Nicholas Carter

“ Nick replied. “But let the dead bury the dead. What’s the trouble, now, that you again need my aid?”
“I am in a quandary, possibly in an equally bad mess,” said the statesman. “It concerns, to begin with, the same young man who was robbed of the government coast-defense plans by those infernal foreigners, aided by that traitor, Dillon, all of whom woolly-eyed me into friendly relations with them for more than a year. I cringe with chagrin when I think of it.”
“But how is Harold Garland involved in your present trouble?” questioned Nick, keeping him to the point. ”

“ I know of no man whom I would rather have for a son-in-law.”
“Permit me to extend my best wishes,” said Nick, with a sort of droll pleasantry, glancing at the crimson face of the smiling girl. “I think, like your father, that Harold Garland is a remarkably fine fellow.”
“I think so, too, Mr. Carter,” Stella said simply.
“But what is the trouble?” Nick inquired, turning again to her father. “What is wrong with Garland?”
“That is what I want you to learn,” Senator Barclay said gravely. “Garland is not himself. He is frightfully worried about something.” ”

“ Nick exclaimed, casting subterfuge to the winds. “You know me, then.”
“You bet I know you,” sneered Margate, with vicious asperity. “I have mighty good cause to know you. I’ve been wise to you from the first—and I now have you where I want you. You’re going to pay the price for what you put over on me a month ago.”
“I see,” Nick said coolly, despite the ominous outlook. “You’re a very clever fellow, Margate, after all.”
“Clever enough to get the best of you.”
“So it appears,” Nick agreed, bent upon learning just what the rascal knew of his movements and doings. ”

“ Why have you recently been talking with Lottie Trent?”
“For only one reason, Nick. She has repeatedly stopped me in the corridors, or on the stairs, to beg me to use my influence to have her brother pardoned and liberated from prison. I have told her it would be useless, but she still persisted. She is a good girl, mind you, honest and industrious, with none of her brother’s characteristics.”
“There was no other occasion for your interviews with her?”
“Absolutely none.”
“Did you go to the St. Lawrence Church last evening, or somewhere in that locality?”
“I did,” Garland admitted. ”

“ Although he firmly denies it, Nick, he is in serious trouble of some kind. It is something that came up about a week ago, when Stella and I first noticed his changed manner and appearance.”
“Changed in what way?” Nick inquired.
“He has become indescribably moody and depressed. I have watched him covertly at times and seen him wearing an expression of utterly indescribable anxiety. He has lost twenty pounds in a week and looks as pale as a corpse. Something must be done, Carter, and you are the man who must do it.” ”

“ Father Cleary had been stabbed twice in the breast, nearly in a line with his heart, and his garments and the rug on which he was lying were saturated with blood, then dark and congealed.
Nick Carter saw at a glance that the priest had been dead for several hours.
“The scene is suggestive, Fallon; very suggestive,” he said, after a few moments. “We will proceed deliberately, however, since nothing can be done for this man. It’s a case of murder, pure and simple, if that can be. Let Grady wait in the hall. I will study the evidence in detail.” ”

“ Nick continued, removing it and displaying the inner side. “There is not a sign of blood, pus, salve, or liniment, as if it had been bound around a wounded hand. It is perfectly clean, in fact.”
“Humph!” Fallon ejaculated, gazing at it with increasing perplexity. “There is no question as to your being right. It speaks for itself. But what in thunder do you make of it?”
“The hand was not injured,” said Nick. ”

“ Against as lawless, determined, and desperate a knave as Andy Margate, who, if Nick’s deductions and suspicions were correct, had not shrunk for an instant from killing a priest and abducting a girl to prevent the perversion of his knavish designs—against a man of that type, such a project was doubly bold and hazardous.
Nick Carter realized from the outset that he would carry his life in his hand. He realized, too, that it would be utterly vain to attempt to pursue the man and the motor car described by Garland. ”

“ Nick’s train of thought abruptly digressed.
“He frequently is called Harry. He was not at the Barclay residence last evening, not since night before last. Can this be what is troubling him? Is he in some way involved with another woman? Was Harold Garland the recipient of this letter? Have I blundered egregiously in my estimate of his character? Is he a wolf under the surface? Now aiming to wed Stella Barclay, has he found it necessary to rid himself of a woman and kill a priest, in order to preclude an exposure of previous vices? I don’t believe it, by Jove, but I’ll mighty soon find out.” ”

“ How is Garland involved in my present trouble? Hang it, Carter, he is something more than involved in it. He is the trouble.”
Nick laughed, while Stella Barclay blushed profusely.
“Suppose you explain, senator, without any expletives,” Nick suggested.
“Yes, dad, dear, do,” pleaded Stella. “Tell Mr. Carter the whole business. Don’t mind me, I shall survive it.”
“It can be told in a nutshell, Carter,” said Senator Barclay familiarly. “Since you opened his eyes to the devilish treachery of that jade, Madame Irma Valaska, Garland has transferred his affection to my daughter. ”

“ Ten o’clock the following morning found three persons seated in Harold Garland’s apartments in the Grayling—Nick Carter and his two assistants, Chick Carter and Patsy Garvan.
The murder of Father Cleary then was on every tongue. Newspapers throughout the country were describing the shocking crime under glaring headlines. It had leaked out, too, though Nick had not revealed it, that Lottie Trent had been abducted by the assassins and was in some way concerned in the crime.
The thousand tongues of rumor were never more busy. Conjectures of every description were in the air. ”

“ This girl is a sister of Larry Trent, now in prison for complicity with Andy Margate in the recent theft of your government plans. Now, Garland, you tell me the truth. I’ll stand for nothing else, nor can anything else save you. I once have pulled you out of the fire. I can, if necessary, do it again. There is no middle course for you. I must arrest you, or know the whole truth. Out with it. What is Andy Margate putting over on you?”
There was no resisting Nick Carter under such conditions, and Garland now seemed to realize it. ”

“ Nick interrupted. “But that’s in the dim and distant future. Let’s stick to the game that now is being played. Did you consent to buy the photographs?”
“Yes.”
“For what price?”
“One hundred thousand dollars was demanded,” Garland said, with a groan. “I protested that it was more than I could possibly raise. Margate had learned, however, that I had a fortune of about sixty thousand dollars. He agreed to compromise at eighty thousand, and I was allowed ten days in which to raise the needed twenty. The infernal knave will not only leave me penniless, but also plunge me deep in debt.” ”

“ Its lamps, seen through the gray mist, were like the glowing eyes of an uncouth monster.
“By Jove, there comes my man,” flashed through Nick’s mind. “He came by the Grayling in order to see whether Garland’s rooms are lighted. I’ll turn up my collar to offset the bright light from that electric.”
Nick did so, and then began to think he was mistaken.
The rapidly moving limousine was swerving toward the opposite side of the avenue. Suddenly it made a quick turn, however, and sped directly toward the curbing on which the detective was standing.
The door flew open and a man thrust out his head. ”

“ Barclay anxiously questioned.
“Like a bull at a gate,” Nick assured him. “You will hear from me this evening.”
Nick did not, nevertheless, immediately start in search of Harold Garland. He returned to the Willard, where he was registered under an assumed name, and went up to his apartments. He was thinking of the shocking murder brought to his notice that morning, of the dead priest, of the unknown woman, or girl, who by that time perhaps had suffered a like terrible fate. ”

“ Nick approached, shaking hands with Chick and Patsy, and then he gazed down at the vial and the white, upturned face.
“Paying the price—that’s right,” he said a bit grimly. “He has saved us the trouble. He spoke the truth for once in his life. The price has been paid.”
Midnight saw Baldwin and Nell Breen lodged in a prison cell, Lombard dying in a hospital, and Andy Margate laid out temporarily in the back room of a city undertaker, his bier a plank, his covering a sheet. ”

“ Nick saw plainly that she was telling the truth, and he did not long detain her. Returning to the sidewalk, he noted that there were no dwellings opposite, only several vacant lots, none of which was inclosed with a fence.
“The rascals may have gone in that direction,” he said to himself, after vainly searching the street for tracks of a carriage or a motor car. “They must, if they got away with the woman, have had a conveyance of some kind. They may have crossed those lots, however, to the next street.” ”

“ So still and deathlike was the silence, that the crackling of the log startled us, and I believe we both felt as though ‘our each particular hair’ was standing on end, as the white arm of the figure drew out the dagger from its sheath; it certainly is true we drew breath more easily when the door was once more closed. ”

“ Nick took a seat with Fallon in the tonneau of the touring car, the latter having hurriedly given the chauffeur his instructions.
“We can run out there in ten minutes, Nick,” he added, when the detective banged the door and sat down.
“The St. Lawrence Church, eh?” queried Nick, gazing at him. “I don’t recall having seen it.”
“It is a new one,” said Fallon. “It was built only a year ago. It is pretty well out and not in a wealthy and fashionable section of the city. Father Cleary is a comparatively young priest, not over forty, and is known for the good work he has done in the slums. ”

“ Fallon agreed. “He probably had a sore hand, or a cut.”
“You are wrong,” said Nick. “That’s the curious part of it.”
“Wrong?” questioned Fallon, puzzled. “Why so?”
Nick still had the bandage twined around his companion’s left hand.
“Notice these bloodstains,” he replied. “They are not on the inside of the bandage, which would come next to a cut, or sore. They are on the outside of it.”
“By Jove, that is a bit strange,” Fallon now declared.
“The blood did not soak from a wound, moreover, for the layer of cloth beneath this outside one is perfectly clean, as you see.” ”

“ He now could hear Margate’s voice in the adjoining corridor, followed by others replying. They told him only too plainly what fate the miscreants had in view for him.
“The sooner it’s done, Batty, the better,” Margate was forcibly saying. “We’ll wait only for Nell to show up. I want her here when we put out his light. That’s the only sure way to prevent her from peaching, or any one else. Put them in the same boat with you. Then they’ll never squeal.”
“That’s right, too, Andy,” declared a voice which Nick recognized as that of the burly chauffeur.
“Sure it’s right, Baldwin,” Margate returned. ”

“ Carter then can’t stop the flow of gas. We’ll suffocate him like a rat in a copper boiler.”
“That’s the stuff,” growled Baldwin approvingly. “Dead easy is right.”
“Come out to the office,” Margate added. “We’ll wait there till Nell comes in.”
“But the girl——”
“We’ll silence her later. She can’t get out. I’ve made sure of that. Come out to the office.”
Nick heard their heavy tread through the corridor and up a short flight of stairs, which convinced him that he was in the basement of some building.
“By Jove, I’ve got to make a bid for liberty, at least,” he said to himself. ”