THE GIRL IN THE CASE.
“Will you take me to him?” asked the girl, with a blush. Then she went
on in a more resolute tone, and as if she knew she had nothing of which
to be ashamed: “He has asked me to marry him, Mr. Carter.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, that’s what I told him,” she continued innocently. “I said it
could never be.”
“I didn’t say anything,” smiled the detective.
“I know you didn’t. At least, you only said ‘Ah!’ But I know what you
meant, and I agree with you.”
“I wish you would explain, Miss Silvius.”
“You mean that he is a multimillionaire, if he chooses to claim his
own. If I were to marry him, people might say he was throwing himself
away on a poor girl.”
“I don’t think it would matter what people might say.”
“It would matter a great deal to me,” she interrupted, with decision.
“I am getting a living by teaching music. My father teaches the violin.
We both play when we get a chance. And—and—sometimes the places we play
at are not at all—at all nice.”
“Poor girl!” murmured Nick, below his breath. Then, aloud: “We all
have to do things we don’t like sometimes, Miss Silvius. I can assure
you, knowing Howard Milmarsh as well as I do, that if he asked you to
marry him, he will insist on your doing it—providing, of course, that
you care for him.”
“I do,” burst out the girl involuntarily. Then she blushed again. “I
did not mean to say that. I’ve told him I shall never marry, and I
intend to keep my word.”
“No doubt. Girls always intend to keep their word when they make a rash
assertion of that kind,” said Nick, with a laugh. “You say you haven’t
seen him since the night of the fire?”
“No. We were all so much excited, and my poor father, who had
rheumatism, was in such a dangerous state, that I was only too glad
that some of the neighbors took us in and cared for us. When I came to
myself, and could make inquiries about Mr. Gordon, no one knew where he
was. I couldn’t find any one who remembered seeing him after he came
down the ladder, except that a policeman said he was hurt.”
“I took him away in my motor car,” said the detective quietly.
“You did? And is he well? Can you take me to him? Is he here, in your
house?”
“Not at present. But what made you think of coming here to-day? Why did
you connect me with the disappearance of this—er—Mr. Gordon?”
“The same policeman who told me he was taken away in a motor car saw me
on the street this morning. We have always been on speaking terms since
the fire. He said to-day he had heard that the motor car in which Mr.
Gordon—as everybody called him where he lived—was taken away belonged
to the detective, Nick Carter.”
“Yes?”
“It was not difficult to find your address. So my father and I came
down to try to see you. I was so disappointed when your man said you
were away. We had come a long way, and I was determined to see you if I
could. So we said we would wait.”
“You have been here more than an hour?”
“Yes, but we didn’t mind waiting, so long as you are here at last. We
should have waited another hour, and more than that. And if we had not
seen you to-day, we should have been here again to-morrow.”
“That’s true, sir,” added Roscoe Silvius, who had hardly spoken.
“I can’t say all I should like, but I don’t think I need speak my
gratitude. You surely must _know_. Why, Mr. Carter, you plucked me out
of the very jaws of a horrible death!”
“I’m very glad I happened to be there,” returned Carter earnestly. “At
such a time as that any man would have done what I did. Mr.—er—Gordon,
was as active as I was.”
“Yes, but he couldn’t have done it alone, although I saw that he would
have given his life to save us. Then there is the young man over there
at the other side of the room—Mr. Chick. I remember how he helped to
get my father down the ladder when it was breaking in the middle. I
wish I could say something to him that would seem only partly adequate.”
“Don’t say anything, Miss Silvius,” put in Chick, blushing like a girl
himself. “It was the chief who did it. I only helped him a little.
And—and—it was all in my day’s work. Nothing to talk about!”
“Well, now, Mr. Carter, will you take me to him?” asked the girl, going
back to her former request.
“I should hardly like to do that without first seeing him,” answered
the detective kindly. “You see——”
“He is still ill? Isn’t that it, Mr. Carter?”
There was an agony of anxiety in her voice that caused it to tremble as
she looked eagerly into his face.
“Yes, he is ill,” admitted Nick. “I am going to see him at the
hospital.”
“Is—is he very bad?”
“I don’t know. I do not think so. The last time I saw him, some days
ago, he was up and dressed. The trouble is with his mind. The shock
of the injuries he suffered at the fire still affects him. I hope—and
expect—it will soon pass away.”
“I wish I could see him.”
“I intend that you shall—but not just now.”
“When?”
“Let me see. It is now four o’clock. I will go to the hospital. You may
have an opportunity this evening. I cannot promise, but it may be so.
Will you remain here until I get back. You have spent over an hour in
this room,” he added, smiling. “You won’t mind another half hour or so,
I’m sure.”
“How kind you are!” she murmured.
“Not at all. As Chick says, it is all in my day’s work.”
Chick brought a bundle of magazines to her, and placed a chair for her
at the big table, with another for her father.
Carter smiled inwardly as he noted the assiduous attentions of his
assistant. Bessie Silvius was a pretty girl.
With a cheerful nod of farewell to Bessie and her father, and another
for Chick, the detective went out, picked up a taxi at the next corner,
and sped away to the Universal Hospital.
He knew his way about the big building, and did not require anybody
to show him how to reach the private room he had engaged for Howard
Milmarsh. It was on the fourth floor, and there was good elevator
service. In fact, there were two passenger elevators, besides others
for taking patients, on cots, from one floor to another, and for other
hospital uses.
Most of the doctors and nurses knew him, and he had to stop and speak
to several of them before he was allowed to enter the elevator and tell
the attendant to put him off on “the fourth.”
As he walked down the long corridor on his way to the room, he met the
nurse who was in charge of Howard Milmarsh at night.
“How is he, Miss Jordan?” he asked.
“He had a good night, Mr. Carter. But I haven’t seen him since seven
this morning.”
“His mind?”
“I fancy it is better. He seems to remember things a little. I feel
sure he will recover in time.”
This nurse had had long experience, comparatively. She was nearly
thirty years of age, and was considered one of the most competent of
her profession in the hospital. When she said a patient was better,
there was reason to believe she was right.
“I’m glad to hear it, Miss Jordan. Were you going to see him now?”
“Yes. I don’t go on till seven. But as I am in the hospital, I’ll go
in, of course, to see my patient. I am deeply interested in the case.
It is a sad one, it seems to me, for I hear that he is a very wealthy
man.”
Miss Jordan looked inquiringly at Nick. But if she expected to receive
any information from him as to Howard Milmarsh’s private affairs, she
was disappointed. The detective was not given to idle gossip.
The young man was known in the hospital as Robert Gordon. If he had
been entered in the name of Howard Milmarsh, there would have been
altogether too much curiosity about him, in Nick’s opinion.
The two reached the door of the private room, and Miss Jordan tapped at
the door.
It was opened quickly, and Nick saw that there were three doctors and
as many nurses standing between him and the bed, and all were talking
with more excitement than is usual in a sick chamber.
“Is anything the matter?” demanded the detective.
“He’s gone!” replied one of the doctors, with a jerk. “The patient has
left the hospital, and we are questioning Miss Sawyer, the day nurse,
to find out how it happened.”
“Gone?” echoed Nick sharply. “Do you mean he ran away without anybody
knowing he had done so?”
“No, no, Mr. Carter. Not so bad as that. Such a thing could not happen
in a well-managed institution like the Universal Hospital. But he went
for a stroll about the building, and on the lawn, and slipped out of
the front door without anybody in the office on the main floor noticing
him. That is the report.”
“Oh, that’s the report, is it?” observed Nick dryly.