NICK CARTER STORIES
_Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post
Office, by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Ave., New York. Copyright,
1915, by_ STREET & SMITH. _O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors._
Terms to NICK CARTER STORIES Mail Subscribers.
(_Postage Free._)
Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each.
3 months 65c.
4 months 85c.
6 months $1.25
One year 2.50
2 copies one year 4.00
1 copy two years 4.00
=How to Send Money=--By post-office or express money order, registered
letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by
currency, coin, or postage stamps in ordinary letter.
=Receipts=--Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change
of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly
credited, and should let us know at once.
=No. 143.= NEW YORK, June 5, 1915. =Price Five Cents.=
THE SULTAN’S PEARLS;
Or, NICK CARTER’S PORTO RICO TRAIL.
Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE MAN WHO WAS LOST.
“Man overboard!”
Nick Carter--known to the captain and crew of the tramp steamer
_Cherokee_ as Sykes, the bos’n--heard this shout, taken up by man
after man, as he lay stretched out on the foc’s’le head, in the early
morning, just as the ship nosed her way into San Juan harbor, on the
northern coast of Porto Rico.
The thrilling warning that somebody has fallen into the sea, which
always sends a shock through both crew and passengers whenever heard,
does not permit any ordinary person to remain quietly dozing.
The famous detective was one of the first to rush over to the side of
the ship when the alarm had been given.
Close by him were his two assistants, Chick and Patsy Garvan, who, in
the rôles of common sailors, had come down to Porto Rico to help him
get back the fortune in jewels which had been stolen from Stephen Reed,
the well-known New York millionaire.
“Who is it, chief?” asked Patsy, forcing his way to the front.
“I haven’t heard.”
“One of the crew, I suppose?” hazarded Chick.
“No doubt. There is only one passenger on board now, Paul Clayton. It
isn’t he, for there he is, behind you.”
Meanwhile, under orders from Captain Bill Lawton himself, two life
rings, each with some thirty fathoms of line attached, had been hurled
over in the direction of where the drowning man might be expected to be.
It was too dark to make out plainly anything in the water, but a sharp
lookout was kept for an hour, until the vessel reached her anchorage
and the “mud hooks” were let go.
“Well, we couldn’t do any better,” grunted Captain Lawton, through his
shaggy mustache, as he and his big, two-fisted first mate, Van Cross,
stood together on the bridge. “We might have a roll call of the crew. I
don’t know who it was went over. I reckon it wasn’t anybody who might
have become President of the United States, nor nothing like that.”
The saturnine skipper gave vent to a husky “Haw-haw!” at his own joke,
and Van Cross joined in with an equally raucous guffaw.
Nick Carter was the only person on board the _Cherokee_ who thought of
a certain possibility which would attach more importance to the falling
off the vessel of the man than its commander had supposed.
“Patsy!” whispered Nick. “Go to Mr. Clayton’s cabin and see if that
suit case of his, containing the Reed jewelry, is safe.”
“I can’t see it unless Clayton is there,” objected Patsy.
“Naturally. But he is there. I saw him go down just now. You may tell
him I sent you to inquire.”
“Who shall I say? Sykes?”
“Of course. I have no other name on the _Cherokee_.”
As Patsy Garvan disappeared to obey his chief, although without
understanding what it all meant, Nick Carter beckoned to Chick, and the
two went down a forward hatch.
“What’s the idea, chief?” asked Chick.
“I want to see that the prisoners are secure, Chick. It has always been
difficult to keep John Garrison Rayne behind the bars--except when he
is inside the stone walls of a State’s prison--and I have not much
faith in the place they have him in on the _Cherokee_.”
“The same about his man French, I suppose?”
“French is an insignificant scoundrel,” returned Nick. “He is entirely
under Rayne’s influence. I dare say he regrets that he ever was
persuaded to come on this ship--to act as assistant engineer and to do
what he could toward robbing Clayton of the Reed jewelry.”
“The whole case strikes me as curious,” observed Chick. “To begin
with, the robbery of Stephen Reed was traced directly to Paul Clayton,
the passenger they call Miles.”
“I know, Chick. But I don’t want that talked about.”
“Nobody’s talking about it,” rejoined Chick. “Except to you. Of course,
I think enough of Clayton--and his sweetheart, Lethia Ford--to be glad
you are letting him go. But that isn’t all. If there should be any
hitch about the delivery of the loot to Stephen Reed, it might put you
in a bad position.”
Chick spoke with a gravity and directness that no one else would have
ventured on with Nick Carter. But as the principal assistant of the
great detective he had gained the right to advise with his chief, and
the latter valued his counsel.
“There will not be any hitch,” answered Nick positively. “Paul Clayton
has kept a constant eye on his suit case ever since we got it away from
Rayne the other day.”
“Rayne nearly had it, in the engine room, that time,” remarked Chick,
with a shrug.
“I cannot admit that,” was the detective’s quick negative. “He had
stolen the suit case, jewelry and all, from Clayton’s stateroom, it is
true. Also, he had stowed it away in the engine room. But, unless he
got it off the ship, of what use could it ever have been to him?”
Chick shook his head dubiously.
“He’s as cunning as any old-time Indian, and you can’t tell what he
might have done. No wonder they call him the Apache.”
“He is called the Apache partly because he is so ruthless when pursuing
any object,” said Nick. “Remember that. I don’t believe I ever knew
another white man with quite so cruel a disposition. He neither asks
nor gives quarter. I give him credit for being a fighter. Only, like
the Indian warrior of thirty or forty years ago, he is not satisfied
with merely overcoming his foe. He wants to torture and kill him, too.
But, come on, Chick! We’ll take a look at the door of his glory hole,
anyhow. I don’t suppose it was Rayne who jumped or fell overboard just
now. But I want to make sure.”
Chick was a few paces ahead of his chief as they turned a corner in a
narrow passage, lighted by an oil lantern swinging from the ceiling,
and it was Chick who exploded in a shout of astonishment and dismay.
“Chief! He’s gone!”
“Who?”
“Rayne!”
Nick Carter required only one glance at the open door of the confined
space used as a prison cell on the _Cherokee_ to understand that
the man who had gone overboard was really John Garrison Rayne, the
international crook, known as the Apache.
There were three cells in a row. When not employed as prisons they were
used as storerooms for rope, spare canvas, and similar material. Now
one was full of such stuff, the second was locked, and the third stood
open.
“Well, it doesn’t so much matter,” remarked Nick Carter, when satisfied
that Rayne had got away. “Of course he dived off the ship and swam to
shore. He may hang about San Juan. But most likely he will get away as
soon as there is a ship sailing that suits him. We have the comfort of
knowing that he failed to steal the Reed jewelry, and that is the main
point, after all. Come on, Chick! We’ll go on deck.”
Hardly had they got there when they heard Captain Lawton raging
profanely up and down.
“Six hundred dollars!” howled the skipper. “In good American money!
Took it out of my locker, and had to break a lock that was strong
enough for a jail door! But I’ll get the thief somehow. Mr. Cross!”
Van Cross, who had been enjoying a quiet cigar, looked down from the
bridge, and, in a surly tone, asked what was wanted.
“Line up the whole crew and find out first who it was that went
overboard,” growled Captain Lawton.
“I can tell you that,” put in Nick Carter, in his character of Sykes,
the boatswain.
“Whoever he is, he got six hundred dollars out of my cabin!” roared the
skipper. “I’ll skin him alive when I get my hands on him. Who is he?”
“The passenger you shut up for’ard for trying to steal the property of
the passenger you call Mr. Miles,” replied Nick. “He has got out of the
brig, and he is not on the ship.”
“What?” bellowed the wrathful skipper. “Do you mean to tell me that
lubber has broken out? Who is he, anyhow? He says he is a business man,
and he looks like it. Do you know anything about him?”
“I think I do,” replied the detective. “I believe he is an ex-convict
named John Garrison Rayne.”
“John Garrison Rayne?” shouted Lawton. “I’ve heard of that fellow. He
operates all over this continent.”
“And on others, too,” put in Chick.
“Come down to my cabin with me, Sykes, and help me go through my sea
chest again. Bring your two men with you. Come on, Cross! I’ll rummage
it from top to the very bottom.”
That is exactly what they did do. The locker belonging to Captain
Lawton was an old-fashioned affair, such as seamen were more accustomed
to use fifty years ago than in these days.
They had everything out and in again before the skipper was convinced
that his money really was gone.
“Cross!” he bellowed.
The mate stepped to his side, looking at him questioningly.
“I’m going ashore!” announced Captain Lawton.
“When?”
“Now!” thundered the commander. “I’m going to find that lubber who
dived overboard with my money. And, when I get him, I’ll turn him
inside out. Then I’ll----”
“I wouldn’t,” advised Van Cross. “You have to look after the ship now
we are in port.”
“You can do that,” interrupted Lawton savagely. “A captain can trust
his first mate to do some things, can’t he?”
“Sure!” assented Van Cross. “But I don’t believe you’d ever find that
man if you did go after him. Now, here’s this Sykes, who has just said
he knows the man. Why don’t you let him go?”
“How do I know he’d ever come back?”
“He hasn’t got his wages, has he?” grinned Cross. “Don’t give him
anything to spend, and he’s bound to come back. Besides, he’s got it in
for that tall, gray-haired lubber himself. I know that from some words
he let drop when he didn’t know I was near.”
Nick Carter overheard this confab, notwithstanding that it was
conducted in hoarse whispers, and it coincided with his inclinations
exactly.
He wanted to get ashore, for he was nervous over the way Rayne had left
the ship.
He knew it was not like the Apache to give up a purpose he had nearly
carried to fruition without fighting it to the end, and he believed
something more would be heard of him before they were out of San Juan.
It would suit Nick exactly to go ashore, and, as he did not know just
when he would be back, he resolved that he would take at least one of
his assistants with him.
He was glad when he found that the master of the _Cherokee_ was willing
that he should go.
“Will you go into the town and see if you can get any trace of that
lubber who jumped overboard, Sykes?” asked Captain Lawton, turning to
him with as propitiatory an expression as his rocky face would permit.
“Just loaf around in saloons and places where you’d be likely to pick
up news.”
“And if I find the man?” asked Nick.
“Bring him aboard, and I’ll deal with him,” was the significant answer.
“Once you find him, that will be enough.”
“How many men can I have with me?” asked Nick.
“How many do you want?”
“Two. Give me my two old shipmates. We’ve worked together before, and
I’d rather have them than anybody else.”
The captain gave a growling consent, and Nick Carter went forward to
get his two assistants.
“The suit case is all right,” announced Patsy. “I talked to Clayton,
and he said he would not let it out of his hands until he had taken it
to a bank in San Juan.”
“The wise course!” approved Nick. “We are going ashore--you and
Chick--with me.”
“Bully! To get Rayne?” asked Patsy.
“If we can.”
“Well, you bet we can,” was the confident response, accompanied by a
chuckle of delight at the prospect of some real action.