“I am telling you nothing but the truth, sir, so far as I know it.�
Nick made no reply. The servant continued:
“Why should Mr. Lynne wish to create such a mystery, even if he were in good health, and had the strength and agility to get around unaided?—which you know he had not. And what possible incentive could I have——â€�
“I was turning those very questions over in my mind, Thomas. It is quite evident that Mr. Lynne is not here.�
“Quite so, sir; nor anywhere else in the house. I have searched everywhere.�
“Well, if he did not leave it by any of the routes we have mentioned, how could he have gone out?�
“That is just the puzzle, sir. There isn’t any way.�
“Well, if there isn’t any way to go out, he has not gone out. That’s a cinch!� It was Patsy, who had remained silent hitherto, who made this remark; and then, after a very short interval of silence, he added: “And if he did go out, it follows that there is a way for him to have done it.�
“Patsy,� said the detective, “that ingenious statement on your part deserves a medal. Now, Thomas?�
“Yes, sir.�
“Bring me the letters that you took to Mr. Lynne this morning. That announcement that he was to receive a caller must be contained in one of them.�
“Yes, sir. He said as much as that when he told me about it. Here they are, Mr. Carter.�
Thomas took four letters from a taboret beside the chair that Lynne was in the habit of using, and the very first one that the detective examined, addressedin a handwriting which Nick recognized instantly, was as follows:
“Dear Mr. Lynne: I shall call upon you to-morrow shortly after noon. You may expect me without fail; and also you may expect to hear something of vital interest to you, and to others, also.“Wednesday.Madge Hurd-Babbington.�
“Dear Mr. Lynne: I shall call upon you to-morrow shortly after noon. You may expect me without fail; and also you may expect to hear something of vital interest to you, and to others, also.
“Wednesday.
Madge Hurd-Babbington.�
Having read the short note, the detective passed it to his assistant, Patsy.
“What do you make of it, Patsy?� he asked.
“Just what it says; no more,� was the reply.
“Madge has usually been a woman of her word, particularly when that word contained the suggestion of a threat,� said the detective.
“That is precisely what I was thinking, chief.�
“This is her handwriting, too; there is no doubt of that?�
“Yes.�
“So it is more than likely that she came; that she kept the engagement; at least, that is what I would suppose if it were not for the statements of Thomas to the contrary.�
“Possibly that footman at the door was bribed,� suggested Patsy; but Thomas immediately interrupted:
“No, sir. He isn’t smart enough to have dissembled about it afterward—and besides, I was personally within sight and sound of the door all the time. The woman did not appear.â€�
Nick, who had been looking about him within the room, and with more interest since he had read the note, now stepped suddenly forward, and, stooping, picked something up from the floor beside one of thehuge leather rockers—one that faced the big chair in which the servant said that Lynne was seated when last he saw his master.
It was a dainty lace handkerchief, redolent with a perfume that the detective knew to be much affected by Mrs. Babbington. He had noticed it particularly on the several occasions when he had been in her company.
But, as if that were not sufficient testimony to satisfy him, although it was, quite, the initials M. H. and B. were embroidered upon it. Plainly the handkerchief had once been the property of Madge Babbington.
He gazed at the handkerchief for a moment, then passed it to Thomas.
“How do you account for the presence here of this?� he demanded. “You say that the woman has not been here; this handkerchief says just as plainly that she has been here. How do you explain the discrepancy?�
“I cannot even attempt to do that, Mr. Carter,� was the decided reply.
“That handkerchief says as plainly as words that Mrs. Babbington has been in this room, Thomas—unless you can account for it in some other manner.â€�
“I cannot do that, sir. It was not here—at least it was not on the floor where you found it, when I brushed up the room and rearranged the chairs, this morning.â€�
“Then how did it get here?�
“I will not attempt to say, Mr. Carter.�
“It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that the handkerchiefwas brought here by some person—probably by the woman herself?â€�
“Yes, sir; it would seem so.�
“Then how did she get here—without your knowledge?â€�
Thomas was plainly dismayed, but he was none the less insistent for all that.
“Unless she flew in through the open window, or came down the chimney and through the fireplace, there is absolutely no way that I know about by which she could have gained admission to this room without being seen by me, or by the footman,� he said calmly.
“Or by the gardener,� suggested Patsy.
“Unless you are purposely deceiving us,� said the detective.
“I am not deceiving you, Mr. Carter,� Thomas replied, not without an assumption of dignity at being thus accused.
Patsy, without saying what his intention was, left them and passed out of the room. Nick steadily studied the face of the servant for some time; then he said:
“I believe you, Thomas. You are not deceiving me, or attempting to do so. This is a very strange circumstance.�
“Yes, sir.�
“Can you account for every moment of your time between half-past twelve o’clock, and the time when you telephoned to me?�
“Yes, sir. I have already done that. I have no desire to change anything that I have said about it.�
“When Mr. Lynne rang for you, and you assisted him to dress, in part, it was approximately half-past twelve, you say?�
“It was between that time, and one o’clock; yes, sir.�
“It was four o’clock when you telephoned to me. Had you only just missed Mr. Lynne?�
“No, sir. It was a quarter to three when I missed him.�
“What happened in the interval between then and four o’clock?�
“I was searching through the house, and making the inquiries I told you about.�
“It required three-quarters of an hour to do all that?�
“That is the time I took for it, before I convinced myself that it would be wise to communicate with you, Mr. Carter.�
“What brought you to this room at a quarter to three?�
“It was the hour for Mr. Lynne’s tonic. He takes it every four hours.�
As Thomas made this statement he half turned toward a table across the room; then he gave a start, and uttered a quick exclamation.
“What is it?� asked the detective.
“The tonic is not here,� was the reply.
“The tonic? Gone, you say?�
“Yes, sir. It was in a bottle on that table, with a small graduate beside it. Both are missing. Neither one is there now.�
“Humph!â€� said the detective. “Evidently Lynne—or the lady who called upon him—had an eye to his continued improvement when he went away, or was taken away from here. Now, look here, Thomas.â€�
“Yes, sir.�
“We will say that you last saw your master in this room at a quarter to one o’clock. You were back here again, to administer his medicine, at a quarter to three.�
“That is correct, Mr. Carter.�
“So, if he went away, or was taken away from this room by others, it must have happened within those two hours.�
“Without any question, Mr. Carter.�
“Where were you during those two hours?�
“I spent the entire time, during those two hours, in a small reception room that is at the right of the front door, as you come into the hall, Mr. Carter. I sat at the window from which I could see any person who might come up the steps to the door, without effort, and merely by raising my eyes from the morning paper which I was reading during most of that time.�
“And you did not leave your post at all?�
“No, sir.�
“Not to get your luncheon?�
“No, sir. I directed Christopher, the footman, to bring me some tea and toast and marmalade, which I ate there, at the window.�
“Is that your general habit?�
“Not at all; but Mr. Lynne had directed me to watchout for the lady he expected to call upon him. I thought it best to be at the door to receive her myself, rather than to permit Christopher to do it. I thought—well, to tell you the truth, I thought from the manner in which Mr. Lynne mentioned the subject to me, that the lady might be a particular friend.â€�
“I see. It was merely your intention to be discreet?�
“Yes, sir.�
“And when you left your post at the window of the reception room—what then?â€�
“I did not leave it till the hour for Mr. Lynne’s medicine. I came directly here to this room to discover that Mr. Lynne was not here.�
The door opened again at that moment, and Patsy entered the room. He was followed by the gardener, whom he had evidently sought in the meantime, and he said, as he entered:
“Chief, this man has some interesting information. I have been talking with him.�
“What is it?�
The Lynne mansion was one of those modern palaces which during the last ten years have been erected in many localities in the city of New York. It occupied the half of a block fronting on the avenue, and was inclosed on the street and avenue sides—the south and west—by a high, wrought-iron fence of artistic design. The entrance to the grounds surrounding the mansion was through a wide gate on the avenue, one-half of which was usually kept open during the day. A concreted driveway led to the front entrance whichwas thirty feet back from the fence. It also extended to the garage at the rear, two hundred feet away. There was a concreted pathway around the west side of the house.
Patsy replied to the detective’s question:
“He says that a woman, who wore a veil so that he could not see her features, entered at the gate and passed around the house shortly after he had had his dinner, which he eats in the servants’ quarters, after the other servants have had theirs; that is, he eats at one o’clock.�
“All right. I’ll question him for myself. Now, my man, what time was it when you saw the woman we are talking about?�
“I should say, sir, that it was soon after half-past one o’clock. It was half-past one when I went out of the house after atin’, sir, and she came along soon after that.�
“She came around by the path from the gate?�
“She did, sor.�
“Did she speak to you?�
“I spoke to her, sor. We don’t allow no strangers that we don’t know to git past us, sor.�
“You say ‘we.’ Whom else do you mean besides yourself?�
“Nobody else now, sor. There used to be three of us, in the old days of Mr. Cephas Lynne, sor.�
“Oh, you were here then, were you?�
“I was, sor.�
“Well, what was said between you and the woman?�
“I axed her where she was goin’ and who she wantedto see, sor, and she said she was after takin’ the bundle she carried, to Mrs. Maguire, who is the cook; and wid that I let her go on about her business.�
“What time did she go out again?�
“She didn’t go out ag’in, at all, at all, sor; leastwise I didn’t see her if she did, and I was working forninst that path all the afternoon, at that. And just now, sor, after this gentleman had been axin’ me about it, I stopped and axed Mrs. Maguire what had become of the woman who took the bundle to her, and sure, sor, Mrs. Maguire says that there wasn’t any such woman at all, at all, and that she hadn’t got no bundle, and she wanted to know what I was talkin’ about, so she did. Sure, the woman didn’t go into the house at all, and didn’t see Mrs. Maguire, and it’s my belief that she just walked around the house on the other side of it where there is no cemented path, and went out again by the same way she came in. She had a swate voice, so she did, and I’d guess her to be young, and purty, too; but more than that, divil a bit do I know, sor.�
“What do you think of that, chief?� asked Patsy.
“It is interesting, lad. Now, Timothy—is that your name?â€�
“It is, sor. Timothy Tucker, from Cork, sor.�
“How was the woman dressed?�
“Faith, I dunno, sor; only her shoes were new and fine, and she seemed dressed too well to be carryin’ bundles to cooks. She had on a long coat that covered her all over, like them things they wears in automobiles.�
“You did not keep an eye on her after you directed her how to find Mrs. Maguire?�
“No, sor. I wint on wid me worruk.�
“And forgot all about her, I suppose?�
“Faith, I did that—until this gintleman axed me about her.â€�
“That will do, Timothy. You may go, now; but you may forget all about this interview, and not talk about it to others.�
“Yis, sor.�
“Well, Patsy,� said the detective, when the man was gone, “it is evident that Mrs. Babbington did find a way to keep her engagement, after all.�
“So it seems. She dropped her handkerchief here, in this room; it was she with whom the gardenerspoke, outside the house; the hour agrees with the time when she was probably in this room. How did she get here?�
“I give it up, chief.�
“I don’t suppose you questioned the cook and the housekeeper, did you?�
“I did. They both insist that no person could have passed them and entered the house at the rear without being seen; while it is possible for a person to walk past the rear of the house—that is, past the windows where those two servants were, at the time—without being seen.â€�
“What do you mean by that?�
“That she could have done as the gardener suggested, walked directly around the house, and out of the grounds again by the same way she came in.�
“But that would not account for her being in this room—or for Lynne’s being gone from it, Patsy.â€�
“No—unless there is a window along the north side of the house by which she might have entered, and have——â€�
“And by which she might have taken Lynne out? That is utter nonsense, Patsy.�
“The whole affair looks like utter nonsense on the face of it, and yet—well, it’s an affair, if anybody should ask you.â€�
“Quite right.�
“If I might speak now, sir,� said Thomas.
“Certainly. What is it?� replied the detective.
“I have already told you that I searched every room in the house as soon as I missed Mr. Lynne.�
“Yes.�
“There is a door on the north side of the house, on the first floor, that has not been opened since I have been here, and is still locked and bolted as it was the first time I ever saw it. There is no window on that side of the house that is not fastened securely. You may examine them for yourself if you like, but I personally know such to be the case.�
The detective pondered for a moment. He seemed to accept the statement of the servant as final and convincing. His mind was considering other matters, just then, than the method by which the unknown woman had been admitted to the house.
“Thomas,� he said, after a moment, “have you looked to see what clothing of Mr. Lynne’s is missing?�
“No, sir.�
“Do so. Make a thorough examination, and let me know of every article of his clothing or otherwise that is gone.�
“Yes, sir.�
“Patsy, make a thorough search of the room on your own account. I will do the same after a moment. It is plain that Madge Babbington has been here, and that she has either induced Lynne to go away with her surreptitiously, or she has forced him to do so.�
Patsy nodded.
Nick crossed the room to the window near the chair where Lynne was in the habit of sitting. The room was at the northwest corner of the house and had windows at the two exposed sides.
He stood at one of the west windows for a time, looking out, and thinking; then he passed to one of the north windows, which was open to admit the warm air.
But when he looked out of it, he shook his head decidedly. It had occurred to him that entrance to and egress from the room might have been had by means of that window, but he very quickly decided that that was out of the question—particularly in the middle of a sunlit afternoon.
He quit the window then and gave his attention to the interior of the room, but there was nothing more to be found there, so he seated himself upon the chair that Lynne had occupied, and gave himself up to thought.
He could picture to himself Madge Babbington seated upon that other chair beside which the lace handkerchief had been found, and gazing with her tiger eyes into the face of Mr. Carleton Lynne.
He could picture, also, Lynne’s consternation at her presence; his surprise; and he recalled now that, two days before, at the time of the visit of Red Mike to that same house, and to the sleeping room that adjoined the room he was now in, he had made no investigation as to Red Mike’s method of entering.
Mike had escaped; no particular damage had been done. Thomas had a marred ear, and a piece of skin was gone from one side of his head, and Lynne had been grazed by a bullet on the shoulder; that was all.
It suddenly occurred to him now, as he sat therethinking, that the Lynne mansion was not one that would be selected by a burglar as an easy one.
There was the big iron gate outside which was locked at night; and the high fence was not easily scalable—and yet Red Mike had evidently found little difficulty in gaining an entrance, not only to the grounds and house, but to the rooms of the master of the mansion.
Then Nick recalled another circumstance.
When Red Mike made his escape from Lynne’s sleeping room after firing the four shots which nearly killed Thomas and his master, he had gone out by a door other than the one which had admitted Nick Carter to that sleeping room.
In a word, he had gone out of the sleeping room by the door which opened between it and the sitting room where the detective was now seated.
It is true that other doors were found open—enough to have led him to the outside, and therefore to the avenue; but there was Danny, Nick’s chauffeur, outside in the car, and he had seen nobody escaping from the house.
Nick Carter smiled grimly to himself. His thought, just then, if he had uttered it aloud, was about like this:
“This is not the day for secret and mysterious entrances to houses, and of hidden passages, like Kenilworth Castle and other places we read about, but there must be one here, somewhere, for that is the only way to explain this mystery.
“And if there is one, it has somehow become known to Madge Babbington.
“Very possibly Edythe Lynne knew about it during her life, and had at some time shown it to Madge; the two had at one time been more or less intimate.
“Or J. Cephas Lynne, Edythe’s father, had revealed the secret to Mrs. Babbington. He had been fond of Madge, too, at one time.
“Or it had become known to Thomas Lynne, who had murdered Cephas Lynne and the daughter Edythe, and who had afterward posed as Cephas Lynne, and as such had engaged himself to marry Madge. If that were true, he might have revealed the secret to the Babbington woman.�
Nick moved uneasily in his chair when he had completed that train of thought—and he gave a start of pain and almost uttered an exclamation, for he felt something that was very much like the prick of a pin.
He got out of the chair and examined the seat of it, and sure enough there, in one of the creases in the leather which the upholsterer had made, tightly imbedded next to the button, was an eight-pointed, diamond-studded star pin such as a woman will wear in the lace against her neck.
The center of the star pin was a gold monogram, out of which Nick had no difficulty in deciphering the letters M. H. B.
So here was another proof of the recent presence of the woman in that room.
A suggestion, too, that she had been quite close to Carleton Lynne while he was still an occupant of hisfavorite chair; that she had bent over him, perhaps, and had lost the pin in doing so.
He called the attention of Patsy to the fact, then dropped the pin into one of his pockets.
“Oh, there isn’t now any doubt that the woman was here,� said Patsy, at once. “The only thing that bothers me is how in blazes did she get here?�
“That isn’t as interesting as the question that follows it,� said Nick.
“What one is that?�
“How did she go away again and take Lynne with her?�
“Oh, he probably went along willingly enough, after he once looked into her eyes.�
“Would you do that?�
“Eh? Oh, well, that is hardly a fair question. I’m a married man, and——â€�
“Do you think that she could charm you with those wonderful eyes of hers?� insisted the detective.
“Not with Adelina waiting at home for me, chief. Nay, nay.�
“But, without Adelina waiting at home for you?�
“Look here, what are you getting at, chief?�
“A psychological question. Answer me.�
“I’d hate to give her the chance, that’s all.�
“Do you think that she could have led Lynne to do her bidding by the power of her fascinations?�
“Confound her fascinations. It isn’t that; it’s her eyes, chief; her tiger eyes; her yellow eyes, that can blaze so that they frighten one. Now! How did she get in here, and how did she get out again, and takeLynne with her? Will this thing suggest a way by which she might have taken him out?�
He held up to the detective’s view a small rubber cork.
“Looks as though it might have fitted a phial that held chloroform, chief, doesn’t it?� he asked. “I found it on the floor over there beneath that life-size painting of J. Cephas;� and as he said this he jerked his head toward the north side of the room between the windows.
“Found it there, did you?� replied Nick, rising. “Show me just where you found it.�
Patsy led the way across the room.
It has been written many times in history that the most trivial things have changed the destiny of nations. A famous preacher once made the declaration that “there are no such things as little things.� And so this tiny rubber stopper for a miniature bottle, not so large as the end of one’s finger, proved to be the great thing of immediate necessity.
If you should apply to a chemist who knew you, and should induce him to supply you with a bottle of chloroform, he would use just such a stopper as that one was in putting it up for your use.
Not but what the same sort of a stopper is used for many other purposes than sealing bottles of chloroform against the escape of fumes.
But conditions are regulated and understood more or less perfectly, by comparisons and circumstances; for instance, the presence of chloroform in that room, at the time when Mr. Lynne was induced or compelled to leave it, explained many things hitherto unexplainable.
It accounted in part for the finding of the handkerchief on the floor beside the chair upon which the woman had presumably seated herself.
It accounted, unquestionably, for the diamond star that Nick found in the upholstery of Lynne’s chair,since, without doubt, it had been dropped there while the chloroform was being administered; while there was the semblance of a struggle going on between the man and the woman; and it must be remembered that Lynne, in his weakened condition resulting from his long illness, could have been no match in strength for Madge Babbington, even if she was a woman.
But none of these considerations was the important one which the discovery of the article suggested to the active mind of the detective; nor was it the rubber stopper itself that brought about the suggestion.
It was the place where Patsy found it.
In considering that, and in arriving at the reasons that Nick Carter had for his immediate conclusions, we must read the thoughts that flashed through his mind the instant the stopper was shown to him, and when Patsy indicated where he had found it.
Timothy Tucker, the gardener, had stated that the woman who had passed him on the path between the gate and the house wore a long coat like those he had seen worn by women when they were motoring; hence, a long, linen duster.
Linen dusters have pockets at the sides, even those worn by women.
A small bottle of chloroform purchased at a drug store and intended for immediate use would be taken from the paper in which it was originally wrapped, and deposited handily, where the possessor could get at it with the least possible delay and trouble.
Hence, in one of those side pockets already mentioned into which the hand could be casually dropped at any instant.
The paper wrappings having been removed, the bottle would be exposed unless some other wrapper for it were improvised. The likeliest thing for that purpose, the one least likely to attract attention or comment, would be a handkerchief.
The woman, seated upon the chair at the moment for using the contents of the bottle, would remove, or partly remove, the handkerchief in which it was wrapped, and would do it with the one hand that was in that pocket with the bottle, before she rose from the chair.
What more natural than that the handkerchief should be dropped in that manner, just at the point where it had been dropped—and just an instant before the woman rose from her chair to pass around to the side of the chair in which Lynne had been seated?
Now the next point.
The rubber stopper was picked up by Patsy twenty feet away from that chair—from either of them.
The woman would not have thrown it from her at that time; such an act was not necessary. If she had merely dropped it, five or six feet would have been the extent of the distance it might have rolled away across the floor on the soft rug.
The position of the two chairs was such that in approaching the one upon which Lynne was seated at the time, the woman would have been stationed exactly between Lynne and the spot where the rubber stopper was found twenty feet away; and so, if it had beenknocked from her hand in a struggle with the man to whom she was going to administer the drug, it was next to impossible that it should have rolled to the spot where Patsy picked it up.
Ergo, how did it get there?
If you ask yourself the question from the detective standpoint—and that is what you inevitably should do in following out the Nick Carter histories—the logical answer is obvious.
The woman, upon entering the room—upon stepping into it—realizing that she must be prepared for instant action, at once prepared the bottle for instant use; she would do so by removing the stopper, and by pressing a fold of the handkerchief, reënforced by the pad of her thumb, against the uncorked bottle. This to keep the fumes from escaping.
She would be compelled to do all that with one hand by reason of the exigencies of the occasion, and therefore would simply drop the stopper back into the pocket, or it would escape from her grasp and roll upon the floor—a few inches, or a foot or two.
Hence—and this is the important point so laboriously arrived at—the stopper would have been dropped very close to the point where the woman entered the room.
Now, the life-size portrait of J. Cephas Lynne beneath which the stopper was found was nowhere near any door in that room.
It did occupy, frame and all, a space between two of the windows at the north side of the room; a space which extended from the floor nearly to the ceiling,and which was in width between four and five feet; and it was fastened, as such portraits not infrequently are, flat against the wall.
Nick Carter had already determined that there must be a secret entrance to that room from another part of the house, or from the outside, but he had not even begun the search for such a place as yet.
If Madge Babbington had entered the room by one of the doors, had opened the bottle and dropped the stopper at once upon entering, it would have been in the vicinity of one of the doors, according to the argument already advanced, all of which shot through his mind the instant when Patsy indicated the spot where it had been found.
Architecture, ancient and modern, had ever been a favorite study with the detective, as a pastime. The life and employment of the famous priest who created so many of the secret stairways, rooms, passages, and doors in the old castles of England and Scotland had always interested him.
He knew how to look for them, where to search for them, and much of the principle upon which they were constructed, just as one may have studied and learned to know the moves in a game of chess.
To offer an opportunity for a secret entrance and passage, there must be space—space between two walls.
And so, when Nick Carter started across the room exclaiming to Patsy: “Found it there, did you? Show me just where you found it,� he did not wait for the answer, but hastened at once to one of the windows, stepped upon the sill and, leaning far out of it, studied the general construction of that north wall of the main building.
A mere glance sufficed him.
He knew already that that part of the house was very old; had stood there where it was through several generations until it had been remodeled, enlarged, reconstructed, and embellished into a part and parcel of the great mansion.
That mere glance outside the window satisfied him that there was more than sufficient space between the outer wall and the wall of the room inside for a passageway.
And that was practically all he needed to assure himself that he had discovered the most likely place for a secret passage and entrance to that room, if one existed.
Moreover, what more likely place could be found for such a secret entrance as must exist than the life-size portrait itself and the space—that is, breadth—behind it?
He stepped back into the room again.
As he did so, and before he could begin his search for the secret entrance, Thomas returned from his hasty inventory of Lynne’s wearing apparel.
“Well?� Nick asked him, pausing.
“Only a few articles of clothing are missing,â€� Thomas replied. “A suit of his clothing, a few——â€�
“You need not enumerate them, Thomas. That is unnecessary, now. Tell me only if the missing articles are such things as Mr. Lynne would have taken away with him had he had the selection?�
“Decidedly not, sir. Quite the contrary.�
“You think that he would have chosen differently, in that case?�
“Yes, sir.�
“Thank you, Thomas. That decides another point for us.�
“What is that, sir, if you please?�
“That he was probably unconscious, probably from the chloroform, when he was taken from this room, and therefore that there must have been a third person present here, or within call, to assist the woman in taking him away.�
“Red Mike,� said Patsy, speaking as one making a statement, rather than as one who asks a question.
The detective nodded.
“That accounts for this, I suppose,� said Patsy, holding up his right hand, with the thumb and finger tips pressed tightly together.
Nick Carter stepped nearer to him and looked more closely, and he found that Patsy was holding a single red hair between his thumb and forefinger.
“I found it clinging to the frame of that picture, about six feet from the floor,â€� the assistant announced. “It was exactly at the point where it might have caught and lodged, if Red Mike had stood right hereâ€�—he backed across the room to the portrait—“and had leaned his head against the frame, so;â€� he assumed the attitude he was attempting to describe.
Nick nodded his head again.
“Red Mike was here with Madge,� he said. “He either followed her into the room at once, or he entered it a moment later in response to some signal she gave, and he stood there, waiting for something else to happen before he took an active part in the proceedings.�
“But he couldn’t come through the picture, could he?� Thomas asked.
“No, but he could come from behind it, if the picture is movable, and if there is an opening of some sort behind it.�
Patsy nodded with emphasis.
“I thought that was the idea when you looked out of the window just now,� he said.
“It has been my idea for some minutes,� replied the detective. “The discovery of the rubber bottle stopper decided me where to look for it.�
“And now——?â€� asked Patsy.
“We won’t bother to search for secret springs; that would occupy too much time. Thomas, find me a hammer, a screw driver, and a short iron bar, preferably flat, if you have such articles in the house.�
“Yes, sir, in the garage. I will procure them at once.�
With the tools he had asked for at hand, Nick Carter lost no time in beginning the work of uncovering the entrance to the secret passage between the walls if one existed, and he had every reason to believe that one did exist.
He had not proceeded far with this part of the search when he made the discovery that the canvas upon which the portrait was painted had been stretched over a flat sheet of metal, probably steel, that there were no screw heads in sight, and that prying with the tools that Thomas had brought to him would be unavailable.
He attacked the frame of the picture, then, and here he could pry with his improvised levers.
It seemed like vandalism to injure that frame, for it was a beautiful and a costly one; but there was reason sufficient for doing so, and Nick Carter did not hesitate.
After a time the vertical strip to the right of the picture—that is, toward the east—began to give, and presently came loose in the detective’s grasp.
He pulled it aside and put it down upon the floor, and then turning his attention to the space that he had uncovered he immediately saw where there was a hole the size of a lead pencil, through the steel that hadbeen covered by that section of the frame that he had just removed.
A glance at the section of the frame itself revealed a small steel rod which was in the exact place where it would have fitted through the hole when the frame was in place, and at the outside of the frame it was fastened to a section of the ornamental part of it, so that if Nick had but known where to place his thumb a few moments sooner, it would have been unnecessary to have gone to all that trouble.
With the hammer he drove the small steel rod out of the frame, took it in his hand, inserted it in the hole, and pressed solidly upon it.
At once there was a sharp click from beyond the wall, and the whole picture moved outward the distance of a quarter of an inch, and stopped.
Nick put his fingers into the opening, and pulled, and the steel plate across which the canvas had been stretched responded to his effort.
It moved outward into the room on silent hinges, forming a perfect doorway, and it revealed—well, just what he had been seeking; more explicit description seems unnecessary just now.
To add to the possibilities of the secret entrance, its approach, the necessary stairs, and its general utility, a false chimney had been added to the construction of the house at just that point.
That, added to the thickness of the wall itself, afforded ample space for the object in view when the place was constructed, and it added to the general symmetry of the proportions of the building, also.
In the space into which the three men gazed, and which was at least four feet by six, and from one of which a spiral staircase descended, there were two chairs. There was also an incandescent electric bulb brilliantly alight; and there were also many stumps of handmade cigarettes, burnt matches, and sprinklings of tobacco on the stone floor.
“Red Mike evidently waited for Madge right here while she entered the room,� was the comment of the detective, as he gazed upon these things.
“Sure thing,� agreed Patsy. “Here is where he waited for the signal to enter.�
“And there,� rejoined the detective, “is where the secret door is worked to open and close it from this side of the wall.�
But he was already moving forward when he spoke, and had begun to descend the spiral stairs.
If it should seem incredible to the reader that in this modern day there should be such an arrangement inside one of the New York palaces, it will be interesting to know that the police records show three instances of the kind in palatial residences that have been built by multimillionaires within the last two decades.
And one of these to which reference is made—the mystery of which has never been revealed in print—was instrumental in one of the most sensational crimes that has happened in the city of New York within a generation.
But, to quote Kipling, that is another story.
This particular spiral staircase down which NickCarter was making his way, began—or ended, as you prefer—at the second floor of the mansion.
It continued past the parlor floor of the house, there being no indication of possible egress from it there, and came to an end, apparently, before a heavy door upon which there was only an ordinary latch.
Raising this and pushing upon the door, Nick stepped into the inner vault of a wine cellar, and he noticed that in opening the door he had pushed out into the room an entire section of shelves.
This wine cellar was of ample proportions.
There was a round table in the center of it, and four chairs at the table; but that was not what attracted the immediate attention of the detective so much as the very evident fact that only a very short time had elapsed since some person or persons had been seated there.
The place still smelled of tobacco smoke from handmade cigarettes, indicating that Red Mike had at least been one of those persons. A single black kid glove on the floor near one of the chairs suggested that Madge had also been one of those who were present.
The fact that two incandescent lights were burning directly over the table suggested that the occupants had departed in haste.
The detective—Patsy and Thomas had both followed him—looked around him with closer attention.
He had at once reached the conclusion that Red Mike and Madge, with Lynne, had stopped in this wine cellar to wait there for a more propitious opportunity for leaving the house—doubtless with theidea of waiting there until night, so that they might escape from the neighborhood with little or no danger of being observed.
He assumed that after taking Lynne to the wine cellar Mike had returned to the space behind the portrait and had waited there, listening to all that had happened in the room from which they had taken their prisoner, and that he had heard enough to make him understand that Nick Carter suspected the presence of a secret entrance to that room.
Thus forewarned, Red Mike had doubtless hastened down the spiral staircase and given the alarm, which would account for the evidence of hasty departure.
But, of a surety, Lynne had been detained in that cellar long enough to have recovered from the effects of that first administering of the chloroform.
Nick Carter had known Lynne only a comparatively short time, but he had found the heir to the Lynne millions to be a cool, self-centered, well-poised man, one of the kind who, trained to life in the great West, never lost his head under any circumstances.
Such being the case, Lynne would, if there happened a possible opportunity, leave some indication or sign of his presence, wherever he might stop.
He would leave what he would call a trail, where any person following in search of him might find it.
Nick had read the man so, and now he looked for such a sign.
He discovered it, too, presently, on one of the bottles of Burgundy in a case that had been opened a long time, and which stood at the top of a pile close to thechair upon which Lynne had doubtless been seated when the effects of the chloroform had worn off.
Dust had collected upon one of the bottles of wine from which the tissue paper had been torn, and upon that collected dust, faintly traced, as if with one of the burnt matches that Red Mike had used and thrown aside, in lighting his cigarettes, were written words.
They were faint, and almost undecipherable at first; there was every indication, too, that they had been written by jerks, and at intervals, sometimes only half of a letter having been formed at a time.
This, of course, had been done to escape observation.
But Nick Carter brought forth his magnifying glass and bent to the task; and after an interval of patient effort he was able to read the message. Here it is: