The Four-Fingered Glove
OR,
THE COST OF A LIE
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
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Copyright, 1904
By STREET & SMITH
The Four-Fingered Glove
(Printed in the United States of America)
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
* * * * *
Bill Cody
At a rough estimate there are 400 million civilized human beings who
have heard of Bill Cody, not under his real name, but by the name
everybody called him, “Buffalo Bill.”
His character made him an outstanding figure during a period of the
development of America when a strong character was a matter of vital
necessity.
We doubt, however, whether the man’s work is fully appreciated, or ever
has been. In the rush and bustle that followed the introduction of the
railroad to the West, the results of Buffalo Bill’s work were more or
less overlooked, but a time is coming when this remarkable man’s
achievements will be fully appreciated.
This is the character whose adventures are dealt with in Buffalo Bill’s
Border Stories.
Read them. You will find them of true historical value.
STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
79 Seventh Avenue New York City
* * * * *
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* * * * *
THE FOUR-FINGERED GLOVE
CHAPTER I.
“IF I AM GUILTY, CONVICT ME.”
The hands of the clock pointed at half-past five, one beautiful June
morning, when Nick Carter, having just finished with his morning
exercise and cold plunge, was told that there was a gentleman in the
reception-room who wished to see him on matters of the utmost
importance, as soon as he was at liberty to descend, and the servant who
brought the message to her master passed a card through the partly
opened doorway upon which was engraved in fashionable block lettering:
+--------------------------+
| REGINALD MEADOWS DANTON. |
| |
|Linden Fells. |
+--------------------------+
“Young Danton, of Linden Fells, eh?” murmured the detective, as he
proceeded with his toilet after placing the card on the dresser. “What
in the world can he want at this hour? I should not hesitate to wager a
considerable amount that he has never been out of bed at this hour
before in all his life, unless it was because he had stayed up all
night. Reggie Danton! Humph! Whether he is in trouble or not, it is safe
to say that he believes he is, or he wouldn’t be here to see me so early
in the morning.”
Ten minutes later Nick entered the room where his caller was awaiting
him, only to find him pacing up and down between the window and the
door, apparently under the greatest strain of excitement.
Nick Carter’s half-contemptuous, half-humorous remark, “Young Danton, of
Linden Fells,” had been peculiarly appropriate, for Reginald Meadows
Danton exactly filled one’s ideas of a young man of possibilities--and
perhaps probabilities--who hailed from somewhere in the world of society
and wealth.
He was neither tall nor short, fat nor lean; nor did there seem to be a
distinguishing trait about his appearance or his manner, and yet there
was an indefinable something which compelled a stranger to glance at him
a second time, and then to wonder why he had done so. He was Reggie
Danton to everybody, several times a millionaire in his own right, and
the son of a man who had long since ceased to count his millions by
units, having adopted multiples instead.
Linden Fells? Well, it was--and still is, although its name has since
been changed--a magnificent estate situated on the bank of the Hudson
River within a reasonable distance of New York. A place where once upon
a time a very rich and eccentric German had brought his family and lived
while he awaited the pardon of his emperor, and who had also brought
with him a love for his own _Unter den Linden_. And as the estate was
heavily wooded, he had given it the name of Linden Fells. Later, when
the pardon came from his emperor, he had sold out for a song and
returned to the fatherland: and so, Horace Danton, the father of Reggie,
became possessed of it.
Then Linden Fells became transformed.
From the home of a recluse who used it only as a place of refuge while
he awaited permission to return to his own country, it was turned into
an open house of entertainment, for the Dantons liked to “sling things.”
Mrs. Danton was a beautiful woman of middle age, who still looked
thirty--scarcely older, in fact, than her two children, Reginald and
Mercedes, aged respectively, twenty-three and nineteen.
It had happened in the past that Nick Carter had done some little
business for the head of the house of Danton, but it had been of a
commercial character, and he had never met the other members of the
family, although naturally they were all known to him by sight, as well
as by the reputations they had earned for themselves in their own
separate ways. Mrs. Danton--or the señora, as she was often called
because of her Spanish ancestry--because she was a leader of society and
a giver of the most lavish entertainments in New York and Newport;
Reggie, because he was a self-confessed high roller who was inevitably
getting into some sort of hot water and paying his way out of it with
gold--whom everybody talked about, and laughed at, and wondered what he
would do next, but who was nevertheless generally well liked, and among
those who knew him best, respected, too; and Mercedes!
The reputation of Mercedes Danton can be comprehended in three words.
She was beautiful, she was brilliant, and she was, above all, good.
Everybody loved Mercedes. Her father adored her; her mother worshiped
her; her brother idolized her; her servitors almost deified her; and she
merited it all.
Reference to her upon any occasion was comprehended in the utterance of
her first name only. There was but one Mercedes in the world, one queen
of beauty, one fountain of sympathy and goodness--Mercedes.
She was nineteen, with the poise, the repose and the presence of
twenty-five. She was tall, regal, as graceful as a fawn; she had
unfathomable, gipsy eyes, hair of a dead black, with a faint suggestion
of waviness, and when the light struck it just right, a touch of amber
somewhere in the depth of the tresses which disappeared as it came and
which was inevitably changed to a reflection upon rather than from it;
and with all her somber hair and eyes, her long black lashes and
brunette presence, she had the complexion of an Irish beauty.
To describe Mercedes as beautiful is inadequate, for she was the
standard of beauty.
And now, that we have outlined the chain of thought which flitted
through the mind of Nick Carter as he descended the stairs to meet his
early caller, we will return to the moment of their greeting.
“Good morning, Mr. Danton,” said Nick, as he entered the room. “You rose
early this morning.”
“Yes. That is--fact is--I haven’t been to bed. Thank you. Yes; I will
sit down. Are you Mr. Carter? Mr. Nick Carter? Pardon me for asking, but
I wish to be sure.”
“Yes. I am Nick Carter.”
“I have heard my father speak of you several times, Mr. Carter. I
suppose you are aware that my governor is abroad just now?”
“I think I noticed in one of the papers, about a month ago, a mention
that he had sailed. I did not know that he had or had not returned.”
“No. He’s over there still. I say, Mr. Carter, do I look excited?”
“Well, yes, a little,” replied Nick, smiling. “Has something happened to
upset you?”
“Well, rather! Do I talk as if I could tell a connected story? Eh?”
“Why, yes.”
“You’ll pardon me, I know, but you see I wish to be sure. The fact
is---- by Jove, old chap, I’m all of a tremble yet. I’ve been trying for
the last two hours--all the while, in fact, since I started to come here
to see you, to pull myself together so that I could tell you a connected
story, and ’pon my life I’m not at all sure of myself yet. It’s awful,
you know, Mr. Carter! Horribly awful!”
“What is?”
“The murder.”
“The murder? Do you mean to say that you are speaking seriously and
that you have come here to see me about a murder?”
“Yes. That’s the long and short of it.”
“Who is killed? Where was the crime committed? I hope, Mr. Danton, that
this is not a specimen of one of the jokes you are so fond of
perpetrating,” said Nick severely.
“Joke! gad! I wish it were a joke! No, Mr. Carter, it is very far from
being a joke, I’m sorry to say. It’s a murder of the first water. A
regular gem of the blue-stone variety. An out-and-out, dyed-in-the-wool,
double-back-action, deliberate murder, carefully planned and
scientifically executed, and”--he leaned forward in his chair and looked
the detective straight in the eyes--“the joke will be on me, don’t you
know.”
“What do you mean, Danton? You will have to be more explicit if you wish
me to pretend to understand you.”
“Good Lord, I’m trying to be explicit. I mean that I will be accused of
this murder--I mean that there will be developed the best chain of
circumstantial evidence you ever heard of to convict me, and I mean
that----”
He paused and rose from his chair, crossing the room to the window and
then returning.
“Well?” said Nick. “What were you about to add to your statement?”
“I mean,” he said, slowly and impressively, “that I am not, myself,
positive of my own innocence.”
There was half a moment of silence after that extraordinary statement,
and it was Danton who spoke first.
“Do you wonder now that I asked you if I looked excited, and if you
thought I could tell a connected story?”
“In the light of the statement you have just made, it seems doubtful if
you can tell one,” said Nick slowly. “You tell me that there has been a
murder committed, that you will be accused of the crime, that there will
be circumstantial evidence which will tend to convict you of the crime,
and that you are not sure that you are not guilty. Those statements are
rather extraordinary, coming from a man who is supposed to be sane, Mr.
Danton.”
“Well, all the same, they are God’s truths, every one of them.”
“Then suppose you tell me why you have come to me at five o’clock in the
morning?” said Nick severely. “If you are not sure that you have not
committed a crime--which is a statement to be taken with a large
proportion of salt--you are more than half convinced that you have
committed one. My business, Mr. Danton, is to catch criminals, not to
protect them.”
“Well, that’s all right. That’s just what I want you to do. That’s why I
came here at five o’clock in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to catch and convict the criminal. If I am guilty I
want you to convict me of it, just as if I were not here to engage your
services. I want you to prove who did commit the crime, and if I did it
I want you to prove it to my own satisfaction, as well as to a jury of
twelve men. I’ve been asleep ever since I was born, Mr. Carter, but I
woke up this morning in earnest, and I’m awake now, to stay awake.”