_NAT RIDLEY DETECTIVE STORIES_
THE DOUBLE DAGGER
or
Nat Ridley's Mexican Trail
By Nat Ridley, Jr.
_Author of "Guilty or Not Guilty," "A Daring Abduction,"
"A Scream in the Dark," etc._
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
1926
NAT RIDLEY RAPID FIRE DETECTIVE STORIES
BY NAT RIDLEY, JR.,
Copyright, 1926, by
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
THE DOUBLE DAGGER
MADE IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
I. A CALL FOR HELP
II. THE DOUBLE DAGGER
III. ANOTHER MURDER
IV. AN ORDER TO RAMON
V. THE ROPE IN THE DARK
VI. A CHANGE OF IDENTITIES
VII. LIGHTS OUT
VIII. HALF A COAT
IX. THE WINDOW CLEANER
X. OFF TO TEXAS
XI. A FREE SPENDER
XII. EL CAPITAN
XIII. IN THE DUNGEON
XIV. THE BOMB
XV. IN HIDING
XVI. ON TO ROLAMOTAZA
XVII. INTO THE HILLS
XVIII. THE BLACK CAVE
XIX. PURSUED
XX. OVER THE CLIFF
XXI. A SHOT IN TIME
XXII. THE TOLA EMBLEM
XXIII. THE DEAF MUTE
XXIV. OVER THE LINE
XXV. THE WHISTLE
THE DOUBLE DAGGER
CHAPTER I
A CALL FOR HELP
With a vicious bang, which indicated that his thoughts were not on what
he was doing, Nat Ridley hung the receiver on the telephone hook. He
swung around in his swivel chair and looked out of the window of his
Times Square office at the hurrying throngs converging at Broadway and
Seventh Avenue.
"That's a new one, all right!" exclaimed the famous detective, more to
himself than to anyone else, though Berry Todd, his capable assistant,
was at a desk near by. "It sure is a new one! And to think that some of
those human ants down there may have had a hand in it!"
He leaned forward the better to see out of the window.
"What's that?" asked Berry, who was shuffling over some papers. "Whose
aunt are you talking about?"
"Nobody's aunt!" was Nat's reply. "I might just as well have said flies
or bugs--that's what they look like!" He waved his hand to the hurrying
throng--men and women mixed with automobiles.
"Oh--that bunch!" chuckled Berry. "Yes, there sure is a crowd. But is
anything wrong?" he went on, for he realized that the mere sight of
the crowd, almost always in evidence at this busy section of New York,
was no new one for his chief. "Anything wrong?" asked Berry again,
though in a lower voice, for he noted that the celebrated sleuth, whose
exploits were the talk of two continents, was gazing abstractedly at
the telephone.
"Yes, there is," snapped out Nat Ridley, though the crisp tone did not
indicate impatience with his helper's insistence. "I can't quite make
out why he should 'phone me."
"Who?" asked Berry, who was a privileged character.
"Carl Lemberg."
"That German sleuth?" cried Berry.
"He isn't as German as his name sounds," was Nat's reply. "Though of
course he has many of the earmarks. But why he should want me to come
in on one of his cases----"
"You don't mean to say he admits he's stuck, do you?" and Berry
laughed. "That's pretty good! Lemberg up a blind alley--at the end of
his trail--that's pretty good!"
The joke, if such it was, was all the more appreciated by Berry Todd,
for of all the private detectives in New York, Nat Ridley's chief rival
was this Carl Lemberg.
Yet Nat did not actually admit that Lemberg was a rival. It was only
other detectives, some in the Ridley offices, who were thus bold about
admitting the fact and, sometimes, complaining about it. For though
the chief said nothing, more than once he had heard of some rather
underhand practices on the part of Lemberg or the latter's helpers,
practices that took from Nat Ridley cases that netted large sums of
money.
But Nat Ridley was not one to complain, or even acknowledge that he had
a rival. He took the cases that came to him, and not always for money,
either. More than once he had worked day and night, and even endangered
his life, solving a mystery for the very love of getting to the bottom
of a tangle or for the sake of some friend.
Yet it could not be wholly ignored that Carl Lemberg was, in every
sense of the word, a business rival of Nat Ridley's.
"So he's squealing, is he?" asked Berry. "What's the game? What sort of
case has Lemberg that he can't solve, Chief?"
"He isn't exactly squealing, Berry," said Nat slowly, as he rose
from his chair, pushed it back, and began nervously to pace the small
private office. "He is in need of help."
"Then it's on a case, isn't it?" persisted Berry. "I'll bet a new straw
hat, and the season's just opening, too," he added, "that he fell down
on that Markwith jewelry robbery. They passed us up on that, Chief, and
went to Lemberg. Now he's stuck! Serves him darn good and right!"
"No, it isn't the Markwith case, Berry," said Nat.
"What then?"
"It's a sort of family affair."
"Oh, a scandal? Well, we don't go in for that sort of thing, do we?"
"You haven't quite got me, Berry," and Nat smiled. "It isn't that kind
of a case. Though it is a family matter for Lemberg. He's in need
of help and he turns to me. Urgent need he said just now, over the
telephone."
"Then it must be a big case!" declared Berry. "So much the better for
us. I'd rather he'd be stuck on a big case and have to turn it over to
us, than to have it a little jigger not worth bothering with. Want me
to do anything, Chief?"
Nat Ridley slowly indicated a negative by a shake of his head.
"It hasn't gotten to that stage yet," he said. "In fact, I don't know
what it is myself. I told him to come here and see me. Such matters
aren't for the telephone."
"Then you're going to help him?"
This time Nat nodded in the affirmative.
"Whew!" whistled Berry Todd.
And there was reason for his surprise, for in addition to the rivalry
existing between the two offices, there was a distinct feeling on Nat
Ridley's part against Lemberg. The noted sleuth did not speak of this,
but his friends and his office force knew of it.
Lemberg was too tricky, and Nat was out of sympathy with the manner in
which the German, as he was often called, got some of his cases. And
when Berry thought of that and heard his chief say he had agreed to
listen to what Lemberg had to say, it is no wonder Berry whistled.
"Will he be here soon?" asked Berry, as he began to gather up the
papers he was looking over. "If he will, I'd better light out. I was
getting up the report for you on that kidnapping case, but----"
"Let it go, Berry," was the order. "Lemberg will be here in about five
minutes, and he wants to see me alone. I'll let you and Baldy know what
I decide to do."
"Lemberg will be here in five minutes?" exclaimed Berry as he put the
papers in a portfolio and started for the door leading out of Nat's
private room. "How's he coming--by air-ship?" The office of the other
sleuth was down near Wall Street, several miles from Times Square.
"He is in our neighborhood," Nat went on. "He was so anxious to see me
that he rode up here, and is down in the Grand Central Terminal now.
He's coming up from there in a taxi."
"Well, I'll make myself scarce. But--you won't mind a word from an old
friend as well as from one of your workers, Chief?" Berry seemed very
anxious.
"Of course I won't!" declared Nat. "What is it?"
"Think twice before you have anything to do with Lemberg," was the low
reply. "He's no better than a snake in the grass in my opinion."
"An opinion I quite agree with at times, Berry," was the rejoinder.
"But I don't want to say I won't help him until I hear what he has to
say. Judging from his voice, he was in quite a stew."
"Serves him right!" muttered Berry as he went out.
In a few minutes, during which Nat continued to pace the office, an
electric buzzer near his desk signaled in a certain way.
"There he is!" murmured Nat, and, stepping to a button near the
signal, he pressed it, indicating to Toodles, the office boy in the
front office, that the chief would receive a visitor.
A moment later Carl Lemberg was ushered into Nat Ridley's private room.
In spite of the fact that he had lived all his life in the United
States, there was a typical German appearance about this detective. He
was massive in bulk and manner, and his voice, ordinarily, was loud and
booming. It was this voice, more times than one, fairly hurled at a
suspect, that had caused many to quail and confess.
Yet now Carl Lemberg was but a shadow of what he had been on occasions.
Instead of entering the office with a firm and confident tread, he
fairly slunk in, and he glanced from side to side, and once back of
him, in a manner denoting that he feared he might have been followed.
His usually ruddy face was pale and his large hands trembled as he took
a big linen handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face.
"It is good of you to let me come, Ridley," began the visitor, with
no trace of accent, though he spoke German fluently and with a purity
seldom attained by those not born in Germany.
"I could do nothing less after what you said," rejoined the other.
"What is the matter?"
"Much!" was the reply, and again came that nervous look about and
behind. "Are we alone here?" he whispered.
"As much so as anyone is ever alone," was the reply, with a smile. "The
walls are sound proof--as yours are."
"Oh, yes--mine--of course! And yet they haven't seemed to keep my
secrets."
"What do you mean?" asked Nat.
"I--I wish I knew!" was the faltering reply. "I wish I knew!"
"Look here, Lemberg," exclaimed Nat with a brusk show of friendliness
he did not altogether feel, "you're all in! You're showing fear! It may
not be real, but----"
"I am afraid, Ridley! I am afraid!" was the quick reply. "I hardly dare
admit to myself how frightened I am. That is why I have come to you."
"You? Afraid?" chuckled Nat, half scoffing. "I can't believe it."
"It's true, I tell you!" fairly snarled the other. "I am in deadly
fear!"
"What of, in the name of all the police of New York?"
"I don't even know that. But it's terrible!"
There was no mistaking the man's terror. It showed in his voice, in
his eyes, in his actions. Nat Ridley was astonished. To himself he
murmured:
"The intrepid Carl Lemberg afraid? Am I dreaming?"
Aloud he said:
"You must have a reason for this fear. I suppose you came to tell
me--to get my help. And, if so----"
"Yes! Yes!" broke in the other detective. "You are ready to laugh at
me, I know. I feel it! I would not be surprised. Yet, you would be
afraid also if----"
He paused, startled by some noise unperceived by Nat.
"Well, what?" suggested the other. "I would be afraid if what?"
"If your brother had been murdered, and then your uncle and then your
chief assistant. I ask you, Nat Ridley, if you would not, also, have
fear under those circumstances? Would you----?"
At that instant the telephone on the desk jingled out an imperative
summons, and, coming, as it did, at such a dramatic moment, even Nat
Ridley was startled.