Nicholas Carter

“ I have dodged more than once, Nick, before the white-hot fire of hate I have seen in the eyes of a tiger, and I have walked away, afraid to remain.”
“You should keep away from the Zoo, old chap; it isn’t good for you,” said the detective, laughing aloud.
“Perhaps not. I feel, just now, as if I had been gazing through the bars of an iron cage into the eyes of an enraged tigress.” ”

“ As he sat watching her, Nick was reminded of her matchless work upon the stage, thrilling men and women alike with her wild grace and the fiery passion of her indescribable dances.
She returned to confront him after a moment, crouching before him, with her glowing eyes fixed on his.
"In the next world—not in this!" she now replied, with a voice that cut the air like the snap of a whip. "You'd have brief time for repentance in this."
"So you've decided to do the job, have you?" Nick coolly demanded. ”

“ For a minute Nash stared at the writing, his thoughts galloping far away—far beyond the miles of mountain ranges, beyond the limitless stretch of prairie, where, for the moment, he lived over again that black hour in the bunk house. Mentally he recalled the shouts, the questioning voices, the sharp crack of a revolver fired in the closed room. Then the mêlée of fists—the still, deathlike face of the man on the floor——
Nash drew in a deep breath and passed a quick hand across his eyes. “What a small world it is, after all!” ”

“ A cry, then a shout, then a wail went up, for they thought it was their chief—Black Madge, otherwise Hobo Harry, the Beggar King, as she preferred to be known outside her own fraternity; and in that instant the crowd went mad.
There was not a soul among them who did not rush to the rescue of their chief, believing that Nick's dummy at the window was she; and then danced and shouted, and yelled and screamed around that burning cottage, like so many madmen.
"Come, now," said the detective. "This is our opportunity!"
Like shadows they sped away through the trees. ”

“ Nick Carter glanced at the above sign over the door, an unpretentious and somewhat faded reminder of better days, while he descended the flight of stone steps leading into the basement offices of the Boston police department.
The sunlight lay warm and bright in Pemberton Square at ten o’clock that May morning, shedding over the magnificent new court-house a golden glory consistent, no doubt, with the wise dispensation of justice, yet in monstrous anomaly with some of the dreadful experiences and grim episodes sometimes enacted within those splendid sunlit walls. ”

“ Do you wish your sister to marry Dr. Lord?"
"I do."
"Now, Mr. Rogers, I want you to answer me truthfully: Are you afraid of your wife?"
"I do not understand."
"Come, sir, are you not afraid that the price of her secrecy about your marriage will be a perpetual blackmail?"
The young man became very nervous; but he answered:
"Yes; I do fear that she will continue to blackmail me."
"For that reason," said Nick, "would you not like to have the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars which your sister would lose if she did not marry Dr. Lord?" ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The man who might or might not be Howard Milmarsh lay asleep in the bed. His potations had stupefied him to such an extent that he slumbered heavily, his breath coming in long, stertorous snores, and he did not move.
Nick took from his pocket his electric flash, and, turning the light full into the face of the sleeper, shook him gently and continuously.
It required several seconds to bring the man to his waking senses, and even then he was only half-conscious. Lazily opening his eyes, he closed them quickly, for he had been blinded by the glaring eye of the flash light. ”

“ Nick Carter listened without interrupting.
The man addressing the famous detective was not one to be wisely interrupted. His strong face, his broad, thin-lipped mouth and square jaw, the glint of his steel-blue eyes, his portly and imposing figure—all denoted that he was the type of man that insists upon having his way, his inning at the bat, as it were, but who then would graciously accord the same privilege to another.
“The danger, Mr. Carter, cannot be overestimated,” he was forcibly saying. “It really is very terrible. We are living in constant peril. That man is a perpetual menace. ”

“ His life had been snuffed out like the flame of a candle by the fury of a whirlwind. Death had come upon him like a bolt from the blue. By slow degrees his face underwent a change—but it was not the change that ordinarily follows sudden death, that peaceful calm that marks the end of earthly toil and trouble.
Instead, the smoothly shaven skin seemed to shrink and wither slightly over the dead nerves and lifeless muscles, and a singular slaty hue that was hardly perceptible settled around his lips and nostrils, partly dispelling the first deathly pallor. ”

“ As if to counterbalance to some extent the preponderance of brutal humanity in the launch, the third passenger was a rather small, slight young man, who looked hardly old enough to vote. His face was pale and his eyes had a gentle, appealing expression, almost like that of a very innocent, unsophisticated girl.
Appearances are deceitful very often. So let it be stated at once that this gentle young fellow, barely out of his teens, and whose voice was as mild as his looks, was none other than Pet Carlin, one of the cruelest, most unscrupulous gangsters in New York City. ”

“ Nick thanked her and withdrew to the corridor, where he found an attendant who directed him to Barstow’s office on the floor above. While he was approaching the stairway to walk up, Nick saw Garland leaving the elevator, just returning to his own office.
He looked gaunt and white, a shadow of his former self, as Senator Barclay had stated. His refined, clean-cut face, which was as strong in many respects as that of the detective, wore an expression of overwhelming anxiety. His eyes had an abnormal glitter, as if the fever of prolonged mental distress was consuming him. ”

“ I will tell you in the minute that I have to live all about the different murders that I have committed. I do this because I like a brave man, and you have beaten our whole gang, and I respect you for it.”
“Thank you,” said Nick quietly. “Go on.”
“I have always hated the human race, and when I was a young boy I killed a man in defense of a dog that I owned; the blood from the man’s wound got on my hands, and I experienced a feeling of joy that would only return when I saw a corpse at my feet. ”

“ The crafty face of the Bolongu seemed to become a mask to hide everything that might be in his mind. He kept on talking about what he called the death sticks.
“It would please me much to see them work,” he said. “Can you not make one of them spit fire and hit something that is not alive? It might crack that rock over there, eh?”
“Later I may show you what the death stick will do,” answered Nick Carter grimly. “You say a white man has told you about the death stick. We have come to find that white man.” ”

“ To one not versed in the detective’s art, the announcement of Nick Carter that he was going on a still-hunt after Stuart Floyd would have sounded like a vain and vaunting assertion.
To hunt up one man among the million in New York, a man presumably aware of the fact that he was wanted by the police, and therefore having a potent incentive to keeping out of sight—to attempt to hunt up such a man would seem to a novice a vain and hopeless undertaking. ”

“ Things looked dark for Patsy. It was quite evident that Black Madge was in deadly earnest in what she had said. One life more or less was absolutely nothing to her, and if there was the breath of a suspicion against one, it was, from her standpoint, better to put that one out of the way at once than to run any sort of risk by permitting him to live.
Nor did the hoboes who had gathered there to hear and to witness the trial hesitate to voice their sentiments about it by loud cheering when Madge uttered the sentence of death. ”

“ In the deep gloom, Chick could see the detective sitting up, ready for action, his rifle across his knees.
“You heard it, did you?” asked Chick quietly. “It woke me.”
“Hush!”
The cry arose again, but was more faint than before.
“What kind of game are they giving us?” muttered Jefferson Arnold. “Is it a screech owl?”
Jai Singh, without speaking, picked up his spear and waited for what was to come.
For the third time the scream sounded through the forest—long drawn out and ending in a sobbing wail.
“It is the devils of the forest. There are unclean spirits walking near,” muttered Jai Singh. ”

“ Leonard looked keenly at Nick Carter.
"How is it?" he asked, in a bantering tone. "Are you as Dashwood says, or is he mistaken, and are you to be placed with him in the category of unfledged innocents? Come now, out with the truth. Are you a man with a corroding secret, or are you not?"
"There are some matters of no concern to the general public," replied Nick, rather coldly, "which I have found advisable to keep to myself. But"—with a smile—"they are honest ones, I assure you."
"Would your enemies think so if they knew them?" queried Leonard provokingly.
"My enemies give me little concern." ”

“ But, if there are those who would criticize the detective for what he had decided to do, and did do, remember that Nick Carter was certain of the real guilt of the woman in the matter of the murder of Edythe Lynne, and remember, also, that he was thoroughly convinced in his own mind that the man who was now in possession of the Lynne millions was an impostor.
Nick Carter was never one to quibble about trivial things, or to hesitate to perform an act because others might criticize it, if he regarded it as his duty. ”

“ Nick Carter did not see her until, hearing her fierce, sibilant voice, he swung round and found himself gazing into the deadly muzzle of a leveled revolver.
“You’re wrong! He’s not under arrest!” Irma Valaska cried, with terrible intensity. “Throw up your hands, Nick Carter. Up with them—or there’ll be a corpse where you are standing.”
Nick did not pause for an instant. No sane man looking into her drawn, determined face, would have ignored the murderous light in the woman’s eyes. ”

“ As Patsy talked, Nick, closely watching Mr. Mountain, saw him show signs of increasing excitement, until he finally burst out:
“Why, he is describing the very man who called on me yesterday.”
“Then,” said Nick, with a smile, “the Brown Robin is both a man and a woman.”
“I do not understand you,” said Mr. Mountain.
“Probably not,” said Nick. “I am not far enough in the case to understand it myself. We are already engaged on one case of blackmail in which the Brown Robin figures as a woman. Now you give us one in which it figures as a man. ”

“ You are a nice gentleman, you are.”
“I am not a murderer.”
“You admit that you are a thief?” said Wilbur. “Cowards like you fear the hangman too much to commit murder. When I die, I hope it is on the gallows that I may spite and disgrace everyone belonging to me. Still, I trust it may be long before my turn comes.”
Greer got up as if to leave, but at the other’s look he again seated himself.
“Did you know that the money at police headquarters, I mean our share of it, is lost to us forever?” ”

“ What more Badger would have uttered can only be conjectured, for, while he was speaking, fiercely shaking his fist at Patsy’s helpless head, there sounded from the gravel driveway outside and over the hollow planking of the veranda the heavy fall of hurrying feet.
“Who’s this?” cried Claudia, starting affrightedly from her chair.
“The door, Conley!” hissed Badger. “Have the gun ready!”
Before Conley could reach the doorway, however, toward which he hastened with Patsy’s revolver in his hand, it was hurriedly opened and a sallow-featured, green-eyed rascal bounded breathlessly into the kitchen. ”

“ Be careful, stranger, you walk a dangerous path! You have strange powers, as I have seen with my own eyes. Yet Calaman is cunning and will lay a trap for you. Even now you may be standing within reach of the claws of the Golden Scarab.”
“What is the Golden Scarab I have heard so much about?” asked the detective. “Surely a strong man like yourself, with a sword that no doubt you know how to wield, could kill it—that is, if there is such a thing as this Scarab, and it is not some fairy tale for children!” ”

“ She was clad in the black dress in which she had escaped from Nick the previous night, the somber hue of which was relieved only by occasional flashes of her dainty white lace underskirts, as she swept quickly from place to place, with her lithe figure crouching at times, and her every movement as swift and impulsive as that of a startled leopard. ”

“ Nick felt a thrill of satisfaction. He had scored one important point and verified one of his suspicions—that Royal had gone to Fordham after leaving the faro-bank, despite having denied it to Chick.
Nick now let up a little on his terror-filled victim. Yet, without betraying his secret satisfaction, he sternly replied:
“You say you did not kill him, but I have only your word for it.”
“My oath, Mose!”
“Silence! Silence, and hear me!”
“I am listening, Mose. For God’s sake, don’t be so harsh. I have trouble enough, Heaven knows. I am a wreck of myself and know not where to turn. ”

“ Men have died for less than you have done.”
There was an unholy meaning in his voice, and the face looked fiendish in its menace. At that moment Stephen Follansbee looked what he was—an insatiable bird of prey. “Only let me get you into my power,” he continued, “and nothing in the world will save you!”
Nick Carter had made another enemy; one whose scientific resources and unusual shrewdness might have daunted almost any one, when coupled, as they were, with the maddening thirst for revenge which shook him at that moment. ”

“ 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. ”