Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
* * * * *
NICK CARTER STORIES
New Magnet Library
Price, Fifteen Cents _Not a Dull Book in This List_
Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that
the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the
work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no
other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of
new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from
all sorts of troubles and landed the criminal just where he should
be--behind the bars.
The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories
than any other single person.
Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been
selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of
them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth
covers which sells at ten times the price.
If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet
Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.
_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_
850--Wanted: A Clew By Nicholas Carter
851--A Tangled Skein By Nicholas Carter
852--The Bullion Mystery By Nicholas Carter
853--The Man of Riddles By Nicholas Carter
854--A Miscarriage of Justice By Nicholas Carter
855--The Gloved Hand By Nicholas Carter
856--Spoilers and the Spoils By Nicholas Carter
857--The Deeper Game By Nicholas Carter
858--Bolts from Blue Skies By Nicholas Carter
859--Unseen Foes By Nicholas Carter
860--Knaves in High Places By Nicholas Carter
861--The Microbe of Crime By Nicholas Carter
862--In the Toils of Fear By Nicholas Carter
863--A Heritage of Trouble By Nicholas Carter
864--Called to Account By Nicholas Carter
865--The Just and the Unjust By Nicholas Carter
866--Instinct at Fault By Nicholas Carter
867--A Rogue Worth Trapping By Nicholas Carter
868--A Rope of Slender Threads By Nicholas Carter
869--The Last Call By Nicholas Carter
870--The Spoils of Chance By Nicholas Carter
871--A Struggle With Destiny By Nicholas Carter
872--The Slave of Crime By Nicholas Carter
873--The Crook’s Blind By Nicholas Carter
874--A Rascal of Quality By Nicholas Carter
875--With Shackles of Fire By Nicholas Carter
876--The Man Who Changed Faces By Nicholas Carter
877--The Fixed Alibi By Nicholas Carter
878--Out With the Tide By Nicholas Carter
879--The Soul Destroyers By Nicholas Carter
880--The Wages of Rascality By Nicholas Carter
881--Birds of Prey By Nicholas Carter
882--When Destruction Threatens By Nicholas Carter
883--The Keeper of Black Hounds By Nicholas Carter
884--The Door of Doubt By Nicholas Carter
885--The Wolf Within By Nicholas Carter
886--A Perilous Parole By Nicholas Carter
887--The Trail of the Finger Prints By Nicholas Carter
888--Dodging the Law By Nicholas Carter
889--A Crime in Paradise By Nicholas Carter
890--On the Ragged Edge By Nicholas Carter
891--The Red God of Tragedy By Nicholas Carter
892--The Man Who Paid By Nicholas Carter
893--The Blind Man’s Daughter By Nicholas Carter
894--One Object in Life By Nicholas Carter
895--As a Crook Sows By Nicholas Carter
896--In Record Time By Nicholas Carter
897--Held in Suspense By Nicholas Carter
898--The $100,000 Kiss By Nicholas Carter
899--Just One Slip By Nicholas Carter
900--On a Million-dollar Trail By Nicholas Carter
901--A Weird Treasure By Nicholas Carter
902--The Middle Link By Nicholas Carter
903--To the Ends of the Earth By Nicholas Carter
904--When Honors Pall By Nicholas Carter
905--The Yellow Brand By Nicholas Carter
906--A New Serpent in Eden By Nicholas Carter
907--When Brave Men Tremble By Nicholas Carter
908--A Test of Courage By Nicholas Carter
909--Where Peril Beckons By Nicholas Carter
910--The Gargoni Girdle By Nicholas Carter
911--Rascals & Co. By Nicholas Carter
912--Too Late to Talk By Nicholas Carter
913--Satan’s Apt Pupil By Nicholas Carter
914--The Girl Prisoner By Nicholas Carter
915--The Danger of Folly By Nicholas Carter
916--One Shipwreck Too Many By Nicholas Carter
917--Scourged by Fear By Nicholas Carter
918--The Red Plague By Nicholas Carter
919--Scoundrels Rampant By Nicholas Carter
920--From Clew to Clew By Nicholas Carter
921--When Rogues Conspire By Nicholas Carter
922--Twelve in a Grave By Nicholas Carter
923--The Great Opium Case By Nicholas Carter
924--A Conspiracy of Rumors By Nicholas Carter
925--A Klondike Claim By Nicholas Carter
926--The Evil Formula By Nicholas Carter
927--The Man of Many Faces By Nicholas Carter
928--The Great Enigma By Nicholas Carter
929--The Burden of Proof By Nicholas Carter
930--The Stolen Brain By Nicholas Carter
931--A Titled Counterfeiter By Nicholas Carter
932--The Magic Necklace By Nicholas Carter
933--’Round the World for a Quarter By Nicholas Carter
934--Over the Edge of the World By Nicholas Carter
935--In the Grip of Fate By Nicholas Carter
936--The Case of Many Clews By Nicholas Carter
937--The Sealed Door By Nicholas Carter
938--Nick Carter and the Green Goods Men By Nicholas Carter
939--The Man Without a Will By Nicholas Carter
940--Tracked Across the Atlantic By Nicholas Carter
941--A Clew From the Unknown By Nicholas Carter
942--The Crime of a Countess By Nicholas Carter
943--A Mixed Up Mess By Nicholas Carter
944--The Great Money Order Swindle By Nicholas Carter
945--The Adder’s Brood By Nicholas Carter
946--A Wall Street Haul By Nicholas Carter
947--For a Pawned Crown By Nicholas Carter
* * * * *
HIDDEN FOES
OR, A FATAL MISCALCULATION
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]
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
* * * * *
Copyright, 1917 By Street & Smith Corporation
Hidden Foes
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
* * * * *
HIDDEN FOES.
CHAPTER I. A MYSTERIOUS FATALITY.
Nobody had heard the report of a pistol.
There had been no disturbance; in fact, no audible altercation, no
startling cry for help, or even a groan of sudden, terrible distress.
The man lay there as motionless, nevertheless, as if felled by a
thunderbolt. His life had been snuffed out like the flame of a candle
by the fury of a whirlwind. Death had come upon him like a bolt from
the blue. By slow degrees his face underwent a change--but it was not
the change that ordinarily follows sudden death, that peaceful calm
that marks the end of earthly toil and trouble.
Instead, the smoothly shaven skin seemed to shrink and wither slightly
over the dead nerves and lifeless muscles, and a singular slaty hue
that was hardly perceptible settled around his lips and nostrils,
partly dispelling the first deathly pallor. It was as if the blast
from a furnace, or the searing touch of a fiery hand, had withered and
parched it.
He was a comparatively young man, not over thirty, and he was
fashionably clad in a plaid business suit. He was lying flat on his
back on the floor of the second-story corridor of a building known as
the Waldmere Chambers, in the city of Madison.
Presently the door of one of the several adjoining rooms was opened
and a stylish young woman emerged. She was clad for the street, and
lingered to lock the door and put the key in her leather hand bag. Then
she turned, and her gaze fell upon the prostrate man, several yards
away and nearer the broad stairway leading down to the lower floor and
the street door.
“Good heavens! Is he drunk?” she gasped, shrinking involuntarily.
She feared to approach him, though her hesitation was only momentary.
For she heard the tread of some one on the stairs, obviously that of a
man, and she ventured nearer just as the other appeared at the top of
the stairs, a well-built, florid man of middle age.
“Oh, Doctor Perry, look here!” she cried excitedly. “What’s the matter
with this man? Is he drunk or ill, or what is the----”
“Well, well, I don’t wonder you ask.” Doctor Perry approached and gazed
down at him. “I don’t know, Miss Vernon. He appears to be----”
He stopped short; then crouched and raised the man’s arm, dropping it
quickly. It fell back upon the floor as if made of clay.
“Heavens!” he exclaimed, rising hurriedly. “The man is dead.”
“Dead!” Miss Vernon echoed, turning pale.
“Stone dead. Do you know him?”
“No. I just came from my rooms to go to lunch and saw him lying here.”
“Did you hear him fall, or any disturbance, or----”
“I heard nothing, Doctor Perry, not a sound.”
“We must call a policeman. I will wait here while you do so. Go down to
the street and find an officer.”
“Won’t it be better to telephone? I can do so in a moment.”
“Yes, yes, in that case,” Doctor Perry nodded. “Hasten.”
Miss Vernon ran back and entered her rooms, on the door of which a
modest brass plate stated that her business was that of a manicure and
ladies’ hairdresser. She ran to a telephone in one of the attractively
furnished rooms, crying quickly to the exchange operator:
“Give me the police headquarters. Hurry, please! It’s an emergency
case.”
Seated with Chief Gleason in the latter’s private office when the
telephone call was received in the outer office was the celebrated
American detective, Nicholas Carter, who had arrived in Madison early
that morning with two of his assistants, and who then was discussing
with the chief the business which had occasioned his visit, the nature
of which will presently appear. They were interrupted by a police
sergeant, who knocked and entered, saying quickly:
“A man has dropped dead, chief, in a corridor of the Waldmere Chambers.
Shall I send the ambulance?”
“What man? Is he known?” Gleason questioned, swinging around in his
swivel chair.
“No, sir.”
“Who informed you?”
“A woman telephoned that the body had just been found. Doctor Perry,
the dentist, was watching it while she telephoned. His office is in the
Waldmere Chambers. Neither of them knew the dead man.”
“Yes, send the ambulance,” Chief Gleason directed. “You had better go,
also, and look into the case. If----”
“One moment,” Nick Carter interrupted. “I think I’ll go with him,
chief, if you don’t mind.”
“What need of that? It is merely a case of----”
“We don’t know what kind of a case it is, Gleason, at present,” Carter
cut in again. “A sudden death always warrants more or less suspicion.
It is barely possible that this has some connection with the series of
mysterious crimes that we have been discussing, and which has finally
led you to call on me for assistance. Be that as it may----”
“Hang it, Carter, I’ll go with you myself, then,” Gleason interrupted,
rising and taking his cap. “You may be right, of course, and the
chance is worth taking. You remain here, sergeant, but send along the
ambulance. We’ll take a taxi.”
Chief Gleason started for the street while speaking, closely followed
by the famous detective, and they were so fortunate as to find a
taxicab just passing the headquarters building.
Thus it happened that Nicholas Carter arrived upon the scene of the
sudden fatality scarcely ten minutes after it was discovered. He
was not without an intuitive feeling, moreover, that he was to be
confronted with a mystery of more than ordinary depth and obscurity, a
case that would tax not only his rare detective genius, but also his
skill, craft, and cunning in every department of his professional work.
“I think, Gleason, that you had better not mention my name while we
are looking into this matter,” he remarked, as they were alighting from
the taxicab.
“Very well,” Gleason readily assented. “But what do you expect to gain
by suppressing it?”
“Just what is hard to say at this stage of the game,” Carter replied.
“If all you have told me is true, however, and Madison is afflicted
with a crook whose crafty work has completely baffled your entire
police department, it may be of some advantage to me, at least, if he
does not immediately learn that I have been employed to run him down.
That would serve only to put him on his guard.”
“I see the point,” Gleason nodded. “I agree with you, too.”
“The fact has not been disclosed, I understand.”
“Only to a few members of the force, Carter; all of whom were ordered
to say nothing about it. They may be trusted.”
“Very good! If there should be occasion to introduce me to others,
then, present me as Mr. Blaisdell,” Carter directed. “That is the name
under which I am registered at the Wilton House.”
“Blaisdell--I’ll bear it in mind.”
“Come on, then,” the detective added. “We are none too soon. A crowd is
beginning to gather.”
Their remarks had been made while they were entering the building.
A group of men had collected at the top of the stairs. They were
restrained by a policeman who had been called in from the street, and a
passageway was hurriedly made for Chief Gleason and his companion. That
the latter was the famous New York detective, not even the policeman
then suspected.
The scene in the second-floor corridor was about what Nick Carter
anticipated. Half a score of men and women had come from the adjoining
rooms and offices and were gazing with mingled awe and consternation
at the lifeless man on the floor. He was lying where he had fallen. A
physician had been hurriedly summoned and was bending over him, engaged
in making a superficial examination.
Chief Gleason started slightly when he beheld the upturned face of the
dead man.
“Good heavens!” he muttered. “It’s Gaston Todd.”
Carter heard his muttered exclamation. Restraining him, at the same
time furtively watching the physician, he said quietly:
“One moment, chief. Who is Gaston Todd? What about him?”
“He was born and brought up here,” Gleason replied. “He had been in the
stock brokerage business for ten years, cashier for Daly & Page. He was
a clubman and a figure in society.”
“Married?”
“No. He had a suite in the Wilton House. By Jove, it’s barely possible
that----”
“What is barely possible?”
“That you are right.”
“Right in what respect? Tell me.”
Carter had noticed the chief’s hesitation, his dark frown, as if he had
started to say something which discretion quickly led him to withhold.
He demurred only for a moment, however, then explained with lowered
voice:
“Right, perhaps in thinking there is knavery back of this. There had
been a feeling of bitter rivalry between Todd and a young local
lawyer, Frank Paulding, who is an exceedingly impetuous and hot-headed
chap. They had an ugly altercation in the Country Club last night, I
have heard, and it is said that they nearly came to blows. That may
have ended it, of course, though this sudden death of Todd, following
it so quickly----”
“Is somewhat significant,” Nick Carter put in quietly. “I agree with
you. In what have the two men been rivals?”
“For the hand of Edna Thurlow, by far the most beautiful and
accomplished girl in Madison. She inherited half a million when her
father died. Her mother, Mrs. Mortimer Thurlow, is also very wealthy
and fashionable. She’s the acknowledged leader of the local smart set.
The two men may have met here this morning. Possibly the fight of last
night was resumed, resulting in----”
“Let it go at that,” the detective interrupted. “The physician has
ended his examination.”