Nicholas Carter

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 159] 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 83] 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. ”

“ 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. [Pg 169]
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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 [Pg 164] 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 72] 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.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ She sent me to bring Mercedes to her.”
“Ah! Well, your sister is already reviving. It [Pg 75] 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. ”