TOYING WITH FATE;
OR,
Nick Carter’s Narrow Shave
BY
NICHOLAS CARTER
Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures, which
are published exclusively in the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY, conceded
to be among the best detective tales ever written.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1903
By STREET & SMITH
Toying With Fate
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian.
_The Best of Everything!_
Our experience with the American reading public has taught us that
it expects better reading than readers of any other nationality.
Why? Because Americans, as a rule, are better educated and more
intelligent. We make it a point to cater to all classes of readers
with our paper-covered novels. If a man likes adventure or detective
stories, he can find more and better ones in the S. & S. novel list
than he can among the cloth books. If a woman wants love, society, or
mystery stories, the S. & S. catalogue again contains just what she
wants at the lowest possible price. If a boy wants up-to-date baseball,
athletic, or treasure-hunt stories, he cannot get anything that will
please him so much as the books in the MEDAL and NEW MEDAL LIBRARIES,
no matter how much he has to spend for his reading matter.
Here are a few suggestions:
BOOKS FOR MEN.
The Nick Carter stories in the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY.
The Howard W. Erwin stories in the FAR WEST LIBRARY.
The William Wallace Cook stories in the NEW FICTION LIBRARY.
The Dumas stories in the SELECT LIBRARY.
BOOKS FOR WOMEN.
The Mrs. Georgie Sheldon stories in the NEW EAGLE SERIES.
The Charles Garvice stories in the NEW EAGLE SERIES.
The Bertha Clay stories in the BERTHA CLAY LIBRARY.
The Southworth stories in the SOUTHWORTH LIBRARY.
The Mrs. Mary J. Holmes stories in the EAGLE and SELECT LIBRARIES.
BOOKS FOR BOYS.
The Burt L. Standish stories in the NEW MEDAL LIBRARY.
The Horatio Alger stories in the MEDAL and NEW MEDAL LIBRARIES.
The Oliver Optic stories in the MEDAL and NEW MEDAL LIBRARIES.
The Edward C. Taylor stories in the NEW MEDAL LIBRARY.
Send for our complete catalogue and look these stories up. It will pay
you.
STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
Why Take a Chance?
Most everybody thinks that the public library is a mighty fine
institution--teaches people to read, and all that. Well, so it does,
but does any one ever think of the great risk that a person, who takes
a book out of a public library, runs of catching some contagious
disease?
Every time a bacteriological examination is made of the public-library
book, germs of every known disease are found among its pages. Probably,
from your own experience, you know that lots of people never think of
taking a book from the public library, until some one in their family
is sick and wants something to read.
As records prove that ninety per cent of the demand for books at the
public libraries is for works of fiction, it strikes us that the
reading public would do better to patronize the S. & S. novel list
which contains hundreds of books to be found in the public libraries,
and many hundreds of others just as good and interesting.
The price of the S. & S. novels is a low one indeed to pay for
protection from disease-laden literature. Why run the risk, then, when
you can get a fresh, clean book for little money and thus insure your
health?
STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_
NEW YORK
TOYING WITH FATE.
CHAPTER I.
THE MYSTERIOUS OLD MAN.
“Move on, old man, and go home!”
It was the stern voice of one of New York’s finest policemen that
uttered these words.
“Home! I wonder where it is?” muttered the old man to whom the
policeman had spoken, and a shudder ran through his frame, as he slowly
moved down the street.
As he reached the corner near old St. John’s Church, on Varick Street,
he paused, rubbed his eyes and gazed dreamily around him.
For some time before the policeman had addressed him he had been
standing inside the church, looking through the railings into the
churchyard.
His form was bent by decrepitude and sorrow, and his hair was as white
as the flaky snow that clung to the steeple of the old church, the
bells of which had just sounded the knell of the dying year.
The old man only halted on the corner for a minute, and then, crossing
Beach Street, he shuffled along until he reached the center of the
block, where he came to a standstill in front of an old-fashioned
house, which was unoccupied.
Then, as if a faintness had come over him, he grasped the rusty iron
railing to prevent himself falling to the ground, and he closed his
eyes, as though the sight of the snow-covered houses was too much for
him.
The policeman had followed him at a distance, and was watching him from
where he was standing on the corner.
“Poor devil!” muttered the guardian of the peace, as he swung his
nightstick back and forth. “I wonder who he is! He seems weak! Perhaps
at one time he amounted to something. God save me from ever coming to
his condition. I wonder why he stands so long in front of that old
empty house, which has been closed for twenty years, to my knowledge!
I’ll watch him a while, but I won’t molest him, poor devil!”
As the policeman concluded his soliloquy the old man straightened up
and walked up to the door of the house, the old knocker on which he
caught hold of and gave it a rap.
But suddenly, as if struck by some painful recollection, his hand fell
to his side and he staggered back to the middle of the sidewalk.
“Strange,” the policeman ejaculated, noting this action. “Perhaps he
lived there at one time.”
The old man looked up at the house, at which he gazed long and intently.
Then, suddenly arousing himself, he ambled back to the corner, stopping
near the policeman. He looked confusedly around him, from the left to
the right, and the policeman gazed at him closely, but spoke not a
word. On his part, he did not seem to see the man in uniform. He stood
bewildered, appearing not to know which way to turn.
“Why don’t you go home, old man?” the policeman asked, this time in a
softened tone of voice.
“Home!” the old fellow ejaculated--his voice was like a wail, a
heartbroken sob. “Home! where is it?”
“The Lord bless you, man, how can I tell you, if you can’t tell
yourself?”
“Twenty years ago--twenty years behind darkened walls--and this----” He
muttered the words in such a forlorn tone that the policeman stared at
him.
“Your brain is turned, old gentleman.”
The old man laughed and looked up into his questioner’s face with a
quizzical expression.
“My brain is clear, my friend,” he replied, in a clear, harsh tone. “I
have come from a prison--the world is strangely altered since I was in
it before.”
“In it before? Why, what do you mean? I suppose you will try and
persuade me that you have been dead and have risen from the grave.”
“Figuratively speaking, I have--I have been dead to the world--in
prison at Sing Sing. Mark me well--Sing Sing Prison--for twenty
years--to-day I was released. See me now. I am old, decrepit, hardly
able to walk. Once I stood erect, my hair was as black as the raven’s
wing, and now--look at me, a wreck without home or friends. Wife,
children, all gone! I have never seen nor heard of them since the day
I was taken out of yonder house a prisoner, by the unjust, hard, and
cruel decree of a so-called court of justice. Twenty years! A prisoner,
buried alive, as it were.”
“You had committed a crime?”
“No. I was innocent, but powerful conspirators plotted against me--the
evidence was perjured--and I--I--was entombed.”
“You say you lived in yonder house twenty years ago?”
“Yes, and no man carried his head higher than I did. I was rich--but
bah! what is the use of rehearsing those things to a stranger! Hardened
as you are by association with crime, you would not believe my story.
You would think that I was romancing. Things have sadly changed in this
neighborhood.”
“You may bet they have.”
“Once all these houses were occupied by rich people, but to-day they
are the abodes of the poor and the outcast.”
“What is your name?”
“My name! It matters not. Good night.”
“Well, well, keep your secret, old man. God bless you, and may this new
year bring you happiness.”
“Happiness! I shall never know that again. Good night, again.”
He moved off slowly, and the policeman watched him until he turned the
corner into West Broadway, when he proceeded to patrol his beat.
As the policeman moved away, a dark form came out of a near-by doorway
and hurried around the corner.
The man was tall, he wore a long ulster with the collar turned up
around his neck, and a slouch hat was pulled down over his eyes. He
followed closely in the old man’s trail.
The old man halted several times, and as he did so his form seemed to
lose its decrepitude. As the light from the street lamps shone upon his
face it could be seen that his eyes glared like two living coals; he
threw his hand aloft, and so fierce and startling was the action that
the man who was following him halted and shrank back for an instant, as
if he had been struck.
“Vengeance!” the old man hissed, and then he started on again.
The street was deserted, save by the old man and the man who was
following him.
The former walked on, looking up at the tall warehouses and store
buildings, muttering to himself.
More than once he put his hand up to his head and gazed about in a
bewildered manner.
His limbs shook under him, for a long time had passed since they had
been used to such exertion.
The fresh air came so strangely upon him that he panted for breath.
Suddenly he halted in front of an old-fashioned three-story brick
building near Chambers Street. A beacon-shaped red lamp was burning
over the doorway, and upon the front pane of glass was painted:
THE RED DRAGON INN.
Established by William Sill--1776.
It was an old landmark in the neighborhood, and it had always been
a hostelry. In revolutionary times it was a post roadhouse, and was
famous as the headquarters of many of the British officers. During
later days it became the resort, at the noonday hour, of many of New
York’s most staid and solid merchants, whose places of business were in
the vicinity.
At this time the ground floor was occupied by a man who ran a saloon
and restaurant, and who rented out the upstairs rooms to transient
lodgers. No improvements had been made about the place, and it stood
just as it did when it was conducted by its original owner.
As the old man paused in front of the inn the sound of voices and the
clinking of glasses came from within. He walked up to the door and
opened it. Then he stepped into the saloon, staggered up to the bar
and, in a low tone, ordered a glass of toddy, which was supplied to him.
A number of men were seated at the tables, drinking, and none of them
paid any attention to the newcomer, who drank his toddy while standing
and leaning against the bar.
The old man placed his empty glass back upon the counter, and facing
the bartender, said:
“I want a room for the night.”
“There is only one empty,” the bartender replied. “It is in the attic.”
“That will answer my purpose.”
“It will cost you one dollar.”
The old man drew a purse out of his pocket, took out the amount, and
handed it to the bartender, who asked:
“Do you want to retire now?”
“I do,” the old man answered.
“I will show you the way up.”
“It won’t be necessary. I am familiar with every room in the house.
Many a time I have stopped here in other days. If you will tell me
which room I am to occupy, I will go up to it.”
“The second room in the back part of the attic on the left of the
stairway is the one. You will find a lamp on a table in the hall on the
second floor.”
“All right.”
The old man left the room, while the bartender gazed after him with
curiosity. He climbed the stairway and reached the second floor, where
he found the lamp, and then proceeded upstairs to the attic room.
An hour after he retired, the house was silent, all the midnight
revelers having gone home, and the bartender having closed up the
saloon.
New Year’s Day dawned bright and clear.
The proprietor of the Red Dragon Inn opened the barroom, and at nine
o’clock the bartender came downstairs.
For a time the two men stood talking.
There were no customers in the place.
At last the bartender asked the proprietor if he had seen anything of
the strange old man who had come in after midnight.
The proprietor said that the old man had not appeared.
“Did he request you to call him?” he inquired.
“No,” the bartender answered. “Shall I go up and ask him if he wants
breakfast?”
“Yes.”
The bartender ascended to the attic.
The door of the room which the old man had been assigned to stood ajar.
The man knocked, but there was no answer. He pounded again and shouted.
Still no answer. Finally the man pushed the door open. A terrible
sight met his gaze. Stretched out upon the bed he beheld the old man,
with his throat cut from ear to ear. His hands were folded across his
breast, and he was covered by the coverlet of the bed. Evidently there
had been no struggle.
The bartender uttered a cry of alarm, but he did not enter the room.
As soon as he recovered from his surprise he dashed off downstairs,
crying “Murder!” at the top of his voice.
Instantly the house was aroused, and in a short time a great crowd
congregated in the street in front of the door.