THE CLOSED DOOR.
Nick Carter needed to hear no more than the significant remarks already
made, nor really needed to have heard them, in fact, to convince him
that his earlier suspicions and deductions, as well as the theory he had
formed concerning the terrible crime were almost absolutely correct.
Nick now felt reasonably sure, too, since learning that Cora Cavendish
had sent the three crooks out there, that Patsy must have got on her
track before that was done, and he was borrowing no trouble as to the
outcome of his own situation.
The only point that Nick now wanted to clear up, in fact, was the
precise relations that had existed between Madison and this gang of
thugs, and he knew that he was in a fair way of doing so.
John Madison had not stirred from the swivel chair in which he was
seated. Nor had he spoken, or even changed countenance, during the
vicious remarks that had passed between the several crooks. He really
appeared indifferent to them, and he now wore the grimly determined
aspect of a man who had made up his mind what to do, and had the nerve,
and stamina to do it.
Deland was quick to observe all this, and his evil eyes had an uglier
gleam when he resumed his seat at the desk to continue his talk with the
lawyer, while Daggett, Flynn, and Tobey occupied chairs near by.
“Now, Madison, let’s get right down to cases,” Deland began, whipping
out each word with ominous asperity. “I’ll say what I mean and you do
the same. You are up against one of two things. You’re going to settle
with us, as you agreed to do, or you’re going to be sent up for the
murder of Tilly Lancey. There’s no middle course for you.”
“H’m, I see,” thought Nick, already sizing up the situation. “No middle
course for him, eh? I’ll lay one out for him, then, unless I’m much
mistaken.”
Madison did not reply for a moment. He drew up his powerful figure a
little higher in his chair, and bestowed a frowning glance upon each of
the rascals confronting him. His gaze finally settled upon Deland’s evil
face, however, and remained there.
“I will be sent up for the murder of Tilly Lancey, will I?” he slowly
answered.
“That’s what you will,” Deland nodded. “That’s one course.”
“How can I be sent up for a crime that you scoundrels committed?”
“We’ll swear it onto you, and we have the stuff to fix it so it will
stay. I’ve got the bunch of letters you wrote to her. We’ll chuck them
in for evidence. We’ll frame you up, all right, and in a way that will
let us down dead easy. You can bank on that.”
“And bank on it good and strong, too,” put in Plugger Flynn, pounding
the desk top with his fingers.
“You fellows are a fine gang with which to do business,” said Madison,
with manifest contempt in his deep voice. “Either one of you would
double cross his own mother. I ought to have known it in the beginning,
but I was caught by the bait you threw me. The only other course is for
me to settle, you say?”
“You heard what I said,” snapped Deland.
“I’ll have my say, now, for a moment,” Madison returned. “You approached
me a week ago, Deland, with a proposition that in a way appealed to me.
You said you could get from Tilly Lancey a number of letters with which
she has threatened me, and also that you could do it in such a way as to
have it publicly appear that my political opponent, Arthur Gordon, had
been trying to buy them and was secretly an intimate friend of that
woman.”
“Well, come to the point,” said Deland. “We admit all that.”
“Good enough,” thought Nick, calmly taking it all in. “That admission
will cost you something, Deland, and may save him. I’ll wait and see
which way the cat jumps.”
“I apprehended defeat in the coming election,” Madison went on
deliberately. “For that reason, only, your proposition appealed to me. I
foresaw that I could, with those letters restored to me and Gordon in a
measure defamed, easily carry the election. I asked you what you would
accept for doing the job?
“And you agreed to pay it, ten thousand dollars, and told us to go
ahead,” said Deland.
“True,” Madison darkly nodded. “But I did not agree to bloodshed. You
did not tell me that a murder was to be committed. You did not even hint
that Tilly Lancey’s life was to be taken. Not for a moment, you
double-dyed knave, would I have considered that hideous proposition. You
said----”
“Never mind what we said,” Deland cut in sharply. “We know what we said
and to what you agreed. We have our own way of doing things, and we have
delivered the goods. It now is up to you to settle. We have put Gordon
in wrong. I have your letters in my pocket. You’re going to settle, too,
or----”
“Stop right there, Deland,” Madison interrupted, leaning forward to bang
the desk with his fist. “There will be no settlement between you fellows
and me. As I told Cora Cavendish two hours ago, you will not get a
copper from me.”
“We won’t, eh?”
Deland’s hand went to his hip pocket.
“Not one copper!” Madison thundered. “You say I have only one of two
courses. I say, however, that I have a third course, and that’s the
course I will take. There is only one way for me to settle this infamous
business, and that was shown me by this man on the floor. I will confess
the truth, take my medicine for what I have done, and accomplish one
other thing--that of sending you miscreants to the fate you deserve!
That’s the way I’ll settle with you--and the only way!”
It would be hard to say what might have followed, but for one startling
and utterly unexpected incident.
Nick Carter sat straight up on the floor and shouted:
“Good for you, Madison! Stick to that and I’ll pull you out! Against any
man but Gordon--I’d give you my vote!”
Nick had more than one reason for this sudden outbreak. From where he
was lying on the floor, he could see through the alcove and into the
dimly lighted conservatory.
He could see Chick Carter and Patsy Garvan crouching there, each with
revolvers drawn.
Their timely arrival was not due to anything extraordinary. Patsy had
trailed Cora Cavendish to an East Side saloon, and had seen her meet
Flynn and give him Deland’s instructions. Patsy then had followed Flynn,
and later Daggett and Tobey, learning positively in the meantime that
they were to join Deland in Madison’s residence. Seizing an opportunity
to telephone home, also, Patsy found that Chick had returned, and quick
arrangements were made to meet on the Madison place. They had done so
just in time to see the three crooks enter the conservatory--whither
they soon stealthily followed them.
Before Nick’s ringing words were fairly uttered, Deland and the three
gangsters were on their feet and reaching for their weapons.
“That door!” snapped Deland, pointing to the alcove. “Close and lock it,
Daggett. Pull down that curtain, Tobey, down to the sill. Not settle,
eh? We’ll settle the hash of both, then, before----”
“You’re already too late!” Nick shouted.
He would have added a word or two, but they would have been lost in the
tumult that then began.
Both Flynn and Daggett had started into the alcove to obey Deland’s
instructions, and each had been met with a crashing blow from Chick and
Patsy, dealt with precision and violence that sent both of them headlong
to the floor.
Before either could rise, both detectives were in the room and had them
covered, while a third revolver caused Tobey to turn from the window and
throw up his hands.
Deland had been the first to realize the actual situation, and like a
flash he had darted toward the hall.
Chick saw him as the rascal passed through the door.
“After him, Patsy!” he yelled, with a directing glance. “I can handle
these three.”
Patsy turned and darted into the hall.
As he came through the doorway, the crash of Deland’s revolver drowned
all other sounds.
The bullet splintered the door casing over Patsy’s head.
Bang!
Another ball whizzed by Patsy’s head.
The hall was only dimly lighted by the rays that came from the lamp in
the side hall, and for an instant Patsy could not see his quarry. The
flash from his revolver on the second shot revealed him.
Deland was darting up the main stairway, not daring to wait to open a
door, and evidently bent upon reaching the veranda roof and thence
making his escape.
Patsy now saw him plainly, and that he again was about to fire, and he
dropped like a flash to his knees. He was not quite quick enough,
however.
Bang! went the weapon, and the bullet tore through the flesh on Patsy’s
left shoulder.
He felt the sting and the gush of hot blood. He was up on the instant,
revolver leveled, and was pumping lead up the stairway with the rapidity
of a gatling gun.
The report of the weapon was mingled with another sound--the crash of a
body at Patsy’s feet.
Deland had pitched sideways over the baluster rail--with four bullets in
his breast. He was stone dead before he struck the hall floor.
Patsy Garvan had closed the eternal door on the most vicious crook then
at large.
All that remains to be told of the strange and stirring case may be told
with few and simple words. The three crooks, and subsequently Cora
Cavendish, were arrested, and later received life sentences for
complicity in the murder of Tilly Lancey. They made no fight against the
evidence Nick Carter had obtained.
It also appeared that the crime had been framed up by Cora and Deland,
as Nick had suspected, and that not only they, but also Flynn and
Daggett were in the flat when Gordon visited the woman. Nick’s
suspicions and deductions had, in fact, been correct from the start.
John Madison confessed his part in the affair to the court, and Nick’s
intervention in his behalf resulted in his discharge from custody. He
was ignominiously defeated in the election, however, and he moved West
with his family the following month.
Arthur Gordon was elected with flying colors, and--well, it would be
vain to attempt to describe his gratitude for Nick Carter and his
assistants. There are sentiments that language cannot express.
Mortimer Deland was buried, his true name and history with him, save his
criminal history, on the day after he was shot.
THE END.
“A Human Counterfeit; or, Nick Carter and the Crook’s Double,” will be
the title of the long, complete story you will find in the next issue,
No. 157, of the NICK CARTER STORIES, out September 11th. There is an
unusually baffling mystery in this story that requires all of the
cleverness of the great detective to solve. You will also find the usual
installment of the serial now running, together with several other
interesting articles.
THE DULL BOY SCORED.
“Now, my sharp lads!” exclaimed the schoolmaster, “answer me this little
riddle and there’s a holiday for the one who does it: Supposing a gentle
little donkey was tied to a tree with a rope eight yards long, and a
truss of hay was inviting his appetite at a distance of nine yards, how
could he get at it without breaking or gnawing the rope?”
The hay, the donkey, and the difficulty were mentally seen, but not the
answer to the ancient conundrum.
“All give it up?” asked the master.
“Yes, sir,” was answered in a chorus of disappointment.
Then the schoolmaster, naturally, exclaimed:
“So did the other little donkey, my lads.”
“Please, sir, the other day you said I was a dull boy, but may I
answer?” asked a very little fellow, with a sly look.
“Certainly, Arthur; but you must be quick,” decided the man of
knowledge.
“Well, then, sir,” the juvenile declared, “when he’d gone eight yards,
he’d be sure to reach the hay by keeping on four feet, and he’d have a
foot over as well as his nose.”
Then the master bent over his desk without a leg to stand on.
SNAPSHOT ARTILLERY.
By BERTRAM LEBHAR.
(This interesting story was commenced in No. 153 of NICK CARTER STORIES.
Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer or the
publishers.)