Nicholas Carter

“ Hawley replied simply. “Think of the sport of taking snapshots in the face of such difficulties! Think of the fun of dodging those fellows! The greater the danger, you know, Fred, the more fascination there is to the picture game. There’s nothing in taking snapshots which require no risk.”
To some men who did not know Frank Hawley, these words might have sounded suspiciously like bombast; but Carroll knew well that the New York Sentinel’s star camera man was no braggart, and that what he had just said simply and truly expressed his viewpoint regarding “the picture game.” ”

“ Nick now said more sternly.
Madison’s teeth met with a snap. He lurched forward in his chair, eyes blazing, and banged his fist upon the desk.
“See here, Carter!” he cried, with a volcanic outbreak of rage. “If you have come here to insult me, or——”
“Oh, don’t get excited,” Nick interrupted, checking him with a quick, commanding gesture. “There is nothing in that, Madison, and you ought to know it. I will tell you with very few words why I have come here. Hear them like a man, not turn bull in a china shop. You know that neither bluster nor bluff have any effect upon me.” ”

“ The packages had been laid on the deck while he was thus engaged.
Terry’s mind worked quickly, and the moment his feet touched the deck he saw his chance for overcoming the second river pirate. He lowered his head and charged across the deck like a bolt from a cannon.
His head caught Antonio just below the waistband, and, although the shock well-nigh dislocated his neck and sent him flat upon the deck, it also drove the light body of the astonished steward flying overboard, where he landed, frog fashion, in the dirty dock water. ”

“ Why am I sure that a man who couldn’t swim would drown if he were to jump overboard from the hurricane deck of a liner in mid-Atlantic on a dark night? Because, my reckless young friend, my common sense enables me to foresee clearly what would happen in both cases. Our friend, Chief Hodgins, would stay awake night and day in order to take advantage of such a grand opportunity to get even with you. Every policeman of the Oldham force would have instructions to bring you in, alive or dead. ”

“ Near by stood a costly microscope, a stand of small test tubes, several vials containing chemicals, together with numerous other articles which Nick had been using.
He replaced on the table one section of the jimmy, while speaking, and Patsy took it up to gaze at the dark-red stains on it, remarking, with some surprise:
“Human blood, chief, but not from the veins of the murdered woman? Gee whiz! that’s mighty significant. Are you sure of it?”
“Absolutely sure,” said Nick.
“You now have tested the blood on each of these articles?” Chick inquired. ”

“ Nick seized this opportunity for a momentary glance at them, and he instantly recognized all three as East Side gangsters, as Patsy Garvan had identified them by the names he had heard mentioned by Deland.
“Holy smoke!” exclaimed the foremost, with a glance at the motionless form of the detective. “Is the world coming to an end? How did you get the big dick, Mortie?”
“Plugger Flynn, as bad an egg as was ever laid,” thought Nick.
“I had to get him, Plugger, and get him good,” said Deland, more coolly. “He had Madison on the run.” ”

“ In other words, Chick, to throw Gordon down at the last moment and so insure Jack Madison’s election.”
“But Madison would not do such a beastly trick as that, nor even connive at it.”
“Don’t be so sure of it,” Nick said dryly. “Men with political ambitions, some men, at least, are capable of infernally wicked work. Madison is very anxious to carry this election, and so is the party machine. There is much depending on it.”
“That’s very true,” Chick allowed. “But I cannot believe Madison capable of such knavery, to say nothing of murder. Who is the victim?”
“Matilda Lancey.” ”

“ A grudge against or a suspicion of those above is suddenly magnified in the diver’s imagination, and he signals to be pulled up, resolved on immediate revenge. When he reaches the top, however, the imaginary wrongs vanish.
At a depth of eighty feet the diver cannot see well; he moves painfully and he breathes hard. At every foot deeper he thinks how slight a mishap may befoul his life line, and all his thoughts tend to center on his hazards. ”

“ That’s equivalent to admitting, you see, that I realize your head to be longer than mine.”
“Thanks, Phelan,” said Nick, smiling faintly.
“I’m thinking, however, that this job won’t require a very long head,” Phelan quickly added. “The truth sticks out all over it.”
“Involving Arthur Gordon?”
“I feel so sure of it that I sent a policeman, Jim Kennedy, to arrest him.”
“As convincing as that, is it?”
“That’s what, Nick, and there’s no telling what a man might do who has done a job of this kind. I thought I’d better get him without delay.” ”

“ The crooks knew that human blood would be required, as tests would surely be made after the crime; but they overlooked the fact, or were ignorant of it, that tests would reveal the difference between it and that of their victim.”
“You now think, I infer, that the blood was drawn from the veins of Cora Cavendish.”
“I do,” Nick nodded. “Only a small quantity would have been required. It could have been easily obtained by an incision in one of the veins of her arm, and received in a small vial.” ”

“ It was after four o’clock when Patsy Garvan emerged into Madison Avenue to begin the work assigned him, starting from home somewhat in advance of Nick and Chick, and heading immediately for Forty-fourth Street.
“It’s no dead open-and-shut cinch where to find a blackbird as fly as Cora Cavendish at this hour of the day,” he said to himself. “She may be taking in a matinée, or the movies, or having a spin with some gink in a buzz car. ”

“ On the fleshy part of it, directly over one of the blueish veins, was nearly a square inch of pink court plaster.
“By gracious, that clinches it!” thought Patsy. “The chief is right. That plaster covers the cut from which some blood was taken. Give us time, now, and we’ll surely deliver the goods.”
In the meantime, with ears alert, he could hear Cora Cavendish saying a bit sharply, as if irritated:
“I cannot be in two places at once, can I? Cut out [Pg 26] your kicking and get down to business. I came here as soon as I could after doing the other job.” ”

“ Hawley broke in. “Really, Fred, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if this camera campaign resulted in a bunch of nice, fat advertising contracts for the Bulletin.”
“I doubt that,” said Carroll. “It is true that increased advertising generally follows increased circulation; but it wouldn’t in my case. As I told you the other day, most of the big advertisers of this town are connected in some way or other with that bunch of grafters the Bulletin is fighting, and they wouldn’t advertise in our columns no matter what figures our circulation books might show.” ”

“ There’s no time to lose.”
Patsy Garvan heard the viciously determined rascal push back his chair from the table with a violence that upset one of the glasses and broke it. The tinkling of the falling glass easily reached his ears, and in another moment he heard the couple hurriedly leaving the room.
“Gee! he’s off with blood in his eye, all right,” thought Patsy. “He must have been talking about Jack Madison, though it’s no dead-sure thing. I’ll follow him and find out. Plugger Flynn, eh? So he was in the job, along with Jim Daggett and Buck Tobey, three fine East Side blacklegs. ”

“ There’s nothing else to it.”
“There is considerable more to it, Patsy,” Nick corrected. “The theory alone is not enough. It might fall flat on the ears of a jury of boneheads. It’s not easy to penetrate solid ivory.”
“That’s right, too,” said Patsy, laughing.
“We must clinch it, therefore, by learning positively whether Cora Cavendish had a hand in this crime. We must discover the identity of her confederates, and round them up in such a way as to fix the crime upon them.”
“That’s the proper caper, chief, for fair.”
“Have you any suspicions, Nick, as to their identity?” Chick inquired. ”

“ The inquiry came from Chick Carter, the celebrated detective’s chief assistant, when Nick arose from his swivel chair and hurriedly closed his roll-top desk.
“A murder has been committed, or said to have been,” he replied.
“A murder—where?”
“Columbus Avenue,” Nick said tersely. “Arthur Gordon is under arrest for the crime. The woman’s body was found by—but we’ll get the details later. You had better go with me. Luckily Danny is at the door with the touring car. We will lose no time.” ”

“ The ground hog’s call is a clear, distinct whistle, not greatly unlike the singing of a canary bird, only much louder and even sweeter in tone. It is interesting to observe a full-grown ground hog, weighing several pounds, emitting a melodious warble that might well belong to a feathered songster. ”

“ All that remains to be told of the strange and stirring case may be told with few and simple words. The three crooks, and subsequently Cora Cavendish, were arrested, and later received life sentences for complicity in the murder of Tilly Lancey. They made no fight against the evidence Nick Carter had obtained.
It also appeared that the crime had been framed up by Cora and Deland, as Nick had suspected, and that not only they, but also Flynn and Daggett were in the flat when Gordon visited the woman. Nick’s suspicions and deductions had, in fact, been correct from the start. ”

“ Nick replied, turning to the commissioner. “Have you any objection?”
“None whatever, Nick,” was the reply. “I know of no man I would rather have on the case. Go as far as you like.”
The commissioner at once withdrew with Regan and Kennedy, and Nick took the chair the former vacated.
“Now, Gordon, hand me straight goods and be quick about it,” he said forcibly. “I have been to Tilly Lancey’s flat and know what has been found there, also what Regan and Kennedy have discovered that appears to incriminate you. It goes without saying, however, that I don’t take much stock in it. ”

“ NICK CARTER’S ANALYSIS.
“Yes, it is human blood. There is no question about it. It is human blood—but not from the veins of Matilda Lancey.”
These declarations came from Nick Carter about three o’clock that afternoon. They were addressed to Chick and his junior assistant, Patsy Garvan.
All three detectives then were seated at a broad zinc-covered table in Nick’s finely equipped laboratory, a large rear room in his Madison Avenue residence. ”

“ Behind this curtain Terry darted. He had heard Bill say that the Calypso would sail early the next morning, and he believed that once the vessel got out of the harbor, she would not be put about for the sake of landing him again.
Hardly had he ensconced himself behind this drapery, when he detected the sound of a footstep softly descending the companion stairs. A moment later, the steward, a low-browed, snaky-looking Italian, appeared. It struck Terry at once that the man’s manner seemed odd. ”

“ I’ll wait and see which way the cat jumps.”
“I apprehended defeat in the coming election,” Madison went on deliberately. “For that reason, only, your proposition appealed to me. I foresaw that I could, with those letters restored to me and Gordon in a measure defamed, easily carry the election. I asked you what you would accept for doing the job?
“And you agreed to pay it, ten thousand dollars, and told us to go ahead,” said Deland.
“True,” Madison darkly nodded. “But I did not agree to bloodshed. You did not tell me that a murder was to be committed. ”

“ Chick nodded.
“It is perfectly easy to tell the blood of a white man from that of a negro, that of a lower animal from that of a man, or that of one animal from that of another, as well as to determine the animal from which it comes. That is because the blood of each crystallizes in invariable definite forms.”
“Gee, that’s some study!” Patsy remarked sententiously.
“The existence of disease is also apparent under the microscope and with proper tests,” Nick went on. “Science immediately recognizes one from another. ”

“ Regan then allowed him to telephone to you, and, while waiting for Gordon to get ready to accompany him, he phoned these facts to me.”
“Where is Gordon now?”
“On his way to police headquarters, if not already there,” said Phelan. “Both Regan and Kennedy went with him.”
“Taking the evidence mentioned.”
“Yes, certainly.”
“And that’s all you know about the case?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Phelan asked bluntly. “What more would you have? It tells the story plainly enough.”
“What story?” inquired Nick tentatively. “What is your theory?”
“It can be told with a breath,” Phelan declared. ”

“ It’s ten to one that the man, in whatever disguise you find him, will be Mortimer Deland.”
“Shall I arrest him, chief, if sure of his identity?” asked Patsy, eagerly starting to prepare for his work.
“No, not immediately,” Nick directed. “We want all of his confederates and positive evidence against them. Watch him, or the woman, until that can be obtained.”
“I’ve got you, chief.”
“In the meantime, Chick, we will get after Madison and find out with whom he is having covert relations,” Nick added. “You go to his law office, Chick, and see what you can learn.” ”