Nicholas Carter

“ She was a pronounced brunette, strikingly handsome, with regular features, a rich velvety complexion, languorous dark eyes, and full red lips, a face evincing a sensuous nature and a fiery temper. Her fine figure was a bit showily clad. Several costly diamonds adorned her shapely hands. One high-heeled French shoe and a bit of silk hosiery protruded from below her stylish blue skirt.
“Fly and fancy is right,” thought Nick, recalling Patsy’s prediction.
Looking up when he entered, Kate Crandall received him with a smile and laid aside her magazine. ”

“ Inspector Mallory said.
“Aside from his legitimate trade as a machinist, at which Nordeck is an expert, he has absolutely no head on his shoulders,” Nick proceeded. “He could not frame up and pull off a job of any size, to say nothing of this savings-bank break, if his life depended upon it. He can work to advantage only when guided by a capable leader. Take it from me, Mallory, this Westchester job was directed by such a man, not by Jim Nordeck. There was a much bigger man than he behind the gun.” ”

“ Patsy calmly asserted. “You’re getting all haired up over nothing. I’ll explain to your entire satisfaction, Magill, if you give me time.”
It was for time, indeed, that Patsy then was playing.
“Out with it, then,” snarled Gridley, again taking the ribbons. “What do you mean? How came you with this money?”
“Magill gave it to me.”
“But you said you hired the touring car with it.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Patsy. “He only thought I did. The truth is, Mr. Gridley, I hated to let go of twenty bucks that had come so easy. ”

“ He turned quickly to his confederates and fiercely cried:
“We’ll see about that, pals! We’ll find out whether she’ll speak. Pull the boots off of this gospel sharp and shove his feet into the fire. She brought him into this mess. Let’s see whether she’ll pull him out of it. She can do it only by squealing. If not, we’ll burn his feet off, and——”
“Say!” cried Patsy. “Cut that, you fellows.”
“Cut nothing! You dry up, or we’ll cut out the tongue you talk with.”
Nancy Nordeck had turned as white as a sheet.
“Keep quiet, my girl, and be brave,” said Maybrick, observing her. ”

“ Magill suddenly leaned forward and cried, pointing up the woodland road, then only dimly discernible in the increasing darkness:
“Slow down when rounding the bend, Dolan; then take the lane on the left. It will bring you to an old stone house in a clearing. That’s the crib. The going is bad in the lane, but you can make the side yard all right. You’ll see lights in the distance. Head for them.”
“I get you, Mike,” Patsy cried back at him; then, to himself: “I’ll get you for keeps, too, by thunder, barring a slip-up.”
The touring car swept around a long curve in the woodland road. ”

“ We might get in wrong, you know, in blindly relying upon a stranger.”
“Oh, is that so?” Patsy retorted. “And I might throw a shoe, too, by helping a strange gang in such a game as you guys are playing. What do you want—my pedigree?”
“See here, Dolan——”
“Oh, I’m seeing all there is to see,” cried Patsy, frowning. “You’ll find out, mebbe, that I’m a law-and-order spotter, or a central-office sleuth.” ”

“ Nick replied. “I did not increase Miss Farley’s anxiety by telling her so, but I think Maybrick is in wrong, if not up against a more desperate game than he can pull out of unaided.”
“It looks so, chief, for fair,” said Patsy, who had been informed of Miss Farley’s disclosures.
“I must find out, if possible, just what his relations with Kate Crandall have been,” said Nick. “Also, just what type of woman she is, and of what she is capable.”
“It’s dollars to doughnuts that she figures in his mysterious absence. Miss Farley evidently is too proud to say just what she thinks of the woman. ”

“ Patsy heard him descending the cellar stairs a moment later.
“By thunder, this is the gang that cracked that Westchester savings bank,” he said to himself. “Gee whiz! there’s half a million at stake. If the chief was right, Jim Nordeck must be the man who buried the plunder, and the girl in question must be Nancy Nordeck.”
Patsy did not realize just then, however, how perfectly right Nick Carter had sized up the entire case. This appeared a moment later, when Nancy Nordeck and the missing rector were led into the room, both with their arms securely bound behind them. ”

“ The cadaverous man with squinted eyes, from which he derived his nickname, hastened to obey, Magill having rudely forced the woman to get out of the car while he was speaking, and she then was seized by Morgan and hurried into the house.
Gridley, in the meantime, whom Patsy knew must be the leader of the gang, gazed with frowning eyes from one to the other, and then sternly repeated his question:
“What’s the meaning of this, Magill? Why have you brought her here?”
“Because she wouldn’t yield to persuasion,” Magill curtly declared. “We must force her to tell what we want to know. ”

“ I’ll go up against anything for coin, if there’s enough of it, or for that skirt. You start right in with the bridle off and hand out your dye stuff. You’ll find me game, all right.”
Magill really thought so, now, so well had Patsy played his part. He laid his finger on Patsy’s arm, saying more impressively:
“Listen to me, Dolan. If you mean all you say, I can put you in right to share in a barrel of money. It’s not a case of crack a bank or pull off any kind of a dangerous job. The coin is where it can be easily got—barring one thing.” ”

“ Three minutes passed and Nick then hung up the receiver and sprang to his feet.
“Bring Danny and the car as quickly as possible,” he cried. “We’ve got to make a record run, if ever we made one. Guns on your hips, Chick. Patsy in the hands of the gang.” ”

“ Nick allowed. “There are some experiences, you know, that women reveal only under desperation’s spur. Until driven to desperation, it is characteristic of their sex to be silent, and bitterly nurse their resentment. When self-restraint ends, however, and desperation takes the ribbons, they go completely over the traces and to any extreme.”
“That’s true, chief,” said Patsy. “Hell, it’s said, has no fury like a woman scorned. I reckon, chief, it was Kate Crandall who called on Maybrick Tuesday evening?” ”

“ They are not overdrawn tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of one of the finest minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick Carter is familiar all over the world, for the stories of his adventures may be read in twenty languages. No other stories have withstood the severe test of time so well as those contained in the Nick Carter Stories. It proves conclusively that they are the best. ”

“ She could describe the rector’s veiled visitor only as a woman of about Kate Crandall’s height and figure, and had not observed whether she was well or rather poorly clad. She stated that the woman had merely asked whether Mr. Maybrick was at home and would see a lady for a short time, and that the rector had received her in his library.
“Are you sure that she spoke of herself as a lady?” Nick inquired. “She did not say woman, did she?”
“No, sir,” Mrs. Soule insisted. “I am positive that lady is the word she used.” ”

“ To perceive fully the dangers of a coal miner’s life, it is necessary to review the extraordinary conditions which threaten it.
If workmen in coal mines had no other reason for complaint than that of toiling in perpetual lamplight and in an overheated and impure atmosphere, they would have no more cause to regret their fate than have many other men who live by the labor of their hands. ”

“ If a system of ventilation exist in the mine, there will be a means at hand of driving from its hiding places a considerable accumulation of the deadly gas, if care be taken to watch the approach of the enemy. If there be no sufficiently comprehensive scheme of ventilation, the choke damp must be diluted, or, in other words, the gas must be mixed with the overlying atmospheric air. This is often done when the accumulation is locally inconsiderable, by the wafting of a miner’s jacket backward and forward till the air can be safely breathed. ”

“ About the robberies along the Sound, you know. And you know, too, as do the rest of the police, that the tricks were invariably pulled off by water—that is, the lads worked by boat. But what they don’t know is that this man Carl Stroth is the head, center, and chief of a gang—a thoroughly organized and completely equipped gang of crooks.
“And just to show you how complete is the equipment—well—quickly stated again—there’s a hundred-foot auxiliary schooner, speedy, with a machine gun under a tarpaulin, manned by a crew, a real crew.” ”

“ As soon as an opening is made in a bed of coal, chemical and mechanical changes of serious importance are commenced, and they are all more or less opposed to the permanence of the work. The oxygen of the atmosphere, aided by the force of gravity, lessens the barrier between the imprisoned gases and the opened places of the mine. Of these the most abundant and dangerous are carbonic-acid gas or choke damp, and carbureted hydrogen or fire damp. ”

“ This gas is known as carbureted hydrogen, or fire damp. As it is lighter than atmospheric air, it rises to the roof of the mines in which it is found, and is there mixed with the mine atmosphere, by occasional disturbances or by the process of diffusion. Unmixed with other gas, carbureted hydrogen destroys human life. But when the gas is largely diluted by atmospheric air—say, thirty parts by volume of atmospheric air to one part of the gas—the presence of fire damp is made known to the miner by a pale-blue cap with a brownish tinge over the top of the lamp flame. ”

“ No, I had not exactly recognized that peculiar stoop to the shoulders of the owner of the launch back there at Port Washington, as I had assured myself I would be able to do. [Pg 42]
But, if I ever hoped to retrieve myself, I hadn’t a moment to lose. I, in turn, hot-footed it to the shore end of the pier, and fortune seemed to favor me here a bit; for there stood another taxi, and its “vacant” flag was flying.
“Follow that cab, my man,” I said hurriedly and out of breath from my sprint. “Don’t let ’em lose you, and there’s money in it.” ”

“ If I am right, it admits of only one interpretation, that he apprehended danger.”
“I agree with you,” said Nick. “Did you find the money mentioned, the five hundred dollars?”
“I did not,” Miss Farley said gravely. “It was not in his desk, nor in his bedroom. I think he took it with him, as well as the revolver, and I cannot but feel that he has met with foul play. He surely would have told Mrs. Soule if he had not intended to return before morning.”
“That does appear quite probable.”
“Oh, I am sure of it, Mr. Carter. It is not at all like Mr. Maybrick to have been negligent in that way.” ”