mr. J. Cephas Lynne. He
puzzles me. He is, all at once, almost as interesting as the crime. I am
going out there with him in his car, more for the purpose of studying
him at close range, and to see him on the ground where the crime was
committed, than for any other reason.”
“You don’t mean to say----” Chick began, but the detective interrupted
him.
“No, I do not mean to say anything, Chick, only that this case has
developed strange possibilities, some of which are almost unthinkable.
Now, let’s not discuss generalities. I haven’t yet had an opportunity to
get the opinion of either of you, concerning the crime itself, and how
it was brought about, and before I start I want both. Chick, I will have
the result of your thoughts first.”
“I’ll ask a question before I give it, then.”
“Very well.”
“Have you questioned Lynne as to the manner in which his daughter was
supposed to have passed the evening, last night?”
“No; I have not.”
“So you have no idea as to that?”
“None whatever, more than you have, judged by her costume. She was at a
function of some sort, somewhere, or, at least, dressed to attend one,
whether she went to it or not. Now, Chick, let us hear what you have to
say.”
“Well, it isn’t very much--only a general thought on the subject.”
“I know.”
“The house out there has been closed for at least two months. Miss Lynne
would never have gone there of her own accord, at such an hour. If there
had been some article there that she wanted to get, she would have
selected another hour for going; therefore she made the journey at the
behest of another person.”
Patsy nodded emphatically, and Nick said:
“We both indorse that.”
“The question arises then,” said Chick, “as to who would have influence
enough over her to persuade her to do such a thing? What manner of man
could have done it? Was it a relative? Or was she persuaded to go there
by some person who may have had a hold of some kind over her father, and
was she persuaded to go there because she believed she was serving him?”
“No; I don’t think that last,” replied the detective.
“I’d like to speak my little piece right here and now,” said Patsy,
rather sharply for him.
“Well?”
“Edythe Lynne was persuaded to visit that house last night by a lie. No
matter what she imagined the reason to be, it was a lie, and it was
sufficient to her to compel her to do something that she would never
have thought of doing had not her feelings been wrought upon almost to
the point of hysteria.”
“Good,” said Chick.
“Go on, Patsy,” said Nick Carter.
“Now, what kind of a lie could have been told to her to take her to that
house in the company of a man at the dead of night? What man could tell
her such a lie, and make her believe it? What man, who could tell her
such a lie and make her believe it, would yet be closely enough related
to the family to make that house the object of the night call? And why
did she hesitate so long in the automobile before she consented to
enter the house, after she arrived there?”
“You answer those questions yourself, Patsy,” said the detective.
“I’ll answer it like this: My present belief is that Edythe Lynne went
to Pleasantglades with her own father, and that when she got inside the
house and found that she had been lured there by a lie, and that it was
her father who had lied to her, she killed herself.”
“No, Patsy, no,” said the detective sharply.
“Wait. That after she had done so, her father realized the terrible
predicament he was in; the impossibility of explaining it
satisfactorily; the talk and the scandal that the whole affair would
make, and, in short, that he then prepared the evidence we found to
point to a deliberate suicide.”
“Patsy, part of your theory sounds good; the rest of it is not to be
thought of,” said Nick. “I am now of the opinion, myself, that she went
there with her father, and that---- No, I can’t say it yet. But all
this, lads, leads us to just one thing, and that is what I asked you to
this room to listen to.”
Both assistants looked eagerly at their chief, and he continued:
“Is J. Cephas Lynne, as we know him, her father? Was he her father?”
Chick and Patsy looked at each other, then back again at the detective.
“I am going out there in the car with the man to study him,” the
detective continued. “I want you both to start out at once, wherever you
please, to get for me all the information, that is obtainable regarding
both, the father and the daughter. I want you to dig up every scrap of
information you can find about both of them. Was he her father? Find
that out for me beyond the shadow of a doubt either way, before I
return. That is all.”
The detective glanced at his watch, and turned away.
“I’ve got fifteen minutes before he arrives here,” he said, and left
them to themselves in the study.
Ten minutes later he came out of a cold plunge, put on a complete change
of clothing, shaved, and at the time appointed was ready for the arrival
of Lynne’s car.
It came, about five minutes late, and the detective ran down the steps
to meet it before it had stopped before the door.
The day was bright, cheerful, and sunny, and the weather was almost
warm; under ordinary circumstances a better day could not have been
selected for such a journey.
Nothing was said between the two men beyond a greeting, when Nick first
entered the car, which was driven by one of the Lynne chauffeurs; but as
it was a limousine body, the passengers could talk in comfort and at
their ease as it sped along.
“Now, Mr. Lynne, are you ready?” Nick asked presently.
The man looked around at the detective quickly, with a half-startled
air; he had evidently been absorbed in his thoughts; and he asked:
“Ready for what?”
“For the questions that I wish to ask.”
“Yes, I think so. What are they, Mr. Carter?”
“There are many of them, and some are what you might call intimate,”
warned the detective.
“I agreed to your conditions, Mr. Carter, therefore I am prepared to
reply to any and all the questions you care to ask me--provided I can do
so.”
“Were you out late yourself last night?”
“I was.”
“What time did you arrive at your home?”
“At three this morning.”
“You used one of your cars?”
“Yes. I went----”
“Wait. Just reply to my questions.”
“Very well, Mr. Carter.”
“Who was your companion?”
“My--companion?”
“Yes. In the car you used last night. Who was your companion? You had
one, did you not, Mr. Lynne?”
The man turned and looked closely at the detective for a fleeting
instant before he replied; then, with a shrug of his shoulders, as if
there were no help for introducing a disagreeable topic, or one that he
would have preferred to keep out of the conversation, he said:
“Yes, Mr. Carter, I had a companion with me last night; a lady--the lady
who is soon to become my second wife. I have long been a widower, Mr.
Carter.”
“Thank you. The lady’s name, if you please?”
“Is it necessary to bring her into it, Mr. Carter?”
“Unless it should prove to be necessary, you may be assured that she
will not be brought into it, Mr. Lynne. But I must know all the facts
connected with last night. Will you tell me the lady’s name, and where
she may be found, if that is necessary?”
“Really, Mr. Carter----”
“I warned you, sir, that some of my questions would be intimate.”
“Very well. The lady’s name is Mrs. Madge Hurd Babbington. I need not
tell you her address, since everybody in society knows that.”
CHAPTER VII.
PROBING A MYSTERY.
It was true.
Everybody in society, and a great many who were not knew the name of
Madge Hurd Babbington; knew about the remarkable beauty and talent of
the young woman who had formerly been an actress, but who had married
from the stage into the very elite of society; who had speedily divorced
her first husband and married a second one, who had died within a year
afterward.
Both her husbands were supposed to be rich, but the first one had so
cleverly arranged his wealth that in the divorce proceedings the
plaintiff had been able to secure but very little; and it was found
after the death of her second husband that his supposedly large fortune
had dwindled to little or nothing.
Since her widowhood Mrs. Babbington’s name had been linked with several
in a supposed approaching marriage, but Nick could not remember that he
had read anywhere that Lynne was one of them.
As for the woman herself, nothing had ever been whispered against her in
any form that the detective could recall, and he thought to himself
that, if Lynne had really been with her all that time and could
establish that fact, it would prove an effectual barrier to all the
suspicions he felt, yet did not want to feel.
“Where were you?” he asked, after a moment of thought.
“We attended a reception at the home of Madame de Seville.”
“Was Miss Lynne at that reception?”
“She was.”
“Who was her escort, if she had one?”
“I took her there myself.”
“Did you also take her home again?”
“I did.”
“At what time?”
“She complained of not feeling well, and it was, I should say, about
midnight, when she sought me out and asked me to send her home. I took
her to the car that was waiting, and entered it with her. I drove home
with her.”
“Did you enter the house with her?”
“No. She said it was unnecessary. I returned at once to the reception.”
“Did you see her enter the house?”
“No. I have thought about that since this--this terrible thing has
happened. I supposed I had seen my daughter enter her home, but, as I
recall it now, I only saw her mount the steps in front of it. I did not
actually see her enter the house.”
“You took your daughter to the reception with you--was Mrs. Babbington
with you at that time?”
“No. It had been arranged that we were to meet at Madame de Seville’s.
It was my intention to take them both in my car when we came away.”
“Then your daughter was aware of the engagement between you and Mrs.
Babbington?”
“If you will pardon me for just one word of protest, Mr. Carter, I
confess that I do not in the least see what all this private matter has
to do with the subject in hand.”
“Did your daughter know about the engagement?” Nick asked again, without
a change of his tone.
“She did not,” replied Lynne, with just a little show of heat. “It was
my intention to tell her about it last night. The fact that she did not
feel well, and that she wished to return home early, spoiled that
intention.”
“Miss Lynne was well enough to start for the reception, but not well
enough to remain, so I assume that she became ill after she arrived
there--or do you suppose that she only pretended to be ill?”
“In the light of what has happened since, I can only suppose that she
purposely deceived me, since in some manner, as soon as she parted with
me, she must have started for Pleasantglades, though why----”
“What is there, at Pleasantglades, that could have drawn her there last
night?”
“Nothing. Not a thing in the world that I know about.”
“Nothing that you can surmise?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“When you returned to the reception after leaving your daughter at the
door of your own home, did you remain there?”
“No; truth to tell, I did not.”
“What did you do, and where did you go?”
“Really, Mr. Carter, one would suppose----”
“We need suppose nothing at all, Mr. Lynne. You agreed to reply to my
questions.”
“But all this is so preposterous.”
“Do you keep all your promises as unwillingly as you are adhering to
this one?” Nick asked sharply.
“You are making it rather hard for me, Mr. Carter.”
Nick turned quickly to the man, and said sharply:
“Lynne, do you wish to be charged with the murder of your own daughter?
If not, answer my questions.”
“My God, Carter, what do you mean by that?”
“Just what I say. Who is there but yourself who could have induced
Edythe Lynne to go to Pleasantglades after midnight last night? Do you
know such a man?”
“No, no; I do not.”
“Then reply to my questions. What did you do, and where did you go, when
you returned to the reception after leaving your daughter?”
“I sought Mrs. Babbington at once, and told her about Edythe. I
suggested that we had had enough of the party, and she agreed with me.
She sent for her wraps, and we left there at once.”
“Where did you go?”
“To her home.”
“It was then what time?”
“Approximately one o’clock; perhaps a trifle later. I am not sure.”
“You entered the house with her?”
“I did. There is, on the first floor, a room that she calls her ‘cozy
room,’ and we seated ourselves in there. We were talking over our
future plans, and time passed more swiftly than I supposed. It was
nearly three o’clock before I was aware of it. I left there, then, and
went home.”
“In your car? Was that waiting for you?”
“No. I had sent that on to the garage. I told the chauffeur that I would
not need him again. Surface transportation and the subway were
sufficient.”
“You arrived home, you say, at three o’clock?”
“Approximately that, yes.”
“When I called upon you this morning you were preparing to go to
Pleasantglades?”
“I was.”
“What was the business that was taking you there?”
“Nothing of importance. You probably do not know it, but there is a
burglar-proof vault beneath the north wing of the house at
Pleasantglades. It was built there, when that wing was built, five years
ago. The existence of it has been kept a secret. In that vault are some
heirlooms and jewels, and other things of value--in fact, there is a
fortune there, Mr. Carter, in jewels, securities, and bonds.”
“You were going there this morning, then, to visit that vault?”
“Yes.”
“For no other reason?”
“No; to tell you the truth there are some jewels there which I wished to
present to my fiancée to-day. It happens to be her birthday. That was
the reason for my proposed visit.”
“Your daughter knew of the existence of the vault?”
“Of course.”
“And what it contains?”
“No, only in a general way.”
“Mr. Lynne, who has had charge of the keys to the lock on the iron gate,
at Pleasantglades? or where were they kept?”
“I always kept them in my own possession--there are three of them, and
you use one after another in opening the lock.”
“I know. Where are those keys now?”
“I do not know.”
“You don’t know? Why don’t you know?”
“I thought I knew exactly where they were until after you had gone from
my house this morning. But when I went to get them, they were not in the
place where I keep them. They had disappeared--and there is only one
explanation: my daughter must have taken them.”
“Again, where did you keep them?”
“In a small safe in my own sleeping room.”
“A combination safe?”
“Yes.”
“Did Edythe know that combination?”
“Yes.”
“How is that?”
“How is what?”
“How does it happen that she knew the combination of that private safe,
in your sleeping room, where doubtless you kept things of an exceedingly
private nature?”
“Oh, as to that, there is nothing so very private in that safe. Edythe
knew the combination, because it was only yesterday that I had occasion
to send her to the safe for some papers I wanted, and I gave her the
combination at that time.”
“Has she never known it before?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What sort of locks are on the doors of that vault you have partly
described, at Pleasantglades?”
“There are two combination locks on the outer doors, two more on the
inner doors.”
“So it requires the knowledge of four combinations to get into the
vault?”
“Yes.”
“Did Edythe know those combinations?”
“She did at one time. Whether she remembered them or not, I could not
say.”
“How did it happen that she knew them at all?”
“She wrote them down for me in the little book where I keep them. I
remember now, at that time I suggested to her that it would be well if
she kept copies of them, in case anything should happen to me, and I
think she did so, although the subject has never been mentioned between
us since that time.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to have deposited copies of the
combinations with your bankers, or in one of your safe-deposit boxes in
the city, to be used in case of accident to yourself?”
“I suppose so. In fact, that has been done; but I did not think of it at
the moment. I preferred that Edythe should hold the secret herself.”
“I see,” said Nick. “Well, perhaps it was as well.”
CHAPTER VIII.
DIGGING PITFALLS.
There was another short pause, and then, with a sudden change of the
subject, the detective asked:
“You did not look for the keys to the padlock on the gate till after I
had left you this morning, Mr. Lynne, did you?”
“No. I did not.”
“Why did you look for them, even then? You must have known that they
would not be needed, since the police are already in the house.”
“From force of habit, I suppose; and then, too, it occurred to me to see
if they were in their place, since Edythe must have found a means of
entering the grounds.”
“I see. I see,” said the detective.
The car was at the moment approaching an out-of-town drug store before
which was one of the familiar Bell telephone signs, and Nick bent
forward and signaled to the chauffeur to stop.
“I want to ask you to excuse me for a moment, Mr. Lynne,” he said. “I
have thought of something concerning which I must telephone back to the
city; but it will keep me only a moment after I get the number. I see
there is a telephone here.”
He opened the door and left the car before Lynne could more than nod an
assent, and in the store he called for his own number, and presently
got Joseph, his man, on the phone.
“Joseph,” he said, “Chick or Patsy will communicate with you before very
long. When either of them do that, I want you to direct for me that one
of them be at the house to reply to a telephone call from me at one
o’clock.”
“Yes, sir,” came the reply.
“If by any chance either should find it impossible to be there at one, I
will call again at two and at three, and so on. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s all.”
When he returned to the car he noticed that Lynne regarded him rather
strangely, as if the man had not exactly liked the idea of that
telephone message; but Lynne only said:
“It did not take you long, Mr. Carter.”
“No; it concerned merely an instruction I wished to send to one of my
assistants. And now we will resume our conversation. You were abroad
nearly all of last summer, were you not, Mr. Lynne? I seem to remember
seeing such a report in one of the papers.”
“Yes. I was away the entire summer, as a matter of fact.”
“Your daughter did not accompany you?”
“No. She remained at Pleasantglades in the care of a chaperon. She did
the entertaining for both of us.”
“It occurs to me, also, that I saw something in the papers at the
time--some time during the summer, relative to your being very ill while
you were abroad.”
“Yes; that is unfortunately quite true. I was traveling in Switzerland
at the time I was taken ill.”
“You were traveling alone at the time, were you?”
“I had my man with me--my valet. He was also seized with the same
malady, and he died of it, poor fellow.”
“Oh, yes; I remember about that now. You were at a mountain inn, or
something of the sort at the time, as I remember the account. What was
the malady? What was the trouble?”
“We were poisoned by something that we had eaten, but whether it was at
table, or during one of our wandering expeditions, I never did know. But
it was awful while it lasted. The regular old-fashioned cramps, you
know, and all that. There were some hours when I thought I was to die,
also. It was then that I cabled to my daughter. I suppose that is how
the news about it got into the papers over here.”
“How long was your valet ill, before he died?”
“Let me see--I was suffering so myself that I scarcely remember much
about the duration of time. It was morning--about ten o’clock when we
were taken with the cramps, and at precisely the same moment, too,
strange to say. I think it must have been about three, that afternoon,
when Thomas died. He was a great loss to me.”
“You say you were at an inn? Wasn’t there something about being seized
with illness while in the mountains, and finding your way to the inn
afterward alone?”
“Surely. That was it. We were, as a matter of fact, all alone when we
were seized. Some mountaineers found us and gave all the assistance they
could, and afterward helped me back to the inn.”
“You did not immediately recover from that attack, did you?”
“No. I was ailing for a long time after that--several weeks, in fact;
but the effect of it gradually passed away. I think it was the shock of
losing Thomas in that manner that affected me as much as anything.”
“He had been with you a long time?”
“Yes. He was, in fact, a distant relative, strange as it may sound to
you.”
“A relative, serving as your servant? That is strange.”
“Oh, it was quite generally known among my intimates. Thomas’ name was
Lynne, also. He was a cousin so far removed that you could hardly call
it a relationship; and, after all, he served more in the capacity of
companion than servant.”
“I see. A mutually agreeable relation, eh?”
“Entirely so. I had offered him better things many times, but he
preferred the life of ease and luxury and travel that he had with me,
even in the capacity of valet, to the undertaking of more arduous
things. He was rather a strange character, Mr. Carter.”
“Rather an odd one, I should say. How long a time had you borne that
relation to each other?”
“Nearly twelve years. He came to me at the time of the death of my
wife. I had been in communication with him before that, seeking to do
something for him, for I dislike to have it said that I have neglected
poor relations. I sent for him then, and asked him to be my
secretary--and that is really what he was. My secretary, although he
performed the other services, also.”
“I see. How long have you been at home, Mr. Lynne?”
“Not more than six weeks; just about that. I joined a shooting party
over there, which kept me longer than I intended to stay.”
“Your house at Pleasantglades was closed when you returned?”
“Yes. Edythe had returned to the city long before that.”
“So she was at home when you did return, I suppose.”
“No. She had gone on a trip to California with a party of friends in two
or three private cars.”
“When did she return from that trip, Mr. Lynne?”
“Only last week.”
“It must have been a great joy to her to find you at home waiting for
her when you had been parted so long, especially as you had been so ill
while you were away,” said Nick, selecting a cigar from his case and
proffering it to his companion, who accepted it mechanically, bit off
the end, and also accepted the light which Nick offered him before he
replied.
“It was,” he said then.
“You were here to receive her when she came?”
“No, but I arrived very soon after she did.”
“The same day, I suppose, eh? You must have arranged so that you could
be together as soon as possible?”
“Oh, we did so arrange by telegraph, but I made a mistake in the
schedule of the special that brought her back from her trip with her
friends, so I was a little late at the meeting. But it was none the less
pleasant, for all that.”
“So you met, really, only a day or two ago? I suppose she found you
greatly changed, eh?”
“Not at first. She was too glad to see me for that.”
“Why do you say not at first?”
“Because later, after she had had an opportunity to observe me more
closely, she decided that I had changed very much--for the better.
Stouter, you know, and ruddier; and healthier. I was never very robust,
until since this last trip.”
“Until since the poisoning in the mountains of Switzerland, eh?”
“Well, you see, I was so ill and down and out and all that, after that
affair, that I did what I have never done before: I forced myself to the
enjoyment of outdoor life--and I liked it; and it agreed with me
wonderfully.”
“Just what day was it that you arrived in New York, Mr. Lynne? There was
a mention of it in the paper, but it has escaped me.”
“The day before yesterday.”
“Only that?”
“Only that.”
“But in the morning, I suppose?”
“No. I arrived on the train that gets in at the Pennsylvania Station at
nine in the evening.”
“And now, after being parted front Edythe so long a time, this terrible
thing has happened to you. It is terrible, Mr. Lynne.”
“Ah, sir, it is more than that; it is unbearable. I am compelling myself
to keep up, so please let’s not talk about that.”
“No, indeed, we will not, just at present. This engagement of yours with
the lady of your choice must have been a matter of long standing, then.
At least, we can find something that is pleasant to talk about in that
subject.”
“Yes. Now that you know about it, I am glad to talk about it. We
met--the engagement was consummated while I was abroad last summer. I
had not seen Mrs. Babbington, either, for a considerable time--for
several months.”
“It is rather strange that you did not hasten to her, rather than to
your home, on the arrival of the train, Mr. Lynne.”
“To tell you the truth I did so, although I remained there but a
moment.”
“Ah; you saw her first, then, and afterward went to your home?”
“Yes; but I was not there above fifteen minutes.”
“Tell me, had Edythe complained of feeling ill, do you know, before she
started for that reception?”
“I don’t think so. I had not heard of it.”
“By the way, that butler of yours: is he the same man you had there
before you went away last spring, Mr. Lynne?”
“No. He is one whom Edythe engaged while I was away. The old butler,
Tompkins, who had been in my service for years, and who had grown old,
wished to retire. He had quite a competence, so he could afford to do
so.”
“I see. And Edythe engaged the new one?”
“Yes. She cabled me that Tompkins was leaving three months ago.”
“And what has become of Tompkins? Old servants are always interesting.”
“He has returned to his home somewhere in England.”
“Have you never heard from him since he left you? I should think that
such an old servant would like you to know something about what had
become of him.”
“Oh, yes, he has written to me, Mr. Carter.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE MATTER OF A CIGAR.
Nick Carter sat silent for a long time after that, and Lynne seemed
quite content that he should do so.
The detective was thinking over the facts of the case as he was
arranging them in sequence in his own mind, and he could see but one
conclusion at which to arrive as an explanation of the mystery; if the
reader has already guessed at that conclusion, so much the better, for
it is not the purpose here to mystify--only to arrive at facts just as
the detective arrived at them.
First, then, the known fondness between J. Cephas Lynne and his daughter
Edythe.
The papers had had it, and all the world understood it, that ever since
the death of the mother of Edythe Lynne the daughter had been the apple
of the father’s eye.
He had taken her everywhere, escorted her to many of the places she
attended, and she had seemed to prefer his company to that of the young
men of her acquaintance.
She had been his thought and care, and, indeed, his whole life, ever
since the death of his wife twelve years before. That was the generally
accepted idea of both of them.
One never saw in the papers the mention of the presence of one of them
at a function, that the other was not there; for one to be absent meant
that both were absent.
Upon the occasion of his going abroad that preceding spring, the papers
had commented upon the fact that it was the first time the millionaire
had been known to part with his daughter for more than a few hours, or
at the most a few days at a time.
But some business had arisen which had called the millionaire abroad,
and which could not be avoided, and a house party had already been
invited to Pleasantglades.
But it was understood, and so stated in the papers, that it was to be a
hurried trip, and so, when later it was announced that he had gone to
Switzerland for a little outing, there was some wonder expressed in
different quarters about it.
It had even been stated at the time that Edythe would sail by the next
steamer to join her father abroad, and that then had come a peremptory
cable directing her to remain where she was.
But that father and daughter should have been apart for more than seven
months--Nick had not known of the time of Lynne’s return until now--was
utterly unprecedented.
The idea of the father’s ever marrying again, devoted as he was to his
daughter, and to the memory of her mother, would have sounded utterly
absurd in the ears of any one of the acquaintances who knew them well.
The whole affair had a strange look to Nick Carter, for, as he had been
led to understand the character of Cephas Lynne, the detective believed
him to be a man of the very highest kind of sterling qualities.
Not at all such a man as he had found awaiting him in that room in the
Riverside Drive mansion that morning; not at all such a man as was now
seated beside him in the limousine body of the car, riding toward the
body of his dead daughter.
The man whom Nick had cast for the part of Cephas Lynne should not have
resorted to theatricals when first told of her death; and most certainly
he should not have discussed trivial matters with the detective now,
with the relish that this man beside him seemed to take in it.
In short, the whole bearing of Mr. Lynne had been that of one desiring
to avoid some subjects, and to be willing to grasp at almost any other
one to avoid those that he disliked--or feared--at the moment.
That sudden illness in the mountains was an interesting feature of the
whole affair to the detective, for it seemed to him that the man whom he
had cast for the part of the gentleman beside him, would have hurried
home to his daughter the first moment he was able to travel after it.
But something had changed the father evidently--how greatly was yet to
be determined.
And that something that had brought about the change? Was the woman,
whom he had met abroad, but whom he had known for a long time at home,
the woman to whom he said he was now engaged to be married--could she be
entirely responsible for that?
Was this another case of the devoted father who finds a sweetheart and
is afraid to tell his daughter of the fact?
Not as Nick Carter believed he understood the character of J. Cephas
Lynne.
Suddenly and without warning the detective reopened the subject of Mrs.
Babbington. He began it by saying, as if merely for the purpose of
bringing an end to the silence between them:
“So you met Mrs. Babbington abroad and discovered only then that you
loved her? That is interesting. I am always interested in romances. You
have known her, of course, for some years, haven’t you?”
“Yes; since just prior to her first marriage, six years ago.”
“Was it after your illness in Switzerland that you encountered her
abroad last summer?”
“Yes; some time after that.”
“When you had quite recovered from your illness as a result of the
poisoning?”
“While I was recuperating in Scotland. I joined a party there, little
supposing that I would meet with old acquaintances.”
“Ah! and she was of the party. It is really quite a romance.”
“It turned out to be so,” was the reply, and Nick thought that he spoke
with some grimness that was not entirely called for by the circumstance.
“I suppose the fact that you were so far away from home, coupled with
the other one that you had been so ill, and the general romantic
qualities of the air around you, brought about an understanding quite
speedily, did it not?”
“We became engaged almost at once, if that is what you mean,” was the
reply. And for some reason, which the detective could not name, the
present aspect of the subject seemed to be distasteful to Lynne.
“But,” said the detective meditatively, as if he were trying to
remember, “it seems to me that I saw somewhere a notice of Mrs.
Babbington’s return to the city, a long time before your own arrival.
Were you together long in Scotland?”
“We were at the same house about two weeks. We did not, unfortunately,
meet again until I arrived here the day before yesterday.”
“Indeed. It would seem as if you should have made an effort to get
together sooner than that, under the circumstances. I suppose you both
dreaded the moment when Edythe had to be informed of the prospective
relationship.”
Lynne grasped at that straw, as Nick would have called it.
“Yes; that was it,” he said eagerly. “I dreaded to tell Edythe about it;
Mrs. Babbington insisted, rightly of course, that she should be told at
once. I really think, Mr. Carter, that I found excuses to defer my
home-coming, solely on that account.”
“No doubt. No doubt. Really, now, were there no little things that
happened here in town when you knew Mrs. Babbington here, that led you
to think that she might some day be your wife?”
The man turned a half angry glance upon the detective, and then the
ghost of a fleeting smile appeared for an instant on his face.
“What a prober you are, Mr. Carter,” he said, with an effort at
kindness, but Nick could see that it was an effort, and that there was
something behind it, too.
“My dear, sir,” he said quickly, “I am trying to play the friend, as
well as the enforced companion, since you want my professional services.
I am endeavoring to discuss subjects that will lead your thoughts into
pleasant channels. Now, for instance, when you first met your present
fiancée in Scotland, you must have been greatly changed, by reason of
your recent illness.”
“Indeed I was very greatly changed in every way.”
“And she saw it at once, of course.”
“Naturally.”
“And was greatly shocked by it, I have no doubt.”
“She admitted as much as that;” again there was that note of grimness in
the reply.
“I suppose, quite naturally, it was a more or less delicate topic with
you, Mr. Lynne.”
“Yes; it was. Still, I got over it, you know;” and this time there was a
short, hard laugh, which the detective thought entirely out of place.
“The very fact of your recent illness, and your near approach to death,
no doubt drew her to you as nothing else would have done.”
“I really think that that is the explanation of it all, Carter.”
“And then, too, having been much at your house--for she used to be
quite friendly with Edythe, did she not?--there was not so much
difference in their ages as to preclude that--she doubtless had some
sort of acquaintance with that cousin of yours who was your valet, and
who died?”
“Naturally.”
“She remembered him, of course?”
“Of course.”
“The relationship between you was so distant that, of course, there was
no physical likeness between you, was there?”
“Oh, none at all that anybody ever spoke about.”
“All valets are smooth of face, by necessity of their calling, and you
have always worn the mustache and Vandyke beard, haven’t you? Every
picture of you that I have seen in the papers has had it so.”
“I haven’t shaved my face or upper lip since I entered college, and that
was nearly thirty years ago,” was the quick reply.
Again the detective relapsed into silence--with a purpose.
After a moment he began to speak of the beauty of the day, for it was a
perfect one, and he drew his companion’s attention to patches of the
snow that had fallen during the night upon the landscape they were
passing.
And while he did that he did another thing--in an utterly abstracted
manner, as if he had no thought of what he was doing.
He removed his cigar case from his pocket a second time, helped himself
to a cigar, and then, as if with second thought, passed the case to
Lynne while he sought his match safe.
He struck the match and held the flame of it out for the other to light
by, and then applied it to his own cigar; and so they smoked on in
silence for another distance, until the detective said:
“We should arrive in another ten minutes now. How do you like those
cigars, Mr. Lynne?”
“They seem very good, indeed. I--er--I am not much of a smoker, Mr.
Carter.”
“No? You seem to take kindly to it just now. I suppose that is due to
the excellence of the cigars, isn’t it?”
“It must be so.”
There was another silence after that, and a grim smile was playing upon
the features of Nick Carter.
It broadened, too, when as they drew nearer to Pleasantglades, and came
into the more thickly populated localities, Lynne threw the not
half-smoked cigar from the window, and straightened himself suddenly.
“We will be there in a moment now, Mr. Carter,” he said.
“Yes. We will be there in a moment.”
“Need I say to you that you shall be very generously recompensed for
whatever you can do to relieve me of the strain and terror of this awful
business? I have no doubt that my daughter came here deliberately to
kill herself. Why, I do not know; but you must help me to find that
out.”
CHAPTER X.
THE CHIEF’S BEST REASON.
At the house Nick Carter found things unchanged.
Save for the presence of the policemen who were guarding it, and the
local coroner who was awaiting the arrival of “the great man” of the
neighborhood, there was no change.
They were a respectful, quiet lot, truly sorrowful for what had
happened, and genuinely in sympathy with the man whose dearest
possession had so ruthlessly been taken from him.
And he passed among them with bowed head, with his hands behind his
back, not speaking to a single one of his many old acquaintances of the
neighborhood who had been permitted inside the grounds to offer their
sympathy.
And this, one man was heard to say, was not at all like Mr. Lynne,
although he couldn’t be blamed under the circumstances.
But Lynne looked neither to the right nor the left as he advanced into
the house, and, followed closely by the detective, led the way straight
to the room where the dead girl waited.
At the door of it, when others would have followed him inside, he turned
and spoke to one of the officers at the door in a low tone, and the
officer announced:
“Mr. Lynne would like to be alone for a time. Please wait.”
But Nick, who was close behind him, stepped forward and gripped him by
the arm.
“I think I had best go inside with you, Mr. Lynne,” he said, in a low
tone. “It may be important, you know.”
Lynne nodded, and Nick followed him inside the room and closed the door.
While Nick paused near the door by which they had entered, Lynne crossed
quickly to the divan couch, and Nick could see that he looked eagerly
everywhere about the room as he did so, and that he half paused near the
table where the fan and the gloves and the vanity box were still lying
as Nick had left them.
But he kept on his way until he stood beside the couch, looking down
upon the dead; and Nick could see that the man was shuddering,
shuddering, shuddering, through his frame and shoulders, as if with
something more than grief.
“I will go over to the opposite side of the room to one of the windows,
until you call me,” said the detective, speaking in a kindly tone; and
he did cross the room to the window, which was, however, tightly closed
and one could not see out, although some one had had the forethought to
have the electric lights connected. There had been no time nor reason to
take down the guards at the windows.
But Nick stood there with his back toward Lynne--and he took a small
mirror from his pocket, and held it, by folding his arms, so that it
reflected enough of the room that was behind him for him to be able to
see perfectly well all that might happen there.
And after a moment he saw Lynne turn calmly about as if to speak to him,
and then, discovering that his back was turned, he saw the man leave the
side of the couch and cross quickly and silently to the table, the top
of which he searched with his eyes.
And Nick, even in that small mirror, could see a pained expression come
into those eyes when that search was not rewarded; and he saw those eyes
dart swift glances from place to place around the room, as if searching
for something.
Without stooping or searching with his hands, he sought under the table
as well as upon it, and an expression of amazement, and then suddenly
one of relief, appeared on his features.
“Mr. Carter!” he called, after a moment, and Nick turned about.
“Yes? What is it?” he asked.
“I am ready for you to do what you please here, now.”
“Very well.”
“There is only one thing that I would like to suggest, in case you wish
me to leave the room.”
“I have no wish for you to leave the room. That is for you to decide for
yourself. But what is the suggestion?”
“It seems to me that my daughter could not have done this terrible thing
without leaving some word for me somewhere. It seems incredible that she
should take her own life in the manner she has done it, and leave no
message behind her. I want to ask you to search diligently for such a
message. For a letter or a written line. There must be something,
somewhere.”
“Why are you so certain that she took her own life, Mr. Lynne?” Nick
asked quietly.
“Why, everything points to that.”
“Do you think so? Have you considered everything, since you speak of
everything?”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course I have.”
“But, nevertheless, Mr. Lynne, there is one thing that you have
overlooked.”
“That I have overlooked? What is it?”
“This: Whether she took her own life or not, she was not alone in this
room when she died.”
“Not--alone--in--this--room--when--she--died!”
“No, sir, she was not. There was another person here with her.”
“But, what in the world do you mean? How could you possibly know that?”
“Mr. Lynne, people who die suddenly, as she died, have their eyes wide
open when they are found. Edythe’s eyes were closed--are closed, rather,
and, therefore, there was some person here to close them.”
“Great Heaven, Carter, what do you mean?”
“Just what I say, Mr. Lynne. Edythe was not in this room alone when she
died. There was another person here with her, who closed her eyes after
death.”
“My God, Carter, is it possible that you can surmise that?”
“I do not surmise it; I know it.”
“Know it? No, no, that is impossible.”
“It is not impossible. It is a fact.”
“But----”
“Edythe died from the effects of a dose of prussic acid. People who die
from prussic acid die so suddenly there is no time for a thought even.
Her eyes would have been wide open now, if some person had not closed
them--the murderer!”
“The murderer? Ah, no, not that.”
“Yes. I mean that.”
“But--I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. It is impossible! It is
preposterous! It is not to be thought of. Search, search, Carter; you
will find somewhere a note that she has left behind her to tell of this
deed. It must be so.”
“Even if I should find such a note or letter, Mr. Lynne, I would not
believe it. I would deem it a forgery, made by a clever scoundrel, to
deceive others. Edythe Lynne did not kill herself; she was killed!”
“But--who? Who? Who could have done such a thing?”
“Ah, who, indeed? That is yet to be determined.”
“What makes you so positive, Carter? Tell me that.” The man was making a
great effort to control himself, but all of that effort might easily
have been attributable to the excitement and emotion of the moment,
under the harrowing circumstances, and Nick Carter was perfectly well
aware of that fact.
“There are many things that make me positive, Mr. Lynne.”
“The condition of the eyes alone?”
“No. Not that alone. There are other things.”
“What other things?”
“I will not go into them now, sir. You are too greatly excited by all
that has taken place since last night.”
“But tell me. Tell me.”
“I will tell you after a little, Mr. Lynne. I think, just now, we had
best call the coroner inside. He has been very patient.”
And, although Lynne tried to protest, Nick stepped past him to the door,
opened it, and called to Doctor Kuhn to join them.
“I think,” the detective said, when the doctor entered the room, “that
you had best give your first attention to Mr. Lynne; and if I may make a
suggestion, it would be that he is ordered into another room to lie down
while the chief of your police and you and I make what investigation we
can in this room. Don’t you agree with me?”
“I do, certainly,” replied the doctor, taking Lynne’s wrist and feeling
his pulse. “You really must rest, if only for a few moments, sir,” he
said, in a kindly tone to the millionaire. “You are greatly excited.
Your pulse is beating like a triphammer.”
Lynne opened his mouth as if to protest, just as the big figure of the
local chief of police loomed in the doorway; and somehow the sight of it
seemed to change his mind, for he bowed to the policeman and spoke in a
low tone to him, and passed out of the room.
Nick Carter stepped forward quickly and closed the door after him, thus
shutting himself in alone with the coroner and the chief.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I suppose you notice the great change in Mr.
Lynne, since you last saw him, don’t you?”
“I certainly do,” replied the chief, with emphasis on the I. “He was
always most cordial to me, and to-day he has scarcely spoken to me at
all; but I suppose that is due to this affair. Poor little girl. Why,
Mr. Carter, I’ve watched that girl grow up, and she seems almost like
one of my own. A sweeter, purer, gentler, more lovable soul never dwelt
in a human body. If I could get my hands on the fiend that did that
act--I expect I’d have to go to prison myself.”
“You are convinced, then, that it was murder, chief?”
“Just as sure as can be. There isn’t the slightest doubt of it in my
mind.”
“So am I convinced of it, chief. And we will get at that, presently. By
the way, doctor, have you, too, noticed any especial change in Mr.
Lynne?”
“Why, yes, but more in his manner than in anything else, although he is
certainly much stouter and in much better general health than when I
last saw him. Oh, no, I don’t know as there is so much change, after
all. He has grown considerably grayer, I think.”
“I wonder--he is feeling badly, you know--if a cigar would do him any
good? A cigar is a great thing for me when I am----”
“No use, Mr. Carter,” said the chief. “He don’t smoke.”
“Doesn’t smoke? Are you sure?”
“Never smoked in his life. He has often told me that. He said he used to
want to smoke because he liked to see others doing it, and they seemed
to get so much pleasure out of it, and he often tried it. He has told me
that often.”
“And couldn’t he even learn to smoke?”
“No. At least, he said not. He has told it to me often. He couldn’t stay
in a room where there was much tobacco smoke, and it used to make him
mad because he could not. But there is something about tobacco that he
can’t stand. He could never learn to smoke; and I call that hard luck.
But come, hadn’t we better get down to business?”
“Yes, I think so. Coroner, have you discovered one of the best proofs
that this is a case of murder and not one of suicide?”
“I don’t know that I have. What do you mean?”
“Have you ever seen a case of prussic acid suicide where the eyes were
found closed?”
“By Jove! Mr. Carter, you’re right. No, I have not; nor anybody else.”
“Well, what did I tell you?” demanded the chief. “I knew it was murder,
just because I know the little girl wouldn’t have killed herself.”
CHAPTER XI.
PLANNING A CAMPAIGN.
The three turned then to the duty in hand.
But it was only a cursory examination of the surroundings that they
made, since the doctor and the chief had both already been in that room
and had investigated as far as it had been possible or even necessary.
Nick stood back and a little to one side while the two approached the
dead girl upon the couch, and for a moment the chief stood looking down
upon her with all that adoration which a strong man of middle age feels
for a pure young soul such as Edythe Lynne’s had been.
Finally he turned to the detective.
“Mr. Carter,” he said, with slow solemnity, “what I said a moment ago is
true. If you had come to me and told me that this girl was dead and that
she had killed herself, and that you had seen her do it, I would have
told you that you were a liar. She wasn’t the sort that kills herself;
not much. So far as I am concerned, the examination is over.”
He hesitated a moment, and then added, with grave dignity:
“What I want to do now, is to find that man that did it. I want to find
him.”
“Do you want to find him without fear or favor?” asked the detective
quietly.
“I do, sir, without fear or favor. There ain’t no man in all the world
that is big enough or great enough, or near enough to me in any way, to
get one grain of consideration from me if he did this thing.”
“Very well,” said Nick, with quiet decision. “We will find him. I think
that I can give you both my word that we will find him within
twenty-four hours--or less.”
“Do you mean that, Mr. Carter?” the chief exclaimed.
“Yes, I mean it.”
“Would you mind telling me just why you are so plumb certain about it?”
For a moment the detective hesitated. Then he said:
“Chief--and you, doctor, also--if you will be satisfied with a partial
explanation for the present, I will make it; but there are reasons, and
weighty ones, too, why I would very much prefer to leave the full
explanation till later. Will you be satisfied with that, and trust me?”
“I will,” said the chief.
“And I, also,” announced the doctor.
“Then I will tell you this much now: This is not the first time I have
been in this room since Miss Lynne was killed.”
“Not the first time? Eh? What do you mean by that?” exclaimed the chief.
“That is what I am telling you.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
“Chief, before I went to the station house last night, or very early
this morning, I had been here in this room. I knew then what you would
find when you arrived here with your men.”
“Then why in blazes didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought it best to go about the matter in the manner I have
done it; and results have demonstrated that I was correct about that.”
“Well, how did you get here, that’s what I want to know?”
“As you know, I was out here on other business last night. It was about
two o’clock, or shortly after that, when I passed this way. It was soon
after the snow had fallen, but just then no snow was falling at all.”
“Well, well, well?”
“As I was passing the gate I saw tracks in the snow; the tracks of a man
and a woman, entering the place, and the tracks of the same man, made in
leaving it. At that time the lock on the gate was securely fastened.”
“Fastened? Do you mean that?”
“Yes. It was I who filed through that chain in order to enter here and
discover what had happened to the woman who had come into this place,
and who had not gone out again.”
“I see. I see.”
“I made my way into the house by picking the lock of the door. I had my
flash light with me. I made my way to this room by following the snow
tracks on the rugs and carpets, for they had not melted. It was really
colder in the house than outside of it.”
“And you found--this?”
“Yes. Just as you see it.”
“So you knew, right on the spot, that a man had come here with her. You
couldn’t track him away from here, could you?”
“I have tracked him away from here, chief. I am almost ready to put my
hands upon him; but I haven’t sufficient proof of it yet, and the
important thing that I wish to impress upon you both, right now, is that
not a word of what I have told you shall be uttered to any person for
the present. Will you both agree to that?”
“Surely we will. But, have you told her father about it, Carter?”
“I have just said that not a word of it should be breathed to any
person. That included Mr. Lynne, also.”
“Oh; I see. Well, he isn’t to know anything, either, until you get ready
to tell it?”
“Not one single idea of any of it. He must not even suppose that I had
any knowledge that preceded your own, chief.”
“And the--murderer! Do you really think you have got him dead to
rights?”
“I really do, chief. I haven’t one single doubt of it.”
“Then all I’ve got to say is that you’re a wonder, Carter.”
“Oh, no, it was circumstance, and chance--largely chance--that made it
possible, chief.”
“Then thank Heaven for the chance. Say, where are you going to get him?
Here? Or in New York?”
“Here, if I can. If not here, then in New York.”
“Do you mean to tell me that the fellow is here in this town?”
“He might be here, or he might be lured here, but wherever he is--no
matter where he may be, chief, I will get him. I promise you that.”
“Shake hands, Carter. You’re a man after my own heart. You do things,
and that’s what I like. And don’t you think that it even occurs to me to
be one bit jealous of it all. I am only thanking Heaven that you were
here to do it. I wasn’t cut out for a detective. I’m all right as a
policeman, but I know my limitations, thank the Lord. And say, Carter.”
“Well?”
“From this out, you take charge of things, will you? You be chief.”
“No; I won’t do that; but if a suggestion occurs to me I will make it to
you, and you can give your orders as you see fit. That will be the
better way, although I don’t now think there will be any occasion for
such exercise of authority.”
“Maybe not.”
“But there is one thing that I want to do at your office at one
o’clock.”
The chief looked at his watch and snapped it shut.
“That will be another half hour, yet,” he said. “What is it that you
want to do then?”
“I want to sit at the telephone in your private office at the station
house, and do some telephoning to one of my assistants in New York--and
I want you to sit beside me and listen, without questioning, when I do
it.”
“That’s all right. What else?”
“I want the doctor here to join with us in a little plot of mine, to
help us out.”
“You may count on me, of course,” replied the doctor, who had been
listening intently.
“Doctor,” said the detective, turning toward him, “I called upon Mr.
Lynne at his home in the city this morning. It was my intention to tell
him then, more or less, about what I had discovered here--while I was
there, chief, your man came and made his report, but I don’t think he
saw me.”
“Huh; that isn’t strange. He wouldn’t see the moon at night if he wasn’t
told to look at it, and then he wouldn’t see all there was of it.”
“Well, Mr. Carter?” said the doctor. “You were about to suggest
something to me?”
“Yes. When I went to Mr. Lynne’s house I found him preparing to come out
here. He had made all his arrangements to start early. His errand was to
take something from a private vault that is built under the north wing.”
The chief nodded as if he understood. The doctor looked surprised.
“When this news was made known to him,” the detective continued, “he
asked me to come here with him, and it was while on the way out that he
told me about the vault. Now, he intends to visit it before he returns
to the city, and for reasons of my own I wish to be with him when he
does so. I am quite sure that he will have no objections to that
arrangement.”
“I don’t know about that,” interrupted the chief. “He has always been
mighty particular about that vault, and it surprises me that he even
told you of its existence.”
“Well, he did tell me. The point is this, doctor.”
“Yes?”
“I must go now, with the chief, to the station house to do that
telephoning, for that must be attended to, first, if we wish to catch
the murderer. Now, if you will play your part in this affair, so that we
can ultimately bring the murderer here--we will say, face to face with
Mr. Lynne himself--I want you, when we leave this room, to go at once to
Mr. Lynne, feel his pulse, and say or do something which will make it
imperative--imperative, mind you--that he shall go home to your house
with you until I call for him there on my return from the station
house.”
“I think I understand you,” said the doctor.
“Insist that you must look after his health; that he must have an hour
or two of rest while the chief and I are busy about other matters. If he
should insist upon returning to this house, come with him. Will you do
all that till we return from the station house?”
“Surely. And even if you did not have another reason, the one you have
given is already sufficient. He does need the rest and a tonic of some
kind.”
“The tonic he will want is brandy, doctor.”
“He was never a drinking man,” said the chief.
“Nevertheless, give him brandy if he wants it, and if it should happen
that he has learned to smoke while he was away, offer him a cigar.”
“No use,” said the chief, shaking his head.
“Oh, well, one doesn’t always know. For instance, chief, what would you
say if you were told that Mr. Lynne is contemplating a second
marriage?”
“I should probably call the man a liar who told it to me,” was the dry
response.
“Nevertheless, chief, it is true.”
“What’s that? True? It can’t be. Why, I’ve heard him express himself
rather forcibly on that subject, too.”
“Nevertheless, it is true. You have heard of Mrs. Hurd-Babbington? You
have seen her out here, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she is the lady in question.”
“You don’t say so.”
“Yes. And it occurs to me that a man who will so thoroughly change his
opinions on the subject of marriage might also learn to smoke. And now
that we understand one another, shall we go to the station, chief? And
will you do your part, doctor?”
CHAPTER XII.
GETTING INTO ACTION.
Nick Carter was at the telephone in the private office of the chief of
the local police.
Chick was at the other end of the wire, and the connection had just been
made.
“Chick,” said the detective, “I am in the private office of the chief,
here. Where are you?”
“At home,” came the reply over the wire. “It is only half an hour ago
that I phoned in, and Joseph told me what was wanted, so I came here.”
“Good. Well, I have some instructions to give you; but before I do that,
let me hear anything that you have to tell me.”
“I haven’t anything to tell you that amounts to a hill of beans, Nick.
So far as I have been able to determine there is no reason to suppose
that Lynne is not all that he appears to be. His life, as far as I have
been able to find out anything about it, is as clean as a whistle.”
“I believe that. But have you found any person who knew him intimately?
who has known him intimately for a number of years? I would like to find
such a person as that.”
“Yes; I have found one, although he isn’t what you’d exactly call a
friend--although when fellows like him are faithful, they are mighty
good friends to a man.”
“To whom are you referring, Chick?”
“To a chap named Tompkins, who used to be butler----”
“What?”
“Didn’t you get that?”
“Yes. I got it all right, but are you sure that you mean Tompkins, who
used to be butler for Lynne? The right Tompkins, I mean?”
“Of course I am sure.”
“I understood that he was in England.”
“England, nothing! He is right here in New York--and a bright old chap
he is, too.”
“Glory be, Chick. That is the best news you could have given me. Did you
tell Tompkins about the death of Edythe?”
“Yes, and the old man is heartbroken. He wants to go out there, but I
told him to wait, and I would let him know whether to go there or wait
here to see her. He wants to see her.”
“He shall see her, too; tell him that for me, and go to him at once as
soon as you leave the phone. I want you to bring him here, in order that
there may be no mistake. Now, is that all you have to tell me?”
“Yes. About all. It is all I think of now.”
“Well, before I give you your instructions, answer me a question. From
time to time, during the past four or five years, you remember to have
seen many items about J. Cephas Lynne in the newspapers, don’t you?”
“About a thousand of them, more or less, I should say. Why?”
“Do you remember to have seen references to his fondness for smoking?”
“Eh? For smoking?”
“Just that.”
“I remember to have seen a good many statements, mostly made in fun, I
think, that he did not smoke because he could not, and that it made him
sick to stay in a room where there was much of it; and I remember one
circumstance where some friends played a joke upon him and induced him
to accompany them to a ‘smoker,’ and that it made him deathly sick,
whereupon they guyed the life out of him. Is that what you mean?”
“Precisely. I remembered that, too, but I wanted to be sure that you
did, also. But, Chick, Lynne has learned to smoke and to enjoy it,
too--and my cigars; and you know how strong they are.”
“Uh-huh. I’m on. What else?”
“Now for your instructions.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where Mrs. Madge Hurd-Babbington lives?”
“I can easily find out. What about it?”
“Now, pay close attention, Chick.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to go now, at once, to Judge Masters, of the General
Sessions; tell him that I sent you, and that you are carrying out my
orders.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to swear out a warrant before him, on information and
belief, and get him to issue it from the bench, charging Madge
Hurd-Babbington with the crime of murder, in aiding and abetting one
Thomas Lynne, former secretary and valet to J. Cephas Lynne, in the
actual commission of that crime. Have you got that?”
There was a sharp exclamation, quickly suppressed, from the chief, who
was seated near the detective, as Chick replied:
“Yes. I’ve got that. It’s going some, isn’t it?”
“A little. Then swear out a second warrant for Thomas Lynne, for
murder--and have them both regular in every particular. Tell the judge
that I know exactly whereof I speak; and tell him also that I want the
entire matter kept absolutely still until we deliver our prisoners at
the headquarters of police in New York City. Have you got all that,
straight and regular?”
“Yes; but who in the world is Thomas Lynne?”
“You’ll find that out when you get here.”
“What next, Nick?”
“Take my big limousine car, with Danny to drive it. You and Patsy are to
ride inside.”
“Yes.”
“Drive to the home of Mrs. Babbington. I don’t think any news about the
murder here has leaked out as yet--that is, the papers that contain it
will not be on the street before you can attend to all that I tell you
to do.”
“There is nothing as yet, anyhow.”
“So Mrs. Babbington will listen to what I direct you to tell her.”
“Well?”
“Go to her house with the car. Tell her that Edythe Lynne is dead, out
here at Pleasantglades, and that Mr. Lynne is here, very much overcome
by what has happened. Say that everything in connection with the death,
so far as it can be seen, points to suicide, and that Mr. Lynne is
greatly overwrought by it all. Say that he wants her there with him at
Pleasantglades at once, and that you have brought the car to take her
there. Describe the scene in the room to her, if necessary; about the
position of Edythe on the couch, the vial under her right hand on the
floor--even the letter, if that should be necessary! Got all that?”
“Yes.”
“The point is to induce her to come here with you willingly. I want that
done, if it is possible, and I think if you do the right kind of
talking, you will have no difficulty.”
“I can do it all right, I think.”
“But, Chick, if she should balk at all, and decline to come, show your
warrant, and bring her.”
“I’ll do that, too.”
“While you are after the warrant from the judge, send Patsy after that
old butler, Tompkins, and instruct Tompkins to wait for you somewhere
along the route you will take after Mrs. Babbington has entered the car
with you. If he were out, say at the end of the subway line, waiting for
you, that would be the best arrangement.”
“Why?”
“Because the minute she sees him she’ll get a scare, and I want you to
have her out of the city, well on the way here, before that happens.”
“I see.”
“Wait a minute, Chick; I’ve got a better idea.”
“Well?”
“Send Ida Jones after Tompkins, or let her go there with Patsy after
him; and then let her accompany him to the end of the subway to wait for
the car. I don’t want any mistake to happen about getting that old
servant here.”
“Why not let Patsy----”
“Do it just as I have said, Chick. That will be better and safer.”
“All right.”
“And do it all just as quickly as you know how. I want them both here
just as quickly as you can get them here--and you ought to do it all,
that is, you ought to get started within two hours at the most.”
“I think it can be done in an hour. The only hitch that may occur is
that I may not find the woman at home.”
“I think you will find her there, Chick. I think she will be waiting for
news. There is no doubt that Lynne communicated with her this morning by
telephone, and that she knows now just where he has gone, and is waiting
to hear from him.”
“I see.”
“At all events I will make assurance doubly sure and get the chief of
police here to telephone to her, as if for Lynne, that he wants her to
come out at once and that a car will call for her to bring her--but I
won’t send that message until I think you are about due at her house.”
“The car is here at the door now, Nick. Patsy is here beside me, and Ida
is in her room, so there will be no delay. I can be at the judge’s
chambers in twenty minutes; in twenty more I will have the warrants; in
fifteen or twenty more I can be at her house, so if you have the chief
do that telephoning in about three-quarters of an hour, I’ll engage to
be at the house within fifteen minutes after she gets it.”
“Good. That arranges it nicely.”
“Are you sure that I will find Judge Masters at his chambers?”
“Yes. I know that. I saw him yesterday, and he told me that he would be
there all day. I had intended to see him to-day about that other matter
of ours; tell him that that is postponed till to-morrow.”
“All right.”
“You may tell him as much about this crime as you have time to tell him.
Just give him a general outline of it, so that he will understand how
very serious it is.”
“Yes.”
“Just one thing more.”
“Well?”
“When you get here drive straight to Pleasantglades, and to the house.
The chief will meet you at the door, and will escort the woman into the
house--but I want you and Patsy to keep mighty close to her, in case she
should try to do injury to herself when she discovers what she is up
against.”
“All understood, Nick.”
“That is all. Now, lose no time. Get here as soon as possible. Good-by.”
When the detective turned away from the phone it was to find that the
chief was staring wide-eyed at him, while beads of sweat stood out upon
his forehead.
“Great Scott, Carter, is all that true?” he cried out, clenching his
hands and leaning forward in his chair.
“Yes, chief, it is all true--too true,” replied the detective.
And the chief could only stare at the detective, speechlessly.
CHAPTER XIII.
A THRILLING CLIMAX.
“Well, Mr. Lynne, are you rested? Are you feeling better now?”
It was the detective who asked the question as they left Doctor Kuhn’s
house together, with the doctor accompanying them, to walk the short
distance back to Pleasantglades. The chief had gone on alone after the
telephoning episode, saying that big as he was he had not the courage
yet to meet that man without seizing him by the throat.
“Oh, yes,” said Lynne. “I am beginning to get better control of myself.
I am glad that you have come. I want to visit the vault under the north
wing, and I rather wanted you to accompany me when I did that.”
“Indeed?” said Nick. “Why so?”
The man shrugged his shoulders, then replied:
“I suppose I am nervous, that is all--and I cannot get it out of my head
that somewhere there is an explanation for this sudden act of my
daughter’s.”
“You don’t expect to find such an explanation in that vault, do you?”
demanded the detective, in simulated surprise, for he had already
assumed that this was what Lynne did expect to find, for the very good
reason that he had arranged it, himself, to be found.
For that, and that only, could explain that paragraph of the letter
which still was in hiding in one of Nick Carter’s pockets; that
paragraph which was:
“The reasons why I have decided that there is no other way, you
will discover soon enough, and you will feel deep regret because I
did not go to you and tell you all about it, instead of doing this
thing.”
The clever forger--this man, of course--who had prepared that paragraph,
had also prepared the evidence to establish the meaning of it; the
evidence to explain what the forged letter pretended to refuse to
explain; the thing that was meant to explain why she should kill
herself.
Lynne claimed that he had not been at home until the time he stated in
telling Nick Carter about it, but it was certain in the mind of the
detective that he had been out here to Pleasantglades before he made his
presence known in New York at all, and that he had prepared everything
for the moment which had now arrived. The only upset in his plans was
the strange absence of the letter that he had left on the table in the
room where he had committed the murder.
That was, of course, preying upon his mind, but he did not dare to ask
about it, since he could have no knowledge of it, and, doubtless, he
consoled himself with the idea that the chief had found it and was
holding it back for some purpose of his own.
But, when new evidence should be found in the vault that there was a
reason why Edythe should have killed herself, then, of course, according
to his hopes, the letter would be forthcoming.
So Nick followed him into the north wing of the house; saw him draw
aside the circular rug that had been made for the semioctagonal room
that was there; saw him insert a key into a lock in that floor and lift
a ponderous trapdoor by adjusting a lever concealed in the wainscoating
which applied weights to it to pull it up; saw him snap on electric
lights from a switch, and then descend iron stairs to the regions below;
saw him consult a small book that he carried in his pocket, and then
attack the combination locks one after another until he had opened the
two outer doors, and then the two inner ones of the vault; saw him step
inside and use small, flat keys upon inner compartments of the great
safe, for that is what it was, and presently step back again into the
presence of the detective, and show him a beautiful string of pearls,
which he drew slowly and lovingly through his hands.
“This is what I came here to get--what I was coming here to get, to give
to Mrs. Babbington for her birthday,” he said. “Is it not exquisite?”
“It certainly is,” replied the detective.
Then Lynne left the pearls in the detective’s hands, and returned to the
interior of the great safe.
“There are some securities that I think I will take away with me, now
that I am here,” he remarked, as if casually, and he opened another
compartment inside the safe--and Nick felt that the moment had arrived.
It had.
Lynne suddenly started back a half-suppressed exclamation; then he cried
out, with all the theatrical art that he possessed:
“No, no! It is not possible! I will not believe it. Oh! oh! oh! This is
the worst blow of all!” Then he turned slowly around, and added, as one
who is overcome by sorrow: “Mr. Carter, I am very sorry now that I
brought you here. I might have hidden all this, and now you must know.
Look. Come here and look. It is best that you should.”
The compartment into which the detective peered when he stepped forward
was about half filled with bonds, which Nick saw at a glance were
negotiable ones; and on the top of them, unfolded, face up, was a short
note in that same hand that had written the letter found in the room of
death. Here was the evidence, then, that the fiend had prepared. The
note was:
“Forgive me, papa. I have only taken half, but I had to do so. I
will not tell you why, only that it was not for myself, but for
another. I would die rather than that you should know all the
truth, and I have partly determined to die before you can know it.
“EDYTHE.”
So this fiend in human guise, not content with taking the life of that
beautiful girl, that pure, sweet, young life, had attempted to steal her
honor also, and had not hesitated to cast an unthinkable imputation upon
her, even then.
Nick shut his fingers tightly together to keep himself from seizing the
monster by the throat then and there.
But he controlled himself so that Lynne saw nothing of the danger he was
in; and he reached into the compartment and took the note, folded it,
and put it into his pocket.
“We must keep that out of sight for the present, Lynne,” he said, in
explanation of his act. “Come; let us get out of here. The place gives
me the shivers.”
As one who is bent and torn by grief unbearable, Lynne followed Nick up
the stairs, after closing and locking the doors of the vault; and in
that same attitude of a stricken man, he followed the detective through
the north wing to the main part of the house--and they arrived at the
front door just as an automobile drove into the inclosure and under the
porte-cochère.
He did not even raise his eyes to discover who had arrived, since that
was not in keeping with the part he was playing, and so he did not
notice that it was Mrs. Babbington who was assisted from it, for Nick
quickly turned him about and led him toward the room where the body of
Edythe had not yet been disturbed.
The chief had his instructions from Nick, and would carry them out; and,
true enough, it was only a moment later when Nick heard footsteps
following them along the corridor.
The detective led Lynne into the room of death, partly closing the door
after him--and a moment later it was pushed wider open again, and Mrs.
Babbington stepped into the room with all the assured presence of the
woman of fashion that she was.
Nick had turned Lynne so that he faced the door, and the sudden start
and the awful gasp of terror that he gave when he saw and recognized
the woman, could not be described.
“You, you, you!” he cried out, and she was startled, too, by his
vehemence, which she had not anticipated, of course, since she believed
that he expected her.
But before she could reply, or even make a gesture, a still more
dramatic thing happened.
An old man, white and uncertain on his feet with age, pushed himself
forward. He thrust out his right arm and pointed an accusing finger at
the trembling man who faced him.
“You are not my master, Mr. J. Cephas Lynne; you are Thomas Lynne, his
servant!” he half shouted in a voice that choked with rage. “And you
murdered that girl--my beautiful little Edythe, whom I carried in my
arms from the time that she was born. Oh, you--you----”
Shaking off restraint, he sprang at the throat of the man who cowered
before him, and he would have reached him, too, had not Nick Carter
interposed himself between them.
But Nick did another thing at that instant; he seized Lynne, whirled him
about and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, and then he flung
him into a chair near the chief, who had followed into the room; and the
chief stood over the man, with his hands clenched tightly, as if he
would have enjoyed tearing him apart.
And there was another sharp click that sounded in the room at the same
instant, made by Patsy as he pulled Mrs. Babbington’s hands behind her,
and snapped handcuffs upon her white wrists as well.
She shrieked out, then tottered; and then stood upright again at the
sound of a shrill laugh from Lynne that was almost a snarl.
“They’ve got you, too, anyhow!” he yelled at her. “I won’t be alone in
this. Look, Carter, she knew it all from the first. She recognized me at
once when I went where she was, in Scotland. She had heard of my
supposed death, and, when she saw me, she knew that I had killed my
cousin Cephas. Oh, yes, she knew it, and she made the most of it. She
made me say that I would marry her, and that she should share the
fortune--and it was she, she, I tell you, who planned the murder of that
poor girl on the couch. I didn’t want to do it, and I would not have
done it, only that I saw she suspected me. She could not believe that
her father would change so greatly in so short a time. Even when I had
lured her here--Madge was with us last night in that car when we came
here, and I took her home afterward--even when I had lured her here----
Oh, well, what is the use. I succeeded in inducing her to come here. She
still thought I was her father, and that the accident and the illness
had changed me; she trusted me, and I brought her in here, and I killed
her. Now you have it. It is the truth, but that woman made me do it. And
I forged a letter that I put on that table. I was always an expert
penman, Carter. Cephas took me out of a prison when I went to him, and
if it had not been for him I would have been back there again long
before this, for another forgery. I wrote that note, too, that you have
got in your pocket, that we found in the vault. Oh, I can write things;
I can write things.”
The woman in the meantime had regained control of herself.
“The man is mad,” she said coldly. “I know nothing of the things he is
talking about.”
“Mrs. Babbington,” said Nick slowly, “the man is not mad, and you do
know all about the things he is talking about. More, I can prove many of
them now, and will prove all of them within a week. Take her away,
Chick, back to New York, and to headquarters. The chief and I will
attend to this unspeakable scoundrel. You have the warrants?”
“Yes.”
“That is sufficient, then. Serve them now.”
CHAPTER XIV.
THE END OF A TRIAL.
Juries are not inclined to convict a beautiful woman unless the evidence
offered against her is entirely convincing; and, even then, it is done
with reluctance, and usually with a strong recommendation to the judge
for mercy and leniency.
The testimony against her must be of the best, and it must be direct,
for the germ of chivalry dwells in the soul of every man, and there is
always present in his conscience that instinctive reluctance to condemn
any woman, whatever her crimes may have been, to the utmost penalty of
the law. Circumstantial evidence has sent many a man to the death
penalty, but where will you find that it has done so in the case of a
woman--and particularly a beautiful woman who still possesses that
greatest of all attractions--youth?
It was so in the Babbington case--in that great case which attracted
such world-wide notice at the time of the trial--the prosecution of
Madge Hurd-Babbington for murder in the first degree, in that she was
charged--so the indictment read--with having instigated, aided, and
abetted one Thomas Lynne, who posed for the time under the name of his
cousin, J. Cephas Lynne, in committing the deliberate and premeditated
murder of Edythe Lynne, only daughter and heiress of the said J. Cephas
Lynne.
The jury had been out barely half an hour when it returned to ask a
question of the presiding judge. The foreman asked:
“Your honor, we wish to know if this defendant could be convicted of any
crime less than that which is charged in the indictment?”
The judge replied instantly:
“No. This is an extraordinary case, gentlemen. The indictment charges
explicitly that the defendant ‘instigated, aided, and abetted’ another
in the commission of a crime; it does not charge that she had any hand
in the actual commission of that crime. If you find that she
‘instigated, aided, and abetted’ the man who actually committed the
crime, and who has already been convicted in this court for that
offense, she is as guilty as he; but, unless you do so find, she is not
guilty. You may retire now for further deliberation.”
“That, your honor,” replied the foreman, “is now unnecessary. We find
the defendant not guilty!”
After that the usual formalities of the court in discharging a prisoner
were quickly disposed of, and the beautiful Madge Babbington turned a
derisively smiling face for one instant upon Nick Carter, as she passed,
unattended, from the courtroom to the street.
The district attorney, who had personally conducted the case, remarked,
in a low tone, to the detective:
“It is no more than I expected, Carter.”
“It is precisely what I did expect,” replied Nick, with a shrug of his
shoulders.
“If it had been proved that she actually administered the poison to
Edythe Lynne, she might have been convicted,” said the lawyer, with a
dubious smile; “but anything short of that----” He paused, with the
sentence unfinished; then added, somewhat irrelevantly: “She is an
astonishingly beautiful woman, Nick.”
“I think you have made use of the precise adverbial adjective,” replied
the detective dryly. “Her beauty is exactly of the type that is
astonishing.”
“Or overwhelming; possibly that would be a better word, Nick.”
“No; you were correct in the first instance. She took those twelve men
by storm, from the foreman to number twelve. They never had a chance to
do anything but what they did do. She fascinated them, and so compelled
them.”
“Hypnotized them, you mean.”
“Not at all. There was no hypnotism about it.”
“Then what?”
“What I have already called it--fascination. The compelling force of a
style and type of beauty which no man among them has ever seen before;
the----”
“Nor any other man,” interpolated the lawyer.
“The grace, strength, and the ferocity of a tigress molded into the form
of a woman,” the detective continued, as if he had not been interrupted.
The lawyer slapped his thigh with emphasis.
“You struck the keynote there, Nick!” he exclaimed. “The grace,
strength, and ferocity of a tigress. I often wondered, during the trial,
what her eyes reminded me of. I know now, for I have seen the same sort
of eyes through the bars of cages at the Bronx Zoo; great, sleepy, tawny
eyes, that peer out at one so mildly and half drowsily, and almost
unseeingly, but into which a veritable living flame may leap at any
instant, burning, consuming, destroying. She doesn’t like you, Nick.”
“No; evidently not.”
“I saw that glance she gave you as she passed out. I am rather glad it
wasn’t directed at me.”
“Why?”
“I should confess myself afraid.”
“Afraid of her?”
“Afraid of her eyes, rather.”
The detective shrugged again, but made no reply in words. The lawyer
continued:
“Her vengeance against you, if she ever seeks one, will be unusual.”
“I fancy that she has something else to think about, than vengeance,
just now,” replied the detective, with a smile.
“Tigers have long memories for an injury done to them, Nick. The
superintendent up at the Zoo told me that only the other day. He
said----”
“You seem to be fond of visiting the Zoo,” the detective interrupted,
smiling again.
“I am. The place fascinates me, especially the cages which confine the
tigers and the lions. Did you ever notice, Nick, how the lions will look
straight out over your head, and never once into your eyes, and how they
look as if they could see the wilderness where they were born?”
“Yes, often.”
“But the tigers--ah! they will look into one’s eyes at times; mildly at
first, but if one returns that gaze their eyes will flame. I have dodged
more than once, Nick, before the white-hot fire of hate I have seen in
the eyes of a tiger, and I have walked away, afraid to remain.”
“You should keep away from the Zoo, old chap; it isn’t good for you,”
said the detective, laughing aloud.
“Perhaps not. I feel, just now, as if I had been gazing through the bars
of an iron cage into the eyes of an enraged tigress.”
Nick Carter laughed again.
“Well, at all events,” he said, “this tigress is now at liberty, and
with the opportunity to do whatsoever she wills. Come, let’s get out of
here. There is better air to breathe outside.”
Passing through the corridor toward the elevator, the district attorney
continued the subject.
“Have you any idea what she will do, Nick?” he asked.
“No. At the present moment the subject does not interest me.”
“She will do something.”
“Naturally.”
“To get square with you, I mean.”
“I doubt that. She has too much else to think about.”
“What, for example?”
“Well, she is practically penniless, from her point of view--for her
requirements are of the extravagant order. She still has an income
sufficient to keep an ordinarily large family in comfort, but it is
totally inadequate for her wants.”
“And she blames you for that, Nick.”
“Possibly, although, as a matter of fact, it is no fault of mine, save
that she would by now have been the possessor of the Lynne millions if I
had not found those tracks in the snow out at Pleasantglades.”
“So, of course, she attributes all her present misfortunes to you.”
“Likely enough.”
“She has also lost her social position, Nick--which was rather an
enviable one. She will be ostracized now by all the people who were
overjoyed to receive her before this happened. She will lay that at your
door, too.”
“I suppose so.”
“In a way, that is a greater loss to her than the failure to obtain
possession of the fortune. She loses the opportunity for----”
“For everything.”
“Yes, for everything in the social world--her world; the one to which
she was born.”
“You mistake. She was not born to it.”
“No; but she has always lived in it. You have deprived her of the two
things which she has striven all her life to attain--wealth and social
prominence.”
“On the contrary, she deprived herself of them.”
“That is begging the question. I asked you a little bit ago if you had
any idea what she would do now. You replied that the subject did not
interest you. It interests me.”
The detective turned a smiling face toward his friend.
“Well,” he said, “have you formed an opinion about it?”
“A very decided one, Nick.”
“Good. Let’s hear what it is.”
“She will go straight to--’hem!--to the devil, by the shortest route. I
don’t mean in the sense in which that expression is generally used. I
speak in the criminal sense. She is outside the law now. Society has
turned against her, and she will take it out of society, if I am any
judge of character. She was born with criminal instincts, dormant until
now, but brought to the surface and made prominent by this episode in
her life. She has become an Ishmaelite, with the hand of every man and
woman against her, and her hand against all the world. If she had any
morals of honesty, integrity, and uprightness before this thing
happened, they have been burned to white ashes since the beginning of
this trial. The place where she kept them is a cavity, a vacuum, now.
From having been a beautiful ornament to the society which she adorned
she has become a man-eating tigress to prey upon it; a parasite to cling
to it, to grow and fatten upon it, and ultimately to smother and destroy
the creatures who will afford her sustenance. The woman has gone out of
her, Nick; the tigress has got inside. Beware of her, Nick. She hates
you, and she will find a way--an unusual one, too, I think--to do you
harm.”
“I declare, old chap, you are weaving quite a romance.”
“I am speaking earnestly, Nick.”
“Oh, I believe you; but I think you are trying to make a mountain out of
a molehill.”
“Do you? Perhaps I am. But, all the same, I am mighty glad that she did
not look at me in the manner she glanced toward you as she passed out of
that courtroom. Beware of her, Nick, lest when she is next called upon
to face a jury, charged with murder, you are not the victim of the
crime.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE BIRTH OF A MYSTERY.
“The Babbington case!”
One heard those three words on the cars, in the streets, in the
corridors of hotels, in parlors and dining rooms, across the breakfast
table, in the lobby at the theater--everywhere one went one heard the
repetition of those three words, “the Babbington case.”
One of the columns on the front page of every paper, morning and
evening, was sure to be headed by those three words, or by others which
conveyed precisely the same meaning.
Always the Babbington case; everywhere the Babbington case.
It was the talk of the town, and of a dozen other towns; newspapers in
Europe received cabled reports of it. The reputation of it was
world-wide. It was discussed in Paris and in London, as well as in New
York and Newport, Lenox and Lakewood. The Babbington case absorbed the
interest of the hour in all quarters, and in almost every walk of life.
Nick Carter confessed to himself that he had never before been
instrumental in bringing a case to justice that received quite the
amount of attention and comment that the Babbington case was getting.
Her lawyers had put in a masterly defense, and they were great lawyers,
who were familiar with every quip and trick of a court trial. Nick
Carter had no doubt that the woman would go free, notwithstanding the
fact that he personally knew her to be as guilty of the crime as the man
who had actually committed it. Therefore he was not surprised when the
foreman of the jury pronounced the two words which set her free:
“Not guilty.”
There were cheers in the courtroom, and some hisses, at the
pronouncement; both quickly suppressed by the court officers.
The law was guilty of no delay in its dealings with Thomas Lynne. Before
Mrs. Babbington was brought to trial, Thomas Lynne had been tried,
convicted, and sentenced to death.
In her defense Mrs. Babbington admitted meeting the murderer in
Scotland, and becoming engaged to him, but insisted that she had no idea
that it was not J. Cephas Lynne, the father of Edythe, to whom she had
become engaged, and that she believed, as others had been led to
believe, that it was the valet and not the master who had died so
suddenly in Switzerland.
The jury chose to credit her story rather than to believe the theory of
the prosecution. That is the whole story of the crime, the trial, and
the acquittal.
Such was the end of that other chapter of crime and sorrow and sudden
death; and such is the beginning of the present history which we have
chosen to call “The Babbington Case,” because it all came about in a
measure as a consequence of that trial.
There is an old maxim in criminology: “Once a criminal, always a
criminal.” We do not indorse that theory, by any means, not even in the
abstract; but it is certain that we would indorse it if it were written
to read: “Once a criminal, frequently a criminal again.”
Madge Babbington, as she was addressed by her intimates, was the type of
woman who could never be classed with criminals, but Nick Carter, as he
watched her during the trial, came to believe that she had developed
traits during that interval in Scotland when the Lynne millions were the
lure, and during the interval of her arrest and the weeks consumed in
her trial, which, though dormant till now, would shape her whole future
life.
Criminal traits are sometimes inherited, and when they appear suddenly,
as in the case of the Babbington woman, inheritance is the most logical
explanation of their presence; and, although they may have been dormant,
and never once suspected, even by the possessor of them, for years, once
inherited criminal tendencies obtain the upper hand in a character, they
are there to stay.
And this was the manner in which Nick Carter read the character of Madge
Babbington.
He had been at some pains, before the trial, to look up her antecedents,
and he had found that Madge Morton-Hurd-Babbington had had a checkered
and none too pleasant career.
Her father had once been an officer in the British army in India, where
she was born. He had been handsome and skillful--more skillful with
cards than with arms, as it proved. He had gone wrong; had been
cashiered and dismissed from the service; had become an adventurer,
traveling over Europe as a professional gambler, and had dragged with
him his young daughter, then a mere child, whose mother had long ago
deserted them both.
There you have it.
When Madge Morton’s father finally shot himself rather than stand trial
for a forgery he had committed, the daughter had taken to singing in
music halls, and from there had drifted into the “legitimate,” and her
talents had quickly taken her to the top.
She became a star, and accepted a season’s engagement in New York, where
she met Hurd, and married him. A divorce followed, and she married
Babbington, who died very soon afterward.
But her two marriages had brought her a competence, although not wealth.
But both of them had given her something that was quite as dear to her
soul as money, and that was an entrance to and an assured position in
the very cream of society.
And she was only twenty-five years old two months before the time the
jury pronounced for her benefit those two magic words, “not guilty.”
The lawyers who had managed the affairs of J. Cephas Lynne had in their
possession his last will and testament, which left everything that he
died owning to his daughter Edythe; and, as she had actually been alive
some months after her father’s death, she had inherited the immense
wealth without being aware of it.
But she had died leaving no will, and now the lawyers were vainly trying
to find an orphaned nephew of J. Cephas Lynne, of whom they had some
faint knowledge, but who had long ago disappeared from sight and from
the knowledge of his uncle, somewhere in the West.
And Nick Carter had been waiting only for the end of the trial of Madge
Babbington to take up the search for the lost nephew for the lawyers.
It was necessary that Carleton Lynne should be found without delay, or
that proof of his death also should be established, in order that the
great estate of the dead millionaire might be administered, and so, when
the verdict was pronounced, it being only three o’clock in the
afternoon, the detective turned his steps in the direction of the
lawyers’ offices, to tell them that he was ready to go ahead.
When he ascended in the elevator of the building where the lawyers were
located, he noticed a young man who left it at the same floor he did,
and who walked ahead of him to the same door he was seeking, and that
young man announced himself, once he was inside the offices, as Carleton
Lynne, from Idaho, just arrived, having seen one of the advertisements
in a newspaper he had picked up by chance.
And possibly this story might better have been entitled “The Mystery of
Carleton Lynne,” for at that moment when the young man announced himself
began the birth of a new mystery.
CHAPTER XVI.
NICK GIVES A WARNING.
The clerk in the law office who received the rather startling
announcement of the identity of the stranger, also perceived and
recognized Nick Carter, who entered the office immediately behind the
man.
His impulsive assumption was, of course, that the two had come there
together, and that in some manner the detective had found trace of the
man for whom advertisements had been spread broadcast through the
country.
But a quick, warning glance from the detective warned the clerk that
such was not the case; and then followed the statement of the man who
called himself Carleton Lynne that he was there only because of an
advertisement he had seen in a Western paper.
Nick Carter, who was still behind the younger man, nodded his head
significantly toward the clerk and, with a jerk of his thumb toward a
chair, indicated that the stranger should be requested to take a seat
and wait until he could be received in the inner office; and at the same
time his lips noiselessly formed the one word, “Wait.”
The clerk saw and understood.
Stepping forward quickly, he said, with the utmost graciousness:
“Glad to see you, Mr. Lynne. Our advertisements have been spread rather
generously throughout the West, in the hope that you might see one of
them, and so communicate with this firm. We scarcely expected to see you
in person so soon. Will you be seated? Mr. Oaks will see you presently.
He happens to be engaged just now.”
He indicated a chair, and then, without waiting for a response to his
invitation, gave his attention to Nick Carter, who had taken the
opportunity to cross to one of the windows, where he now stood with his
back toward Carleton Lynne.
The clerk, carrying out the part which he had comprehended by the slight
signal that had been flashed to him by the detective, spoke to him in a
comparatively low tone, but yet so that the caller could hear the words.
“Please step right inside, to the private office, sir,” he said. “Mr.
Oaks is awaiting you with some impatience. You are late.”
The detective replied only with a curt nod, although he smiled inwardly
at the ready wit of the clerk, who had understood him so perfectly.
He passed quickly through the doorway into the private office, and
closed the door quickly behind him, finding himself in the presence of
the great lawyer, who was at that moment engaged in dictating his
correspondence to his secretary, and who raised his eyes to the
detective with a distinct frown of displeasure at being so
unceremoniously interrupted.
“I am sorry, Oaks,” said Nick, speaking quickly. “I know that you do not
like interruptions when you are occupied with your correspondence; but
in this case the end justifies the means. Carleton Lynne is--out there.”
He jerked a thumb toward the outer office.
The frown left the lawyer’s face, and an expression of perplexed
interest took its place.
“What?” he said. “Carleton Lynne--the heir?”
The detective nodded, and added:
“That is how he announced himself. He came up in the elevator with me;
he entered your office door just in front of me, and--well, I wanted to
see you before he did.”
“Quite right, Carter--quite right. I’m glad you came right in. Miss
McQueen, you may go into the library for a few moments, please.” This to
the stenographer, who left her chair at once and passed through a
half-opened doorway opposite the one by which the detective had entered
the room; nor did she close it after her, as it happened, although
neither of the men regarded that fact as one of importance at the
moment.
“Well?” said the lawyer, as soon as he was alone with the detective.
“I have already told you all there is to say about the arrival of
Carleton Lynne,” replied Nick Carter. “You know, now, as much about that
interesting fact as I do.”
“Then what?”
“I have come here directly from the courthouse and from the finish of
the Babbington case. I thought I would get here before the news was
being cried aloud on the streets.”
“An acquittal, Carter?”
“Yes.”
“It is no more than you expected--it is what you anticipated, isn’t it?”
“Precisely.”
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, well,” he said, “what of it? Thomas Lynne has been convicted, and
will die for the two crimes he has committed. While there is no doubt
that the woman was an accessory, before and after the fact, I’m rather
glad--that is to say, I am not sorry--er--that she---- Oh, confound it!
One doesn’t like to see a beautiful woman condemned to death, or even
sent to prison for the rest of her life.”
The detective smiled enigmatically.
“I perceive that you have fallen under the spell of her witchery, as
well as others, Oaks,” he said.
“Nonsense! I----”
“I remember that the last time I was here you told me that you had
received a request from her to call upon her at the Tombs. I recall,
also, that you stated that you should not go to see her. Am I to
understand that you changed your mind and went there?”
“Yes. She sent me a second message, and I went to see her. Where was the
harm in that, Carter?”
“That, my dear Mr. Oaks, is for you to say; only it would appear from
what you have just said that she has fascinated you, as well as the
twelve men who held her fate in their hands.”
“That is all utter nonsense, of course,” replied the lawyer, with a
frown.
“Is it? I am not so sure of that. Did you go alone?”
“No; I took my secretary with me.”
“The young woman who just left this room?”
“Yes; Miss McQueen. I was glad that I had done so, too, for Mrs.
Babbington wished to dictate some letters, which I instructed Miss
McQueen to remain and take for her; on condition, of course, that the
district attorney should be shown copies of the letters before they were
sent away.”
“I see. How long did Miss McQueen remain with Mrs. Babbington after you
came away?”
“Not above an hour--less than that, I think. There were only four
letters. I have copies of them here. Would you care to see them,
Carter?”
“No. For what purpose, now that the woman has been acquitted? Were
copies of them sent to the district attorney?”
“Yes. They were unimportant. Merely letters to her former society
friends, in which she stated that, whether she should be convicted or
acquitted, she renounced all claims to her former social status.”
“Rather an unnecessary announcement, that, don’t you think?” remarked
the detective, with a slow smile.
“Perhaps--under the circumstances,” replied the lawyer.
The detective leaned back in his chair and lighted a cigar, which he
took from one of his pockets. After a moment, he said:
“When the verdict was announced, the district attorney and I spent a few
moments together, discussing the woman. We were quite agreed on one
point concerning her--and, after what you have just said, I haven’t the
slightest doubt that you will agree with us, too.”
“Concerning what, Carter?”
“The woman’s eyes. They seem to have had a strange effect upon you.”
“Look here, Carter, what are you driving at?”
“The district attorney and I agreed that the woman, Mrs. Madge
Morton-Hurd-Babbington by name, has wonderful eyes, which in repose are
like the eyes of a captive and sleepy tigress, and which can flame into
burning hate, also, like the eyes of an enraged tigress. The district
attorney assured me that her eyes had a strange and paralyzing effect
upon him, hardened as he is in the practice of criminal prosecution.
Ergo, you did not escape the paralyzing effect of them, Oaks.”
“What the dev----”
“The proof of it lies in the fact that you consented, at her request, to
come away from her cell in the tombs and leave your stenographer there
alone with her.”
“What possible harm could befall Miss McQueen under such circumstances,
Carter? Because the woman was charged with murder, and because you
believed her guilty, and still believe her so, is it any reason to
suppose that she would do violence to a young woman who was left for a
few moments alone with her?”
Nick Carter shrugged his shoulders, and did not reply to the question.
Instead, he permitted his gaze to wander for a moment toward the
half-open door between the private office of the great lawyer and the
library, and then he abruptly changed the subject.
“What about this young man who is waiting outside to see you?” he asked.
“Why, he inherits the estate, of course.”
“But there must first be adequate and convincing proof of his identity,
I suppose?”
“Naturally.”
“I need not remind you, Oaks, that the newspaper notoriety which has
been given to the matter of the inheritance through the furore over the
Babbington case has opened up an immense opportunity for the commission
of a fraud?”
“No; you need not remind me of that. I am quite well aware of it,”
replied the lawyer, with a trace of offense in his tones.
“The estate is a very large one,” remarked the detective, taking no
notice of the tone the lawyer had used.
“Very large, larger than people generally suppose. It will figure up to
a dozen millions, probably.”
“Well, I came down here not only to tell you about the verdict in the
Babbington case, but also to offer you my services in the search for
Carleton Lynne. I arrive here and discover that the man is here. My
offer is still open if you find that you require any assistance in
establishing the identity of this young man who is outside, waiting to
interview you.”
“Good. I thank you. But the fellow would scarcely venture here
unless----”
“Unless he were well provided with the necessary proofs. I grant you
that. But, Oaks, I sometimes have strange ‘hunches’ in the practice of
my profession, and one of them tells me--told me the moment I entered
your outer office--that this man may not be all that he will represent
himself. That is all. I will give way to him now.”
“What do you mean--that the man is a fraud?”
“No; I mean that he may be one. I mean that the woman who has just been
acquitted of the charge of murder is not one to relinquish without a
struggle all that she has fought so hard to obtain. I mean that the
effect of the tiger eye, as practiced upon the jury, and upon you, too,
might well have been directed in other channels. I mean that if the
matter of establishing his identity were in my hands, I would subject
every proof that is offered to a minute inspection under a microscope. I
have a feeling that we have not heard the last of Madge Babbington, Mr.
Oaks.”
CHAPTER XVII.
DANGEROUS EYES.
Nick Carter was astounded when he arrived at his own home to find that
Madge Babbington was there awaiting him.
It was Joseph who told him of the fact as he entered the house, and so,
casting aside his hat he went at once to the reception room.
He paused just inside the door, and with a curt nod, recognized her.
“To what reason am I to ascribe your presence in my house, madam?” he
asked coldly, and he remained near the door to indicate that the
interview must be brief.
“I have come here to ask you if it is your purpose to continue to
persecute me,” she replied, rising and facing him with just a trace of
defiance in her expression and manner, although she did not forget to
use her wonderful eyes upon the detective, with all the resourceful
power within her.
Mixed with the defiance that was in them was also a wistful, pleading
expression, and she permitted the suggestion of a tear to moisten the
lashes of each of them while her beautiful face was pathetic as well as
pleading.
But Nick Carter “was on to her curves,” as the saying is, and her
attitude had no effect upon him other than to convince him more
strongly than ever that he must constantly be on his guard against this
siren. He replied:
“Persecute you, madam?”
“That is the expression I made use of.”
“I was not aware that I had done so. I can assure you that my utmost
wish concerning you is that I may never see you or hear your name
mentioned again.”
“You still believe me guilty, Mr. Carter?”
“I have never for one moment doubted your guilt,” he replied.
“And yet I am innocent; as innocent as you are, Nick Carter.”
The detective shrugged his shoulders.
“Am I to understand that you will not persecute me in the future?” she
demanded.
“I have never persecuted any person in my life, Mrs. Babbington. I do
not pretend to understand your persistence upon that word.”
“I mean this: If I remain in this city, and undertake to live my life
out here, will I be constantly under espionage by you and your agents?
Am I to be left to go my own way, without molestation, or am I to be
hounded, watched, imposed upon, spied upon, and----”
“Enough, madam. It makes no sort of difference to me where you stay or
what you do, so long as you remain outside the law--and, incidentally,
outside this house. I think the present interview has lasted quite long
enough, Mrs. Babbington.”
“Which is another form of requesting me to go, Mr. Carter?” she asked,
with a smile on her lips, although her eyes flamed dangerously as she
put the question.
“Yes,” he replied, without comment.
She stepped toward the door, and he drew to one side to permit her to
pass him.
At the door she stopped, and with her hand upon the knob turned to face
him again, although his back was half turned toward her. And she laughed
softly, showing her white and beautiful teeth, and permitting the lids
of her eyes to droop until the yellow-brown irises glowed through the
shading lashes like two living coals of fire.
“I have been charged with murder, Mr. Carter,” she said. “I have been
tried by a jury of twelve men, and they have found me guiltless. Is
there anything now that you can do to me?”
“No--unless you commit, or aid in the commission of another murder,
madam.”
“If I should do that,” she replied slowly, evidently weighing and
measuring her words as she uttered them, “it will scarcely be you who
will hunt me down for it, for you----” she stopped, still smiling, her
eyes still burning.
The detective shrugged.
“You mean to suggest that if you should commit such another crime, I
would be the victim of it, I suppose?” he said coolly.
“Did I say that?” she exclaimed, laughing aloud this time. “How you do
persist in misunderstanding me. Really.”
“Madam, the door is behind you; your hand is upon the knob.”
“I will make use of both, presently, thank you; but I have something
more to say to you before I do so.”
“Well?”
“You have advertised widely and largely--you and a lawyer named Benjamin
Oaks--for information concerning a certain young man, Carleton Lynne by
name. Suppose that I could supply you with the address of that person,
Mr. Carter? Would the information be worth a substantial recompense?”
“Any information obtained from you would be worse than useless, madam,”
he replied.
“And yet----” She paused, and when he made no remark, she continued:
“Carleton Lynne is, or was a few months ago, in Hailey, Idaho. You are
welcome to that much information.”
“A gentleman who announces himself as Carleton Lynne is at this moment
in consultation with Mr. Oaks,” the detective replied coldly; and he
caught a sudden and unmistakable gleam from the eyes of Madge Babbington
as he made the announcement.
He was impressed instantly for some reason that he could not have named
at the time, that this was precisely the information she had come there
to obtain; but he did not regret having given it since it opened up a
new train of thought, and suggested unheard-of possibilities and
probabilities. But all she said was:
“Indeed? Is it so?”
“Quite so, madam.”
She left her place at the door then, and took one step nearer to the
detective.
“How old a man is he?” she asked softly; and the detective, perceiving
what was behind the question, shrugged his shoulders and replied, not
without a trace of satirical amusement in his manner:
“The man I saw, and who claims to be the heir of J. Cephas Lynne is
young--perhaps about your own age. He is also handsome, judged from the
feminine standpoint. Whether he is impressionable or not, I leave to you
to determine, if you ever have the opportunity.”
“Thank you,” she replied, with a quiet smile, and the flame in her eyes
had disappeared. “I need not tell you that I shall seek the opportunity,
I suppose?”
“No; I had anticipated that. I was quite prepared for such an attempt on
your part, without the assurance of it from your lips. You have not
abandoned your desire to possess yourself of the Lynne millions?”
“I never abandon a course upon which I have once embarked,” she replied.
“And that brings me to the point which I came here to determine.”
The detective did not reply. She continued:
“I suppose you will consider it your duty to warn him against me, Mr.
Carter?”
“If I find that he is really the man he says he is, and that you have
sought him and made his acquaintance, I most certainly shall do so,
madam.”
“I have not sought his acquaintance--because I have not had the
opportunity,” she retorted.
“But you will lose no opportunity to make his acquaintance.”
“No; I shall not. I will even seek him--and--take warning from what I
shall say to you now, Nick Carter.”
The detective inclined his head mockingly. She continued:
“And when I have sought him and found him and have made his
acquaintance, I will put to the test the influence which you and
Benjamin Oaks may exert over him, as against that which I shall win in
spite of all that you can do, in spite of the hateful reputation you and
the district attorney have given me, in spite of all the cruel things
that have been printed about me.” And then she took still another step
nearer to him, and added, in a low tone that was almost a whisper: “In
spite of heaven and hell.”
Nick Carter was startled by the intensity of the woman, although he did
not permit her to see that he was.
She was smiling again now as she withdrew once more to the door and
reached for the knob as if she was to take her departure at last.
“You understand me?” she demanded, rather than asked.
“I understand your words and your motives; not your methods, Mrs.
Babbington.”
“Well, I will give you a full and fair warning.”
“You need not unless it is your pleasure to do so.”
“You say that Carleton Lynne, the heir, is here; that the man I supposed
to be in Idaho is even now at the office of the lawyer who represents
the Lynne estate, establishing his identity. I had supposed that he was
still in the West, for long ago I took pains to inform myself concerning
him. I intended to tell you that much, and to induce you to bring him
here. That he is here already, is pleasant news to me.”
“I don’t see where the warning comes in, madam,” said Nick,
interrupting.
She bent toward the detective without moving from her position at the
door.
“When I left the courtroom to-day,” she said, in a low, even tone, which
nevertheless conveyed a certain menace with every word she uttered, “you
and the district attorney were discussing me. I know it, although I did
not hear a word that passed between you.”
“Well?”
“You were commenting upon the manner in which I had influenced every
member of that jury of twelve men. And you were right; I did influence
them, one by one, until I knew, before they left the box, what their
verdict would be. I took them one by one; I won them over to me, one by
one, until I had the entire twelve. I knew it.”
“You are wasting my time and yours, madam.”
“You and the district attorney also discussed my eyes. Doubtless you
called them the eyes of a tigress. Oh, you need not be surprised that I
say so; it is not the first time the comparison has been applied to
them.”
“Probably not.”
“You were correct in making the simile, too, Nick Carter, but the
comparison goes deeper than my eyes; it applies to my inmost soul.”
“Ah; we are coming to the warning, now.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Well?”
“All my life I have been able to make men love me--or believe that they
did so. All my life I have been able to fascinate them, and that, too,
without any loss of my self-respect. Even you, who hate and abhor me
just now, I could, if there were the opportunity----”
“Spare me that, Mrs. Babbington.”
“But I warn you that I shall find this man who is the heir; I warn you
that I shall bend every energy I possess to bring him under the spell
which I can exert; I warn you that I shall marry him, become his wife,
possess his millions after he has succeeded to their ownership, and that
you, Nick Carter, with all the influence you can exert will be no more
than a grain of dust on a steel rail before a locomotive.”
She stopped and looked at the detective, flaming her remarkable eyes
upon him again, so that he partly understood what the district attorney
had meant when he had said that he dodged the eyes of the caged tigers
at the Zoo.
“You understand me now?” she said softly.
He did not answer her, and with a mocking smile which ended in a low but
menacing laugh that was barely audible, she turned and passed quickly
from the room.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RIGHTFUL HEIR.
Nick Carter received a letter the following morning from Benjamin Oaks,
the lawyer.
It stated briefly that Carleton Lynne had proven his claims so
satisfactorily that there could not be the shadow of a doubt that he was
the rightful heir. The letter came to a close, however, with this
significant statement:
“I have deferred a definite acceptance of his claim until to-morrow,
nevertheless, for the specific reason that I wish to consult with you
about the matter before taking the necessary steps to put him in
possession of the fortune. Therefore I will be glad if you will come to
my office at ten in the morning. Carleton Lynne is to be here at
eleven.”
The detective entered the office of the lawyer at precisely ten o’clock,
and passed at once into the private room, where he found Oaks awaiting
him.
“On time, I see,” said the lawyer, by way of greeting. “Here are the
papers. Look them over and tell me what you think of them.”
“What are they?” the detective asked, taking them in his hand, but
holding them so, unopened for the moment.
“The marriage certificate of his father and mother; photographs of his
parents in which you can plainly see the Lynne physiognomy; his own
birth certificate; photographs of himself taken from time to time from
his childhood to the last one, which he says was made only a few months
ago--the resemblance is borne out in all of them; newspaper clippings
covering a number of years, referring to incidents in his career, and to
the career of his father, who was also called Carleton Lynne--and so
forth. Look at them for yourself.”
“What sort of a story does the man tell about himself?” asked the
detective.
“A straight one. It seems to bear out everything that he claims. I don’t
think there is any doubt about his claim, Carter.”
“How does he impress you personally?”
“Very favorably.”
“Was that your first impression of him?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Don’t you know whether it was favorable or not?”
“Why, yes, of course. He told me one lie, though.”
“Oh, he did, eh? What was it?”
“Perhaps it was unimportant. I made no mention of the fact that I had
noticed it.”
“What was it?”
“He began by informing me that he arrived in the city only last evening
at five o’clock. He said that he came to this office at half-past five,
or near that time, and finding the office closed, sought a hotel. He
went to the Mammoth.”
“Well?”
“I asked him how he passed the evening, and he replied that he went to
the theater. I asked him what he saw, and he replied that it was the
‘The Chocolate Soldier.’”
“Well, what of that?”
“Nothing--only it happens that the last performance of ‘The Chocolate
Soldier’ was given the night before last. I happen to know that, because
I was there, and what is more, Carter, I saw this same young man there.
He occupied a seat directly in front of me.”
The detective uttered a low whistle.
“Why should he lie about so trivial a thing as that?” the lawyer asked.
“The lie is evidently about the time of his arrival in the city,”
replied the detective. “For some reason he prefers to have you believe
that he got here last night, while, as a matter of fact, he had already
been here at least twenty-four hours.”
“That is certain.”
“And twenty-four days, for all we know.”
“Umph! I had not thought of that possibility. But, even so, what has all
that got to do with the case, since his credentials are satisfactory?”
“It merely suggests that they should be examined with all the more care.
Why didn’t you ask him about the discrepancy of his statement?”
“I thought I would leave that to you.”
The detective was about to reply when the door opened and the clerk from
the outer office announced that Mr. Carleton Lynne had arrived.
“Let him come in,” said the lawyer.
The man who entered, and who was the same one that Nick had seen in the
elevator the preceding day, was an inch more than six feet in height,
well proportioned, an athlete in appearance, with his skin tanned by the
sun and winds of the open country of the West.
One might have called him handsome without a stretch of the imagination.
His features were regular and well chiseled, and he carried himself with
a certain air of distinction, as if he were to the manner born.
His eyes were set wide apart and the line of concentration between them
was well marked, and as the detective glanced at him a second time he
determined that the eyes were the only feature about the man that he did
not exactly like.
They were neither gray nor brown, but of that nondescript color which is
sometimes described as green, although that is not precisely the shade.
But they were steady eyes for all that. They did not shift when they
dwelt upon you, but rather were cold, keenly observant, and compelling.
Unquestionably they were the eyes of a man who did not know fear, and
who would be a dangerous antagonist at any sort of game, from cards to a
rough-and-tumble fight.
“Sit down, Mr. Lynne,” said the detective, as soon as the introduction
was made. “I suppose that Mr. Oaks has led you to expect to meet me
here. You know who I am, and why I am here, do you not?”
“Perfectly well, Mr. Carter.”
“You have presented a claim to a very large and rich estate, Mr.
Lynne?”
“Pardon me. I have merely answered an advertisement, and have
established my identity. It will be time enough to enter a claim after
my credentials have been accepted.”
“Precisely. Will you tell me when you arrived in the city?”
“Wednesday afternoon, at five o’clock.”
“To-day is Saturday, Mr. Lynne. I saw you in this office yesterday.
After I had gone, you talked with Mr. Oaks, and you told him that
you----”
“I told him that I had arrived here the preceding day. I know. It was a
lie--and an unnecessary one.”
“Mr. Oaks knew that it was an untruth. He saw you at the theater
Wednesday night.”
“I know. I saw him there, too. I remembered it after I had gone. I did
not know whether he had seen me there or not, but acting upon the idea
that he had done so and would remember me, I decided to admit the truth
to-day.”
“Just why did you deceive him about it in the beginning?”
Lynne shrugged his shoulders and uttered a low chuckle before he
replied. Then he replied:
“Well, there was no good reason for it. I had not been in New York since
I was a kid, and I am twenty-six years old now. After the theater was
out, I determined to see some of the sights, and I saw rather more of
them than I had bargained for. I got into bad company and drank too
much. I was also robbed of all the cash I had about me--and, as a matter
of fact, very nearly all that I had in the world. I wasn’t proud of the
circumstance, and so--I lied about it.”
“Would you mind telling me where you went that night?”
“Yes, I would mind. I’d rather forget it.”
“Possibly we might recover the money you lost.”
“I’d rather lose it than to go back to those places after it.”
“Still, if it was practically all you had----”
“And, anyhow, my recollection of the night is very vague. I don’t know
half the places I did go to.”
“Did you go alone to the theater?”
“No; I went with an acquaintance I picked up at the hotel. He was my
guide that night, and I reckon is the one who got my dough.”
“Possibly. By the way, have you ever made the acquaintance of a Mrs.
Babbington?”
Nick asked the question casually. Without appearing to do so he watched
the face of Carleton narrowly when he did ask it, but there was not the
flicker of an eyelid nor the suggestion of wavering in those steady eyes
when the man replied:
“Can’t say that I have, unless she happened to be---- Oh! I see. You are
referring to that woman who was tried for the murder of my cousin whom I
never saw?”
“Yes. I was referring to her.”
“No. I never met her. Why did you suppose I might have done so?”
“I did not suppose it. I asked only to know if you had made her
acquaintance at any time in the past.”
“No; never heard of her until I saw her name in the papers, about the
murder case.”
“She intends to marry you,” said Nick quietly.
“What! Say! What are you giving me? A joke?”
“It sounds like one, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, at my house last evening,
she assured me that as soon as you had established your identity and had
possessed yourself of the Lynne millions, she intended to marry you and
to possess herself of them.”
“Well, I’ll be--blessed!”
“Damned would be a more appropriate word if such a thing should happen.
She boasted to me of her intention. I thought it best to tell you about
her. Did you come directly----”
“Wait a moment. The woman is said to be very beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yes; she has that reputation.”
“All right. Fetch her along. I’ll give her a run for her money.”
“For your money, you mean--when you get it?”
“You speak, Mr. Carter, as if there was a doubt that I would get it. Is
there?”
“No doubt at all, after you have thoroughly established your claim--that
is, your identity.”
“Haven’t I sufficiently established that?”
Nick waved his hand toward the lawyer.
“That is a question for Mr. Oaks to answer,” he said. “When he is
satisfied, he will proceed at once to satisfy the court, and will apply
for letters of administration for you.”
“Then I am to understand that you, personally, have nothing to do with
the legal end of it?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Might I ask, without offense, in that case, what the devil you’re
butting in for?”
The question was an insolent one only in the words that Lynne used; not
at all in the manner or the tone of using them; and he smiled engagingly
while he asked the question.
But he might far better not have asked it, for there was something
hidden behind the words which instantly put the detective on his guard,
and which as suddenly determined him upon the course he would pursue
thereafter.
Instead of resenting the words, he smiled back at Lynne, and replied:
“I came here at the request of Mr. Oaks, and in the interest of J.
Cephas Lynne, who is dead, and who, if he could give directions now,
would like to see justice done.” Nick turned then to the lawyer, and
added:
“Perhaps you had better apply at once for letters of administration,
Oaks.”
CHAPTER XIX.
SCENTING A PLOT.
When Nick Carter left the Wall Street office of the great lawyer he
walked up Broadway to the Western Union Building, where he wrote and
forwarded several telegrams, all of which were addressed to different
localities in the State of Idaho.
That done he took the subway uptown and went directly to his own home,
where, after entering his study, he summoned Chick and Patsy to him.
“Patsy,” he said, “you start for Idaho on the Twentieth Century at four
this afternoon; and you, Chick, will take the trail of Mr. Carleton
Lynne, now at the Mammoth, and you will report to me every move that he
makes, no matter how unimportant it may appear to be.”
Each of the assistants nodded in reply, but neither of them made any
audible remark.
“Now,” said the detective, “give me your close attention, both of you.
What I shall tell you will be the only instructions you will
receive--will be all, in fact, that I can give you.”
Again they nodded in comprehension.
“I don’t know whether this is a case or not,” the detective continued.
“I am acting, just now, as I have done many times in the past--upon that
kind of an impulse which I call a ‘hunch.’”
“The Lynne inheritance, of course?” Chick asked.
“Yes; the Lynne inheritance, and the Babbington case, as well. If I am
anywhere near to being correct in my conjectures, the two matters just
about dovetail, right here.”
“To start with,” suggested Patsy, “you don’t believe that the Carleton
Lynne you saw yesterday, and again to-day, is the real article. This is
the size of it, isn’t it?”
“To begin with,” replied Nick Carter, “I do not believe that the
Carleton Lynne I saw yesterday, and again to-day, is the real article,
and I have the least logical reason for that lack of faith. Put that
down in your minds and think it over.”
“Just a hunch, eh?” said Chick.
“Just a hunch in the beginning--yesterday when I walked into the office
of Ben Oaks directly behind this chap from the West. Since then that
hunch has been strengthened by a few unimportant incidents which I will
relate to you.
“Incident number one, and it really should take third or fourth place in
the list, because I paid no attention to it at the time: When I entered
the private office, before Carleton Lynne was admitted, Oaks sent his
stenographer, whom he calls his secretary, out of the room. She went
into the library, which adjoins the private office, and she left the
communicating door ajar. Whether that was accident or design, I know
that she listened intently to our conversation. I could see her doing
that, by means of a mirror that hangs in the library, and which I could
see through the half-open door.
“Incident number two: While I was there it developed that Oaks had been
to the Tombs, before the trial, to see Mrs. Babbington, at her
request--at her second request--and I assumed, from what was told to me
about it, that she had also asked him to take his stenographer with him;
at least he did so.”
“Why?” asked Patsy.
“Wait and ask that question again after I have finished, Patsy--unless,
perhaps, you should find an answer to it that suits you.”
“All right, chief.”
“Incident number three: Oaks came away from the Tombs, leaving Miss
McQueen there, alone with Mrs. Babbington. The incident happened two
weeks ago. Miss McQueen remained about an hour with the prisoner.”
“Do you mean that she took dictation from her?” asked Chick.
“Yes; a few short letters to former social friends and acquaintances,
all of which were read by the district attorney and by Oaks.”
“Are you sure that all of them were treated in that manner?” asked
Patsy.
“That is the presumption, Patsy. I am not saying that I am sure about
it, or that there was not another notebook which Oaks did not see; or
that there were no oral instructions given to Miss McQueen, which were
not taken down in shorthand.”
The two assistants nodded in unison.
“Remember that happened more than two weeks ago. Letters and telegrams
have had ample time to reach Idaho, and to bring Carleton Lynne to New
York, since then.”
“Sure,” commented Chick.
“Incident number four: When I came away from the office of Ben Oaks
yesterday afternoon, Carleton Lynne was admitted to the private office.
He produced his papers and credentials to establish himself. They
appeared satisfactory. But he lied to Oaks about the time of his arrival
in the city, and without any apparent reason. Later, he found out that
his deception would be discovered, and so he made a clean breast of it
to-day, giving an excuse which I do not for a moment believe.
“Incident number five: When I arrived home late yesterday afternoon,
after leaving the office of Benjamin Oaks, I found that Madge Babbington
was here awaiting me.”
“Just what has that got to do with the case in hand?” Patsy interrupted.
“Possibly nothing at all, but if I am at all on the right track, it has
much to do with it.”
“How so?”
“She came here, ostensibly, to offer to supply the address of the
missing heir, Carleton Lynne, which she claims to have known for a
considerable time. I would not gratify her enough to ask her for
particulars about it, for I judged that she was lying to me from the
beginning.”
“If that was the ostensible reason, what was the real one?” asked Chick.
“I think it was to endeavor to convince me in the roundabout way she
used, that she had never seen this Carleton Lynne; but she only
succeeded in convincing me that she had seen him, probably knows him
well, and that she had already been informed that I was at the Oaks
office when he arrived there.”
“Let us return for a moment to the two incidents you have mentioned in
which the stenographer is concerned,” said Chick.
“Well?”
“How do you associate her with the others? I mean, aside from the
possible sending of messages from the Tombs, for the Babbington woman.”
“In this way: I have known Ben Oaks more or less familiarly for twelve
years. He has had a secretary named Miss Hunt who was with him until
about the time of the beginning of the advertising effort to find
Carleton Lynne--eight or nine weeks ago; and I know of my own knowledge
that Miss Hunt was his secretary for four or five consecutive years.
Miss Hunt is not there now; this Miss McQueen is.”
“Well, what of that?” asked Patsy. “A lawyer often changes his
stenographers.”
“But this change appears to have been so coincidental with other things
that I use it here as incident number six.”
“Do you mean that she was sent there by--by the Babbington woman, for
instance?”
“Possibly.”
“But, Miss Hunt----”
“Miss Hunt, or any other stenographer of my knowledge would readily
enough give up a position if there was sufficient inducement offered.”
“Oh; you mean that she was bought off?”
“That is the possibility.”
“Then,” said Chick, “I would suggest that Miss Hunt be found without
delay.”
“That is a duty that I have reserved for myself,” replied the detective.
“But what would be the object of it all?”
“To have a competent spy in the office of the man who must decide upon
the credentials of the claimant, for one thing; to arrange for an easy
method of getting a person into the Tombs and to the prisoner at the
opportune moment for sending out an important message, for another.”
“I see. What are your conclusions, Nick?” It was Chick who asked the
question.
“I don’t know that I have arrived at any conclusions; at least, definite
ones.”
“What then?”
“I am only convinced of the determination of Madge Babbington to possess
herself of those millions, and that she will stop at nothing to attain
her ends.”
“Have you any more incidents to recount?”
“Yes. Incident number seven is the fact that when Madge Babbington was
here yesterday, she took particular pains to give me warning that she
intended to make the acquaintance of Carleton Lynne, to fascinate him,
and finally to marry him.”
“Did she say that?”
“Yes; in the form of a warning.”
“But you read a different meaning in her words?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Chick, I believe that her real purpose in coming here to see me was to
pronounce that very warning, and thus to open the way for an
acquaintance with this Carleton Lynne which would not suggest the
suspicion to me that the two had known each other before now.”
“I see.”
“The man is supposed to have come here out of the West--as he doubtless
has done. He has the marks of the West upon him, all right. But he is
supposed to know nobody here; he went to the length of informing me that
he had not seen New York since he was a kid, to use his own expression.
A sudden acquaintance between him and the woman lately acquitted of
murder would attract my attention, so she comes here and deliberately
tells me, with an assumption of bravado, that she intends to make his
acquaintance at the first possible moment.”
“She’s got her gall with her, all right--to come here at all,” said
Patsy.
“She has got her brains with her, too; don’t forget that, either of
you,” said Nick.
“Well, what do you suspect the game to be, Nick?” asked Chick.
“I only suspect a game. What it is, I don’t pretend to guess,” was the
reply. “Only, there is one thing which I cannot believe--which I cannot
bring myself to accept.”
“The identity of this man who has appeared here as a claimant?”
“Yes.”
“You think that he is an impostor?”
“I suspect that he is; that is all.”
“And that there is perhaps another murder back of it all; the murder of
the real Carleton Lynne?”
“I don’t know about that. That is going at it rather strong. It may be
that the real Carleton Lynne has been dead a long time; or that he has
been lost sight of for a long time. He may have gone to the Klondike
with the rush and never have reappeared. There are a thousand and one
things that may have happened to him, any one of which would give a
clever impostor who had known him well in the past the opportunity;
particularly if he were spurred to it by such a woman as Madge
Babbington.”
“Or he may be lying now in a newly made grave somewhere, his papers and
his birthright stolen by another,” suggested Patsy.
“Well, lad,” replied the detective, “that is what you are going to Idaho
to ascertain. You are going there to trace every trail you can find of
Carleton Lynne, and to follow one of them till it brings you here, if he
is here; to wherever he is now, if he is not here.”
CHAPTER XX.
IN AN OPERA BOX.
“Well, Chick?”
“Nothing, Nick.”
“You have been ten days on the trail of Carleton Lynne, now.”
“Yes; and for the last five of them he has been in possession of the
fortune he came here to get. It seems to me that it was given up to him
mighty easily.”
“That was in accordance with my advice, Chick.”
“It was? Why?”
“Because I drew the inference that the possession of the millions would
throw him off his guard; and the woman, also.”
“I haven’t seen any effort on the part of the Babbington woman to make
his acquaintance as yet,” said Chick.
“They are playing warily, that is all,” said the detective.
“You are still of the same opinion in regard to them?”
“More than ever so.”
“You have been watching the McQueen woman yourself, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Discover anything?”
“Not a thing.”
“And that Miss Hunt? I haven’t had a chance to talk with you in so long
a time that all is news to me, now.”
“I have not been able to locate her yet.”
“Is there any news from Patsy?”
“Three telegrams, each one the same, containing the word, ‘Progress.’”
“That means that he is on the trail of something.”
“Yes.”
“You say that you left Lynne at the opera to-night, Chick?”
“Yes. He is occupying the old Lynne box. It’s ‘Ernani’ to-night.”
“Who is there with him?”
“He is alone.”
“What? Alone in the box?”
“Quite. He has seemed to avoid making acquaintances. I concluded that he
was safe there for a time. That is why I came around here to the house
to see you, Nick.”
“I’ll go back with you, I think. If he is still alone in the box, I’ll
call upon him.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Have you seen anything of Madge?”
“Not a sign of her. I think she must have left the city.”
“Not a bit of it, Chick. Don’t get that idea into your head.”
“Well, if there was anything doing, don’t you think they would have got
busy before now?”
“Not necessarily. The stake is a big one.”
“I know; but still----”
“They can afford to play a waiting game where the prize is so large. If
the two are working together, it is easy enough now for him to supply
her with money, and they can afford to stand back and wait until every
breath of suspicion is gone.”
“I know; but there is another thing, Nick.”
“What is that?”
“Carleton Lynne has got all that money now. He doesn’t have to share any
part of it with Madge Babbington. He can snap his fingers at her,
and----”
“I see that you do not half know Madge Babbington, Chick.”
“Why not?”
“Well, if he undertook to snap his fingers at her, as you express it--if
he refused to keep to any compact he may have made with her, she would
pull him down into the dust, even if she crushed herself in doing it.”
“All the same, Nick, that chap strikes me as being a pretty cold
proposition. I don’t believe you could scare him with a dynamite
cartridge under his bed.”
“I’ll admit all that; but even he would think twice before he went too
far in giving offense to the Babbington woman.”
They had left the house while they were talking, and walked through to
Broadway, where they now boarded an uptown car, and, as there were only
a few blocks to ride, they presently descended in front of the
Metropolitan Opera House, and entered.
“You may go where you please, now, Chick,” said the detective, as soon
as they had passed inside. “Take up your task of trailing the man
again, and don’t let up a little bit. I am convinced that something will
come of it after a while.”
“Possibly,” replied Chick, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“And,” the detective went on, “I am not at all sorry for this delay in
the perfection of their plans, if there are any plans. It gives Patsy
time to finish his detail in the West; and I have a feeling that we will
know a lot more about this affair when he returns from that trip.”
“I’m sure I hope so. Where are you going now?”
“Directly to that box.”
“Without first ascertaining if he is still alone in it?” asked Chick in
surprise.
“Certainly.”
“He may not be there at all now. He may have gone to another box,
and----”
But the detective was moving rapidly away, and Chick came to a stop,
after which he turned about to seek a place from which he could again
obtain a view of the Lynne box.
When he did find such a point of vantage he was rather surprised to
discover that the box in question was empty--that Carleton Lynne was not
there--and he began to turn his glance from box to box along the tier in
search of him.
He discovered the man at last, in a box much nearer to the proscenium;
and he saw that Lynne was chatting in an animated manner with a group of
ladies and gentlemen who were occupying it.
He looked again, more closely, to discover who Lynne’s companions were,
but decided that he did not recognize any of them; and then he gave a
decided start of surprise, for one of the women who had been in the
background moved forward, and he instantly recognized Madge Babbington
in that woman.
As he made the discovery, Lynne turned to address some remark to her, to
which she replied, and evidently made some further remark in return, for
he arose, and Chick saw them leave the box together.
For a moment he was in doubt what to do, and then he remembered two
things: One was that Nick Carter was somewhere up there near them, and
the other was that neither of them had their street apparel with them.
Hence they could not be leaving the opera house.
So he stood where he was, watching, and awaiting their return.
“Something is about to develop at last,” was his thought, for the ten
days he had passed in trailing Carleton Lynne had been weary ones to
him. It was the one element of detective work that he disliked.
In the meantime Nick Carter had gone directly to the Lynne box, had
passed inside, and had made the same discovery that Chick did--that
there was no one there.
Instead of stepping to the front of it, or withdrawing at once when he
found that no one was there, he remained in the background and began to
study the other boxes in search of Lynne, just as Chick was doing at
that same moment from near the proscenium on the parquet floor.
Lynne was seated in that other box, so that Nick very quickly discovered
him, although he could not see the Babbington woman when she stepped
partly forward, at the time Chick discovered her.
He did see Lynne half turn to address somebody behind him, saw him leave
his seat, and therefore assumed that he was about to leave the box
altogether--and then he made two discoveries:
One was like Chick’s--that he did not know who any of the people were
who were in the box where he had discovered Lynne; the other, and the
more important one, was that in the box adjoining the one he was then
in, on the right, were four persons whom he did know very well, indeed.
The discovery of friends so near at hand decided him on a course that
had not occurred to him till that instant.
He jumped at the conclusion that Lynne was probably returning to his own
box, since his coat and hat were still there, and that probably he was
bringing some person or persons with him; and so Nick slipped quickly
out of the box and, without announcement, entered the adjoining one
occupied by his friends.
“Please don’t move or speak,” he said to them hastily, when they would
have risen to greet him. “I want to listen. I’ll visit with you later.”
They supposed that he referred to the music when he said that he wished
to listen, but his own idea was to learn, if possible, what might be
said in the other box that he had just quitted.
He seated himself upon a chair that was just far enough back from the
front so that he would not be observed, and at once leaned his head upon
one hand, holding the palm open as if the better to divert the sound of
the singing and the orchestra into his ear--and in doing so shielded his
face from any person who might chance to look around from the adjoining
box.
Also he pulled a curtain a little aside, so that he could see as well as
hear--and he was not as greatly amazed as Chick had been a few moments
before when he saw that two women had followed Lynne into the box, and
that one of them was Madge Babbington.
“At last,” was his thought. “The real game is about to begin.”
But if he had anticipated hearing anything of importance in the
conversation that ensued--for not one of the three paid the slightest
attention to the great opera--he was doomed to disappointment.
Their talk was of the most commonplace sort, and it appeared from what
was said that Lynne had, indeed, only just been presented to Mrs.
Hurd-Babbington.
Actual mention of the supposed fact was actually made more than
once--too often, Nick thought; and, indeed, it was the only thing that
made him suspect that the conversation was more or less a studied one.
But he was destined to hear just one thing which made his effort worth
while, and that happened when the other woman gave her attention for a
moment to the stage, thus leaving Lynne and Madge for a instant to
themselves; and it happened, too, that they were very close to the
curtain beyond which Nick Carter was seated at the moment.
Even then, what was said was either quite a natural result of their
meeting, or else it was carefully studied, in case it should be
overheard.
“You are a charming woman, Mrs. Babbington,” Lynne said, in a low tone.
“I wish that I might have an opportunity to know you better.”
“Then why don’t you seek one?” she retorted.
“May I? May I venture to call upon you?” he asked, with apparent
eagerness.
“Would I turn a multimillionaire from my door?” she laughingly replied.
“Then I may come to you? When?” he demanded.
“You may come to-morrow, at three, if you like, and drink tea with me,”
she said.
That was all; but it was sufficient, for Nick Carter, hearing it,
decided on the instant that he would find a means to be there also.
CHAPTER XXI.
IN THE CORRIDOR.
The detective changed his mind about entering the box occupied by
Carleton Lynne, for he had already heard enough to give him occupation
for the ensuing day, and there was now nothing to be gained by an
interview with either of the principals in the case.
Nick was desirous now of leaving the box into which he had intruded,
even though the occupants of it were his friends; but he wished to leave
it without attracting attention from the box adjoining.
He knew perfectly well that if either Lynne or Madge Babbington should
chance to discover his presence so near to them, they would both realize
that it was not chance that had taken him there.
They would be put on their guard again, particularly Madge, and there
would be a longer interval than the one just passed before either of
them would make another move to betray the secrets of the game they were
playing.
Madge Babbington would be instantly on the alert if she were led to
suspect that Nick Carter was so near to her at the very first
interview--so the detective firmly believed--that she had had with
Carleton Lynne.
After considering for a moment what was best to do, Nick turned, and
managed to catch the eye of his friend, the owner of the box he was in,
and he motioned for him to cross over, so that they could have a word
alone together.
“Tom,” he said, in a whisper, “I want you to make my apologies to your
wife and her guests, will you?”
“But you’ll stop and see them, and say hello, won’t you, after this
act?” Stanton replied. “I know that Tillie will be greatly disappointed
if you do not.”
“I’d like to, Tom, but you see I am here to-night on business. I found
your box rather by accident, and took the liberty of dropping in to rest
and to listen, as I told you; but now I must get busy again.”
“Well, later, then?”
“I’ll try to return, if I can; but I won’t promise. Now, be a good chap,
and tell me that you’ll make my apologies, and I’ll slip out of the box
without their knowing anything about it.”
Nick had drawn his friend to the rear of the box while they were
whispering together, and they were standing so he could not see into the
box adjoining; and so he was not aware of the fact that Mrs.
Hurd-Babbington had stepped quietly out of it, and was, even at that
instant, in the corridor at the rear of the tier.
With a nod and a smile at Stanton, the detective stepped quickly from
the box, and--came face to face with the very woman whom he desired the
least to see at that particular time and place.
She was standing there, too, precisely as if she were awaiting him; as
if she had expected his coming, having known all the time that he was
in the box next to her.
Well, the fat was in the fire, he argued to himself the instant he saw
her, and so he governed his actions accordingly; that is, he merely
inclined his head in token of recognition, and made as if to pass on
without taking any further notice of her. In short, he acted precisely
as he would have done had he not been watching her--had the encounter
been purely an accidental one.
But Madge Babbington had no wish to permit him to pass in that manner,
and whether she had been waiting for him or not could not be told from
her manner. He knew that she was almost as perfect a master of her
impulses and of the expression of her face as he was of his own.
She stepped directly in front of him, and so barred the way, and, with a
flash of her strange eyes into his and a smile upon her lips that might
have had its effect upon any man but Nick Carter, she said:
“We meet again, Mr. Carter. Quite by accident, I suppose?”
“Quite, madam.” And it was true so far as he was concerned, at least, in
reference to the present encounter behind the tier of boxes.
“Are you sure that you are not here to watch me, Mr. Carter?” she asked,
but without a suggestion of offense in her tone, even though she might
have believed such to be the real condition.
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled back at her. He was on safe ground
in what he was about to say.
“Madam,” he said, “you may assume whatever pleases you best in that
regard, but the truth is that to-night is the first time in ten days
that I have seen your face, or heard the sound of your voice.”
She lifted her chin, looked boldly into the detective’s eyes, and
laughed softly.
“That counts for nothing,” she said. “I know you too well to take that
statement for what you wished me to understand by it. You have a fashion
of seeing with other eyes than your own, and of hearing with other ears
than your own. The fact that you have neither seen nor heard me does not
mean that you do not know of every move I have made, and have not been
told of every word I have uttered during those ten days.”
“I perceive, madam, that you understand something about the detective
business,” he replied, and attempted to pass on; but again she barred
the way.
“I suppose you saw me in the Lynne box, from some other part of the
house--no?” she said, tentatively.
“No, madam, I did not see you in the Lynne box from any other part of
the house,” he replied.
“Then you were told that I was there.”
“I was not told that you were there, Mrs. Babbington. May I ask if you
have occupied it all the evening?”
She looked into his eyes mockingly; then she laughed softly again, as if
to herself, and about something that amused her greatly.
“No,” she said, replying directly to his question; “I have not occupied
it all the evening. I am with some friends from the West who are farther
along the tier. They--er--are long-time acquaintances of Mr. Lynne, and
when we discovered that he was here, and alone, I induced them to send
for him. He came, and we were presented. I thought, perhaps, you would
be interested to hear about it.”
“So,” he said, “this marks the beginning of your campaign, does it?”
“Of my campaign?” she asked, raising her brows, as if she did not
understand.
“The beginning of the effort to carry out the threat you made,” he
added.
“A threat I made? To you, Mr. Carter? Surely, you are mistaken,” she
smiled back at him.
“At least, you took it upon yourself on the occasion of our last
interview, to give me what you were pleased to call a warning,” he said.
“Did I? A warning? Was I so foolish and childish as that? How absurd!”
This time she uttered a little rippling laugh which was not
unmistakable.
“How soon may we expect to receive cards, madam?” he asked her
derisively.
“Cards, Mr. Carter? For the wedding that I prognosticated? Really, I
couldn’t say, you know. The gentleman and I have only just met, you see.
But, really, I feel that I have already made an impression. He has
promised to drink tea with me at my home to-morrow at three.”
This statement, given voluntarily on her part, was a decided
disappointment to the detective. He would have preferred it
otherwise--that she had not told him, for he had made up his mind that
he would find a way to enter her house and to be present at that
interview, and now it was plainly impossible to do so.
“Does she know that I was listening in the adjoining box, and that I
overheard the making of the appointment?” he thought to himself. Aloud,
he asked her:
“Were you returning to that other box, alone?”
“No; I am going back into this one. My friend is there. Will you come
inside?”
“Thank you, no.”
“You have other business, then, than watching me?”
“I am never without much to do, madam.”
“Mr. Lynne seems to be a charming man,” she said irrelevantly.
“Quite so.”
“And his millions--how many are there, Mr. Carter?”
“You should know better than I. You have estimated them more than once,
have you not?”
“Ah, yes, many times. There are a dozen, at least. Fancy!” Then, with a
slight inclination of her head, and a quickly spoken “Good night, Mr.
Carter,” she turned away from him and disappeared inside the Lynne box.
For a moment the detective remained where he was, thinking over what had
happened, and endeavoring to account for it as best he could, and then
he walked slowly away, going directly to the street.
He looked at his watch as he passed outside, and it told him that the
hour was half-past ten o’clock--and then an idea occurred to him which,
because of the very boldness and strangeness of it, he determined on the
impulse to carry out at once.
He glanced at his watch again, to make sure of the time, and saw that it
was ten-thirty-two.
“They will not leave the opera house for another three-quarters of an
hour, at least,” was the thought that went through his mind. “After that
they will all go to Sherry’s, or Delmonico’s, or Louis Martin’s, for
supper. Good! It will be one or two o’clock before she can return to her
apartment. I’ll do it.”
The layman who reads these words will regard the thing that he so
impulsively decided to do as unprecedented--and even a harsher term may
be applied to it.
But, if there are those who would criticize the detective for what he
had decided to do, and did do, remember that Nick Carter was certain of
the real guilt of the woman in the matter of the murder of Edythe Lynne,
and remember, also, that he was thoroughly convinced in his own mind
that the man who was now in possession of the Lynne millions was an
impostor.
Nick Carter was never one to quibble about trivial things, or to
hesitate to perform an act because others might criticize it, if he
regarded it as his duty.
And in this matter of the inheritance of the vast property left by J.
Cephas Lynne he believed he had a bounden duty to perform.
He could never forget the moment when he had discovered the dead body
of the beautiful heiress, at Pleasantglades.
She had been ruthlessly and wantonly cut off in the very prime of her
young womanhood, in order that a scoundrelly cousin of her father’s, and
this unsexed woman back there in the opera house, now smiling and
talking and laughing, might possess themselves of the fortune.
Ever since the hour when he had followed the tracks in the snow between
the great gateposts at Pleasantglades, and so had unearthed the crime
that had been committed there, he had promised himself in his own silent
way that those who had done that deed, and who had planned it and been
instrumental in it, should never profit by reason of it.
There had been a time when he believed that he could convict Madge
Babbington, as well as Thomas Lynne, who had actually done the murder;
but that time was passed, and just now, if something heroic were not
done to prevent, the woman would yet win all that she had desired in the
beginning.
And so, Nick Carter, in that moment, decided that he would visit and
search the apartment of Madge Babbington before she could return to it
from the opera house.
That was what he had decided to do.
CHAPTER XXII.
A DARING EXPERIMENT.
To say that one will visit an apartment in a large hotel-apartment house
during the absence of its owner or occupant, and search it, and to
perform that ceremony are two very different propositions, as Nick
Carter was destined speedily to discover.
The name of the particular one in which Madge Babbington had elected to
reside after her acquittal at the trial was the Creotoria, and it was
located on Broadway in that uptown section of the city where so many of
those great edifices have been erected in the last few years.
It was eleven o’clock at night when the detective arrived there and
entered the wide and spacious corridor which led to the office desk, and
Nick found out at once that it was impossible for him to ascend to any
of the upper floors of the building without first giving some adequate
reason for doing so.
The obstacles which confronted him in the carrying out of his design
seemed almost insurmountable at first, as he approached the desk where
an expectant clerk stood waiting to receive him, having seen him enter
at the front doorway--for this was no transient place, at which one
might apply for lodgings for the night.
Plainly, the only way for the detective even to begin the
accomplishment of what he had set out to do was to pretend that some one
whom he knew lived there; but at the moment he could not recall that he
had ever heard of the house until he had been informed that Mrs.
Hurd-Babbington had gone there to live.
“I am seeking the apartment of an acquaintance who possibly resides
here,” he said to the clerk, as he stopped at the desk and leaned upon
it. “Will you let me see your house directory, please?”
“If you will give me the name I can save you the trouble of looking
through the directory,” replied the clerk.
“Grafton,” said Nick, mentioning the first name that occurred to
him--the name, by the way, of a very oldtime acquaintance, whom he had
not seen for years, and whose home, when last Nick Carter knew him, was
in London.
And right here happened one of those strange coincidences--or phases of
luck, whichever one chooses to name it--which occur in the experience of
every person of active life; for the clerk replied at once, and without
an instant of hesitation:
“Oh, yes; Colonel Grafton. Certainly, he lives here. It is not ten
minutes since he went up in the elevator. Will you telephone up to him?
Or--if you will give me your name, I will have it attended to for you.”
“I will go directly to the apartment, since the colonel has only just
gone up himself,” the detective replied carelessly. “Will you tell me
how to find it?”
“Certainly, sir. Tenth floor, Broadway front; number one thousand and
one.”
“Thank you.”
“Give me your name, please, and I will telephone up that you are coming.
It is the rule, you know.”
“Just say that it is Mr. Parsons,” replied the detective, as he turned
and hurried toward one of the elevators; and he did some tall thinking
while the swiftly moving cage was bearing him to the tenth floor of the
enormous building.
For the Grafton whom Nick Carter knew and whose name he had made use of
on the impulse of the moment was not a colonel, and this man of the
Creotoria could not be he.
Nevertheless, Nick had hit upon a name of a resident of the building,
and there was so much gained, at least.
The detective hurried through the corridor of the tenth floor toward
number one thousand and one, and discovered, as he approached it, that a
tall, military-looking gentleman, with white mustache and imperial, and
with a distinctly soldierly bearing, was standing in the open door
awaiting his approach.
And Nick, when he was close enough, pretended great surprise in greeting
the man.
“Why!” he exclaimed; “there must be some mistake! You are not my friend
Grafton. Have I, by any chance, been directed to the wrong apartment?”
“I think not,” was the smiling reply. “My name is Grafton, although I
have not the slightest recollection of you, sir. I am Colonel Morely
Grafton, of the British army. Will you step inside, sir? It is possible
that I can aid you in finding the man you seek, for Grafton is not a
common name. We all claim relation.”
“My friend by that name is Paul Grafton, a resident of London,” replied
the detective.
“I have a nephew by that name, whose home is in London,” was the reply,
as the colonel led the way into the sitting room. “He is now in India.
Will you be seated, sir?”
Nick sat down.
He realized that now, in order to carry out what he had gone there to
do, he must waste a few moments in conversation with this man, in order
that no suspicion might be attached to his call; and in the conversation
that followed it came out that the nephew of the old colonel was really
the detective’s friend.
And so, nearly half an hour was used up in chatting with the British
officer before Nick Carter ventured to rise and take his leave; and when
he did so he had to promise the colonel that he would call again at some
future time.
But he had found his way into the house, and the rest of his design was
now open to him.
The number of the apartment occupied by Madge Babbington was known to
the detective, and, because of that number, nine hundred and one, he
knew it to be directly beneath the one occupied by the soldier.
It was then midnight.
The corridors were deserted.
It is true that from some of the apartments, as Nick passed them, came
sounds which indicated that the occupants were still very much alive
and awake; but he paid no attention to these things, hurrying onward and
descending to the next floor below by the first stairway he could find;
and so he found himself, presently, before the door of nine hundred and
one.
He listened at the door for a moment, but not a sound came to him from
within; and yet he figured that it was more than likely that at least
one servant was somewhere inside, awaiting the return of the mistress.
He speculated for a moment as to whether he should use his picklock, and
so force his way inside, or ring the bell and trust to his ready wit and
assurance to be permitted to wait--and he decided on the former course,
realizing fully the risk he ran in doing so if he should be discovered.
That picklock of his which has been mentioned has often been described
in the Nick Carter histories, and needs no further description here,
save to say that it is an instrument of the detective’s own invention,
and is a magic wand in his possession when it comes to the opening of
locked doors. Even Yale locks are not proof against it.
He took it from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, manipulated it for
a moment, and so pushed open the communicating door, stepped inside,
closed it after him, and then stood very quietly in the hallway while he
listened for any sound that might be made.
But there was none.
A dim light shaded by a red globe burned in that hallway; beyond, from
one of the rooms, a brighter light glowed invitingly, and Nick tiptoed
his way toward it and peered inside the room.
It was deserted, and, after assuring himself of the fact, the detective
began a tour of the apartment, passing from room to room, to discover if
there was any living presence in the place at all.
It did not take him long to become assured that he was the only person
there, although he saw many evidences of the recent presence of one or
more servants, and he came to the decision--correctly, as it
happened--that the maid and perhaps another servant had taken the
opportunity of their mistress’ absence to pass an hour or two with other
servants in another part of the building.
At all events, the detective was satisfied that the way was open to
him--for how long a time he could not determine--to search the place for
proofs of the things he suspected, if proofs were there.
Of course, there was the possibility that one or both of the servants
might return at any moment and surprise him--for it was now considerably
past midnight--but he relied upon his own resources to conceal himself
until there was offered an opportunity to escape, if such a thing should
happen.
During his first tour of the apartment he had selected the room in which
he believed such evidence might be found if any existed--- a small room
which opened off from the library and was separated from it by
portières.
It contained a roll-top desk, which was closed and locked; a cabinet
letter file, which was also carefully locked against intrusion--and, in
short, bore the general resemblance of a sort of office room; and at one
corner of it there was a very small safe, which Nick believed he could
lift and carry away with him, if he so desired.
“If there is anything here at all to interest me, and to supply the
proof I want, it is inside that little safe,” was the detective’s
thought, as he looked at it and estimated its weight not to exceed a
hundred pounds at the most.
It stood upon a shelf of hard wood that had evidently been placed there
for its reception, and a Navaho blanket had been draped over it, to
conceal it.
Nick tried the handle of the safe door, to discover if Madge had left it
unlocked, by any chance; but it was safely locked against intrusion, and
so the detective spun the dial of the combination lock, preparatory to
resting one ear against it to find the tumblers by sound, for he was an
expert in that art, which, be it known, is a profession by itself.
He had just placed one ear against the dial, or so close to it that not
a sound that might occur inside the lock would escape him; he had just
begun to turn the dial when he was startled by the rattle of a key in
the lock of the outer door of the apartment, and was made conscious of
the fact that somebody was returning; but whether it was one of the
servants, or the mistress herself, he had no means, just then, of
determining.
Instantly he switched off the light in that small room, and then, as he
heard footsteps approaching the room which adjoined it, he stepped
quickly behind a tall easel in an opposite corner, which held an almost
life-sized portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Babbington.
He found that it entirely concealed him, for the bottom of the canvas on
which the portrait had been painted was not more than three inches from
the floor; and so he stood there waiting while the footsteps came
nearer--and he could now determine that there were two persons
approaching, instead of one.
They entered that adjoining room where the light was glowing brightly,
and the unmistakable voice of Mrs. Babbington, in low laughter, reached
his hearing.
“‘Ernani’?” she was saying. “Yes, that was the opera to-night; but I
scarcely heard a note of it, Nora. I had other things to think about
to-night. And then, of course, we had to go somewhere afterward. That is
why I kept you waiting. But I got away as soon as I could do so. Now,
what news have you? Tell me while I am taking off these wraps.”
“There is one thing, Madge, that seems to be of some importance,” was
the reply, delivered in a voice that gave Nick Carter a start of
surprise, for he instantly recognized it as the voice of Miss McQueen,
stenographer and secretary to Benjamin Oaks, the lawyer. “That young man
who went to Idaho--Patrick Garvan was his name, wasn’t it?--is on the
track of something--I don’t know what. And Chris says, in his last
letter, that he ought not to be permitted to return. He says that an
accident can happen to him out there, just as well as not. It is up to
you, Madge, to decide that question.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
A SERIOUS PREDICAMENT.
Nick Carter would have given a good deal to have been absent from that
particular locality at that precise moment.
It had been no part of his plan to remain there until the possible
return of Madge Babbington, but it had not occurred to him that she
would leave her friends before two o’clock.
He looked about him for a means of escape from that small room--a thing
that he had somehow neglected to attend to before the necessity arose
for it; and he remembered, as he did so, that the unusually large Navaho
blanket that hung suspended from ceiling to floor close at his right
hand, next to the easel, concealed a door; and as he recalled the plan
of the apartment when he had searched through it, he believed that the
door must communicate with the private hallway of the apartment.
But even so, would it be possible for him to open it and to pass through
and close it again without attracting the attention of the occupants of
the adjoining room? He doubted it.
Unused doors are apt to stick or creak on their hinges; nevertheless, it
offered the only means out of the present dilemma, and he determined to
attempt it.
He went about it methodically, realizing that haste would be fatal, and
hoping almost against hope that no impulse on the part of Madge would
send her into that small room before he could make his escape from it.
He stepped from behind the easel, knowing from the direction of the
voices in the next room that neither of the women would be able to see
him as he did so; and he pulled aside the Navaho blanket.
His luck favored him.
The key to the door was in the lock--quite naturally, one might say, on
the inside of the door--and he opened the blade of his pocketknife,
passing it up and down between the door and the casing, to discover if
the bolt of the lock had been shot.
It had; and so he brought out his little case of miniature tools, with
the tiny oil can that is half the diameter of an ordinary lead pencil,
and shot a drop of oil against the bolt of the lock and upon the hinges
of the door, and then, withdrawing the key, administered to that in the
same manner--and believed that now, by exercising great care, he would
be able to open the door without making a sound.
In the meantime the conversation in the adjoining room had been
continued, and the detective had necessarily overheard every word of it,
although he would not have remained a moment to do so had he been able
to make his escape on the instant.
The reply that Madge Babbington made to the statement of Miss McQueen
was characteristic. Nick could imagine just how she shrugged her
shoulders when she made it.
“Wire Chris Morgan, the first thing you do in the morning, to get rid of
him. I don’t care how it is done, Nora, only we can’t afford to take any
chances. Still, I don’t see how Patsy Garvan has been able to dig up
anything that would be of service to him.”
“He might do that if only he knew where to dig,” was the significant
reply; and it was responded to by a light peal of laughter from Madge.
Then she added, perhaps irrelevantly:
“Nick Carter was at the opera to-night.”
“Watching you, Madge?”
“Surely.”
“But I thought----”
“My dear Nora, he has never abandoned his ideas for a moment. He, or
somebody working in his employ, has been on my trail and yours, too,
ever since my acquittal.”
“And on Car--Carleton’s, too, I suppose.”
“Surest thing you know, Nora. I wish I could shoot a drop of prussic
acid upon his tongue. That would keep him still for a while.”
“But you cannot, my dear.”
“No; at least, not at the present time.”
“I had thought that perhaps you would try----”
“Try what, Nora?”
“Your wiles, your fascinations, your witchery----”
“What! On Nick Carter? My dear, you don’t know the man.”
“Possibly not; but I have never known you to fail yet in such an
undertaking. Look at the things you have done more than once. Look
at----”
“Hush! No names!”
“Why? We are alone, aren’t we?”
“I suppose so. One never knows. One of my maids might even now be hiding
behind the easel in my little den. I’ll look, presently, to see.”
Nick Carter was at that instant engaged in silently turning the key in
the lock of the door, and he smiled to himself, being thankful that it
had not occurred to her to make the investigation sooner.
“Well, Madge, you know the name that I would use. He hates you--there is
no doubt of that--and at the same time he is so madly in love with you
that he can scarcely contain himself.”
“But that is only when he is near me, Nora. Whenever he is away from me
he hates me, as you say; and, do you know, he is so cold and snakelike,
and so utterly fearless, that sometimes I am actually afraid of him.”
“You have reason to fear him; there is no doubt of that.”
“Oh!”--with a light laugh--“he will kill me some day, without a doubt,
unless”--with deep significance--“he happens to die first.”
Nick Carter, in the adjoining room, which Madge had called her “den,”
was at that moment in the act of passing through the doorway which he
had succeeded in opening before him, and, as he paused an instant to
hear that last remark of Madge’s, his glance fell upon the small safe,
or, rather, upon the curtained blanket that concealed it from view.
He wanted very much, indeed, to inspect the interior of that safe. He
had been interrupted at the very moment when he was attempting to do so,
and now, without a second thought concerning what he would do with it,
he turned about, raised it from the floor, lifted it through the
doorway, put it down, turned and closed the door after him, and so stood
in the hallway of the apartment, with only one more door between him and
escape from the rather compromising position.
Again he picked up the safe. You or I would have found it difficult to
carry away, but, although it was heavy, and a clumsy thing to bear, the
detective’s great strength handled it easily, and he went along the
hallway rapidly to the outer door which communicated with the corridor
of the building.
What would he do with it? He had not decided that point yet.
He realized, of course, that he would not be able to take it with him
out of the building, for there would be no sort of excuse that he could
make to the clerk at the desk in the office.
Outside the apartment, he did not pause, even for an instant, but moved
rapidly forward until he had turned a corner of the corridor, and so was
hidden from the woman he had just left, in case Madge should discover
her loss and rush into the halls to give the alarm.
But no such thing happened, and just then Nick came to the stairway, and
he recalled the fact that the building was exactly twelve stories high.
He was on the ninth floor at the moment. Three flights of stairs would
carry him to the top floor, and from there, another one, if he could
find it, would take him to the roof.
Nick began mounting the stairs, going as rapidly as possible, carrying
the weight he had to bear--hoping all the time that he would not meet
one of the night watchmen, or any of the residents of the apartment
house.
He found the stairs that led to the roof, and he found a locked door at
the top of them, but we have already discovered that locked doors
offered but little impediment to the onward march of the detective, and
in a trice he had it open and had passed out with the safe in his arms,
upon the roof.
“Wow!” he half exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from his face and
seating himself for a moment upon the safe, to rest. “I have had a good
many strange experiences, but this is certainly a new one on me. Anyhow,
I’ve got the safe, and I have found rather a secluded place for opening
it. There isn’t much likelihood of disturbance up here.”
Nor was there.
He began, as soon as he was rested, to turn the dial, with his ear close
to it, and, although he was engaged in that manner upward of half an
hour before success came to him, his patience was at last rewarded, and
he turned the handle of the lock and opened the door.
The night was clear and there was the half of a moon in the sky, so
there was light enough.
The safe being open, he turned it over on its back, so that such light
as there was would shine into it--and then he uttered a sharp
exclamation of utter amazement.
The safe that he had taken so much trouble to carry to the roof was
absolutely empty, save for a pasteboard card, which had fallen to the
back of it when he upturned it.
He reached inside and drew forth the card, wondering what it could be;
and then for a moment he sat quite still, staring at it in silence; but
only to break into a hearty laugh immediately thereafter.
What was it that caused his amazement, and then his laughter? This:
There was writing upon the card, which was the only thing the safe
contained, and the message it contained was addressed to him. It said:
“MY DEAR MR. CARTER: So sorry to disappoint you, you know; but I
have a notion that some day you will pay me a call, and, finding me
absent, will venture to investigate the surroundings. Naturally,
this safe would be the first thing to attract you; and so--this
slight message of my regard and esteem.
“MADGE HURD-BABBINGTON.”
“Well, now what do you think about that?” he muttered to himself, with a
grim smile on his face.
He wished at that moment that he had not taken it at all; he wished,
also, that he could have returned it, so that Madge would not know that
he had visited her apartment during her absence; he wished a lot of
impossible things, in fact, but what he did was quite to the point.
He closed and locked the safe again, put it in an upright position, as
if it had not been opened--for, of course, he replaced the card inside
of it--and then he passed from the roof to the top floor of the building
and walked down the stairs to the tenth floor, where he sought the
elevator.
At least, he would return to the office from the floor to which he had
been taken in the first place.
It was a little past three o’clock when he left the building, nodding to
the clerk as he passed the office.
“I don’t think I could call this a very brilliant night’s work,” he told
himself, as he sought the nearest subway station. “Still, that scrap of
a conversation told me considerable, although I did not hear a word that
would convey the slightest proof of what I desire to know.”
But he did not go directly to his home even then. He went, instead, to
one of the night offices of the Western Union and wrote a telegraph
letter of fifty words to Patsy.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DOUBLE TRAGEDY.
It was four o’clock in the morning when Nick Carter got into his bed,
and, contrary to his custom, it was eight o’clock when he left it. He
had been roused from sleep by the raucous cries of men in the street and
avenue, who were shouting unintelligible information concerning an extra
that was just out.
The cries sounded like:
“Wuxtra! Wuxtra! Fullercountuv----” Nick gave it up at that, although he
believed that he had distinguished the word murder among the jargon. He
rang his bell and called Joseph to him.
“What is that extra about, Joseph?” he asked.
“A double murder, sir, discovered early this morning--soon after four, I
think. Danny is reading about it now, sir. I only saw the headlines over
his shoulder.”
“A double murder? Where did it happen, Joseph?”
“I don’t know, sir. I did not notice. Shall I prepare your bath?”
“No; I’ll fix it myself. Go down and get me a paper. I’m rather curious
to know what it is all about.”
“Yes, sir; at once, Mr. Carter.”
Joseph departed, and the detective repaired to his bath. When he came
out of it he discovered the paper that Joseph had brought to him, on
the table in his sleeping room.
One glance at the headlines riveted his attention instantly, and, naked
as he was, he seized upon the paper and seated himself upon the edge of
the bed to read the account of the double tragedy it partly described.
The word that had attracted his attention was the name, in large type,
of the same apartment house at which he had met with his adventure
during the preceding night--the Creotoria.
We won’t attempt to give the headlines as they were printed, but in
substance they were something like this:
“Murder. A Double Tragedy at the Cretoria Apartments in Upper Broadway.
Another Babbington Mystery. Woman lately tried for murder and acquitted
is found unconscious beside the two victims of New York’s latest murder
mystery. Triple crime intended. Bullet intended for the third victim
went astray and her life was spared, although a slight wound was
inflicted where it plowed its way along the side of her head just over
the left temple. Only clew is mysterious late caller. A man giving the
name of Parsons inquired for Colonel Grafton after eleven o’clock, but
remained with that gentleman less than half an hour, and was seen by the
night clerk to leave the building after three in the morning.”
The detective paused right there long enough to utter a low whistle of
astonishment; and then he skipped down from the headlines to the article
itself, for he was amazed to find that there had been three persons in
that apartment when he left it. He had supposed there were only
two--Madge Babbington and Nora McQueen.
We will not attempt to give more than the substance of the article,
sufficient for the purposes of this story, but the account of the
tragedy, briefly, was about this:
Mrs. Babbington, who occupied the apartment in question, kept two
servants. One of them, the cook, had been given a night off to attend a
wake in a distant part of the city, but had returned to the apartment
shortly after four o’clock in the morning.
She had entered the place with a key, with which she had been provided,
and had found that a brilliant light was still showing in the parlor,
which, by courtesy, was called the library.
After listening and hearing no sound from that room, she went to it to
investigate, and then ran screaming from the room to the telephone,
which is in the dining room.
“Murder! Murder! Murder!” she shouted three times over the phone to the
clerk at the desk, and then dropped to the floor in a faint, where the
clerk and the night watchman presently discovered her.
They also found what they at first supposed was a triple murder in the
library of the apartment. Three women were stretched upon the floor,
apparently dead from bullet wounds, and in two of the cases the bullets
had entered the brain directly in the middle of the forehead. In the
third one something had deflected the aim of the assassin, and the
bullet that was doubtless intended to slay her as her companions had
been slain had glanced along the left side of her skull above the temple
and ear. This wound is, however, not considered dangerous, the skull is
not fractured, and Mrs. Hurd-Babbington will recover.
It will be remembered that Mrs. Hurd-Babbington was lately tried for the
murder--and so forth, and so forth. Nick skipped that. He read on again,
in substance as follows:
One of the victims of the double tragedy which came so near to being a
triple one is the personal maid of Mrs. Babbington; the other victim is
so far unknown, and has not been identified. At the time this paper goes
to press Mrs. Babbington has not recovered consciousness sufficiently to
give a coherent account of the affair, if, indeed, she knows more about
it than has already been printed.
At a late hour last night--eleven-thirty, or near that time--a man
appeared at the desk and inquired of the clerk for a gentleman named
Grafton. This man gave his name as Parsons. The clerk sent him to the
apartment of Colonel Horace Grafton, which is on the tenth floor of the
building, and immediately telephoned to the colonel of the fact.
Colonel Grafton received him, and entertained him for about half an
hour, at which time he took his departure; but it is certain that he did
not leave the building or attempt to do so until after three o’clock in
the morning, and it was then not later than midnight.
Where did he pass the three hours that intervened?
The theory of the police is that he intended to go through the place
thoroughly, and that at last he found his way into the apartment of Mrs.
Babbington, who was absent, having attended the opera; and it now
appears that the apartment was entirely deserted at about that time. The
cook was absent, as has already been stated, and the maid, who is dead,
had been passing the time with another servant on the eleventh floor of
the building.
It is supposed that the man was in the apartment when Mrs. Babbington
returned to it with the other woman who accompanied her; that she
encountered her maid in the corridor or at the door, and that the three
entered together; that the thief, being discovered and probably
threatened by the three women who found him there, shot them.
The clerk gives only a partial description of the man who asked for
Colonel Grafton--et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
No further details of the tragedy can be given until Mrs. Babbington has
recovered sufficiently to relate her own experiences, which doubtless
will be the case by the time our evening editions are on the street.
The detective laid the paper aside with a mixture of feelings.
There was one, of course, which was not without amusement, that he
should be the one to be charged with the crime, and, when he realized
that he had gone there without disguise, he saw that it would be well
for him to alter his appearance for a few days, until some investigation
could be made into the mystery.
That the unidentified dead woman was Miss Nora McQueen he had not a
doubt; but who had done the thing?
Some one opened the door at that moment, and Chick entered the room. His
first glance alighted upon the paper that the detective had been engaged
in reading, and, with a half smile on his face, he asked:
“Well, what do you think of that, Nick? What do you make out of it?”
“Nothing--as yet. How do you read it, between the lines?”
“It’s an odd circumstance, isn’t it? I thought at first that that chap
who gave the name of Parsons might have been you.”
“It was,” was the quiet reply.
“What? Do you mean that?”
“Yes.” And then the detective gave his assistant a correct account of
all that had happened while he was at the apartment house; and, in
closing, he said:
“Now, Chick, I have reason to think, from what the McQueen woman said to
Madge last night, that nothing would have suited Carleton Lynne better
than to put both of those women out of the way. But you can dispose of
that idea at once, since you were----”
“Unfortunately, Nick, I cannot. I lost him.”
“Lost him?”
“Yes; just that.”
“Where? When? How? Tell me about it.”
“I’ll tell you all I know.”
“Well?”
“After the opera he went with the people who were in that other box
where he made a call during the performance, to Louis Martin’s, for
supper. I went there also, and found a small table not far from where
they were seated. I was hungry myself, and, perceiving that they had
ordered a substantial meal, I did likewise, not fearing but that they
would be longer about it than I.”
“Well, go on.”
“It never occurred to me that Lynne might leave the table before they
had finished, and I was unfortunately seated so that I was obliged to
turn my head to look at them. I did not want the Babbington woman to get
onto the fact that I was trailing them, and, knowing that she is as
sharp as needles, I did not pay very close attention to them for a time;
and finally, when I did look around, my man had disappeared.”
“Do you mean that he left there during the progress of the meal?”
“Just that.”
“Well?”
“I went out in search of him, but could find no trace, so, thinking that
he might return, I went back to the dining room and waited for the
others to leave. When they did break up I followed Madge and the woman
you say was Miss McQueen to the Creotoria. When they had gone inside the
building I came away.”
“Where did you go then?”
“I came home. I decided that either Lynne was safely in bed in the big
house where he lives--the Lynne house--and that he would come out at the
usual hour this morning, which is nine-thirty or ten, or that he had
gone somewhere else where I could not get trace of him. I am going now
to the Lynne mansion to watch for him.”
“All right. Go ahead. If he does come out at the usual hour, telephone
the fact to me.”
“I will. What are you going to do about the matter of Parsons?”
“I’m going to get into a disguise and go to the Creotoria at once, to
investigate this business in my own way.”
“And I?”
“You wait at the Lynne place until Carleton comes out or goes inside, no
matter how long it takes. Afterward, come directly to me at the
Creotoria. I’ll need you there.”
“Very well.”
“In case I am not there, wait for me. I’ll have arranged with
headquarters so that we may have privileges on the case. Tell the
manager who you are, and go ahead with the investigation in your own
way.”
“Why, where will you be, if not there?”
“‘The Latest News,’ printed in red at the bottom of the page in that
paper, states that Madge was taken to a hospital. I may go there to see
her.”
CHAPTER XXV.
THE ADVANTAGE OF FOREKNOWLEDGE.
It was a remarkable circumstance that Nick Carter should have placed
himself under conditions where he found himself suspected of having
committed one--or, rather, two--of the most wanton murders of the
century.
There was a grimly humorous side to it when he stopped to think, nor
could he attach any blame to the hotel clerk or to the police, because
they had assumed that the mysterious caller on Colonel Grafton was the
person who had committed the deed.
But in that very supposition on their parts he had the advantage of
them, in that he personally knew the untruth of it--in that until the
hour of two in the morning, or a few minutes before or after it, he was
certain that one of the women now dead and the other now wounded at the
hospital were perfectly well, and certainly anticipated no thought of
imminent danger.
It will be remembered that he had escaped from the apartment where the
double crime was committed, with the small safe in his arms; that he had
made his way to the roof of the building, and that he had spent a
considerable time there in opening the safe.
He had not seen any person in the corridors--anywhere, in fact, within
that building, after he came away from that apartment--until he had
passed through the office on his way to the street, shortly after three
o’clock; he had not noted the exact time.
But some person had been there--and it was almost a logical deduction
that the person who had committed that double murder was in the building
at the time Nick Carter entered it and did not leave it until after the
business of the ensuing day had begun--or that the murderer was an
actual resident of one of the apartments there.
This latter theory naturally disposed of the idea that had partly formed
in the mind of the detective that the man who called himself Carleton
Lynne might be the guilty one, because Chick had already been
indefatigably on Lynne’s track for ten days, and was supposed to
know--believed himself that he did know--every move that the man from
the West had made during that interval.
The conversation that the detective had overheard while he was in hiding
in the little room and intent upon making his escape from it must not be
forgotten.
It had made a marked impression on him, implying, as it had done, a
deep-seated hatred and fear--which is a stronger incentive to the
commission of a crime than hate ever was--on Lynne’s part, for Madge
Babbington.
Nick Carter’s theory of the original condition of things, which had
brought about the appearance of Carleton Lynne upon the scene bore out
this idea, too.
It was quite natural that the man, having attained the possession of the
Lynne millions, should wish to keep them for himself and should have a
reluctance to sharing them with a woman whom he both feared and
hated--save only when he was in her presence, and she fascinated him
with her tigerish eyes and her beauty.
And that very fascination which she doubtless exercised over him would
lead him all the more insistently to wish to rid himself of her; it
would but add to his fear of her when he was not with her, and when
there was opportunity to think calmly upon who and what she was, and of
what extremes she was capable.
Possibly he feared for his own life, as soon as she should be his wife.
The poisoned cup, the stealthy dagger, the pistol shot in the dark; all
were possibilities which he could see waiting for him in that future
that the woman had doubtless planned for both of them.
And so, while on his way to the Creotoria apartments, wearing an
adequate disguise, so that he would not be recognized as the man who had
called there to see Colonel Grafton, Nick Carter could not figure out in
his mind any other theory that was satisfactory to him in regard to the
murders, save the one that Carleton Lynne must somehow be the guilty
person.
That idea of the police, of a burglar or thief, surprised at work and
shooting down in cold blood three women who opposed his escape, was, to
Nick Carter’s mind, preposterous.
There was one other point, too, which the detective had noticed in the
reading of the account of the crime, and that was the accuracy with
which the bullets had been fired at the victims--all save one of them;
probably the last one.
Something of the personal description of Carleton Lynne has already been
given, and now, as the detective recalled it, he remembered the cold
expression in his eyes, that were set so wide apart, denoting innate
cruelty; he recalled the deliberate, almost cautious, motions of the
man, his steady, fearless, defiant eyes; and he remembered, too, that
Lynne was a man out of the great West, where marksmanship with a six-gun
is almost a matter of inheritance as well as a universal talent.
Lynne’s eyes were the eyes of a dead shot--and the bullet holes were
bored exactly in the center of the foreheads of the two women who were
dead, while the one fired at Madge had only narrowly missed its mark.
Nick believed that he could explain that miss, too, on the same theory
that applied to the other two shots. In this manner:
Nora McQueen and the maid had been shot first, and then the weapon had
been turned upon the woman whose eyes and whose very presence fascinated
Lynne.
Had he caught one flash of those eyes, even as he attempted to fire the
fatal shot at her? Had the expression in them compelled his intention to
waver, and so deflected his aim? Even as she had stood there facing
almost certain death at his hands, had she, in the fraction of a second
that was permitted her, been able to throw her spell over him? And had
he, even at the instant when his finger was pressing the trigger of his
gun, sought, against his own set purpose and will, to spare her?
It was the only manner in which Nick Carter could account for a third
shot missing, when the two that had preceded it had been fired with such
deadly accuracy.
The papers had contained no mention of robbery--even the fact that the
small safe was missing had not been discovered.
If there had been robbery of jewels or money, the papers would have
reported it; and so it was apparent to the detective that the person who
had committed the crimes had gone there with that express purpose in
view--had gone there to kill. More than that, had gone there with the
deliberate intention of murdering Madge Babbington and her friend and
associate who was with her--Nora McQueen. For Nick Carter, since he
overheard that conversation, knew positively that the two were friends
and associates, and that they were working together--probably had long
been associated.
We have gone over all this ground in order that the frame of mind which
governed the detective when he went to that apartment house may
thoroughly be understood.
He could not see any solution of the double crime save through the
active instrumentality of the man who called himself Carleton Lynne;
there was no other acceptable theory, for who else was there who could
have desired the death of Madge Babbington, to the point of murdering
her?
He did acknowledge to himself that, had he been less well informed than
he was--had he not been there himself almost up to the time when the
crimes were committed, and had he been told the story of the clerk at
the desk about the mysterious stranger who had called there--he might
have been influenced by it.
And then came another thought--a perplexing one, too:
Was it possible that the murderer, watching and waiting for the return
of Madge and her friend, had seen him force his way into the apartment
with his picklock--had waited until Nick Carter came out of the place,
carrying the safe in his arms, and had then carried out his own dark
purpose, realizing with a sense of security that another than himself
would be suspected?
Such a thing was possible--was even highly probable, under the
circumstances, and in the light of all that the detective actually knew
of the conditions.
Nick telephoned to headquarters before he started out, as he had told
Chick he would do, and so when he presented himself at the desk of the
great apartment house he merely announced that he was sent there from
headquarters--and gave his name.
Please remember that in appearance he did not at all resemble the man
who had applied at that same desk at half-past eleven the preceding
night.
“There are half a dozen men here from headquarters, even now,” the clerk
told him; but Nick only nodded his head to that statement, and asked to
see the house directory.
It was shown to him--a book taken from the safe, which contained the
names and the numbers of the apartments occupied by each one of them, of
every person--man, woman, and child--in the house.
He went over them without comment. There was not one there that
suggested anything to him; but as he was in the act of returning the
book to the day clerk he withheld it for a moment, and said:
“Point out to me, please, the names of your latest arrived guests--and
begin with the very latest, informing me as you indicate the names the
time of arrival here.”
“You will observe that there is not a vacant apartment in the building,”
said the man behind the desk.
“Yes,” replied the detective.
“Well, with the exception of one gentleman, there is nobody in this list
who has not lived here two years, or more. Here is the name--Henry
Carroll.”
“Mr. Carroll seems to live alone; also to occupy rather a large
apartment for a man who does live alone,” was Nick’s comment.
“Yes. He regretted that the apartment was so large at the time he took
it; but it was the only vacant one we had. I made the contract with him
myself. He is a very quiet, unassuming man, with iron-gray hair and
closely cropped gray mustache. He would be a handsome man, too, if it
were not for a frightful scar that extends all the way down one side of
his face, and another one just like it that reaches a third of the way
down the other side.”
“When did he engage his apartment?” the detective asked.
“It was engaged and paid for in advance, in order to hold it, three
months ago,” was the reply.
“By the gentleman himself?”
“No; by an agent who represented him.”
“Is the man a New Yorker, or where is he from?”
“I do not know as to that, but, if you are of the opinion that he might
have had----”
“I have no opinions; I am seeking information. When did Mr. Carroll
first occupy his apartment?”
“He arrived here just three weeks ago to-day?”
“Where from?”
“I do not know.”
“And he has been here steadily ever since then?”
“No. He remained just a week, and then went away, to Washington, D. C.,
on a business trip.”
“Has he returned?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last night, at a quarter to twelve.”
“Do you know if he is in his rooms now?”
“I know that he is not. He went out at half-past seven this morning.”
“Thank you. I am going to the ninth floor now. When Mr. Carroll returns
please notify me of the fact at once; I wish to have a talk with him.”
“Yes, sir; I will do so.”
It was then that Nick sought the apartment, nine hundred and one, and
if he had expressed his thoughts aloud, that expression might have been
found in the following sentence:
“Henry Carroll will not return at all, for Henry Carroll and Carleton
Lynne are one and the same.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MURDERER IS FOUND.
Several things had happened to affect the case by the time Nick Carter
entered the apartment.
The small safe had been discovered on the roof and had been traced to
apartment nine hundred and one; a woman who would not give her name, and
who was thickly veiled from observation, had appeared there and had
inquired for Mrs. Babbington, and when told that Madge was at the
hospital had departed with the avowed intention of seeking her at the
institution. One of the headquarters men had followed her; the coroner
had “viewed” the case and had given permission for the removal of the
bodies, and that very thing was happening when Nick arrived; information
had been received that Madge had recovered consciousness, and her brief
statement boiled down to one sentence was merely that a man whom she did
not know had appeared suddenly in the parlor of her suite and had begun
firing his revolver the instant he did appear; and she claimed to know
no reason why he should have done so, and that she had had no idea of
his presence until the actual shooting began.
No weapon had been found; nothing had been discovered to assist in the
solution of the mystery, save the incident of the safe, concerning which
Madge insisted that she knew nothing, but which seemed to bear out the
original theory of the crimes.
Nick returned to the office floor of the building.
“I want two things,” he told the clerk with whom he had already talked.
“Well, sir?”
“I want to see the night clerk who was on duty last night, and----”
“He is here now, sir, in the office of the manager.”
“Very well. Show me to that office, and I will tell the manager of the
other thing I want.”
“Right this way, Mr. Carter,” was the reply, and he was ushered to a
hidden office behind the desk.
“I am Nick Carter,” he said abruptly, “with authority from headquarters.
Mr. Brixton, you are the manager here?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to go with me now to the apartment occupied by one Henry
Carroll; never mind why till we get there. I want this night clerk to
accompany us.” And, on the way to the apartment mentioned, after he had
overcome the objections of the manager, Nick asked the clerk:
“Who came into the building after the man Parsons made his appearance
and went to the suite of Colonel Grafton?”
“Only Mr. Carroll. No one else.”
“Who went out of the building?”
“Only that man who called himself Parsons--that is, until after six
o’clock.”
“What time was it when Carroll went out?”
“Half-past seven.”
“Did he speak to you at the time?”
“Merely to say that he might not return to-day.”
“Would you recognize his voice if you should hear it again--say from
another room--if you could not see him and if he could not see you at
the time?”
“I am sure that I would. Sure thing.”
“All right. I’ll give you an opportunity to prove that assertion before
you are many hours older.”
Brixton was at that moment opening the door of the apartment they
sought, with his pass key. They entered together.
There were a few articles of clothing strewn about on chairs; some cheap
toilet articles were on the dresser in one of the bedrooms; two suits of
cheap clothing, almost new, were hanging in one of the closets; two
trunks, both quite heavy when Nick lifted one end of each of them, were
in another room.
“It doesn’t look as if Mr. Carroll was very domestic in his habits, or
intended to remain here a very long time,” the detective remarked; and
then, without announcing his intention, he drew a heavy bronze
paperweight from one of his pockets--he had brought it with him
surreptitiously from the manager’s office for the very purpose to which
he now applied it--and he struck the hasp of the lock of one of the
trunks a mighty blow, which broke it in half.
“What do you mean by such a proceeding?” the manager cried out; but,
instead of replying, Nick calmly threw back the lid of the trunk.
The trunk was empty, save for about a dozen lengths of sheet lead, which
had been cleated fast to the bottom of it.
Without a word of comment, Nick turned to the second trunk, and served
it in the same manner--and with precisely the same result.
“You see?” he said, turning upon the manager. “Find Henry Carroll, and
you will find the murderer--and I will find him before dark to-night.
Come away. There is nothing more to be accomplished here.”
Chick was in the office awaiting the detective when he returned to it
with the manager and the night clerk. Nick drew him at once to one side
after telling the clerk, whose name was Pryor, to wait for him.
“Well?” he said to Chick.
“I think that Lynne must have spent the night at his house. He came out
at the usual time this morning and went downtown. I let him go, and came
here.”
“Good. Go now to the telephone; call up Ben Oaks; find out if Lynne is
there. If so, tell Oaks to find an excuse for detaining him till we get
there. If he is not there, ask Oaks to notify us the moment he arrives.
I happen to know that Oaks had an appointment with him this morning.”
“There is another thing that is important--a message from Patsy,” said
Chick. “I telephoned to Joseph, and he read it to me. I put it down as
he stated it. Here it is.”
The detective took the paper and read:
“Will arrive nine-thirty, morning. Have important information.
Don’t lose sight of C. L. before I get there.
PATSY.”
“Patsy did not receive the messages I sent early this morning,” was the
only comment that Nick made as he put the paper into one of his pockets;
but Chick had already gone to the telephone. He came hurrying back again
a moment later.
“Lynne is there,” he said. “Oaks will detain him till we get there.
Shall we go now?”
“Yes; only I want you, Chick, to go in another direction. Go to the
Lynne residence and make a thorough search of the rooms and everything
in them that this man has used since he has been recognized as Carleton
Lynne. Telephone me from there, at Oaks’ office. I want you to find,
most of all, an iron-gray wig, cropped false mustache, and a pair of
oiled-silk face scars, such as we have had to use in disguises before
now--and anything else that turns up. Come along, Pryor. We’ll take the
subway.”
The detective left Pryor in the corridor of the office building while he
entered the office of Benjamin Oaks; but a moment later he opened the
door and beckoned to the clerk, who followed him inside, led him across
the room to another door that was partly ajar, and said:
“Listen, and tell me whom you suppose to be in that room.”
After a moment of silence, during which Pryor listened to the murmur of
voices that could be heard in the private office, he turned and, with a
strange expression on his face, but without hesitation, said:
“Mr. Carter, one of the two men who are talking together in that room
is Henry Carroll. I would swear to it anywhere.”
“Good. That is all. You may return to the Creotoria now and wait there
till I need you, Pryor.” Then, when the clerk had gone, the detective
walked calmly into the private office of Benjamin Oaks.
Oaks looked up at the detective’s entrance, and nodded his head in
recognition. The other man, who had been called Carleton Lynne, half
arose from his chair, and then, with a curt nod at Nick, reseated
himself upon it.
Nick, with a genial “Good morning, gentlemen,” passed behind Lynne’s
chair in crossing the room; but when he was directly behind it he moved
with lightninglike quickness. He drew a pair of steel handcuffs from his
coat pocket; he seized Lynne’s wrists and drew them together so suddenly
that the man could not resist him, and he snapped the handcuffs into
place, pinioning the man’s wrists behind his back, before there was an
opportunity of escape or resistance.
Of course, there was a struggle, but it was shortlived, and the man who
was known as Carleton Lynne found himself on his back on the floor, with
Nick Carter standing over him, and smiling down upon him as he said
coolly:
“Henry Carroll, alias Carleton Lynne, alias a lot of other names--I have
no doubt--you are under arrest for the double murder at the Creotoria
apartment house early this morning, and, incidentally, for the lesser
crime of impersonating one Carleton Lynne, and for the temporary theft
under that name of some twelve millions of dollars. Call up
headquarters, Oaks, and tell them to send a wagon down here after this
fellow. I’ll stand here till it comes.”
* * * * *
That practically ends this story, although not quite. There are a few
interesting odds and ends to pick up, as yet, which are important.
Chick found the wig, the mustache, the oil-silk scars, and five letters
addressed to Henry Carroll at Hailey, Idaho, at the house he searched.
Four of the letters contained not a thing that seemed to be important;
the fifth one was in cipher; none of the letters bore a signature; all
were typewritten, and bore the New York City postmark. It is worthy of
comment right here that not a thing was found to implicate Madge
Babbington in the affair, and to state that at the trial of Carroll,
which followed in due time, he steadily denied that she had had any
complicity with him in his acts. When asked why he had attempted to
murder her, he admitted that he had known her for a long
time--insisting, however, that she had known him only as Carleton Lynne,
and had believed that to be his right name--and that she had repulsed
him when he declared his love for her. It was all a lie, of course, but
there was no way of establishing that he did lie about it.
The veiled woman who had called at the apartment, and who had gone from
there to the hospital to see Madge, proved to be the missing Miss Hunt
who had formerly and for so long a time been in the employ of Benjamin
Oaks.
The information she had to give was as unimportant as were the
statements of the man Carroll. It was merely to the effect that she had
been bought off from her “job” by the woman, now dead, who called
herself Nora McQueen, and had gone on a trip in the meantime, having
been assured that she could get her job back again at the end of six
months, or less; and that she had been lately notified by Miss McQueen
that she could return at any time, being advised when she did so to
apply first, for information, to Mrs. Babbington, at the Creotoria. She
had returned to the city that morning, had seen the account of the
murders, had gone to the Creotoria, had seen the dead body of Miss
McQueen, and had hastened to the hospital for further information--which
she did not get.
Down at the office of Benjamin Oaks, when the patrol wagon had taken the
prisoner away, the lawyer and Nick had spent a few moments in
conversation, and then Nick had hurried away to his own house to meet
Patsy, who had notified him by telephone at the lawyer’s office of his
arrival. Chick was there, too, waiting.
Nor was that all.
Patsy had not returned alone.
He had brought with him an emaciated but convalescent gentleman, and
when he introduced that person to Nick Carter it was done in these
words:
“Mr. Lynne, this is Mr. Carter. Chief, this man is the real Carleton
Lynne. He went to the Klondike at the time of the rush with a friend
named Henry Carroll. He got lost in a storm while there and was
reported dead. In reality, the silence and the cold destroyed his
reason, and for years he wandered about the world, not knowing who he
was. But his memory returned to him a few months ago, and he made his
way back again to Hailey, Idaho, where he is well known, and where there
is sufficient proof of his identity, as I have found.
“You will notice that there is a strange as well as an unaccountable
resemblance between him and Henry Carroll--at least, he tells me there
is, and Chick agrees with him; and that, I think, in part accounts for
the daring effort on the part of Carroll to pass himself off as Lynne.
Of course, the stolen papers and photograph assisted in that--and
Carroll took good care not to appear in Hailey as Lynne.”
And so it was that the rightful heir came into his own at last.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A MAN WITH A GUN.
Carleton Lynne raised himself in the bed, not without some difficulty,
and stared at the intruder. He was weak, and therefore unable to defend
himself, but no trace of fear showed upon his features, or in his eyes,
which gazed quite calmly into the eyes of the man who had quietly seated
himself upon a chair ten feet away and who was holding an automatic
pistol so that the muzzle of it menaced him.
Carleton Lynne had stared death in the face too many times to be greatly
frightened by the present episode. Experience had taught him that when
one man threatens another with a gun, he does not intend to make use of
it unless the necessity arises; and as yet there was no necessity that
this gun should be used.
“Well?” he inquired composedly, and with the ghost of a smile upon his
lean face which plainly showed the ravages of the long illness he had
undergone.
“You’re a cool one,” was the response, delivered in a heavy bass voice
which was yet modulated to the necessities of the occasion so that the
sound of it would not penetrate beyond the walls of the sleeping room of
the present master of the Lynne mansion.
“I am also a sick one--or, rather, a very weak one, as a consequence of
having been extremely ill for a long time,” was the calm reply. “I could
not fight you if I tried, there is no electric button within my reach,
and I have no weapon under the pillow, or in the bed, so your present
attitude with that gun in your hand is quite unnecessary.”
The unexpected, uninvited guest chuckled and grinned, and lowered the
gun, which he dropped into the side pocket of his sack coat.
“You are Carleton Lynne,” he said--as one might have said “this is a
room in a house.”
“I am,” was the reply.
“You are the master of millions, too.”
“About a dozen of them, I think--more or less.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Really, I don’t know. I haven’t given much thought to that aspect of
the subject, as yet.” This reply was given with a smile, and Lynne
hitched himself farther up in the bed and crowded the extra pillow
behind him.
“It’s time you did, then.”
“Very possibly. Is it because you wished to give me some disinterested
advice on the subject that I am indebted to this midnight call?”
“Do I look like a fellow who goes around giving disinterested advice?”
was the gruff response.
“No; to tell you the truth, you do not. On the contrary, you bear a very
close resemblance to an unmitigated scoundrel, coward, and squaw man
whom I once knew in the Klondike. He was known up there as Red Mike.”
This answer was delivered as coolly and as imperturbably as it might
have been had their positions been reversed.
But the man seated on the chair seemed to accept it as a compliment
rather than as an affront. He grinned affably and shifted one leg across
the other knee.
“I’m glad you haven’t forgotten me, Lynne,” he said. “The fact may
hasten the adjustment of matters between us.”
“One does not soon forget an enforced association with vermin,” said
Lynne.
“That will be about all of that sort of twaddle, Mr. Carleton Lynne,”
Red Mike remarked, with a slow scowl. “We can talk decently together,
without slinging mud, or I’ll fix you so that you won’t be able to talk
at all. Take your choice.”
“Very well; talk away--if you have anything to say that can be listened
to by a self-respecting gentleman. I find that I have been mistaken
about you, and I’m very sorry that it was a mistake.”
“What about?”
“I had been informed--authentically, I supposed--that you were dead.”
“Well, I heard the same thing about you; only I’m glad that it has
turned out to be a mistake, for otherwise you would not have come into
these millions.”
“Quite true, Michael the Red.”
“Hank Carroll would have raked in the pot, eh?”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t. He’d have got what is coming to him now, within a
short time, just the same. It happens in a room with a little door, and
it is done by shifting an electric switch. The explanation may interest
you, Michael, because that is what you are destined to get, too.”
“It will be long after you are dead and buried, if I do.”
“Possibly; but that, if it be true, does not alter the inevitable. Might
I venture to ask what brought you here?”
“Your millions, Lynne. I want a couple of them.”
“Oh, you do, eh?”
“I do--and you’re going to give them to me.”
“Oh, no, I’m not. You’re quite mistaken about that.”
“If you do not--if you refuse the terms I shall offer you, I’ll----”
“Don’t say it, Mike.”
“Why not? Have I scared you for once?”
“I’m not one of the scary kind, as you know; and you’d only be indulging
in another lie. You wouldn’t kill me; not now, at least.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you did that there would be no show at all for you to get
something out of me, while on the other hand while there is life there
is also hope. Eh, Mike? I am wondering how you ever scraped up courage
to come here and face me, even though you know that I am physically
unable to defend myself. Who is behind you in this affair, Mike? You
never would have dared to undertake it alone; never at all if you had
not been egged on to it by some one with a stronger will. It must have
been a woman, Mike; men never had much influence over you.”
Red Mike moved uneasily in his chair, and shifted his legs; also he gave
the subject a different channel.
“I took the trail of Henry Carroll, and kept it for two years after I
found out what he was up to,” he said. “I was just about to fall on him
when----”
“Well, why do you hesitate?”
“When Nick Carter spoiled it all after Hank was fool enough to murder
those two women in that flat at the Creotoria.”
Carleton Lynne laughed aloud. Then he said:
“You would never have ‘fallen’ upon Carroll, Mike, and you know it.”
“Why not, I’d like to know.”
“Because you were afraid of him; you always were--more afraid of him
than you were of me in those old days, and that is saying considerable.”
“Afraid of nothing!”
“Afraid of everything, rather. You always were a despicable coward,
Michael--don’t look so savage; words can’t hurt you--and Carroll was
never afraid of anything. Have you forgotten the time he made you crawl
on your hands and knees out of the saloon at Nome? And that, without
showing a gun, while you held one in your hand all the time and were
afraid to attempt to use it.”
The scowl on Red Mike’s face grew threatening, for, after all, the man
on the bed was at his mercy.
He dropped his right hand into the coat pocket again and fondled the
automatic gun, as if half inclined to use it; and Lynne, without
changing the tone of his voice but realizing the danger of the moment,
added:
“Maybe the effect upon you was hypnotic.”
The scowl disappeared, and the right hand came out of the pocket,
without the gun.
“That was it. He always did half hypnotize me, Lynne. I was never really
afraid of Carroll, but those deadly cold eyes of his always affected me
somehow so that I could not move a muscle.”
“Quite so,” replied the man on the bed ironically.
“Say, are you going to give me a slice off of that fortune of yours?”
“I am--not!”
“Then it’s yours for the long, dark journey, Lynne.”
“Nonsense, Mike; and besides, I have followed that trail so near to the
end of it so many times that it has become quite familiar. I’m not at
all afraid of it. Who is the woman, Mike?”
“What woman? What are you talking about?”
“The woman who induced you to come here.”
“There isn’t any woman.”
“Oh, isn’t there? I thought that perhaps you had hit it off with Mrs.
Hurd-Babbington. She has had her eyes upon the Lynne millions for a long
time, and the gentleman you mentioned a moment ago, Mr. Nicholas Carter
by name, has told me that she won’t lose sight of them. I suppose I
could buy you both off with a million apiece, eh?”
“I want two. I don’t know anything about any woman.”
“You want two millions, do you? What would you do with them if you had
them?” Lynne pulled himself still farther up in the bed as he asked the
question.
“I’ll tell you one thing that I would do,” was the eager reply, for he
evidently believed that Lynne was weakening, and might, after all, give
up. “I’d get out of your sight and mind, and stay out of them.”
“Would a check satisfy you, if I should get out of this bed and write
one now?”
“No, it would not. I’m not such a fool as all that.”
“Well, you don’t suppose that I am in the habit of taking two million
dollars, in cash, to bed with me, do you?”
“No, but I do know one thing about you, Lynne.”
“Do you, really? What is that interesting thing that you do know about
me?”
“I know you to be a man of your word. If you should give me your solemn
promise that you would put two millions in cash in my hand to-morrow or
next day, and give me fourteen days’ start without attempting to follow,
or to find out where I had gone, you’d keep your word to the letter. I
know that.”
“You pay me quite a compliment, Red Mike.”
“Will you do that, Lynne?”
“I am considering it. Don’t hurry me. Will you tell me the name of the
woman?”
“Yes, if you consent.”
“So there really is a woman behind you, after all, eh?”
“Stow that, Lynne. If you do not give your consent”--he drew the
automatic from his pocket--“I’ll use this little toy, right here, and
now. That’s final, and I’ll give you just five minutes to answer.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
STARING DEATH IN THE FACE.
There were several years of entire blank behind Carleton Lynne, so far
as his memory was concerned.
He had gone to the Klondike before that time, prospecting for gold, and
he had gone to that country of blizzards and gold, starvation and plenty
with a man named Henry Carroll, to whom Red Mike had already made
reference in the foregoing conversation.
In the mind of Lynne there was here and there a hazy recollection of
some of the lesser things that had happened to him after he so nearly
died of exposure and injuries in the far north; but in the main he knew
nothing of those intervening years, and had known little or nothing of
himself, not even his name, until a short time before Patsy found him,
to bear out the proof that the impostor in the East, Henry Carroll, was
not the heir to so many millions.
And the young man, as yet only twenty-six, was still an invalid,
although he had lost nothing of his old spirit and daring--and back of
the date when he had fallen exhausted in the snow and had been left for
dead, his memory was clear enough.
Therefore, naturally, he remembered the man who had intruded upon him in
his sleeping room in the Lynne mansion in New York City, which he had
been in possession of so short a time--for everything that had happened
to him before that dreadful experience was as strong in his recollection
as if the happening had been yesterday.
And this Red Mike had been one of the bad characters of that former
experience in the Klondike.
He had been a bad man and a dangerous one, until he was cornered; but at
such times, like others of his ilk, he had inevitably proved himself an
unconscionable coward.
Mike had been at one time the proprietor of a saloon, a gambler, and
everything that was bad; he had been a sluice robber, a road agent, a
thief, a bully, and he had been suspected of at least one murder done in
cold blood, where the victim had been shot in the back, and without an
opportunity to defend himself.
But there had been no proof of it, and he had not been made to suffer
the consequences of it, as should have been the case.
And once upon a time, when Lynne and Carroll and two others had found
the man lost in the snow and near the point of perishing they had
rescued him and saved his life.
Most men would be grateful forever for such an act of succor, but it had
seemed to incur the enmity and hatred of Red Mike, rather than his
friendliness.
And then, just before Lynne started out on the trail which was to be his
last one in that country--the time he was supposed to have lost his
life--Lynne had had occasion to administer a thorough thrashing to the
Red one.
These are small things, to be sure, but with a character like Red
Mike’s there is no such thing as forgetting them--and Mike had not
forgotten.
And Mike, with all his roughness, uncouth manners, and scoundrelly
principles, was a well-educated, well-bred person, who had gone wrong,
or whose natural propensities for evil had dominated every other impulse
within him.
Just why Mike should be there in that room at the dead of night, Lynne
did not know, and at the moment could not guess, although he thought
that he could read between the lines and conjecture upon it vaguely.
Carleton Lynne recalled the fact that once when he was in the company of
Henry Carroll--now on his way to the death chair at Sing Sing--and this
same Red Mike, he had been led to talk about his rich uncle in the East,
J. Cephas Lynne, and to speak of the millions possessed by that relative
whom he had not seen since he was a child; and since Patsy found
Carleton Lynne in Idaho, and had related to him all that had happened to
bring about the death of J. Cephas Lynne and his only daughter, Edythe,
and to take to New York a man who personated Carleton Lynne--well, the
rightful heir had been enabled to understand something of the conditions
that had brought about such a strange circumstance; or rather, such a
condition of circumstances.
He could understand, or thought he could, how, after he was supposed to
be dead, Carroll had remembered that conversation in which reference to
the rich uncle had been made; how Carroll had looked the matter up, had
learned of the death of Cephas Lynne and the daughter, and that the
great fortune was going a-begging.
And so--well, Henry Carroll had possessed himself of the papers and old
photographs of his supposedly dead associate, and had finally gone East
to impersonate Lynne, and to make claim to the fortune.
And now, as Lynne faced Red Mike, there in his own sleeping room, he
could understand, too, how the desperado had been all the time on the
track of Carroll, resolved that he would force some kind of a division
of the wealth from the man who had once been Lynne’s partner.
But then things had taken another turn.
Carroll had fallen under the influence of a woman--Mrs. Hurd-Babbington;
he had committed the crimes which were speeding him toward the death
chair, and the rightful heir had been found in this man who was now
sitting so calmly in his bed, facing the armed man who had intruded upon
the privacy of his room in the dead of night.
That was the exact situation at the moment as nearly as it can be
explained here.
There had been no difficulty in establishing the identity of the real
Carleton Lynne, and in proving his right to inherit the millions of J.
Cephas Lynne, and so now, at this moment, he was the master of
millions--and be it said, as little affected by that mastery as if they
had been counted by units instead of by hundreds of thousands.
Nevertheless, Lynne knew thoroughly well the character of the man who
threatened him.
A coward to the backbone, he was none the less dangerous with the power
in his possession, as it now was, to murder a defenseless man; and
again, this man, without a single trait of character that made for good,
understood perfectly well the character of the man in the bed; knew that
he could accept that man’s word, and that if given, it would be kept.
And so, with the pistol in his hand, he demanded such a promise, on pain
of death.
Put yourself in such a place for a moment, in thought, and consider what
you would do under such circumstances.
Suppose yourself to be as yet barely convalescent after a long and
severe illness, with all your strength sapped and gone, and with no
physical ability to cope with such a person as Red Mike.
What would you do, if, being the possessor of many millions, you were
awakened from your sleep under just such conditions?
The answer is obvious, of course.
You, and I, and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of every thousand
would give the required promise readily enough, and as readily break it,
convinced that a promise given under such conditions cannot be a sacred
one, and should therefore not be kept.
But not so Carleton Lynne.
Red Mike was well aware of the one weakness of this new master of
millions, and he was smart enough to play upon it--for it is a weakness
to have set up one principle on a pedestal, and to have sworn that no
sort of condition would ever compel a departure from it.
Well, then, what would you do, under such circumstances, if it were
morally as impossible for you to give your word and then break it, as it
were physically impossible for you to throw the intruder out of the
window?
There does not seem to be much left that it could be possible to do,
does there?
Lynne hitched himself still higher in the bed and threw back the
clothing that covered him; then, clad only in his pajamas, he swung his
legs around over the side of the bed, and thrust his feet into a pair of
bath slippers that were within reach.
Then he sat quite still, with his hands resting on his knees, while he
bent forward just a little and peered smilingly into the face of the
burly, red-headed, but nevertheless handsome, scoundrel who was now
holding the automatic pistol with the muzzle of it covering his heart.
The thing that had awakened Lynne from sleep was the switching on of the
electric lights when Mike entered the room, so that now, with four
incandescents glowing, the room was shadowless.
“No funny business now, Lynne,” said the intruder. “You can give me that
promise just as well without getting out of bed--so stay there.”
“Well, I won’t stay there, Mike, and that’s all about it,” was the cool
reply. “I’ve got to think this thing over.”
“Rats! There isn’t anything to think over. All you’ve got to say is
‘yes; I’ll do it, Mike,’ and after you have said that, we’ll arrange the
details, and then I’ll put my gun back in my pocket, and hit the trail.
You can do that just as well where you are, as----”
“Look here, Mike, a man doesn’t give away two millions without making
conditions, does he? You wouldn’t, would you?”
Red Mike permitted himself to grin.
“Well, make your conditions where you are, then. I’ll agree to ’em.”
“I won’t do it. Shoot, if you want to; but I won’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make any verbal conditions with you. You’d agree to anything, and break
your agreement the next hour. I know you.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“Before I make any promises, such as you demand, I’m going to draw up a
paper which you have got to sign with your full name.”
“Oh; I have, eh? Well, maybe I won’t do that, Lynne.”
“Then you won’t get any promise out of me; that’s flat; not with twenty
automatics in your hands.”
Saying this, Lynne kicked off the slippers, and made as if to return to
the bedcoverings.
“Hold on there,” Mike exclaimed. “What kind of a paper do you want to
write?”
“You’ll know what it is after I have written it and you have read it
over.”
The reader will see by all this that notwithstanding the years that had
passed since any former meeting between these two men, Lynne
nevertheless knew his man perfectly well. If he had permitted himself to
be bullied at all, there would have been nothing for him to do but to
comply with the demands that were made upon him. But, by pretending that
he was at the point of consent, and then insisting upon certain useless
forms, Lynne believed that an opportunity could be found to do the thing
he had determined to attempt in order to escape from the present
predicament.
“Where do you want to write it? At that desk over there?”
“Probably.”
“Have you got a gun, or any sort of weapon hidden away in that desk,
where you can get your hand on it?”
“No.”
“Are you going to make that promise?”
“We will discuss that after you have consented to sign the paper I shall
draw,” was the calm reply. “Not before.”
“All right. Go to the desk and write it. But, mind you, Lynne, I shall
watch every move you make, and if I so much as see an indication on your
part of trying to get out of this scrape, I’ll turn this gun loose, and
you’ll get eight bullets in your back faster’n you could count ’em.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
TURNING THE TABLES.
Carleton Lynne seated himself at the desk, drew some sheets of paper
toward him, and began to write.
He did not once turn his head to look behind him, although he could,
from time to time, hear Red Mike, as the desperado shifted his position,
or his legs; and once he heard him strike a match, and presently smelled
the odor of tobacco. The fellow had rolled himself a cigarette,
evidently; had laid aside the gun long enough to do that.
This, of itself, was promising. The man was relaxing his vigilance
possibly.
Lynne wrote on in silence.
He scarcely thought of what he was writing, his thoughts being busy with
the exigencies of the moment; and yet he wrote succinctly for all of
that, for he was well aware of the fact that he had an educated man to
deal with, and one who was more than ordinarily shrewd in his way.
Nevertheless Lynne had no intention of making the promise that had been
demanded of him; he was seeking only time to think up a way out of the
dilemma in which he was involved.
He wrote slowly--very slowly indeed, killing all the time he could; and
after a time the continued uneasy stirring of Red Mike in the chair
behind him told him that the man was fast becoming impatient.
“Say, what are you up to, anyway, Lynne?” was the impatient demand that
came, after a time. “Do you suppose that I want to spend the balance of
the night here?”
Lynne shrugged his shoulders and wrote on, without reply.
“How long is that bloody document going to be?” was the next demand.
No reply.
“What is it all about, anyhow?”
“I’m nearly through now, Red,” was the reply, this time. “Just a moment
more.”
There was another interval of silence, and then Lynne laid aside the
pen, picked up the paper upon which he had been writing, and pretended
to read over what he had written with great care; and all the time Red
Mike watched him with close attention.
Presently Lynne dropped the hand that held the paper at his side, and
raised his eyes to the man who confronted him, for he had turned in his
chair when he began to read over the contents of the paper.
“Well,” said Mike, “is it ready?”
“Yes. Shall I read it to you, or do you prefer to read it for yourself?”
“I reckon, maybe, if I’ve got to sign it, I’d better read it myself;
eh?”
“As you please.”
“Suppose I won’t sign it after I have read it?”
“Then you won’t get any promise from me; that’s all.”
“Not even with this?” he raised the gun threateningly.
“No, not even with that; not with a dozen of them,” was the decided
reply.
“All right. Let’s see it. We’ll talk over the particulars afterward.”
Lynne bent forward and passed the paper to him; but as Red Mike took it
in his hand, he did not remove his eyes from the face of Lynne; and,
after a moment, he exclaimed:
“Say, Lynne, you’d better get back into that bed. You look--well, you
look all in. You’re a heap sicker than I thought you were.”
“The exertion--of getting up--and writing--this--was a little--too
much--for me--I suppose,” replied Lynne, staggering to his feet and
groping out with his hands as one does who is walking in the dark and is
fearful of colliding with some obstacle.
He reeled a little where he stood, and then essayed to move toward the
bed, while Mike, bending toward him, watched every move as if he did not
know whether to assist the sick man or not.
Lynne took a tottering step toward the bed; then another one; he raised
his right hand to his forehead and pressed it there; he staggered again;
and then, just as Red Mike started to rise from his chair, probably to
lend assistance, Lynne pitched forward full upon him, overturning chair
and man together at the same instant, and they went to the floor
together, for despite the sickness that Lynne had undergone he was still
a heavy man.
The reader has suspected, of course, that Lynne was counterfeiting this
attack of faintness; that he was dissembling. Red Mike did not suspect
it, however; it was too well done--and it was the only method that Lynne
had been able to think of by which there was the slightest possibility
of his gaining the upper hand.
So, when he did fall forward, he fell with a dead weight; and he took
care to cast that weight all upon the side of the other man where the
automatic gun was still grasped in the right hand; and as he fell, he
made use of a pin that he had picked up from the desk where he had been
writing. It was, in fact, the pin that had really suggested the act he
was endeavoring now to carry out.
He held it between the thumb and finger of the hand he had pressed
against his forehead, and, as he fell forward, he threw that hand out so
that it came into sharp contact with Red Mike’s right hand, which held
the gun.
If you had been a witness to the scene, you would have said that Lynne’s
chin and hand fell somewhere upon Red Mike’s firearm, at the same
instant--and you would have been astonished at the consequence of it.
The sharp prick of a pin, ungently prodded, will sometimes produce great
results, for the pain from it is unexpected, and is always acute.
That this one was prodded downward into the wrist of Red Mike by no
gentle thrust may well be believed, and the man uttered a sharp
exclamation of pain, while his fingers unclasped themselves from around
the butt of the gun so that it fell to the floor even before the men did
so.
Lynne knew perfectly well that he could do nothing with the gun by
seeking to make use of it at once.
In his weakened condition, at that close range, while he was still
practically within the grasp of Red Mike, the latter would have no
difficulty in taking the weapon from him; in repossessing himself of it.
Therefore Lynne carried out his first intention--the first plan he had
made when he found the pin on the desk; he rolled on his back, upon the
weapon, so that he covered it with his body, and, throwing out his arms
at right angles with his body, simulated complete unconsciousness as
best he could.
And that best that he could do seemed to be sufficient for the limited
experience of Red Mike in such matters.
Cursing none too mildly, but yet in a tone that was subdued for the
occasion, and nursing his right wrist with his left hand, he struggled
to his feet again and looked down upon the fallen man, for the moment,
evidently, forgetful of the gun.
“Dead?” he asked himself, aloud; then he bent forward and pressed his
left hand over the region of Lynne’s heart.
He could plainly feel the beat of it, and he straightened up again--and
it was then that he missed possession of the weapon and cast about him
with his eyes in search of it.
Lynne was lying perfectly still on his back with his arms stretched out
at right angles with his body, to all appearance unconscious.
“It’s under him, I suppose,” Lynne heard him mutter, and Mike stooped
over as if with the intention of recovering it; and still Lynne had the
courage and the strength of purpose to wait, for he knew how utterly
impossible it would be for him to cope with Red Mike, under present
conditions.
It was the one thing that he had feared in the carrying out of his
plans; that Red Mike would insist upon regaining possession of the
weapon at once, and it seemed as if such was about to be the case.
If so, Lynne knew that he would have to wait until there was an
opportunity to attempt some other expedient.
But a diversion occurred.
The paper upon which Lynne had been writing, and which he had given into
the left hand of Red Mike just before the instant of falling in the
well-stimulated faint, was now on the floor, half a dozen feet away.
It caught the eye of Red Mike, even as he bent forward to recover the
weapon, and he half straightened up again, muttering aloud as he did so:
“I might as well read that over before he comes around.”
Still he hesitated, however; then he turned and picked up the sheet of
paper, and began to read.
In order that you who read may understand the ingenuity of Carleton
Lynne, and may realize how thoroughly he understood the character of the
man with whom he had to deal, we will quote the opening paragraph of
that document, for it was really that which spared his life and which
saved the two million dollars that had been demanded of him.
“I, Mike McManus, known as Red Mike, late of the Klondike, former thief,
road agent, and murderer”--Red Mike read that far, and stopped, looking
across the top of the paper at the apparently insensible form upon the
floor, and scowling darkly.
Then he lowered the paper a trifle and shook his fist at the prostrate
man.
“I’ll even up with you, all right, all right, when I get those two
millions in my jeans, mister man,” he growled. “But I may as well read
all the slush he’s got written down here while he’s unconscious;” and he
read on again.
“Gambler, confidence man, and crook, agree herein over my signature that
upon the condition that I receive two million dollars in cash from the
hand of Carleton Lynne, to be paid to me at a time and place hereafter
to be agreed upon, I will fulfill each and every condition and
stipulation herein set forth by said Lynne as conditions precedent to
the said payment of said sum as aforesaid, binding myself----”
Red Mike paused long enough to glance over the paper at Lynne, on the
floor. Then he stooped and picked up the fallen chair, righted it, and
seated himself upon it.
With yet another glance toward Lynne to assure himself that
unconsciousness still prevailed, he raised the paper again, and
continued the reading; and while he did so Lynne half opened his eyes,
and sighed.
Mike looked up quickly.
“Coming around, eh?” he said, with a laugh.
There was no reply, only Lynne’s eyes continued to stare rather vacantly
at Mike.
“Say, did you hear me?”
A faint nod was the only reply, and the eyes closed again. Mike shrugged
his shoulders and resumed the reading of the paper; he was reading the
conditions now, and they proved to be of interest.
Lynne moved his right arm, placed that hand to his head, and then
dropped it back upon the floor again, in its former position. Mike
looked up, saw the act, and continued to read.
Lynne repeated the performance; then he did it a third time; then a
fourth; then a fifth, and at the fifth time Mike paid no attention to
him.
Each time that Lynne’s hand fell back to the floor, it came down a
trifle closer to his body, and when it fell the sixth time it shot
beneath him and grasped the butt of the gun.
Mike saw the act this time and started forward; but he was not quick
enough.
The gun was leveled at him before he could grasp the hand that held it,
and the calm voice of Carleton Lynne said:
“Put up your hands, Mike, and do it now! I’ve got strength enough to
send a couple of these eight bullets into you before you can reach me.
Sit down again on that chair, and we’ll discuss the details, Michael.”
CHAPTER XXX.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
It has been said that Red Mike was a coward at heart. He proved it now.
With the muzzle of the automatic aiming at his heart he was no match for
the sick man on the floor, who had now raised himself to one elbow and
was smiling, well pleased by the turn that events had taken.
He raised his hands above his head as he had been commanded to do--and
we need not repeat the language he used as he did so.
While he was swearing, Lynne slowly raised himself to his feet, all the
time holding the gun in that threatening position.
Then he backed across the room toward a push button in the wall near the
door, and with his disengaged hand, pressed upon it, and kept on
pressing.
After a wait which seemed very long, which, in reality, was quite short,
considering the hour, and during which Red Mike continued to swear and
threaten, there was a sharp rap on the door, and, in obedience to
Lynne’s summons, a manservant entered the room.
He came to a halt and stared when he saw the situation; but Lynne’s
voice addressed him calmly.
“Lift that engraving from its place against the wall, Thomas,” he said.
“I want you to use the wire cord to bind this fellow. Wind it two or
three times around his wrists with his hands behind him; then ask him to
sit down while you do up his ankles in the same manner.”
Lynne watched the proceeding while his orders were being carried out,
all the time with that inscrutable smile on his face.
When it was done, he said:
“Now go to the telephone for me. You remember Mr. Carter’s number, do
you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call him up. Ask him if he will be good enough to come here at once.
Tell him that it is important; otherwise I would not make the request.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If he should ask you what is the matter, explain to him that--well,
just explain the situation just as you see it and understand it. That
will be sufficient till he gets here.”
“But I do not understand it, sir.”
“Neither will he--till he gets here. Go now. Remember, Mr. Carter in
person, if he is at home. If he is not, then either one of his
assistants.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lynne crossed the room and managed to turn the chair upon which Mike was
seated, so that it faced the bed; then, still holding the gun in his
hand, he got into the bed again and propped the pillows behind him.
Red Mike was still swearing and calling names, and threatening what he
would do when the opportunity offered, even if such opportunity happened
a thousand years hence; but he came to a stop and stared in amazement
when Lynne returned to the bed.
“You’re a cool one!” he ejaculated for the second time since he had
entered that room.
“Precisely; and you’re a hot one--just now,” was the reply.
“Well, you’ve got me--what are you going to do with me, Lynne?”
“I shall let Nick Carter determine that, Mike.”
“Then I see my finish.”
“Possibly.”
“I haven’t stolen anything.”
“No, but you have broken and entered; that constitutes burglary whether
you steal anything or not.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“As I said before, we will let the detective decide about that, Mike.
You’re in bad, if anybody should ask you. Who is the woman, Mike?”
“What woman?”
“The one we have already spoken about; the one who sent you here
to-night. Who is she?”
“There isn’t any woman.”
“More lies.”
“Take it or leave it; it doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“No?”
“Not the slightest.”
“How long have you known Madge Babbington?”
“Aw, go chase yourself.”
Lynne was really very tired from the exertions he had undergone, and so
he half closed his eyes and settled himself back among the pillows to
rest until Nick Carter should arrive.
He had an idea, born of the experiences of the last hour, which he now
decided to propose to the detective when they were together, and--well,
something might come of it for the general betterment of conditions.
Thinking deeply upon it, he dozed, tired out as he was.
He forgot, for the time being, the propinquity of that other man whom he
had captured so dexterously.
He forgot that the lynx-eyed gentleman from the Klondike was watching
him narrowly, taking note of every breath he drew, and calculating the
length of them in order to be made aware of the moment when Lynne should
sleep.
Now and then while he watched, Lynne opened his eyes lazily, and then
closed them again.
He had directed Thomas to wait at the door for the arrival of the
detective, and he began, drowsily, to think that it was taking Nick
Carter an unconscionably long time to get there.
Red Mike thought that the time was going all too swiftly for his
purposes.
He was a dexterous fellow, was Red Mike.
His long experience as a gambler had softened his hands, and made them
unusually pliable; they were small hands, too, for such a large man--for
such a muscular individual as he was; and he possessed that peculiar
utility of the joints which is described by the compound word
double-jointed.
While he watched the now sleeping man, he was busily engaged with his
wrist and fingers behind his back, and although the feat would have been
impossible to a large percentage of men, he did succeed in twisting them
so that he was enabled to reach the ends of the wire cord with which
Thomas had bound him.
It was slow work at first, but he persisted, and--well, the moment came
when the wire fell away from his wrists and his hands were free.
He did not attempt, just then, to free his ankles, too. There would be
time enough for that, afterward; and besides, the risk of arousing the
sleeper was too great.
But he got upon his feet, bound together side by side though they were;
he succeeded in poising himself for an instant, and then with one mighty
leap he propelled himself forward, his arms outstretched, his hands
opened to seize upon the throat of the sleeping and exhausted man.
His fingers clutched Lynne’s throat, and tightened upon it.
Lynne struggled feebly, but with no avail against the great strength of
Red Mike.
Then, just at the instant when the desperado would have finished the job
so thoroughly begun, he heard the sound of voices from the lower hall of
the house, for his ears had been acutely strained to catch such sounds,
all the time.
With a last added squeeze of his fingers upon that white throat, Red
Mike sprang away from the bed, toward another door than the one by which
Thomas had entered the room--toward the one, in fact, by which he had
made his own entrance, for he had left a way open for retreat in case of
necessity.
As he darted away from the bed his glance fell upon the automatic
pistol, and he seized it and had reached the door before he remembered
to be sorry that he had not stopped long enough to use it on Lynne.
Then another thought occurred to him, and he smiled grimly while he
stood there at the door and waited.
He knew that the other door would be thrown open in a moment, and he
expected that the person who would appear when that should happen, would
be Nick Carter.
It was an opportunity not to be lost; one which, from his standpoint,
was well worth waiting for.
And then the opportunity came.
The door he was watching did swing open, and a figure did appear in the
aperture; and instantly the crang! crang! of the weapon crashed through
the room.
The man in the doorway, his hand still upon the doorknob, fell backward,
dragging the door shut after him, and with a laugh Red Mike turned the
weapon upon the man on the bed and let drive two more bullets in that
direction.
The four reports sounded more rapidly than one would care to count, and
with the last one Mike disappeared beyond the door he had been holding
open with his left hand while he fired the shots.
Even as that door closed behind him--and he locked it on the opposite
side, for he had provided for that also before he entered the room at
all--the other door was thrown violently open again, and Nick Carter
leaped into the room; leaped across the figure of a man who was almost
on the threshold, and who was trying even then to regain his feet.
The pungent, half-suffocating odor of smokeless powder was in the room,
but there was no way of telling which way the would-be assassin had
escaped from it, and Nick, perceiving that Carleton Lynne had raised
himself upon the bed, and that there was blood upon one of his
shoulders, showing that he had been wounded, sprang to him instead of
giving immediate chase after the man who had fired the shots.
But Lynne was wearing that habitual smile of his by the time the
detective got to him.
“It’s only a scratch,” he said. “Just a mere touch on the shoulder.
Where----”
He paused. Thomas had entered the room holding one hand against his
head, and it was stained like his own shoulder.
“Why, Thomas,” he said, “did he get you?”
“No, sir, but it was a close call, for all that. A mighty close call.
Took the top off’n my left ear, sir, and the other bullet took some of
the bark off’n me just above the ear. But I’m none the worse for it,
sir.”
Nick, who had in the meantime been examining the wounded shoulder which
proved to have received no more than a flesh wound, and who was now
binding the slight abrasion of the skin, asked:
“What was it all about, Lynne? Just a burglar, who----”
“More than that, Carter,” was the reply, before the detective could
complete the question. “It was one of my old Klondike acquaintances; one
who followed Carroll here, and who came here to-night to ask me for two
million dollars. Gee, but I’m sorry he got away!”
“Who was he?--and what?”
“Red Mike, by name. He used to be called the Bad Man of Nome, once upon
a time.”
“He came here to ask you for what?”
“Two millions, no less; and he as good as admitted that he was spurred
to the effort by an old acquaintance of yours.”
“Do you mean--who do you mean, Lynne?”
“I refer to Mrs. Madge Hurd-Babbington,” was the smiling reply.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A BAFFLING SITUATION.
It was in the afternoon of the second day after the events related in
the preceding chapters that Nick Carter, seated at his desk in his study
in Madison Avenue, reached for the telephone in response to a ring upon
it.
“Hello,” he said. “Who is it?”
“Am I speaking to Mr. Carter?” came the reply.
“Yes.”
“This is Thomas--confidential servant to Mr. Carleton Lynne,” said the
voice at the other end of the telephone.
“Yes? Well, Thomas, what is wanted?”
“A strange thing has happened here, sir, and if it is possible I wish
you would come to the house at once in the interest of Mr. Lynne.”
“Certainly; I can go there if he wishes me to do so, Thomas. Did he ask
you to telephone to me?”
“No, sir; he is not here, sir; that is what the trouble is. He seems to
have disappeared entirely within the last few hours. I am greatly
troubled, Mr. Carter, else I would not have presumed to call upon you.”
The detective smiled to himself, then he replied:
“Thomas, I am greatly afraid that you are nervous. Your master has
disappeared, you tell me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Gentlemen do not disappear from their own houses at midday, Thomas.
Tell me exactly what has happened, and I will determine for myself
whether it is necessary for me to go there.”
“You know, sir, that Mr. Lynne has not been out of the house--scarcely
out of his own room--since the events of the other night, when that Red
Mike came here and so nearly murdered him?”
“And you also; yes.”
“Well, sir, he is gone now, and I do not know where he has gone.”
Nick Carter permitted himself to chuckle.
“Possibly he has become tired of being kept in the house against his
will, and has taken advantage of a temporary absence on your part, has
dressed himself quietly, and gone out for a walk.”
“I don’t think so, sir. I don’t think that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know him so well that I am certain he would not do a thing
like that. He is still so weak that he would not think of going out
without me.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” replied the detective.
“I am, sir, if you will pardon me for saying so.”
“Oh, well----”
“I really think, sir, that you ought to come here if you can spare the
time.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll be there inside of half an hour, Thomas.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carter.”
And so it happened that half an hour later Danny, the chauffeur, stopped
the detective’s car before the door of the Lynne mansion, and Nick
Carter, followed by Patsy, entered the big house.
Thomas, who had been on the watch for them, opened the door as they
approached, admitting them at once; then he took their hats, and in
silence led the way up the wide stairway to the second floor, and so
into the sitting room of the suite that was devoted to the service of
the last of the Lynnes.
“I thought it best to bring you directly to these rooms, sir,” Thomas
said, addressing the detective. “I have not said a word to any of the
other servants as yet. I have not even asked any questions of any of
them, except general ones--enough to satisfy me that not one of them
knows a thing about the going out of Mr. Lynne.”
“I am afraid, Thomas, that in this case you have been almost too
discreet,” replied the detective. “Probably if you had asked a few
direct questions, you would have found the reply to every question that
troubles you now.”
“Pardon me, sir, but I don’t think so.”
“Well, tell me the story.” Nick glanced at his watch. “It is half-past
four now. What time did you last see your master?”
“Shortly after noon, sir; between half-past twelve and one o’clock.”
“And then--he was where?”
“Seated in that chair, near the window. He had been reading. He was not
dressed, save for his underclothing and a bath robe.”
“Well?”
“He rang for me, Mr. Carter. When I came into the room he directed me to
assist him to dress. He put on his trousers, his shirt, slippers, and a
smoking jacket. Then he sent me away, saying that was all. But as I was
going out at the door, he called to me, and said:
“‘Thomas, I am expecting a caller--a lady. When she arrives you may let
me know, and assist me down the stairs. I will receive her in the
library.’”
“A lady?” said Nick.
“Yes, sir, that is what he said.”
“Well, what more did he say on the subject?”
“This: ‘According to the note I received, she should be here about
half-past one, or two o’clock. Be on the watch for her, Thomas.’
“I assured him that I would be, sir, and left him. I have not seen him
since that moment, and I have not----”
“Wait a moment. Don’t get ahead of your story.”
“No, sir.”
“Did the lady keep the appointment?”
“No, sir. There has been nobody here at all.”
“No caller of any description?”
“No, sir; nobody.”
“Are you quite certain of that?”
“I am absolutely positive--for two reasons.”
“What are they?”
“One is that I watched the door myself as Mr. Lynne had directed me to
do; the other is that since I have discovered that he is not here, I
have--very guardedly, of course--questioned the other servants who
might have admitted any person.”
“Well?”
“Nobody has been here. Since half-past twelve o’clock to-day, until you
arrived, there has been no summons at the door at all. I am positive of
that.”
“Have you looked through the house? It is a big place. Mr. Lynne might
have----”
“I have searched everywhere, sir. He is not in the house. Of that I am
certain.”
“And no one saw him go out?”
“No, sir. I am the only person in the house who has seen Mr. Lynne at
all to-day. I am his personal attendant, as you know. I wait upon him
and look after his wants, and he has been so long accustomed to waiting
upon himself that only his weakness from his recent illness permits
that. He does not like to have any one else around him.”
“Yes, I have heard him say as much. Whose duty is it to attend to the
door? How many servants are there in the house?”
“There are only four of us, sir: The housekeeper, the cook, the footman,
and myself. The footman attends the door when the necessity arises, but
we have had very few callers since we came here to live, as you are
doubtless aware.”
“Yes.”
“You questioned the footman, you say?”
“Yes, sir. He was, during all that time, within sight of the front door,
and within sound of the bell, for I had told him of the expected caller.
No one came, and he did not see Mr. Lynne. And I might add, Mr. Carter,
that I was personally within sight and sound of the door and the bell,
also, and that I neither heard nor saw anything.”
“There are two side entrances to the house, Thomas.”
“Both are locked and bolted on the inside, sir, and have been all the
time.”
“There is the rear entrance, also.”
“Yes, sir; but to pass out from the house that way, Mr. Lynne would have
been obliged to walk around by the cemented walk to the front of the
residence in order to go upon the street. The gardener has been employed
all day close to that walk, and he has seen nothing of Mr. Lynne.
Besides--oh, well, sir, I am sure that he did not go out that way.”
“Still he may have done so, and gone to the garage.”
“No, sir. The chauffeur has been there all day. He has seen nothing of
Mr. Lynne.”
The detective seated himself upon one of the chairs near at hand and
looked long and earnestly into the face of the servant who was relating
this remarkable tale. At last he said:
“Thomas, nine men out of ten, listening to your story, would accuse you
of doing some deliberate lying, having been directed to do so by your
master, who, for some reason chose to create this mystery; or having
your own private and personal reasons for doing it.”
“I am telling you nothing but the truth, sir, so far as I know it.”
Nick made no reply. The servant continued:
“Why should Mr. Lynne wish to create such a mystery, even if he were in
good health, and had the strength and agility to get around
unaided?--which you know he had not. And what possible incentive could I
have----”
“I was turning those very questions over in my mind, Thomas. It is quite
evident that Mr. Lynne is not here.”
“Quite so, sir; nor anywhere else in the house. I have searched
everywhere.”
“Well, if he did not leave it by any of the routes we have mentioned,
how could he have gone out?”
“That is just the puzzle, sir. There isn’t any way.”
“Well, if there isn’t any way to go out, he has not gone out. That’s a
cinch!” It was Patsy, who had remained silent hitherto, who made this
remark; and then, after a very short interval of silence, he added: “And
if he did go out, it follows that there is a way for him to have done
it.”
“Patsy,” said the detective, “that ingenious statement on your part
deserves a medal. Now, Thomas?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring me the letters that you took to Mr. Lynne this morning. That
announcement that he was to receive a caller must be contained in one of
them.”
“Yes, sir. He said as much as that when he told me about it. Here they
are, Mr. Carter.”
Thomas took four letters from a taboret beside the chair that Lynne was
in the habit of using, and the very first one that the detective
examined, addressed in a handwriting which Nick recognized instantly,
was as follows:
“DEAR MR. LYNNE: I shall call upon you to-morrow shortly after
noon. You may expect me without fail; and also you may expect to
hear something of vital interest to you, and to others, also.
“Wednesday.
MADGE HURD-BABBINGTON.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE WOMAN IN THE CASE.
Having read the short note, the detective passed it to his assistant,
Patsy.
“What do you make of it, Patsy?” he asked.
“Just what it says; no more,” was the reply.
“Madge has usually been a woman of her word, particularly when that word
contained the suggestion of a threat,” said the detective.
“That is precisely what I was thinking, chief.”
“This is her handwriting, too; there is no doubt of that?”
“Yes.”
“So it is more than likely that she came; that she kept the engagement;
at least, that is what I would suppose if it were not for the statements
of Thomas to the contrary.”
“Possibly that footman at the door was bribed,” suggested Patsy; but
Thomas immediately interrupted:
“No, sir. He isn’t smart enough to have dissembled about it
afterward--and besides, I was personally within sight and sound of the
door all the time. The woman did not appear.”
Nick, who had been looking about him within the room, and with more
interest since he had read the note, now stepped suddenly forward, and,
stooping, picked something up from the floor beside one of the huge
leather rockers--one that faced the big chair in which the servant said
that Lynne was seated when last he saw his master.
It was a dainty lace handkerchief, redolent with a perfume that the
detective knew to be much affected by Mrs. Babbington. He had noticed it
particularly on the several occasions when he had been in her company.
But, as if that were not sufficient testimony to satisfy him, although
it was, quite, the initials M. H. and B. were embroidered upon it.
Plainly the handkerchief had once been the property of Madge Babbington.
He gazed at the handkerchief for a moment, then passed it to Thomas.
“How do you account for the presence here of this?” he demanded. “You
say that the woman has not been here; this handkerchief says just as
plainly that she has been here. How do you explain the discrepancy?”
“I cannot even attempt to do that, Mr. Carter,” was the decided reply.
“That handkerchief says as plainly as words that Mrs. Babbington has
been in this room, Thomas--unless you can account for it in some other
manner.”
“I cannot do that, sir. It was not here--at least it was not on the
floor where you found it, when I brushed up the room and rearranged the
chairs, this morning.”
“Then how did it get here?”
“I will not attempt to say, Mr. Carter.”
“It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that the handkerchief was brought
here by some person--probably by the woman herself?”
“Yes, sir; it would seem so.”
“Then how did she get here--without your knowledge?”
Thomas was plainly dismayed, but he was none the less insistent for all
that.
“Unless she flew in through the open window, or came down the chimney
and through the fireplace, there is absolutely no way that I know about
by which she could have gained admission to this room without being seen
by me, or by the footman,” he said calmly.
“Or by the gardener,” suggested Patsy.
“Unless you are purposely deceiving us,” said the detective.
“I am not deceiving you, Mr. Carter,” Thomas replied, not without an
assumption of dignity at being thus accused.
Patsy, without saying what his intention was, left them and passed out
of the room. Nick steadily studied the face of the servant for some
time; then he said:
“I believe you, Thomas. You are not deceiving me, or attempting to do
so. This is a very strange circumstance.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you account for every moment of your time between half-past twelve
o’clock, and the time when you telephoned to me?”
“Yes, sir. I have already done that. I have no desire to change anything
that I have said about it.”
“When Mr. Lynne rang for you, and you assisted him to dress, in part, it
was approximately half-past twelve, you say?”
“It was between that time, and one o’clock; yes, sir.”
“It was four o’clock when you telephoned to me. Had you only just missed
Mr. Lynne?”
“No, sir. It was a quarter to three when I missed him.”
“What happened in the interval between then and four o’clock?”
“I was searching through the house, and making the inquiries I told you
about.”
“It required three-quarters of an hour to do all that?”
“That is the time I took for it, before I convinced myself that it would
be wise to communicate with you, Mr. Carter.”
“What brought you to this room at a quarter to three?”
“It was the hour for Mr. Lynne’s tonic. He takes it every four hours.”
As Thomas made this statement he half turned toward a table across the
room; then he gave a start, and uttered a quick exclamation.
“What is it?” asked the detective.
“The tonic is not here,” was the reply.
“The tonic? Gone, you say?”
“Yes, sir. It was in a bottle on that table, with a small graduate
beside it. Both are missing. Neither one is there now.”
“Humph!” said the detective. “Evidently Lynne--or the lady who called
upon him--had an eye to his continued improvement when he went away, or
was taken away from here. Now, look here, Thomas.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We will say that you last saw your master in this room at a quarter to
one o’clock. You were back here again, to administer his medicine, at a
quarter to three.”
“That is correct, Mr. Carter.”
“So, if he went away, or was taken away from this room by others, it
must have happened within those two hours.”
“Without any question, Mr. Carter.”
“Where were you during those two hours?”
“I spent the entire time, during those two hours, in a small reception
room that is at the right of the front door, as you come into the hall,
Mr. Carter. I sat at the window from which I could see any person who
might come up the steps to the door, without effort, and merely by
raising my eyes from the morning paper which I was reading during most
of that time.”
“And you did not leave your post at all?”
“No, sir.”
“Not to get your luncheon?”
“No, sir. I directed Christopher, the footman, to bring me some tea and
toast and marmalade, which I ate there, at the window.”
“Is that your general habit?”
“Not at all; but Mr. Lynne had directed me to watch out for the lady he
expected to call upon him. I thought it best to be at the door to
receive her myself, rather than to permit Christopher to do it. I
thought--well, to tell you the truth, I thought from the manner in which
Mr. Lynne mentioned the subject to me, that the lady might be a
particular friend.”
“I see. It was merely your intention to be discreet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And when you left your post at the window of the reception room--what
then?”
“I did not leave it till the hour for Mr. Lynne’s medicine. I came
directly here to this room to discover that Mr. Lynne was not here.”
The door opened again at that moment, and Patsy entered the room. He was
followed by the gardener, whom he had evidently sought in the meantime,
and he said, as he entered:
“Chief, this man has some interesting information. I have been talking
with him.”
“What is it?”
The Lynne mansion was one of those modern palaces which during the last
ten years have been erected in many localities in the city of New York.
It occupied the half of a block fronting on the avenue, and was inclosed
on the street and avenue sides--the south and west--by a high,
wrought-iron fence of artistic design. The entrance to the grounds
surrounding the mansion was through a wide gate on the avenue, one-half
of which was usually kept open during the day. A concreted driveway led
to the front entrance which was thirty feet back from the fence. It
also extended to the garage at the rear, two hundred feet away. There
was a concreted pathway around the west side of the house.
Patsy replied to the detective’s question:
“He says that a woman, who wore a veil so that he could not see her
features, entered at the gate and passed around the house shortly after
he had had his dinner, which he eats in the servants’ quarters, after
the other servants have had theirs; that is, he eats at one o’clock.”
“All right. I’ll question him for myself. Now, my man, what time was it
when you saw the woman we are talking about?”
“I should say, sir, that it was soon after half-past one o’clock. It was
half-past one when I went out of the house after atin’, sir, and she
came along soon after that.”
“She came around by the path from the gate?”
“She did, sor.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“I spoke to her, sor. We don’t allow no strangers that we don’t know to
git past us, sor.”
“You say ‘we.’ Whom else do you mean besides yourself?”
“Nobody else now, sor. There used to be three of us, in the old days of
Mr. Cephas Lynne, sor.”
“Oh, you were here then, were you?”
“I was, sor.”
“Well, what was said between you and the woman?”
“I axed her where she was goin’ and who she wanted to see, sor, and she
said she was after takin’ the bundle she carried, to Mrs. Maguire, who
is the cook; and wid that I let her go on about her business.”
“What time did she go out again?”
“She didn’t go out ag’in, at all, at all, sor; leastwise I didn’t see
her if she did, and I was working forninst that path all the afternoon,
at that. And just now, sor, after this gentleman had been axin’ me about
it, I stopped and axed Mrs. Maguire what had become of the woman who
took the bundle to her, and sure, sor, Mrs. Maguire says that there
wasn’t any such woman at all, at all, and that she hadn’t got no bundle,
and she wanted to know what I was talkin’ about, so she did. Sure, the
woman didn’t go into the house at all, and didn’t see Mrs. Maguire, and
it’s my belief that she just walked around the house on the other side
of it where there is no cemented path, and went out again by the same
way she came in. She had a swate voice, so she did, and I’d guess her to
be young, and purty, too; but more than that, divil a bit do I know,
sor.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE MYSTERY GROWS DEEPER.
“What do you think of that, chief?” asked Patsy.
“It is interesting, lad. Now, Timothy--is that your name?”
“It is, sor. Timothy Tucker, from Cork, sor.”
“How was the woman dressed?”
“Faith, I dunno, sor; only her shoes were new and fine, and she seemed
dressed too well to be carryin’ bundles to cooks. She had on a long coat
that covered her all over, like them things they wears in automobiles.”
“You did not keep an eye on her after you directed her how to find Mrs.
Maguire?”
“No, sor. I wint on wid me worruk.”
“And forgot all about her, I suppose?”
“Faith, I did that--until this gintleman axed me about her.”
“That will do, Timothy. You may go, now; but you may forget all about
this interview, and not talk about it to others.”
“Yis, sor.”
“Well, Patsy,” said the detective, when the man was gone, “it is evident
that Mrs. Babbington did find a way to keep her engagement, after all.”
“So it seems. She dropped her handkerchief here, in this room; it was
she with whom the gardener spoke, outside the house; the hour agrees
with the time when she was probably in this room. How did she get here?”
“I give it up, chief.”
“I don’t suppose you questioned the cook and the housekeeper, did you?”
“I did. They both insist that no person could have passed them and
entered the house at the rear without being seen; while it is possible
for a person to walk past the rear of the house--that is, past the
windows where those two servants were, at the time--without being seen.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That she could have done as the gardener suggested, walked directly
around the house, and out of the grounds again by the same way she came
in.”
“But that would not account for her being in this room--or for Lynne’s
being gone from it, Patsy.”
“No--unless there is a window along the north side of the house by which
she might have entered, and have----”
“And by which she might have taken Lynne out? That is utter nonsense,
Patsy.”
“The whole affair looks like utter nonsense on the face of it, and
yet--well, it’s an affair, if anybody should ask you.”
“Quite right.”
“If I might speak now, sir,” said Thomas.
“Certainly. What is it?” replied the detective.
“I have already told you that I searched every room in the house as soon
as I missed Mr. Lynne.”
“Yes.”
“There is a door on the north side of the house, on the first floor,
that has not been opened since I have been here, and is still locked and
bolted as it was the first time I ever saw it. There is no window on
that side of the house that is not fastened securely. You may examine
them for yourself if you like, but I personally know such to be the
case.”
The detective pondered for a moment. He seemed to accept the statement
of the servant as final and convincing. His mind was considering other
matters, just then, than the method by which the unknown woman had been
admitted to the house.
“Thomas,” he said, after a moment, “have you looked to see what clothing
of Mr. Lynne’s is missing?”
“No, sir.”
“Do so. Make a thorough examination, and let me know of every article of
his clothing or otherwise that is gone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Patsy, make a thorough search of the room on your own account. I will
do the same after a moment. It is plain that Madge Babbington has been
here, and that she has either induced Lynne to go away with her
surreptitiously, or she has forced him to do so.”
Patsy nodded.
Nick crossed the room to the window near the chair where Lynne was in
the habit of sitting. The room was at the northwest corner of the house
and had windows at the two exposed sides.
He stood at one of the west windows for a time, looking out, and
thinking; then he passed to one of the north windows, which was open to
admit the warm air.
But when he looked out of it, he shook his head decidedly. It had
occurred to him that entrance to and egress from the room might have
been had by means of that window, but he very quickly decided that that
was out of the question--particularly in the middle of a sunlit
afternoon.
He quit the window then and gave his attention to the interior of the
room, but there was nothing more to be found there, so he seated himself
upon the chair that Lynne had occupied, and gave himself up to thought.
He could picture to himself Madge Babbington seated upon that other
chair beside which the lace handkerchief had been found, and gazing with
her tiger eyes into the face of Mr. Carleton Lynne.
He could picture, also, Lynne’s consternation at her presence; his
surprise; and he recalled now that, two days before, at the time of the
visit of Red Mike to that same house, and to the sleeping room that
adjoined the room he was now in, he had made no investigation as to Red
Mike’s method of entering.
Mike had escaped; no particular damage had been done. Thomas had a
marred ear, and a piece of skin was gone from one side of his head, and
Lynne had been grazed by a bullet on the shoulder; that was all.
It suddenly occurred to him now, as he sat there thinking, that the
Lynne mansion was not one that would be selected by a burglar as an easy
one.
There was the big iron gate outside which was locked at night; and the
high fence was not easily scalable--and yet Red Mike had evidently found
little difficulty in gaining an entrance, not only to the grounds and
house, but to the rooms of the master of the mansion.
Then Nick recalled another circumstance.
When Red Mike made his escape from Lynne’s sleeping room after firing
the four shots which nearly killed Thomas and his master, he had gone
out by a door other than the one which had admitted Nick Carter to that
sleeping room.
In a word, he had gone out of the sleeping room by the door which opened
between it and the sitting room where the detective was now seated.
It is true that other doors were found open--enough to have led him to
the outside, and therefore to the avenue; but there was Danny, Nick’s
chauffeur, outside in the car, and he had seen nobody escaping from the
house.
Nick Carter smiled grimly to himself. His thought, just then, if he had
uttered it aloud, was about like this:
“This is not the day for secret and mysterious entrances to houses, and
of hidden passages, like Kenilworth Castle and other places we read
about, but there must be one here, somewhere, for that is the only way
to explain this mystery.
“And if there is one, it has somehow become known to Madge Babbington.
“Very possibly Edythe Lynne knew about it during her life, and had at
some time shown it to Madge; the two had at one time been more or less
intimate.
“Or J. Cephas Lynne, Edythe’s father, had revealed the secret to Mrs.
Babbington. He had been fond of Madge, too, at one time.
“Or it had become known to Thomas Lynne, who had murdered Cephas Lynne
and the daughter Edythe, and who had afterward posed as Cephas Lynne,
and as such had engaged himself to marry Madge. If that were true, he
might have revealed the secret to the Babbington woman.”
Nick moved uneasily in his chair when he had completed that train of
thought--and he gave a start of pain and almost uttered an exclamation,
for he felt something that was very much like the prick of a pin.
He got out of the chair and examined the seat of it, and sure enough
there, in one of the creases in the leather which the upholsterer had
made, tightly imbedded next to the button, was an eight-pointed,
diamond-studded star pin such as a woman will wear in the lace against
her neck.
The center of the star pin was a gold monogram, out of which Nick had no
difficulty in deciphering the letters M. H. B.
So here was another proof of the recent presence of the woman in that
room.
A suggestion, too, that she had been quite close to Carleton Lynne while
he was still an occupant of his favorite chair; that she had bent over
him, perhaps, and had lost the pin in doing so.
He called the attention of Patsy to the fact, then dropped the pin into
one of his pockets.
“Oh, there isn’t now any doubt that the woman was here,” said Patsy, at
once. “The only thing that bothers me is how in blazes did she get
here?”
“That isn’t as interesting as the question that follows it,” said Nick.
“What one is that?”
“How did she go away again and take Lynne with her?”
“Oh, he probably went along willingly enough, after he once looked into
her eyes.”
“Would you do that?”
“Eh? Oh, well, that is hardly a fair question. I’m a married man,
and----”
“Do you think that she could charm you with those wonderful eyes of
hers?” insisted the detective.
“Not with Adelina waiting at home for me, chief. Nay, nay.”
“But, without Adelina waiting at home for you?”
“Look here, what are you getting at, chief?”
“A psychological question. Answer me.”
“I’d hate to give her the chance, that’s all.”
“Do you think that she could have led Lynne to do her bidding by the
power of her fascinations?”
“Confound her fascinations. It isn’t that; it’s her eyes, chief; her
tiger eyes; her yellow eyes, that can blaze so that they frighten one.
Now! How did she get in here, and how did she get out again, and take
Lynne with her? Will this thing suggest a way by which she might have
taken him out?”
He held up to the detective’s view a small rubber cork.
“Looks as though it might have fitted a phial that held chloroform,
chief, doesn’t it?” he asked. “I found it on the floor over there
beneath that life-size painting of J. Cephas;” and as he said this he
jerked his head toward the north side of the room between the windows.
“Found it there, did you?” replied Nick, rising. “Show me just where you
found it.”
Patsy led the way across the room.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LIGHT BEGINS TO BREAK.
It has been written many times in history that the most trivial things
have changed the destiny of nations. A famous preacher once made the
declaration that “there are no such things as little things.” And so
this tiny rubber stopper for a miniature bottle, not so large as the end
of one’s finger, proved to be the great thing of immediate necessity.
If you should apply to a chemist who knew you, and should induce him to
supply you with a bottle of chloroform, he would use just such a stopper
as that one was in putting it up for your use.
Not but what the same sort of a stopper is used for many other purposes
than sealing bottles of chloroform against the escape of fumes.
But conditions are regulated and understood more or less perfectly, by
comparisons and circumstances; for instance, the presence of chloroform
in that room, at the time when Mr. Lynne was induced or compelled to
leave it, explained many things hitherto unexplainable.
It accounted in part for the finding of the handkerchief on the floor
beside the chair upon which the woman had presumably seated herself.
It accounted, unquestionably, for the diamond star that Nick found in
the upholstery of Lynne’s chair, since, without doubt, it had been
dropped there while the chloroform was being administered; while there
was the semblance of a struggle going on between the man and the woman;
and it must be remembered that Lynne, in his weakened condition
resulting from his long illness, could have been no match in strength
for Madge Babbington, even if she was a woman.
But none of these considerations was the important one which the
discovery of the article suggested to the active mind of the detective;
nor was it the rubber stopper itself that brought about the suggestion.
It was the place where Patsy found it.
In considering that, and in arriving at the reasons that Nick Carter had
for his immediate conclusions, we must read the thoughts that flashed
through his mind the instant the stopper was shown to him, and when
Patsy indicated where he had found it.
Timothy Tucker, the gardener, had stated that the woman who had passed
him on the path between the gate and the house wore a long coat like
those he had seen worn by women when they were motoring; hence, a long,
linen duster.
Linen dusters have pockets at the sides, even those worn by women.
A small bottle of chloroform purchased at a drug store and intended for
immediate use would be taken from the paper in which it was originally
wrapped, and deposited handily, where the possessor could get at it with
the least possible delay and trouble.
Hence, in one of those side pockets already mentioned into which the
hand could be casually dropped at any instant.
The paper wrappings having been removed, the bottle would be exposed
unless some other wrapper for it were improvised. The likeliest thing
for that purpose, the one least likely to attract attention or comment,
would be a handkerchief.
The woman, seated upon the chair at the moment for using the contents of
the bottle, would remove, or partly remove, the handkerchief in which it
was wrapped, and would do it with the one hand that was in that pocket
with the bottle, before she rose from the chair.
What more natural than that the handkerchief should be dropped in that
manner, just at the point where it had been dropped--and just an instant
before the woman rose from her chair to pass around to the side of the
chair in which Lynne had been seated?
Now the next point.
The rubber stopper was picked up by Patsy twenty feet away from that
chair--from either of them.
The woman would not have thrown it from her at that time; such an act
was not necessary. If she had merely dropped it, five or six feet would
have been the extent of the distance it might have rolled away across
the floor on the soft rug.
The position of the two chairs was such that in approaching the one upon
which Lynne was seated at the time, the woman would have been stationed
exactly between Lynne and the spot where the rubber stopper was found
twenty feet away; and so, if it had been knocked from her hand in a
struggle with the man to whom she was going to administer the drug, it
was next to impossible that it should have rolled to the spot where
Patsy picked it up.
Ergo, how did it get there?
If you ask yourself the question from the detective standpoint--and that
is what you inevitably should do in following out the Nick Carter
histories--the logical answer is obvious.
The woman, upon entering the room--upon stepping into it--realizing that
she must be prepared for instant action, at once prepared the bottle for
instant use; she would do so by removing the stopper, and by pressing a
fold of the handkerchief, reënforced by the pad of her thumb, against
the uncorked bottle. This to keep the fumes from escaping.
She would be compelled to do all that with one hand by reason of the
exigencies of the occasion, and therefore would simply drop the stopper
back into the pocket, or it would escape from her grasp and roll upon
the floor--a few inches, or a foot or two.
Hence--and this is the important point so laboriously arrived at--the
stopper would have been dropped very close to the point where the woman
entered the room.
Now, the life-size portrait of J. Cephas Lynne beneath which the stopper
was found was nowhere near any door in that room.
It did occupy, frame and all, a space between two of the windows at the
north side of the room; a space which extended from the floor nearly to
the ceiling, and which was in width between four and five feet; and it
was fastened, as such portraits not infrequently are, flat against the
wall.
Nick Carter had already determined that there must be a secret entrance
to that room from another part of the house, or from the outside, but he
had not even begun the search for such a place as yet.
If Madge Babbington had entered the room by one of the doors, had opened
the bottle and dropped the stopper at once upon entering, it would have
been in the vicinity of one of the doors, according to the argument
already advanced, all of which shot through his mind the instant when
Patsy indicated the spot where it had been found.
Architecture, ancient and modern, had ever been a favorite study with
the detective, as a pastime. The life and employment of the famous
priest who created so many of the secret stairways, rooms, passages, and
doors in the old castles of England and Scotland had always interested
him.
He knew how to look for them, where to search for them, and much of the
principle upon which they were constructed, just as one may have studied
and learned to know the moves in a game of chess.
To offer an opportunity for a secret entrance and passage, there must be
space--space between two walls.
And so, when Nick Carter started across the room exclaiming to Patsy:
“Found it there, did you? Show me just where you found it,” he did not
wait for the answer, but hastened at once to one of the windows,
stepped upon the sill and, leaning far out of it, studied the general
construction of that north wall of the main building.
A mere glance sufficed him.
He knew already that that part of the house was very old; had stood
there where it was through several generations until it had been
remodeled, enlarged, reconstructed, and embellished into a part and
parcel of the great mansion.
That mere glance outside the window satisfied him that there was more
than sufficient space between the outer wall and the wall of the room
inside for a passageway.
And that was practically all he needed to assure himself that he had
discovered the most likely place for a secret passage and entrance to
that room, if one existed.
Moreover, what more likely place could be found for such a secret
entrance as must exist than the life-size portrait itself and the
space--that is, breadth--behind it?
He stepped back into the room again.
As he did so, and before he could begin his search for the secret
entrance, Thomas returned from his hasty inventory of Lynne’s wearing
apparel.
“Well?” Nick asked him, pausing.
“Only a few articles of clothing are missing,” Thomas replied. “A suit
of his clothing, a few----”
“You need not enumerate them, Thomas. That is unnecessary, now. Tell me
only if the missing articles are such things as Mr. Lynne would have
taken away with him had he had the selection?”
“Decidedly not, sir. Quite the contrary.”
“You think that he would have chosen differently, in that case?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Thomas. That decides another point for us.”
“What is that, sir, if you please?”
“That he was probably unconscious, probably from the chloroform, when he
was taken from this room, and therefore that there must have been a
third person present here, or within call, to assist the woman in taking
him away.”
“Red Mike,” said Patsy, speaking as one making a statement, rather than
as one who asks a question.
The detective nodded.
“That accounts for this, I suppose,” said Patsy, holding up his right
hand, with the thumb and finger tips pressed tightly together.
Nick Carter stepped nearer to him and looked more closely, and he found
that Patsy was holding a single red hair between his thumb and
forefinger.
“I found it clinging to the frame of that picture, about six feet from
the floor,” the assistant announced. “It was exactly at the point where
it might have caught and lodged, if Red Mike had stood right here”--he
backed across the room to the portrait--“and had leaned his head against
the frame, so;” he assumed the attitude he was attempting to describe.
Nick nodded his head again.
“Red Mike was here with Madge,” he said. “He either followed her into
the room at once, or he entered it a moment later in response to some
signal she gave, and he stood there, waiting for something else to
happen before he took an active part in the proceedings.”
“But he couldn’t come through the picture, could he?” Thomas asked.
“No, but he could come from behind it, if the picture is movable, and if
there is an opening of some sort behind it.”
Patsy nodded with emphasis.
“I thought that was the idea when you looked out of the window just
now,” he said.
“It has been my idea for some minutes,” replied the detective. “The
discovery of the rubber bottle stopper decided me where to look for it.”
“And now----?” asked Patsy.
“We won’t bother to search for secret springs; that would occupy too
much time. Thomas, find me a hammer, a screw driver, and a short iron
bar, preferably flat, if you have such articles in the house.”
“Yes, sir, in the garage. I will procure them at once.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
A MESSAGE IN THE DUST.
With the tools he had asked for at hand, Nick Carter lost no time in
beginning the work of uncovering the entrance to the secret passage
between the walls if one existed, and he had every reason to believe
that one did exist.
He had not proceeded far with this part of the search when he made the
discovery that the canvas upon which the portrait was painted had been
stretched over a flat sheet of metal, probably steel, that there were no
screw heads in sight, and that prying with the tools that Thomas had
brought to him would be unavailable.
He attacked the frame of the picture, then, and here he could pry with
his improvised levers.
It seemed like vandalism to injure that frame, for it was a beautiful
and a costly one; but there was reason sufficient for doing so, and Nick
Carter did not hesitate.
After a time the vertical strip to the right of the picture--that is,
toward the east--began to give, and presently came loose in the
detective’s grasp.
He pulled it aside and put it down upon the floor, and then turning his
attention to the space that he had uncovered he immediately saw where
there was a hole the size of a lead pencil, through the steel that had
been covered by that section of the frame that he had just removed.
A glance at the section of the frame itself revealed a small steel rod
which was in the exact place where it would have fitted through the hole
when the frame was in place, and at the outside of the frame it was
fastened to a section of the ornamental part of it, so that if Nick had
but known where to place his thumb a few moments sooner, it would have
been unnecessary to have gone to all that trouble.
With the hammer he drove the small steel rod out of the frame, took it
in his hand, inserted it in the hole, and pressed solidly upon it.
At once there was a sharp click from beyond the wall, and the whole
picture moved outward the distance of a quarter of an inch, and stopped.
Nick put his fingers into the opening, and pulled, and the steel plate
across which the canvas had been stretched responded to his effort.
It moved outward into the room on silent hinges, forming a perfect
doorway, and it revealed--well, just what he had been seeking; more
explicit description seems unnecessary just now.
To add to the possibilities of the secret entrance, its approach, the
necessary stairs, and its general utility, a false chimney had been
added to the construction of the house at just that point.
That, added to the thickness of the wall itself, afforded ample space
for the object in view when the place was constructed, and it added to
the general symmetry of the proportions of the building, also.
In the space into which the three men gazed, and which was at least four
feet by six, and from one of which a spiral staircase descended, there
were two chairs. There was also an incandescent electric bulb
brilliantly alight; and there were also many stumps of handmade
cigarettes, burnt matches, and sprinklings of tobacco on the stone
floor.
“Red Mike evidently waited for Madge right here while she entered the
room,” was the comment of the detective, as he gazed upon these things.
“Sure thing,” agreed Patsy. “Here is where he waited for the signal to
enter.”
“And there,” rejoined the detective, “is where the secret door is worked
to open and close it from this side of the wall.”
But he was already moving forward when he spoke, and had begun to
descend the spiral stairs.
If it should seem incredible to the reader that in this modern day there
should be such an arrangement inside one of the New York palaces, it
will be interesting to know that the police records show three instances
of the kind in palatial residences that have been built by
multimillionaires within the last two decades.
And one of these to which reference is made--the mystery of which has
never been revealed in print--was instrumental in one of the most
sensational crimes that has happened in the city of New York within a
generation.
But, to quote Kipling, that is another story.
This particular spiral staircase down which Nick Carter was making his
way, began--or ended, as you prefer--at the second floor of the mansion.
It continued past the parlor floor of the house, there being no
indication of possible egress from it there, and came to an end,
apparently, before a heavy door upon which there was only an ordinary
latch.
Raising this and pushing upon the door, Nick stepped into the inner
vault of a wine cellar, and he noticed that in opening the door he had
pushed out into the room an entire section of shelves.
This wine cellar was of ample proportions.
There was a round table in the center of it, and four chairs at the
table; but that was not what attracted the immediate attention of the
detective so much as the very evident fact that only a very short time
had elapsed since some person or persons had been seated there.
The place still smelled of tobacco smoke from handmade cigarettes,
indicating that Red Mike had at least been one of those persons. A
single black kid glove on the floor near one of the chairs suggested
that Madge had also been one of those who were present.
The fact that two incandescent lights were burning directly over the
table suggested that the occupants had departed in haste.
The detective--Patsy and Thomas had both followed him--looked around him
with closer attention.
He had at once reached the conclusion that Red Mike and Madge, with
Lynne, had stopped in this wine cellar to wait there for a more
propitious opportunity for leaving the house--doubtless with the idea
of waiting there until night, so that they might escape from the
neighborhood with little or no danger of being observed.
He assumed that after taking Lynne to the wine cellar Mike had returned
to the space behind the portrait and had waited there, listening to all
that had happened in the room from which they had taken their prisoner,
and that he had heard enough to make him understand that Nick Carter
suspected the presence of a secret entrance to that room.
Thus forewarned, Red Mike had doubtless hastened down the spiral
staircase and given the alarm, which would account for the evidence of
hasty departure.
But, of a surety, Lynne had been detained in that cellar long enough to
have recovered from the effects of that first administering of the
chloroform.
Nick Carter had known Lynne only a comparatively short time, but he had
found the heir to the Lynne millions to be a cool, self-centered,
well-poised man, one of the kind who, trained to life in the great West,
never lost his head under any circumstances.
Such being the case, Lynne would, if there happened a possible
opportunity, leave some indication or sign of his presence, wherever he
might stop.
He would leave what he would call a trail, where any person following in
search of him might find it.
Nick had read the man so, and now he looked for such a sign.
He discovered it, too, presently, on one of the bottles of Burgundy in a
case that had been opened a long time, and which stood at the top of a
pile close to the chair upon which Lynne had doubtless been seated when
the effects of the chloroform had worn off.
Dust had collected upon one of the bottles of wine from which the tissue
paper had been torn, and upon that collected dust, faintly traced, as if
with one of the burnt matches that Red Mike had used and thrown aside,
in lighting his cigarettes, were written words.
They were faint, and almost undecipherable at first; there was every
indication, too, that they had been written by jerks, and at intervals,
sometimes only half of a letter having been formed at a time.
This, of course, had been done to escape observation.
But Nick Carter brought forth his magnifying glass and bent to the task;
and after an interval of patient effort he was able to read the message.
Here it is:
“Bbngtn woman & Mike scret entrance. Chloroform. Plot to get money.
Taking me place they call Pleasantglades deserted. Mike brings
warning. More chlor.” And then the last three characters were
scrawled, as if hastily made: “6.30.”
The detective read it aloud to Patsy, and he added:
“If we read between the lines, and also between the words, we get this:
‘Babbington woman and Red Mike entered my room upstairs by means of the
secret entrance. They chloroformed me and brought me here to this wine
cellar. It is all a plot to extort money from me by some means which
they consider adequate. I have listened to their talk until I am of the
opinion that they are taking me to a place which they call
Pleasantglades, which I understand them to say is now deserted, and will
be therefore safe for hiding. Red Mike has suddenly appeared from his
post on watch upstairs and brings a warning that they are pursued. A
hasty departure is decided upon, and they intend to chloroform me again
into unconsciousness. The time is now half-past six o’clock.’ If he
could have written it all out, that is what he would have said,” the
detective concluded; and he looked at his watch.
“It is five minutes to seven,” he said. “They have been gone from here
twenty or twenty-five minutes. We must----”
Patsy interrupted him.
“I have been searching for a way out of here other than the one by which
we entered,” he said. “I haven’t found it.”
“I have,” exclaimed Thomas. “Look!”
He pointed through the opening into the space at the foot of the spiral
staircase, for the door formed of the shelves had been left ajar.
A narrow section of the wall across that narrow space had disappeared,
revealing a literal hole in the wall. Darkness was beyond it, but
neither of the detectives thought of that.
“The act of opening this door opened that one also,” said Nick, as he
stepped quickly forward.
They passed along an underground passage which was just wide enough and
high enough for one person at a time, and which led, Nick thought, in a
southeasterly direction.
“It leads us toward the garage,” was all the comment he made; but after
a moment, as they went onward, he added: “It was once a stable, you
know, before horses gave place to the choo-choos.”
There was no difficulty of egress at the other end of the passageway;
there never is, from the inside of such secret places.
They presently found themselves in what had once been a grainery, and
there were doors from it, two in number, one opening upon the interior
of the garage, the other upon a narrow hallway at one side of it, which
in turn gave upon the street.
Nick opened the door into the garage and stepped forward; then he
pointed toward the body of a man who was stretched face downward on the
floor, while beside him was a monkey wrench with which he had been
stricken down.
“We are just too late,” he said to Patsy. “Red Mike has struck the
chauffeur on the head with the monkey wrench, they have stolen the car,
and have got away.”
“We can trace them by the car,” said Patsy.
“Possibly,” replied Nick.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A DETECTIVE’S DEDUCTIONS.
Here are some of the obstacles which Nick Carter and Patsy encountered
almost at once in their search for Carleton Lynne and his abductors.
The stolen car was found within an hour, abandoned in front of the Hotel
Plaza, at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street. Cab drivers and taxi
chauffeurs had seen a veiled woman drive it to the spot, leave it, and
enter the hotel. She had not been seen since.
“She simply walked into the hotel by one entrance, and out at another
one, and went to meet another conveyance in which Mike and Lynne were
already passengers,” was Nick Carter’s comment upon this incident.
He drove his own car, with Patsy and Chick for company, to
Pleasantglades that night.
The gate was padlocked. When the house was searched it was found that
nobody had been there. Evidently Lynne had been misinformed as to the
destination of his captors, or they had changed their minds after the
escape from the city house.
Nick sought the local chief of police, who was known to him, and had a
watch placed upon the house at Pleasantglades; then he returned to the
city.
It was midnight when he got back, but nevertheless he went at once to
the Creotoria apartment house, where Madge Babbington lived--and went
there to find her goods and chattels had been sent to a storage
warehouse that day, and that nothing was known as to where she had gone.
Well, there the chase ended for the moment.
We need not go into the details, save to say that not a further trace of
Carleton Lynne or of Red Mike, or of Madge Babbington could be found
after three days of painstaking and insistent search.
The abductors of the millionaire had left no trail whatever behind them.
It was evident that they had planned every move they made that afternoon
and evening, many days in advance, and had prepared for every emergency.
It was certain that they had covered their tracks so expertly that even
Nick Carter, aided by his two assistants, could not find them.
The evening of the third day after the related incidents, Nick, with his
two assistants, was seated in the study.
All had been silent for a time, each evidently thinking upon the same
problem, when Patsy broke the spell by asking suddenly:
“I wonder what Madge intends to do with him, now that she has got him?”
“Marry him,” said Chick laconically.
“Do you think she’ll have the gall to attempt that?” Patsy asked.
“Sure.”
“Why? It looks risky to me.”
“How so? She hasn’t done anything but abduct him, and if she becomes his
wife--well, that would do away with that charge, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose it would, Chick,” Patsy agreed.
“Besides,” Chick continued, “that has been her game from the start. She
doesn’t seem to know any other one.”
“Uh huh!”
“She tried, long ago, to marry J. Cephas Lynne--and I’m inclined to
think she would have done it, too, if his cousin Thomas hadn’t murdered
him.”
“I think you are right about that, Chick,” Nick Carter interposed.
“Then,” Chick went on, “she had it all fixed up to marry Thomas Lynne,
the murderer of Cephas and Edythe. She’d have done that, too, if Nick
hadn’t found those tracks in the snow in front of the gate at
Pleasantglades.”
“Uh huh!” commented Patsy again.
“The next on the carpet is Mr. Henry Carroll.”
“There isn’t any proof that she tried to marry him.”
“I think,” Chick replied, “that the proof of it exists in the fact that
Carroll learned to fear her as well as to love and hate her at the same
time; that he tried to shoot her at the time he killed her two women
companions at the Creotoria, and that now he is only awaiting the day of
execution to pay the penalty for it all.”
“Uh huh!” said Patsy once more.
“When, by keeping still and playing on the quiet he might still be
living the part of Carleton Lynne, and enjoying all the millions.”
“Not much he wouldn’t,” said Patsy, waking up. “Didn’t I find the real
Carleton Lynne out there in Idaho?”
“Yes; but you’d had a fine time proving his identity, wouldn’t you, if
Carroll had kept still and hung on? He had the documentary evidence and
the photographs. He had possession, which is said to be nine points in
the law.”
“What is the argument about, anyway?” asked the detective, with a quiet
smile.
“I don’t think it amounts to much one way or another,” replied Patsy. “I
guess it is more to the purpose if we bend our energies to a solution of
the present problem.”
“I think so, too,” agreed Nick. “It began, didn’t it, by Chick
expressing the belief that Madge has stolen Lynne away to marry him?”
“Yes.”
“Has it occurred to you, to either of you or to both of you, that that
is the only thing she can do now to win that fortune, or to get hold of
any considerable portion of it?” the detective asked.
Chick nodded. Patsy made no reply; but he asked:
“What’s the matter with the two of them--Mike and Madge--forcing him to
disgorge a goodly portion of his wealth?”
“It wouldn’t work, Patsy.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, he isn’t the sort of a man to give up.”
“It strikes me that he’d be giving up a heap more if he married her.”
“You forget what you said three days ago about her eyes--in case Adelina
wasn’t around to keep tabs on you,” smiled the detective.
“Well, if Lynne isn’t the sort of a man to give up, I don’t see where
your argument is any good. He certainly wouldn’t give up to a woman like
that, when he knows----”
“In the first place, Patsy, I have not advanced any argument. I have
merely said that it is the only way--her only way, now.”
“Well, he doesn’t have to marry her, does he?”
“I don’t know. She is a fascinating woman. There is a witchery about her
that is almost beyond belief. Lynne is a sick man; he has been a sick
man for a long time.”
“His mind is strong enough.”
“I know that; but he is physically weak, just now; and physical weakness
renders mental opposition in a thing of this kind less strong--more
easily assailed. My fear is that she will break down his opposition in
the end, if she has time enough.”
“Well, maybe so; only she won’t do it by threats, if I am any judge of
character.”
“No, she will do it by her witchery; she will do it with her eyes, which
are hypnotic--and please understand that in using that term I do not
mean to imply that she will actually hypnotize him. She will merely
influence him.”
“Against his will, do you mean?”
“Against his will at first, yes. Against his better judgment. But she
will labor to overcome all that. She will succeed, too, if she has
sufficient opportunity. I know men of his type. They are impressionable,
especially in the presence of a lovely woman, and she can be that, you
know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I think I partly understand a woman of her type, also, although I have
never encountered another one like her.”
“Nor anybody else, I imagine.”
“She will probably begin by playing the pathetic, the wronged woman, the
one who suffers and is misunderstood. She will tell him the story of her
life. She will have spells of heartbreaking sorrow and weeping. She will
make him try to comfort her, and she will decline to let him do so when
he first offers. Perhaps--I shouldn’t be surprised--if she found herself
hooked by her own bait.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Lynne is a lovable chap--a fascinating fellow in many ways.”
“Oh, you mean that, in trying to make him in love with her, she will
actually fall in love with him?”
“Such a thing is quite possible, Patsy.”
“Not in her case. She is too calculating; too cold-blooded in her plots
and plans.”
“But you will admit that a woman like her can be cold-blooded in nothing
else that she does, won’t you?”
“Yes. What of that?”
“Madge Babbington is still young--almost a girl, although she has been
twice married. I doubt if she ever has found the man who really
attracted her; I think she can, and probably will, find that man in
Lynne. He is every inch a man. I would have liked to have known him when
he was well and strong.”
“Perhaps you will have an opportunity to do that later on, chief.”
“Perhaps,” replied Nick, shrugging his shoulders.
“All of this,” commented Chick, who had been a close listener to what
had been said, “does not bring us any closer to the solution of the
present problem.”
“Perhaps it does,” smiled Nick. “That was why I have been talking in
that strain.”
“How so?”
“The problem is, where have they hidden Lynne away? Isn’t it?”
“Sure thing.”
“We must agree, then, that wherever that hiding place may be, it is
large enough to accommodate four persons.”
“Four! How do you make that out?”
“Two men--Lynne and Red Mike, who will stick closer than a leech; you
can bet on that.”
“Sure.”
“Then there is Madge--who must have the opportunity in time and place to
play her best cards--and a servant. They could not get along without
somebody to serve them.”
“I see.”
“Well, they must hide themselves in a place where there is little
opportunity for being seen by others; by chance passers-by. If we can
search our minds for the most likely sort of a place of that
description, we would be pretty near to part of the solution, Chick.”
“A desert island,” said Patsy, grinning.
“Or the place where desert islands grow; on the water,” said Chick.
“Not bad ideas, either one of them,” said Nick. “And now, there is one
more element that is bound to assist us before this game comes to an
end. It is jealousy; and that is what I am most afraid of, just now. Red
Mike cannot be very long in the society of Madge Babbington without
being fascinated by her to the point of desperation. He will look on at
her attempts to make Lynne in love with her with growing anger; and if
the right sort of a climax should happen at the psychological moment,
Red Mike would kill Lynne on the instant; and that is what I most
greatly fear, just now. We must find a way to rescue him before such a
thing as that can happen.”
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE SPIDER’S PARLOR.
For a short space let us look upon another scene.
Ordinarily we stay with the detective or his assistants from the
beginning to the end of the Nick Carter histories, detailing the events
just as he discovered them and experienced them; but occasionally, for
the best interests of a story, and in order that the one who reads may
comprehend it the more clearly, we are compelled to look ahead into
things which came to the detective’s knowledge later on.
This is one of the occasions.
That same evening when Nick and Chick and Patsy were together in the
study engaged in the discussion we have just read--and which we bid the
reader to bear in mind--Carleton Lynne reclined in an easy-chair with a
pillow behind his head and a hassock beneath his feet.
He was smoking a cigar, and was gazing amusedly, half smilingly, upon
the beautiful face of Madge Babbington, who was seated upon a low wicker
rocker only a few feet away from him.
They very nearly faced each other; they could have touched hands easily
had they reached out to do so; and there was a taboret between them
which bore an ash tray, a box of cigars partly emptied, a receptacle for
matches, a book that Lynne had been reading before Madge came into the
room, a tiny pair of scissors, and some skeins of silk with which Madge
was plying the embroidery work that she was engaged upon.
It was in reality quite a domestic scene.
The room was large; it was exquisitely appointed; there was a suggestion
of voluptuousness and ease everywhere, and there was the evidence of
artistic effort on every hand.
It was, in fact, a room on a house boat, and the house boat was at
anchor at a place where the wind and waves seldom troubled it; where
only the tides brought motion to it, at intervals.
“It is three days now since you took me away from my home in the city,”
Lynne was saying. “May I venture to inquire, madam, how long a time it
is your purpose to keep me a prisoner here?”
She raised her eyes from the embroidery and smiled at him; but she saw
that he gazed into them quite calmly, and with no suggestion of emotion.
Plainly she had affected him but little thus far.
“Have you been made uncomfortable?” she asked, in reply.
“No; quite the contrary. You have done everything for my comfort. I
cannot deny that.”
“Don’t you think that the fresh air here will be beneficial to you?”
“Without doubt; but one would prefer to have it without coercion, eh?”
“You are not coerced, Mr. Lynne.”
“I am detained here against my will.”
“Would you leave here to-night if you could do so?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Does my company, my presence here with you, mean nothing to you?”
“It means much to me, madam, since I must remain here. But why must I?
What is the real object of all this?”
“You have not guessed?”
“I have made only the one guess that was my first impression--that it
was another form of demanding the two million dollars that Red Mike
sought to get out of me not so very long ago.”
She bent toward him and smiled into his eyes again.
“No mention has been made to you of such a subject, I believe?”
“No. I have been waiting for it.”
“You believe, then, that I will make the demand?”
“Yes, Mrs. Babbington.”
She laughed softly, and resumed the plying of the needle.
“Two millions would not satisfy me, Mr. Lynne,” she murmured, as if
addressing the work she held in her hands.
“No?” he said, and laughed also. “You want it all, I suppose.”
“All--or none; but even all of it would not satisfy me--now.”
“Indeed. You amaze me. How, then, do you expect to be satisfied?”
For a moment she looked upon him between half-closed lids, permitting
her marvelously speaking eyes to blaze at him and to suggest the words
she did not utter; then she cast them down again upon her work and
replied:
“The time has not arrived yet to--to tell you that.”
He laughed again.
“I cannot even pretend to misunderstand you, Mrs. Babbington,” he said.
She made no reply. He continued:
“I am a blunt, plain-spoken man. I believe in calling things by their
right names, and in fighting the devil with fire, madam. Am I to
understand that you have brought me to this house boat in order that you
might possess all my fortune--and me, too?”
“Do you want the truth?” she demanded, looking squarely at him this
time, and with no softness and no coquetry in her glance.
“Assuredly.”
“Then--just that.”
He drew a mouthful of smoke from the cigar and expelled it in a steady
stream toward the ceiling. When that was done, he smiled somewhat
quizzically.
“At least we are playing now with the cards face up on the table,” he
commented.
“Precisely. I assume that to be the only way to play a game with you,
Mr. Lynne.”
“You are rather correct as to that, madam.”
“How does the idea impress you, Mr. Lynne?”
“Rather disagreeably, as I see it.”
“Am I so objectionable?”
“Under the circumstances, Mrs. Babbington, you are.”
“You are at least frankly spoken.”
“I told you I was a blunt man.”
“I suppose you have been told many things about me; have been warned
against this precise situation, have you not?”
“Yes. Repeatedly.”
“Well?”
“I have no comment to make, madam.”
“Not even one of resentment, or disgust, or anger?”
“No.”
“Day before yesterday--your first day here, Mr. Lynne--when you were
suffering from the effects of the journey and the chloroform that we
were obliged to use, the pressure of my hand upon your head seemed to
comfort you.”
“A cloth dipped in cool water would have comforted me also,” he replied,
and a flash of anger glowed in her eyes for an instant.
“A little later,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “you fell asleep
holding one of my hands, while the other one rested upon your aching
head.”
“Yes, I was a bit flighty, I think. There was a time, then, when I
imagined----” he stopped. She raised her head quickly.
“You imagined--what?”
“No matter.”
“But it does matter.”
“I am sorry.”
She bent toward him again, and looked steadily into his eyes.
“There is a woman--another woman--somewhere.”
“Pardon me, madam,” he replied coolly, “there is only one woman,
anywhere.”
She resumed her embroidery, and began to rock her chair a little. There
was a long silence after that, which she was the one to break.
“Who is she?” Madge demanded.
“I have already told you that, madam; the one woman.”
“Where is she?”
He did not reply. She abandoned the question, knowing that he would not
reply to it.
“Is she beautiful?” she demanded.
“Very.”
“As beautiful as I am?”
“More beautiful.” Lynne replied without an instant of hesitation;
without regard to the effect of such a reply upon her.
Evidently it had none, or very little.
“In what way?” she asked.
“In every way.”
“You are neither complimentary nor diplomatic,” she said.
“I have no use for either form of speech,” he replied.
“Is she young--younger than I am?”
“She is one of the kind that will always be young.”
“That is no answer.”
“It is the only one I care to make.”
“You love her?”
“Devotedly.”
“You--you are not--not married?” she exclaimed, for a moment startled.
“No.”
She hitched her chair forward, nearer to him.
“Put down your cigar,” she said to him. “It is nearly consumed, and you
may begin another one presently.”
He obeyed her. She reached out and drew the taboret aside, and then
brought her chair up close beside his, so that she could reach out and
take one of his hands--which she did; and he made no effort to resist.
“You like the touch of my hands,” she said. It was not a question; it
was an assertion.
“Certainly, madam. A man is less than a man who does not appreciate
contact with a beautiful woman; and you are that, without question.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, I did not offer you a compliment. The fact is self-evident.”
She left her chair, putting down her embroidery, which had been in her
lap, and went around behind his. Then she leaned upon the back of it,
and put her hands on his head, then moved them down slowly until they
covered his eyes, and closed them.
“You like that?” she asked.
“Yes, it is pleasant; very.”
She bent down nearer to him until her breath fanned the top of his head.
“Are you trying to hypnotize me?” he asked.
“No; I am trying to make you appreciate me. Do you think you will do
so?”
“Perhaps. Who can say?”
She bent still nearer to him, and pressed her lips against his forehead.
He made no sign that he was aware of what she had done.
She held her lips there, and at that moment a door behind her opened and
Red Mike strode into the room.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A FIGHT FOR THE GOOD.
Neither of the interested parties--if perchance both were
interested--could see Red Mike; neither one had heard the sound of his
approach, the opening of the door, or his tread upon the soft and
yielding rug.
As a matter of fact he barely trod upon it at all, for he had not taken
the second step before he discovered the scene that was being enacted
before him, and halted.
It has been said that despite his red hair and an unmistakable air of
brutality about him, Red Mike was a handsome man, stalwart, powerful,
and sensuous in his appearance.
His face, always of a redder hue than most masculine faces, flushed to a
deep crimson when he came upon that scene in the parlor of the house
boat, and he halted, and waited, and listened.
If Nick Carter could have looked upon him at that moment, he would have
discovered in the aspect of the man, and in the scowl that became deeper
with every second, that he had doubtless been correct in his
prognostication.
Red Mike was jealous; there could have been no denying that fact.
He stood there near the door by which he had entered, his weight upon
the foot that he had put forward in the act of stepping so that his
attitude was that of a man about to leap upon another.
His upper lip curled beneath his mustache, showing his teeth, like the
snarl of a dog when angered. His fingers twitched, then clenched
together in the palms of his hands, and then one of them relaxed as it
sought the pocket where he carried his automatic revolver.
But he thought better of that impulse, and dropped the hand at his side
again.
“Do you like to have me do this?” he heard Madge say to Lynne; and Lynne
replied:
“I have no choice.”
Perhaps it was that answer which made Mike leave the gun inside his
pocket.
“Would you like to have me tell you about myself?” was her next
question.
“I am here to be entertained,” Lynne answered.
“Do you know--have you been told--that I have been twice married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know also that I was indicted and tried for complicity in the
murder of your cousin Edythe?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that I could have been guilty of such a hideous thing?”
“It would seem to be unbelievable.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Then I will accept the verdict of the jury, and reply: ‘Not guilty.’”
“Even that does not tell me your impression concerning it, Mr. Lynne.”
“I would much prefer to believe you to be entirely innocent than to
think that you had so much as a guilty thought in your mind, madam.”
“Thank you. Don’t call me madam.”
“How shall I address you?”
“By my given name if you will; not by name at all, if it is difficult.
The difficulty will be overcome after a little.”
He did not reply. She took her hands away from his head and swung
herself around beside him and seated herself upon the arm of the chair.
It was a morris chair, and she could sit there comfortably. Still she
did not discover the presence of Red Mike, for she did not take her eyes
from the face of Lynne, although he was not looking at her.
“This is better,” she said; and she sighed.
“Is it?” he asked; and, before she could reply, he added: “Do you know,
madam, I believe you are creating no end of trouble for yourself?”
She misunderstood him, and, because she did so, she laughed softly.
“Do you mean that I am falling in love with you, and that it is hopeless
because of the other woman?”
“No; I did not mean that. I had no thought of such a thing. The other
woman--the one to whom I referred, has been dead for many years. She was
my mother.”
“Oh!”
Startled, chastened for the moment, Madge sat quite still. If he had
looked up at her then he would have seen that moisture had gathered
suddenly in her eyes; that all that quality of flame had departed out of
them, and that they were soft, kindly, and genuine. And she remained so,
quite silent and still, until he spoke again.
“She passed away, out of my sight, when I was only a little kiddie,” he
said softly, “but in some ways she is just as much alive to me now as
then; and sometimes it seems as if I can see her just as plainly as I
used to.”
Madge was silent a moment. Then, in a voice so low that it was barely
audible, she said:
“You believe me to be a bad woman; how, then, can you talk to me of your
mother?”
“I do not believe you to be a bad woman,” he replied calmly.
“You do not? You do not? Oh, say that again!” she cried out to him, and
her voice did not sound natural even to herself.
“I do not believe you to be a bad woman,” he repeated. “You have done
wrong things; so have I; none of us does right always. That would be
impossible. In some of us, the bad elements are dominant; in others it
is the good that dominates. We are free agents to select between the
good and the bad, and therefore whatever we are, whatever we confess
ourselves to be, we have become by choice. Do you prefer the good or the
bad, Mrs. Babbington?”
“Oh, the good! The good! Help me to be good, Carleton Lynne. You can, if
you will. You can make me good, if you will try, and you may throw your
millions away, or give them away, I do not care. I would not care. I
hate them. They--not yours, but the mere longing for riches--have made
me what I am, a despicable woman. I hate myself, now! I see myself now
for the first time as others see me; as you see me. Oh!” She dropped her
head upon his shoulder and broke into a passion of sobs, so that any one
who had known her in the past would have been amazed.
But it was all real. Madge, for once, was very much in earnest. Again
Nick Carter’s prophecy had come true.
Lynne took one of her hands between his own and stroked it gently. She
recovered herself.
“I am silly to give way so at the first kind word,” she murmured.
“No, you are only natural. You have found yourself. You have found the
true, the real woman; you have lost the pretense that has been
dominating you. You are very lovely, now; very tender; very lovable. I
think you could be very true if you would be so, and could live down all
that hideous past that is so hateful. Will you?”
“Yes, if you ask me to do so.”
“Whether I ask you to do it for me or not? If I ask you to do it only
for yourself?”
“Yes. I will leave here to-night. We will leave here together. You shall
return to your home in the city, and I will go--I will go far away,
anywhere, and, and----” She broke down once more, with her head upon
his shoulder, weeping softly this time. And he stroked her hand as he
had done before, saying nothing. Red Mike still listened, silent,
watchful.
It was a long time before she spoke again. Then she asked:
“Tell me what you meant when you said that I was creating trouble for
myself.”
“I would rather forget, now, what I had in mind then,” he replied.
“Why?”
“Because it seems a sacrilege even to mention it, now.”
“What was it? What did you mean?”
“I meant Red Mike.” The object of that remark started, and listened the
more intently.
“Red Mike?” she exclaimed, amazed. “What of him?”
Instead of replying directly to the question, he asked another. He said:
“What do you suppose Red Mike would do now if he were to enter this room
suddenly, and find you with your head upon my shoulder, and discover
that I was holding one of your hands and stroking it?”
She shuddered and caught her breath.
“Don’t,” she said; and then again, “don’t. The mere reference to it
makes me see myself as I was--and, oh, it seems so long ago. Red Mike is
a brute; a creature whom I have made use of to further my selfish ends.
I sent him to you when he demanded the two millions, and so nearly
murdered you. I took him with me to aid in your capture, making him
beieve that I would lead you on to make me your wife, so that I might
get your millions, and--oh, there is more!--making him believe that he
might--might--if you should die suddenly after that--making him
believe that I would not ask questions about it, but that I
would--become--his--wife. Oh, God! The horror of it! That I ever
consented to such a thought, for I did not mean it, ever. Oh, you will
believe me, won’t you? I never once meant such a thing. I hate, I
loathe, I despise myself; but I must tell you. You must know all of it;
must know that even for a moment I consented to bargain about such a
hideous matter, even though I never had the remotest intention to----”
“Hush!” Lynne said to her softly. “You never could do a more courageous
thing in your life than to tell me of this. I am no better than you are,
Madge. I have harbored such impossible thoughts, too. I know what they
are, and what they mean. Come here. Move around so that I can see you;
so I can look into your wonderful eyes. I want to kiss them. I want to
hear you tell me that you will be a good and true woman, a good and true
wife, and that when we leave here to return to the world, you will help
me to spend that fortune that has come to me so strangely, for the good
of others--for the good of those who suffer. That is what I want to do,
Madge; that is what I want you to help me to do, for that is what my
mother would have wished.”
She had raised herself from his shoulder and from the arm of the chair
upon which she had been seated, and now she moved gently around until
she was almost in front of him.
Her whole soul was shining in her eyes when she chanced to raise them,
impelled by an impulse she could not have named; and she saw Red Mike
standing near that door, with the automatic pistol raised and leveled at
her own heart.
Her eyes, which had been looking down tenderly upon Lynne, shone
suddenly with horror, and she released Lynne’s hand and backed away from
him.
It was an utterance of Red Mike’s that told Lynne what had happened.
“Caught you, didn’t I?” he snarled. Then he laughed brutally. “I heard
you, too, my beauty. I heard it all. I have been here since it began. I
saw the beginning, and I will see the end. Used me, have you? Lied to
me, have you? Played with me, have you? Well, it’s my turn now to play
with you--and him; and no Apache Indian ever knew better how to do it
than I do.”
Madge crouched partly down. All the tiger in her was aroused now, in
defense of the man she had suddenly found that she loved.
Her right hand sought her bosom where, doubtless, she carried a weapon;
where Red Mike seemed to understand that she did carry one, for he cried
out:
“Drop that, or I’ll kill you where you stand, if you _are_ a woman!”
She paid no heed, and he leaped forward toward her; and then the
unexpected happened.
To reach Madge, Red Mike had to pass close to the chair where Lynne was
seated; and as he passed, Lynne thrust out one foot in his path. Red
Mike tripped upon it. He fell to the floor at Madge’s feet, and the
automatic flew from his grasp, almost into hers.
On the instant she seized upon it. She turned it butt end foremost. She
raised it and struck with it before he could recover himself, and he
made no attempt to rise, for he was stunned and helpless.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE MASTERS OF MILLIONS.
Patsy barely heard Nick Carter’s closing remarks as told at the close of
the tenth chapter. He was intent upon another thought; upon a
recollection that had come to him, induced by his own facetious remark
about a desert island, and by Chick’s comment, “where desert islands
grow; upon the water.”
“Chief,” he cried out suddenly, “I’ve got an inspiration. I’ll bet a
hundred to nothing that I know where they are hiding themselves--the
three of them, or the four, if there are four. Don’t you remember the
house boat?”
“What house boat?” asked the detective.
“Edythe Lynne’s. It was mentioned at the coroner’s inquest, after she
was killed. You know she entertained a house party at Pleasantglades
last summer, while her father was away--at the time he was murdered, and
long before she could have known anything about it had she lived?”
“I remember about the house party; but not about any boat.”
“You were absent from the room at the time it was told. She entertained
her guests on the house boat, as well as at the house, at
Pleasantglades. It is kept anchored in the bay, within a mile of the
house, and is always in commission. That is where Madge and Mike have
taken Lynne, I’ll bet a cooky. Come; we can get there in an hour. I’ll
go alone if you do not care to go.”
“We’ll all go,” said the detective. “It sounds reasonable, and would
account for the idea that Lynne received while a prisoner in the wine
cellar, that Pleasantglades was the destination at that time.”
He turned to the telephone and ordered the big car to the door at once.
“It’s as sure as shooting,” said Patsy.
“Only I don’t seem to remember anything about a house boat in the
testimony at the inquest,” said the detective, as he seized his hat and
led the way from the room.
“Somebody called you out of the room for a moment when that testimony
was given,” was Patsy’s reply. “I think it was stricken out as being
irrelevant.”
“What was said about it?”
“Only that Edythe had entertained her friends part of the time on the
house boat, which is always kept anchored in the bay that juts into the
property up there. I suppose it has been closed now, and practically
abandoned for a year; but it would be an ideal place for Madge to take
her prisoner; and, of course, she knew about it, since she was one of
the guests at that time.”
“Of course.”
“Lucky remark, that, about the desert island. That suggested the idea to
me; that or Chick’s reply.”
“What was that?”
“He said--‘or where desert islands grow; upon the water.’ See?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll bet you a big red apple that we find them there, Chick.”
“You’re on. I can afford a red apple, if we do,” replied Chick.
Nick ran the car out himself, and his growing confidence in Patsy’s
theory made him get all the speed out of the machine that it contained.
He slowed down, of course, whenever there was an idea of danger ahead,
or when there was a possibility that they might be held up for speeding;
but for all that, they made splendid time, and rolled past the big
gateway at Pleasantglades in exactly fifty minutes from the time they
left the house in Madison Avenue.
It was half a mile farther to the shore of the bay where the boat was
anchored, and the distance was covered in about one minute, despite the
roughness of the road.
They all leaped out of the machine at the same instant and each sought
the shore for a small boat in which they might row out to the object of
their trip.
“There isn’t a sign of a light out there,” said Chick.
“That’s nothing,” replied Patsy. “They would keep dark in the daytime,
and darker at night when a light might be seen and investigated. Here we
are. I have found one.”
“It’s half full of water,” said Nick.
“Help me to turn it over,” shouted Patsy; and the water was soon emptied
from the boat which was found to be quite sound.
“There are no oars,” said Patsy, when that was done. “We’ll have
to--wait a minute.”
He darted away toward the boathouse on the shore, a few rods distant,
broke the padlock with a stone, and presently returned bearing a pair of
oars.
“All aboard,” he said. “If I was as certain of future glory as I am of
finding our goal out there, I’d be wearing a halo already, chief.”
“I only hope that you are right, Patsy,” was the reply. “Be silent now.
There is need of caution if they are there.”
Five minutes’ cautious rowing took them the required distance, and the
small boat was rounded up alongside the larger one without a sound to
disturb anybody who might be on board, and perhaps watchful.
But we already know what was taking place inside that house boat.
Nick Carter, followed by his two assistants, clambered aboard of it, as
it happened, just at the moment when Carleton Lynne put out one foot and
tripped Red Mike so that he fell prone upon his face at the feet of
Madge.
There was a perceptible jar as the result of that fall, for Red Mike was
a heavy man.
The detective and Patsy, who were already on the deck of the boat,
halted.
“What was that?” asked Patsy, in a whisper.
“It is the first evidence that you are correct, Patsy,” was the reply.
“There is somebody here, on this boat.”
“Well, it could only be the persons we are after; eh?”
“I think so.”
The three of them stole quietly along the deck toward a door which could
be dimly seen in the half light.
Reaching it, Nick turned the knob softly, but only to find that the door
was securely fastened on the inside.
Nick bent down to listen; his companions did the same; then they looked
at each other in amazement. What did it mean?
They could hear the faint murmur of a masculine voice, and the sobs of a
woman mingled with it. What could it all mean?
“We will smash in the door,” said Nick, in a whisper. “It is a double
door and will give way at the center. When I say three, we will all
throw ourselves against it at once. Now; are you ready? One, two,
three!”
The door gave way much more readily than had been anticipated.
Nick and Chick barely saved themselves from falling; Patsy sprawled upon
the floor inside the cabin, and almost at the feet of Carleton Lynne,
who was standing up, and holding Madge Babbington tightly in his arms.
Madge was sobbing, so she raised a tearful as well as a startled face
toward the intruders who had come upon them so suddenly.
Lynne looked at the unexpected callers as calmly as if they had been
expected, and as if their method of entrance was the customary thing.
He did not relax his hold upon Madge in the slightest degree, but rather
held her the tighter.
“Hello, Mr. Carter!” he exclaimed. “You’re just in time. How are you,
Chick? Glad to see you, Patsy. I hope all the folks are well at home.
That’s the proper thing to say, isn’t it?”
“You seem to be rather pleasantly occupied, Lynne,” Nick replied, with a
smile that was somewhat grim. “You make me feel sorry that I interrupted
you.”
“Well, you needn’t be. I’m mighty glad that you came. If you’ll take the
trouble to move that screen, you’ll see something. We just put it there
to get him out of our sight.”
Patsy moved the screen; then he burst into laughter.
Red Mike was there, of course, with some picture cords tied around his
wrists and ankles and a towel tied around his face so that he could not
talk.
“It’s all over but the shouting, Carter,” said Lynne. “Shall I tell you
about it?”
“Please do.”
“I’m awfully obliged to you for not getting here an hour earlier. You
might have been the ruin of two lives, if you had. Shall I begin with
the best part first?”
“Yes.”
“Madge and I have found out that we are very much in love with each
other. Madge is going to be a good girl, and I’m going to be a good
fellow, and we are going to spend the fortune that J. Cephas Lynne left
behind him, in bettering mankind generally, in doing good wherever we
can, and in helping those who have taken the wrong path, to get back
again to the right one.
“Yesterday--an hour ago, Carter--I was the master of millions; now, we
two are the masters of millions which shall take the form of a great
trust imposed upon us by the memory of Cephas Lynne and his daughter
Edythe, to do good, to help the wrongdoer. Now, do you want the rest of
the story?”
“I think I know it already. I suppose Red Mike came in upon you two
while you were in each other’s arms, eh?”
“Well, we were getting there.”
The detective turned to Madge, who was blushing, and appearing very
little like the Madge Babbington he had known.
“Are you sincere, Mrs. Babbington?” he asked.
“Ah, Mr. Carter, so sincere that I am the happiest woman alive; so
sincere that I want you to forgive me for all the hard thoughts I have
had in the past--and I want you to help me, too, by believing in me.”
“I can promise you that,” replied the detective. “This is a very happy
outcome of all the past months, after all.”
“It is,” said Madge. “I thank God for this moment, and that I have the
strength and the opportunity to seek forgiveness.”
THE END.
“The Midnight Message,” by Nicholas Carter, is the title of the next
volume, No. 1304, of the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY. This story has to do with
one of the most desperate and resourceful criminals Nick Carter ever
opposed.
POPULAR COPYRIGHTS
New Eagle Series
_Carefully Selected Love Stories_
There is such a profusion of good books to this list, that it is an
impossibility to urge you to select any particular title or author’s
work. All that we can say is that any line that contains the complete
works of Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, Charles Garvice, Mrs. Harriet Lewis, May
Agnes Fleming, Wenona Gilman, Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller, and other
writers of the same type, is worthy of your attention.
_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_
1--Queen Bess By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
2--Ruby’s Reward By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
7--Two Keys By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
9--The Virginia Heiress By May Agnes Fleming
12--Edrie’s Legacy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
44--That Dowdy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
55--Thrice Wedded By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
66--Witch Hazel By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
70--Sydney By Charles Garvice
73--The Marquis By Charles Garvice
77--Tina By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
79--Out of the Past By Charles Garvice
88--Virgie’s Inheritance By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
98--Claire By Charles Garvice
99--Audrey’s Recompense By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
102--Sweet Cymbeline By Charles Garvice
111--Faithful Shirley By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
119--’Twixt Smile and Tear By Charles Garvice
122--Grazia’s Mistake By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
133--Max By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
138--A Fatal Wooing By Laura Jean Libbey
144--Dorothy’s Jewels By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
155--Nameless Dell By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
166--The Masked Bridal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
174--His Guardian Angel By Charles Garvice
177--A True Aristocrat By Mrs. Georgie Shelton
188--Dorothy Arnold’s Escape By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
199--Geoffrey’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
210--Wild Oats By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
213--The Heiress of Egremont By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
215--Only a Girl’s Love By Charles Garvice
219--Lost: A Pearle By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
222--The Lily of Mordaunt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
231--The Earl’s Heir By Charles Garvice
236--Her Humble Lover By Charles Garvice
242--A Wounded Heart By Charles Garvice
244--A Holden’s Conquest By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
250--A Woman’s Soul By Charles Garvice
255--The Little Marplot By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
257--A Martyred Love By Charles Garvice
266--The Welfeet Mystery By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
267--Jeanne By Charles Garvice
268--Olivia; or, It Was for Her Sake By Charles Garvice
272--So Fair, So False By Charles Garvice
276--So Nearly Lost By Charles Garvice
277--Brownie’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
282--The Forsaken Bride By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
283--My Lady Pride By Charles Garvice
291--A Mysterious Wedding Ring By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
292--For Her Only By Charles Garvice
303--The Queen of the Isle By May Agnes Fleming
304--Stanch as a Woman By Charles Garvice
305--Led by Love By Charles Garvice
309--The Heiress of Castle Cliffs By May Agnes Fleming
312--Woven on Fate’s Loom, and The Snowdrift By Charles Garvice
317--Ione By Laura Jean Libbey
326--Parted by Fate By Laura Jean Libbey
327--He Loves Me By Charles Garvice
328--He Loves Me Not By Charles Garvice
334--Miss McDonald By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes
339--His Heart’s Queen By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
340--Bad Hugh. Vol. I. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes
341--Bad Hugh. Vol. II. By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes
344--Tresillian Court By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
345--The Scorned Wife By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
346--Guy Tresillian’s Fate By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
347--The Eyes of Love By Charles Garvice
348--The Hearts of Youth By Charles Garvice
351--The Churchyard Betrothal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
352--Family Pride. Vol. I. By Mary J. Holmes
353--Family Pride. Vol. II. By Mary J. Holmes
354--A Love Comedy By Charles Garvice
360--The Ashes of Love By Charles Garvice
361--A Heart Triumphant By Charles Garvice
362--Stella Rosevelt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
367--The Pride of Her Life By Charles Garvice
368--Won By Love’s Valor By Charles Garvice
372--A Girl in a Thousand By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
373--A Thorn Among Roses.
Sequel to “A Girl In a Thousand” By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
380--Her Double Life By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
381--The Sunshine of Love.
Sequel to “Her Double Life” By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
382--Mona By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
391--Marguerite’s Heritage By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
399--Betsey’s Transformation By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
407--Esther, the Fright By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
415--Trixy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice
449--The Bailiff’s Scheme By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
450--Rosamond’s Love.
Sequel to “The Bailiff’s Scheme” By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
451--Helen’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
456--A Vixen’s Treachery By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
457--Adrift in the World.
Sequel to “A Vixen’s Treachery” By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice
464--The Old Life’s Shadows By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
465--Outside Her Eden.
Sequel to “The Old Life’s Shadows” By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
474--The Belle of the Season By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
475--Love Before Pride.
Sequel to “The Belle of the Season” By Mrs. Harriet Lewis
481--Wedded, Yet No Wife By May Agnes Fleming
489--Lucy Harding By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes
511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
512--A Heritage of Love.
Sequel to “The Golden Key” By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
520--The Heatherford Fortune.
Sequel to “The Magic Cameo” By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
531--Better Than Life By Charles Garvice
542--Once in a Life By Charles Garvice
548--’Twas Love’s Fault By Charles Garvice
554--Step by Step By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
557--In Cupid’s Chains By Charles Garvice
630--The Verdict of the Heart By Charles Garvice
635--A Coronet of Shame By Charles Garvice
640--A Girl of Spirit By Charles Garvice
645--A Jest of Fate By Charles Garvice
648--Gertrude Elliot’s Crucible By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
650--Diana’s Destiny By Charles Garvice
655--Linked by Fate By Charles Garvice
663--Creatures of Destiny By Charles Garvice
671--When Love is Young By Charles Garvice
676--My Lady Beth By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
679--Gold in the Gutter By Charles Garvice
721--A Girl from the South By Charles Garvice
730--John Hungerford’s Redemption By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
749--The Heart of a Maid By Charles Garvice
758--The Woman in It By Charles Garvice
774--Love in a Snare By Charles Garvice
775--My Love Kitty By Charles Garvice
776--That Strange Girl By Charles Garvice
777--Nellie By Charles Garvice
778--Miss Estcourt; or Olive By Charles Garvice
818--The Girl Who Was True By Charles Garvice
896--A Terrible Secret By May Agnes Fleming
897--When To-morrow Came By May Agnes Fleming
904--A Mad Marriage By May Agnes Fleming
905--A Woman Without Mercy By May Agnes Fleming
912--One Night’s Mystery By May Agnes Fleming
913--The Cost of a Lie By May Agnes Fleming
920--Silent and True By May Agnes Fleming
921--A Treasure Lost By May Agnes Fleming
925--Forrest House By Mary J. Holmes
926--He Loved Her Once By Mary J. Holmes
930--Kate Danton By May Agnes Fleming
931--Proud as a Queen By May Agnes Fleming
940--The Heir of Charlton By May Agnes Fleming
941--While Love Stood Waiting By May Agnes Fleming
945--Gretchen By Mary J. Holmes
946--Beauty That Faded By Mary J. Holmes
950--Carried by Storm By May Agnes Fleming
951--Love’s Dazzling Glitter By May Agnes Fleming
954--Marguerite By Mary J. Holmes
955--When Love Spurs Onward By Mary J. Holmes
960--Lost for a Woman By May Agnes Fleming
961--His to Love or Hate By May Agnes Fleming
964--Paul Ralston’s First Love By Mary J. Holmes
965--Where Love’s Shadows Lie Deep By Mary J. Holmes
968--The Tracy Diamonds By Mary J. Holmes
972--The Cromptons By Mary J. Holmes
973--Her Husband Was a Scamp By Mary J. Holmes
975--The Merivale Banks By Mary J. Holmes
978--The One Girl in the World By Charles Garvice
979--His Priceless Jewel By Charles Garvice
982--The Millionaire’s Daughter and Other Stories By Charles Garvice
983--Doctor Hathern’s Daughters By Mary J. Holmes
998--Sharing Her Crime By May Agnes Fleming
999--The Heiress of Sunset Hall By May Agnes Fleming
1004--Maude Percy’s Secret By May Agnes Fleming
1005--The Adopted Daughter By May Agnes Fleming
1010--The Sisters of Torwood By May Agnes Fleming
1015--A Changed Heart By May Agnes Fleming
1016--Enchanted By May Agnes Fleming
1025--A Wife’s Tragedy By May Agnes Fleming
1026--Brought to Reckoning By May Agnes Fleming
1027--A Madcap Sweetheart By Emma Garrison Jones
1029--Only A Working Girl By Geraldine Fleming
1030--The Unbidden Guest By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1031--The Man and His Millions By Ida Reade Allen
1032--Mabel’s Sacrifice By Charlotte M. Stanley
1033--Was He Worth It? By Geraldine Fleming
1034--Her Two Suitors By Wenona Gilman
1035--Edith Percival By May Agnes Fleming
1036--Caught in the Snare By May Agnes Fleming
1037--A Love Concealed By Emma Garrison Jones
1038--The Price of Happiness By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1039--The Lucky Man By Geraldine Fleming
1040--A Forced Promise By Ida Reade Allen
1041--The Crime of Love By Barbara Howard
1042--The Bride’s Opals By Emma Garrison Jones
1043--Love That Was Cursed By Geraldine Fleming
1044--Thorns of Regret By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1046--Bitterly Atoned By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
1050--Married in Error By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1052--Vivian’s Love Story By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
1053--From Tears to Smiles By Ida Reade Allen
1054--When Love Dawns By Adelaide Stirling
1055--Love’s Earnest Prayer By Geraldine Fleming
1056--The Strength of Love By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1057--A Lost Love By Wenona Gilman
1059--What Love Can Cost By Evelyn Malcolm
1061--Above All Things By Adelaide Stirling
1063--Her Sister’s Secret By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1065--Fair Maid Marian By Emma Garrison Jones
1066--No Man’s Wife By Ida Reade Allen
1067--A Sacrifice to Love By Adelaide Stirling
1069--Her Life’s Burden By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1070--Evelyn, the Actress By Wenona Gilman
1071--Married for Money By Lucy Randall Comfort
1072--A Lost Sweetheart By Ida Reade Allen
1074--Her Heart’s Challenge By Barbara Howard
1076--A Freak of Fate By Emma Garrison Jones
1077--Her Punishment By Laura Jean Libbey
1078--The Shadow Between Them By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1079--No Time for Penitence By Wenona Gilman
1080--Norma’s Black Fortune By Ida Reade Allen
1082--Love’s First Kiss By Emma Garrison Jones
1083--Lola Dunbar’s Crime By Barbara Howard
1084--Ethel’s Secret By Charlotte M. Stanley
1085--Lynette’s Wedding By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1088--Her Husband’s Other Wife By Emma Garrison Jones
1089--Hearts of Stone By Geraldine Fleming
1090--In Love’s Springtime By Laura Jean Libbey
1091--Love at the Loom By Geraldine Fleming
1092--What Was She to Him? By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1093--For Another’s Fault By Charlotte M. Stanley
1095--A Wife’s Triumph By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
1096--A Bachelor Girl By Lucy May Russell
1097--Love and Spite By Adelaide Stirling
1098--Leola’s Heart By Charlotte M. Stanley
1099--The Power of Love By Geraldine Fleming
1101--True to His Bride By Emma Garrison Jones
1102--The Lady of Beaufort Park By Wenona Gilman
1103--A Daughter of Darkness By Ida Reade Allen
1104--My Pretty Maid By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1105--Master of Her Fate By Geraldine Fleming
1106--A Shadowed Happiness By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
1108--A Forgotten Love By Adelaide Stirling
1110--Her Dearest Love By Geraldine Fleming
1112--Mischievous Maid Faynie By Laura Jean Libbey
1113--In Love’s Name By Emma Garrison Jones
1114--Love’s Clouded Dawn By Wenona Gilman
1116--Only a Kiss By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1117--Virgie Talcott’s Mission By Lucy May Russell
1118--Her Evil Genius By Adelaide Stirling
1119--In Love’s Paradise By Charlotte M. Stanley
1120--Sold for Gold By Geraldine Fleming
1122--Taken by Storm By Emma Garrison Jones
1123--The Mills of the Gods By Wenona Gilman
1124--The Breath of Slander By Ida Reade Allen
1125--Loyal Unto Death By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1126--A Spurned Proposal By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
1127--Daredevil Betty By Evelyn Malcolm
1128--Her Life’s Dark Cloud By Lillian R. Drayton
1129--True Love Endures By Ida Reade Allen
1130--The Battle of Hearts By Geraldine Fleming
1131--Better Than Riches By Wenona Gilman
1132--Tempted By Love By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
1133--Between Good and Evil By Charlotte M. Stanley
1134--A Southern Princess By Emma Garrison Jones
1135--The Thorns of Love By Evelyn Malcolm
1136--A Married Flirt By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1137--Her Priceless Love By Geraldine Fleming
1138--My Own Sweetheart By Wenona Gilman
1141--The Love He Sought By Lillian R. Drayton
1142--A Fateful Promise By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
1143--Love Surely Triumphs By Charlotte May Kingsley
1144--The Haunting Past By Evelyn Malcolm
1145--Sorely Tried By Emma Garrison Jones
1146--Falsely Accused By Geraldine Fleming
1148--No One to Help Her By Ida Reade Allen
1150--Saved From Herself By Adelaide Stirling
1151--The Gypsy’s Warning By Emma Garrison Jones
1152--Caught in Love’s Net By Ida Reade Allen
1153--The Pride of My Heart By Laura Jean Libbey
1155--That Terrible Tomboy By Geraldine Fleming
1156--The Man She Hated By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1159--A Penniless Princess By Emma Garrison Jones
1160--Love’s Rugged Pathway By Ida Reade Allen
1161--Had She Loved Him Less By Laura Jean Libbey
1162--The Serpent and the Dove By Charlotte May Kingsley
1163--What Love Made Her By Geraldine Fleming
1164--Love Conquers Pride By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1165--His Unbounded Faith By Charlotte M. Stanley
1166--A Heart’s Triumph By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
1167--Stronger than Fate By Emma Garrison Jones
1168--A Virginia Goddess By Ida Reade Allen
1169--Love’s Young Dream By Laura Jean Libbey
1170--When Fate Decrees By Adelaide Fox Robinson
1171--For a Flirt’s Love By Geraldine Fleming
1172--All For Love By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1173--Could He Have Known By Charlotte May Stanley
1174--The Girl He Loved By Adelaide Stirling
1175--They Met By Chance By Ida Reade Allen
1176--The Lovely Constance By Laura Jean Libbey
1177--The Love That Prevailed By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
1178--Trixie’s Honor By Geraldine Fleming
1179--Driven from Home By Wenona Gilman
1180--The Arm of the Law By Evelyn Malcolm
1181--A Will of Her Own By Ida Reade Allen
1182--Pity--Not Love By Laura Jean Libbey
1184--Lady Gay’s Martyrdom By Charlotte May Kingsley
1185--Barriers of Stone By Wenona Gilman
1186--A Useless Sacrifice By Emma Garrison Jones
1187--When We Two Parted By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1188--Far Above Price By Evelyn Malcolm
1189--In Love’s Shadows By Ida Reade Allen
1191--The Love Knot By Charlotte May Kingsley
1192--She Scoffed at Love By Mrs. E. Burke Collins
1193--Life’s Richest Jewel By Adelaide Fox Robinson
1195--Too Quickly Judged By Ida Reade Allen
1196--Lotta, the Cloak Model By Laura Jean Libbey
1197--Loved at Last By Geraldine Fleming
1198--They Looked and Loved By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
1199--The Wiles of a Siren By Effie Adelaide Rowlands
1200--Tricked Into Marriage By Evelyn Malcolm
1201--Her Twentieth Guest By Emma Garrison Jones
1202--From Dreams to Waking By Charlotte M. Kingsley
1203--Sweet Kitty Clover By Laura Jean Libbey
1205--The Cost of Pride By Lillian R. Drayton
* * * * *
Everybody Reads
The Street & Smith Novels
High-brow public opinion has changed radically during the past few
years, so far as placing a proper valuation on paper-covered reading
matter is concerned.
In the old days, anything between paper covers was a dime novel and,
therefore, to be avoided as cheap and contaminating.
Since men like Frank O’Brien have pointed out to the world the fact that
some of the best literature in the English language first appeared
between paper covers, such books are welcomed in the best of families.
The STREET & SMITH NOVELS are clean, interesting, and up-to-date. There
are hundreds of different titles, and we invite your careful
consideration of them from a standpoint of value and of literary
excellence.
Street & Smith Publications
INCORPORATED
79 Seventh Avenue New York, N. Y.
Printed in the U. S. A.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
that burned iself=> that burned itself {pg 18}
his own daughter=> {pg 33}
Edyth Lynne was persuaded=> Edythe Lynne was persuaded {pg 48}
the passenger could talk=> the passengers could talk {pg 50}
a case af murder=> a case of murder {pg 83}
wtih him when=> with him when {pg 89}
aiding and abbetting=> aiding and abetting {pg 95}
an animated maner=> an animated manner {pg 156}
principles=> principals {pg 161}
spacious corrider=> spacious corridor {pg 169}
a mightly blow=> a mighty blow {pg 204}
meet Pasy=> meet Patsy {pg 209}
less dangenerous=> less dangerous {pg 222}
to Lyne’s summons=> to Lynne’s summons {pg 234}
the st trivial=> the most trivial {pg 266}
between Lyne=> between Lynne {pg 268}
Pasy made no reply=> Patsy made no reply {pg 285}
reclined in any easy-chair=> reclined in an easy-chair {pg 290}
a receptable for matches=> a receptacle for matches {pg 290}
put forfard=> put forward {pg 298-299}
seems a secrilege=> seems a sacrilege {pg 303}
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Babbington case: Or Nick Carter's strange quest" ***
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