A DARING EXPERIMENT.
To say that one will visit an apartment in a large hotel-apartment house
during the absence of its owner or occupant, and search it, and to
perform that ceremony are two very different propositions, as Nick
Carter was destined speedily to discover.
The name of the particular one in which Madge Babbington had elected to
reside after her acquittal at the trial was the Creotoria, and it was
located on Broadway in that uptown section of the city where so many of
those great edifices have been erected in the last few years.
It was eleven o’clock at night when the detective arrived there and
entered the wide and spacious corridor which led to the office desk, and
Nick found out at once that it was impossible for him to ascend to any
of the upper floors of the building without first giving some adequate
reason for doing so.
The obstacles which confronted him in the carrying out of his design
seemed almost insurmountable at first, as he approached the desk where
an expectant clerk stood waiting to receive him, having seen him enter
at the front doorway--for this was no transient place, at which one
might apply for lodgings for the night.
Plainly, the only way for the detective even to begin the
accomplishment of what he had set out to do was to pretend that some one
whom he knew lived there; but at the moment he could not recall that he
had ever heard of the house until he had been informed that Mrs.
Hurd-Babbington had gone there to live.
“I am seeking the apartment of an acquaintance who possibly resides
here,” he said to the clerk, as he stopped at the desk and leaned upon
it. “Will you let me see your house directory, please?”
“If you will give me the name I can save you the trouble of looking
through the directory,” replied the clerk.
“Grafton,” said Nick, mentioning the first name that occurred to
him--the name, by the way, of a very oldtime acquaintance, whom he had
not seen for years, and whose home, when last Nick Carter knew him, was
in London.
And right here happened one of those strange coincidences--or phases of
luck, whichever one chooses to name it--which occur in the experience of
every person of active life; for the clerk replied at once, and without
an instant of hesitation:
“Oh, yes; Colonel Grafton. Certainly, he lives here. It is not ten
minutes since he went up in the elevator. Will you telephone up to him?
Or--if you will give me your name, I will have it attended to for you.”
“I will go directly to the apartment, since the colonel has only just
gone up himself,” the detective replied carelessly. “Will you tell me
how to find it?”
“Certainly, sir. Tenth floor, Broadway front; number one thousand and
one.”
“Thank you.”
“Give me your name, please, and I will telephone up that you are coming.
It is the rule, you know.”
“Just say that it is Mr. Parsons,” replied the detective, as he turned
and hurried toward one of the elevators; and he did some tall thinking
while the swiftly moving cage was bearing him to the tenth floor of the
enormous building.
For the Grafton whom Nick Carter knew and whose name he had made use of
on the impulse of the moment was not a colonel, and this man of the
Creotoria could not be he.
Nevertheless, Nick had hit upon a name of a resident of the building,
and there was so much gained, at least.
The detective hurried through the corridor of the tenth floor toward
number one thousand and one, and discovered, as he approached it, that a
tall, military-looking gentleman, with white mustache and imperial, and
with a distinctly soldierly bearing, was standing in the open door
awaiting his approach.
And Nick, when he was close enough, pretended great surprise in greeting
the man.
“Why!” he exclaimed; “there must be some mistake! You are not my friend
Grafton. Have I, by any chance, been directed to the wrong apartment?”
“I think not,” was the smiling reply. “My name is Grafton, although I
have not the slightest recollection of you, sir. I am Colonel Morely
Grafton, of the British army. Will you step inside, sir? It is possible
that I can aid you in finding the man you seek, for Grafton is not a
common name. We all claim relation.”
“My friend by that name is Paul Grafton, a resident of London,” replied
the detective.
“I have a nephew by that name, whose home is in London,” was the reply,
as the colonel led the way into the sitting room. “He is now in India.
Will you be seated, sir?”
Nick sat down.
He realized that now, in order to carry out what he had gone there to
do, he must waste a few moments in conversation with this man, in order
that no suspicion might be attached to his call; and in the conversation
that followed it came out that the nephew of the old colonel was really
the detective’s friend.
And so, nearly half an hour was used up in chatting with the British
officer before Nick Carter ventured to rise and take his leave; and when
he did so he had to promise the colonel that he would call again at some
future time.
But he had found his way into the house, and the rest of his design was
now open to him.
The number of the apartment occupied by Madge Babbington was known to
the detective, and, because of that number, nine hundred and one, he
knew it to be directly beneath the one occupied by the soldier.
It was then midnight.
The corridors were deserted.
It is true that from some of the apartments, as Nick passed them, came
sounds which indicated that the occupants were still very much alive
and awake; but he paid no attention to these things, hurrying onward and
descending to the next floor below by the first stairway he could find;
and so he found himself, presently, before the door of nine hundred and
one.
He listened at the door for a moment, but not a sound came to him from
within; and yet he figured that it was more than likely that at least
one servant was somewhere inside, awaiting the return of the mistress.
He speculated for a moment as to whether he should use his picklock, and
so force his way inside, or ring the bell and trust to his ready wit and
assurance to be permitted to wait--and he decided on the former course,
realizing fully the risk he ran in doing so if he should be discovered.
That picklock of his which has been mentioned has often been described
in the Nick Carter histories, and needs no further description here,
save to say that it is an instrument of the detective’s own invention,
and is a magic wand in his possession when it comes to the opening of
locked doors. Even Yale locks are not proof against it.
He took it from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, manipulated it for
a moment, and so pushed open the communicating door, stepped inside,
closed it after him, and then stood very quietly in the hallway while he
listened for any sound that might be made.
But there was none.
A dim light shaded by a red globe burned in that hallway; beyond, from
one of the rooms, a brighter light glowed invitingly, and Nick tiptoed
his way toward it and peered inside the room.
It was deserted, and, after assuring himself of the fact, the detective
began a tour of the apartment, passing from room to room, to discover if
there was any living presence in the place at all.
It did not take him long to become assured that he was the only person
there, although he saw many evidences of the recent presence of one or
more servants, and he came to the decision--correctly, as it
happened--that the maid and perhaps another servant had taken the
opportunity of their mistress’ absence to pass an hour or two with other
servants in another part of the building.
At all events, the detective was satisfied that the way was open to
him--for how long a time he could not determine--to search the place for
proofs of the things he suspected, if proofs were there.
Of course, there was the possibility that one or both of the servants
might return at any moment and surprise him--for it was now considerably
past midnight--but he relied upon his own resources to conceal himself
until there was offered an opportunity to escape, if such a thing should
happen.
During his first tour of the apartment he had selected the room in which
he believed such evidence might be found if any existed--- a small room
which opened off from the library and was separated from it by
portières.
It contained a roll-top desk, which was closed and locked; a cabinet
letter file, which was also carefully locked against intrusion--and, in
short, bore the general resemblance of a sort of office room; and at one
corner of it there was a very small safe, which Nick believed he could
lift and carry away with him, if he so desired.
“If there is anything here at all to interest me, and to supply the
proof I want, it is inside that little safe,” was the detective’s
thought, as he looked at it and estimated its weight not to exceed a
hundred pounds at the most.
It stood upon a shelf of hard wood that had evidently been placed there
for its reception, and a Navaho blanket had been draped over it, to
conceal it.
Nick tried the handle of the safe door, to discover if Madge had left it
unlocked, by any chance; but it was safely locked against intrusion, and
so the detective spun the dial of the combination lock, preparatory to
resting one ear against it to find the tumblers by sound, for he was an
expert in that art, which, be it known, is a profession by itself.
He had just placed one ear against the dial, or so close to it that not
a sound that might occur inside the lock would escape him; he had just
begun to turn the dial when he was startled by the rattle of a key in
the lock of the outer door of the apartment, and was made conscious of
the fact that somebody was returning; but whether it was one of the
servants, or the mistress herself, he had no means, just then, of
determining.
Instantly he switched off the light in that small room, and then, as he
heard footsteps approaching the room which adjoined it, he stepped
quickly behind a tall easel in an opposite corner, which held an almost
life-sized portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Babbington.
He found that it entirely concealed him, for the bottom of the canvas on
which the portrait had been painted was not more than three inches from
the floor; and so he stood there waiting while the footsteps came
nearer--and he could now determine that there were two persons
approaching, instead of one.
They entered that adjoining room where the light was glowing brightly,
and the unmistakable voice of Mrs. Babbington, in low laughter, reached
his hearing.
“‘Ernani’?” she was saying. “Yes, that was the opera to-night; but I
scarcely heard a note of it, Nora. I had other things to think about
to-night. And then, of course, we had to go somewhere afterward. That is
why I kept you waiting. But I got away as soon as I could do so. Now,
what news have you? Tell me while I am taking off these wraps.”
“There is one thing, Madge, that seems to be of some importance,” was
the reply, delivered in a voice that gave Nick Carter a start of
surprise, for he instantly recognized it as the voice of Miss McQueen,
stenographer and secretary to Benjamin Oaks, the lawyer. “That young man
who went to Idaho--Patrick Garvan was his name, wasn’t it?--is on the
track of something--I don’t know what. And Chris says, in his last
letter, that he ought not to be permitted to return. He says that an
accident can happen to him out there, just as well as not. It is up to
you, Madge, to decide that question.”