The Four-Fingered Glove; Or, The Cost of a Lie
Date: 2021-11-13T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Detective and mystery stories; Dime novels; American fiction

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Title: The Four-Fingered Glove; Or, The Cost of a Lie

Author: Nicholas Carter

Release date: November 13, 2021 [eBook #66724]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: David Edwards, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUR-FINGERED GLOVE; OR, THE COST OF A LIE ***

THE FOUR-FINGERED GLOVE

CHAPTER: I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV., XVI., XVII., XVIII., XIX., XX., XXI., XXII., XXIII., XXIV., XXV., XXVI., XXVII., XXVIII., XXIX., XXX., XXXI., XXXII.

The Four-Fingered Glove

OR,

THE COST OF A LIE

BY
NICHOLAS CARTER
Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures,
which are published exclusively in the New Magnet Library,
conceded to be among the best detective tales ever written.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1904
By STREET & SMITH
——
The Four-Fingered Glove

Printed in the United States of America)

Al rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

Bill Cody

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This is the character whose adventures are dealt with in Buffalo Bill’s Border Stories.

Read them. You will find them of true historical value.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
79 Seventh Avenue New York City

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CHELSEA HOUSE

79 Seventh Avenue New York City

THE FOUR-FINGERED GLOVE

CHAPTER I.

“IF I AM GUILTY, CONVICT ME.”

The hands of the clock pointed at half-past five, one beautiful June morning, when Nick Carter, having just finished with his morning exercise and cold plunge, was told that there was a gentleman in the reception-room who wished to see him on matters of the utmost importance, as soon as he was at liberty to descend, and the servant who brought the message to her master passed a card through the partly opened doorway upon which was engraved in fashionable block lettering:

REGINALD MEADOWS DANTON.

Linden Fells.

“Young Danton, of Linden Fells, eh?” murmured the detective, as he proceeded with his toilet after placing the card on the dresser. “What in the world can he want at this hour? I should not hesitate to wager a considerable amount that he has never been out of bed at this hour before in all his life, unless it was because he had stayed up all night. Reggie Danton! Humph! Whether he is in trouble or not, it is safe to say that he believes he is, or he wouldn’t be here to see me so early in the morning.”

Ten minutes later Nick entered the room where his caller was awaiting him, only to find him pacing up and down between the window and the door, apparently under the greatest strain of excitement.

Nick Carter’s half-contemptuous, half-humorous remark, “Young Danton, of Linden Fells,” had been peculiarly appropriate, for Reginald Meadows Danton exactly filled one’s ideas of a young man of possibilities—and perhaps probabilities—who hailed from somewhere in the world of society and wealth.

He was neither tall nor short, fat nor lean; nor did there seem to be a distinguishing trait about his appearance or his manner, and yet there was an indefinable something which compelled a stranger to glance at him a second time, and then to wonder why he had done so. He was Reggie Danton to everybody, several times a millionaire in his own right, and the son of a man who had long since ceased to count his millions by units, having adopted multiples instead.

Linden Fells? Well, it was—and still is, although its name has since been changed—a magnificent estate situated on the bank of the Hudson River within a reasonable distance of New York. A place where once upon a time a very rich and eccentric German had brought his family and lived while he awaited the pardon of his emperor, and who had also brought with him a love for his own Unter den Linden. And as the estate was heavily wooded, he had given it the name of Linden Fells. Later, when the pardon came from his emperor, he had sold out for a song and returned to the fatherland: and so, Horace Danton, the father of Reggie, became possessed of it.

Then Linden Fells became transformed.

From the home of a recluse who used it only as a place of refuge while he awaited permission to return to his own country, it was turned into an open house of entertainment, for the Dantons liked to “sling things.”

Mrs. Danton was a beautiful woman of middle age, who still looked thirty—scarcely older, in fact, than her two children, Reginald and Mercedes, aged respectively, twenty-three and nineteen.

It had happened in the past that Nick Carter had done some little business for the head of the house of Danton, but it had been of a commercial character, and he had never met the other members of the family, although naturally they were all known to him by sight, as well as by the reputations they had earned for themselves in their own separate ways. Mrs. Danton—or the señora, as she was often called because of her Spanish ancestry—because she was a leader of society and a giver of the most lavish entertainments in New York and Newport; Reggie, because he was a self-confessed high roller who was inevitably getting into some sort of hot water and paying his way out of it with gold—whom everybody talked about, and laughed at, and wondered what he would do next, but who was nevertheless generally well liked, and among those who knew him best, respected, too; and Mercedes!

The reputation of Mercedes Danton can be comprehended in three words. She was beautiful, she was brilliant, and she was, above all, good.

Everybody loved Mercedes. Her father adored her; her mother worshiped her; her brother idolized her; her servitors almost deified her; and she merited it all.

Reference to her upon any occasion was comprehended in the utterance of her first name only. There was but one Mercedes in the world, one queen of beauty, one fountain of sympathy and goodness—Mercedes.

She was nineteen, with the poise, the repose and the presence of twenty-five. She was tall, regal, as graceful as a fawn; she had unfathomable, gipsy eyes, hair of a dead black, with a faint suggestion of waviness, and when the light struck it just right, a touch of amber somewhere in the depth of the tresses which disappeared as it came and which was inevitably changed to a reflection upon rather than from it; and with all her somber hair and eyes, her long black lashes and brunette presence, she had the complexion of an Irish beauty.

To describe Mercedes as beautiful is inadequate, for she was the standard of beauty.

And now, that we have outlined the chain of thought which flitted through the mind of Nick Carter as he descended the stairs to meet his early caller, we will return to the moment of their greeting.

“Good morning, Mr. Danton,” said Nick, as he entered the room. “You rose early this morning.”

“Yes. That is—fact is—I haven’t been to bed. Thank you. Yes; I will sit down. Are you Mr. Carter? Mr. Nick Carter? Pardon me for asking, but I wish to be sure.”

“Yes. I am Nick Carter.”

“I have heard my father speak of you several times, Mr. Carter. I suppose you are aware that my governor is abroad just now?”

“I think I noticed in one of the papers, about a month ago, a mention that he had sailed. I did not know that he had or had not returned.”

“No. He’s over there still. I say, Mr. Carter, do I look excited?”

“Well, yes, a little,” replied Nick, smiling. “Has something happened to upset you?”

“Well, rather! Do I talk as if I could tell a connected story? Eh?”

“Why, yes.”

“You’ll pardon me, I know, but you see I wish to be sure. The fact is—— by Jove, old chap, I’m all of a tremble yet. I’ve been trying for the last two hours—all the while, in fact, since I started to come here to see you, to pull myself together so that I could tell you a connected story, and ’pon my life I’m not at all sure of myself yet. It’s awful, you know, Mr. Carter! Horribly awful!”

“What is?”

“The murder.”

“The murder? Do you mean to say that you are speaking seriously and that you have come here to see me about a murder?”

“Yes. That’s the long and short of it.”

“Who is killed? Where was the crime committed? I hope, Mr. Danton, that this is not a specimen of one of the jokes you are so fond of perpetrating,” said Nick severely.

“Joke! gad! I wish it were a joke! No, Mr. Carter, it is very far from being a joke, I’m sorry to say. It’s a murder of the first water. A regular gem of the blue-stone variety. An out-and-out, dyed-in-the-wool, double-back-action, deliberate murder, carefully planned and scientifically executed, and”—he leaned forward in his chair and looked the detective straight in the eyes—“the joke will be on me, don’t you know.”

“What do you mean, Danton? You will have to be more explicit if you wish me to pretend to understand you.”

“Good Lord, I’m trying to be explicit. I mean that I will be accused of this murder—I mean that there will be developed the best chain of circumstantial evidence you ever heard of to convict me, and I mean that——”

He paused and rose from his chair, crossing the room to the window and then returning.

“Well?” said Nick. “What were you about to add to your statement?”

“I mean,” he said, slowly and impressively, “that I am not, myself, positive of my own innocence.”

There was half a moment of silence after that extraordinary statement, and it was Danton who spoke first.

“Do you wonder now that I asked you if I looked excited, and if you thought I could tell a connected story?”

“In the light of the statement you have just made, it seems doubtful if you can tell one,” said Nick slowly. “You tell me that there has been a murder committed, that you will be accused of the crime, that there will be circumstantial evidence which will tend to convict you of the crime, and that you are not sure that you are not guilty. Those statements are rather extraordinary, coming from a man who is supposed to be sane, Mr. Danton.”

“Well, all the same, they are God’s truths, every one of them.”

“Then suppose you tell me why you have come to me at five o’clock in the morning?” said Nick severely. “If you are not sure that you have not committed a crime—which is a statement to be taken with a large proportion of salt—you are more than half convinced that you have committed one. My business, Mr. Danton, is to catch criminals, not to protect them.”

“Well, that’s all right. That’s just what I want you to do. That’s why I came here at five o’clock in the morning.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to catch and convict the criminal. If I am guilty I want you to convict me of it, just as if I were not here to engage your services. I want you to prove who did commit the crime, and if I did it I want you to prove it to my own satisfaction, as well as to a jury of twelve men. I’ve been asleep ever since I was born, Mr. Carter, but I woke up this morning in earnest, and I’m awake now, to stay awake.”

CHAPTER II.

THE QUARREL IN REGINALD DANTON’S ROOM.

“You seem to be very much in earnest in what you say, Mr. Danton,” said the detective.

“I am very much in earnest, sir.”

“Well, in the first place, suppose you tell me who is dead. Since you say that a murder has been committed and it is not unlikely that you did it, it is well to know something of the corpus dilecti. Who was murdered?”

“Ramon Orizaba; my mother’s guest.”

“Your cousin, is he—or rather, was he not?”

“A kinsman of my mother’s so far removed that the ties of blood are very thin; still, he has passed as our cousin. You know of him. He has been our guest, at intervals of two or three months at a time, for half a dozen seasons.”

“Oh, yes; I know of him. Now where was he killed?”

“In my own room at the Fells.”

“In your room? Where were you?”

“I was there.”

“There in the room when he was killed?”

“Just that.”

“Then you did it—by accident, perhaps—and that is the reason why you do not——”

“No. You’re wrong.”

“Well, what, then?”

“I was there when he was killed; at least I suppose I was, but I was either unconscious, or asleep, for I did not see it done, and I did not know that he was dead until I awoke, at three o’clock this morning, and found him.”

“Had you quarreled?”

“We always quarreled. There never was a time when we did not quarrel.”

“How was he killed? What killed him?”

Danton left his chair and crossed to the window again, but after a moment he returned and stood facing the detective.

“I was waiting for that question,” he said slowly, “and wondering when it would come, for I had not yet determined how I would reply to it. The fact is, Mr. Carter, I believe that even the coroner and the physicians will find it difficult to determine at first how Orizaba was killed; but nevertheless, although I have not examined the body, save to look at one spot where I expected to find something, I can tell you what killed him.”

“Then tell me.”

“He was killed with a glass needle, three inches in length, and of the size of a common darning needle. Orizaba’s hair grew very low on the back of his neck, and the weapon I have described was jabbed into the vertebra at that point.”

“So that death was almost instantaneous, I suppose?”

“It must have been.”

“Now, how do you know that he was killed as you describe?”

“Because I looked at that spot to find out.”

“Why did you look there?”

“Because I expected to find what I did find.”

“Why?”

“Because I had meditated killing him in just that way.”

“Good God, Mr. Danton——”

“It’s true.”

“In that case, I do not see what I can do to assist you. A man who will meditate such an infamous thing and then have the effrontery to come here and confess it to me in cold blood expecting me to sympathize with his troubles, must be beyond the pale of human sympathy.”

“Wait, Mr. Carter. I quite agree with you—in the abstract; but this is different.”

“I cannot determine the nice points of reasoning of that kind, sir.”

“Just listen to me, won’t you? I have been careful to tell you all the worst phases of this case first.”

“There certainly could not be others much worse, unless you are about to confess that you had progressed so far in your meditations that you had actually provided yourself with a needle such as you have described.”

“I had such a needle in my possession,” replied Danton, smiling pathetically; “and moreover, it has disappeared from its accustomed place, so I have no means of knowing that it is not the one now actually imbedded in the neck of my cousin.”

“Danton,” said the detective, “since you have been in this room with me, you have succeeded in giving me several very different impressions concerning you. My first glance at you when I came into the room was that you had been on a spree and that you had done something which had the effect of sobering you suddenly, so that you came to me to get you out of your trouble. The second impression was that you were in real trouble, but that it concerned another more than yourself. My third was that you were sincere in your statement that you did not know whether you had committed a crime or not, and was willing to take the consequences if you had done so, and my present one is that you are telling me a story in a slipshod fashion which I do not like, and which is not calculated to win my appreciation or my assistance. Now, sir, if you care to prolong this conversation there is only one course for you to pursue, and that is to tell me your story, commencing at the beginning and continuing on to the end—and that you do it in some sort of connected style, so that I can follow you.”

“Well, sir,” replied Danton, slowly and seriously, “I’ll try. The fact is, I am almost crazy. I scarcely know what I am saying at all. I have tried so hard to pull myself together since I started out to find you, and I have endeavored so strenuously to keep calm since I have been here that I begin to fear that I shall fail in both.”

“Tell me your story,” said Nick shortly.

“Will you permit me to make two beginnings? They seem necessary.”

“Tell me your story.”

“Well, in the first place, I attended a banquet at the club last night, and while there I drank of everything in sight, from cocktails through the still wines and champagnes to the cordials and cognac. In short, I became very drunk.”

“I can believe that. It was not your first experience.”

“No. Orizaba was with me at the club. We started for home together in the same cab.”

“You did not drive out to the Fells in a cab, did you?”

“Oh, no. We caught a train from the station. I suppose it was the twelve-thirty, since that is the last train out.”

“Well?”

“I remember entering the cab with Orizaba, and I remember leaving the cab with him at the station; but I do not remember riding in the cars with him.”

“That is not surprising. But go on.”

“I know that when the conductor awakened me and told me we were at the Fells, I left the train alone. Orizaba was not with me then, for I remember distinctly that I left the train alone and walked from the station to the Fells alone.”

“How far is it?”

“About half a mile.”

“Were you still under the influence of the wine you had drank?”

“Undeniably. In plain English, I was very drunk. So full, in fact, that I remember that I stopped and held several serious arguments with myself during that walk of half a mile.”

“You are sure you talked only to yourself?”

“Why, yes; at least, that is my impression. I am quite sure that Orizaba was not with me then.”

“Yet you are positive that you caught the same train?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, go on with your story.”

“It was very warm last night, if you remember. I recall that when I arrived at the Fells the combination of wine and half a mile walk had heated me considerably, and I seated myself in one of the piazza chairs to cool off. Now I cannot tell you whether I sat there one minute or half an hour, for I don’t know; I only know that it could not have been more than half an hour, because the train I rode out on is due at the Fells at one-fifteen, my walk from the station to the house must have consumed a quarter of an hour, which would bring the time up to two o’clock, and my watch is stopped at two-thirty.”

“What has the stopping of your watch got to do with it?”

“Only this: That I cannot start it. Something inside it is broken, and I argue that I must have broken it while winding the watch.”

“Well?”

“Drunk or sober, I have always been in the habit of winding my watch the last thing before removing my waistcoat, and never at any other time.”

“So you think that you stopped your watch by breaking it while winding it the last thing before going to bed?”

“Yes; only I didn’t go to bed. In fact, I didn’t make any preparation to do so, more than to remove my coat and vest. But I am getting ahead of my story.”

“Tell it in your own way.”

“We will say, then, that I went up-stairs at half-past two, after sitting on the piazza for about half an hour.”

“Very good.”

“When I entered my room, Orizaba was there before me.”

“Ah! So he did come on the same train with you, and doubtless walked from the station with you also.”

“That I do not know. The point is that he seemed greatly surprised to see me—he appeared, when I entered the room, as if I was the last person he expected to see.”

“You were evidently sober enough to take cognizance of that fact.”

“There are reasons why, as you will understand. Orizaba was standing at my desk when I entered the room. He had turned on the lights, and he had opened my desk, although I supposed the only key that would open it was in my pocket. He was looking at something—some of my private letters, I suppose, when I entered the room, and he dropped them on the desk with an exclamation of rage, and flew at me like a tiger-cat.”

“Did you fight?”

“I don’t know. T don’t think so. I was not angry; only astonished. I know that we rolled to the floor together and that presently we both rose to our feet. Then, I remember that I ordered him from the room, and that he apologized—or tried to do so. But I remember, also, that I refused to listen to any apologies from him. I was angry, and I told him that I wanted nothing more to do with him. In fact, I told him many things that I had long had in mind to tell him some day, and ended by ordering him from my room again.”

“Did he go then?”

“No. He refused to go. He dropped himself into a big chair near one of the windows and said he would stay where he was until he got ready to leave.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I told him if it wasn’t for the noise it would make I would either throw him out, or shoot the top of his head off, but as it was, and because I didn’t want to disturb Mercedes—you know her rooms are quite near to mine—he could stay where he was if he wanted to, but I warned him that as soon as I sobered up I would go to my mother and father, both, and tell them everything I knew about him, and also that I would see to it that he was kicked out of the house for good.”

“And then——”

“He only grinned, and said something about it being a more difficult job than I supposed to get him out of that family—that he would remain until he chose to go of his own free will, and——”

“Well? And——”

“Well, to be plain, I told him to go to hades. Then I threw myself on the couch. Every light in the room was going, but I must have fallen asleep at once.”

“And the time must have been as late as half-past two o’clock then, you think.”

“Yes; or even a little later.”

“What happened next?”

“I woke up.”

“Woke up to find him dead? Is that what you wish to tell me?”

“Yes; just that, but let me explain the particulars.”

“Go ahead.”

CHAPTER III.

THE MYSTERY OF THE DEATH WOUND.

“I woke up with the feeling that somebody had called to me, and I started to a sitting posture on the couch before I was aware where I was. Then, of course, a glance told me my surroundings.”

“And you still had the impression that somebody had called to you?”

“Yes.”

“Called your name?”

“Yes; and by my middle name, which is never used outside my immediate family. My father, mother and sister always call me Meadow, or Med.”

“And your cousin? Did he call you so, also?”

“Rarely. Usually he addressed me simply as Danton, and at times with the familiarity of some of my club friends he called me Dan. But I discouraged such familiarities on his part, for I never liked him. In fact, I always hated him—despised him, hated him and feared him as well; but that is part of the story I shall tell you from the second beginning. You know I asked you to give me two beginnings.”

“Well; you started wide-awake with the feeling that somebody had called you, and that your middle name had been used. Go on.”

“Not wide-awake. I was dazed. There was an instant when I did not know where I was.”

“Naturally.”

“Then there were several moments when I could not remember how I got there, although I could tell that I was in my own room.”

“But it all came back to you as you thought it over?”

“Not all; and what did come back to my recollection came very slowly. Let me tell you things chronologically.”

“Certainly.”

“I rubbed my eyes and saw that I was in my own room. Then I looked around to see who had called me, and discovered Orizaba seated in the big chair by the window; but for the life of me I could not remember how he got there. I leaned back again among the pillows of the couch to think it over, and then I remembered that somebody had called to me, and I sung out to Orizaba to know if he had done it.

“He didn’t answer, and I called to him again, and then it came over me that we had attended the same banquet at my club, and that we had come home together—that is, I remembered the cab part of it—and I figured that he was asleep, and had either spoken my name in his sleep, or I had dreamed that I heard it.

“Well, I remained in that position, thinking things over and trying to get things clear in my mind for several minutes, and then I got up, stretched myself, looked at my watch, saw it was half-past two——”

“But you had removed your coat and vest. Where was your watch?”

“In my vest on a chair beside the couch.”

“All right. Go on.”

“My watch said half-past two. I felt rocky, so I turned out three or four of the lights, leaving only one of them burning, and went into my bathroom. In about three minutes I was in a cold bath, and nothing in this world ever felt so good as that did.”

“It pulled you together, too, did it not?”

“Amazingly. Things came back to me that I had totally forgotten—but still I was hazy about Orizaba’s presence in my room, and remembered nothing of the quarrel.”

“And then——”

“I finished my bath and passed back into my room, and so on through it to the sleeping-room which is just beyond. It was my intention to go to bed at once, but as I entered my bedroom there was a clock facing me, and the hands pointed to half-past three. I could not believe that I had been an hour in the bath, so I went back into the other room and took another look at my watch, only to discover that it still said half-past two, and that it had stopped. Then I thought that possibly it was run down, and I turned the stem, only to discover that the mainspring was broken. All the same, if I broke that mainspring at half-past two, I had not slept much more than half an hour in all, taking the time for the bath into consideration.”

“That is quite evident.”

“Well, I turned then to take another look at Orizaba. To tell the truth, I did not like the idea of his sleeping in my room, and I couldn’t yet understand why he did so.”

“Well?”

“I hesitated a moment or so, and then I crossed the room to his side and spoke to him. He neither replied nor moved, and so I seized him by the shoulder and shook him.”

Danton shuddered as he uttered this last sentence—shuddered and uttered a low groan.

“And then——” said Nick.

“Why, then his head fell over on one side, and I saw that his eyes were half open, and—— Well, I seemed to know instantly that he was dead.”

“What did you do then?”

“I didn’t do anything at first. I only stood there staring at him in amazed wonder. I think my senses as well as my muscles were paralyzed.”

“Quite likely.”

“I replaced him as well as I could, in the position he had occupied before I shook him out of it, and then I felt of his flesh. It wasn’t cold and it was not warm. It was sort of clammy. There isn’t anything else that I know of that feels just as his flesh felt to my touch then.”

“I can understand that.”

“Well, the remarkable part of that moment is that everything about our conduct after we were in my room together, which I have already told you, came back to me in a flash then, as if I had not forgotten it at all, and at the same instant I seemed to know what it was that had killed Orizaba. My God! Mr. Carter, you don’t believe I did it, do you? You don’t believe I could have done such a thing in my sleep, do you?”

“No. Emphatically I do not. Go on, Mr. Danton.”

“I seemed to know what had killed him as well as if I had seen it done—as perfectly as if I had done it myself, although then it did not occur to me that I had done it, nor as a surprising fact that I should seem to know how it was done.”

“We will go into that later on, Danton. Just now I want you to be particular to tell me everything that you did from that moment on, until you entered this room here; and I want you to tell me also, as nearly as you can, the impressions that fastened themselves on your mind between that moment and now. There is a subconsciousness here which I wish to fathom. And—there is one thing which I want you to bear in mind.”

“What is that?”

“That no matter what impression you are making upon the mind of Nick Carter, you have not yet satisfied a jury that you are not detailing a cleverly concocted story—or, in plain English, that you did not actually kill Orizaba with deliberation and malice prepense. Do you understand?”

“Yes; I understand.”

“Well, continue from the point where it came over you suddenly that you knew how the murder was committed. What was it that forced that idea upon you?”

“Nothing. It came accidentally. I discovered that in raising his head to replace it against the upholstering of the chair in the position it had occupied before I shook him, I was unconsciously examining the back of his neck under his hair, which, as I have said, grows downward, quite out of sight below his collar—in fact, below his shirt band when he has no collar adjusted.”

“You were searching there unconsciously, you say?”

“Quite so, it would seem, since I realized suddenly what I was doing, and only realized it when my search revealed a speck of blood where it had oozed out and hardened into a crimson bead among the short hair on the back of his neck.”

“And then——”

“Then, still without a full realization of my acts, I wiped away the speck of blood with my handkerchief—wiped it away with great care and looked for the sign of a wound underneath the spot where it had been.”

“Did you find one?”

“Barely that; nothing more. Just a little mark like the prick of a pin, turned blue, and altogether unnoticeable unless you should search diligently for it. I shall come to that again, sir, later, but it belongs with that part of my story which has the second beginning.”

“Very good. For the present stick to the text you are on. What did you do next?”

“I think in all that I did then I acted automatically. I replaced his head in position with great care. I even walked around in front of him to see that he looked quite as naturally asleep as when I first discovered him.”

“And then——”

“In one of the inside compartments of my desk I keep a small metallic casket in which I store a few treasured keepsakes. Among the things I kept in that casket was the needle I have already described. It had been fastened into a cork handle, like the handle of a brad-awl. The casket was invariably locked—I do not remember ever in my life to have left it unlocked—but now, when I went to it, it was not only unlocked, but it was open, and—the needle was not there.”

“What about the cork handle?”

“That was there, in place, where it belonged, but the needle had been broken off short against the cork.”

“Well, what then?”

“I took the cork handle from the box and laid it on the desk. Then I crossed the room to my discarded trousers—for I had not dressed since my bath and had on only my pajamas—and felt in my pocket for my keys.”

“You found them?”

“Yes. Then I crossed back again to the desk, locked the casket and replaced it where it belonged, after which I closed my desk and locked it, but not until I had placed the cork handle to one side. Later, I put it in my pocket and brought it here with me. Here——”

“Never mind. We will come to that later. You told me in the beginning of your story that when you entered your room after leaving the piazza, you found Orizaba there, at your desk, and that the desk was open, although you believed that you possessed the only key that would fit its lock. How do you account for that?”

“I don’t account for it; I only know it is the truth. Every word that I have told you is the solemn truth, so help me God!”

CHAPTER IV.

TRYING TO FORGE HIS OWN FETTERS.

“What were your personal sensations while all this was taking place? How did you feel about it all?” asked Nick.

“That is one of the strangest features of the case, Mr. Carter,” replied Danton, “for while I seemed to know all about everything, as correctly as if I had seen the crime committed, it never once occurred to me that I was myself the guilty party. That aspect of the case was not impressed upon me till afterward.”

“When did it first occur to you?”

“Wait, and I will tell you. Through all that I did from the moment I discovered that Orizaba was dead until I began to put on my street clothes, I seem to have acted mechanically, as if I were really two beings, one of which was watching the other, passively. The finding of the wound on the back of his neck, the discovery of the open casket, the broken needle and the empty cork handle—none of those things seemed to surprise me at all, until I had begun the operation of dressing, and was in fact half-dressed, when it all came over me with a suddenness that made me stagger back against the wall like—well, as if I had received a blow in the face.”

“What came over you? What made you stagger?”

“The thought that perhaps I might have committed that horrible deed in my sleep.”

“No, sir! Disabuse your mind of any such thought as that, now and forever. You did not do murder in your sleep.”

“Well, I know that I did not do it at all, then.”

“Certainly you know that. Others do not and will not. But you may rest assured that no person on earth will ever believe that you did it in your sleep, and I least of all. And was that all that came over you and made you stagger back against the wall?”

“No; not all.”

“Well, what else?”

“The thought of Mercedes.”

“What had the thought of your sister to do with it?” asked Nick.

“It was the thought of what she would think of the matter that brought home to me the possibility that I had committed the crime in my sleep.”

“How so?”

“Simply because I have more than once told Mercedes—in jest of course, only she did not always believe that I was in jest—that some day I would kill Orizaba.”

“Indeed. You have often made that threat to her, have you?”

“A hundred times; perhaps more. Very often. I have even showed her the needle.”

“Ah! The needle again. You say you have shown it to your sister?”

“Yes; twice.”

“And she knew where you kept it?”

“Certainly.”

“Where did you obtain it?”

“It was given to me three years ago in Paris. It has a grewsome history, but whether it is true or not, I do not know. I only know that I was told that it had for years been the favorite sort of weapon for a famous—or rather an infamous—murderer, who was at last beheaded for his crimes. It was said that this needle was found in his possession when he was last captured.”

“A French criminal named Cadillac. I know of him. The story is doubtless true. But to return to your sister. Why did you show her the needle and threaten to use it on your cousin?”

“Mr. Carter, if you don’t mind, I would much prefer that you do not refer to Orizaba as my cousin. At best the relationship was so far removed that it cannot be considered, and I really doubt if there was any at all. I think he was an impostor, and whether he was or not, and notwithstanding the fact that he is dead and I am not sure that I did not kill him in my sleep, or somehow, I know he was a scoundrel of the worst sort. I hope I did not kill him, but I can truthfully say that I am glad that he is dead. Don’t call him my cousin.”

“Very well. Now let us return to your sister.”

“Well?”

“Why did you show the needle to her and threaten to use it on Orizaba?”

“The answer to that question belongs to the other story.”

“Never mind. Let me have it now.”

“Mercedes has known, ever since we have had any knowledge of Orizaba, that I hated him. In a word, my hatred of him has arisen chiefly because of his determined court paid to her. I have known all along that he was totally unworthy of her, but——”

“Then why did you not put a stop to his attentions at once?”

“Because Mercedes would not permit it.”

“Ah!”

“For some reason she chose to defend him always—that is, whenever I attacked him.”

“Do you mean by that, that she favored his suit?”

“No; I do not mean that, for that is what she did not do. I have never thought that she favored him, and yet on more than one occasion she has constituted herself a sort of quasi protectress over him whenever we have had our accustomed three-cornered fight at the home concerning him.”

“What do you mean by accustomed three-cornered fight?”

“I refer to wordy battles which often took place among my mother, my sister, and myself concerning Orizaba. These were usually begun in raillery, but always ended in bitter words.”

“And on such occasions you say that your sister championed Orizaba?”

“Championed is not the word; it is too strong. She took his part, if that expression can be said to mean anything.”

“I understand. Now let us return to the room, and to the moment when you staggered back against the wall with the thought in your mind that your sister would believe that you had carried out your threat and killed Orizaba. Was there any other reason than those you have mentioned why it should suddenly have occurred to you that she would think you guilty of the crime?”

“Yes. One other.”

“What was that?”

“Merely the fact that the very last words I uttered to Mercedes before I left the house last night to attend the banquet referred to such a possibility.”

“How? In what manner? Explain.”

“She came into my room just as I was on the point of leaving it to come here to the city for the banquet. When she entered the room I was seated at my desk engaged in addressing the envelope of a letter I had just written, and which I wished to post when I went out. The casket in which I kept the needle was open on the desk before me——”

“How did that happen?”

“I had opened it to get out a diamond stud which I was then wearing, and I had not yet closed and locked the casket and returned it to its place.”

“Well? Mercedes entered the room; what then?”

“She expressed the wish that I would enjoy myself at the banquet, and also the hope that I would drink less wine than usual. I replied that when she and my mother decided to rid the house of Orizaba I would be willing to give up wine altogether, and that the mere fact that he was to be present at the banquet was sufficient to make me get drunk, and I closed my remarks by taking Cadillac’s needle from the casket and holding it up to her view.

“‘As surely as there is a kingdom of heaven,’ I said, ‘I’ll jab this thing into his vertebra some day if he hangs around here much longer. I’ve had about all of him that I can stand.’”

“What reply did she make?”

“None whatever. She rose and left the room. Five minutes later I left the house and came to New York.”

“But you returned the needle to the casket?”

“Certainly.”

“Did you lock the casket?”

“I did.”

“You are positive of that?”

“Certainly.”

“And the desk itself?”

“I am equally positive that I locked that also.”

“Well, now let us return again to the moment when after the discovery of Orizaba’s death you staggered back against the wall. What did you do next, after that?”

“I finished my dressing with all the haste I could command. I put the cork handle of Cadillac’s needle in my pocket. I locked the casket and put it away again. I locked the desk. I tiptoed around the room with great care, and as far as I was able to do so in my more or less dazed condition, I left things exactly as I supposed they were before I returned there from the banquet. Then I came out of the house silently, hurried to the station, caught the four-ten train for the city, and here I am.”

“Did you suppose that you could cover up the fact that you had returned to the house in company with the man who is now dead?”

“I supposed so at the time I attempted to accomplish it; I know now that such a thing would be impossible. There is the cab driver who took us to the station here in the city; there is the good-natured conductor who knows me, who waked me when we were approaching our station; he has waked me many times in the same manner and he would not forget it. There is the conductor who came down on the four-ten train, who expressed unbounded surprise because I was going to the city so early in the morning. He had never seen me going in that direction at that time of day before, and he even asked me, jokingly, if there was anybody dead at the house, and I, like a fool, replied to him.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him yes; that Orizaba was dead.”

Nick Carter almost laughed, so bright was the smile that suffused his face.

“It seems to you now that it was a foolish thing for you to do, to tell the conductor that Orizaba was dead,” he said, “but I will assure you that it was in reality the most sensible thing you have done in this whole affair. Now, two or three more questions, and then we will start at once for the Fells. We should be able to get there, I think, before the body of Ramon Orizaba is discovered, since it is not likely that any one will enter your room at this hour in the morning.”

CHAPTER V.

BROKEN LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF CLUES.

“What are the other questions, Mr. Carter?” asked Danton.

“I merely want you to tell me in as few words as possible the other story you have referred to several times.”

“It is only about Ramon Orizaba.”

“That is why I wish to hear it.”

“I first knew of his existence about five years ago; I think, also, that my mother heard of him for the first time then. He came to her, during my absence, with letters of introduction which are said to have established his relationship to her. I have never correctly understood what that relationship is, more than that he was a distant cousin on her mother’s side of the family. Nevertheless, Mr. Carter, I have long been convinced that there was something—some relationship, some power, some parcel of family history, some deviltry of some kind somewhere, which accounted for the studied insolence he often assumed to me and to others, and more than once, in his cups, he has as much as told me that it was out of my power to drive him out of the family.”

“You are making a strong insinuation against your own family, Danton.”

“I insinuate nothing against my mother; you must not understand me in that way. She is, and always has been, the soul of goodness. She is so good that she would suffer untold tortures to protect others, if she considered it a part of her duty to another to do so. It is some hold like that which this man had upon her, in my opinion.”

“But you do not even conjecture what it was?”

“No.”

“Do you think your sister might know what it was?”

“I am positive that she does know.”

“And her being thus informed would account for her standing between you and Orizaba in your quarrels, would it not?”

“Naturally.”

“So, in reality, she was not protecting Orizaba on such occasions, but merely standing for her mother.”

“Yes. I see that now, but I assure you it never impressed me in that way before.”

“You heard of the man first about five years ago. How long has he been considered a quasi member of your family?”

“Certainly for three years; in reality I have no doubt that my mother has supplied him with funds for a much longer time.”

“You have not mentioned that fact before. Why, in your opinion, should she do that?”

“Heaven only knows! I know that he had no supply of money of his own. He has confessed as much to me. I have known of several occasions when he has obtained money from her. I know them only by implication, of course, but I am as certain of the facts as if I had witnessed the transactions. And I do know positively of one occasion when Mercedes gave him a thousand dollars. She said it was a loan when I upbraided her for it, but I know that he never returned it, and that he never intended to do so.”

“How old a man was Orizaba?”

“He was thirty last Sunday.”

“Now, Danton, pay strict attention to the next few questions.”

“All right. I’m ready.”

“It is impossible that Orizaba should have killed himself, is it not?”

“Absolutely so, under the circumstances, since the handle of Cadillac’s needle was returned to its place.”

“You are equally positive that you did not kill him?”

“Unless I did so in my sleep, and am therefore entirely unconscious of the act. I know that I did not touch him.”

“And you are equally sure that he was dead? You are positive that in your dazed condition you could not have been mistaken?”

“Oh, I am certain of all that.”

“And that the needle that is missing from this cork handle which you have just placed in my hand is now imbedded in the back of his neck?”

“I know that the needle was in the cork at the last moment before I left my room to go to the banquet. I know that the needle is not there now. I know that there is—or was—the mark of a wound such as that needle would have made at the back of his neck. I know that there was a spot—a bead—of blood there, which I wiped away with a handkerchief, and that in wiping the spot I was certain that I could detect, by a pressure of my finger, the presence of the end of the needle under the skin.”

“And yet you also know that the casket in which the needle was kept by you was locked and that the only key that exists within your knowledge which will open it was in your pocket—by the way, were your keys in your trousers or in your waistcoat?”

“In my trousers.”

“And you did not remove them when you threw yourself on the couch to sleep?”

“No.”

“But you admit that you were very full of wine.”

“Just about as full as I could be and walk.”

“So that when you dropped asleep in that condition any person might have gone through your pockets and removed everything you possessed without disturbing you, don’t you think?”

“Yes. I hadn’t thought of that, but it is as true as gospel.”

“But—although you are equally positive that you locked your desk before you left the house to attend the banquet—yet you are certain that when you entered your room after having fallen asleep on the piazza and remained there approximately half an hour, you saw Ramon Orizaba standing at your open desk. Now is there a possibility that you are mixed about that part of the story? Remember, you were not sober at the time.”

“Nevertheless, I do not think I am mistaken about it. Of course it is possible that I am deceived, but I do not think so.”

“Now, supposing you to be correct on that point, have you any idea why Orizaba was searching your desk?”

“Not an idea in the world.”

“Had he, to your knowledge, ever done such a thing as that before?”

“No; never—at least, not that I have suspected.”

“Have you ever had reason to suppose that any person has opened your desk in your absence?”

“N-n-no.”

“You seem to hesitate in your answer.”

“Well, such a thought has never actually occurred to me before, but now that you suggest it, I am reminded that there have been several times when I have been annoyed by little things which I attributed to my own carelessness.”

“Such as——”

“Such as discovering papers or letters in pigeonholes where they did not belong. Such as searching for things that were not in their proper places when I found them. I am extremely methodical about some of my habits, and it is one of my boasts that I could go to my desk at night and place my hand on anything I desired to find there.”

“And yet you have occasionally found things not in their accustomed places, eh?”

“Yes.”

“When was the first experience of that kind?”

“I don’t remember. Two or three years ago, perhaps.”

“Has it happened frequently?”

“No. Several times, I should say; but at long intervals.”

“Do you keep a check-book in your desk?”

“Certainly.”

“Are you as systematic and methodical concerning the stubs in your check-book as you are about the arrangement of your desk?”

“I am afraid not.”

“Now, go back to the time when you left the train at the Fells, on your way home from the banquet. You say you have no recollection that Orizaba was with you during the walk from the station to the house?”

“None whatever.”

“And yet you say that you stopped two or three times and indulged in soliloquies—held animated dialogues with the lamp-posts and the telegraph-poles, eh?”

“Oh, yes; there is no doubt of that.”

“When you reached the piazza and dropped into a chair there, are you sure that you were alone?”

“As sure as I am of anything at all. Everything is more or less hazy, you know.”

“But half an hour later, or thereabouts, when you went to your room, Orizaba was standing at your desk, which was open?”

“Yes.”

“And there was no train that could have arrived from the city in the meantime?”

“Not unless it was a special.”

“Now, with your knowledge of Orizaba and his habits, of the relations he occupied in the household, of the acquaintances he cultivated, can you offer any suggestion concerning the identity of any person who might have killed him? I don’t necessarily mean who did kill him, but who might have done so at any time or place?”

“Nobody but Reginald Meadows Danton—myself. The fact is, Carter, Orizaba was generally well liked. He was quite a favorite at the club. I don’t know that he had an enemy in the world, save myself—and possibly my father. Only, of course, the governor is out of the question. He’s in Europe, anyhow; and, besides, his dislike for Orizaba was only general. He disliked to have strangers around the house at any time. We have always entertained lavishly, but it was always a bore to the governor. Dear old dad hasn’t an ambition in life that hasn’t the dollar sign in front of it. You must not get the idea that because I hated and despised Orizaba that everybody else did the same. On the contrary, he was a general favorite.”

“Very well, Danton,” said the detective, rising from his chair. “If you will wait here while I make some changes in my apparel I will rejoin you presently and we will catch the six-thirty train for the Fells. For the present, I advise you to give the impression that you have not been, at the house before, this morning, and if the body of Orizaba has not already been found we will discover it. After that we must be guided by events. My presence with you, you can explain on the plea that I am a Mr. Felix Parsons, of London, an old friend whom you unexpectedly met at the club.”

CHAPTER VI.

THE PICTURE IN THE ROSE-GARDEN.

Nick Carter and his young client walked from the station to the Fells, and while they were on their way the detective took occasion to refer to another point that had been mentioned by Danton, and one to which he had especially objected at the time it was made.

“In the beginning of our conversation this morning,” he said, “you used the expression that you had long ‘meditated’ killing Orizaba some day. Later, you told me about the needle, but I have not yet gone into that subject of meditation. I would like to know exactly what you meant by the use of that word in connection with the possible death of Ramon Orizaba.”

“I don’t think I meant the expression to be understood in exactly the way you took it,” replied Danton. “I did not mean that I had actually meditated murdering him.”

“It sounded very much like such a statement.”

“Well, I will tell you how I have meditated upon his death by violence. If the consequences of committing such a deed were purely physical—if there were no moral side to the question—if the only thing that I could have outraged by the commission of such an act had been the law, I think I should have killed him long ago.”

“That is an extremely dangerous sentiment for you to express under the existing circumstances, Danton.”

“Oh, I know that; but that isn’t the point. When I meditated upon his death it was in the form of thinking out regrets that, because of the moral and mental aspects of the case, I was debarred from killing him. I have wished that we might both return to savagery long enough for me to take his life without experiencing regret for the act afterward. I wanted him dead and I wanted to kill him, but I never for an instant considered the possibility that I would do so; precisely in the same ratio in which my adventurous spirit is always stirred whenever I read of an expedition to the North Pole.”

“How is that?”

“Why, I meditate upon going there myself. I haven’t a doubt but that I could accomplish it much more satisfactory than Peary has ever done. I have meditated upon the accomplishment of such an expedition so many times that I have well-defined plans for the work, and yet if the money, the men, the ships and everything were placed at my disposal in the midst of one of those meditative journeys I would no more have undertaken it than I would seriously have considered the cold-blooded murder that had occurred. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. I think I do. A journey to the North Pole is one of your dreams which you make use of on account of its soporific effect, when you are composing yourself for sleep; and the death of Orizaba was one of your dreams which you used in connection with the happiness of your home life.”

“Exactly.”

“Then I think we understand each other.”

“No, Mr. Carter. Not quite.”

“Well, what else?”

“I would like to ask you a few questions.”

“Ask them.”

“You have assured me that you do not believe that I could have killed Orizaba in my sleep.”

“I have; emphatically.”

“You are certain that such a thing did not happen?”

“I feel as positive as if I knew by observation that it did not.”

“You have not assured me of your conviction that my hand did not strike that needle into his neck.”

“Have I not?”

“No.”

“Do you need that assurance from me?”

“I would like to have it.”

“Why? Are you not satisfied on that point in your own mind?”

“Not exactly. I know that I did not do the deed knowingly; but——”

“But what?”

“This: I know what it is to do things when under the influence of liquor, and to have absolutely no recollection afterward of having done them. I have awakened in the morning many a time with no remembrance of places I had visited while I was intoxicated. I have met friends often, on the day succeeding some such spree, and have been told by them of incidents that took place the preceding night—incidents in which I had a part, but of which I retained absolutely no recollection.”

“That is a common experience with men who drink to excess, Danton.”

“Yes, I know; but here is another point connected with it. In the majority of cases of the sort I have described, a rehearsal of the incidents recalls them to mind—I remember them, or rather recall them when reminded of them; but there have been other cases where such periods have remained total blanks in my mind, and which no sort of reminder could recall to my recollection.”

“That is not unusual, either.”

“Well, is it possible that I might have killed Orizaba while drunk and have totally forgotten it?”

“No. I am sure it is not possible.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Certainly I mean it.”

“Then you believe that I am not responsible for the death of Orizaba? I want your assurance of that, if you can give it.”

“Very well, my young friend, then you have it. I believe that you are no more responsible for the death of Ramon Orizaba than I am—unless the fact that you owned the weapon that killed him may be said to convey responsibility. But, Danton, I am not at all sure that you did own it.”

“You are not?”

“No. The needle is missing from your desk. You think you wiped away a spot of blood from the back of his neck. You believe that the needle was imbedded in his neck at the time because you think you detected its presence there. It remains to be seen if your conclusions, arrived at when you were not in a responsible condition of mind, are correct. How do you feel now, by the way?”

“Rocky; terribly rocky and shaky.”

Nick put out one hand and rested it on the shoulder of his companion.

“Danton,” he said, “I feel that the very best tonic I can give you for your services is to tell you how much I admire your conduct this morning. You have done nobly, and you have acted bravely and almost fearlessly. You have won my respect, my faith and my lasting friendship for all time, by your conduct since I found you awaiting me in the reception-room at my house. Be as brave through the ordeals you will have to face as you have been in the beginning, and take my word for it the clouds will disappear.”

Danton came to an abrupt stop, and there were tears in his eyes as he turned and faced the detective.

“You mustn’t talk to me like that, old chap, don’t you know,” he said. “I’ve been up against it awful hard since I found that dead body in the chair in my room, and I can tell you right now that ‘Little Reggie’s wild-oats’ days are over, and that’s no dream.”

“Good for you. I believe you are in earnest.”

“In earnest? So much so that if you had told me just now that there was a possibility that I might, even unconsciously, be the murderer, I should have gone directly and given myself up and faced the music. Thank Heaven, it is not necessary.”

They were ascending the long pathway which led to the side entrance of the house, and as Danton ceased speaking he raised his arm and pointed across the lawn.

Nick turned, and his eyes encountered a vision of beauty such as never before in his life had he encountered, and the memory of which remained with him to the end of his life.

It was the month of June, it will be remembered, and a great part of the garden was given up to the cultivation of roses. There were thousands of them in bloom, from the purest white to the deep and haughty red of the jacqueminot, and they clung to low bushes and to high ones. They climbed upon trellises and peeped from interstices in the lattice work built by the gardener to support them. They hung in clusters far out of reach overhead, and they smiled up from the dew-laden leaves and grasses in the beds. Roses in all their richness, in all the magnificent and munificent glory of strength, and color and grace. Roses! Roses everywhere. And in the very midst of them, framed in nature’s richest and most priceless work, dressed in a simple white morning gown with the glory of her hair glistening in the slanting sun, with her eyes sparkling irridescently and her lips parted in a smile, and with festoons of roses hanging from her shoulders and arms, encircling her neck and filling her hands, stood Mercedes, looking toward her brother and his companion.

Involuntarily Nick Carter raised his hat and bowed—to the matchless beauty of the scene more than to the young woman who completed it. And then he was conscious of a shiver that went through him like an electric shock when he suddenly remembered the cold and silent clod of clay that was sitting so still in a chair somewhere in the house before him, whose dead eyes would never look upon this scene, whose senseless nostrils could never again expand to meet the fragrance of that June morning—that useless body which only yesterday had been as filled with hopes and longings as any person alive.

“It is your sister, is it not?” said Nick in a low tone to Danton.

“Yes.”

“Take me to her. It is an excellent moment for me to make her acquaintance. Remember, I am a friend from England—Mr. Felix Parsons, in the diplomatic service.”

She saw that they were approaching her, and waited where she was for them to draw near, and Nick saw at a glance that she had eyes only for her brother.

He saw, too, that her smile expanded as they came nearer to her; that a look of pleased surprise came into her eyes as she studied her brother, and he knew that it was because, although he had attended a banquet and been out all the night, he showed never a sign of the effects of it—of the wines he had drank, of the liquors he had imbibed; and then he was presented to her.

“Mercedes,” said Danton, “this is an old friend and a very dear friend—Mr. Parsons. Felix, this is the best, the sweetest and the dearest sister that ever blessed a young scapegrace in this world.”

CHAPTER VII.

THE DETECTIVE’S SEARCH FOR CLUES.

Greetings had scarcely been exchanged when they were interrupted by the appearance of young Danton’s valet, who approached them rapidly across the lawn, and, pausing while still some distance from them, called out in a low tone:

“May I have a word with you, Mr. Reginald?”

Danton swept one lightninglike glance upon Nick, and crossed over to where the valet was waiting.

“What is it, Rogers?” he asked.

“I had occasion to visit your rooms, just now, sir,” said the valet in a low tone, which was inaudible to the others. “Mr. Orizaba is there, sir.”

“Orizaba? In my rooms? How is that?” asked Danton in well-simulated surprise.

“I do not know how it is, sir, only that he is there; but that is not all, sir.”

“Well? What more?”

“He is in the big chair near the south window, sir. I supposed he was sleeping, and, knowing that you would be offended if you returned and discovered him there, I sought to awaken him, sir.”

“Sought to awaken him! Why didn’t you do it?”

“He would not awaken, sir.”

“What the devil do you mean, Rogers?”

“He would not wake up, because he could not, sir. He is dead.”

“Dead! Good heavens! You must be mistaken!”

“He is dead, sir; and quite cold. I saw you as you approached the house, almost at the same moment that I discovered him, sir, and so I came directly to you. Will you tell me what to do next, sir?”

“Yes; send one of the stable-boys for a doctor as quickly as he can go. Say that Orizaba is ill. Bring the doctor to my rooms as soon as he arrives. In the meantime, tell nobody of your discovery. I will go with my friend to my rooms at once. Go. Wait at the stable for the doctor, and then bring him to me at once.”

Then, as Rogers turned away, Danton called out:

“Oh, Felix. I am going to my rooms. My man tells me that Orizaba is there, and that he is ill! Will you come with me?”

With a murmured apology to Mercedes, Nick rejoined Danton, and together they entered the house and proceeded at once to Danton’s rooms.

Nick nodded his approval when Danton related the conversation that had taken place between him and his valet, but he made no comment. But when they entered and closed the door behind them, he said:

“It may prove a little bit harder for you in the end, to attempt to carry the impression now, that you were not at home early this morning, but it is decidedly better in view of my idea of what is to come. Your sister seemed to take the news that Orizaba is ill with very little concern.”

“Oh, she expected that we would both be out of the counting to-day. I usually am when I have been to a banquet. She thinks his illness is only the effects of his night out, and his presence in my room due to his not being able to find his own.”

“I see,” said the detective—but it was evident that he had other ideas concerning Mercedes’ reception of the news; however, he said nothing more on the subject, but at once busied himself in examining the room.

Orizaba’s position in the chair was precisely as Danton had described it.

A rapid, but careful, inspection of the back of his neck disclosed a small blue mark, not larger than the head of a pin, where the needle had entered the flesh. Around it there was no sign whatever of a wound, and there was not a thing that could be discovered externally, to indicate that an instrument of death had entered there.

“It is too bad that I cannot go deeper into that question here and now,” said Nick, “but for obvious reasons the body must not be disturbed until after the doctor and the coroner have viewed it—and, anyhow, the body itself is the least of my concerns just now.”

Suddenly he glanced up sharply at Danton, who was watching him eagerly.

“Did you have a shower in this neighborhood yesterday?” he asked.

“Yes. A light one; late in the afternoon.”

“Are you wearing the shoes you wore at the banquet, or did you put on a different pair when you started to find me?”

“I changed them.”

“Where are the ones you wore to the banquet?”

“Here.”

“Let me see them. Ah! I thought so.”

“What?”

“Never mind, just now. You think that half an hour might have elapsed while you were asleep in the piazza chair. Yes. I remember. Here is a small stain of ink on the ends of the thumb and first finger of Orizaba’s right hand, as if he had used them to pick an obstruction from the point of a pen—a hair, for example. Tell me, was Orizaba left-handed? Did he write with his left hand?”

“With either. With one almost as well as with the other.”

“And you use purple ink on your desk, I take it, eh?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Good. Where are the clothes you wore to the banquet? Get them, for we must work rapidly in order to be through before the doctor arrives.”

“Here,” replied Danton, and he brought them from a chair in the bedroom, where he had thrown them down carelessly.

Nick examined them carefully and then returned them to their owner.

“They are all right,” he said. “Hang them, if you can, in their accustomed place, where your valet keeps them. When you have done that, come here.”

Danton returned in a moment and took his place beside Nick.

“Well?” he inquired.

“Look there,” said Nick, pointing at the bottom of the legs of the trousers on the dead man. “Tell me what you see.”

“Only a small, green burr.”

“Exactly. Only a small, green burr—and on the other leg, the remnants of another small, green burr that has been picked off and thrown away. I did not find any evidence of such a thing on the trousers you wore, Danton.”

“Well, I don’t know, to be sure, but I don’t think I went anywhere to get such things fast to me.”

“Exactly; and it is evident that Orizaba did, is it not?”

“Why, yes.”

“Do you remember if he drank very much last night? Was he as full as you were when you started for home?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he was, however, for the reason that he generally kept his head much better than I could.”

“And yet, when your sister heard that he was in your rooms, ill, you say she doubtless believed that it was because he was drunk last night. Now, you take your stand over there at the window and keep your eyes out through it, so that you can tell me the moment you see any signs of the doctor’s arrival. That’s it. Don’t have me in mind at all, but tell me when you see anybody coming.”

Danton obeyed, and as soon as his back was turned, Nick Carter began to work in earnest.

One by one he examined every pocket in the clothing of the dead man, turning out the contents, examining each article and paper separately, and with careful scrutiny; and while he did so, there were several articles which he transferred to his own pockets, and that with the appearance of the utmost pleasure.

There were two letters, a check, a fountain-pen, a small card-case, which, however, contained no cards, but was well supplied with other things, and a piece of blue blotting-paper, which exactly fitted into the closed card-case.

These he deposited in his own pockets, and then, when he had rearranged the clothing of the dead man so that there remained no evidence that anything had been disturbed, he straightened up and drew back just as Danton announced that the doctor had arrived.

It must be remembered that there was not a sign of violence anywhere upon the body of the dead man.

He was seated in the big, upholstered chair near the window, in an attitude such as a person asleep might quite naturally have assumed. His head was thrown back against the cushion, and his hands were disposed as gracefully and naturally as if he had used every personal sense in placing them before the fatal blow had fallen upon him.

The doctor summoned by Rogers happened also to be the coroner, which was fortunate, inasmuch as he could give immediate permission for the removal of the body. He happened, also, to be not particularly gifted with understanding, and to be one of those individuals who believes so thoroughly in what he does know that opposite opinions serve merely to fasten his own convictions the more firmly. Moreover, an affair of this kind in a household like the Dantons! Well! He considered it a beneficent intervention of Providence that Orizaba should have died thus suddenly in order that he might be called in and be for a moment on terms of familiarity with the multi-millionaire’s family.

But Doctor Jackson, the coroner, did not return alone. He brought a younger man with him, who was also a physician, a young Doctor Pollock, whose keen, black eyes, alert manner, and comprehensive attitude at once impressed Nick, so that he remarked, mentally, to himself:

“There’s a young chap who will not be fooled by appearances, and who will manage to get at the bottom of this thing without much delay. I must have a private talk with him as soon as possible.”

Doctor Jackson lost no time in arriving at a decision concerning the case.

“The gentleman expired four or five hours ago,” he said, rubbing his hands together as if he were imparting information of the most delightful character, calculated to give unalloyed pleasure to everybody within the sound of his voice. “Overindulgence in stimulants brought about his death, I have no doubt. However, the autopsy will fully determine that part of it. There is, no doubt, however, that the valves of the heart will be found to be greatly enlarged, and—er—badly—er—congested. Your friend—or was he a relative, Mr. Danton? I think I have heard that he was a cousin. Yes? Very well, your cousin’s death is due to heart failure, sir, superinduced by overexcitement and stimulant, followed by the sudden relaxation of falling asleep in this chair. Ahem! I think he may now be removed.”

CHAPTER VIII.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE WHICH MIGHT HAVE HANGED DANTON.

It was at this juncture that Nick called Doctor Pollock aside for a moment.

“Doctor,” he said, “I would appreciate it if you would consent to do me a small favor in this matter.”

“Very well, sir, what can I do?” replied the doctor.

“I wish you would appear to accept whatever verdict Doctor Jackson sees fit to give concerning the events that have happened here this morning, and that when he takes his departure you would ride away with him but that you would return almost immediately, if you can do so.”

“That is rather a strange request, is it not, sir?”

“Perhaps; but I have good reasons for making it, as you will discover later.”

“It would be scarcely a professional act on my part, sir.”

“Then call it the act of an expert. Doctor Pollock, I must be frank with you and rely upon your discretion also. I am not Mr. Parsons at all. I am a person of whom you have no doubt heard, a detective, named Nick Carter.”

“Indeed! Yes, sir, I have heard of you and I am glad to make your acquaintance. I will also be glad to serve you if you will tell me how I may do so.”

“In the first place, doctor, Ramon Orizaba was murdered. I have already discovered that much, but for important reasons I wish particularly that you should have the credit of the discovery.”

“Murdered! There is absolutely no outward evidence of a crime.”

“No; but I can show you much that will convince you; therefore will you do as I have requested?”

“Certainly I will.”

“Then in an hour if you will meet me in the room to which they are taking the body, I will talk with you there.”

“Very good; I will be there.”

Turning from the doctor, Nick motioned for young Danton to come to him.

“The servants already know that Orizaba is dead,” he said rapidly. “I think you had best carry the information to your mother yourself. Tell her only what the valet told you and what the doctor has said since he arrived. That will be enough for the present. I will take it upon myself to go into the rose-garden and break the news to your sister. Conduct yourself throughout exactly as you have done up to the present moment—if you think you can keep up under this awful strain.”

“I must keep up. There is no choice.”

“True. But don’t drop down in your tracks. Once in a while you look as if you were about to do that very thing.”

“I feel so, too. But I manage to pull myself together. If I drop, it will be because I am a dead one—like Orizaba.”

“Keep up your courage. Go to your mother, and when you have finished with her, follow me to the rose-garden where we left your sister. I remember that she said she had taken her coffee, and that after she had filled her lungs with the breath of the roses, she should sit under the arbor and read, so I have no doubt that I will find her there.”

And so while the servants, directed by the two doctors, were conveying all that was left of Ramon Orizaba to the rooms he had occupied in life, Reginald Danton sought the apartment of his mother, and Nick Carter went out of the house through the side door and started along the gravel walk toward the arbor where Mercedes had told him she would sit and read.

He crossed the lawn and passed among the wealth of roses toward the very spot where he had been presented to her; and there, where she had stood during the two or three moments they had conversed together, the ground was littered with the roses she had carried in her arms and upon her person; and from that spot toward the arbor, fifty feet away, there was a trail of roses and rose leaves in such proficiency as almost to suggest that she had played the game of hare-and-hounds with them, in order to lead her pursuer to her retreat.

He followed quickly, for there was something about that confused littering of the flowers along the pathway which suggested haste and excitement. He could almost imagine that she had flung them there in her excitement as she turned to fly from some real or fancied peril. The roses along the walk seemed to speak to him and to bid him hasten to her side, and he lost no time in making his way to the arbor.

At the entrance he halted abruptly.

Inside that rose-embowered place, screened effectually from view from the outside, Mercedes had fallen, and she was stretched at full length upon the ground; her face, now waxen in hue, was turned toward the canopy of roses over her, and her whole attitude told him that she had fainted the instant she crossed the threshold and knew that she had escaped from the view of others.

“Poor child,” murmured Nick, bending over her, and he began to chafe her hands and to wait patiently until nature should come to his assistance and revive her, for it was not at all to his purposes that he should call for assistance or seek restoratives, and thus betray a weakness which she had sought so strenuously to hide.

While he bent above her, and stroking her hands, looked down upon her exquisitely beautiful face, vaguely wondering that creation could have wrought so perfectly upon one human being, a shadow fell across them both, and, raising his eyes, he saw that Danton had followed him into the garden.

“What has happened to Mercedes?” he demanded, instantly falling upon his knees beside his sister.

“She has fainted, that is all,” replied Nick. “How is it that you are here?”

“My mother was already informed, it seems. She sent me to bring Mercedes to her.”

“Ah! Well, your sister is already reviving. It will be better, when she opens her eyes, that she should not discover a stranger. I will step to one side, out of her range of vision. When she is sufficiently recovered, you can break the news of Orizaba’s death to her.”

Nick passed outside the arbor, but he stood where he could not only observe, but also hear all that took place between brother and sister, and, for reasons of his own, the circumstance was one which entirely accorded with his wishes.

“Mercedes,” said Danton, in a low, eager tone. “It is I—Med.”

She sighed and seemed to make an effort to smile, but it was a failure.

“I fainted, did I not?” she whispered.

“Yes, dear. I think so. Why did you faint? What was the matter? You looked so well when I saw you in the garden only a little while ago. What happened to you, Mercedes?”

“Did I look well? Did I look happy? Oh, Meadows! How can you say that?”

“Why, what is the matter, child-sister? Why do you look so frightened? Your eyes——”

“Hush, hush! Tell me what the doctor said. What did he say?”

“That is what I came here to tell you, Mercedes. Ramon is—dead.”

Not a trace of surprise manifested itself in her face as she looked up into her brother’s eyes. Then she slowly raised herself to her elbow, thence to a sitting posture, and thus she leaned against the rustic bench, still looking into her brother’s eyes.

“Did the doctor find—does the doctor know—did he discover what it was—that killed—Ramon?” she asked hesitatingly.

“Why, yes,” replied Danton. “He said that death was due to heart failure.”

“Thank God!”

“Why, Mercedes, what do you mean?”

“What do I mean? You ask me that?”

“Do you mean to tell me——”

“Hush, my brother. Did you think I did not know?”

“Know what, Mercedes?”

“That Ramon was dead. Did you think I did not know? Oh, my God! I wish that I might have died a thousand times before I did know—before I saw what I did see.”

“Good Heaven! Mercedes, tell me what you mean!”

“Hush, Reginald. I have never called you by that name before, have I? But it seems as if I could never again address you by the name I have loved to use. Oh, my brother, my brother, why did you not kill me also, instead of condemning me to live on, with this horrible secret in my keeping? Instead of forcing me to be the one person in all the world who knows that you have committed a—murder! Oh, God help me!”

Young Danton started back in terror, and his sister buried her face in her arms against the rustic bench and burst into a passion of sobs.

But the young man pulled himself together wonderfully well, and he forced himself to ask quite calmly:

“Mercedes, I have feared that you would fear that I had a hand in the death of Orizaba, but somehow I had disabused my mind of that fear so utterly that I had, for the moment, forgotten it. Do you mean to say that you think I killed him?”

“I know that you killed him, Reginald.”

“You—know—that—I—killed—him? Good God, Mercedes, what do you mean? How can you know a thing which is not true?”

“I saw you.”

Danton started back with a cry that seemed to him loud enough to have reached to the river, but which in reality was scarcely heard by the detective a few feet away, and then he stood there as if paralyzed, staring into the face of his sister with glassy, unseeing eyes. “You saw me!” he whispered shrilly. “Then it is true after all. I did it without knowing that I did it, and all the assurances given me by Mr. Carter, were wrong. I did it, you say, and you saw me. Oh, God! Oh, God! I did it after all, and I did it without knowing it!”

Mercedes raised her eyes again and fixed them coldly upon her brother.

“Reginald,” she said slowly, “you are dearer to me than anybody in all the world, and I will keep your secret so well that all the tortures in the world shall never draw it from me—so well that the keeping of it will kill me, for I feel as if I were dying even now; but, Reginald, do not think that I shall hold you guiltless. Do not suppose that I can be made to believe that you did not commit that awful deed with deliberation and after full premeditation. I saw you, I say. I saw every motion that you made, everything you did.”

“Tell me what you saw,” he said slowly.

“You did not latch the door when you entered the room, and a draft had swung it partly ajar. I stood in the hallway. I saw you approach the chair in which Ramon was seated, asleep. You held a bottle in your hand, and I saw you hold it under his nostrils so that he might inhale the fumes of whatever it contained—and then I became conscious of the odor of chloroform.”

“But there is no chloroform in the room. I have never in my life had chloroform in my possession,” groaned Danton, whose only thought then was to convince himself that his sister might be mistaken. Still, she paid no heed to what he said.

“Wait,” she said. “I saw you hold the chloroform under his nose. Then you crossed the room to your desk. You found the casket and opened it, and I knew then what you were going to do. I tried to cry out. I tried to rush into the room, but I could neither speak nor move. All power of sound and motion had been taken from me. I was as a dead body, standing there, chained, compelled to witness the most terrible sight the eyes can behold—the infamy of my own brother. You opened the casket and you took from it that terrible instrument you have shown to me. I recognized it by the cork handle, and again I tried to call out to you and stop you—but I could not make a sound. I could not move.”

“And then——” asked Danton tensely.

“Then? Then you passed behind the chair in which he was seated; you pushed his head forward until his chin rested upon his breast, for the chloroform had stupefied him so that there was no fear that he would awaken; and then, while you held his head forward with your left hand, you did something with your right, and I saw a shudder like a spasm shoot through Ramon’s figure—and I knew that you had killed him, even as that terrible man, Cadillac, had murdered his victims in Paris.”

She broke out into sobbing again, and he made no effort to stop her; presently she recovered sufficiently to continue.

“I would not have cried out then if I could have done so,” she said, “for it was too late. I knew that Ramon was dead. I saw you replace his head back against the cushion of the chair. I saw that you smoothed his coat, as if to obliterate any traces you might have left there of the crime you had committed. I saw you hold up the cork handle of the instrument you had used, and I saw that it was empty—that the terrible needle was gone from it. I saw you take it back to the desk and drop it again into the casket where you kept it, and then I fled to my room, entered it, locked the door, and fell into a swoon from which I did not recover until the sun was shining into my room. Then I dressed and came out here. I steeled myself to act the part you saw me play, but when you went into the house, taking your friend with you to visit the scene of your crime, it was too much for me. I ran here to the arbor, and then—then I opened my eyes and found you beside me.”

CHAPTER IX.

THE MAN ON THE COUCH.

Mercedes Danton was not only herself convinced that her brother was a murderer, but she had convinced him of his own guilt. Doubtful at first, and yet half-believing that he might have unconsciously committed the act which deprived Ramon Orizaba of life, and later, aided by the reasoning of the detective, assured that he could not have killed him without knowing it, he was now thrown back into a worse condition of mind than ever, for here was one—his own beloved and loving sister—who saw him do the deed.

When she ceased speaking, his mind seemed to drift into a stupor from which he was aroused a moment later by feeling a heavy hand on his shoulder.

It was Nick Carter who touched him, and Mercedes discovered the presence of “Mr. Parsons” at the same instant.

She leaped to her feet and confronted him with flashing eyes, for sorrow gave place to anger, and all the maternal instinct of woman, which is aroused quite as thoroughly in the heart of a sister when she is fighting for a brother as for a mother when she fights for a child—all that wonderful fighting and enduring quality with which God has endowed womankind, rose up within her to battle against the peril in which she believed her brother stood at that instant when his secret became the property of a third person.

“You heard me!” she gasped. “You heard everything that I said?”

“Yes,” said Nick. “I heard everything;” but the kindly look in his eyes and the subdued voice in which he spoke convinced her that, at least, he was not immediately to be feared, and she sank back upon the bench and buried her face in her hands again.

Suddenly she raised her head and with a quick motion leaned toward him.

“You—you knew about it—before,” she whispered tentatively.

“Yes,” he replied. “I thought I did. Now I am sure that I did.”

“Then—you saw—I mean—he did not chloroform you—— Ah! You were not unconscious. You saw—the things—that I have—described. You—saw—them—yourself!”

“Mercedes,” interrupted Danton, “are you mad? What do you mean, sister?”

“Wait,” said Nick sternly. “Sit over there beside your sister, Danton, and whatever is said, don’t you speak at all. Your sister saw much more than she has described, as you will presently discover. It is a fortunate thing that I overheard this conversation between you, for through its revelations we will get at the truth. Sit down, Danton, and wait.”

Then he turned to Mercedes.

“Miss Danton,” he said kindly, “you are overwrought, but you are brave, and tender, and true. You love your brother, even though now you believe him to be guilty of a horrible crime—even though you believe it on the evidence of your own senses, than which, it would seem there could be no better. But yet, there are times when our own senses deceive us most outrageously, as I shall presently prove to you. Yours have deceived you. You saw that murder committed, and you were paralyzed with terror at the spectacle. Has it occurred to you that your perceptions might have been dulled, or have become distorted by reason of the same terrors?”

She shook her head in a slow negative.

“Yet,” continued Nick, “I will presently prove to you that you know positively that your brother did not commit that act.”

“Oh, sir, if you only can. But it is impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible. Things are only improbable. This one is not even an improbability. Now, follow me closely. When we—your brother and I—entered the rose-garden an hour ago, and I was presented to you, where did you honestly think we had come from?”

“I did not know. I had no thought about it save that you had been out somewhere together; but I thought I understood the reason for that.”

“Precisely. You mean that you supposed that we had gone out of this house together this morning, do you not?”

“Certainly.”

“It did not occur to you that I had just come from New York, and, in fact, had never set foot upon this estate before?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew better than that. I beg, sir, that you will not attempt to deceive me. I will appreciate everything you would do for my brother, but do not think that I can be deceived.”

“I think you have been deceived and now I am endeavoring to set you right. You say you knew that I had not just come here from New York. Tell me exactly why you think you knew that.”

“Because I saw you before.”

“Ah! Now, are you sure that it was I whom you saw? Did you see me sufficiently plainly to identify me?”

“N-n-no. I did not see your face; but it could have been nobody else whom I saw.”

“You think so? We will see, for I understand now exactly how you have made an awful mistake. Was it on the couch in your brother’s room where you think you saw me? No, let me put the question differently: When you were looking into that room through the half-open door, and saw the terrible scene you have just described, were you conscious that there was a person—a third person in that room?”

“Yes.”

“And where was that third person?”

“Stretched upon the couch, apparently sleeping.”

“And when you saw me in the garden with your brother a little while ago, you naturally supposed that I was the same person you had seen asleep on the couch in your brother’s room? Is that it?”

“Yes; but there is also another reason.”

“Indeed, what is that?”

“I know that there were three persons who came into the house some time after midnight, and I know that those three persons went to my brother’s rooms.”

“Excellent. Now we are getting at it. How did you know that?”

“I saw them from my window.”

“Describe them as you saw them.”

“My brother came up the walk first, and alone. I think he must have stopped on the piazza, for I did not hear him come up the stairs, although I listened.”

“Well! and what next?”

“Soon after that I saw Ramon Orizaba and a stranger approach the house together. That stranger I now suppose to be yourself.”

“Precisely. And did you again listen to discover if they came up the stairs?”

“Yes. I thought that all three came up together and went into the room.”

“Now, what was it that called you from your room, so that you happened to be passing your brother’s door at the moment when the sights you saw within held your attention?”

“Nothing at all. I was merely restless. I knew from his manner of walking that my brother was intoxicated. I also saw that Ramon Orizaba was in a condition that was not much better, and I naturally supposed the same thing of the third person. I knew they had gone into my brother’s rooms, and I wished to assure myself that they were not quarreling.”

“Now tell me what was the first discovery you made inside your brother’s room. What was the very first thing you saw which attracted your attention?”

“I saw him. He was standing at the couch with his back toward me, and he was leaning over the person who was lying on the couch—yourself.”

“We will say that it was I, for the present, if it pleases you, although I was at that time in my own bed in the city of New York. Now what was your brother doing?”

“I did not know. He had a bottle in his hand—an ordinary four-ounce vial.”

“The bottle which you afterward supposed contained chloroform?”

“Yes.”

“And your supposition was that he had been administering it to the person who was lying on the couch?”

“In the light of what I saw subsequently—yes.”

“Now, when he turned away from the man on the couch, did you see his face plainly? I want you to be sure about this. You say it was your brother; I want to know if you saw your brother’s face and so recognized it.”

“I did not see it plainly; no.”

“Was not the room lighted?”

“Very dimly. There was only one incandescent bulb turned on, and that was in the adjoining room—not in that one.”

Nick turned to Danton.

“I believe you assured me that all the lights were turned on when you awoke. Are you certain about that?”

“Absolutely positive,” was the quick reply, for Danton was now leaning forward in intense excitement, since he had caught the drift of Nick Carter’s questions.

The detective turned again to Mercedes.

“The light was, then, very dim,” he said. “Now, if you could not see the man’s face clearly, can you give me any good reason for believing that it was your brother whom you saw with the bottle in his hand?”

“Only that I felt positive that it was my brother,” said Mercedes, now beginning to stare in amazement, for she also was beginning to understand.

“Did this man whom you saw wear a coat?” asked Nick.

“Yes. He was fully dressed.”

“Was it a dress coat?”

“No. I do not think so. I remember thinking afterward that Reginald must have changed his coat and waistcoat after entering the house, for I noticed when he came up the walk that he wore a low, white waistcoat and his dress suit. When I saw him with the bottle in his hand—or the person whom I did see with a bottle in his hand, wore an ordinary coat and a dark vest.”

“Like what Reginald is wearing now?”

“No. Dark. Quite dark. Almost black, or quite so in that light.”

“When he turned away from the man on the couch, did he at once approach the man in the chair—Orizaba?”

“Yes.”

“And during all the time you were there at the door, while the man whom you supposed to be your brother was using the chloroform and the needle—while he was murdering Orizaba—could you still see the third man, on the couch?”

“Certainly.”

“Then, Miss Danton, your brother is guiltless, for Reginald Danton was unconscious, on the couch, when the murder was committed.”

CHAPTER X.

THE VICTIM OF A NEMESIS.

Mercedes started to her feet with a cry of amazed delight, nor was Reginald’s joy less deep, although he remained quite still in his place on the bench. It was Mercedes who spoke first after the announcement made by the detective.

“Then who was it whom I saw and believed to be my brother?” she demanded.

“Ah!” said the detective, “that is another matter. I think, however, that we will experience very little difficulty in determining that question, when once I have had access to the lares and penates in the room of Ramon Orizaba. However, I see Doctor Pollock returning, and so I will leave you two together, with the injunction that you had better go to your mother as soon as convenient. And, Danton, within a few hours it must be generally known that your guest was murdered, so I would suggest that you prepare your mother for the intelligence. In fact, I wish you would tell her at once, for it is more than likely that I will find it necessary to talk the matter over with her soon. Now, just one more suggestion. I think you owe it to your sister to tell her everything that has occurred, just as you told it to me, and to add to the telling all that has taken place since you entered my house this morning. You may also tell her who I am, and why I am here.”

The detective left them then and hurried across the lawn to meet the doctor who had returned according to his promise, and together they repaired at once to the room where the body of Ramon Orizaba had been taken—to the rooms he had occupied always when he was a guest at Linden Fells.

“Doctor,” said Nick, when they were alone together in the room and had closed and locked the door behind them, “I have asked this favor of you for two reasons. One is because I want a good, reliable witness to all that happens and to support every discovery I may make, and the other is because I require your professional services as an expert. The undertakers will be here shortly, and we will then have to turn the body over to them, but, in the meantime, we can easily complete such researches as it is necessary to make.

“You will find, to begin with, that this man was killed by a needle which was thrust into the back of his neck. Come; we will turn the body over and search for it, and I will ask you to withdraw it for use as evidence. There is the only mark left by the wound. It is scarcely perceptible, is it?”

“No. I should not have seen it at all if you had not drawn my attention to it.”

“Will you extract the needle? The broken end must be quite close to the surface of the skin.”

“Are you sure it is there?”

“Positive.”

“Just beneath the skin?”

“Yes; but be careful; it is of glass and will break easily.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the doctor, who stood with his back to the detective, spoke.

“You say the needle is of glass?”

“I have reason to believe it is.”

“Well, you are mistaken. It is of steel.”

“Steel? Let me see it.”

The doctor passed the tiny weapon to the detective, who examined it critically, and then, after carefully wrapping it in paper, deposited it inside his own card-case. But he did not hesitate to express his surprise to the physician at the discovery, for the needle extracted from the neck of the murdered man was in reality a needle—a three-sided, sharp-pointed needle such as is used by furriers; in fact—to give it its true colloquial name—a fur needle.

“A dangerous weapon,” said the doctor.

“Dangerous, indeed,” assented Nick. “Now, doctor, if you will proceed with your examination from the professional standpoint, so that you will be prepared to give your testimony in detail at the proper time and place, I will give my attention to the other things in the room.”

From that time on the two men worked together in silence, only occasionally calling the attention of each other to some discovery that was pertinent to the occasion.

And Nick’s investigation of the desk and its contents, of the bureau and of every nook and cranny of the room itself, was eminently satisfactory—so satisfactory, in fact, that when at last he had completed his researches, and discovered that the doctor was also done with his part of the work, he said to him:

“Here, doctor, is quite a remarkable circumstance—one, in fact, that is entirely unique in my experience, for I find by this correspondence that I have examined that this dead man has been, during his life, in constant correspondence with a person whom he believed would some day murder him—as he has done—and more than that, that he has even lived in close juxtaposition with the would-be murderer, for a period which, according to the letters, covers almost ten years. But the remarkable part of it is, that, although he has lived close to his Nemesis, and, although he has corresponded constantly with him, he has, in all that time had no idea of the identity of his enemy.”

“Do you mean that the murderer lives here in this house?” asked the doctor.

“I mean that the murderer lived here in this house; but, unless I am greatly mistaken, the murderer has fled before this.”

“You know, then, who is the murderer?”

“Yes. I know exactly. Have you finished with your work?”

“Yes.”

“Come, then. Let us go. I will ask you to join me in a family gathering for a little while; after that, we will each turn our testimony over to the proper officials, and I think there will be little or no trouble in apprehending the assassin.”

Ten minutes later, in the library of the house, behind closed doors, Nick Carter stood in the center of the room facing Mercedes, Reginald, and their mother. Beside him was seated the doctor, and upon the table before him were placed the articles he had collected during his morning’s work—the things he had taken from the pockets of the dead man, and the effects and letters he had discovered in Orizaba’s room.

“Mrs. Danton,” he began, “I feel that I should address my remarks to you. You have been told, have you not, of the terrible thing that has happened in your home?”

She bowed her head in the affirmative. She felt too much emotion to trust herself to speak.

“Reginald,” continued Nick, “I have occupied the few moments while I waited for you to bring your mother and sister to this room in telephoning to New York, for I find that your valet, Rogers, has started for the city without your leave. Ladies, and you, Reginald, the valet whom you have known as Paul Rogers, is the murderer of Ramon Orizaba—at least, I am sufficiently satisfied of the correctness of that statement to have telephoned to police headquarters for his arrest. Presumably he will be met at the station when he arrives in the city, but if he is not, I think I shall have no difficulty in finding him later.”

“Rogers! My man, Rogers?” exclaimed Reginald.

“Yes. Had it ever occurred to you that Rogers was above his station?”

“Often. He was remarkably well educated for a man in such a position.”

“He occupied several positions; among them, he represented himself as an agent for an enemy of Orizaba’s. Rogers was evidently clever at disguises, for in his room, which I found time to visit for a moment, there was, in addition to a half-filled bottle of chloroform, a very good supply of wigs, pigments and other necessaries for manufacturing disguises. Do you remember when Rogers came to you this morning in the rose-garden and told you that Orizaba was dead?”

“Perfectly.”

“I noticed then that the soles of his boots were stained with clay—a kind of blue clay unlike anything I saw during our walk together from the station this morning—which you assured me was the route by which you returned to the house from the banquet.”

“It was the same.”

“Do you remember that I asked you if there had been a shower here in the afternoon of yesterday? I wished to know if the clay had been softened sufficiently to make those stains. In discovering the stains upon the boots of Rogers I paid no attention to them, more than to observe that they were there; but when I saw stains exactly like them on the boots of the murdered man I was interested. Also, the discovery of the burrs upon his clothing, to which I called your attention, brought to mind the fact that I had seen, also without heeding them at the time, marks of the same sort of burrs on the trousers of your valet when he came to you in the garden, so when I sent you to your mother, and before going in search of your sister myself, I found Rogers’ room and looked through it.

“I was already satisfied that Rogers was the murderer when I talked with you and your sister in the arbor, but I chose to say nothing of the fact at that time. Now I have additional proof. You will remember that I asked you if you used purple ink on your desk?”

“Yes.”

“There were stains of purple ink in the thumb and finger of Orizaba’s right hand. I asked you if he wrote with his left hand and you replied that he used both. Let me tell you now that he has used his left hand to rob you, systematically, for a long time. You have been careless with your check-book and with your balances, so you have not discovered the fact, but here is a check he drew on your desk last night—a check for a much larger amount than he has ever dared to take before, doubtless, since the drawing of it made his hand tremble so that he spoiled the signature and was obliged to draw a second one. The second one is perfect. I found it in your valet’s room, where he dropped it by mistake, showing that it was given to him, that both were drawn for him, that he was in the room with Orizaba at the time they were drawn—in short, that he was the third person whom your sister saw and believed to be you. Moreover, he is of your height and build, and in one of the drawers of his bureau there is a false mustache exactly like yours, which is still soft from recent use; so that it is not strange that your sister believed she saw you in the dim light. The lights, by the way, he turned off for the purpose of his work, and then turned on again when that work was done and he was ready to depart, in order that you might not see the difference and wonder at it. Also, while upon this subject, a trivial matter, but one of interest, in connection with the checks, is the fact that the ink inside Orizaba’s fountain pen is black. Also, Orizaba carried a key which fits your desk and another which fits the casket.

“Also, like all expert forgers, he carried his own blotter with him. Fortunately in this case it was one that he had not used before, and bears a very good impression of the two signatures he signed last night.

“Now, in Orizaba’s room I found many letters which partially explain these mysteries; but only partially. We will have to conjecture for the rest. At sometime in the career of Orizaba he had married and deserted a woman who died in misery and want, and since that time he has been pursued by a Nemesis in the shape of her brother who has taken a vengeance that is truly Satanic, for he has held over Orizaba’s head all these years—ten of them—the threat of imminent death, and, what is still more remarkable, he has during that time managed to extort money from his victim, while he has himself remained so darkly in the background that Orizaba has never once guessed his identity.

“Of the occurrences of last night—or, rather of early this morning, I can only surmise, but either by appointment, or because the man was awaiting him, he encountered the man who he believed to be the agent of his Nemesis between the station and this house. They walked away in another direction, and so got the clay on their shoes. That agent was Rogers, but so cleverly disguised that Orizaba did not recognize him—probably the agent was so familiar to him that he never thought of connecting him with Rogers, having known him a much longer time.

“When they met last night Rogers was insistent for a larger amount of money than usual, and finally accompanied Orizaba to your rooms. Orizaba was at your desk preparing to draw the check when you entered the room. Rogers was here also, for they believed you were asleep in a chair on the piazza. When you entered Rogers concealed himself, and he remained concealed until you had composed yourself to sleep on the couch. Then he chloroformed you, and the proceedings continued. Rogers then took his check and went out, and Orizaba, overcome by all that had happened, dropped asleep in the chair.

“Presently, for some reason, Rogers returned. Doubtless he had intended to kill Orizaba last night, since the encounter on the road. He administered more chloroform to you on the couch, and then performed the remainder of the ceremony as your sister has described it to us, for she saw it.

“And now, Reginald, there is just one point about which I am at fault, but which I think this letter will possibly explain. I found it in Rogers’ room, addressed to you, and I have not yet broken the seal. Before I do so I will explain the point to which I referred.

“Your Cadillac needle was not the instrument which killed Orizaba. He was killed with a steel needle—a furrier’s needle—but the cork handle of your glass needle was used to press it into the flesh. The glass needle was removed and the steel one substituted for it, but why I do not know. Let us see now if this letter will inform us. Listen.”

Nick broke the seal, spread the letter open before him and read aloud:

“Mr. Danton: Although I have killed Ramon Orizaba, deliberately, and after waiting ten years, and in the meanwhile gloating over the prospect of doing so, I am not sufficiently a scoundrel to leave you to pay the penalty of my crime. I have thought of many ways of putting him out of the way, and your Cadillac needle has suggested the best one. But I am afraid that the glass is not strong enough, so I have substituted one of steel. At first I thought it might not be discovered that he was killed and that his death would be attributed to natural causes, but I will not take that chance with your life and reputation in the balance, so I write this.

“Why I have killed him does not matter to you. I will say nothing which will lead to my apprehension, and all the detectives in the world cannot find me or take me.

“I was obliged to use the cork handle of your needle in order to be successful—in order to push the weapon into his neck. You will find the glass one under the vase on the mantle in my room.

Rogers.”

“Brief and to the point,” said Nick, putting down the letter; and as he did so Mercedes rose in her place and crossed the room to him, extending both hands.

“You have been our savior,” she said; “my savior as well as Reginald’s. God bless you!”

CHAPTER XI.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MERCEDES.

When Nick left Linden Fells he carried with him not only the heartfelt thanks of the Danton family, but also the sincere friendship of Reginald. Clever detective though he was, he could not quite define the queer little tingling feeling in the region of his heart when the picture of Mercedes Danton, as he had first seen her in the rose-garden, recurred to him.

In one thing his calculations had failed. The headquarters detectives did not succeed in arresting Rogers. Although they promptly responded to Nick’s telegram, and the best men on the force were detailed to take the self-confessed murderer into custody, he succeeded in eluding them, as he said in his letter to Reginald Danton he would do.

Had they succeeded much trouble might have been spared the house of Danton, over which dark clouds were even then gathering, and plots dark and threatening that involved death and disaster were hatching. For days, aided by the counsel and experience of Nick, the detectives sought high and low for the missing valet. But without success. With the man still at large Nick could not overcome a feeling that the family at Linden Fells was in danger. What that danger might be, or what form it might take, he could not conjecture. But, unlike most criminal cases which he had successfully unraveled, this one of the murder of Ramon Orizaba was not easily dismissed from his mind. It was, perhaps, the rose-garden picture that fixed in his mind all the ramifications of the murder of Orizaba.

Nick had just left the Waldorf-Astoria by way of the main entrance on Thirty-fourth Street. He walked slowly toward Fifth Avenue and was in the act of turning the corner toward the southward when a carriage halted at the curb at a point about midway of the block.

The door of the carriage swung open and a woman appeared for one instant at the opening. At the same instant two men, who were passing and who happened to be directly abreast of the point where the carriage had halted, came to a sudden stop. One of them uttered an exclamation of mingled astonishment and anger and darted forward away from his companion and toward the woman, who had not yet wholly emerged into view, and whose identity the detective could not determine.

It was evident that she discovered the man almost as soon as he saw her, for she uttered a little startled cry of consternation and leaped back into the carriage again.

At the same instant the driver, as if warned by her cry, and also as if prepared for just such an attack, brought the butt of his whip down with a sharp blow against the aggressor’s head, and so jammed his hat over his eyes and almost felled him to the pavement. Then, reversing the whip, and using it to good advantage upon the horses, the vehicle was hurried away at a furious pace, and was soon out of sight around the corner of Thirty-third Street.

Nick witnessed the whole thing, which did not occupy more than three or four seconds of time; but during those few seconds he was steadily approaching nearer to the spot where it happened, so that by the time he reached it the man with his hat over his eyes had succeeded in removing it. But he was standing with his back toward the detective, shaking his fist in the direction the carriage had gone and was swearing softly to himself.

Nick, however, recognized him at once, and he came to a halt, smiling, while he waited for the angry man to turn in his direction—which, after a moment of contemplative profanity, he did.

“Thank God!” he exclaimed instantly and impulsively, for he also recognized the detective; and he grasped Nick Carter’s extended hand with a fervor which was as genuine as his rage had been a moment before.

“I say, Nick, old chap, did you see that?” he asked, rubbing his head ruefully.

“Yes,” replied Nick, still smiling. “Nothing serious, I hope. Only one of your many adventures, eh, Danton? Really, I supposed you were serious when you told me not two weeks ago that you had turned over a new leaf. Or, is this a left-over affair?”

“Left-over affair! Didn’t you see her?”

“No. I merely saw a woman—that is, I merely saw the costume of a woman, not the woman herself.”

“Then you didn’t recognize her?”

“Certainly not. Do I know her?”

“Know her! Say, will you wait here a second until I excuse myself to my companion who was with me? I want to talk to you.”

“Yes; I will wait.”

Danton hurried away, made his excuses to the man who had halted a few feet distant and was awaiting him, and then returned to Nick Carter.

“Shall we go into the hotel, shall we walk, or shall we—what shall we do, Carter? I want dreadfully to talk with you.”

“Let’s walk. We can go in the direction of my house. That is where I was headed for when your episode of the carriage arrested my attention. Now, what is the matter, Danton?”

“Everything is the matter.”

“Your reply is neither lucid nor comprehensive.”

“No, I suppose not. I wish you had seen who it was who started to descend from the carriage.”

“In that case, and as I did not see, or recognize the person, suppose you tell me who the lady was.”

“It was my sister, Mercedes.”

“Ah!” said Nick, and stopped. He was greatly astonished, but not a sign of his feelings appeared in his voice. He uttered the exclamation in exactly the same tone he would have used if Danton had said that the woman was the Queen of Sheba, or the High Duchess of Benkakakiak.

“Ever since the murder of Ramon Orizaba about two weeks ago—it will be two weeks to-morrow, will it not?—one trouble has followed another until it seems almost as if the family and the home at Linden Fells is accursed. My mother was taken ill the day of the funeral. Her illness came on so suddenly that I cannot get it out of my head that she was poisoned. However, we sent her away at once, and she is better now. She is at Newport.”

“Well?” said Nick.

“Well, Mercedes was preparing for an extended trip abroad, even before this misfortune came to the house. After the murder she was more determined than ever to go, and sought to hurry the preparations of her friends who were to accompany her on the trip; but they did not hurry fast enough, so she resolved to start on alone with only her two maids. In the meantime, Nick, she did not act at all like herself. I saw very little of her, and even that little was most unsatisfactory. She was strangely unlike herself.”

“Did you not talk with her about it?”

“I tried to, but she wouldn’t talk.”

“But I supposed there was the utmost confidence and sympathy between you and your sister.”

“So there always has been until now. The fact is, a week ago last night we quarreled.”

“Not seriously, I hope?”

“N-no. That is, I did not regard it as serious at the time, for we have had worse spats than that one, many a time. However, she disappeared the following day.”

“What is that?” asked Nick, stopping abruptly in their walk. “Disappeared, you say?”

“Yes, that is what I said. We quarreled a week ago last night—Saturday night. Sunday morning I slept late, breakfasted alone, and came into the city almost immediately after. I did not return to the Fells until toward evening. When I arrived there she had gone.”

“Gone where?”

“How do I know where? If I had known, I wouldn’t have cared. I have neither seen nor heard a sign of her from that time till just now when that carriage drove up against the curb and she started to alight from it. Naturally, when the carriage stopped almost in front of me, I looked toward it. You can imagine my astonishment when I saw and recognized Mercedes. You saw what happened then.”

“Yes. I saw what happened then. Are you sure that the lady was Mercedes?”

“Am I certain that you are you? I saw her as plainly as I see you now.”

“Did you also recognize the coachman who struck you?”

“No.”

“Did you see him at all, so that you would have recognized him if you had seen him?”

“Sure, I saw him—quite well enough to know him again, the next time I see him.”

“And he was a stranger to you?”

“I do not remember that I ever saw him before.”

“Did she—did the woman, whom you believed to be Mercedes, say anything to him when you started toward the carriage?”

“Not a word.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am positive. Why?”

“Well, it seems strange that a coachman whom you do not know, and who, therefore, would not have been likely to have struck you without instructions, should do that very thing without orders. Now, please be particular, Danton. Is it not possible that you may be mistaken and that the woman in the carriage was not Mercedes?”

“No; it is not possible. I saw her plainly.”

“In that case, I do not see just why you wish to talk to me about the story.”

“Good heavens, Carter! Don’t you suppose I want to find my sister?”

“I don’t know, I am sure. But if that was your sister, it is quite evident that she does not want to find you, or care to have you find her. If the occupant of that carriage was Mercedes Danton, she had mighty good reasons for acting as she did, and I will tell you very frankly, Reginald, as between you and Mercedes, I will take her side of the question every time.”

Reginald Danton took a quick step forward and turned, thus placing himself directly in front of the detective, so that both were obliged to come to a stop. Then he held out his hand and smiled.

“Shake,” he said.

“Why?” asked Nick.

“On that last proposition—that, as between Mercedes and me, you will take her side of the question every time. That is what I want you to do. In other words, I don’t care a fig whose side of the question you take as long as it benefits her in the end. I love my sister better than anybody else in the world—better than everybody else in the world put together. She’s in trouble of some kind, and I haven’t any more idea what it is than the man in the moon; neither can I find out what it is any more than the same mythical personage. Mercedes left the house without a written word to anybody. She took one of her maids with her—a new one, who has been in her employ only a month or so, and she left word with the other one that she would write.

“She did not write. I supposed, of course, she had gone to Newport, where mother is, and on Wednesday I ran over there. She was not there, and had not been there. Mother did not even know that she was not at home, and I didn’t enlighten her; and there you are. Mercedes went out of the house last Sunday, a week ago to-day, and——”

Danton stopped and brushed his eyes quickly. Then, with his tones filled with emotion, he said:

“The fact is, Nick, I’ve got a ‘hunch,’ as the racetrack people say. It never occurred to me till this very moment, but as sure as fate I believe that there is foul play somewhere. What you said about the coachman suggests it. Good God, Carter! do you suppose it could be possible that Mercedes did not leave home of her own free will?”

CHAPTER XII.

A STRANGE LEAVE-TAKING.

The detective strode on in silence for some distance before he replied, and then he said, very slowly:

“I have seen very little of your sister, Reginald, but what I have seen of her, and what I know of her character, assures me that she would never even consider the taking of a step of the kind you mention without good and sufficient reason. Furthermore, I feel sufficient personal interest in her to make it my duty to find her and ask her for her side of the story, so now, if you will come into the house and follow me to my room I will ask you to tell me all you know about the affair up to the present moment. You may tell me first what was the quarrel about?”

“You.”

“Eh? What is that?”

“We quarreled about you.”

“About me! Hmmph! I should like you to tell me the particulars of that quarrel, if you please.”

“The whole thing did not really amount to a row of pins.”

“Nevertheless, I should like to see the point of each pin.”

“Your name has been mentioned very often between us, ever since the death of Orizaba.”

“Well?”

“I could see, when you were there at that time, that—er—well, that you admired Mercedes very much indeed.”

“You were entirely correct in that decision.”

“I could also see that she was especially drawn toward you; in short, that she admired you almost as much as you did her.”

“I am very much pleased to hear you say that. I did not suppose that she had had time to remember my existence.”

“It is a funny thing, Carter, that you can be so mighty shrewd about seeing things in one light, and still not be able to see a deuced thing in another—that is, from another and different point of view.”

“That is a very ordinary human failing, Danton. But, go on.”

“Mercedes has always held rather extraordinary ideas about love and marriage; about men, women and things socially, much to the annoyance of mother and to the amusement of my father. I think, Carter, that you almost came up to her idea of the ideal man.”

“Nonsense, Danton!”

Nick could feel that tingling around the heart region again.

“I am speaking seriously. Please remember that I am talking of my sister.”

“I do, my boy; but get down to the quarrel.”

“I’m getting down to it. All this is a preamble which must be told in order that you may understand all of it—and in understanding it, I want you to be particular not to misunderstand anything I may say.”

“You are rather obscure just now.”

“Not intentionally. In order to explain so that you will understand, I must confess to you that I made her believe that I thought she was more than half in love with—you.”

“In other words, you bantered her upon what you knew to be untrue; you merely teased her because you had discovered a theme which did tease.”

“Exactly.”

“Well?”

“It was all raillery, you know. Just making fun.”

“Yes.”

“And, in doing so, in order to tease her the more, I did not hesitate to make fun of you.”

“Naturally.”

“In short—you know I want to be entirely frank with you. That is one of my few virtues, frankness, is it not? In short, at the time when we quarreled, I permitted myself to speak slightly of you. Quite so, in fact.”

“Suppose you tell me what you said.”

“I say, Carter, that’s mean, you know, to make me tell what I said.”

“You have already explained why you said the things you did say.”

“I know, but they will sound differently now, repeated in cold blood.”

“Tell me what you said about me to your sister. I want to know all about the quarrel.”

“Well, if I do, you will have to promise me first that you will forgive, beforehand, all that I shall say.”

“Certainly, Danton. I understand perfectly that you were only teasing your sister, and I know something about the lengths to which brothers will go on occasions of that kind, as well as some of the liberties they will take, not alone with their sister themselves, but also with any other person who happens to be under discussion. Believe me, I will take all that you said in an utterly impersonal manner.”

“Well, I accused her of being in love with you, of course.”

“Yes. And then?”

“I told her that you were a widower, but——”

“Go on.”

“Confound it, I can’t! I simply explained in my own way, which won’t bear repeating now, that you had worshiped your first wife, and that you would wear sackcloth and ashes the rest of your days—please forgive me, old man!—and that there was no hope that another could ever take her place in your heart.”

“What next?” asked Nick curtly.

“Why, then I made fun of your profession. I asked her how she would like to be known as Mrs. Detective Carter, and all that, don’t you know—and I kept at it until I got her thoroughly angry.”

“Well?”

“She told me that if I were half the man that Nick Carter is people would have a lot more respect for me, which I admitted, and that if she loved a man it would make no difference to her whether he was a detective, or what he was, so long as he was a good and honorable man, who did his duty to his neighbor and to himself, and all that. Really, she read me quite a lecture, until I’m blowed if she didn’t get me mad, too.”

“She told you a few facts, I suppose.”

“Facts! Good Heaven! You ought to have heard her. I felt like a kitten in the grasp of a bull terrier before she got through with me.”

“And then——”

“Well, among other things she told me that I belonged to a class that was ruining posterity, whatever that may mean, inasmuch as posterity isn’t here to be ruined; that I had never earned a cent of money in my life, and that all on earth I was good for was to spend the money which my father provided—and a whole lot more of that sort until I left her in a rage. That is all; but you can see that the quarrel was not serious.”

“That was Saturday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“And you did not see her again?”

“No. I came into the city in the evening, and I did not go out home until late. Then, in the morning, Sunday, I slept late, breakfasted alone, and came into town again. She went away Sunday.”

“And you say she left no written message?”

“No.”

“But she left a verbal one with one of the maids?”

“Yes.”

“What was that message—just as it was repeated to you?”

“Simply that she was going away, and that she would write.”

“Nothing more?”

“Not a thing.”

“She took one maid with her?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“Eh?”

“What else did she take with her?”

“Pretty nearly everything she owned, I should say.”

“Do you mean that she took all of her trunks?”

“Yes; all of her own and some of mother’s as well.”

“How many in all?”

“Good gracious, Carter, you don’t suppose I have kept tabs on the number of trunks those two women own, do you? I only know what the maid told me about it.”

“Well, what did she tell you?”

“She said that it seemed strange that my sister had taken the new maid, who was not entirely accustomed to her ways, and left her behind, who knew all about her, particularly when she was intending to be gone for a long time—but that she thought it stranger still that her mistress had said nothing to her about her intention of going.”

“Ah! The maid who was left behind did not know that your sister intended to go that day, then?”

“No.”

“Where was she when Mercedes started away?”

“Where was she when the many trunks were being made ready for the journey?”

“She had been sent into the city on an errand. The trunks had left the house when she returned and she was only just in time to see my sister depart.”

“What was it she said to you about the trunks?”

“Merely that she thought it strange that her mistress had taken so many trunks and so many things with her.”

“In short, Danton, the maid told you those things simply to give you an opportunity to question her.”

“By Jove, Carter, I believe now that she did that very thing. She wanted me to question her.”

“Which proves that she knew many things which she believed you should know, but which her position forbade her from volunteering to tell.”

“Yes. I see it now. But it is better as it is, for I would have garbled the whole thing. Now, you will question her, and so get at the core of the thing.”

“I hope so, Danton—I hope so.”

CHAPTER XIII.

MERCEDES’ FLIGHT FROM HOME.

The meeting between the detective and Reginald Danton took place shortly before dark on the evening of the last Sunday in June and, therefore, at about six o’clock.

After an hour passed together, during which Danton could give Nick but little more in the way of information than that which has already been recorded, the young man took his departure and the detective was left alone to think over the incidents of the afternoon.

He had agreed with young Danton that he would go out to the Fells early the following day and there hold an interview with the maid, and after looking over the ground more thoroughly, would determine if there really existed any reason why he should search for the temporary hiding-place of Mercedes Danton.

“You see,” he said, in conclusion, in talking with his friend, “it is one thing if she has been induced to leave home through any undue influence, and it is another if she has simply gone away of her own free will. But I agree with you, Danton, for from what I know of your sister, I do not think she would do such a thing, when there is, or appears to be, no reason for her action.”

When, however, Danton had taken his departure, and the detective was seated alone in his room, he went slowly over the ground that had already been covered, much more deliberately than he had done while the young millionaire was with him.

His first remark, too, made to himself in the privacy of his own den, demonstrated the general trend of his conjectures.

“Mercedes Danton never left her home in that manner of her own free will,” he said aloud. “I am as positive of that point as if she had told me so herself. Now, let me see what I already know about the circumstances surrounding her, in her home, which might lead to some clue for the reasons of her going. I’ll go back first to the killing of Orizaba.”

“Ramon Orizaba was reputed to be a distant relative. He was killed by Paul Rogers, Reginald Danton’s valet. Letters found among the effects of Orizaba showed that he had been pursued by a Nemesis for upward of ten years, but they do not demonstrate clearly why. Rogers had been in the employ of Danton for about two years—something more, I believe. I found the whole family rather reticent about both Orizaba and Rogers, and while at the time I attributed that reticence to mere family pride, it now appears that there might have been another reason for it.

“After the murder Rogers left a letter for Danton in which he confessed the murder, told how he did it, refused to tell why he did it—and then he disappeared. Since that time not a trace of Rogers has been discovered. He disappeared off the face of the earth almost as completely as if he had gone to the edge of it and jumped off.

“Next: When young Danton was describing to me the death of Orizaba, he referred, in an abstract way, to some pretentions to the hand of Mercedes which Orizaba had made. That was a matter which I had no occasion to inquire into at the time, and now, of course, it is too late to do so. Danton would resent it; Mercedes would resent it; their mother would resent it—and, in fact, at the present moment at least, I can think of no good excuse for doing so.

“Next: If I am any reader of character at all, I must concede that Mercedes and her brother appeared to love each other with a fondness that is unusual, and it was certainly sincere on both sides. Now it is absurd to suppose that the quarrel which took place between the brother and sister had anything whatever to do with the fact of her leaving home, it was merely an incident, and——

“Next: There is only one feature of the case that has come under my observation or knowledge which is at all significant, and that is that Mercedes should cry out in alarm upon seeing her brother on the street, should retreat back into her carriage and drive hastily away, and that her coachman should strike him.

“Now: I do not believe that Mercedes Danton would dodge any living person on earth—I think she is made of the stuff that would dare to face anybody or anything at any time or place. In other words, if ever I saw a young woman upon whose character was stamped every indication of courage, Mercedes Danton was that woman. Again: If Mercedes had left home willingly and taken all that baggage with her, she would not have remained in the city of New York at this time of the year, and hence she would not have been where her brother could have encountered her, and if such an encounter really took place, Mercedes would not seek to avoid it, and, least of all, would she have instructed her driver to strike her brother with his whip.

“Ergo: The woman in the cab was not Mercedes Danton. Reginald, for some reason, believed her to be his sister, and for some reason also, the woman, whoever she was, considered it imperative that she should avoid an interview with Reginald.

“Now, there is not a circumstance connected with this whole affair which should induce me to investigate it, if I regard it purely from a professional standpoint; but, on the other hand, if I regard it from a personal standpoint, considering myself the friend of Reginald—or shall I confess it to myself?—considering myself as solicitous only for the welfare of Mercedes herself, there is every reason why I should at least satisfy myself that all is well—or, rather, that nothing is wrong.”

Nick Carter had just arrived at this decision when he was told that a client awaited him in the reception-room, and he descended quickly, to find there a woman, who rose from her chair and bowed respectfully to him when he entered the room.

“I do not know if you will remember me, Mr. Carter,” she said, coming at once to the point, “and I hardly know, sir, how to explain the reason for my coming here at all. I fear that you will consider it a great liberty for me to take not only with your time, but with the affairs of my mistress.”

“I remember you very well,” said Nick, “although I never heard your name. You are a maid of Miss Mercedes Danton. Concerning your coming here, make your mind easy at once, for I already know why you are here, and I am glad you have come. I should have gone out to the Fells in the morning to talk with you.”

“Did I understand you to say that you know why I have come, sir?” she inquired, evidently greatly surprised.

“Yes. Mr. Reginald Danton has told me that his sister left home a week ago, rather mysteriously. Now, if you please, I will ask you some questions, and I would rather you would confine what you have to tell to me, to the replies to those questions. If, after we have finished, there should be other things which you would like to touch upon, do so. First, then, suppose you tell me your name.”

“Sarah Kearney, sir.”

“How long have you been in the employ of Miss Danton?”

“Ten years. I have served her since she was a little girl, nine years old.”

“Good. And you were quite deeply in her confidence, were you not?”

“She told me almost everything, sir—until quite lately.”

“Do you mean that she has partly withdrawn her confidence of late?”

“Yes, sir. Partly.”

“Since when?”

“Since just before the mur—the death of Mr. Orizaba.”

“You think her manner altered toward you, about that time, or just before his death?”

“No, sir, I cannot say that her manner altered; only I am certain that there was some sorrow or trouble on her mind which she did not tell to me.”

“I see. And before that, or rather up to that time, she had been in the habit of confiding her troubles to you?”

“Always, sir.”

“Now let us take a back step for a moment: Tell me just why you came to see me to-night.”

“Why, sir, you have already said that you know.”

“I know the reason for your wanting assistance, but I do not know why you selected me to render that assistance. For example, if this occasion had arisen a month ago, you would not have come here to me about it, would you?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because I did not know you then, sir.”

“Neither did you know me now. Had you never heard the name of Nick Carter before the time of the death of Orizaba?”

“Oh, yes, indeed!”

“Well, then there is some reason other than you have stated, why you have come here. Now see if you can tell me what it is.”

“Only what Miss Mercedes herself said to me.”

“Ah! Well, what was that?”

“Why, only a few days before she went away she told me——”

“Tell me her exact words if you can.”

“‘Sarah,’ she said, ‘if the time should ever come when anything should happen to me which you cannot explain, go to Mr. Carter and ask him to help you.’ That was all she said, sir. I asked her why she said such things, and she only smiled, and replied that she knew you would be her friend if she should need one.”

“Very good,” replied Nick. “Now come down for the present to the day she went away. How did it happen that you were not present at the time she packed her trunks?”

“She sent me away to the city, early in the day, sir, on an errand which took me all the day. I did not get back until just before dark. She had already entered her carriage to drive to the station.”

“And the trunks had already gone, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that your return surprised her? That she expected to be gone before your return?”

“Yes, sir. I was impressed by that idea.”

“And that she sent you on that fruitless errand for the explicit purpose of getting you out of the house while she was making her preparations for leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Was the other maid in the carriage with her when you arrived at the house at the moment of her departure?”

“Yes.”

“What is her name?”

“Isabel Benton.”

“Rather a high-sounding name for a maid, eh? We will return to her presently. I shall want to know more about her.”

“Well, sir, it won’t be much. Nobody could tell anything about her. She was a puzzle.”

“Indeed? I like puzzles—of that sort. Now let us return to your mistress. How did she appear when you saw her in the carriage? Was she pale?”

“I could not say, sir. Her veil was drawn tightly over her face so that I could not see her features.”

“Yet you are certain that it was your mistress?”

“Why, of course, sir.”

“But why, of course?”

“Just that it was her. I saw the carriage—the door was already closed and the coachman was on the point of starting the horses when I came up the walk. There was a small trunk on the box with the coachman, and I suspected that Miss Mercedes was going away, so I called to him to wait and ran forward before they started.”

“Good. Did she seem annoyed because you delayed them?”

“She seemed in a hurry, sir. In fact, she said that she was in a hurry.”

“Tell me what she said to you.”

“‘Sarah,’ she said, ‘I am in great haste. Tell my brother that I will write to him. I will also write to you.’”

“‘Will you not send for me to come to you?’ I asked her. ‘It will be the first time you have been without me in ten years,’ I urged; and she replied: ‘Perhaps.’ That was all. She was gone before I had a chance to say anything more.”

“Did you recognize her voice.”

“Of course.”

“Was she not coughing or laughing, or did she not hold her handkerchief over her mouth and nostrils while she was speaking to you?”

“Goodness, sir, how could you know that? Yes, sir, just before she spoke to me she put her handkerchief under her veil and——”

“And talked through it when she spoke to you. Very good, Sarah, I am beginning to think that your mistress had already gone when—but we won’t anticipate.”

CHAPTER XIV.

LITTLE STRAWS SHOW THE DIRECTION OF THE WIND.

“Do you mean, sir,” asked Sarah, “that it might not have been my mistress who was in the carriage when I supposed that I was bidding her good-by?”

“Yes. I mean that it might not have been your mistress, although we must act for the present on the hypothesis that it was she. Supposing that it was, the fact of her holding her handkerchief to her mouth while she was talking to you would lead one to suppose that she had some reason for wishing to conceal some emotion from you, would it not?”

“I suppose so. I had not thought of that.”

“No. I suppose you stood there and watched the carriage until it was out of sight?”

“Yes.”

“Then you went into the house and went directly to her rooms, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“What was the condition of the rooms?”

“I never saw them in such confusion, sir.”

“Showing that the packing had been done quite hastily; is that the idea?”

“It is, sir.”

“Who did the packing? Of course you inquired.”

“Naturally. Isabel Benton must have done it all, sir.”

“Unless her mistress helped her, you mean.”

“Nobody else helped her, sir. She ordered the trunks brought to the rooms, and they were packed there. Nobody helped her.”

“What was packed?”

“That is what surprises me, sir. I have never known Miss Danton to take so many things away with her before. Her own trunks were not sufficient. She took three trunks which belong to her mother.”

“What was put into the trunks?”

“Almost every bit of her wardrobe. She took a great many things which she has not used of late and which I know she had discarded for good, and she took one dress which I have heard her say she would never wear under any circumstances.”

“What else?”

“Why, books, trinkets, keepsakes—a mass of things, sir, which she never noticed or cared for at all—and she cleaned out her writing-desk, which hitherto she has only locked when we have been going away.”

“What else?”

“Well, sir—and this I cannot explain at all—she took every photograph of herself that the house contained.”

“What is that? Her own photographs?”

“Yes, sir. I noticed, first, that one that she had given to me was missing. Then I began to look for others. There is not a picture of her left in the house. She even went into her brother’s, her mother’s and her father’s rooms and took photographs from there.”

“Her own?”

“Her own and theirs as well.”

“That is rather remarkable. Was she fond of her own pictures, do you think?”

“Not at all. She paid almost no attention to them. She never kept a photograph of herself exposed to view in her own room.”

“Who took the trunks to the station?”

“The men at the stable, sir.”

“How many trunks were there?”

“Eleven.”

“Do you know to what place those trunks were checked?”

“Yes, sir. I asked. They were checked to New York.”

“Which tells us nothing, and which can never tell us anything, I expect since an entire week has elapsed since that time. Sarah, did the other servants in the house know that she was intending to go away that day?”

“Nobody knew it until she began sending for her trunks.”

“Now, let us return to the moment when she sent you on that errand to New York.”

“Very well, sir.”

“How did she appear when she gave you your orders about that?”

“I did not see her then, sir.”

“Not see her? How was that?”

“She sent the order to me by Isabel.”

“Ah! Did you see your mistress at all that day—Sunday?”

“No, sir, I did not. Isabel attended her.”

“When did you see her last?”

“Saturday night, sir.”

“At what time?”

“I assisted her when she retired.”

“Where was Isabel, the other maid, at that time?”

“Walking on the piazza, I think. She was not in the room.”

“Who usually attended your mistress when she retired?”

“I, sir, always.”

“And when she rose in the morning?”

“I did, when she required anybody. Often she was up, dressed and out of the house before I was awake. She loved to be in the garden in the early morning.”

“Did she go into the garden Sunday morning?”

“No, sir. She did not leave her rooms all day, while I was in the house.”

“How does it happen that you did not go to her in her rooms?”

“Isabel told me that she had directed that we were both to remain outside. She said that Miss Mercedes was not feeling well, and did not wish to be disturbed, and that she would ring if she wanted either of us. Two rings were for Isabel and one was for me. She rang for Isabel twice, I think—for me, not at all.”

“Was it her custom to exclude you from her rooms?”

“She never did such a thing before since I have been in her service.”

“How do you account for it this time?”

“I do not account for it at all, sir.”

“What time were you sent away on the errand?”

“About noon, sir.”

“What was the errand?”

“I was sent to see a woman who had been recommended to us—or, rather, to Miss Danton—as one who could do fine sewing beautifully. I was to talk with her, and, if she seemed satisfactory, to engage her services; but the address was evidently incorrect, for no such person lived there. It was in Brooklyn, so I had a long distance to travel, but I made good time and so caught a train back to the Fells half an hour quicker than I otherwise would have done.”

“I see. You were sent on a wild-goose chase after an imaginary person in order to get you out of the house while the packing was going on, and it was intended that you should not return until after it was all over, and she had gone, too.”

“It would seem so, sir.”

“The last time you saw your mistress was when you put her to bed Saturday night?”

“Yes.”

“How did she appear then?”

“As usual.”

“Not troubled by anything, so far as you could determine?”

“No more than had been the general rule of late.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, she had not been exactly the same since—well, sir, it seems an odd circumstance for a comparison of dates in regard to my mistress, but it occurs to me that she had not been exactly the same since about the time when Paul Rogers entered the service of Mr. Reginald as his valet.”

“It is an odd circumstance to use as a comparison, Sarah. I would like you to tell me exactly why you do so.”

“Because of a very trivial thing, sir. I happened to be standing in the hallway of the house when Mr. Reginald returned from Europe and brought his new valet with him. Miss Mercedes came out from the drawing room to welcome her brother, and after he had passed on up the stairs she remained there talking with me until the valet came in with some of the luggage. She turned to see who it was who had entered, and when her eyes lighted upon the face of the valet she uttered a sudden cry of alarm and staggered back into my arms; but she barely touched them before she had straightened up again. There was not the slightest outward sign of emotion on her face, either.”

“The valet stepped toward her, bowed, and said in those peculiar, soft tones of his, that he was sorry he had frightened her, and she replied by laughing and telling him it was nothing at all.”

“And she offered no explanation?”

“None at all.”

“Did any occur to you?”

“Only that I thought she had not heard him and was really startled.”

“You mean that you thought that at the time; but that afterward you changed your mind?”

“No, sir. I did not change my mind.”

“Do you think that she recognized in the valet a person whom she had seen and known before?”

“Yes; I think so now.”

“Why?”

“Because—well, I have no good reason, only that many times since then I have seen her look strangely at the valet when she did not know that she was observed.”

“How, strangely? What do you mean by that?”

“I scarcely know.”

“Did she seem to fear him?”

“No; rather to be studying him.”

“You are of the opinion that she had seen him somewhere before?”

“Either that, or he was strangely and unaccountably like some person she had known.”

“Now you have said that she had not been exactly the same since that time. In what way was she different?”

“That is a difficult question to answer, for the reason that there was no difference which I could explain. There would have been no difference at all to any one less intimately associated with her than I was. But there was a difference.”

“Can you not give me some idea about it?”

“Only that after encountering him anywhere in the house or in the garden, she would appear, for a short interval, to be in a mood of abstraction.”

“As if she were endeavoring to recall something that was half-forgotten?”

“No; not that. More as if she were trying to explain something to her own satisfaction?”

“Did he ever address her or she him, save on the mere formalities of the household?”

“Never that I know about.”

“Did his presence ever seem to frighten her?”

“Nothing ever frightened her, sir. She possessed the courage and the self-control of a man.”

“Do you think his presence annoyed her?”

“No; I think it only puzzled her.”

“Well, Sarah, we will leave Rogers for a moment and return to Isabel. I want a word or two about her.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I see that you did not like her, but it is possible that your dislike may have been the result of jealousy rather than have arisen from any really good reason, so I wish you to make an effort to disabuse your mind of anything but justice in replying to my questions about her.”

CHAPTER XV.

THE BEAUTIFUL FACE OF ISABEL.

“When did Isabel Benton first make her appearance in the household?”

“About a year ago—perhaps a little more.”

“Who recommended her?”

“I do not know. She came one afternoon and entered at once upon her duties. Nobody offered me any word of explanation and I sought none.”

“Naturally. Did her duties conflict with yours at all?”

“Not at all. I attended my mistress’ person. Isabel was more of a waiting maid, constantly in attendance. My duties were in the bedchamber and with the wardrobe; hers were entirely general.”

“Still you were jealous.”

“I suppose so. I thought Isabel unnecessary. There was nothing to do that I could not attend to.”

“Exactly. Isabel is rather beautiful, as I remember her. I saw her, I think, when I was there.”

“Yes; she is very beautiful—for a maid.”

“I did not talk with her at all, so you must tell me how she appeared. I got the impression that she looked rather above her station; did she appear that way at all?”

“Yes; I think she did.”

“How?”

“She is an educated young woman. I think, sir, that she had seen better days.”

“You think, then, that she had not always been a maid?”

“I think she had never been a maid to anybody until she came there to serve.”

“Ah! I see. Rather that she was one who had enjoyed being waited upon instead of performing the part of a servant herself.”

“Exactly that, sir. I would like to ask you, sir, if you looked at her very closely when you were at the Fells?”

“No; I barely noticed her at all.”

“Then, perhaps, you did not notice that there was really a striking resemblance between her and Miss Mercedes.”

“I certainly did not.”

“You saw enough of her to remark that she was beautiful.”

“Yes; but it was a fleeting glance in the half-light of the drawing-room when I happened to meet her in the doorway. I merely caught a glimpse of her face. It was her poise and figure that attracted my attention, as well as the delicate profile of her face.”

“Then you would not notice the resemblance, for it was not observable in her profile.”

“But you think there was a resemblance?”

“A decided one, sir, when you got the correct view, and that was straight in front. But I noticed it on one occasion particularly, and I gave her a severe scolding at the time, too.”

“When and how was that?”

“I found her dressed in one of Miss Mercedes’ party dresses once. Miss Mercedes had gone to a reception in the city, and the other members of the family were also away from home. By a strange chance very few of the servants were in the house, and I was, myself, supposed to be attending my mistress in New York. But it happened that I was taken with a headache at the last moment, and, instead of going to the city, was sent to my room to rest. At nine o’clock in the evening I awoke from a long sleep, and, feeling much better, went down the stairs to the library to find something to read. I had to pass through the drawing-room on my way to the library, and you may imagine my surprise when I entered to see—as I supposed—my mistress standing before one of the long mirrors in the room.

“The carpet is very thick and soft, and she did not hear me as I approached behind her, so that I had a good view of her face in the mirror, and, Mr. Carter, I actually believed it to be Miss Mercedes—until she spoke.

“I uttered an exclamation of surprise at finding her there, whereupon she wheeled like lightning and confronted me. Even then the resemblance was so startling that I was not sure that she was not my mistress; but she saw that she was fairly caught, and she burst into tears, which she probably knew would be the surest way of winning me over to promise that I would not betray her.”

“And she did win you over so that you never spoke of the circumstance, I suppose?” said the detective.

“I have never spoken of it till now, sir.”

“Tell me what she said at the time, in explanation of her conduct.”

“I don’t remember much that she said, sir. She talked a steady stream for half an hour, and it was chiefly about there having been a time when she had finery of her own, and was a welcome guest at receptions such as the one where our mistress had gone. The dress she had put on was one which I had brought out for Miss Mercedes to wear, but which she had laid aside for another that she preferred. It had not been laid away again—was, in fact, on the bed when Isabel found it, and determined to see how she would appear with it. I was sorry for her. She could wheedle anybody with her voice.”

“Ah! Her voice. Tell me about that.”

“Her voice is very soft and low. Not like any other voice I ever heard, and yet, strangely enough, always remindful of a voice you have heard somewhere. Don’t you know voices of that kind, sir?”

“Yes; I think I know what you mean. What was her manner, generally, in the house? Did she offend the other servants, or did they like her?”

“I think they all loved her, sir. I was the only one who distrusted her—and I could not tell you why I did so, either.”

“Because you were jealous of her, doubtless.”

“I think so. I think that was the only reason. I know, at least, that it is the only reason that I can give.”

“Did your mistress like her? Did she seem fond of her?”

“Yes—and no. Sometimes I thought she was fond of her, and there were times when I had an idea that she disliked her.”

“Describe one of the occasions when you had reason to think that your mistress disliked Isabel.”

“Miss Mercedes and I came in from the garden, together, through the side door, and we passed through the library into the drawing-room to leave some flowers in one of the vases there. Isabel was standing in the embrasure of one of the windows, in conversation with Mr. Orizaba. Miss Mercedes called to her, and ordered her to her room at once. Then she sent me out of the room, and I know that she said some sharp things to her cousin——”

“But Orizaba was not her cousin.”

“He was in a way, sir. A sixth or seventh cousin. She always spoke of him as her cousin. Later, she came to her room and rang for Isabel, and I heard her tell her that one more circumstance of that kind would incur instant dismissal from her service. That is all I heard her say about it, but the flash of Miss Mercedes’ eyes at the time made me think that underneath it all she heartily disliked Isabel. I may have been mistaken.”

“Did you often see Isabel and Orizaba together?”

“Quite often, sir. There was always a glance of mutual meaning between them when they believed themselves unobserved—and once, quite late at night, when I had stolen out of the house to the hammock when the others were in their beds, I saw them talking together on the piazza.”

“Now let us get back to the moment you returned to the Fells after your errand to the city. When you stepped forward to speak to your mistress, who was already in the carriage, was Isabel also there—in the carriage?”

“Why—yes, sir.”

“Are you sure? Did you see her?”

“Of course, I saw her.”

“I mean, did you see her face so that you recognized it, or did you only suppose it to be her, because of the circumstance? Think, now, and reply carefully.”

“Why, I have always been certain that it was Isabel, sir.”

“Did she not also wear a veil?”

“I really do not know, sir.”

“In other words, you did not really look at her at all. You had eyes only for your beloved mistress. Is that not true?”

“Perhaps it is.”

“What carriage was it—an open one?”

“No, sir. The big coupé.”

“Did you speak to Isabel, or did she address any word to you at that time?”

“No. I think not. I was so surprised, so disturbed, and I will confess, sir, so angry, that I do not remember much about the circumstance, only that Miss Mercedes was going away without me, and that she bade me good-by so coldly that it almost broke my heart.”

“So, as a matter of fact, you do not really know that Isabel was in the coupé at all?”

“Why, yes, I do.”

“Well, how do you know it? That is what I want to find out.”

“Why, who else would be there if she was not?”

“Exactly; who else, indeed?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that, sir?”

“No; I suppose you do not. Now what was the first thing you did after you entered the house, when they had driven away?”

“I went to my own room, threw myself on the bed, and cried.”

“To be sure. Sarah, do you happen to remember if, during the few days that immediately preceded her departure, there had been a strange woman in the house, in any capacity?”

“There was a woman who came to do some light sewing—some hemming of linen, I think; but she went away Saturday evening.”

“How do you know that she went away Saturday evening? Did you see her go?”

“No. I heard my mistress dismiss her.”

“Now, Sarah, just two or three more questions, and then you may return to the Fells.”

CHAPTER XVI.

IN HOURLY PERIL OF DEATH.

“Sarah,” said the detective, rising and crossing the room two or three times, “the acts connected with the tragedy which occurred at the Fells two weeks ago are still fresh in your memory, are they not? I refer, of course, to the murder of Orizaba by Mr. Reginald’s valet, Paul Rogers. You recall all the circumstances, do you not?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Now, I want to recall to your attention several things you have told me, to which you have not attached much importance. I want to group them together for your consideration, and, after I have done so, ask you a few questions upon points suggested by them.”

“Very well. I only wish I might be able to tell you something of importance.”

“You have already told me several things of very great importance.”

“Indeed, sir, I did not know it.”

“Possibly not. Now listen.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have said that Miss Mercedes seemed startled when she saw Paul Rogers for the first time.”

“Yes.”

“You have told me that, although Isabel seemed to come to the house without especial recommendation, she seemed not unknown to Orizaba, and that, in fact, there seemed to be an understanding between them.”

“Yes; I often thought there was.”

“And you have spoken of a rather striking resemblance between your mistress and Isabel.”

“It was striking, sir, all but the profile.”

“Did it ever strike you that there was also a faint resemblance between Miss Mercedes and the man she called her cousin—Ramon Orizaba?”

“Quite so; her mother used to speak of it often.”

“Well, now, did that resemblance extend to Orizaba and Isabel?”

“Yes, sir; decidedly. There was quite general comment about it among the servants.”

“What was your own opinion about it?”

“Why, I thought it rather noticeable. I once told Isabel that she might readily pass for Mr. Orizaba’s sister.”

“What reply did she make?”

“She laughed and said that she was one of those persons who resembled almost everybody or anybody.”

“Humph! Now tell me: What effect did the sudden and tragic death of Orizaba seem to have upon Isabel?”

“None at all that I could notice. I thought she was paler than usual, but we were all of us that. I do not think she acted any differently from the others.”

“You have known Miss Mercedes so long and so well that you would notice anything which seemed to affect her, at once, would you not?”

“Surely.”

“You know, of course, that Mr. Reginald did not like Orizaba?”

“Certainly. We all knew that. He did not disguise the fact.”

“How did Miss Mercedes feel toward him?”

“I think she dreaded him. If she were anybody else, I should have said that she feared him—and yet, she was very gracious to him.”

“Do you think by any possibility that she was in love with him, or that she had ever been in love with him?”

“N-no.”

“Why do you hesitate?”

“Because of several contradictory things she did. I used sometimes to think that she despised him; again I would think that she dreaded him; again that she was fond of him. I know that she was very kind to him, and I know, also, that she often supplied him with money. I even know of one occasion when Isabel carried money to him for her, and—that reminds me of one thing which I had totally forgotten. She called him by his first name.”

“Who did?”

“Isabel. She called him Ramon when she gave him the money. I think the money surprised me more than the use of the name, and I was incensed because my mistress had trusted her instead of me.”

“And so you forgot the use of the first name. All right, Sarah. Now I want you to tell me exactly what you fear might have befallen your mistress—what the fear was that induced you to come to me.”

“I don’t know, sir. I fear everything. I cannot get it out of my head that some dreadful thing has happened to her. It was not like her to go away like that. It was not like her to bid me good-by as she did. It was totally unlike her to leave such a message for Mr. Reginald.”

“And,” said Nick, “it was unlike her to pack her trunks in the way she did—to take away the articles she did—to care about her own photographs—to cover her mouth with her handkerchief when she was bidding you good-by—to have been gone an entire week without sending you word after she said that she would do so—in fact, Sarah, there is nothing connected with her going away that is at all like Mercedes Danton, is there?”

“Not a thing, sir; not one.”

“And so you have become frightened lest, in some way, she has been induced to go away against her own wishes and will; lest she has been unduly influenced. Is that it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, Sarah, if you were ill, and obliged to go to the doctor, would you tell him only half of your troubles, or would you tell him all?”

“I should tell him all, sir. What do you mean by that question?”

“Never mind; answer me another. How do you suppose I manage to earn my living at the detective business?”

“Why, sir, how can I answer that?”

“I will answer it for you. I accomplish that difficult task by understanding perfectly when people are telling me the truth and when they are deceiving me. Now there is a difference between telling a downright lie, and only telling a part of the truth and withholding the remainder. I don’t think you have told me a lie, to-day, Sarah, but I am quite sure that you have not told me all the truth. There is something you have kept back—something that I should know.”

“Mr. Carter, I——”

“I would not amount to much at my business, Sarah, if I was not sharp enough to discover that much in your conduct this evening.”

“But, really, sir, there is nothing more that I can tell.”

“Tut-tut, Sarah, there is something more that you can tell me, if you will, and that something is about—who shall I say it is about, Sarah? Shall I say it is about Paul Rogers, the fugitive valet, who murdered Mr. Orizaba, or shall I say that it is about Isabel—or, better still, shall I say that it is about both of them?”

“There is nothing more that I can tell, sir.”

“Now, Sarah, that is pure obstinacy. I know that there is something more. You could, for example, tell me why it was that your mistress was startled when she beheld Paul Rogers acting as valet to her brother—and you could also explain why you were almost, if not quite, as much astonished yourself.”

“One might suppose that you were present at the time, sir.”

“Sarah, you were in Europe with your mistress while she was at school there; you know perfectly well that you both knew Paul Rogers at that time, and you know that you would not have known him in a way to have affected you when you saw him again, if his position at that time had been in accordance with his valethood, later; and, therefore, you know that Paul Rogers was not his true name any more than valet was his true position. Who was he when you knew him in Europe, Sarah?”

“There is nothing more that I can tell, sir.”

“Not even to save your mistress from probable peril?”

“Not even to save her from positive death, sir,” she said, and her lips shut tightly together over her teeth.

“What!” exclaimed Nick. “Is it so serious as all that? This is worse than I supposed. You are keeping the secret because your mistress has sworn you to secrecy, and has charged you never to tell, even to save her life or your own. Is it not so?”

“I have nothing more to tell, sir.”

“All right. If you won’t, you won’t, and I see that you are determined to say no more. But, all the same, Sarah, I will find a way to make you speak, or I will discover what I wish to know in some other manner. You may return to the Fells now. I shall be there in the morning.”

Sarah rose to her feet and started toward the door, but before she had crossed the room she stopped and began to sob.

Nick remained silent, watching her, and presently she turned and faced him again.

“I think my heart is breaking, sir,” she said. “I do not know what to do.”

“There is only one thing for you to do if you would serve your mistress whom you love, and that is to tell me everything you know which will throw light upon this strange disappearance. Has it occurred to you, Sarah, that the woman in the coupé, who put her handkerchief to her mouth when she bade you good-by, was not your mistress at all, but was in reality Isabel Benton, dressed in her clothes? Has it occurred to you that the woman in the other seat of the coupé was not Isabel, but was, in reality, the woman who had been hemming linen in the house and who was sent away—but who did not go—the preceding night?”

“Where, then, was my mistress?”

“Where, indeed?”

“But if she was not in the coupé, where could she have been? She was not in the house.”

“No. She was not in the house, because she had been carried out of the house,” said Nick.

“Carried out of the house! Oh, God! You don’t mean——”

“I don’t know what I mean, Sarah, save that she had been spirited away in the night, after you had put her to bed—after she had been drugged, or possibly murdered.”

“Murdered! My Mercedes? No, no, no! I will not believe it. No, no, no, no.”

“If she was not murdered then, Sarah, rest assured that she is in hourly peril of death,” said Nick slowly. “The conspirators who dared to take her away, and who dared to plot the substitution of another in her place, will not hesitate to put her out of the way the moment they can do so with safety.”

CHAPTER XVII.

A QUESTION OF FOUR LIVES.

Sarah tottered back into a chair after Nick had ceased speaking, and she remained there, with her head resting in her hands, and quietly sobbing until the detective addressed her again.

“Come, come, Sarah, this will not do at all,” he said. “Remember what I said to you—that I shall be at the Fells in the morning. You can have from now until then to think over all that we have talked about, and to decide upon the importance of the additional knowledge you can supply. I think, by morning, you will have decided to tell me all.”

“Very good, sir. I will go; and to-night, on my knees, I will pray for guidance so that I may decide to do what is right in the morning.”

“All right. Let it remain that way, until you see me to-morrow.”

“Tell me, sir, do you think she is in immediate danger?”

“I am only groping in the dark about her now, Sarah, but I think there is a deeply laid plot here, that is destined to affect the entire family of Dantons. The mother was taken ill suddenly, and her son believes that she was poisoned. She is better now, and, probably, out of the reach of her enemies. I would not be surprised to hear, almost any day, of the death of Reginald’s father, who has about concluded his European trip, and must be on the point of returning home, especially since he has heard of the tragedy at his house and must know how it has affected his family; and I would not be surprised to hear of an attempt on the life of Reginald within the next few weeks. Don’t you understand, Sarah?”

“No, sir, I do not.”

“Why, it is simply that there is a certain woman in the world whom we know as Isabel Benton, who believes that she can personate Mercedes Danton so well that if her father, and mother, and brother were out of the way she would have no difficulty in deceiving the rest of the world. It is all very simple—awfully simple after what you have unconsciously revealed to me to-night—all of which I think I should have sensed before this, and which I would have done, had my mind been upon it. Go home now, Sarah. Be prepared to tell me all you know, in the morning. I can wait until then, but I charge you, if you would save the lives not only of your mistress, but of your mistress’ father, mother, and brother, keep no secrets back from me. It is no longer a question of one life, or two; it is a question of four lives—four human lives, which these fiends coldly intend to sacrifice to their greed for wealth and luxury.”

As soon as Nick was alone, he repaired to the telephone and called up the favorite club of Reginald Danton.

“Mr. Danton has just gone out,” he was told, “but he said that he would return in half an hour. No; he did not say where he was going, but I think over to the Waldorf.”

“All right,” said Nick. “If he comes in ask him to wait for the gentleman who met him at the Fifth Avenue front of the Waldorf just before dark this evening.”

For a moment, after he hung up the phone, he stood with his hands behind him, in deep thought; and then he hurried to his dressing-room, from which, after a quarter of an hour he emerged, but so altered in appearance that he bore not the slightest resemblance to himself.

He was now, in every feature of his make-up, a typical Frenchman—a Boulevardier with a title or two to his name and ample time and money at his disposal. As he sauntered out upon the street, he murmured to himself:

“If Danton is at the Waldorf I will run across him there; if he is not, I can look him up at his club later.”

When he arrived at the hotel he entered by the Thirty-third Street door and strolled slowly through the building toward the office. From there he made the rounds of the corridors and also peered into several of the rooms, but nowhere did he get a glimpse of the man he sought. It was evident to him that if Reginald had indeed come to the Waldorf, he had already taken his departure.

Now, it so happens that the Waldorf is a hotel where one rarely takes the trouble to examine the register—indeed, it is rarely in evidence; and they keep three or four on tap, as it were, so that there is always one in which you may write your name while the others are in use by the bookkeepers.

Nevertheless, it so occurred that as Nick was passing the desk in the office, one of the registers was lying idle on the counter near the registry clerk’s window.

Without any object whatever in view, save only the thought of killing time, Nick paused, and, having turned the book around, drew it toward him.

He scanned the names without motive and without even comprehending those he read, idly turning the pages of the book backward, until suddenly he started—violently, for him, although the start was wholly inside and would not have been noticed by a person beside him—nevertheless, he started, for, written upon the register in rather a bold but plainly a feminine chirography, he read the name:

“Miss Mercedes Danton.
“Two maids.”

He glanced hastily at the top of the page to discover the date of registry, and also made a mental note of the number of the suite placed against the names, and then he stepped away again and dropped into one of the big armchairs to think.

The date of the registry was exactly one week old, showing that the entry had been made the very day when Mercedes was supposed to have disappeared from her home, and Nick smiled when he thought how thoroughly a person may disappear from view in the very heart of New York by simply going to a hotel and by giving orders that you are not “in” to anybody while in town. It is only necessary after that to remain in one’s room.

“Now here is a remarkable circumstance,” mused Nick. “If I am right in my conjectures, the woman who is masquerading as Mercedes Danton is in this hotel at the present moment, and she has managed in some way so to hedge herself about that she has not the least fear of what may happen, even if her name is discovered on the register—which it is not likely to be, save through some such accident as mine. To prove that, I will go to the room clerk and inquire for her.”

He sauntered up to the desk and asked:

“Is Miss Danton stopping here? Miss Mercedes Danton?”

“No. Gone. Went away a week ago,” replied the clerk shortly, and without raising his eyes. But Nick was satisfied. He returned to his chair and reseated himself.

“It is quite evident,” he mused, “that I have received the stereotyped answer prepared for any person who happens to inquire for Mercedes Danton. It is also equally evident to me that she is at this moment in this hotel—that is, the woman who represents herself to be Miss Danton, and that instead of wasting my time in running after her brother, I had better look into this matter here and now.”

He crossed the corridor to the locality of the pneumatic tubes which are used as mediums of communication with the upper floors, and asked one of the clerks there to tell him the exact location of the suite he wanted to find, and then he made his way through the building to what is known as the Waldorf side of the hotel and so ascended in the elevator.

Having stepped out at the floor he had desired, he sauntered carelessly through the corridor, passed the door, continued on his way to the far end of the hall, and then retraced his steps. Then, having taken note of the number of the room directly opposite the one that was occupied by the woman he quested, he descended again to the ground floor and went out of the building.

He hurried at once to his own house, and, without altering his disguise, for it served as well as any for the work he had in view, he hastily packed a grip that was liberally pasted over with tags and labels.

Nick Carter had determined upon one of the boldest moves of his career, as will soon be seen—a move, too, for which many of his critics might be inclined to censure him, since it involved entrance to a woman’s room without her permission—but, yet, he was convinced that the end he had in view justified the means that were necessary to accomplish it.

Even when he began the packing of his grip, he hesitated; but assured as he was that four lives were in immediate peril, he cast his scruples to the winds and continued with his preparations.

The articles with which he supplied his grip were simply such as he might find it necessary to use in the work he had to do, and in a surprisingly short space of time from the moment he entered his house he left it again—but not, however, before he had made use of the telephone to call up the manager of the Waldorf and ask if he could be accommodated with a certain room, and he gave the number of the one directly opposite the entrance to the suite that was charged against the name of Mercedes Danton.

The reply to his request was all that he could desire, and, accordingly, he returned, grip in hand, to the Waldorf, without delay.

Fifteen minutes after entering the hotel, he was assigned to the room he sought, and had sent up his grip.

The time was as yet early in the evening—barely ten o’clock—and as at least two hours must elapse before he could commence operations as he had planned them, he determined to walk over to the club which Reginald Danton most frequented, and, perhaps, in that manner kill two birds with one stone—that is, see him and give him the warning he had intended to convey before he discovered the name of his sister on the register, and so been forced to alter his plans.

But even while he was standing near the desk, turning over his plans for the night in his mind, he heard the voice of Reginald behind him, and saw him saunter through the corridor in the direction of the café, in company with two others.

“Good,” said Nick to himself, and he followed them, noticed where they seated themselves, and then, returning, sent a boy to tell Reginald that a gentleman wished to speak with him at the desk.

Reginald appeared in a moment and stood looking vacantly around him in search of a familiar face, but, seeing none, was about to return to his friends when Nick touched him on the shoulder.

Reginald Danton wheeled instantly and confronted Nick. A frown appeared on his face, and was then succeeded by a smile, for, after all, he thought, this stranger might be the person who had sent for him.

“You wish to speak to me?” asked Reginald.

“Yes,” replied Nick, in his natural tones, although in a low voice. “Tut-tut, Danton, don’t look so surprised. You recognize my voice, of course.”

“Yes; but it is the only thing about you that I do recognize,” said Danton.

“Naturally, since it is all I wished you to do. But stroll with me through the corridor for a moment. I want to talk to you.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

UP AGAINST IT IN EITHER CASE.

“I was never so astonished in my life,” said Danton, as they walked arm in arm together along the hotel corridor. “Of course, I have heard that you could step up and hold conversations with your best friends without once giving them a chance to recognize you, but I never believed it, you know. I always thought that sort of thing was what the boys call ‘Sherlock-Holmesing,’ don’t you know. Very pleasant to read about, but not an element of real life. Just speak again, won’t you, for I am not sure yet that you are really Nick Carter; I’m not, really.”

“I’m not Nick Carter, Danton—at least, not for the present. I am the Marquis de St. Cyr. At least, that is the name by which I have registered on the books of the hotel.”

“And why, may I ask?”

“Rather, for the moment, let me ask the questions. Are you especially addicted to the two gentlemen who are with you?”

“Eh?”

“Who is with you?”

“Oh. Nobody in particular. They are only time-killers. The fact is I have been so upset since that episode of the carriage, when I thought I saw my sister, that I cannot get the idea out of my head that she is here in this hotel. I was glad of any excuse for sitting around here for an hour or so.”

“Even though you sat in the café where there is not the slightest possibility that you will see her if she is here?” asked Nick.

“Yes; even so. Oh, I haven’t the faintest idea that I will see her again, you know.”

“Let me ask you, Danton, if, when you use the pronoun ‘her,’ you mean your sister, or the woman you saw in the cab and whom you thought was your sister?”

“You seem to be mighty well convinced that she was not Mercedes.”

“I am as positive as I can be without having established the truth of my statement.”

“Well, whether the woman I saw was Mercedes or somebody else, I cannot get it out of my head that she is here in this hotel.”

“She is here in this hotel.”

“Ah! You know, then?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find out?”

“Never mind that now. Come, let us return to your friends. You may introduce me as an old friend from Paris, the Marquis de St. Cyr—and then, as soon as it is politely convenient, I want you to shake them and give your attention to me. I have suddenly determined to initiate you into real detective work to-night.”

“Eh? Do you mean that you want me to help you?”

“Just that, if you are game and care to do so. If you think I may depend upon your discretion and—sand.”

“Sure thing, Carter! You may depend upon both.”

It was midnight when they had parted from the friends of Reginald Danton and had repaired to the room to which Nick had been assigned; and then, in a low tone, but with great earnestness, Nick outlined what he intended to do and the manner in which Danton could assist him.

“To begin with, Danton,” he said, “you had scarcely left my house before Sarah Kearney put in an appearance, and from her I have gleaned enough of the facts connected with the departure from home to assure me that she has been made the victim—or, rather, one of the intended victims—of a very deep plot which includes your whole family. Then, my young friend, I was seeking you in order to warn you to be especially on your guard, when quite by accident I discovered that Mercedes Danton and two maids are registered here at this hotel. In fact, they are at this moment occupying the suite that is directly opposite this one.”

“Gee whizz! Is that so?”

“Quite so. Now listen to me quietly and patiently, and I will tell you how I have sized up the circumstances connected with the events that have happened in your family lately—and what I want you to do to help me to-night.”

“Go ahead, old man. What is it?”

“In the first place you must understand that the man has never been born into the world who is always right; I am not an exception to the rule, and while I believe in the theories I have worked out from what has been told to me, there is always the possibility that I may be wrong. Now, Danton, it is highly important that I should enter that room opposite us, before morning——”

“Eh? What the dev——”

“Wait. I must know before daylight if the woman in that room is your sister, or an impostor. If she is really your sister, then there is nothing more for me to do in the premises, save to await the morning and then send up my card in the usual way in the hope that she will receive me in the interests of her brother.”

“Well; and if she is not——”

“If she is not your sister—why, then, I know already who she is, and I will not be long in determining how to act.”

“If she is not my sister, who is she?”

“Isabel Benton.”

“The devil you say!”

“Well, if I am right in my conjectures, a sort of a she-devil, I grant you.”

“But, I mean——”

“I know exactly what you mean; better than you do yourself—but don’t let us get away from the main subject until I have finished what I have to say on that point.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“Well, then, in plain English, if by any possibility I am mistaken, and the woman in that room is Mercedes Danton, I tell you frankly that I would rather be shot than to enter there without her permission. You see——”

“Wait half a minute, Carter. I want to ask you a question.”

“All right. What is it?”

“This: If it were any other woman on top of the great green earth, not my sister—any other woman in the world except Mercedes Danton, would you feel any hesitation about entering her room, if you considered the act as a necessary part of your duty?”

Nick looked calmly into his companion’s eyes and replied slowly:

“No; I don’t think I should hesitate.”

“Good! I understand you, Carter, better than you think. Now another question: If Mercedes Danton were not in question, you would not even stop to consider that your premises in this case are correct, would you?”

“No; I don’t think I should.”

“That’s all right, Nick, old man. It would seem that I was not so far wrong as one might suppose when I teased Mercedes until she was angry. But we’ll drop all that now. You had got as far as saying that you would rather be shot than enter that room under certain circumstances. Go ahead from there.”

“If by any chance your sister is in that room, why, it would be no great crime for her brother to enter it without her knowledge, just to ascertain if she is really there, while, for me to do so, would be——”

“Terrible, eh? Let it go at that. But, I say; do you think for a moment that I’m going to burgle that room?”

“That is exactly what I expect you to do.”

“It strikes me that the shoe is on the other foot now, with a vengeance.”

“How so?”

“Why, this way: If I burgle the room, and it is my sister’s room, no harm is done. If I burgle it and it is not my sister’s room, then the devil is to pay.”

Nick laughed outright.

“If you enter the room and my sister is there,” continued Danton, “you are up against it, and if I enter the room and my sister is not there, I am up against it.”

Nick Carter’s face suddenly became grave.

“We are wasting precious time, Reginald,” he said. “Now I want you to listen while I tell you a story.”

“All right, old chap. Go ahead.”

“Carry your mind back to the time when you first engaged Paul Rogers as your valet.”

“Hello! Harking back to that, eh?”

“Yes. Be serious now, for it is a very serious matter.”

“Well?”

“How was he first brought to your notice so that you were inclined to take him into your service?”

“I think he was recommended to me through Orizaba; through some friend of his, if I remember correctly.”

“I had scarcely hoped for so good a reply as that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did Orizaba tell you that he personally knew Rogers?”

“No; I remember distinctly that he assured me he had never seen him.”

“Now, in the light of all that occurred later—the murder of Orizaba and the written confession of Rogers, together with his flight, little things have gone out of your mind. I want to know if in the beginning of Rogers’ employment in your service, you ever noticed any sign that passed between him and Orizaba by which you might be led to suppose that they were not unknown to each other?”

“No. I never saw a thing: but then I would be the last person in the world to see such a thing, even if it existed.”

“Now, one more question and then I will tell my story. Did it ever occur to you that Rogers and the maid, Isabel Benton, were anything more than mere fellow servants in your household?”

“Sure! He was dead stuck on her. I bantered him about it often—when I was half-full.”

“Good. Now I will tell the story.”

“I hope it is as good as the introduction is exciting.”

“Good or not, it is logical. It is wholly made up from my practise of putting two and two together, but the more I have thought about it, the more convinced I have become that it is correct.”

CHAPTER XIX.

THE PLOT FOR MANY MILLIONS.

“You have told me nothing of the real relation of Ramon Orizaba to your family, save that he was a distant cousin,” began Nick slowly, “and it is not necessary, in order to carry out my theory, that you should do so. The point is that he was a relation, however distant, and on your mother’s side, since you have told me that she is of Spanish descent.”

“Correct. He was——”

“Never mind; we will call him a distant cousin. I think, Danton, if he had shaved off his mustache and the pointed beard he wore, you would have speedily discovered that there was a strong facial resemblance between that man and your mother.”

“Oh, yes. She spoke of it often; and so, for that matter, did he.”

“As little as I saw of him, the resemblance was plain to me. Now there was another person in that house who bore a striking resemblance to Orizaba.”

“Do you mean my sister?”

“No. It was not noticeable in her case, I think, although the person whom I am about to mention as looking like him also resembled your sister. I mean Isabel Benton.”

“By Jove, you are right!”

“My theory tells me, in short, that Isabel Benton and Ramon Orizaba were brother and sister.”

Benton whistled softly to himself.

“It goes still farther,” continued Nick. “We will say that the relation between Orizaba and your mother did exist, in fact, and that thus far he was not an impostor.”

“Yes.”

“Beginning at that point we must go back to the time when Orizaba first discovered that the relationship existed, and that his American relatives were rich. We will picture him as—what he doubtless was—a sort of half-adventurer, half-gentleman, who lived by his wits, as he did not cease to do after he made the acquaintance of your mother. Discovering, we will say, that he was blessed with rich relatives in America, he made himself known to them, and, by his adroitness, won himself into a position of recognition. It appears, and quite plainly as you know, that your mother and sister supplied him with an allowance out of their own funds. Your sister did this to please her mother, and your mother did it for the honor of her family—because he was a blood relation, however distant, and she would not consent that he should incur the contempt of her husband and son.”

“I guess that is about right, Nick.”

“The sums with which they supplied him were, however, not sufficient for his needs, and, being aware of your proverbial carelessness in money matters, he did not hesitate to forge an occasional check in your name. This, I think your sister knew about; perhaps your mother also knew it. It was the fear that he would repeat that act too often, and so be discovered, which led your sister to give him more money, and often—for I find through Sarah that she did so.

“Now—you have intimated, in the past, that Orizaba had the temerity to make advances for the hand of Mercedes in marriage. That is the real reason why you hated him, for, otherwise you would have liked him. You have told me yourself that everybody did like him—that he had a way of ingratiating himself into the good graces of everybody.”

“It is true, too.”

“Mercedes doubtless gave him to understand that there was no hope for him in that direction, and so he turned his attention to another matter—one that had presented itself to him from the first moment when he met your sister, but one which he did not seriously consider until he knew that there was no hope that she would ever consent to be his wife.

“But, then, he recalled the fact that he had a sister—and what is more important, that the ties of blood had barked back as it will sometimes strangely do, so that with a little assistance from the arts of dress and of making-up, there was a resemblance between them sufficiently marked so that under proper conditions one might readily pass for the other. It remained, therefore, only necessary to bring about those conditions.

“We will say that he communicated with his sister. That they met and the whole plan and plot was outlined between them. That she was brought out of obscurity somewhere, and, after some necessary coaching, was introduced into your home in the capacity of maid to Mercedes. It was a simple matter for her to dress so that the resemblance to her mistress should be as little noticeable as possible. The very accomplishment she wished to make use of later on was covered with every art she could employ, so that it was hardly to be seen at all while she was in the house, save at rare intervals. One of those rare intervals I know about, as well as the fact that she delighted to practise in the part of masquerading as Mercedes. Sarah surprised her once, dressed in your sister’s clothing, and standing before a glass engaged in studying her part, in character.

“Now, we have that much, and we will take a step backward again.

“After the murder of Orizaba, you know I went through his papers very thoroughly. I found the story of the Nemesis, as you know, and Rogers’ letter developed the fact that he was that interesting character. But here is a nice little point in the plot—or, rather, two very nice points: Orizaba did not suspect that Rogers was the Nemesis who had been pursuing him for so long a time, for the reason that Rogers was all the time the husband of Orizaba’s sister, Isabel. Don’t you see?”

“Not quite. There are wheels within wheels there.”

“Very well, we will say that ten years ago Rogers took the trail of Orizaba, intending to kill him. In pursuing him, he encountered Isabel, the sister of his intended victim. He fell in love with Isabel, and married her. Having done that, he posed thereafter as the fond brother-in-law, while in reality he was the Nemesis who was bleeding Orizaba all the while, and who had sworn some day to have his life. Why, we do not know, and it does not matter; but that is why, try as he might, Orizaba could never discover the identity of the man who pursued him.

“Now, let us take another step backward. We will say that one day Orizaba confided his plot to Rogers; that he told him of the strong likeness between Mercedes Danton and Isabel. With their heads together, it was an easy matter for those two men to work out the plot by which, ultimately, they were together to enjoy all the millions that your own father has amassed, and which one day are intended to be divided between you and Mercedes. They were not working for one million, but for a hundred millions. Think of it, Danton; it was a game worth playing, and worthy of the brains they put into it.”

“By Jove, Nick! But how——”

“Wait. Rogers was introduced into your service as a valet, in order to study the lay of the land, so to speak, before he would consent that his wife should become involved. Later, his wife, Orizaba’s sister, the woman whom we know as Isabel Benton, was brought forward as maid to Mercedes. The mine was laid. It only remained for Isabel to study her part until she had it learned to perfection, and then to fire the mine.”

“But, I say, Nick, you don’t mean to say that she believed she could fool me—to say nothing of my father and mother—do you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then how——”

“You, as well as your father and mother, were condemned to death.”

“Good Heaven!”

“With you three out of the way it would be an easy matter to deceive others. When the little matter of the quarrel, which amounted to nothing, occurred between you and Mercedes, Isabel overheard it, doubtless, and as the time was ready to act, she acted. She had already started her warfare against your mother. You say you thought your mother was poisoned by something she had eaten. I have no doubt that she was, only I have many doubts that it was accidental. The poison was somehow administered by Isabel, and in getting your mother out of the house, she did what she wanted to do; for she opened the opportunity for her own disappearance, after which there were other ways in which you and your mother were to be gotten rid of after some approved plan which offered small chance of detection. Isabel was establishing an alibi for herself, as well as for your pseudo sister. You would have had another Cadillac needle jabbed into your back, on the street somewhere; your mother would have been poisoned again while she is in Newport, and your father—well, he may or he may not get home alive. Let us hope that he will; that the time is not yet ripe to play their act upon him, and if our work to-night is good, I hope we can prevent the further working of the plot against you.

“Hush! Don’t interrupt me yet. There is absolutely nothing that we can do to prevent the happening of the things I have mentioned, except what we have elected to do to-night. Now let us take one more step backward.

“We will say that we are almost at the time for the culmination of the plot. We will say that we can look in upon a reverie of Rogers wherein he cogitates upon the mightiest stroke of all. He hates Orizaba. More than that, he fears him. Still more, with Orizaba out of the way there will be one less person to enjoy the millions of your father when they shall have been won. Still more yet, there is a chance that by murdering Orizaba, he can throw suspicion upon you, Danton, and this he decides to do. That later he changed his mind on that point is one of the psychological puzzles of the human mind. I won’t pretend to answer that, unless it was the thought that he could still further divert suspicion from himself in the final crimes, if, by chance, suspicion should ever fall upon him. In putting Orizaba out of the way, Isabel was both neutral and passive. There had never been affection between them, nor did she delight in the thought that her brother would be master of that future in which she wished to be the queen.

“There! That is the story I have woven from the somewhat tangled thread provided by Sarah Kearney. Now I come down to the night of the disappearance of Mercedes.

“Sarah put her to bed as usual, Saturday night. Sunday morning, Sarah was sent away upon a cooked-up errand. When she returned, the baggage had been taken from the house, and her mistress, as she supposed, was in the act of driving away in the coupé. As a matter of fact, Reginald, it was Isabel who was inside the coupé, posing as Mercedes, and it was a woman who had been introduced into the house to do hemming on linen who was acting the part of Isabel.”

“Where, then, was Mercedes?”

“I can only guess at the reply, but there is no doubt in my mind that she had been drugged and taken secretly from the house during Saturday night, and—I say, Danton, the registry down-stairs shows two maids. What if one of those maids is your sister, still under the influence of drugs? What if, after all, she is in that room across the hall?”

CHAPTER XX.

THE PLOTTERS BROUGHT TO BAY.

It was past one o’clock when the detective had finished his story, and, as he brought it to an end, he glanced at his watch, then shut it to with a snap, and announced that it was time to act.

“I know the plan of the interior of this house quite well,” he said, to Danton, “and it will be comparatively easy for me to unlock the door so that you can gain admittance to those rooms. There are five rooms in the suite, and I merely wish you to satisfy yourself that Mercedes is there, or is not there, and then to return to me to report. I will do the rest.”

“But, suppose they should hear me?”

“Then the only thing for you to do is to make your escape and to dart into this room as quickly as you can. Come; are you ready? Here; let me adjust this wig and beard, so that if you should be seen you will not be known. So. Come on.”

Nick opened the door, and, after directing Danton to remain where he was until he was ready for him to proceed, crossed the hall and applied his marvelous pick-lock to the door.

It was a matter of only a moment for him to spring back the lock, and gently to push the door ajar, in the meantime, having assured himself by a quick glance up and down the hall that there was no immediate fear of interruption.

As the door upon which he was working swung open not more than half an inch, he could hear voices proceeding from the room which adjoined that one, and he could see, also, by the light which reflected into the room before him, that it was itself unoccupied.

The voice that had arrested his attention was a man’s voice, and, turning, he made a hasty gesture toward Danton to remain where he was, and then stepped boldly through, closing the door behind him. The presence of a man in the room and the instant recognition of the tones of that man’s voice had driven all thought of the delicacy of his undertaking from his mind at once.

For Nick Carter to hear a voice once was always to remember it, and the instant those tones fell upon his ear he knew that he was in the presence of the master conspirator, in short, that the man, Rogers, was at that very moment at his mercy.

Having closed the door gently, he dropped upon the floor and crawled forward until he could peer through a crack between the folding-doors which connected the two rooms, and he almost exclaimed aloud when his eyes lighted upon the scene thus unfolded to his view.

At the first glance it seemed almost as if Mercedes herself was seated there, conversing with Rogers, so exact a copy had she managed to produce of the young woman she had plotted to impersonate. But even as Nick took in the details of her appearance, she spoke, and she did so with the voice of Isabel Benton.

“Oh, no,” she was saying. “I will experience no difficulty in getting her away from this hotel. Give yourself no uneasiness on that score. I have already made every arrangement. The doctor has given his opinion, the management of the hotel is ready to assist me in taking her out as quietly as possible. They are no more anxious to make an exhibition of a sick guest than I am of a sick maid; and Paul, her own brother would not know her, she is so wasted and changed. I don’t know what the drug is that you gave me to administer to her, but, whatever it is, it has done its work well. Mercedes Danton, the real, goes out of existence to-morrow when we ship her off to Canada. After that, you can put her out of existence in fact, at your own sweet pleasure. I wash my hands of it.”

“And your part here? What will you do?”

“Oh, I’ll play my part, all right. Don’t worry about me. You say the servant whom you have ‘fixed’ at the house in Newport, where the old lady is staying, will do her work this week, and that Mrs. Danton is too ill to travel here now. Well, that means that I have nothing to fear from that source; and Danton père—if your plans do not fail in regard to him——”

“They cannot fail. He will die on shipboard on the way over, of apoplexy, or of something that will look much like it. They haven’t time to hold autopsies on ocean steamers. I’ll take care of that. The steward who is to put him out of the way has worked for me before; he will not fail. But what of the son?”

“You leave the son to me. He has just twenty-four hours more to live and then, pouf! He goes out of existence. Thus all the obstacles are removed. Thus we will come into the millions.”

“You are a great actress, Isabel. You play the part superbly. Even now—here—to me—you look it thoroughly.”

“Play the part? It is thrice easier than it was to play the maid. That was hard. But, come. You must be going.”

Nick waited to hear no more after that, but he turned and glided back to the door, and in another moment was again in the hall, with it closed and locked behind him.

With a hasty word of warning and instruction to Danton, who retreated within the room, Nick sauntered down the corridor a few steps, waiting till the door of the suite supposed to be occupied by Mercedes Danton and her maids should open to permit the departure of Paul Rogers—and he had not long to wait.

When the man came out into the hall, and closed the door behind him, Nick was not ten feet away from him, and, as Rogers, after one sharp glance in his direction, turned to hasten in the opposite direction, Nick quickened his step so that in a moment he was close beside the conspirator and murderer.

He seemed to be in the act of passing Rogers, when suddenly he turned in his track.

His arms shot out and the fingers of one hand seized upon Rogers’ throat, effectually shutting off all hope of his crying out or otherwise giving an alarm. With the other hand, the detective seized him around the body, and then, with a leap, he hurried him toward the open door of his own room where Danton was standing in the doorway awaiting him.

The whole thing occurred so quickly that five seconds had not elapsed from the instant when Rogers came out of the room opposite before he was safely behind closed doors in Nick Carter’s room, with irons upon his wrists and ankles and a gag thrust into his mouth.

“This is the luckiest night’s work I ever did in my life,” said Nick, looking down upon his captive, who was glaring up at him with fierce eyes, but who was utterly helpless nevertheless.

“I see that you do not know me, Paul Rogers,” he said. “Perhaps, however, you will know this gentleman;” and he brought Danton forward where the prisoner could see him.

“The game is up, Rogers,” continued Nick. “I think I can assure you that Mr. Danton’s father will not die of apoplexy on board the ship which is to bring him over here; also that his mother in Newport will not be poisoned this week, and also that Reginald will live somewhat more than twenty-four hours more. Neither do I think that Mercedes Danton, the real, as your wife correctly calls her, will take that little trip to Canada.”

“What the devil does it all mean?” asked Danton, almost beside himself with curiosity.

“It means,” replied Nick, “that when I opened the door opposite, I heard Rogers’ voice inside the room, so I thought that instead of sending you there to reconnoiter, I would do the thing myself. I happened, fortunately, to surprise a heart-to-heart talk between this chap and Isabel, in which, in a very few words, they betrayed the whole plot, almost exactly as I outlined it to you. And, by the way, Reginald, I don’t blame you for supposing that Isabel was your sister when you saw her in front of the hotel in the carriage. I would have believed the same had I seen her instead of you. Now, I want you to sit here with our gentle acquaintance while I go down and interview the management of the hotel. This is one of the circumstances which they like to manage in their own way, and when I tell them that it need not be known that anything has occurred in the hotel, there will be no difficulty in getting our prisoners to police headquarters without delay.”

“But where is Mercedes? Where is my sister? Has anything happened to her? You have not told me that yet, Nick?”

“To be sure I haven’t; but do you suppose that if anything had happened to her, I would be almost joking with this brute here on the floor? Wait, Danton. She is under the influence of drugs, and is, doubtless, quite ill; but I think we will soon bring her out of that.”

* * * * * * *

Half an hour later there was a sharp summons upon the door of the suite opposite the room where Nick Carter had related the story to Reginald Danton.

Presently, after the summons had been repeated a second and a third time, there came a voice from the other side, inquiring who was there.

“A telegram,” replied the hotel detective, whereupon he was told to wait a moment, and presently the door was partly opened and the face of Isabel—it was uncannily like the face of Mercedes—appeared in the opening.

But she had no time to ask questions, for the door being ajar thus far, was quickly pushed wide open by the men outside, and, almost before the woman was thoroughly awake, she found herself a prisoner.

It was broad daylight, in the same suite of rooms at the hotel.

Mercedes Danton, pale as a ghost, but seemingly more beautiful than ever, was lying on the couch near the window so that the cooling breeze of the June morning could fan her brow. Seated beside her and holding her hand in his was her brother, and, standing near them, looking down with untold pleasure and satisfaction in his eyes, was Nick Carter.

“How much we owe to you, Mr. Carter,” she said to him, lifting her matchless eyes until they rested upon his face with a glance that was almost a caress.

“To me?” he replied, smiling. “Say, rather, to yourself.”

“How to me?” she inquired.

Nick turned away without answering, and Reginald smiled upon both his sister and his friend.

“How to me?” she repeated, looking at her brother for a reply.

“Why,” he said, smiling, “because everybody who knows you, loves you, Mercedes. Even I, your brother, love you. Even——”

“Shut up, Danton,” ordered Nick. “Speak for yourself, and give the same privilege to others.”

CHAPTER XXI.

NICK DISCOVERS A NEW MYSTERY.

With the principal actors in the plot of death for the Danton millions safely in the hands of the law, Nick Carter began to breathe more freely. He followed closely the trial of the accused murderer to see that no loop-hole for escape from conviction was taken advantage of by the accused man.

He had long conferences with the district attorney and laid before him all the necessary facts in the conspiracy, avoiding, as far as it was possible, dragging the family into the case. In this he had the hearty cooperation of the prosecuting officer to whom he frankly turned over all the data he had gathered, bearing either directly or indirectly on the charge of murder, asking in return only that the family be spared as much as possible in the presentation of the evidence.

There was scarcely any defense offered at all, and, indeed, so apathetic had the prisoner appeared to be, that it was thought he had abandoned hope.

The idea that all that time he was lying low for the very purpose of averting suspicion from his real plans never once occurred to anybody.

The trial was short, although the prisoner was forced to spend many weeks in his cell in the Tombs before the case was reached on the calendar. The result was a conviction, and Nick felt that a great load had been lifted from his mind when he learned that Rogers, strangely calm in the face of the verdict, had been led from the court-room a condemned murderer.

If Nick could have known what that calm, unruffled demeanor meant he would not have been so greatly relieved.

Following his usual custom of washing his hands of a case after turning a criminal over to the proper authorities, Nick, when he had placed all the evidence at his command in the hands of the district attorney, had gone away to New Brunswick, on a fishing-trip.

Isabel Benton could not be connected with the murder at all, either before or after the fact, and the charge against her had been so vague that she escaped with a light sentence in the penitentiary.

Mercedes Danton, worn by the thrilling events of the past few weeks, went to Europe, and Reginald betook himself to parts unknown to pass away the hot season of the year.

But even on his outing trip Nick Carter was destined to be called into a case of mystery that, however, was so soon solved that the detective regarded it as only one of the side issues that come to him now and then, and which he dabbles in either from motives of friendship, curiosity, or amusement. In this case, however, it led to a strange development.

He was about to bring his visit to an end, and was spending his last evening of “loafing” in the cozy study of his host, Jack Northrup, smoking and chatting, when the servant announced a visitor.

“George Smart. I wonder what brings him down here?” said Northrup, as he read the card that the servant brought to him. “Show the gentleman in here. George is a young lawyer, and an awfully nice chap. You’ll like him,” he continued, turning to Nick as the servant retired.

The lawyer promptly followed his card and greeted Northrup cordially as he entered the room with the air of a man of determination and quick action.

“Why, George, what brings you down here?” asked Northrup.

“Business,” replied Smart promptly. “You didn’t think I had wandered down to this hole in the world for pleasure, did you?”

“My friend, Mr. Carter,” said Northrup, laughing at the lawyer’s wry face, as he introduced the men. “Now lay off your coat and join us in a pipe. You will stay all night, of course, and as we have fished all the streams in the neighborhood dry by day and told about it at night we will be glad to compose ourselves and listen to the tale of the business that brings you to this ‘hole.’ Your business always has a romantic side, George, and I am sure that it must be something out of the usual to get you out of New York and away from your office, club, and cronies. Come let’s have it. Our friend Carter here is a bit interested in the law.”

“Why, it’s a deuce of a mess altogether,” said Smart, as he pulled up an easy chair and filled a long pipe. “And it concerns one of your neighbors, too, or, rather, his heirs.”

“Not old man Peters?” said Northrup.

“Yes—his estate.”

“Must have left a handsome fortune. He had no direct heirs, had he?”

“Yes, one—a burglar.”

Both listeners uttered a cry of surprise.

“A burglar his heir?” said Nick, in astonishment.

“And to a big, round sum, too,” said Northrup, with manifest surprise.

“Yes, and I cannot find the burglar or the will, now.”

“How do you know that his heir is a burglar?” asked Nick.

“Because he told me so.”

“But how do you know he made such a will?”

“Because I drew it.”

“Phew. This is a romance indeed. Tell us all about it, George.”

The lawyer settled back in his chair as if preparing for a long session. He was pleased to have aroused the interest of his auditors, and was not loath to tell the strange story. But he puffed contentedly at his pipe for a moment before proceeding, seeming to enjoy the impatience of the two men, who were leaning forward in their chairs expectantly.

“It was just a week before Mr. Peters’ death that he sent for me to draw his will,” said the lawyer finally, deciding to satisfy the curiosity of his hearers. “He had no immediate fear of death, although as you know he had been partially paralyzed for many years. The document was a very simple matter. As you say, he had no direct heirs at law, and he wished to will his entire property to a man whom he designated as Red Morgan—— Did you speak?” the lawyer asked, turning to Nick, who had uttered a suppressed exclamation.

“A sudden pain in my side. It’s nothing. Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“Although the will tells nothing of the history or character of the heir to this large fortune, old Mr. Peters related to me the little he knew of the man and his reasons for his singular disposition of his wealth. As you know, he was always eccentric and of firm and determined mind. After he had outlined to me the brief document that I was to draw for him I tried to dissuade him from this peculiar disposition of his property, urging that it might result in all sorts of claims being set up by all sorts of crooks and criminals.

“But he would not listen to me. ‘I have sent for you to make my will, Smart,’ he said. ‘I am of sound mind and perfectly competent. I have no near relations who have any claim on me or my posthumous generosity. The money is mine, and I purpose to do what I like with it. If you do not want to draw the will I’ll get some one who will.’ Well, there was no gainsaying him, and, of course, there was no real reason why he should not devise his property in this way if he chose. Only I could see all kinds of trouble coming to me, as I was to be the arbiter and see to it that the right man got the money, and also that the conditions of the will, which were also simple, were carried out to the letter.”

“But why did he make such a strange disposition of his property?” asked Northrup.

“I am coming to that. This is the story he told me:

“As you, and, as far as that goes, the entire countryside knows, Mr. Peters was in the habit of keeping a large sum of money in the house. He had been frequently warned that it was a bait for burglars, but in his stubborn way he paid no heed to his advisers. The money was kept in a safe in his room, and the key he always carried with him and at night slept with it under his pillow. This, of course, was little security, as after-events proved, for every one knew that ‘old man Peters always had a thousand dollars or more in his safe,’ and just as many knew that the key was to be found under his pillow at night. Just how this knowledge reached the inner circles of the criminal world is something it is hard to explain. But it did.

“Well, one night Mr. Peters, who lived alone, as you know, with an old servant, was awakened by a noise in his room. As he opened his eyes without stirring he saw the forms of two men, who had just entered by the window which opened onto the roof of a porch. The room was dimly lighted by a new moon, and, as his eyes became used to the semidarkness, he could see every movement the men made, and he was soon impressed with the remarkable fact that one of the midnight visitors was unaware of the presence of the other.

“It was a singular scene that the old man witnessed as he lay there quietly in bed watching the catlike movements of the dark forms. It would have been a trying situation for an ordinary man, but old man Peters did not have a nerve in his body, and was as brave as a lion. Had he been physically able he would undoubtedly have engaged his unbidden guests in a little rough-and-tumble fight without recking the results. But his paralyzed limbs would not permit any such demonstration, and he just lay there watching and waiting.

“He had a keen sense of humor, had Mr. Peters, and it was this that nearly cost him his life and made Thomas Danton his heir. As he watched the foremost man moving stealthily about getting his bearings, and just as stealthily followed by the crouching figure of the other, the scene—one thief dogging another—struck him as so ludicrous that he laughed outright.

“That laugh was nearly fatal. With a snarl of rage the first man sprang to the bed, and, seizing the old man by the throat, raised a gleaming knife.

“‘Curse you, take that,’ he hissed, and the knife was about to descend when the shadow sprang upon him and wrenched the weapon from his hand.

“‘We will have no murder done while I am here, Dan Flynn.’

“The first man released his grip on the old man’s throat and turned upon the man who had seized him. His surprise when he recognized him was evident.

“‘Red Morgan! What are you doing here?’

“‘The same thing you are, Dan, only I don’t intend to see any violence done an old and helpless man.’

“‘What are you doing here?’ again growled the other.

“‘On the same lay as you, Dan, only you got here first. I needed the thousand, but it’s all off now, and we’d better mosey.’

“‘And not swipe the stuff while we are here?’

“At this point old Mr. Peters took a hand in the game. He touched a button that had been conveniently arranged in the head-board of his bed, and the room was instantly flooded with light.

“‘You fool,’ said the second man, ‘don’t you see that the game is up, and we will have the household down on us in a moment?’

“They evidently had not informed themselves of the strength, or, rather, weakness, of the household. I can hear old man Peters chuckle now as he told me of the incident.

“‘If you hadn’t interfered the old man would have been a dead one now, and we could have lifted the stuff without a kick,’ said Dan, in deep disgust. He glanced scornfully at the figure on the bed, but started back in dismay.

“Mr. Peters, lying flat on his back with a grin on his drawn face, had the man covered with a revolver, which he also kept under his pillow.

“‘We will dispense with your company,’ he said to Dan. ‘By the window, if you please, so as not to arouse the household. And you,’ he said to the other, ‘will remain.’

“Dan lost no time in making his escape, while the other man sat nonchalantly down on the edge of the bed and lighted a cigarette.

“‘Well, Mr. Peters, what can I do for you—call the servants?’ he asked coolly, as he looked down the barrel of the gun.

“‘Close the window,’ chuckled Mr. Peters; ‘it is chilly here.’

“The man calmly did as directed, and then turned again to the old man, who lowered his pistol as he said:

“‘You seem to have some scruples against murder.’

“‘I have.’

“‘Sit down.’

“The burglar resumed his place on the edge of the bed.

“‘You saved my life at the possible risk of discovery as a burglar. I am not ungrateful. Here.’

“As he spoke, Mr. Peters put his hand under his pillow and drew out the little key to the safe, which he held out to the man.

“‘There’s the safe—here’s the key. There is one thousand and two dollars and thirty cents there. Take the bills and leave me the change. I shall probably feel like it in the morning,’ and the old man chuckled at his joke.

“That the burglar was astounded is drawing it lightly. He took the key, however, with alacrity, and, unlocking the safe, quickly transferred the money to his pocket.

“‘Now, sit down again,’ said Mr. Peters. ‘I think I have earned a few minutes of your valuable time.’ The man again resumed his seat without protest, although Peters had now tucked the pistol back under his pillow.

“‘Your profession is a precarious one. Why did you take it up? You were not born to be a burglar, even of the considerate class. Come, tell me all about yourself, and who you are. I have paid well for a little entertainment.’

“Then the man told him the usual story of the gentleman burglar, and with dramatic force whispered his alleged real name in the ear of old man Peters.”

Nick had listened to the story with intense interest. It fitted well into a little niche in his mind.

“And what have you done toward finding this burglar?” he asked the lawyer.

“Nothing yet. The will, as I tell you, has disappeared.”

“What were the conditions of the will to which you referred?”

“Mr. Peters had an idea that nothing would shake that this man would reform and lead an honest life. I was to locate him, and, if he had mended his ways, or if I could induce him to do so without offering the tempting bait of the fortune, I was to pay over to him the money left by old man Peters. Now I have no legal authority to act on, even if I should find the man. It is possible, of course, that Peters destroyed the will in the short time between its execution and his death, but I do not believe it.”

“Nor do I,” said Nick emphatically.

“And, certainly, no one had any interest in stealing it, even if its contents were known.”

“Can we get into the house?”

“When?”

“Now—to-night.”

“To-night?” repeated the lawyer, in surprise.

“Yes.”

“I have a key, if the old servant is not still there. But what can be done there to-night?”

“Find the will.”

Smart looked at Nick in astonishment, and then turned to Northrup with a glance that seemed to ask: “Who’s your friend?” Northrup, enjoying the situation, said with a laugh:

“I did not mention Mr. Carter’s full name, I believe, Smart. Mr. Nicholas Carter, I should have said.”

“What, the detective?”

“The same,” said Nick, with a smile.

CHAPTER XXII.

DISCOVERY OF THE WILL.

After Nick had made himself known the lawyer was quite willing to visit the house of Mr. Peters, as the detective suggested, but he admitted that he did not have any confidence that Nick would be able to trace the missing document.

“I have searched the house from cellar to garret, and can find no sign of the will,” said Smart, with confidence. “I do not believe that it is in the house now, if it still exists.”

“Another look will not do any harm, if you have no objections,” said Nick.

“None in the least. I only hope that you may succeed, as this matter is giving me a great deal of annoyance.”

“Is the house far from here?”

“About a mile,” answered Northrup. “We will take the automobile.”

The host gave the necessary orders, and in a few minutes they were speeding over the fine roads in the direction of old man Peters’ house.

As there was no response to their rings and repeated knocking at the door, the lawyer admitted the party with his key.

“Tell me briefly what were the old man’s habits just before he died,” said Nick. “Was he able to get around himself after his stroke?”

“He was not exactly helpless, but had to be assisted in walking—in fact, practically carried. He would put his arms around his servant’s neck, and, in a sort of a pig-a-back fashion, he was moved around the house.”

“Had he any favorite place where he used to spend the days?”

“Almost invariably he would pass the day in his study, reading or writing. His mind was very active.”

“In what room was the will drawn?”

“In his study.”

“Did you leave him there when you left the house?”

“Yes. I simply notified the old servant that I was going, so that he might know that his master was alone again.”

“The will is in the study. Let us go there. It is a waste of time to look elsewhere.”

“But I have searched the study and every nook and cranny where he might have hidden the document,” said the lawyer, showing some annoyance.

“Why should he hide the will?” asked Nick coolly.

“I am sure I do not know, but it is gone.”

“That’s just it. There can be no reason for his secreting the will, but you did not, perhaps, look in the obvious places where he might have laid it away temporarily. Let us try the library.”

Mr. Smart led the way to a large handsomely furnished room on the lower floor, and, turning on the lights, Nick cast a quick glance around the apartment.

“This was his seat?” asked Nick, as he took the big revolving-chair in front of a roll-top desk.

“Yes,” answered the lawyer, “that is where he spent his days.”

Nick stepped to the chair and sat down as if he were about to go to work at the desk. He glanced quickly over the top of the desk, into the pigeonholes in the back, and then sat for a moment thinking.

“Have you asked the servant if he saw anything of the document in the hands of Mr. Peters?” he inquired finally.

“Yes. The man had seen nothing of it, and I think if the old gentleman had had it exposed to view in his presence he would have noticed it. He is a very observant person, and had the interests of his master at heart. In fact, he aided him in much of his clerical work.”

“If Mr. Peters had had the will in his hand when the servant helped him up or down-stairs, you think the man would have noticed it?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Then the will is in this desk.”

Nick spoke with the utmost confidence, and again the lawyer showed some irritation.

“But I tell you I have searched the desk throughout,” he said.

“Yes,” replied Nick, “but you must remember that you were looking for a place where he might have hidden it. He did not hide it. He simply put it one side, and, as it was a document that he did not mean should be read by any chance caller, he simply placed it under his blotting-pad.”

As Nick spoke with that confidence for which he was noted when he believed he had solved a problem, he removed a large dictionary that lay on one side of the large blotting-pad, and, lifting the blotters from the leather corners, disclosed a paper which had been pushed under them.

“I think you will find that that is the will for which you are looking,” said the detective calmly, rising and pointing to the desk.

In amazement the lawyer dropped into the chair which Nick vacated, and, seizing the paper, glanced hurriedly at it.

“It is the lost will,” he cried. “Mr. Carter, you are a wonder. Your detective instincts are simply remarkable.”

“Not at all,” replied Nick modestly. “Most apparently tough problems are simple when they are solved. The obvious is almost always to be depended on to clear up nine mysteries out of ten. Some gentlemen of my craft are too prone to look at the involved and most unlikely side of a case as a means for discovering a solution.”

“Is there any way in which I can recompense you for your trouble, Mr. Carter?” asked the lawyer, in some embarrassment, as he felt that as a friend of Northrup and while a guest in his home the detective would not consider that he had been acting professionally, so far as reward went. And yet, the finding of the will was an important matter to the estate, which was amply able to pay well.

“Yes, you can,” was Nick’s unexpected reply. “Let me look over the will.”

“With pleasure,” said the lawyer, handing the document to Nick.

The detective glanced through the paper quickly.

“I see that the beneficiary figures in the document under his professional name of ‘Red Morgan.’ Do you object to telling me the family name which you say he whispered to Mr. Peters? I suppose he confided that to you.”

“Yes, to be sure, but to tell the truth I paid little attention to it, as I did not believe the man’s story. Criminals are all liars.”

“Have you forgotten the name?” asked Nick, in surprise.

“In fact I have, but I made a memorandum of it at the time, and perhaps I have it here.”

The lawyer dug into his pockets, and, after a time, exclaimed:

“Ah! yes, here it is.”

“What is the name?” asked Nick, with some excitement.

With some difficulty the lawyer read the blurred paper:

“Thomas Danton.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE MURDERER ESCAPES.

It lacked but a few moments of the time when the train that was to convey Rogers to Sing Sing would pull out of the Grand Central Station.

A closed carriage was driven hurriedly under the glass canopy which stretches between the station proper and the annex. There were two men on the box—the driver and a special officer in citizen’s clothes; and there were two men inside the hack.

One of these latter was also an officer; the other, Paul Rogers, who was to meet the fate that had been allotted to him, by passing through the “little door” into the room where that terrible chair is located, in which so many persons are compelled to seat themselves never to rise again.

But fate, and the careful plotting and planning of numerous friends of Rogers, had already determined that he was not, on this particular occasion, to arrive at the selected destination. Fate, assisted and directed somewhat by the aforesaid friends, had arranged a most dramatic rescue, which, by reason of its boldness and originality, was destined to succeed.

And this is how it happened:

When the hack drew up against the curb inside the station, the officer on the box leaped down and opened the door.

As he did so, he made a signal which, although almost imperceptible to many who were spectators of the scene, was yet visible to the police officers who were near, and they gathered closely around the hack.

In the meantime, the spectators, many of them ignorant of the identity of the passenger in the hack, but, nevertheless, attracted by an indefinable feeling that was in the air, suggestive of the presence of a convicted criminal, and many of whom—as it appeared later—who were thoroughly posted regarding that trifling circumstance, gathered closely around the hack, and the two men who presently descended from it.

It was somewhat remarkable how quickly that crowd gathered, seemingly from nowhere, but which, almost in a moment, became absolutely dense.

To the three policemen in uniform and the two officers who were not in uniform, in the center of the crowd, it never occurred that the throng of men who were crushing slowly but surely forward were acting in concert, and upon a perfectly defined schedule.

There was no noise—no violence—no disturbance of any sort—nothing, in fact, to give the officers in charge on the occasion the idea that a rescue was in progress.

Each one of those officers had had experience with rescues before that; each one of them would have known how to meet an emergency of that sort with a front that would have disabled its intentions then and there, had they or any one of them realized that an emergency existed.

And that was the point of the whole rescue.

That was the very thing which rendered it a success.

The very unostentatiousness of it! The utter and entire absence of noise or excitement! The steady and unrelenting pressure which the officers strove so quietly and so vainly to thrust back again! The quiet which the officers themselves maintained, fearing that any noise might reveal the identity of their prisoner!

Remember, it never once occurred to them that a rescue was in progress! Had one of them suspected that, revolvers would have been drawn, clubs would have been in evidence, an alarm would have been sounded and the attempt at rescue would have been defeated almost as soon as it began.

But there was nothing in the action of that crowd which so steadily pressed forward to indicate even that they knew who the prisoner was. There was nothing about the personnel of the crowd to suggest that it was not the ordinary miscellaneous collection of humanity which gathers at and departs from the Grand Central Station a hundred times every day of the year.

There was, in fact, nothing about the incident which was observable to the officers, which was at all out of the ordinary, save that the crowd was more dense than usual, and that the men who composed it seemed to be more than ordinarily determined to see for themselves what was going on.

Later, when explanations were demanded, there was really not one that was worthy of the name of explanation that could be offered.

There was the crowd, steadily and relentlessly pressing forward. There were big men—well-dressed men—business men, from their appearance, in the van of the crowd; and in the center of it all there were the two officers with their prisoner, who was handcuffed to one of them, and the three policemen in uniform.

Five officers of the law, surrounded by two hundred and fifty determined rescuers.

Just at the instant when the officers became convinced that assistance was necessary—just at the moment, in fact, when one of them was on the point of calling for it, somebody in the distance, and from a point higher up, as if its owner was so situated that he could overlook the conditions, whistled shrilly and peculiarly.

It was evident that the crowd was awaiting that signal, for with almost the mechanical precision of machinery, it acted.

The five officers were seized as one man might have been—and they were seized by many pairs of hands at once.

It was the same with each of the five, so we need only know the experience of one of them, as he afterward described it at the investigation that was ordered.

“Two hands, bigger than my own, went across my mouth, and the fingers locked together so that I couldn’t have opened my jaws to utter a word if my life had depended upon it. My head was pulled back with a jerk by those same two hands, for their owner was directly behind me, and I am willing to swear that he was a giant, although I did not see him. Then, at the same second, two more hands grabbed me by the throat and squeezed, not hard enough to choke me exactly, but near enough to that to keep my attention fixed for the moment on the desire to get my breath. Then, and also at the same instant, each one of my legs was seized by more hands, and I was lifted off my feet, and laid, face down, on the pavement. Then, a moment later there wasn’t a hand touching me, and I leaped to my feet ready for fight, only to find myself facing a crowd of a hundred or more innocent-looking men who were vieing with each other in asking what had happened and offering their assistance.

“Sure, I couldn’t arrest the whole crowd of them for attacking me, for I was not certain that a single one of them had been concerned in the attack.”

That finished his testimony, and that was, in fact, all that he or any one of the officers of the law knew about the occurrence—save, perhaps, one other—the officer to whom the prisoner was handcuffed.

His story given at the investigation was almost the same.

“I had two hands over my mouth, two more at my throat, and I don’t know how many more at my legs,” he said. “I could not call out, and I couldn’t do a thing to defend myself. When I got on my feet again the chain between the two nippers had been cut and my prisoner was gone. That’s all I know about it. I didn’t hear a word said—not one. There wasn’t a blow struck. Nobody was hurt that I have heard about. They didn’t even choke me hard enough to hurt.”

And the fact, so far as Paul Rogers was concerned, was this:

When the crowd became dense around him and the officer to whom he was handcuffed was dragged down beside him, a pair of steel nippers quickly severed the chain between the manacles, and then the manacle itself, that surrounded his own wrist.

He was a free man, and before him there was a niche in the crowd into which he stepped; and as he pressed forward the niche proceeded in front of him and as rapidly closed up behind him, something after the manner in which a ripple will travel across a stretch of smooth water when a pebble has disturbed it.

It is all smooth and clear in front of the ripple, and all smooth and clear behind it, but the ripple goes on continuously and regularly, until it strikes against the shore and disappears.

And so, Paul Rogers went ahead, slowly, continuously and regularly, until he struck against the pavement of Forty-second Street, when he, too, disappeared—was swallowed up in the ebbing and flowing of that sea of humanity which sucks through Forty-second Street, between the hours of four and six o’clock, almost every week-day in the year.

He had disappeared from Forty-second Street before it was known inside the station that a prisoner had escaped. He was gone before it was known on the outskirts of the crowd that had surrounded him that he was there at all.

The death chair at Sing Sing was cheated of its prey—or, at least, the journey to Sing Sing was indefinitely postponed.

Paul Rogers, conspirator, murderer, but more than all, a mystery, had made good his escape and was again at large—and he was at large for a well-defined and dastardly purpose.

CHAPTER XXIV.

NICK ON DECK AGAIN.

Against beautiful Mercedes Danton and her family, as well as Nick Carter himself, Rogers had taken an awful oath of vengeance.

How terrible that oath was, how carefully he had considered it and planned for its fulfilment, we are soon to know.

There were two coincidences connected with the escape of Rogers. One was the arrival of Nick Carter at the Grand Central Station at nine o’clock on the same evening, and the other the incoming of the steamship Oceanic, which passed Fire Island at about the hour of the sensational events at the railroad station, and when the vessel docked the following morning among the passengers to come ashore were Mercedes Danton and her father and mother.

It was about half-past nine when Nick Carter reached his house that night, and as he was in the act of ascending the steps to his front door he heard his name called from the street, and, turning, observed, shambling toward him, a man who at first glance appeared to be a genuine specimen of the genus hobo.

He was certainly as repulsive a looking tramp as Nick Carter had ever beheld, to judge from his general appearance, and Nick somewhat impatiently asked him what he wanted.

“I want a word with you, sir, if I may have it,” was the reply. “My name is Tom Morgan. You’ll remember me best as ‘Red’ Morgan, I think. The last time you saw me was when you testified against me in court when the judge sent me away for five years for burglary.”

Nick suppressed a cry of amazement as he recognized Morgan, for he was still revolving in his mind the strange story of old Peter’s will. He controlled himself quickly as he said:

“You must have been having a hard time of it, to judge by your looks. Aren’t there any cribs left for you to crack? Out of prison three months and still broke is an unusual circumstance for you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’m not broke by a long shot, Carter.”

“Mr. Carter, if you please, Morgan. I can’t permit familiarity from people in your profession, no matter how much I may happen to admire their skill.”

“All right, Mr. Carter. No offense,” and the burglar laughed. “I’m not broke. This rig I’ve got on is a disguise. I can look the hobo, and play the part, too, to beat the band, when it happens to be of advantage for me to do so. I picked up the fact that you were out of town and were expected to arrive home yesterday or to-day, and so, as I wanted to catch you as soon as you appeared, and to do that had to hang around the vicinity of your doorstep until you came, I just adopted the hobo rig; see?”

“Yes; I see. But what for? Why did you wish to see me? I should suppose that I would be about the last person on top of earth whom you would wish to see.”

Morgan grinned.

“Well, Mr. Carter,” he said, “ordinarily that is the case; but there happened to be a reason or two why I thought you would appreciate my society just now.”

“How is that, Morgan? You haven’t turned stool-pigeon since your imprisonment, have you? You are the last crook in the city whom I would pick out for an informer against his kind.”

“Well, sir, I’m much obliged to you for that opinion—and it’s a correct one, too. Nobody ever accused Red Morgan of being a squealer—bet your life on that. All the same, that is about the size of my present contract.”

“Do you mean that you have come here to betray——”

“Hold on, please. That is a hard word for me to swallow, even though it does amount to a betrayal in one way. But, on the other hand, it isn’t a betrayal at all, for the guns I’m going to peach about are not pals of mine and never could be. It isn’t my fault that they made a lay for me and wanted me to get on board their machine with them. Can’t you take me inside, Mr. Carter? I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

Nick hesitated and Morgan continued:

“These clothes aren’t as bad as they look. You know that I’m rather a clean sort of a chap, and this rig is one I fixed up myself. There’s a lot about it that looks like filth, but it’s really good, clean dirt, gathered from a country roadside—and I won’t ask you to let me sit down. I didn’t come for that, and I probably won’t stay half an hour.”

“All right. Come in,” replied Nick.

A few moments later he had provided Morgan with a chair, and they were seated together in the reception-room.

“Now what is it all about?” asked Nick. “I know you well enough, Morgan, to believe that you would not take the risk of coming to see me unless you had something of importance on your mind. Let’s get down to business.”

“Well, it is important. I’m sorry, sir, that you did not get home about six hours sooner.”

“Indeed! Why?”

“Well, if you had, you could have prevented the whole thing that I have come to warn you about. You see, when you did not get here soon enough to prevent it, I was for going away and leaving the rest of it to take its own course; but when I thought it over I couldn’t do that, for when you came to find it all out later you would say that Red Morgan was a coward, and I’ve never been called that in my life.”

“No,” replied Nick. “I would not say that you are a coward, except on the general principle that any man who will steal must be a coward. However, we won’t discuss that. What was it that I did not get here soon enough to prevent?”

“The escape of Paul Rogers.”

“Eh? What is that? Has Paul Rogers escaped?”

“Well, I didn’t see him escape, and I haven’t been told that he has escaped, but I wouldn’t be afraid to bet a thousand to one that he has.”

“When?”

“At four o’clock this afternoon.”

“Where?”

“While they were taking him to the train at the Grand Central. I wasn’t there, and I haven’t heard anything about it since; but the plans were too well laid to have failed, and so you can bank on it that he is at liberty at this moment.”

“H’m! And you came here to warn me of it so that I could prevent it? Is that it?”

“That was my original intention; and I didn’t expect to tell you any more—then. But now I expect I’ll have to do so.”

“Tell me first why, when you found out that I would not get here in time to prevent it, you did not give the information to some other person who could have prevented it?”

“For the very simple reason, Mr. Carter, that while there may be a million coppers and police officers higher up on the fence who would keep faith with me in a matter of that kind, I never yet happened to make the acquaintance of any of them. Nick Carter was the only man I wanted to trust, for I knew that Nick Carter would keep his word with me with the same absolute certainty that he would keep faith with the President of the United States.”

“That is true, of course. But what do you want me to promise? I may not feel inclined to give promises, you know.”

“I don’t want you to promise anything, save that you will forget where you get the information I’m going to give you. Just for the sake of my own personal feelings in the matter, I don’t care to have it known ever, that I—well, that I peached.”

“I can promise you that nobody will ever get that information from me,” replied Nick. “But is that all you are going to ask? Aren’t you going to say, when you have told me all, that because you have done me a favor, you expect me to be a little light on you the next time my duty requires me to nail you?”

“Not on your life, Mr. Carter. A fair field and no favors is all I shall ask or expect at your hands, and I know that I’ll always get that,” replied Morgan.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE UNFOLDING OF ROGERS’ PLOT.

“Mr. Carter,” continued Morgan, after a short pause, “I suppose it would be a sort of paradox to say that there could be such a thing as a square crook, but if there ever was a crook who tried to be on the square as far as his business would permit, Tom Morgan is that chap.”

“It is something of a paradox, Red,” laughed Nick. And then he added seriously: “Why do you not shake the business and be on the square all round?”

“Too late, sir—too late. There is too much past and not enough future in mine.”

“‘Though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be washed as white as wool,’” quoted Nick solemnly.

“I know all that, sir, and I appreciate your kindness in saying it, too. I know, moreover, that you are just the man who would hold out a helping hand to a chap like me who made a break to get up onto the brighter and better side of life. But I didn’t come here to discuss that with you, and if you don’t mind we won’t do it.”

“All right, Morgan. Go ahead; only, I would like to add just one word on the present topic before we leave it.”

“What is that?”

“This: If there should ever come a time when you want to play square, come straight to me and say so. I’ll promise to believe you—to take your word for it, and to stand for you in the fight that is bound to follow.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carter. I won’t forget; and who knows? There may come a time when I’ll call that hand of yours.”

“Good,” said Nick. “I hope there will.”

“And now, before I get down to the business of my call here to-night, I want to say a word in explanation of my position.”

“Go ahead, Red.”

“I told you just now that my principle was a fair field and no favors. That expression means more with me than it does with some people.”

“I’ve no doubt of it, Morgan.”

“It means, for instance, that when I decide to crack a crib somewhere I know that in doing it I am more than likely to get you on my track, and that it is your duty to nail me if you can.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, if you do nail me, I do not cherish the least sort of hard feeling toward you for doing it. I am a professed enemy to society; you are its guardian. If I do wrong it is your duty to catch me and send me away, if you can—and I respect you rather than hate you for doing your duty, even though I may be the victim of your zeal.”

“I believe you, Morgan, although it is rather an unusual view for your class to take.”

“It is true in my case; but if I should try, I don’t think I could put my finger upon another crook who feels just as I do about it.”

“No; I do not think you could.”

“Ninety-nine out of a hundred of the crooks who have, sooner or later, felt the weight of your hand, want revenge.”

“That is only natural, I suppose.”

“Natural or not, it is true. Many a man is engaged this minute in keeping tabs on the days of the week and month by scratching on the walls of their cells, who are only waiting to get out in order to get square with you.”

“Sure thing, Red; but I’m not getting nervous about them.”

“Oh, I know that, and it isn’t what I’m driving at. Let me go on in my own way.”

“Correct. Go ahead.”

“Some of them want to murder you; some only want to punch you, and—well, there are all sorts of feelings among them, and out of the whole lot it is safe to say that not one out of a thousand would ever take definite shape if there was nobody to direct them.”

“Aha! I think I see your point.”

“Now, I’ll tell the story of my own experience, and you will see exactly what I mean.”

“Well?”

“I hadn’t been out of prison more than four or five weeks when an old pal of mine came to see me. The first thing he did was to ask questions until he found out that I owed the time I had just been doing up the State to you. Then he asked me to meet some of the gang he was training with, at a place down in East Houston Street. I asked him what the lay was, and he told me that I would find out when I got there—and I did.

“In a few words, the lay had three prongs to it. One of them was for the rescue of a man named Paul Rogers, of whom I had never heard at all at the time. He was sure to be convicted of murder in the first degree, and a rescue was planned to take him away from his guard while he was on his way to Sing Sing.

“I saw no objection to that, inasmuch as we were to be well paid for the job. I did not know, and I do not know now, where the money came from to pay us; I only know that there was plenty of it. There wasn’t to be a blow struck—and, in short, the whole plan was so slick and comfortable, and there was such real genius in it that I rather enjoyed the thing, and went into it as much for the fun of it as for the money—although that was a consideration.

“I won’t stop to tell you about the plan now, for you will hear all about it in the morning. It is one of the things that can happen once, easily, and because of the very simplicity of it, can never occur again. I haven’t been told yet whether it succeeded or not, but I am sure it did, it was so slick.

“Well—things went along swimmingly until there came a new deal, all in the same game. I have told you there were three deals. The second one was a play against Nick Carter.

“I want you to understand in the beginning that there wasn’t a man in that outfit who had not suffered at some time or other at your hands. There wasn’t a man there who had not cried out from behind prison walls for vengeance against you. There wasn’t one who did not grasp eagerly at the thought of it—and right here, Mr. Carter, was where I bolted.”

“Do you mean that you defended me there among them?”

“Well, I wasn’t quite such a blooming fool as that, you know. Such a thing wouldn’t have done you any good, and it would have done me a lot of harm. No; I just kept my mouth shut and told them that I’d carry out the program I’d enlisted for, and that I’d see them later about the rest of it.

“Now, I told you at the start that I didn’t come here to do any peaching on my pals, and so you must not expect me to tell you any names. I couldn’t do that. Nor will I tell you all of the plot; but I will tell you this much:

“The main guy behind the whole outfit is that same Paul Rogers, and it would appear that he is some pumpkins in his own country, wherever that may be—England or France; I don’t know which. He’s either got a big wad of shekels, or he knows where to find one when he needs it.

“Now, Paul Rogers has got a wife, whom you also sent up. She was to get out of the pen to-day, her time being greatly shortened for good behavior, and all that. Maybe you know who she is, Mr. Carter?”

“Yes; Isabel Benton, or Rogers; it is the same thing.”

“That’s right. Those are the only names I shall mention. You’ll have to guess the others as they appear.”

“I think I can do that.”

“All right. I hope you can. Please take notice that I am telling you only what I have picked up at the meetings of that mob, and I don’t vouch for the truth or the correctness of any of it. I never heard of any of the parties except yourself, until I trained with the crew I’m speaking about.”

“Go on. I understand.”

“Up the river somewhere, not as far as Sing-twice, I imagine, there is a beautiful country place where some people live whom you know. There is a very beautiful young lady in the family, and somehow the notion has gotten out among the crooks that you are very friendly with that family and especially with the daughter. This Isabel Benton and the daughter are as alike as two peas, it is said, and there was a plot to place Isabel in her place, once upon a time, which plot failed.”

“I know all about that,” said Nick.

“All the better if you do. The father of the young lady is a multi-millionaire. There is a brother, also, who is what the boys call a smart fool. You know what that means. He is money blind. He has abilities and won’t use them. He is smart, but too lazy to use his head. Gritty, but too easy to fight. A good fellow, but too much taken up with killing time to do anything else. A young chap, I imagine, who hasn’t been woke up yet, so to speak—a sort of an electric motor without any current to speak of.”

Nick laughed aloud.

“That is a first-class description of a person whom you never saw,” he said.

“Well, it is the impression I received from what I heard about him. That boy—he’s about twenty-four, I think—is very much in the way of Paul Rogers, and Paul Rogers proposes to put him out of it. The old man is still more so, and Paul Rogers has sworn away his life. The old lady—the mother—is a sort of supernumerary, but when the time comes she is billed to shuffle off in some way or other—I don’t know what.”

“And the young lady?” asked Nick.

“I was getting down to her. I couldn’t find out much about the plot against her, save that the woman Isabel is to take her place, somehow and somewhere, and the thing is to be done so slick that nobody will suspect that it is done.”

“Do you mean that you do not know the particulars, or that you are keeping them back?”

“I mean that I don’t know them, only to the extent that if you don’t keep a mighty close watch over her she will disappear off the face of the earth in such a way that you won’t have any idea that she is gone until it is too late to help her; and that because you are the only factor in the plan which can interfere with their success, you are to be gotten rid of in the most approved fashion—and that, Mr. Carter, is what I came here to tell you about. Paul Rogers was set free this afternoon, and I happen to know that there is a bet on, with the odds against you, that you will be a dead one inside of forty-eight hours after he is at liberty.”

“In that case, Morgan,” said Nick coolly, “you won’t mind answering me a few questions, will you?”

“I don’t think so. Ask ’em, and I’ll tell you.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

BURGLAR MORGAN’S BIGGEST HAUL.

“Morgan,” said Nick, “have you any information which can lead you to form an opinion or express a belief concerning the method which Paul Rogers intends to employ in removing me from the pale of existence?”

Morgan grinned.

“Would you mind saying that all over again, and saying it slow?” he asked. “But never mind. I’ll try to reply to it in my own way.

“You see, Mr. Carter, the fact is that this thing is much more serious than you imagine. If it hadn’t been, you can bet your life that I wouldn’t have spent the best part of two days, rigged out in these togs, standing out there in the street and holding out my hand for alms in order to keep up the character while I was waiting for you.”

“I believe you, Morgan.”

“I tell you, it is a serious matter; so serious that I felt it a duty which I owed to my own manhood to warn you. I’m a burglar, Mr. Carter, but I’ve kept some of my manhood tucked away in a dark corner where I can call upon it for use when it is needed. This was a case where I felt that it would come into play.”

“Just why did you feel that way?”

“Because I think they mean business. Because this gang, which has been formed at the suggestion of Rogers, under his orders and with his money, is composed of between fifty and sixty members, and—here is the point—because there is a separate and distinct method for getting rid of you, for each and every member of the gang.”

“They propose to attack me in fifty or sixty different ways, then? Is that it?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Simply by the methods that were employed in my own particular case.”

“Can you tell me about that?”

“That’s what I came here to tell you.”

“Then let me hear it.”

“Remember, please, that I am relating only my own experience.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know a thing about what was said to the others. I can only surmise, because of what was said to me.”

“Yes.”

“I was called into a room where the gun who acts as the main guy in the absence of the real chief, Rogers, received us, one by one, and each one alone. I don’t know just how far down the list my name was, but I was pretty close to the last that was called in. You see, the outfit hasn’t got on to my curves yet. They don’t know whether they can quite trust me or not.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Well, when he got me in there he looked me over with a sort of quizzical expression which I didn’t like, and presently I told him so. ‘If you’re looking for a continuous performance show,’ I said to him, ‘it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to mosey down to Keith’s. I’m not supplying any star attractions just now.’

“I won’t try to quote him; I’ll just tell what happened. He told me that he thought I had been pretty well informed as to the purpose of the organization, but for my especial benefit he’d go over the ground a little. Then he opened with an account of the desire to liberate Rogers and expatiated on all that Rogers could and would do for the gang when once he was at liberty; and then he said this:

“‘Primarily, this is a play for a hundred million dollars’ haul—the biggest that was ever made in the open in the history of the world. There have been hauls quite as big made by a class of men who pose as philanthropists, but there was never such a one by thieves pure and simple. This is a play for a hundred millions, and it’s dead easy if we follow the lead of Paul Rogers without question. In order to make it a success, there are three men and two women to be put out of existence.’

“I stopped him right there with the remark that I would not consent to take part in one murder for a billion, to say nothing of a million. That I wouldn’t even consent to be an accessory, and that if he had anything of that kind on the paper he had better count me out of it on the start, before he told me any more about their plans.

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘we have counted you out of that. Your friends who brought you here told us that much on the start; but there is one thing which we want you to do which will make you solid with the gang, and that is to help us to get rid of the detective, Nick Carter.’

“Then he reminded me that I had been up the State doing a term of five years because you had sent me there, and he told me that every member of the gang had some complaint to make against you and some grudge to make good. He said the whole bunch had sworn away your life, one by one, each in his own particular way, and that he wanted to find out just what my method would be.

“That was when I got wise, Mr. Carter. I figured around a little so as to see his hand, if possible, only I didn’t succeed in seeing much, for all that. But I gave him the bluff that a man who handed out a proposition like he wanted me to do was a fool to start with. That if I made up my mind to put Nick Carter or anybody else to sleep, I certainly wouldn’t start in by giving my hand away before I made a play. Nit.

“‘I’ve thought a good deal about Nick Carter since I’ve been recuperating up the river,’ I said to him, ‘and I’m not going to put you wise about those thinks. Nit. I know the game,’ I said, ‘and all I want is to be left alone to play my hand in my own fashion. If I should want any help, I’ll call on you, but I don’t think I shall need any.’

“Well, he was satisfied. That ended our conversation on that topic, so you see I don’t really know so darn much after all—only by implication.”

“And by implication, will you tell me just what you make out the whole game to be?” asked Nick.

“Sure thing. By implication I make out this: That old Peter Danton will begin, before long, to act sort of queer. His friends and relatives won’t know what is the matter with him until it suddenly dawns upon them that he has a sort of softening of the brain. I suppose there is a drug that will produce that effect; anyhow, that is the racket. After he has had softening of the brain for a while, he’ll die—quite sudden. In the meantime, of course, the youngster will have succeeded his father. Now, the youngster has a decided weakness for good-looking women, and he is to be lured into a place where a row will be started and in the mêlée he will get a rap on the head, which will settle his hash. In the meantime the old lady is to be cared for by a trained nurse, or a maid, or somebody who is to be introduced into the house through the instrumentality of Rogers. She has got a year or two, perhaps more, to live. In short, she can live as long as she is of any use to the conspirators, for Rogers proposes to force the world to recognize the substituted heiress for the real one, through the mother. Catch on?”

“Not quite. State it.”

“Well, if the old lady is kept alive, but in the meantime her brain is sufficiently clouded so that she does not know the difference between Isabel Benton and her own daughter, and if it is Isabel Benton instead of her own daughter who lives with her the last two or three years of her life, it will be pretty hard to convince the world after that that the young woman is not the real daughter of the house; don’t you think so?”

“Yes; I do think so.”

“Well, that’s the game. By implication, remember, I’ve built all this up by the operation which you detective chaps call deduction.”

The burglar stopped abruptly and rose to his feet.

“That, Mr. Carter,” he said, “is all that I have got to say; and now, if you don’t mind, I will slip back into my own world again.”

“Morgan,” said Nick, rising also, “I wish you would make up your mind to remain on this side of the dividing line between those two worlds.”

The burglar shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “It’s no use. I can’t. I wouldn’t shine along the respectable highways of life.”

“There is a mighty good man in you, Morgan, if you would only consent to let him get on top.”

“He’s been the under dog too long a time for that, sir.”

“It is never too late.”

“Bah! Don’t preach.”

“I’m not preaching. Here!”

Nick held out his right hand, and Morgan gazed at it dumbly for a moment and then into the detective’s face again.

“Well? What about it?” he asked roughly.

“I want to shake hands with you, Morgan,” said Nick. “I want to shake hands with the man who came into my house and who is on the point of going out of it now—the real man, you know.”

“Nit!” said Morgan. “Your hand is an honest hand; mine is not. They are no more fit to mate together than a negro and a white. Nit. I’m obliged to you all the same. Good-night.”

“Wait, Morgan.”

“Well?”

“I am a fairly good reader of character.”

“I suppose you are. What of it?”

“I want you to tell me just why you have taken all this trouble to save Mercedes Danton from the conspiracy which overshadows her life—for I know that you came here for that purpose and not for the one you have given—to warn me.”

“Tell me why you think that,” said Morgan hoarsely.

“I don’t think it; I know it. I knew it by the sound of your voice and by the look in your eyes when you spoke of her.”

“All right, I’ll tell you, and that will end our conversation for the day. Once upon a time I worked six months on plans and preparations to rob Linden Fells. That was six years ago, when Mercedes Danton was only a girl of thirteen or fourteen, I think. My plans worked all right and I had the whole layout ready to my hand—I would have got away with a cool forty thousand, sure; but—well, that little girl woke up and sat up in her bed when I entered her room. It was a clear night and the moon was full. It shone straight in at the windows of her room and upon her white frightened face—no, not frightened, just startled. I stood a little back in the shadow, but she was in the full light, and there wasn’t shadow enough so but what she saw me very plainly.”

He paused, and Nick waited silently for him to continue.

“Just a year before that time, Mr. Carter, I had gone home to see my own people—my father, mother, and sister. They thought I was dead, and they think so still, for I didn’t put them wise. I sneaked into the house just the same as if I was going to rob it, knowing well that the old man would put a bullet through me if he discovered me there; but I had a good look at him and at my mother, asleep in their bed, and then I went up-stairs to see my sister in the same way. I have always been told that children sleep soundly, and I had no idea that I would disturb her, so I went into the room and stood beside the bed, looking down at her.”

Again he paused, and again Nick waited without speaking.

“It was just that same sort of a moonlight night, Mr. Carter, and while I stood there, looking down upon my sister, she opened her eyes and raised herself in the bed, just as I have said that Mercedes Danton did.

“She looked startled, too; not a whit frightened. I was the one who was frightened.

“As I took a step backward, she held out her arms toward me and spoke my name.

“‘You have come back,’ she said.

“I did not speak, Mr. Carter. I didn’t let the sound of my voice disturb the quiet and peace of that room; but I stooped down and touched my lips to her forehead, and then I turned away and fled out into the night as if I was pursued. I know that my sister has never told a soul that she saw me that night.”

“Well?” said Nick.

“Well,” repeated Morgan, “when I stood at the bedside of Mercedes Danton, who was the same age as my sister, and she rose up and faced me in just the same way, I—I——”

“You kissed her on the forehead and fled in precisely the same manner,” interrupted the detective slowly and impressively. And the burglar, in a burst of vehemence, replied:

“By Heaven, I did that very thing, and it was the biggest haul I ever made in my life.”

Without another word he wheeled on his heel and went out of the house.

CHAPTER XXVII.

GETTING IN ONE DEAL AHEAD.

When the detective was left alone he sat for many moments turning over in his mind the story he had just heard, and in doing so he recalled a circumstance which had been dormant in his recollection for a long time.

He remembered the occasion when Mercedes’ maid, Sarah Kearney, had been interviewed by him in that same room, and he recalled the fact that he had accused her at the time of keeping back a part of her story.

The circumstances which had followed upon that occasion had developed so rapidly that he had not found it necessary to question her further, but now, in the light of certain ideas that had come to him through the story told him by Tom Morgan, he believed that he could make a shrewd guess as to what it was she had refrained from telling at that time.

By the time he had finished his cogitations it was midnight, but he had determined upon the course he intended to pursue.

He turned off the lights and ascended to his own room, where he found his assistants, who were waiting to welcome him home.

“I shall have use for all three of you in the morning,” he said. “I want all of you to remain in the house to-morrow until you hear from me, and then to report when, where and how I shall direct, with the least possible delay. Do you happen to know, Chick, if any of the Dantons are in town?”

“No; they are not. The Oceanic has passed Fire Island, and Miss Mercedes, with her father and mother, are passengers. She will dock at six in the morning.”

“Good. Where is Reginald Danton?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it is more than likely that he will be home soon after the others arrive, so it is safe to suppose that he will show up some time to-morrow, also. I don’t suppose that it occurred to you to keep tabs on the fact that Isabel Benton was liberated from the island to-day, did it?”

“No.”

“Well, I let it slip my mind, also—and we haven’t any of us an idea where her trail might be struck. We’ll have to let her slide for the present. On second thought, my lads, I think, instead of asking you all to stay in to-morrow morning, I will ask that each of you make it a point to be on the pier when the Oceanic docks in the morning. You may select your own disguises so long as they are good ones. I only wish you to be there. If there is anything to do, I will tell you what it is when the time comes. The main point is to keep a watchful eye over the Dantons—father, mother and daughter—and to keep particular tabs upon everybody who addresses them or approaches them in any way. We are doing this, too, without their knowledge or consent. Now, good night. I’ll see you at the pier.”

But Nick Carter did not go to bed when he bade his assistants good night.

As soon as they had left the room he hurried with all speed into one of his favorite disguises—that of a respectable, well-to-do farmer, who was, nevertheless, so far as appearances went, thoroughly unaccustomed to the ways and manners of the city, and who carried with him an accentuated type of the peculiarities of speech and motion of a man whose life has been bounded by stone walls and rail fences.

As soon as he was dressed he hurriedly left the house, hastened to the elevated station, and in a surprisingly short time arrived at South Ferry.

He knew, without having to inquire, where he would be most likely to find a tugboat with steam up, at that hour in the morning, for it was then close upon two o’clock, and, without loss of time, he presented himself to the sleepy captain, who was dozing in his pilot-house.

“Say, yew,” he said; and the captain started into wakefulness. “Dew yew happen to know anything about a steamboat named the Oceanic, hey?”

“She ain’t no steamboat,” replied the captain. “She’s a tugboat, same as this, only bigger.”

“More’n ten times es big, ain’t she?” asked Nick.

“Ay, ay; more than twenty.”

“Well, that air is th’ Holstein heifer I’m a-lookin’ for.”

“She is, eh? What do you want of her? She ain’t no threshing machine. She couldn’t pull a plow or break a three-year-old steer.”

“Right you be, mister; right you be. She’s most broke me, just the same. Say!”

“Well?”

“Do yew happen to know where she is?”

“Ay, ay. Down at Quarantine.”

“Where’s that?”

“Down the bay.”

“Far?”

“Not very.”

“How much’ll yew take to git me there, hey?”

“What! Take you down on the tug?”

“Yep. That’s what I said.”

“More’n you’ve got in your clothes.”

“Mebby so. How much?”

“Fifty dollars.”

“Whe-e-w! Jeehosephat! Say, I’ll give you twenty-five.”

“You’re on.”

“Hey?”

“You’re on.”

“No I ain’t neither.”

“Well, get on then. I’ll take you there for the twenty-five, only I want to see the color of it before I cast off.”

“Yew just wait,” said Nick.

Then, deliberately he seated himself on a box on the pier, and, after removing one of his boots, took from the leg of it a roll of bills as big as his wrist.

“That’s where I carry it so’s the sharks won’t get onto my money,” he said confidentially, while he counted off one and two-dollar bills until he had enough to make up the sum of twenty-five dollars. “There yew be, capting. Now, how long will it take yeu tew git me down there?”

“About three-quarters of an hour.”

“All right. I’ll take a leetle nap. When yew git there, yew jest give this here letter over the side and say that it is to be delivered to the—now, who in blazes did he say to give the letter to? Blest ef I ain’t clean forgot.”

“Maybe it was the officer of the deck.”

“That’s it. The officer of the deck is the feller. I wasn’t told whether he was the right bower, ’r left bower, ’r only a king ’r a queen, ’r a common no account jack. Haw! haw! haw! That’s a joke, capting, an’ here’s a good cigar to pay yew for listenin’ to it so patiently. When you give that letter to the officer of the deck, yew kin jest call me from my beauty sleep ef yew don’t mind.”

The detective was sleepy as a matter of fact. He had just come down from the pure and bracing air of New Brunswick, and he had traveled all day in the cars, so that slumber was not long in coming to him, and he knew nothing more until the rough hands of the captain fell upon his shoulders.

Presently the letter was sent over the side, and then, after a wait of several moments, an officer appeared at the rail and called to the captain of the tugboat:

“Let the gentleman come aboard,” he said; whereupon the tugboat captain remarked, in an undertone to himself:

“Well, I’m——”

The last word could not be heard distinctly, but it was evidently intended to express surprise that such an out-and-out hayseed as his passenger should be received at all on board the great ship, and, particularly, that he should be referred to with so much respect. He could not know, of course, that the letter addressed to the captain was signed by Nick Carter, and was couched in such terms that the captain did not delay an instant in sending for the great detective.

“Here is where I get in one deal ahead of the conspirators,” said Nick to himself, as he mounted over the side of the ship.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

NICK CARTER’S LITTLE COUNTERPLOT.

Nick Carter recalled vividly his first encounter with Mercedes Danton. He remembered that it had been in the early morning and among the roses at Linden Fells; and he remembered also that he had learned in other ways that she was fond of rising early in the morning, and upon this habit he had calculated to afford him an opportunity for an interview with her before her father and mother should appear on the deck of the steamer.

Indeed, he argued that it was extremely doubtful if they appeared at all before the ship was safely docked at her pier, and so there would be the time occupied in traversing the distance from Quarantine, during which he could perfect his plans for the future.

It may seem strange to the reader that he should have adopted the disguise he did, in order to see and talk with Mercedes Danton, but there was a distinct method even in that move. He had no desire to conceal his identity from the young lady herself, although for the present and for reasons that were perfectly obvious to himself, he did not care, as yet, that either old Peter Danton or his wife should be made aware that Nick Carter was meddling in their affairs.

Nick had taken the conduct of the case on his shoulders entirely because of his own wish to do so, and was, therefore, acting in a manner which might be deemed officious by the old man, who was cranky and difficult to deal with at the best.

The detective knew that the financier would pooh-pooh any idea that a conspiracy had been organized against the peace of his family. If he had been told that there was a conspiracy against his bank accounts he would have believed the report without question, on the principle that it would be an act of wisdom to guard against such a contingency in any event; but a conspiracy against the happiness and peace of his family, or even against his own life, unless it were formed somewhere in the Street and aimed in reality at one of his deals, he would refuse to comprehend or believe.

But with Mercedes it was different.

She had already been through one experience of the kind, and had promised, upon Nick’s advice, to keep the matter a secret from her father and mother. Hence, while she was in a measure prepared for what Nick had to impart to her, her father and mother were not.

And there was another reason why the detective believed it wise to disguise himself as effectually as possible.

He had no doubt—if the story told to him by Tom Morgan was true—that there could be emissaries of Paul Rogers at the pier when the ship was docked, for he reasoned that they would not waste time in beginning their operations.

He naturally did not wish to have any of these agents of the murderer-conspirator recognize him nor suspect that he was present, and he most certainly did desire to see without himself being seen.

Mercedes did not depart from her usual custom on that particular morning.

Soon after the appearance of dawn in the east, and sometime before the sun was up, she appeared on the deck, and as soon as she did so, the captain, acting upon Nick’s request, approached her and said a few words to her in a low tone.

Almost immediately thereafter she crossed the deck to the spot where Nick was standing leaning against the rail, and in a position he had selected so that they would be sufficiently apart from other passengers who might appear on the deck. He did not care to be overheard in what he had to say.

“The captain told me that you wished to speak with me,” she said in a low tone. “He said that you had something of importance to communicate to me. Please tell me who you are, sir, for I do not know you.”

“Don’t you recognize my voice?” asked Nick, smiling, and speaking in his natural tones.

Mercedes started back with a little cry of pleased surprise, and then again looked at him doubtfully.

“Sure,” she said, “you are not—no, you cannot be—Mr. Carter.”

“Nick Carter; no other; and wholly at your service,” he replied.

“Why have you come here in this disguise? Has anything happened to my brother?”

“Oh, no. I think not. At least, nothing of which I am informed. I have come to meet you hidden behind a disguise because I had good reasons for desiring that you should be the only person aboard this ship—aside from the captain, of course—who would know me.”

“But why?”

“First tell me that you are glad to see me.”

She smiled brightly at him, and then said demurely:

“But I do not see you. I see only a man who is past fifty, who looks as if he had just come in from feeding the stock and milking. I don’t call that seeing you, because it is not in the least like you.”

“At least you hear me,” said Nick.

“Well, I’m not so sure of that, either. Your appearance is so at variance with my conception of the manner of your meeting me——”

“Ah!” said Nick. “Then you did expect me to meet you?”

She bit her lips in momentary vexation, and then said, with a smile:

“Certainly I expected to meet you somewhere, at some time, again.”

“All right,” replied Nick. “We will let it go at that, but in the meantime please remember this fact: If you cannot see me, I can see you quite plainly, and——”

“And, of course, you are glad to see me. Let it go at that, Mr. Carter.”

“All right,” he said, again. “Now to business.”

“Is there business?”

“Yes; serious business. Paul Rogers has escaped from prison, and Isabel Benton has been released from prison. Both of those interesting events took place yesterday.”

“Indeed! Well, Mr. Carter, have I anything to fear from them? Is that why you are here?”

“Yes; that is why I am here. I will not say that you have anything to fear, because it is not in you to fear things—is it?”

“Not especially, I think.”

“But you have much to guard against—much to make you watchful—much to keep you on the alert lest your enemies again find an opportunity to make trouble for you, and I fear that they are contemplating a renewal of their machinations.”

“And that is why you are here?”

“That is why I am here.”

“It seems too bad that we have to meet a repetition of all that trouble, is it not?”

“Yes; and I want to arrange so that there will be no possibility of a third effort on their part, after we have headed them off on this one. I have made up my mind that there is only one way to accomplish that thoroughly, and at the same time to be sure that I am affording you, as well as the other members of your family, all the protection possible, and so I have come here to-day to make a strange request of you.”

“Say, rather, a command,” she said brightly, “for I already see that you will insist upon it.”

“Very well; put it that way. Is it true that you have taken the cares of the conduct of your household equally from the shoulders of your father and mother? In short, that you are the one who is consulted when there is any change to be made in the personnel of your service at home?”

“Quite so. My father never did bother with the home part of his existence, and my mother leaves it all to me.”

“How do you like your present butler?”

“I am afraid that I do not understand.”

“That’s easy. I want you to fire him and give me the job.”

“Mr. Carter, I——”

“Well, you need not fire him; just give him a vacation. Let him go home and see his parents, or something like that. I want to fill his place. Don’t you understand?”

“I don’t think I do understand.”

“I want to become, for a time, a member of your household, and to be your butler seems the only available plan that is worthy of adoption. I want to watch over you, and to be your butler. I’ll wager that this is the first time in your life when a confessed admirer has offered to become your butler, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she replied coolly, “and it is also the first time in my life when I have felt it my duty to grant what one of them has asked. You shall be my butler, Mr. Carter. Could I say more?”

“Good,” said Nick, chuckling audibly. “You will have no trouble in sending old Simmons away on a vacation for a time. Now, I want you also to engage a new stable-boy.”

“You are not expecting to serve in both capacities, are you?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I have a young friend who is sometimes handy to have about. I want him there.”

“Consider the new stable-boy engaged. I will give directions about him as soon as I reach home.”

“Excellent. You can let it be supposed that he came over on the same ship, if you care to do so. I’ll guarantee that he will be sufficiently Irish to fool the best of them.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes; one more. I want to put one more man in your house. Where shall I put him?”

“Bless me! Are you going to fill Linden Fells with men?”

“Not quite. Only three. I want another place inside the house for my assistant, Chick.”

“How would he like to serve as valet?”

“Valet to whom?”

“My father. We always keep a valet for him, and he never in the world knows that he has one, for if there is a commodity in the world for which he hasn’t a particle of use, it is a valet; so you see the position is a sinecure; perhaps your assistant would like it—or, perhaps, you would prefer it to the somewhat arduous one of butler.”

“No, thank you. I’ll stick to the butler.”

“And when do you propose appearing on the scene with your assistants?”

“At once. To-day. I will report within two hours after I know that you are safely at home, and Chick and Patsy will be there before night. And now, as there are other passengers coming on the deck, I’ll leave you. Please do not speak to me or notice me again, no matter what happens. When I appear at the Fells, you can call me by the name of the old butler—Simmons; will that do?”

“Very nicely, indeed. There is only one question I can think of which I would like to ask you, and that is, when shall I have the pleasure of seeing you in person?”

“Before very long,” replied Nick, as he turned away.

CHAPTER XXIX.

IN THE HOUSE AT LINDEN FELLS.

An entire week had passed since the arrival of the steamer which brought the Dantons home to America, and during that time not a single sign of Paul Rogers or his following had been made manifest.

Nick Carter’s watchfulness did not, however, abate in the slightest degree, for he reasoned that the conspirators were merely biding their time, and he smiled to himself also, when he recalled the conversation he had held with Red Morgan in which that worthy had informed him of the numerous oaths against his life.

“If any of the gang are looking for me, it must puzzle them to guess where I have gone,” he mused. “It never occurred to me that in coming here and playing the part of butler, I was, in effect, killing two birds with one stone—getting out of their way on the one hand, and getting in their way on the other.”

For Nick had been the “butler” at Linden Fells an entire week. Chick had in the meantime filled the post of valet to Mr. Danton, for whom, as Mercedes had predicted, he never once had a service to perform. The old man thoroughly despised valets, and would not have one near him. He argued that his wife and daughter merely required the services of an extra person in the house and that they chose to hire that person under the name and guise of a valet for him—which, as a matter of fact, was not far wrong.

Patsy filled the rôle of extra stable-boy during this interim—and Patsy enjoyed it.

“Sure,” he said, “there’s nothin’ I’d ruther do on earth than shake hands wid a hoorse!” and it was true. He loved all horses and preferred their society to men.

During the week there had been moments when Nick had found opportunity of exchanging a few words with Mercedes Danton, but for the most part she had held herself entirely aloof, and had treated him exactly as his ostensible position demanded that he should be treated.

Indeed, Nick had insisted on that point, and he often smiled to himself at the literal manner in which she had taken him at his word.

During the week, also, Reginald had returned; but he was rarely at home, and he took no more notice of the new butler than he would have taken of a post, had it been stationed in the front hallway of the house—probably not as much, for the post would have been out of place there while a butler was a part and parcel of the furniture.

It was plainly to be seen, however, that Mercedes did not like the situation at all. She had shown no outward feeling about it at all at first, but as time went on and finally lengthened into a week, she became restless under the conditions, and, at last, on the day which completed the week’s stay for the detective, she found an opportunity to send her mother out on a solitary drive in the victoria, and then, when she was sure that there would be no interruptions, she called Nick into the library.

“Don’t you think, Mr. Carter, that this has gone far enough?” she asked, somewhat coldly.

“That what has gone far enough?” replied Nick.

“This masquerade.”

“No; to be perfectly truthful, I do not.”

“It is becoming intolerable to me.”

“Why?”

“Do you think I can explain to you why? In fact, need I explain to you, why? Don’t you know why as well as I do.”

“I think I can understand how you feel about it—yes.”

“Well, it must cease. You must go away.”

“Pardon me, Miss Danton; I must stay.”

“Against my wishes?”

“Certainly not; but with your approval. If, when I came here to act as your butler, I could have foretold the exact time when your enemies were to make a move, there would not have arisen the necessity for me to play the part I have taken at all. I could simply have appeared here, hidden myself in a closet until the villains announced themselves, as they do in plays, met them in front of the footlights, so to speak, and choked them into submission to the applause of the galleries. Unfortunately, this is not a play.”

“It seems strangely like a farce to me.”

“God grant it may not prove to be a tragedy.”

“I wish you would not take things so funereally, Mr. Carter,” she said, with some show of petulance.

“How can I take it otherwise when I know the seriousness of the situation?”

“But do you know it? Is it not rather due to your imagination and to your—your—what shall I say?”

“Say what you started to say and did not wish to complete.”

“One would suppose you could tell what that was.”

“I could. You were about to add, in effect, that I was overzealous in your behalf. Perhaps I am. I do know that danger threatens you, and I do know that there is no place in the world where I can meet and turn aside that danger as here on the ground where it is sure to fall sooner or later.”

“But this condition is likely to go on for weeks.”

“In that case we must wait weeks.”

“No,” she said. “It must cease. Listen, Mr. Carter; have you not told me that my brother is also in peril? In peril that is really as great as mine?”

“Yes; he is in peril, but it is not as great as yours, because nothing that could happen to him would be as serious as if it should happen to you. In conditions of this kind, we can only go by contrasts.”

“But you leave him entirely unguarded while you devote all your time to watching over me.”

“Pardon me. We are watching over your mother, your father, your home, and your surroundings. Neither is your brother neglected. He comes home usually during the small hours of the morning and goes away again about midday, but there is never a moment when he could run into danger without my knowledge—unless it happened to be inside one of his own club-houses where my shadows cannot follow him.”

“But this espionage seems to me to be something dreadful. The truth is, if you will have it, Mr. Carter, that I cannot bear the thought that you are here in this house acting as a servant. I do not mind the presence of your assistant, or of Patsy, in the stable; but——”

“But you want me to get out.”

“You put the statement in rather a brutal manner, but in plain English I suppose that to be precisely what I do want,” she replied. “Of course, I know that you understand exactly what I mean by that statement, so what is the use of softening it?”

“None whatever; and you could not say words which would delight me more—just at this present moment and crisis.”

“Please go away, Mr. Carter. If this espionage must be continued, send another of your assistants.”

Nick thought deeply for a moment, and then, smiling at her, said:

“Very well. I can send you a man who is almost as old as the one who went away to make room for me, but he is perfectly reliable. I will give you a letter which you will hand to Chick. You shall send him into the city this afternoon, and he in turn will send out the man who is to take my place. Will that do?”

“Admirably,” and Mercedes smiled brightly. Then, impulsively she took a step forward and put out her hand. “Please do not misunderstand me,” she began, but he stopped her.

“I understand you perfectly,” he said. “I realize now that I should have sent an assistant in the first place instead of coming myself; but you——”

“Please say no more now,” she interrupted. “You cannot know how terrible it seems to me to be on terms of intimacy with my butler.”

“It is, perhaps, a good lesson in sociology,” said Nick. Then he seated himself at the library table and wrote rapidly, his instructions to Chick. That done, he sealed the note and gave it to her.

“You will notice that I have sealed the message I have written,” he said. “That is done because I am a butler, and do not know any better; not because I fear that you may read the contents of my letter. The mere sealing of the note is a part of the masquerade;” and he laughed in a low tone.

“Is that necessary, in writing to your assistant?” she asked.

“Quite,” he said. “And now, if you will give that to Chick and then return here, I have two or three more questions I would like to ask you. Remember that in two hours my substitute will be here, and that thereafter I will have no further opportunity for consultation with you.”

The note which Mercedes delivered to Chick, and which took him at once into the city, directed him simply to go there and make himself up according to directions given, and then to return and take Nick’s place as butler, and it explained that Nick himself would, after he was relieved from duty as butler, assume the disguise that Chick had worn and return in his place as valet. So the reader will see that Nick Carter had no intention of leaving the house at all, but determined merely to change places with Chick.

When Mercedes returned to the room where Nick was awaiting her, he pointed to a chair, and then, with slow emphasis, he said:

“Miss Danton, there is a question which I have long wished to ask you and which will seem impertinent. Nevertheless, I assure you that it is important that you should answer it, because since I have been familiar with the incidents connected with this family, many things not on the surface have come to my notice.”

“What is the question, Mr. Carter?”

“It is a question which I might ask of your brother, or father, or mother, if I chose to ask it in another way; but I have thought best to ask it of you, because I think, in your heart, you, of all the family, will best understand my motives.”

“I will understand at least, that you deal without impertinence or idle curiosity, even if your question should appear so,” she replied, in a low tone. “I think I understand your motives, Mr. Carter, and if, in sending you away I have seemed to lack appreciation of them, I assure you that I have not——”

“Hush! I, too, understand. Now listen, for this is the question. Since our acquaintance began, I have taken occasion to look up, rather carefully, the history of your immediate family, and I find that you had an elder brother, six years older than Reginald, to whose memory a small monument has been erected in Woodlawn. That monument was placed there when you were ten years old. The question itself is this: Have you any reason to believe that the brother, to whose memory that monument was raised, is still alive?”

CHAPTER XXX.

PAUL ROGERS’ BLOW FOR MILLIONS.

For a moment after the detective asked the question, Mercedes stared in open-eyed amazement into his face. Then she slowly lowered her eyes until their gaze had settled upon a figure in the carpet, and she replied with the one word:

“Yes.”

She did not ask why he had put the question. She waited for the next one which she seemed to know would follow upon the first.

“How long have you known that he was not dead?” asked Nick.

“Always,” she replied, still with her eyes lowered. “At least, I knew almost at once that the report was untrue. As young as I was—only ten—he trusted me to keep his secret. He sent me a long letter in which he told me all his dreadful history—and sorrow—and, oh, I cannot talk about it. Later, I saw him.”

“Three years later—when you were thirteen—you awoke in the night and saw him at your bedside, did you not?” asked Nick gently.

She raised her eyes then, half-frightened.

“Are you a wizard?” she asked. “I have never told of that circumstance to anybody—not even to Sarah Kearney, my maid, who was my confidant in the other part of it, and whom I swore to secrecy on the most solemn oath I could devise.”

“Sarah has not broken her oath to you. She has told me nothing.”

Mercedes clasped her hands together and gazed imploringly into the detective’s face.

“Then you have seen my brother, Tom,” she said slowly, and with conviction that could not be shaken. “My brother, Tom, who was my idol—whom I worshiped. You have seen him. Nobody else could have told you what only he and I know.”

“Yes, Mercedes——”

“Hush! You must not call me that, now; not yet.”

“I have seen your brother, Tom, and he told me about it—and yet, he does not suspect that I know that you are his sister.”

“He is well? And happy? And—good?” she asked breathlessly, and in a tone which seemed to demand that the answers to her questions should be in the affirmative. And Nick replied in a gentle tone:

“Yes, he is well. I do not think he is quite happy; how could he be so, away from the sister he loves so dearly? And—he is trying to be good, I think.”

“Where is he?” she asked, and Nick smiled kindly as he replied:

“You are asking questions of me instead of permitting me to ask some that are important, but I think I may promise you that he is not far away—that he is watching over your safety at this moment in a manner and under advantages which I could not obtain, however hard I might try—and that he is not very far away from you.”

“Then he is—free?” she exclaimed, with a glad cry.

“Free! Yes. Why do you ask that?”

“Because I was told—oh, kind Heaven, must I confess it?—that he was a prisoner for life in a French prison. A prisoner for life! Think of it.”

“Ah!” said Nick. “Now I think I understand. Now I think it will not be necessary to ask you any more of these harrowing questions. Now, I think I know all the truth.”

“Please tell me what you mean,” murmured Mercedes.

“Some time ago,” replied Nick, speaking slowly, “I had a long talk with your maid, Sarah. From her talk I gathered that when Paul Rogers appeared here in this house as valet to your brother, Reginald, you discovered that he was not a stranger to you. I also discovered that there was a secret connected with your knowing him, which she would not under any circumstances reveal, not even to save your life. When Ramon Orizaba was murdered by Paul Rogers, it was only the horror of the thing which affected you—there was no sorrow in your soul. You believed yourself well rid of both of them, and yet, you were startled lest you could no longer supposedly communicate with your brother, Tom.

“Wait, Mercedes; let me finish. I know that while you have been abroad, you have caused every prison in France and England to be searched, as well as it could be done by others, for traces of somebody. I know that you constantly supplied Orizaba with money, and that even now, in a roundabout way, you are supplying an emissary of Paul Rogers—in short, that you are furnishing the very funds with which he is bribing others to murder your father, mother, and your brother, Reginald, as well as your own self. You do not know that; but I do. You think that he is sending a large part of that money abroad to make easier the prison life of your brother, Tom, and you have so great an amount of money at your command that ten thousand dollars, or even a hundred thousand, is as a drop in the bucket against the purchase of added comforts for him.”

Her head was bowed in her hands now, but she was not weeping.

“Do you remember your horror, Mercedes, when you believed, for a time, that Reginald was the murderer of Orizaba? Do you remember how grateful you were when it was proved to you that he could not have done the deed? And that even after it was proved to you, you still felt gratitude toward Rogers, because he left behind him a letter in which he confessed that he did the deed himself? And do you not see the cold calculation and planning of the fiend through it all? He thought at first that he would convince you that Reginald killed Orizaba. Later, he became afraid that his plans in that direction would not work, and so he made a play to obtain your eternal gratitude by confessing that he did it himself, and thus saving Reginald.”

“And if your own clear reasoning had not convinced me of the real truth, I might still have reason, in my thoughts, for eternal gratitude to him,” murmured Mercedes.

“Exactly. But, the cupidity of Rogers grows with his attainments. Having placed himself in a position where he could command almost any sum from you at any moment, he became dissatisfied with that, and wanted the principal—and, remember this: But for your brother, Tom, who has never been inside a French prison nor in France, so far as I know, and who came to me with a warning of the plot against you, Rogers would have been in a fair way to accomplish every hellish thing he set out to do. Tell me, now, how you first knew Rogers.”

“When I was at school in France he came to me with a message from my brother.”

“Forged,” said Nick.

“Perhaps so; I believed it to be real. He told me that he had been friends with Tom, and—oh, I cannot repeat it all.”

“It is not necessary. I desire only the main facts.”

“I could not command so much money then, because I was only a child, but I found a way to obtain a great deal.”

“And that you gave to him for your brother, Tom.”

“Yes; all of it. There has never been a month since that time when I have been free from the demands of Paul Rogers; but I have not resented that as long as I believed I was benefiting my wayward brother. I have always supposed that a part of what I supplied went to him.”

“Nothing has gone to him. Did not Rogers also endeavor to force himself upon your attentions?”

“Yes; to my shame, he did.”

“To your shame? Oh, no; but to your misfortune and your youth—yes.”

“He is well educated. He represented himself to be of good family——”

“Which I have no doubt he is. Go on.”

“But I stopped all that. I threatened even to desert my brother—which, of course, I did not really intend to do—unless he ceased his attentions. Then Orizaba came upon the scene. I met him before my mother did. It was I to whom the proofs of his relationship were first exhibited. He also had been a friend of Tom’s—at least, so it was said. And—need we go farther into that subject?”

“No. I am very glad that we have cleared the atmosphere of things by this talk.”

“And I am glad, too. More so than you can understand. It seems to me right, now, that you should share my secret, although an hour ago, before you spoke to me on the subject, I would sooner have died than have shared it with you.”

“Has your father or your mother any idea that your brother, Tom, is alive?”

“No. At least, father has none. Sometimes I have thought that my mother is not convinced of his death—and yet, I am sure that she is not convinced that he lives.”

“And Reginald?”

“Reginald believes that Tom is dead, of course. You must know, Mr. Carter, that Tom was my childhood’s idol. He was a saint—a god—a big brother, who was brave and fearless.”

“I understand.”

“Can you tell me no more about him?” she asked pleadingly.

“At present there is no more to tell. I know nothing more than I have told you. He did not tell me that he was your brother, nor was I sure that he was so until I questioned you just now.”

“And, later? Do you think you will see him again?”

“I am sure that I will see him again, and I think I may promise you that some time in the near future, if you will be guided by me, I will bring you together.”

“Oh, thank God!”

An hour later, Chick reappeared on the scene, wearing the disguise which Nick had directed, and was duly installed as butler in Nick’s place. At the same time, Nick took his departure, but only for the purpose of traveling the short distance that was necessary to find a place to make himself into a counterpart of what Chick had been while he was serving in the capacity of valet.

And so their positions were reversed.

Both remained in the house, and the only real alterations in their plans of watching, existed in the fact that Mercedes believed that the detective himself had returned to New York and that she had now to do only with his assistants.

As the afternoon waned, Mercedes became anxious about the extended absence of her mother who, it will be remembered, had gone alone for a ride in the victoria; and now fully three hours had elapsed since her departure. It was unprecedented for her to remain out so long alone.

As Mercedes came out upon the porch for the purpose of directing that somebody from the stable ride down the road in search of the carriage, four men, followed by several others, appeared in the gateway. They were carrying a litter between them, and upon it was stretched the silent and motionless figure of Mercedes’ mother; and Nick Carter, who, as the valet, started at once down the path to meet them, muttered to himself:

“Paul Rogers’ first blow for the Danton millions has fallen.”

CHAPTER XXXI.

ONE MAN AGAINST SIXTY-FIVE.

The mother of Mercedes was not dead, and the story told of the accident, which had befallen her, was so direct and clear that it seemed to have happened quite naturally.

It was, in short, nothing more than a repetition of numberless other accidents of the kind. The horses had been restless from the start, and the coachman had found it difficult to manage them. One of them in particular had acted as if “possessed of the devil” from the very moment when they left the stable.

The drive had been a longer one than usual, by the mistress’ direction, and they had started on their return when a strange figure had sprung up in the road directly in front of them.

The horses shied and turned short around, overturning the victoria and throwing Mrs. Danton out on the hard road. She sustained a fracture of one arm and a blow on her head had deprived her of consciousness. She was still unconscious when she was carried into the house, and, although the doctors resorted to every expedient they could summon to their aid, she showed no signs of coming out of the coma into which the shock of the accident and the blow on her head had thrown her.

As soon as the first effects of the arrival of the litter were over, Nick hurried to the stable, and, notwithstanding the objections of the hostler and his assistants, began a hurried examination of the harness.

“Horses don’t act restless like these did, unless there is some reason for it,” he said to the head stableman. “I was a coachman once myself, before I became a valet. Look there.”

He was holding the backband in his hands, and he pointed to a steel burr that had been screwed into the band in such a position that short but sharp steel needles would pierce the delicate skin of the animal that wore the harness.

“What do you think of that?” he demanded.

The hostler was dumfounded and could make no reply. It was plain to Nick, at once, that he was not responsible for its presence there.

Another burr of the same kind was found in the remaining harness, but there was not one among the employees of the stable who could throw any light whatever upon the mystery of how they came there. Even Patsy, when he was taken aside by the detective, assured his chief that he had not relaxed his vigilance for a moment, and that he had done everything he could think of or that ingenuity could suggest to be in a position to know of any planning or plotting that might be going on there. He was certain that the burrs had been introduced into the harnesses by some person who had managed to creep into the stable unobserved, and who had also been successful in getting away undiscovered after he had done his work.

To Chick, when the opportunity came, Nick said:

“I think now that we may look for rapid developments. The plotters have commenced the campaign, and it is more than likely that they will seek to rush things from this out. It is not improbable that they may think I am out of the city and that, therefore, it is a good time to strike.”

Developments did come along rapidly after that.

As soon as Mrs. Danton had been properly cared for, and her husband and son notified, Mercedes wrote a letter to Nick Carter in which she told him of the “accident,” and expressed her regret that she had hastened his departure from the house just at the time when she needed him most; and she closed by saying:

“I know it is too late now to ask you to return and resume the conditions just as they existed before I sent you away, but I may express the hope that you will be near us, for I find that in your absence I have not half the boasted courage I have credited myself with.”

Reginald and his father each arrived at the Fells as soon as possible after they were informed of the accident.

Darkness had fallen by the time the household had settled down to routine affairs.

Two nurses, hastily summoned from the city, were in attendance upon the mistress of the Fells; old Peter, the master, had sought his study, as he called it, a small room which he had caused to be fitted for his sole use and which contained merely a desk, his chair, and a table and book-case. Beside him was his inevitable pot of coffee, which was always near him when he spent an evening at home.

Reginald had gone to his own rooms also, and disappeared utterly from view, but it was supposable that he was reading, and that he also had his pot of coffee near him. This pot-of-coffee habit affected father and son alike, and had extended to the servants, for the coffee was the famous Uarapam brand, which, when properly made, is richer and better than wine.

And so it happened that when ten o’clock was striking, Peter Stuyvesant Danton was taking his coffee in his “den”; Reginald was drinking his coffee in his own rooms; Mercedes was sipping coffee with faithful old Sarah, in her boudoir; Chick, now serving in his capacity of butler, was partaking of the same refreshment in the servants’ hall, unbending his official dignity for the moment, for the purpose of placing himself in an attitude where he could pick up any gossip about the events of the afternoon that might be floating among the help; coffee was also served among the men at the stable, for it was the inevitable habit for the coachman to appear in the kitchen at the proper moment and to return with a pitcher of the delectable concoction; even the nurses, who were attending upon the still unconscious mistress of the house, were served with a pot of coffee, and sat together in the larger of the two rooms, sipping it and talking in low tones about almost any subject which did not include their patient.

And thus it was that from the roof to the cellar of Linden Fells, every inmate—save one—was drinking coffee at ten o’clock that night.

That one exception happened to be Nick Carter; and it was not because he disliked coffee, or because he harbored any suspicion that the coffee had been doctored, that he did not drink it with the rest, for there is, no doubt, that had he been where the “Nectar of Uarapam” could have been offered to him, he would have partaken.

But it so happened that when the house quieted down after the excitements of the afternoon, Nick intuitively smelt mischief in the air.

It was all mere intuition on his part, too, and the only serious treatment he gave it, in addition to his ordinary habit of watchfulness and wakefulness, was to determine that he would take a stroll through the grounds after the others had retired, and that he would keep an especial lookout upon the house from the shrubbery—at least, long enough to satisfy himself that there was no occasion for the exercise of extraordinary vision.

But even Nick Carter could have no idea of the terrible things that were to happen that night. Even he could not be supposed to foresee the plots and plans of so crafty an enemy as Paul Rogers and his gang of sixty or more assistants in villainy.

But back in the city of New York, at about the time when Mrs. Danton was thrown from her carriage, “Red” Tom Morgan, as we know him, was learning for the first time of events that were to happen—or that were planned to happen that same night.

He was told nothing of the runaway. He was given no information about the plan to worry and frighten the horses, in the belief that even if Mrs. Danton was not severely injured by the accident that was sure to follow, she at least would be sufficiently overcome by the shock and fright of the incident, that the household would be upset.

Of that little fact he was not told, because it was not considered necessary that he should know it; but of another and greater event to happen, he was fully informed and requested to play his part in it.

And this event, so far as his information went, was to the effect that the cook at Linden Fells, whose duty it was to prepare the coffee each evening, had fallen under the influence of a bribe, and had consented to drug the concoction, so deftly and at the same time so thoroughly, that within an hour after the time of drinking it not one who had swallowed so much as two tablespoonfuls would be awake or capable of being roused by any ordinary methods.

The hour for the drinking of coffee there was usually ten, or ten-thirty o’clock, and it was, therefore, safe to plan that by the time the midnight hour struck, the inmates of Linden Fells would be slumbering so soundly that an army marching past would not disturb them.

And—in fact, there would be something closely akin to an army on hand at that time, if comparative estimates may be used as standard.

Sixty-five men, not counting Paul Rogers himself—sixty-five desperate criminals—sixty-five human fiends would, during the hours between ten and twelve, approach Linden Fells from every direction, creeping in upon it silently and stealthily through the darkness, while every member of the household was incapable of resistance because stupefied by the drug that had been introduced into the coffee.

Sixty-five men, whose professions ran the gamut of crime from sneak-thievery and pocket-picking to bank-burglary and conspiracy, were to gather around that mansion in the darkness and await the signal of Paul Rogers for their descent upon it.

As a precaution against interruption from the outside, every wire which connected with the house was to be cut, as Dewey cut the cables at Manila Bay.

At a given signal, a certain detail of these men were to descend upon the stable and the remainder were to attack the house, so that if out of all the inmates there happened to be one person who had not swallowed the drug—or even two—that one or two would have no opportunity to escape and so give the alarm.

And then, the sixty-five were to go through the house and loot it at their pleasure. They were given full liberty, by Paul Rogers, to help themselves to anything of value which they could find and which could be carried away without impediment to their escape.

And when the house had been looted of all that was desired, and when Mercedes Danton had been taken out of the house a captive and hurried away through the darkness to a fate concerning which even Tom Morgan was kept in ignorance, then, after that, gallons upon gallons of kerosene-oil were to be scattered throughout the house, the match was to be applied, and old Peter Danton, with his wife and son, and so many of the servants as happened to be there, were to be consumed in the flames.

Thus, it was planned, would all traces of the crime be destroyed.

Thus, by the wholesale murder of the servants as well as their employers, it would not be suspected that the real plan was to put the Dantons out of the world.

Thus it would be easy to explain afterward how great good fortune had kept Miss Mercedes in the city that night—and thus, when Isabel Benton appeared in her place in the world, any difference of character or appearance might easily be accounted for because of the horrors and the terrible losses through which she had passed.

Thus, the reader will understand, the culmination of Paul Rogers’ plotting would be achieved, and while the real Mercedes Danton was quietly put to death, the pseudo Mercedes—Isabel Benton—would appear in her place, in the enjoyment of her fortune and in the exercise of her prerogatives.

All this hellish plan was developed to Tom Morgan—or shall we confess at once what the reader already knows, and saw that he was really Tom Danton?—during the late afternoon and early evening of the eventful day upon which it was to happen.

And when he would have started away at once to warn his sister and his brother of the awful peril that hung over their heads, even if he was compelled to acknowledge his identity in order to do so, he was detained. Not because anybody suspected him of showing any interest in the affair other than that terrible interest which they all enjoyed, but because of the careful plans of their leader who had arranged for the conduct of every separate man with the care of a general in ordering a concerted attack upon the enemy.

This and that group of men were to start for the rendezvous at stipulated times, and they were to meet at specified points so that there could be no miscarriage of plans—and Tom Danton’s orders offered him no opportunity of starting out until nine o’clock.

Fortunately, however, he was to go alone, and he planned that at least he could get his sister and his parents out of the house before it was attacked.

But, oh, the long hours of waiting until the time for his start for the scene of the crime came around. But when he did start, there was no delay in his going.

And up at the Fells, one man sat in a rustic seat under a lattice where he was in deep shadow, waiting and watching for he knew not what.

That one man was Nick Carter, who knew nothing of the plot, or of the drug, which was at that moment being prepared for those who were in the house.

And Nick Carter, with only Burglar Tom Morgan for his aid, was to face all that crew of sixty-five human devils, upon murder and rapine bent.

CHAPTER XXXII.

PAUL ROGERS’ LAST STRUGGLE.

Eleven o’clock had just tolled from the tower of the town hall in the village, three miles away, when Nick Carter saw a shadow cross the path near to the spot where he was sitting, and he started to his feet and bounded forward with the suddenness of the leap of a panther.

He seized the man from behind and forced him to the earth, at the same moment attempting to grasp his throat, thus to shut off all chance of his calling out and thus summoning assistance; but in the darkness he missed the man’s throat, and was amazed to hear the well-recognized tones of Tom Morgan’s voice cursing in a low tone, while he struggled to free himself from the grasp of his assailant.

Instantly the detective altered his tactics.

“Red Morgan! Tom! Tom Morgan!” he whispered in his ear. “Stop struggling. Lie quiet. Listen to me. I am Nick Carter.”

“Praise God!” breathed Tom, in reply. And then in a whisper that was still lower, he continued:

“Don’t make a sound, for Heaven’s sake. There are sixty-five crooks around us somewhere. If they are not here now they are on the way and not far distant. As many as a score of them must be hidden near here now, although I do not think they will approach near to the house before midnight.”

Then, as rapidly as possible, he revealed the awful condition of things to the detective, covering only the main points of the plot, for there was not time to go into detail; but he closed with this statement:

“The telephone wires were to be cut at eleven-thirty, and the electric light wires at midnight. At a quarter past twelve, the descent is to be made on the house.”

“Well, man alive, that gives us an hour and a quarter to work,” said Nick. “We can do a lot in that time.”

“But there will not be a moment between now and then when the eyes of the gang will not be fixed upon the house, and, if they should discover us——”

“Come with me,” was the only reply which Nick Carter made, and he glided away through the darkness.

The detective had provided himself with a key to the side door, and with that he admitted himself and his companion to the Fells mansion.

The hall was brilliantly lighted, and Nick directed that Tom turn off each light as he approached it.

“We must work swiftly and carefully,” he said. “And Tom, let us start right. It will not be a waste of time to say this much to you. I know you. You are Tom Danton, supposed by all your family, save your sister, to be dead. Hush! I have talked with her about you. She loves her big brother now with the same devotion she gave to him when she was a girl. She only wants you to be good, that is all. To-night do your mightiest, Tom, in working for her, and for your father, and mother, and brother. Your mother was injured this afternoon. She is ill unto death. She may not recover. She and Mercedes must be saved first. After them, your father, who is an old man. You must take your sister to a place of safety. I will take your mother. After that you rescue your father, and after them we will get the others out as fast as we can. Now talk quickly. You were born here. You lived here all through your boyhood. There must be a place where we can take them—some place where, as a boy, you played Indian scout, where these fiends will not find them until we have rescued everybody from the house. Think it up while I make use of this telephone before the fiends cut the wire.”

He seized the receiver and placed it to his ear. The instant he got a reply, he said:

“Quick, Central. There may not be a moment to talk. This is Linden Fells. The house is besieged—is to be burned to the ground. Tell the police; summon assistance——”

He heard a sharp stroke against the wire as if it had been struck with a hammer, and the connection was cut off. He had no means of knowing whether Central had understood him or not, and he knew that he must work on the supposition that no help would come.

“Well?” he demanded, turning to Tom. “Have you thought of a place?”

“Yes. I know the very place. If we only have time and are not seen, we can save them all. Can you carry my mother, Mr. Carter? She is very heavy.”

“I could carry a horse with her on its back,” replied Nick. “Get Mercedes and meet me at this door.”

“No,” replied Tom. “We go out through the cellar. It is a secret way which I built as a boy. My father had it walled up with masonry, but I know where there is a crowbar, and I can tear the wall away in two minutes.”

“Good,” said Nick. “Get Mercedes and meet me in the cellar, then.”

When the detective entered the room where the injured woman had been taken, he saw at a glance that consciousness had returned to her while her attendants were wrapped in the influence of the drug, and that, although very weak and faint with fright because of her unavailing efforts to rouse the nurses, she was still thoroughly conscious, and instantly Nick determined that the best way to deal with her was to tell her as much of the truth as he dared.

Rapidly he explained to her who he was; that the accident which resulted in her injury was part and parcel with a plot to burn and rob Linden Fells; that in carrying out the plot, every member of the household had been drugged into unconsciousness save herself, and that she had been spared only because she was not able to swallow the coffee; that the house was at that minute surrounded by their enemies, and that the only way of escape was to submit to being carried away from danger; and then, without more ado, he took her in his arms and started for the cellarway.

At the bottom of the stairs he encountered Tom, who held Mercedes in his arms. She was in a stupor, and so utterly unconscious of the events that were taking place around her.

In the cellar it was the work of a moment for Tom to find the old and now rust-eaten crowbar where he had hidden it years before, and with it to knock a hole through the wall where his father had caused the lad’s “secret passage” to be stopped up. But this was a time when the foolish prank of a boy was destined to stand the man in good stead—to be, in fact, the means of saving many lives.

Ah! the enthusiasm of youth! The labor of many weeks bestowed upon that “secret passage” by the boy Tom Danton, was bearing fruit this moment.

The passage led straight underneath the rose-garden to the edge of the bluff which overlooked a deep ravine, and at the end opened into a log hut, which had now fallen into decay, but which, because it was almost inaccessible because of the steep sides of the ravine around it, had been forgotten by those who lived on the estate.

It was with relief that Nick discovered when they arrived at the hut that Mrs. Danton had quietly fainted away, and, depositing her on the ground beside her daughter, both men hurried back again through the passage to the mansion.

“Your father next,” ordered Nick, “and, after that, whomever you please. Only work fast. Leave me to work as I please. We can get them all out, even to the last servant, if only our—or, rather, your strength holds out.”

“I am as strong as a bull,” replied Tom, hastening away. But he paused long enough to call back to the detective:

“We must not forget the stable when we have finished with the house.”

Nick nodded and proceeded with the work.

The drugged and unconscious men and women, whom they carried away, hung like corpses upon their arms. Nothing roused them, and soon the small log cabin in the ravine was filled with the slumbering throng. And still all was silent without the house.

Once Nick took time to look at his watch, but not until he was carrying out the last of the people he had saved, and he saw that the time then lacked only two minutes of the time set for the attack.

Chick, in his character as butler, was the very last whom Nick carried away, and Chick manifested some signs of reviving. But, although he opened his eyes and glanced vacantly around him for an instant, he closed them again and sank back into unconsciousness.

The house was clear of living occupants at last. Not so, however, with the stable.

“Tom,” he said, “are you a good shot?”

“I can drive a nail at thirty paces,” replied Tom.

“Have you got a gun with you?”

“Two.”

“Good. It is up to us to defend the house now, and save it from fire till assistance arrives if such a thing is possible. Those whom we have carried out will be safe where they are for the present—at least, as safe as we can make them. The electric lights have gone out, showing that the enemy has cut the wires. There is a fairly good starlight outside, and we ought to be able to pick off a few of the attackers before they can get into the house, don’t you think so?”

“All I ask is to get a bead on Rogers himself,” replied Tom grimly.

“Good. Kill him if you can. You are justified. He and his men will probably approach in a body. I have four revolvers here; two in my sleeves and two in my pockets. You have two, and that gives us thirty shots all told. We should give a fairly good account of ourselves, I think. You take the front of the house and I will take the rear. I want to be where I can cover the stable as well as the house.”

Nick had guessed the intentions of the man, Rogers, almost exactly. His followers did not, however, attack in one body, but in three.

There were a score or more of the men in each bunch, and one of these advanced toward the front of the house, another toward the rear, and the third approached the stable. Nick thus had a perfect view of some forty of the criminals.

He had opened wide the door where he was standing so that he could see to shoot without obstruction, and he stood so that he could, if necessary, kick the door shut at any moment.

The gang which attacked the stable reached their destination first, and as the leader reached out one hand to raise the latch of the door, one of the detective’s revolvers spoke, and the man dropped in his tracks as if he had been hit with a club.

Then, with one hand, Nick played upon the men at the stable-door, and with the other upon the men who were approaching the door where he was standing, and the reports of his shots sounded with the regularity and precision of the ticking of a watch as he fired.

There was a yell of rage at the first fire, and other yells at the second, third, fourth, and others.

Men dropped to the ground with howls of rage and pain, and writhed in agony, for the detective was aiming his shots at their legs and not at their hearts. He had no desire to kill, save where it concerned one man, and he could not see Rogers anywhere among those at his side of the house.

Within the space of ten seconds from the instant he fired the first shot, the attacking-party broke and fled; but, even as they did so, there were loud shouts behind them.

Lights flashed upon every side. There came the sound of galloping horses, the screech of a steam fire-engine, and the encouraging cries of a throng of rescuers who had started out from the village upon the summons of the girl at the central office of the telephone who had given the alarm.

Not one of the sixty-five marauders succeeded in entering either the house or the stable, and only five of them succeeded in escaping.

It seemed to Nick as if the entire village had turned out and hastened to the rescue, as, indeed, it had, and as they had arrived on the scene at the very moment when Nick and Tom began firing, the attention of the attacking-party had been distracted from their enemies in the rear until they were entirely surrounded, and there was left to them no chance of escape.

Thirty of the marauders were wounded, although none of them was seriously injured.

Only one was killed outright, and he laid upon his face in front of the porch, with a bullet-hole squarely between his eyes.

And what of Tom Danton?

He was also wounded.

A bullet had somehow found its way to him and had entered his side, but a quick examination satisfied Nick that the wound was not mortal.

“I got Rogers with my first bullet,” he whispered to Nick, as the detective bent over him; “and he got me, too. But he won’t bother us any more. Send me to a hospital, Carter, if you please, and don’t tell the folks who I am. I’m going to live a new life from this day forth, and try to be worthy of the sister who loves me.”

* * * * * * *

It was a remarkable fact of that raid upon Linden Fells that each and every victim of the drug that was administered in the coffee awoke in his or her bed or room, exactly where they had dropped asleep, and that the only person among them all who was at all conscious of what had happened was Chick, and he only in a vague way, which was utterly uncertain until the detective explained it to him.

Nick sent the prisoners and the wounded men away with the rescuing-party, and removed, as far as possible, all traces of the fight.

Even the old man, Mr. Danton, was seated in his chair beside his table when he awoke, in just the position in which he had fallen asleep from the effects of the drug. Even the servants were restored to the attitudes in which they had been discovered by Nick and Tom, and awoke in the small hours of the morning to slink away to their beds in chagrin.

Not one of them knew what had happened while they were sleeping—and not one of them learned the facts until later, when, of course, it became public property and was generally talked about—and even then, there were those who regarded it as a hoax and refused to believe.

Nick Carter did not send Tom Danton to a hospital. He had him conveyed to his own house, and, having left him there under the very best care that could be provided, he returned to Linden Fells.

But before he departed, he said to Tom:

“We are rid of Rogers, Tom; but we have an implacable enemy left still.”

“You mean Isabel?” asked Tom.

“Yes. Isabel Benton. Mark my words, she will yet be heard from.”

But during the days which followed, there came no sign of Isabel Benton, nevertheless.

* * * * * * *

Not until the afternoon of the day following the fight did Nick Carter take Mercedes into his confidence and tell her all that had happened. He had imposed silence upon the mother, who was the only one in the house who had not partaken of the drug. It remained only necessary for him to tell all to Mercedes.

And he did.

I will leave the reader to imagine how he told it. How he dwelt on the heroism of Tom Danton, whom he promised should see her and talk with her as soon as he could be made to consent to do so.

THE END.

In the New Magnet Library there will next appear an exciting story of love and crime under the title of “Nabob and Knave,” No. 1171, by Nicholas Carter.

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Table of Contents

- The Four-Fingered Glove

- THE FOUR-FINGERED GLOVE

- CHAPTER I. “IF I AM GUILTY, CONVICT ME.”

- CHAPTER II. THE QUARREL IN REGINALD DANTON’S ROOM.

- CHAPTER III. THE MYSTERY OF THE DEATH WOUND.

- CHAPTER IV. TRYING TO FORGE HIS OWN FETTERS.

- CHAPTER V. BROKEN LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF CLUES.

- CHAPTER VI. THE PICTURE IN THE ROSE-GARDEN.

- CHAPTER VII. THE DETECTIVE’S SEARCH FOR CLUES.

- CHAPTER VIII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE WHICH MIGHT HAVE HANGED DANTON.

- CHAPTER IX. THE MAN ON THE COUCH.

- CHAPTER X. THE VICTIM OF A NEMESIS.

- CHAPTER XI. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MERCEDES.

- CHAPTER XII. A STRANGE LEAVE-TAKING.

- CHAPTER XIII. MERCEDES’ FLIGHT FROM HOME.

- CHAPTER XIV. LITTLE STRAWS SHOW THE DIRECTION OF THE WIND.

- CHAPTER XV. THE BEAUTIFUL FACE OF ISABEL.

- CHAPTER XVI. IN HOURLY PERIL OF DEATH.

- CHAPTER XVII. A QUESTION OF FOUR LIVES.

- CHAPTER XVIII. UP AGAINST IT IN EITHER CASE.

- CHAPTER XIX. THE PLOT FOR MANY MILLIONS.

- CHAPTER XX. THE PLOTTERS BROUGHT TO BAY.

- CHAPTER XXI. NICK DISCOVERS A NEW MYSTERY.

- CHAPTER XXII. DISCOVERY OF THE WILL.

- CHAPTER XXIII. THE MURDERER ESCAPES.

- CHAPTER XXIV. NICK ON DECK AGAIN.

- CHAPTER XXV. THE UNFOLDING OF ROGERS’ PLOT.

- CHAPTER XXVI. BURGLAR MORGAN’S BIGGEST HAUL.

- CHAPTER XXVII. GETTING IN ONE DEAL AHEAD.

- CHAPTER XXVIII. NICK CARTER’S LITTLE COUNTERPLOT.

- CHAPTER XXIX. IN THE HOUSE AT LINDEN FELLS.

- CHAPTER XXX. PAUL ROGERS’ BLOW FOR MILLIONS.

- CHAPTER XXXI. ONE MAN AGAINST SIXTY-FIVE.

- CHAPTER XXXII. PAUL ROGERS’ LAST STRUGGLE.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE