THE ASSAULTED WAITER.
Chick Carter, hastening to follow Nick’s instructions, found nothing in
the side hall nor out-of-doors that shed any light on the mystery.
Several guests were departing in a limousine from under the
porte-cochère, but Chick knew two of them personally and that none was
worthy of the slightest suspicion.
Returning through the hall, he found Patsy Garvan and quickly told him
what had occurred, while both hastened out of the rear door of the
house. As they were descending the steps, one of the kitchen servants,
who was on her way in, approached them and said somewhat excitedly,
addressing Chick:
“Sure, sir, there’s something wrong around here. Would you mind telling
Mr. Langham, sir?”
“Something wrong?” questioned Chick, sharply regarding her. “Where? What
do you mean?”
“Round here, sir,” she replied, leading the way. “I was after taking out
some refuse for the barrels, sir, and I heard moaninglike, as if some
one was hurted.”
“Heard it where?”
“Here, sir, under the cellar door. I was after--there ’tis again, sir!”
The corpulent Irishwoman shrank back affrighted.
A hollow, half-choked moan had issued from under a slanting bulkhead
door abutting the foundation wall on that side of the house.
It was the opposite side from that on which was located the driveway
making around from the front of the vast stone mansion and leading out
to the stable and garage. Aside from the bulkhead door leading down to
the basement there was only another door opening upon an entry and
stairway for the use of the servants.
The adjoining grounds in that locality were deserted, and lighted only
by the stars glittering in the purple sky. A path led across a strip of
lawn to several outbuildings. Beyond this were the trees of the park and
woodland covering the vast estate. Through the gloom beneath them some
fifty yards away could be faintly seen a gray gravel driveway making off
to the east.
Patsy caught sight of something white on the ground, just as the hollow
moan interrupted the woman, and he stopped to pick it up.
It was a partly burned cigarette, yet from which only a few puffs had
been taken.
Instinctively Patsy slipped it into his pocket, just as Chick exclaimed:
“By Jove, the woman is right. Lend me a hand, Patsy. This door is not
locked. Here’s a man on the stone steps.”
His words evoked another moan from the prostrate man.
“Wait a bit!” said Patsy. “Here is my searchlight.”
Chick had opened both sections of the slanting door, and Patsy now sent
a beam of light down the several stone steps. In the area below, against
an inner door of the cellar, lay a man in evening dress, bound hand and
foot with stout cords and brutally gagged.
“Gee whiz!” cried Patsy. “Something wrong, Chick, is right.”
“Help me lift him out.”
“Lord save him!” said the woman, crossing herself. “Is he dead, sir?”
“Far from it,” said Chick. “Dead men don’t moan. He’ll be all right when
he can breathe freely. Now, sir, speak for yourself. How came you in
this mess?”
The two detectives had placed him on the greensward outside of the
bulkhead door, and Chick had quickly cut his bonds and removed the gag
from his mouth.
The man choked and gasped convulsively for a moment, then explained with
an effort that he was Pierre Toulon, employed as a waiter by Mr. Jean
Lenaire, the French caterer; that he had stolen out a short time before
to smoke a cigarette, and that he had been suddenly assaulted by three
masked men, who had bound and gagged him, and then confined him under
the bulkhead door.
Chick did not wait to look more deeply into the man’s story, but turned
to Patsy and said hurriedly:
“Go tell the chief. You’ll find him on the second floor, probably in
Clayton’s room. I will help Toulon into the house. Nick will question
him later.”
Patsy hurried away without replying.
He found Nick, Mr. Langham, and two physicians in Clayton’s room. The
latter had begun to revive from the effects of the drug. He already
could talk intelligently, and in a vague way could recall and state what
had occurred.
It appeared, Nick already had learned, that the same waiter who had
called Vandyke from the room, or a man so closely resembling him that
Clayton detected no difference, returned almost immediately after
Vandyke departed, saying that he missed his cuff link and thought it
might have dropped on the floor.
Clayton naturally had bowed to look for it, whereupon the rascal
instantly threw one arm around his head, covering his mouth, and at the
same moment thrust the needle of a hypodermic syringe into his neck,
injecting a quantity of the same potent and quick-acting drug with
which, Nick immediately suspected, Clayton had been overcome by Margate
at the time of his escape after the jewel robbery.
Clayton knew nothing of what had followed, having quickly lost
consciousness, and Nick now left Mr. Langham and the physicians to
enlighten him with the sad information. He withdrew with Patsy and
hastened down to the private library in which he had been talking with
Langham only a few minutes before.
Patsy already had told him about finding the waiter, Toulon, and Nick’s
next move was to send for Mrs. Julia Clayton, whom he briefly informed
of his suspicions, and then cautioned the dismayed woman against
inadvertently betraying the secret she so long had kept from all the
world.
The shocking news now was generally known, and the house was in
confusion. Guests were hurriedly departing, leaving sympathetic messages
with the butler and other servants. All keenly felt that they could be
of no assistance in the investigations then in progress, and that they
were better out of the way.
“Gee whiz! there’s nothing to this, chief,” commented Patsy, turning
after closing the door upon Mrs. Clayton. “This is Margate’s doings, all
right.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Nick. “He served Clayton the same trick as before.”
“Surest thing you know.”
“We will try later to find out how he got away with the girl. It would
be useless to undertake it at present, and immediate pursuit is out of
the question. A hundred conveyances have left here during the past half
hour.”
“I guess you are right, chief,” Patsy agreed.
“I know that I am,” Nick replied. “We may, however, accomplish something
of importance. Margate is a past master of the art of making up and
impersonating others. It seems very evident that he impersonated the
waiter Toulon, but whether with Toulon’s consent and assistance, or
whether he is an innocent victim of the rascal, is an open question.”
“That’s right, too,” said Patsy.
“We may find the correct answer to it,” Nick added. “Did Toulon appear
to be in bad shape, as if the assault was a genuine one?”
“He did, chief, for fair, as far as that goes,” Patsy reported. “He
appeared to be telling the truth. Here is the cigarette he began to
smoke. I found it near the bulkhead door.”
“I will size up the fellow and judge for myself,” said Nick. “Find Chick
and have him bring Toulon in here. See the caterer, also, and tell him
not to leave before I have talked with him.”
Patsy hastened to obey.
Chick entered with the waiter a few moments later and closed the door.
Pierre Toulon had recovered from the assault. He was a man of medium
build, with dark features and a black mustache, waxed at the ends. There
was a bruise on his forehead and his lower lip was slightly scratched,
also one side of his neck. His collar was wrinkled and soiled, but his
garments had been brushed.
“Come nearer, Mr. Toulon, and be seated,” said Nick. “I want to question
you about the assault. You are employed by Mr. Lenaire, I am told.”
There was nothing in Nick’s voice, looks, or manner denoting that he had
any covert designs. He spoke very pleasantly, with a tinge of sympathy
for his hearer. Toulon approached a bit gingerly, nevertheless, and
seated himself on the edge of a chair, directly opposite the detective.
“Yes, sir, I work for Mr. Lenaire,” he replied. “I am a waiter.”
“How long have you been in Lenaire’s employ?”
“About two weeks, sir.”
“I understand that he sent you up to Mr. Clayton’s room, Toulon, to ask
Mr. Vandyke to join him in the dining room.”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“About what time was that, as near as you can tell?”
“I would say it was near ten o’clock, sir.”
“Did you return to the dining room after taking the message to Mr.
Vandyke?”
“No, sir. You see, sir, I didn’t take the message,” said Toulon, with
some signs of embarrassment.
“No?” queried Nick, as if surprised. “I understood that you did. How was
that?”
“Well, you see, sir, I was near dying for a smoke,” Toulon explained. “I
thought it would be a good time to slip out and have one. So I went out
to one side of the house, thinking I’d stay only a couple of minutes,
just long enough to have a whiff or two, sir. But----”
“Ah, I see,” said Nick, interrupting. “You then were attacked by the
three men.”
“Yes, sir. Hang them, that’s just what came off.”
“One of them must have impersonated you, Toulon, for the message was
taken to Mr. Vandyke.”
“Taken to him?” Toulon appeared astonished. “Is that so, sir?”
“Yes, surely,” Nick nodded. “But what now puzzles me, Toulon, is how he
could have known anything about the message, Lenaire having given it to
you.”
“Well, sir, he might have been listening under the dining-room window
when Mr. Lenaire gave me the message,” Toulon quickly suggested, with
his gaze fixed on the detective’s face.
“Ah, by Jove, I hadn’t thought of that,” Nick exclaimed, with
countenance lighting. “That may explain it, Chick, after all.”
“Yes, indeed,” Chick quickly agreed, now seeing precisely at what Nick
was driving. “It certainly clears up that point.”
“Surely,” Nick added. “I’m glad he suggested it. So, instead of
immediately taking the message, Toulon, you slipped out to have a
smoke.”
“Yes, sir, a short one.”
“From your pipe, or----”
“No, sir, a cigarette,” Toulon quickly put in.
“Ah, I see,” Nick bowed, glancing at the waiter’s hands. “I don’t know
that you are to be blamed. I know what it means, Toulon, to hanker for a
smoke. Are you in the habit of smoking cigarettes?”
“I am, sir.”
“What kind do you use?”
Toulon hesitated for the hundredth part of a second. He then said
quickly:
“Any old kind, sir. I’m not particular.”
“I prefer the Egyptian,” Nick remarked agreeably. “They have rather more
flavor. I wouldn’t mind having one, too, or any old kind, as far as that
goes--if you have yours in your pocket, Toulon.”
A tinge of red appeared in Toulon’s cheeks, while his brows knit
perceptibly.
“I haven’t, sir,” he replied, in some confusion. “I lit the last one I
had and threw away the box. Mebbe one of the other waiters has some.
I’ll ask them, sir, and----”
“Oh, no, we’ll not go to that trouble,” Nick interposed, smiling. “I can
get along without one. I merely thought that I’d try one of yours while
we were discussing this knavish business.”
“I’m sorry, sir, that I haven’t one.”
“It don’t matter. Just where were you, Toulon, when you saw the three
men?”
“I was near the bulkhead door and steps to the cellar,” Toulon now
replied glibly. “But I didn’t see the men, sir.”
“Why was that?”
“Because they were hidden on the steps, sir, and they jumped on me
before I could get a look at them.”
“Was the bulkhead door open?”
“It must have been, or I would have heard them open it.”
“I see.”
“The first I knew, sir, was when they sprang on me from behind,” Toulon
proceeded to explain. “One of them cracked me on the head with a sand
bag. Another got me by the throat and jabbed something into my neck.
Here’s where it scratched me. It seemed to take all the strength out of
me. Then they bound and gagged me, sir, and then threw me down the steps
and closed the door.”
“Possibly, Toulon, I can find the finger prints on your neck,” said
Nick, rising. “They might enable us to identify your assailant, if he is
a crook and----”
“I don’t think so, sir,” Toulon quickly objected. “I have been rubbing
my neck, sir, and----”
“Ah, of course,” Nick cut in, resuming his seat. “That would obliterate
them. Could you identify either of the men, Toulon?”
“No, sir. They wore masks.”
“All three?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m, that makes it bad,” Nick remarked.
“So it does, sir.”
Then, without having evinced the slightest suspicion of his hearer, but
rather the contrary, in fact, Nick added pleasantly:
“That’s all, Mr. Toulon, and I’m very much obliged to you. When I find
the three rascals, I will make them pay dearly for what they have done
to-night.”
“I hope so, sir,” Toulon declared, rising to go. “I’d like a crack at
them myself. I bear them no good will, sir, you can bet on that.”
“I guess, Toulon, it would be a safe bet,” laughed Nick, as the waiter
withdrew from the room.
Toulon glanced back over his shoulder and grinned expressively.