For five minutes after Clarice and Mrs. Morrison had left the library, Nick Carter sat in front of the table in a brown study. He felt as if he had run against a brick wall, and that it would take some climbing to get over it.
“Chick,” he said, at last, “suppose you go down into the kitchen regions and interview the Japanese young man you’ll find down there. His name is Swagara. Find out if he has any Chinese friends, and whether he knows Ched Ramar. Don’t be rough with him. Lead him on gently. Understand?”
“Yes. That’s clear enough,” replied Chick.
“You are wasting your time with Swagara, I’m sure,” put in Bentham. “I’ll answer for him.”
“It is from apparently unlikely sources that valuable information often is obtained,” answered Nick Carter quietly. “Oh, and by the way, Chick.”
He walked over to the door, where Chick already had his hand on the knob, and spoke quietly to him for a few moments. Then Chick nodded comprehendingly and went out.
“While Chick is talking to Swagara, will you have the cook and Mary up here? I should like to question them in the presence of each other. No,” continued Nick, with a smile, as he saw a peculiar expression in Matthew Bentham’s face, “it isn’t that I want them to contradict each other, and so prove that they are not telling the truth. In their nervousness they are likely to tell different stories. My object is to get at the exact truth by letting one remind the other of details she may have forgotten. I believe both those young women are honest.”
The cook was a woman of thirty-five or so, while Mary was ten years younger. When they came into the library, Nick Carter politely gave them chairs side by side. Then he took a seat at the table and looked them over judicially.
“I am sorry to say,” he opened, “that Mr. Bentham has lost something of value, and he has permitted me to ask you a few questions. Of course, not a shadow of suspicion attaches to anybody in the house, but we have asked everybody to help. Miss Bentham and Mrs. Morrison have just told me all they know—which is nothing at all. It may be the same with you, but you won’t mind my asking you a few things, I am sure.”
This diplomatic way of putting it disarmed the two young women at once. The cook, in particular, would have fiercely resented the slightest intimation that she could touch anything which was not her own, and Mary would not have been far behind.
“We shall be glad to tell anything that will help,” replied the cook, who answered to the name of Maggie, and whose surname was Quinn. “But I do not think either me or Mary can be of much help. What was it you were wanting to know, sir?”
“Will you both cast your minds back to last night? Begin at ten o’clock, after Mr. Bentham, Miss Clarice, and Mrs. Morrison had gone out, and think carefully. Did[Pg 21]anything whatsoever happen which was at all out of the ordinary? Remember that what may seem of no moment to you may be of importance to us. Please go over every moment.”
“I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary,” replied the cook. “I went around, with Mary, to see that all the doors and windows were fastened. Then we went to bed.”
“That’s so,” confirmed Mary. “We both went to bed.”
“And slept soundly all night?”
“Yes,” replied Mary. “Except——” she stopped.
“Yes?” prompted Nick. “Except what?”
“Well, we generally get up at seven o’clock. But something woke me at six this morning, and I looked out of our window, which is in the front of the house, on the top floor.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing much, except Miss Clarice walking away from the front door, and going fast down the avenue, to where the street cars pass. It wasn’t anything remarkable, except that she doesn’t often go out so early as that.”
“I never knowed her to do it before,” put in the cook.
“Especially after being out so late the night before,” added Mary.
“You’d think she’d be tired,” remarked Maggie.
“Too tired to get up before six in the morning,” supplemented Mary.
“Where did she go when she went down the avenue?” asked Nick. “Did you see whether she got on a car?”
“I didn’t see, sir,” was Mary’s reply. “But it would have been easy to do, if she wanted to.”
“Look here, Carter!” interrupted Bentham impatiently. “This is sheer waste of time. What if my daughter did take an early-morning walk? There is nothing remarkable in that. She is a healthy young girl, with a love of nature. When can you enjoy nature better than in the beginning of a fine day? But it has nothing to do with this loss of my papers. How could it have any bearing on such a matter?”
“Still, I should like to know,” insisted Nick. “This is all I want to ask of these two young women, but I should like a few more words with Miss Bentham. Perhaps Mary will tell her so when she goes out?”
Mary looked inquiringly at her employer. He nodded savagely, and Mary and Maggie left the room.
When Clarice came in, a few moments later, she appeared to be slightly surprised, but she took the chair her father pointed to without remark.
“Mr. Carter desires to ask you one or two more questions, my dear,” blurted out her father angrily. “I don’t see the necessity, but perhaps I shall understand later.”
His accent and manner said, plainly enough, that he did not expect to be convinced, but he meant to give Nick Carter all the opportunity he sought.
“I shall be only too pleased to tell you anything I can, Mr. Carter,” she said. “But I feel as if I have given you all the information I have—which is simply nothing at all.”
“We can’t always tell at the beginning,” returned Nick. “I will not take up much time, but there are one or two things I wanted to discuss with you, if you don’t mind. You went for a walk this morning earlier than is your custom, I believe?”
“Yes. But why do you ask?”
She smiled as she put this query, in the manner of one[Pg 22]who feels something like pity for a puerile question. The detective was not disturbed, however. He continued his questioning in an even tone:
“Did you go for any special purpose, or merely for the benefit of the exercise?”
She pondered for a few moments, as if this was something that had not occurred to her. A slightly troubled look clouded her pretty face.
“I really cannot say exactly, Mr. Carter. But I think it was only because the beautiful morning tempted me. I went to bed late last night—or, rather, this morning. But it is often the case with me that, when I retire much later than my usual time, I am awake several hours earlier in the morning. When I wake, I always want to get up.”
“H’m!” muttered Nick Carter. “There is reason in that. I am often the same way.” Then, in a more brisk tone: “Do you mind telling me where you went?”
“I don’t mind at all. I went down this avenue till I got to where the trolley cars pass. It had been my intention to go into the park for ten minutes or so. But I thought it would be pleasanter to ride in one of the open cars for a few blocks, and come back in the same manner. So I stepped on a car.”
“A Brooklyn Heights car?”
“Yes. It was going in that direction.”
“Do you remember where you got off the car, and what you did then?”
The girl shook her head, with a smile, and held out her two hands protestingly.
“Actually, Mr. Carter, I cannot tell. I must have been so absorbed in my own thoughts that I didn’t notice how far the car went, or where I left it. All I know is that I found myself at home again after a while, and that I got off the car that brought me here at the corner, two blocks down our avenue. I had been thinking about various things the whole time, and I had performed my whole journey mechanically. It is not often I do that, but it has happened before, and if you had not asked me about it, I should not have given it any further thought.”
The sincerity of the girl was beyond question, and Nick Carter knew he could not expect to find out anything more from her. His manner was easy and courteous, as he told her he was sorry to have troubled her, and begged her not to think any more about him or his questions, either.
“I don’t mind the questions at all,” she declared. “If I could have told you anything that would be of assistance to my father, I should have been only too glad.”
“I am sure of that,” Nick assured her warmly.
When Clarice had gone out of the library, with a graceful bow and smile for the detective, Matthew Bentham heaved a sigh of relief.
“I knew Clarice could not tell you anything that would have a bearing on this case. I hope you will not consider it necessary to ask her anything more. She is of a nervous temperament, and I am always careful not to do or say anything to distress her when it can be avoided.”
“Naturally,” said Nick. “But, as you saw, the few innocent questions I put did not agitate her. As for the case as a whole, I confess it is very baffling. I shall have to go home and think it over.”
“You think you will be able to recover the papers eventually, do you not? I suppose that is a foolish ques[Pg 23]tion, but I am so anxious that I cannot help saying what completely fills my mind.”
“I shall not rest until I have satisfied myself on several points that have a direct bearing on the mystery. I am in hopes that when I have done that, I shall have a report for you that will be valuable. I cannot say any more than that at this stage. I will call you up as soon as I have something to communicate. Meanwhile, I should advise you not to walk about the streets or go into public places much.”
“I never do, for that matter,” replied Bentham. “You think some of the Yellow Tong might get after me personally then, do you?”
“Have you a gun?”
“Yes. I got a permit to keep one in the house and to carry it, some time ago, when these burglaries began. Look!”
He showed a serviceable-looking automatic pistol in the table drawer, in a chamois bag. Nick saw that it was well supplied with cartridges and ready for instant use.
“That’s well,” said the detective. “If any of the tong should find their way to you and ask insolent questions, or if you should see any suspicious movements on the part of any burglar, I should advise that you shoot first and ask questions afterward.”
Before Matthew Bentham could comment on this emphatic advice, Chick came into the room and showed, in a way that Nick Carter understood—although it meant nothing to Bentham—that he had something weighty to communicate.
The detective arose and nodded carelessly to Chick.
“Ready to go, eh, Chick? I was just saying ‘good morning’ to Mr. Bentham.”
“Did you find anything from Swagara?” asked Bentham, in a tone that told plainly enough how surprised he would have been if the answer had been in the affirmative.
“Swagara hadn’t anything to say of any consequence,” replied Chick, as he and Nick Carter left the room and the house.
“What did you find out from the Jap, Chick?” were the detective’s first words, as soon as they were well away from the front of Bentham’s home.
“Nothing. What I told Mr. Bentham just now was the absolute truth. But I learned something from the cook, Maggie. Swagara had to go out to get some vegetables for her, and while he was away, Maggie loosened up.”
“Go on! Hurry up!” urged Nick. “What did she say?”
“Only that Swagara used to be employed by Ched Ramar, the Indian millionaire. That is how Maggie describes him. She knew it through another cook—a cousin or sister of hers, I believe—who lives in the next house to Ched Ramar. She’s seen Swagara go into the house, at night, and I guess he’s been holding two jobs—one here and the other at Ched Ramar’s.”
“Is he employed there still?”
“I couldn’t find that out. Maggie seems to be afraid to say much about Ched. All she has been told is that he is a millionaire, and she has that only on the strength of the jewelry he wears when he goes out, and the fact[Pg 24]that swell people visit him. He has not lived at that house very long. When he moved in, about six weeks ago, all the things he brought with him were truckloads of big packing cases. Some of these were as big as a house, according to Maggie’s cousin—or sister. When all those were in, furniture came from some big store. It was all new, and Maggie’s relative thinks it is only rented.”
Nick Carter had been listening so closely to Chick’s recital that they were at the subway station they intended to go to before they knew it. He told Chick to save the rest till they were in a train. When the train started with them, Chick resumed:
“Maggie says Swagara is a quiet young man, who doesn’t talk much. But she has never cared for him since she found he was sneaking away to work somewhere else at night, when he ought to be resting, so as to be ready for what he had to do at Mr. Bentham’s house the next day.”
“What time does he leave Bentham’s usually?” asked Nick.
“About half past eight. He gets there at nine in the morning, ready to begin work after breakfast.”
“Where does he live?”
“He has a room in a street off Fulton, down near Borough Hall, Maggie says. That’s all she knows about it. Of course, I had to get all this out of her by degrees, and under the seal of confidence. I tried to make a good impression on Maggie,” continued Chick, with a grin, “and I flatter myself she thinks I’m all right. I told her I was your clerk, and that I sometimes acted as a chauffeur.”
“Good!” commended Nick. “Half past eight, you say, Swagara leaves Mr. Bentham’s house at night?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to bring Swagara to our house when he leaves Bentham’s to-night, Chick. Have him in my library by nine, if you can.”
Chick did not express any astonishment at this order. Neither did he seem to have any doubt that he could fill it. He had been told to do strange and difficult things so many times that there was nothing could surprise him now.
“All right, chief,” was all he said. “I’ll work it through Maggie.”
Nick Carter did not reply. He did not care how his instructions were carried out, so long as he was obeyed.
When, after luncheon—which he took at his home, with Chick and Patsy Garvan, his other confidential assistant, for table companions—Chick said he was going out and would not be back till nine at night, most likely, the detective only nodded. He knew that Chick was going after Swagara.
For some little time after the departure of Chick, the famous detective busied himself in looking over his mail, which he had not had time to attend to before, and Patsy Garvan helped him.
“Say, chief,” broke out Patsy, after working industriously for an hour sorting letters and putting them in their respective piles under Nick Carter’s eye, “can’t you let me in on this Yellow Tong case again? I was in it before, you know. Didn’t I make good then?”
“You certainly did, Patsy. I have no fault to find.”
“That’s what I thought. But, gee! You and Chick are having a lot of things doing with this Mr. Bentham, and I’m out of it. Of course, I ain’t kicking, because you[Pg 25]know what you want. But—gee!—I’d like to get into it. Ain’t there anything I can do?”
Nick Carter smiled as he tossed another letter across the table to the pleading Patsy.
“Put that letter in the ‘No-answer-required’ pile, and don’t get excited,” he said. “I’m going to get you into this case to-night.”
“You are?” almost screamed Patsy. “Suffering crumpets! That’s healthy news. Where do I come in? Have I got to lick somebody? Or is it to be the smooth and ‘Thanks-very-kindly’ stunt? Gee! When it comes to the fresh-laundried diplomatic game, with the honeyed words and eagle eye, you can count me in as standing on the pedestal, with both feet pressed down into the granite. Say, ‘Tact’ is my maiden name!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” smiled Nick Carter. “Because that is the quality I expect you to use. Still, there might be a fight, too. I hope you are not opposed to a scrap, if one should turn up.”
This was too much for Patsy. He could not reply. The bare idea that he, Patsy Garvan, who had licked all the boys of his weight and twenty pounds over, in his part of the Bowery, before he was sixteen, would want to sidestep a battle, completely choked him.
“All right, Patsy,” laughed Nick. “Don’t say anything.”
“Don’t say anything?” repeated Patsy, when at last he could get his breath. “No, I won’t say anything. I want to see the man that gets in front of me to-night and looks crooked. Gee! I’ll mash his face through his back hair. That’s what I’ll do!”
It was not till nine that night that Patsy knew what he was to do, however. That was when Chick led Swagara, the Japanese servant of Matthew Bentham, into Nick Carter’s library, and gave him a chair in front of the detective’s table.
Swagara was a polite young man, of about Patsy Garvan’s size and build, who seemed to be rather anxious to get away as soon as possible.
“I have an engagement to-night,” he announced, in the precise English of one who has not always known the language. “But Mr. Chickering told me that I should hear of something very much to my advantage if I came here, and, of course, I came. I am ambitious, Mr. Carter, and I never neglect anything that seems likely to help me along.”
Swagara made this admission quite freely. He seemed to be frankness itself. He smiled widely, and then waited for Nick Carter to say something else, blinking amiably through rather large spectacles.
“Your engagement is with Professor Ched Ramar,” remarked Nick Carter casually. “How long have you been employed by him, Mr. Swagara?”
“Six weeks,” blurted out Swagara, evidently before he realized what he was saying. “That is—I have been told not to say anything about it,” he added lamely.
“I know that. Ched Ramar doesn’t like his affairs talked about. But you are quite safe here. I know Ched Ramar, and he has no secrets from me—I mean, of an ordinary nature. You have been with him ever since he took that house in which he lives at present—on Brooklyn Heights. You never met him until you were recommended to him by somebody whom you do not know. Ched Ramar has never told you how he came to know of you.”
This was all shooting in the dark for Nick Carter.[Pg 26]But he knew the ways of Ched Ramar. He had not been idle all day, and he had found out from a friend of his at police headquarters considerably about Ched Ramar’s methods. It is a way the police have—that of making a few secret inquiries about mysterious foreigners in New York who have plenty of money and no particular apparent business.
“It was something like that,” confessed Swagara. “But not quite. Ched Ramar saw me in a restaurant on the East Side of New York, where I sometimes play chess. He is a chess player, and he got into conversation with me one night. It ended in my saying I wanted employment, and soon—I don’t know how it was—I found myself engaged by him. I keep his rooms in order, and I do anything he tells me.”
“Exactly. You do what he tells you, whether you want to do so or not.”
As Nick Carter spoke, he moved his hands quickly before Swagara’s face, at the same moment that he turned on it a fierce light from a crystal disk set at a certain angle to the electric light over his desk.
Swagara stiffened in his chair. Then he heaved a deep sigh and fell fast asleep.
“A very easy subject,” observed Nick. “No wonder Ched Ramar uses him in his house. He finds it convenient to have a man he can handle as he does Swagara. Patsy!”
“I’m here!” responded Patsy promptly.
“Take a good look at this young man. Can you make up to pass for him, do you think?”
“Can I?” snorted Patsy confidently. “Watch me. Where shall I do it? Right here?”
“Yes. I’ll give you the paints and things. You can take his suit of clothes when your face and hands are made up. Be careful to get the exact shading of his features. You will have to use plain-glass spectacles. You couldn’t see through his. But I can give you a pair that will look exactly like them.”
“Say!” exclaimed Patsy, with a chuckle, as Nick Carter brought a box of grease paints, with boxes of powder, puffs, and bits of soft chamois leather and put them on the table in front of him. “This is the easiest thing I have had for six months. Can I look like this Jap? Well, when I get through, he’ll thinkhe’sPatsy Garvan, and he’ll be asking me when I got in from Tokyo.”
“I don’t intend to let him ask you anything,” corrected Nick Carter. “But I hope you will make yourself look like him. Unless you do, you won’t be able to do anything in this case.”
Patsy went on with his making up. He whispered to himself that he’d “be a native Jap or bu’st,” and both Nick Carter and Chick knew it would be all right.
When, at nine o’clock, Nick Carter gave final instructions to the Japanese-appearing young man, who looked at him soberly through his large spectacles, any one who knew Swagara would have been ready to swear that this was he.
Patsy Garvan had not promised more than he could achieve when he said he could make himself look like the young man from Tokyo who was expected to go to Ched Ramar’s house that night.[Pg 27]
By the deft use of grease paint, and the careful adjusting of a wig of coarse, straight black hair, he had changed his appearance so marvelously that there was nothing left of the broad, freckled face of Patsy Garvan. His features seemed to be pinched, like those of the Jap, and he had even made his gray eyes look a deep black.
It was a triumph of make-up, and Nick Carter secretly acknowledged it to himself. He did not tell Patsy what he thought. If he had, there was danger that his assistant would depend too much on his appearance, and perhaps grow careless in keeping up his character in other respects.
They had carried Swagara to an unoccupied bedroom at the top of the house, and, after undressing him and putting him into a set of pajamas owned by Patsy Garvan, had left him there in a deep sleep. Then they locked the door on the outside, to make assurance doubly sure.
“Not that there is any likelihood of his coming to his senses until I wake him,” remarked Nick Carter. “Ched Ramar is not the only person in Greater New York who has made a study of mental control. I know something about hypnotism myself.”
Swagara’s clothes fitted Patsy as if they had been made for him, and the gentle manner of the original owner went with the costume, so that there was practically no danger that Ched Ramar would suspect the substitution.
For it was Ched Ramar that Nick Carter meant to deceive, and it was all part of a well-laid plan to get to the bottom of the mystery of the stolen records.
The great detective had not promised positively that the papers would be restored to their legitimate possessor, but he intended that they should be, nevertheless.
Nick did not believe Ched Ramar was the person he pretended to be. He doubted even whether he were an Indian at all. Well did the detective know the almost diabolical skill of the notorious Sang Tu, head of the Yellow Tong, and it would not surprise him at all to find that Ched Ramar was carrying out the behests of the unscrupulous Celestial in obtaining his strange power over Clarice Bentham.
“That there is much more in the queer performance of that Buddha than merely frightening that young girl, I am convinced,” mused Nick, while Patsy was putting an overcoat over his costume, and Chick was getting into a disguise. “I’ll find out what it is if I have to pull that image all to pieces.”
It was at this moment that Chick came into the library, attired as a Chinaman of the poorer class. He wore the blue blouse and trousers common to laundrymen in America, and his face was of the pale yellow that is always associated with Mongolians in the average mind. He wore a large, soft black hat, which completely concealed his head. He wore a wig, with a queue, but it was not convincing if closely examined, and Nick Carter had told him to keep on his hat under all circumstances.
Patsy Garvan had his instructions, and when the taxicab in which all three were carried over to Brooklyn reached the vicinity of Borough Hall, they got out and sent the cab away.
It happened to be a cloudy night, so that when the three detectives turned into a side street, with only an occasional arc light to relieve the gloom, there was no danger of their being closely inspected by passers-by.
Three blocks from Ched Ramar’s house Patsy left his companions and walked on, with the short steps peculiar[Pg 28]to Swagara, and presented himself at the basement door to one of the Indian guards, who opened it cautiously.
“Swagara!” whispered Patsy.
Without a word, the guard opened the door and admitted the supposed Jap. Then he closed it and walked away, leaving Patsy in a half-lighted kitchen.
“Gee! What am I to do now?” thought Patsy. “Why didn’t that big chocolate drop tell me what to do?”
It was evident that Swagara had a regular routine of duties, and that Keshub, the guard, assumed he would go about it as usual.
Chance aided Patsy in his dilemma. He had taken off his overcoat and was carrying it on his arm as he walked through the kitchen to a dark hall, where he saw a flight of stairs, when the deep tones of Ched Ramar came down to him:
“Is that you, Swagara?”
Patsy did not know exactly in what terms Swagara would have answered this query. So he gave an inarticulate grunt, which he turned into a singularly distressing cough.
“What is that, Swagara? You have a cold? Well, never mind. You need not talk. You know, I have always told you I prefer you to answer me by signs, rather than by words.”
“Gee! That’s a good one,” muttered Patsy. “He doesn’t know what a fine thing he has handed me.”
He walked forward, happy in the knowledge that he could not be seen well in the gloom, and waited for further instructions.
“Go to the room of the great Buddha,” rumbled Ched Ramar. “Stay there. Make no sound when visitors come. I want you to see, but not to show yourself. You understand?”
Patsy bowed in acknowledgment, and began to ascend the stairs. He was wondering how he would stand the scrutiny of those fierce eyes when he should pass close to the red-shaded electric light in the main hall.
Ched Ramar gazed at him as he came up, and the eyes followed him on his way up the other stairs to the second floor of the great, shadowy house. Patsy had not been directed to the elevator. That seemed to be reserved only for the use of Ched Ramar and his guests.
He found himself in the idol room, where the dim red glow from a large lamp enabled him to see the gigantic Buddha squatting in the middle of the apartment, while other small images, equally grotesque, were ranged about.
“Say! This is a regular museum, all right,” thought Patsy. “Hello! Here’s a feather duster in this corner. That means that Swagara is supposed to keep things clean. Well, that’s me!”
He was passing the duster over the great Buddha when he heard a sound behind him. It was Ched Ramar. He nodded approvingly as he saw how Patsy was occupied.
“It is well!” he boomed. “But when you hear the bell over there, you will know guests have arrived, and you will keep behind there.”
He pointed to a space at the back of the big image, where Patsy saw there was a small door, which now stood partly open. Then, with a careless wave of the hand toward a large gong which Patsy decided was rather of Chinese, than Indian, design, Ched Ramar disappeared behind the velvet curtains which concealed the door of the elevator.
“Now is the time,” thought Patsy. “I’ll do what he[Pg 29]says about going behind this big brass dub of an idol. But, first of all, I’ve got a little private business of my own to pull off. I didn’t see anybody in the kitchen when I came through. I hope it will be the same now. If it isn’t—— Well, the chief said I wasn’t to mind getting into a scrap when it was forced on me. I’d just like to land on that black guy who let me in.”
It was in this disrespectful way that Patsy Garvan referred to Keshub. But Keshub was not in the kitchen. He, with his fellow guard, was in the large double drawing-rooms into which Matthew Bentham, Clarice, and the others had been ushered the night before.
Patsy got down to the kitchen without meeting anybody. He slipped noiselessly down the stairs and found himself at the back door, entirely unopposed.
As he opened the door a little way, the voice of Nick Carter sounded in a whisper from the darkness:
“All right?”
“Fine as silk,” was Patsy’s response. “Come in.”
Nick Carter, followed by Chick, stepped into the kitchen, and Patsy closed and secured the door. Then he directed the others to stand still, against the wall, where they would be in deep shadow, while he reconnoitered. Almost directly, after creeping up the back stairs and making sure the hall was empty, he was back.
Two minutes later they were all in the idol room. Patsy hastily related what his orders were—to hide behind the idol.
“He expects some guests, he says,” continued Patsy. “And I think he means to put something over on them.”
“I think I know who the guests will be,” returned Nick. “You go to the place you’ve been told. Is there room for more than one there?”
He went to the cupboard Patsy had pointed out and stepped inside. With his pocket flash light he examined it, and a grim smile illumined his face as he saw how it had been arranged to deceive strangers.
There was a door at the other end of the little room, communicating with a ladder that went down from a trap in the floor. Another ladder led upward, and it did not take Nick more than a moment to see that, standing on this ladder, a person could lean forward into the hollow brass head of the Buddha, and speak through its parted lips.
“It’s an old trick of the Buddhist priests,” he murmured. “They keep their devotees well in hand by these supposed miracles. No doubt thousands of devout believers in this old god have listened to priests in this way, and been bent to their will because they supposed they were listening to the voice of Buddha himself. This whole trick is transparent when you have a clew.”
This was all straight enough so far. But Nick Carter well knew that, without the hypnotic power that this mysterious Ched Ramar possessed, he could not have used the idol so effectively to make Clarice Bentham do what he wanted.
That the girl had been made an unconscious agent in crime he never doubted for an instant. Just how it had been done he hoped to find out now.
“I know he got a promise from Clarice to obey,” he thought. “I saw how the image held her in its power. But that is as far as I have been able to go. I may even be wrong in supposing the girl will come to-night. But I think not. Let me see, they are all going to a ball to-night, Bentham told me. That means they will leave[Pg 30]home about eleven o’clock. It isn’t ten yet. Can it be possible that she would come here first?”
“Look out!” suddenly whispered Patsy. “He’s coming. I’ve been watching the hall below. He’s on his way to the elevator. Hide somewhere, both of you!”
Nick Carter and Chick both stooped behind one of the draped tables on which the small idols were displayed, and Patsy crept behind the big Buddha.
There were a few moments of silence. Then the red curtains moved, and from the elevator came forth Ched Ramar. He held the curtains open to allow a companion also to come through. That companion was Clarice Bentham.
She wore a rich evening gown of white silk and lace. Over it was thrown a handsome opera cloak, and covering that again was another cloak of black, which draped her from head to foot.
Her eyes were wide open, as if she were staring hard. But, from his retreat at the back of the table, Nick Carter had a full view of her face in the light of the red lamp.
“She is fast asleep!” he murmured.
Ched Ramar placed a chair for her in the middle of the room, where she faced the large statue. Nick observed that, as he passed her, he waved one long hand before her face—twice! There was a slight twitch in the girl’s eyelids, and her stare at the image became more intense.
The tall Indian went out of the room—by the door at which Nick Carter and his companions had entered—and which was near the Buddha.
For a few moments there was stillness. Then, from somewhere came a deep, subdued voice, almost like the sighing of a strong wind.
“Come!” it said.
“What does all this mean?” whispered Chick to his chief.
“Hush!” was all Nick replied.
The girl was slowly rising from her chair. As she did so, the opera cloak dropped from her, revealing her white shoulders in the décolleté gown and the equally white arms, bare except for a jeweled bracelet on each wrist.
She stood perfectly still in front of the chair, her vacant gaze toward the brazen face of the great effigy.
“Come!” repeated the strange voice.
With measured steps she walked forward, and without hesitation went up the ladder which stood in front of the Buddha. She stood there, in about the same position that Nick Carter had seen her before. One hand rested on the idol’s shoulder, and she was looking into the large eye sockets as if held under a deep spell.
“Say, chief! Let’s get after this,” whispered Chick restively. “We can’t let this go on.”
“Keep quiet, Chick!”
“You will obey—obey—obey!” moaned the deep voice.
The girl did not speak. She only stared. Nick Carter could not see her eyes now, because her face was turned away, but he had no doubt that some intelligence had come into them, and that she was looking into those strange eyes which had appeared in the idol’s sockets on the former occasion.[Pg 31]
“Speak! I command!” went on the idol. “You will obey?”
“Yes, I will obey,” replied Clarice, in a low monotone.
“It will be death if you do not,” said the deep voice.
“It will be death!” repeated Clarice.
“Before you leave this house, a package of papers will be placed in your hand.”
“A package of papers!” she repeated, like an automaton.
“Those papers, with the exception of a few, are the same that you brought this morning.”
“The same that I brought.”
“You will take them from here and return them to the place from which you took them. Afterward, you will go to the ball and forget where you have been—or what you have done.”
“Forget!” she answered, in the same strange, toneless accents.
“Forget utterly! Forget! Obey!”
She repeated the words slowly, and each accent was perfectly clear, although it seemed as if she uttered them without knowing that she was speaking.
It was an awe-inspiring spectacle—this fair young girl, in the fripperies of her handsome ball dress, standing there, talking to an image, and never taking her gaze from its unnatural eyes.
“That is all. You will go down the steps and seat yourself in that chair. Soon the packet of papers will be given to you. Then you will be taken downstairs to the car that brought you, and be left at the corner of your own avenue. You will not know. When you are in your home you will do as you have been commanded. Then—you will forget. Obey!”
Slowly she descended, and, with unseeing gaze, walked to the chair and sat down. From force of habit alone, she arranged her skirts, allowing her long train, which had escaped from the loop that ordinarily held it up, to sweep the floor.
“Say, chief! Are you there?”
It was Patsy Garvan. He had come out from behind the idol, and was looking about the room for his chief. He took no notice of the girl in the chair, and she betrayed no consciousness of having heard or seen him.
Nick Carter came out from behind the table, and went over to Clarice. She seemed not to know that he stood in front of her, and when he passed his hand across her eyes, they did not wink.
“She’s in a deep hypnotic sleep,” he murmured. “Well, I’ll leave her so for the present. What did you see back there, Patsy?”
“It was all such a bald fake, that it isn’t worth talking about,” replied Patsy. “He just stood up on the stepladder and gave her all that bluff, with his head shoved into the hollow. When he got through, he came down and told me to keep the door of the cupboard shut until he got back.”
“I see. Is that all?”
“Not quite. Before he went up on that ladder, he tried to hypnotize me. But I was wise and I kept thinking about other things, and he couldn’t work it. I know how to beat that game. You’ve taught me that.”
“Yes. A hypnotic subject can often resist if he or she has a strong will,” replied Nick Carter. “I shouldn’t like to say that everybody could do it, however.”
“Maybe not. But they can’t bluff me,” chuckled Patsy.[Pg 32]“I’ve had that tried on me too often, and no one ever got away with it yet.”
Nick knew that this was true. He had seen too many proofs that Patsy Garvan had a powerful will of his own to fear that he could be easily put under the influence of such a man as this East Indian. Neither he nor Chick were the kind of young men who would yield without a fight to an attack, whether physical or mental.
“Look out!” suddenly whispered Patsy. “Duck! He’s coming back!”
He slipped behind the idol, dragging Nick Carter and Chick with him.
“There’s room for all of us in here,” went on Patsy, in a scarcely audible tone. “But keep quiet. If he comes back here, we’ve got to land on him. That will be all. I don’t care if he does come.”
“Hush!” warned Nick.
If there was any weakness in Patsy Garvan which had to be controlled, it was a disposition to talk too much.
The curtain at the elevator parted, and a man came through.
“Gee!” whispered Patsy. “It’s the fellow they call Keshub!”
“One of the guards,” added Nick.
Keshub was not as tall as Ched Ramar. But he was a big fellow, and he had all the dignity of the Oriental, even though he was not of as high caste as Ched Ramar was supposed to be.
He strode into the room and looked at the big idol. Then he made a deep salaam to the image, joining the tips of the fingers of his two hands over and in front of his bowed head as he bent low, and dropping them to his sides as he straightened up.
“Teaching old Brassy to swim, I guess,” grinned Patsy.
Nick gave him a hard dig in the side, to quiet him, although he found it hard to repress a smile at this irreverent designation of the god as “old Brassy.”
Keshub turned from the idol and strode over to Clarice. Nick saw then—as he cautiously peeped around the idol, and partly concealed by draperies—that the Indian had taken from his clothing a package of papers, held together by a rubber band.
“Take!” he said curtly.
The girl sat perfectly quiet, and appeared not to hear the word. He repeated it, at the same time lifting the girl’s right hand and placing the packet in her fingers.
The touch of the packet seemed to revive some sleeping memory in her being. She clutched it tightly and arose from her seat.
“Obey! Forget!” she murmured.
“I will return in a short time and take you out to the car,” said Keshub. “Stay here.”
Whether the girl heard and understood this Nick Carter could not tell. All he knew was that she stood perfectly still, her eyes staring into vacancy, but always turned toward the idol, while Keshub disappeared between the curtains to the elevator.
“Now, Patsy! Go to that elevator and see if you can fasten it so that no one can get out of it. There is a door with gilt railings. I think it can be bolted from this side. I noticed it when I was in this place before.”
Patsy ran to obey his chief, and a low chuckle told that he had found the bolt referred to. Then there was a[Pg 33]click as the bolt slipped into the socket, and Patsy came back.
By this time Nick Carter had begun something that had been in his mind while Keshub talked to the girl. He went to her, and staring straight at her eyes, whispered:
“Obey! The packet!”
Mechanically she held out the packet and he took it from her unresisting fingers. Then, as if another power were fighting against the influence which Nick Carter had brought to bear, she held out her hand as if to get the packet back.
He waved his hands before her face and whispered again, in the same sharp, staccato tones he had used before:
“Go to the ladder and listen again to what will be said to you from the mouth of Buddha.”
She moved across the floor, and reaching the ladder, went up in the mechanical way that always distinguished her in that particular action. When she was in her usual place there, with one hand on the shoulder of the idol, Nick slipped behind, and, going up the hidden ladder, took his place in the hollow, where he could lean forward into the head.
“Chick!” he called down to his assistant. “If anybody comes, tell me. Then, if you must, bring him down at all risks. But—make no noise.”
“Am I in on this?” asked Patsy.
“Of course.”
“Good! Here’s where we shake down the plums. But telling us not to make any noise sort of puts prickles on the job.”
With his two assistants at the foot of the ladder, ready to fly at any intruder, Nick Carter leaned forward, and, in lowered tones, spoke through the brazen lips of the great Buddha.
“You will obey!” were his first words.
As he spoke he fastened his gaze firmly on the eyes of the girl, and was encouraged when she looked steadily at him. The vacant expression had left them. This told him that he had been able to take the place of Ched Ramar, and that the hypnotic power exerted by the East Indian had been maintained by himself.
That it would not be easy to make this sort of transfer he had realized from the first. But he believed it could be done if he could concentrate himself sufficiently to overwhelm the mentality of the subject. He had succeeded now, almost beyond his hopes. The girl would do anything he commanded.
“You will obey!” repeated Nick Carter.
“Obey!” she responded dreamily.
“That is well. Tell me what you did when you got the packet you brought to me this morning. You remember that itwasthis morning?”
“It was this morning,” she replied, repeating the last few words of his query, as was always her way.
“Where did you get them? The library?”
“The library.”
“Who showed you where they were?”
“Where they were?” she repeated.
“Yes. Tell me.”
“He did,” she answered. “The man I fear.”
“What’s his name?[Pg 34]”
But to this there was no reply. She seemed to have no remembrance of names. Perhaps she never had known the name of this man she feared.
“Is it the man who speaks through Buddha?”
She seemed to wrestle hard with this question, as if trying to comprehend its meaning. At last she slowly nodded.
“You are sure?”
“Sure!” she repeated.
“That is enough,” said Nick Carter. “The packet will again be placed in your hands. Take it, as you were commanded, and put it where you got it—in the table leg.”
A gleam of understanding came into her eyes, that had in it more of memory than she had shown before. Nick Carter knew then that this girl, under the fiendish influence of Ched Ramar, had indeed robbed her father without knowing that she had done so. A half-repressed ejaculation dangerously near an oath broke from the detective’s lips, as he came down the ladder.
Hurriedly he took the packet from his pocket, where he had slipped it before ascending the ladder, and looked through it under the red lamp in front of the idol.
The girl had already descended, and was walking, like a somnambulist, toward her chair.
Nick Carter ran through the half dozen large sheets of manuscript, and saw that none of them bore reference to the Yellow Tong. All were of a character that would be valuable to the scientific world, but not one was concerned with the secret, far-reaching organization whose methods and intentions Washington was so eager to know something about.
“The cunning wretches,” he murmured. “They have taken what they want, and are returning these, so that they shall not furnish a clew to the others. Well, I think I shall beat their game. I’m going to find out where those other papers are before I leave this house.”
He walked over to the girl and gave her the packet. Then he said to her, in the quiet, even accents which seemed to penetrate easiest to her beclouded brain:
“Take the packet back and put it into the hands of your father. You understand that. Father.”
“Father!” she repeated dully.
“Look out, chief!” whispered Patsy. “I hear the elevator.”
Nick and Chick got back to the idol and secreted themselves. But Patsy went to the elevator door and unlocked it—just in time to admit Ched Ramar and Keshub.
“Why did you lock the door?” thundered Ched Ramar, at Patsy.
Patsy shrugged his shoulders in a way that he had seen Swagara do it, and there was an expression of bland protest in his yellowed face, as if he considered he were being shouted at unjustly.
He did not speak, but contented himself with pointing to Clarice, who sat still where Nick Carter had just left her.
“She wouldn’t have gone away, if that is what you mean,” growled Ched Ramar. “Keshub, take her down to the limousine and see that she gets home in safety.”
Keshub salaamed. Then he went over to Clarice, touched her arm, and pointed to the curtains shadowing the elevator door. She went over to it, quite docile, and Keshub accompanied her down, out of sight. Ched Ramar let the curtains fall together.[Pg 35]
“Watch the doors and windows, Swagara,” he ordered briefly. “There is no danger. But—watch them.”
Patsy responded with a funny little bow peculiar to Swagara, and stood back while Ched Ramar went up the stepladder on which Clarice had stood, and regarded the great brass face of the Buddha for a few moments in silence.
“Great Buddha,” he muttered, at last. “How many secrets dost thou hide! But how willing art thou to give them up when he who has the right puts the request! Siddartha, holy one! It is thy servant who makes the demand. Give him what he seeks!”
He placed his hand on the left arm of the idol, and his long fingers fumbled under the head.
As is usually the case with statues of Buddha, the arm lay across his lap in a negligent way, while the other was stretched forward on his knee. Ched Ramar was pressing a certain little knob under the brass hand. This released a spring, as was evidenced by the slight click that Nick Carter and his assistants could hear.
“That is well, holy one!” murmured Ched Ramar.
He took the hand of the god and raised it slowly, as if it were of great weight—as indeed it was. When he held it clear of the lap, there was revealed a square hole beneath, like a box, some eight inches square.
Into this square opening Ched Ramar dipped his fingers, bringing them out immediately with several papers rolled up, and fastened by a silken cord made of many strands of different colors twisted together.
“My task is nearly done!” exclaimed Ched Ramar, smiling. “It has been a hard one, but the result is worth it. My great master, Sang Tu, will be pleased. Much pleased!”
“Will he?” thought Nick Carter. “Well, it isn’t all over yet.”
Still smiling—but in a grave way, as if he felt that he should not permit himself thus to show joy—Ched Ramar lowered the brazen arm slowly to its former position, and a click announced that it was fastened in its place. When this had been done, no one not in the secret would have suspected that there was anything of the kind there.
“Did you see that, chief?” whispered Chick.
“Yes. Keep quiet. We want the papers. But we want him, too.”
“That’s what,” put in Patsy. “And that Keshub and the other coffee-colored guy, too. There may be others in the house as well as them. There are some maids, we know.”
“They are probably in another part of the house,” answered Nick. “We need not trouble about the maids. What we want is this fellow, papers and all. Keep ready!”
Ched Ramar stepped over the red lamp and looked carefully at the papers he had got from the lap of the image. His sinister smile again spread over his dark countenance, and he muttered to himself in his own tongue.
“This is all!” he suddenly exclaimed in English. “I will take these records to Sang Tu in the morning. Meanwhile, they shall not leave me. I do not trust any one. I will not go to bed. Such sleep as I need I can get here, in this chair.”
He walked over to the chair in which the girl had sat. It was very large, and when she had been in it had seemed actually to swallow her up. Even Ched Ramar, tall as he was, had plenty of room to curl up in it.
He tried it in this way. Then he arose and strode[Pg 36]over to the big idol, as if to look behind it. Nick Carter, Chick, and Patsy were standing ready to fling themselves upon him.
But he changed his mind, when nearly up to them, and contented himself with calling sternly:
“Swagara!”
For a moment Patsy Garvan had forgotten his assumed name. He made no move to go out. Instead, he held his automatic pistol ready to be used either as a club or a firearm. Nick Carter brought him to himself with a sharp tug at his elbow.
“Go out, confound you!” he whispered. “You are Swagara!”
“Gee! So I am!”
“Swagara!” called Ched Ramar, again, in a fiercer tone. “Come here!”
Patsy slipped out from behind the statue and made his Swagara bow with due humility.
Ched Ramar raised his fist, as if he would bring it down on Patsy’s shoulder. It was as well that he did not carry out his intention, for Patsy surely would have forgotten his assumed character and retaliated with another and harder blow.
“You deserve to be kicked, you dog!” snarled Ched Ramar. “You are to come quickly when I call. But let that pass. You will keep awake in this room till I tell you that you may sleep. Understand?”
Patsy bowed. He never had spoken more than a word or two to the Indian. He had a presentiment that if ever he did so, he would be known as a bogus Swagara at once.
“Very well,” went on Ched Ramar. “I would sleep for an hour—in this chair. Keshub and Meirum are asleep in the hall without. They will not come in unless I summon them. But you! You are not to sleep at all. Now, walk over there to the large Buddha and let me see that you are quite awake now. Go over and march back. Do as I bid you.”
Somehow, Patsy Garvan did not exactly understand what was meant by this command, and he hesitated when he got to the idol. Turning toward Ched Ramar, he was about to give him a pleading look, which would mean that he wanted clearer instructions.
This angered Ched Ramar, and he bounded from the chair, drawing a large jeweled scimitar that he generally wore, concealed by the folds of his robe.
Flourishing this weapon, he flew at Patsy, as if he would strike him down with it. The belligerent action was a great deal like his former one, only that this time he held a deadly weapon, instead of merely menacing with his fist.
“Gee!” shouted Patsy, forgetting entirely the part he was playing. “If you don’t drop that cheese knife, I’ll plug you as if you were a rat!”
He drew his pistol as he spoke and leveled it at the head of the surprised Indian.
Instantly it occurred to the cunning mind of Ched Ramar that there was treachery somewhere, and he leaped forward to seize Patsy. Rascal as he might be, there was no cowardice about Ched Ramar.
He did not catch Patsy, however. Instead, the supposed Japanese suddenly stooped, and just as the Indian got to him, he arose and sent his fist into the brown neck.
Ched Ramar uttered a choking gasp, and dashed behind the Buddha. As he got there, he found himself facing not[Pg 37]only Patsy Garvan, but Nick Carter and Chick, as well. All three were in hostile attitudes that could not be mistaken for a moment.
The utter astonishment in the face of Ched Ramar when he saw these three men where he had expected to find one only—and he a submissive servant—made Patsy Garvan emit a shrill chuckle. Patsy never would hold back his emotions when they got a good grip on him.
“Gee! Look at the map of him!” he shouted.
“Who are you?” roared Ched Ramar. “You’re not Swagara!”
“Not by a jugful!” returned Patsy Garvan. “There isn’t anything like that in me. Say, chief! We want to work quick! There’s two more right outside the door.”
Nick Carter stepped in front of the East Indian and held up his hand for a chance to speak.
“Ched Ramar,” he said in his usual cool tones, “the game is up. You have some papers in your pocket that you stole from Professor Matthew Bentham. You got them with the help of the man you call Swagara, who is already my prisoner.”
“Prisoner?” broke from Ched Ramar’s lips before he knew that he was speaking. “Prisoner? Who are you?”
“My name is Nicholas Carter,” answered Nick.
“Nicholas Carter? Ah! Yes! I never saw you before. But your picture is in our archives. We all know what you look like. If it had been lighter here, I should have recognized you at once. Well, Mr. Nicholas Carter, all I have to say to you is—this!”
The curved scimitar, with its richly jeweled hilt and its heavy, Damascus-steel blade, swept through the air like a great half moon of fire, as it caught and reflected the red glow of the lamp. The next moment, it circled Nick Carter’s neck, and seemed as if it must actually sever his head from his body.
But the detective had been in critical situations of this kind before, and he knew how to meet even an attack by such an unusual weapon as this cruel, curved saber.
He stooped just in time. He had very little to spare, for the keen blade caught the top of his soft hat and actually shaved away a thin sliver as clean as if done by a razor. In fact, the convex edge of the scimitar was ground almost to a razor edge.
The force of the blow made Ched Ramar swing around, so that he could not recover himself immediately. Nick took advantage of this momentary confusion to close with the tall Indian and grasp the handle of the saber.
There was a short and desperate struggle. The muscles of Ched Ramar were as tough and flexible as Nick Carter’s, and the detective knew he had a foe worthy of his best endeavors.
Up and down in the narrow space behind the big idol they fought, each trying to gain possession of the scimitar.
Nick did not want to make noise enough to attract outside attention. But he soon realized that this was something he could not prevent—the more so as Ched Ramar seemed desirous of causing as much disturbance as possible.
A banging at the door explained why Ched Ramar had made as much noise as he could.
“Now, Mr. Nicholas Carter,” hissed the tall Indian, “I[Pg 38]think you will find you have stepped into a trap. I have two men outside that door who will do anything they are commanded, and never speak of it afterward. You have been in countries where men are slaves to other men, I know. You shall see what my men will do for me.”
During this speech, which was delivered jerkily, as the two struggled for possession of the scimitar, the banging at the door increased in violence. Chick and Patsy were against it on the inside, trying to prevent its being battered down.
“Chick!” called Nick. “Come here!”
Chick looked over his shoulder.
“If I leave this door, Patsy can’t hold it by himself. It takes all we can both do to hold those fellows back.”
“Never mind!” returned Nick. “Come here!”
As Chick came toward the two powerful fighters, Ched Ramar laughed derisively.
“The door will fall,” he shouted. “When it does, you will wish you were out of this place. I’m glad you are here. It is fortunate.”
He wrenched with tremendous energy to get the scimitar away from Nick Carter. But the detective’s grip was not to be shaken. He held the handle of the weapon at top and bottom, with the Indian’s two hands doubled around it between. Neither could gain any advantage over the other.
“What am I to do?” queried Chick, looking at his chief, and making a grab at the handle of the scimitar.
“Don’t bother with this,” directed Nick sharply. “Feel in the front of this man’s robe and get the papers he has hidden there.”
“What?” bellowed Ched Ramar. “You’ll try such a thing as that? Ha, ha, ha!” he laughed, as the door broke down, throwing Patsy Garvan to the floor. “Get these men, Keshub! And you, Meirum! You did well to come! You heard the noise? Yes? Now to your duty!”
Instantly there was a fray in which all six were engaged. The two guards were nearly as strong as their employer, and all three of the Indians were vindictive, and determined to be victorious.
“Get the one who is trying to rob me!” shouted Ched Ramar.
The two big guards rushed on Chick together, and with such sudden violence that they hurled him away before he could set himself for resistance.
“Look out, Patsy!” cried Chick. “Get those papers! The chief wants them! Didn’t you hear him?”
“Did I hear him?” roared Patsy Garvan. “Well, I guess I did! Let me in there!”
As Chick was hurled aside, Patsy rushed at Ched Ramar and sent his head full into the Indian’s stomach. Patsy had had training in rough-and-tumble warfare in the Bowery in his younger days, and he still remembered the tricks that had availed him then.
The concussion was too much for Ched Ramar. It doubled him up, so that Nick Carter got a better hold on the handle of the scimitar than he had been able to obtain heretofore. At first he thought he had won the weapon altogether. But Ched Ramar’s hold was too sure for that. He still retained his grip, but not quite so good a one as he had had, because there was not so much room for his fingers.
As Ched Ramar bent forward, still intent on not letting the scimitar out of his grasp, Patsy reached in among the flowing robes that were flying in all directions in the[Pg 39]turbulence of the fight, and, after a little fumbling, felt the end of the packet of papers sticking from an inner pocket.
“Got them!” he shouted, as he dragged out the papers and passed them to Chick. “Gee! This is where we make the riffle!” cried Patsy delightedly. “Hand them to the chief!”
Nick Carter shook his head quickly. He was holding Ched Ramar with both hands.
“No! Keep them yourself, Chick, until I’ve got this man where I want him. They’ll be safe enough now. Patsy, lay out that big fellow behind you with your gun, before it is too late.”
Patsy employed a little ruse, and grinned as he saw how successful it was. Turning swiftly, he presented his automatic pistol at the head of Meirum, and there was a glint in the eye looking along the barrel which convinced the man Patsy meant business.
As a result of his terror, Meirum backed away quickly, and let go of Patsy’s arm, which he had seized as Patsy handed the papers to Chick.
On the instant, Patsy changed ends with his pistol, and brought the heavy butt down on Meirum’s turbaned head with a crash that made nothing of the white linen swathed about it. A turban is not much protection against a hard blow with a steel-bound pistol butt.
As Meirum went down, there were only the two left—Keshub and Ched Ramar.
“Take those papers, Keshub!” cried Ched Ramar. “Quick! Before he goes away.”
“I’m not going away!” interposed Chick. “I’ve something else to do before I go.”
He threw his arms suddenly around the big Keshub as he spoke, and forced him backward.
“Pull that turban off the other fellow’s head!” he shouted to Patsy. “It will make a good rope.”
This was a happy thought. Patsy unceremoniously stripped the white turban from the head of the unconscious Meirum, and found himself with a long strip of strong, white linen, which would, indeed, make a serviceable rope.
But Keshub had not been overcome yet. He was almost as powerful as Ched Ramar, and quite as full of fight. He tore himself out of Chick’s grasp and rushed to the aid of his employer. The two of them set to work to get the papers from Chick.
Nick Carter was equally resolved that Ched Ramar should not interfere with Chick. He argued that Patsy Garvan and Chick were quite able to deal with Keshub together—even if Chick could not do it alone.
“But Chick could do it himself,” he muttered. “Only that it might require a little more time.”
It seemed as if Ched Ramar might have guessed what was passing in the mind of Nick Carter, for he redoubled his efforts to get away, scimitar and all, to go to the aid of his man.
“You may as well give up, Ched Ramar,” panted Nick Carter—for the long fight was beginning to tell on his wind, just as it did on his foe’s. “We’ve got you. We have the papers, and one of your men is done right here. Another is a prisoner in my house. What is more, I know who you are.”
“I am Ched Ramar!” cried the Indian proudly.
“Perhaps. I don’t know what your name may be. The[Pg 40]main thing is that you are a member of the Yellow Tong, and that you are trying to steal these papers for your chief, the infamous Sang Tu.”
“He is not infamous!” shouted Ched Ramar indignantly. “He is the greatest man in the world to-day, and it will not be long before he will control every nation on earth.”
“Beginning with the United States, I suppose?” exclaimed Nick Carter ironically.
“Yes. We have this country of yours mapped out and given to different sections of our great organization already,” snarled Ched Ramar. “As for giving up, why—see here!”
He bent almost double, as he exerted every ounce of his immense strength to tear the scimitar away from the detective. The latter felt the handle slipping through his fingers. But he had strength, too, and in another instant he had gained a firmer hold than ever, as he pushed with all his might against the powerful bulk of his towering antagonist.
For a moment neither side gave way. It was like two mountains pressing against each other. No one could say what the end might be. They might stand thus for an indefinite period.
But they didn’t. Nick Carter felt his foe yield ever so little—not more than a fraction of an inch. But the fact remained that he had given way slightly, and Nick was quick to take advantage of anything that would help him in such a desperate fight as this.
He pushed harder, and back went Ched Ramar two or three inches this time.
“Keshub!” shouted Ched Ramar.
But Keshub had his own troubles just now. Chick had applied a backheel to him, and was slowly pushing him backward, until he must fall flat on his back, while Patsy hovered above them and grumbled because he couldn’t get into the fight.
“Keep off, Patsy!” cried Chick. “Don’t come into this, or you’ll spoil it. Don’t you see that?”