A HOUSE OF MYSTERY.
When a grave, bearded man, with gold-rimmed spectacles and hair brushed
up straight from his forehead, presented himself in Matthew Bentham’s
library at half past eight, the professor could not see anything in him
to suggest the clean-cut, up-to-date American whom he knew as Nicholas
Carter.
The big, blond beard and mustache completely changed the contour of his
countenance, while the pompadour hair and the lines in the forehead were
not those of the detective, although they seemed to be perfectly natural
in Doctor Hodgson. The rather shabby cape overcoat which covered his
evening clothes was not such a garment as he would wear in his own
proper person, either.
It was only when the door of the library was closed, and Nick knew they
were alone, that he dropped the deliberate speech he had used, and spoke
in his own natural, quick tones.
“The package still all right, professor?” he asked.
“Yes. I looked a few minutes ago, to make sure. Somehow, I hate to leave
it in the house when I am away. It is something I never have done
before. Still, I am not afraid it will be found--even if my burglar
should come while I am away. He may do that, if he is keeping as close a
watch on me as I think he must. I have too much faith in my hiding
place.”
Nothing more was said, for just then Clarice knocked at the library
door, and, on her father telling her to come in, she stood before them.
Clarice was a beautiful girl, who looked enough like her father for any
one to recognize the relationship. She had something of the intellectual
gravity of the professor, and Nick set her down at once as a very bright
young woman. He put her age at not more than twenty. Later her father
told him she lacked two months of that age.
With Mrs. Morrison--a middle-aged, dignified matron, richly attired and
bejeweled--on one side of him, and Clarice on the other, in the tonneau,
Nick Carter kept up his character of a learned doctor by talking
authoritatively on tuberculosis, typhus, and similar cheerful subjects
brought up by Mrs. Morrison, but always with one eye on Clarice. He
wanted to hear the girl talk, so that he could judge whether she would
be careful in guarding her father’s house against strangers.
But Mrs. Morrison--who was a good woman in her way, and devoted much
time to the poor and sick of New York--would not let him off. They got
to the house of Ched Ramar without Clarice getting an opportunity to
throw in more than a few words here and there, and he did not see her
again until they were in the handsomely furnished reception rooms of the
Indian scholar, and were looking at the curiosities on all sides.
Nick Carter got an opportunity soon to stand back and look steadily at
Ched Ramar. He saw a tall man, with the dark skin and black eyes of the
East Indian, and wearing the white turban of his race, who talked good
English and was the essence of suave courtesy.
“I don’t know how it is,” thought Nick Carter. “His face seems familiar
and yet I know I never saw Ched Ramar before.”
As the detective moved about with the others, looking at the many
curious idols of various metals that were disposed about the great
rooms, and answering readily to his assumed name of Doctor Hodgson, he
seemed not to have any interest outside of what he was inspecting with
the other guests. But his gaze never left the swarthy face of Ched Ramar
for more than a few seconds at a time.
“Where have I seen him before?”
This was the question that would not keep out of Nick Carter’s mind. It
might have worried him, too, only that he had quite determined that he
would answer it before he was many days older.
“Perhaps not to-night,” he told himself. “But when I get alone, in my
own room. I’ll go through my portrait gallery of people I have met, and
I’ll place him, or know the reason why.”
There were other rooms besides these two great double drawing-rooms to
which the guests were invited. In all the apartments of the house were
some strange things worth seeing, and Ched Ramar took pleasure in
offering them to the inspection of those who had honored him by coming.
He said this himself, and he seemed sincere when he did so. He seemed
inclined to pay particular attention to Matthew Bentham, Clarice, and
Mrs. Morrison. He talked to them more than to any of the other guests,
Nick Carter thought.
The two tall Indian guards, in glittering military uniforms, with curved
swords at their sides, and gaudy turbans setting off their dark, solemn
faces, were always at the wide door of the reception rooms, and the
detective noted that they watched every move of the throng as it surged
about the apartments.
Ched Ramar had the air of a man who trusted everybody, but his guards’
vigilance suggested that he had given them orders to be suspicious
unceasingly.
“Hello! Where’s he taking that girl?” suddenly exclaimed the detective.
Ched Ramar had directed the general attention to a large glass case
filled with magnificently jeweled weapons at one end of the
drawing-room. Then he called one of the guards.
“Show and explain these, Keshub,” he ordered shortly.
Keshub, the guard, made a deep salaam and marched to the end of the
case. He spoke as good English as his chief, and his sonorous tones
rolled through the rooms as he told the history of each dagger, sword,
and gun to his open-mouthed listeners.
It was at this instant that Nick Carter made his inaudible remark, for
Ched Ramar led the girl behind some heavy red velvet hangings, which
dropped back into place, hiding them.
For a few moments Nick stood still, uncertain what to do. He had no idea
of allowing this young girl to be taken into a secret part of this big,
strange house by a man like this Indian, whom no one knew except as a
famous man in his own country.
“I’ve got to see what is back of those portières,” muttered the
detective. “I don’t see Matthew about, or I’d tell him. By George! This
is New York--even if it is Brooklyn--and we don’t do things of this
kind. He must think he is still in the Punjab.”
He saw that Keshub was busy with the people who were admiring the really
wonderful display of weapons in the glass cases, and that the other
guard was staring at the people over there. No one was taking any notice
of himself.
“All the better,” he thought.
He edged around the wall till he stood in front of the red velvet
curtains. Then he gently pulled them apart and looked behind. What he
saw was the gilt railings of a door that evidently belonged to an
elevator. The elevator car was above, on another floor.
“One of those automatic affairs,” he thought. “Well, all the better. I’m
going up. If one of the guests is entitled to ride in the elevator, it
ought to be all right for another. Anyhow, I can easily explain that I
supposed we were all to go up here, if there is any question.”
He pressed an electric button, and the car slid noiselessly down. The
coming down of the car released a latch on the railed door, and Nick
pulled it open. Taking his place in the car, he pressed a button inside,
and was wafted upward.
The elevator was so delicately adjusted that it made not the slightest
noise, and it stopped at the next floor above without a jar. There were
thick curtains outside, like those below. Also a railed door.
Gently, Nick opened the door and stood inside the curtains, listening.
He caught a low murmur of voices, which told him that the speakers were
at some distance.
He opened the curtains a little way, and then stepped between them. He
was in a dimly lighted room, with a red lantern giving the only
illumination. At one end were heavy portières draped back, so that he
could look beyond, into another room.
In the farther room he saw that there were idols of all sizes and kinds.
He remembered that Ched Ramar’s collection of idols was said to be the
finest possessed by any private person in New York. Moreover, each idol
had a history.
Standing, with their backs to him, were Clarice Bentham and Ched Ramar
himself. The latter was pointing to one immense image of Buddha which
faced the opening in the curtains. He was talking in a low earnest tone,
and it seemed to Nick as if the girl were completely entranced by the
great, golden figure and the words that poured from the grave lips of
the Indian.
“I can’t hear what he is saying,” muttered the detective. “I suppose the
way to find out is to step forward and show myself. And yet----”
At this instant the low tones of Ched Ramar changed to loud, clear
accents, delivered in a matter-of-fact way, as he waved his hand toward
the Buddha.
“That Buddha and other things in this room will interest you for some
time, Miss Bentham, I have no doubt,” he said. “But I can hardly remain
away from my guests. I will leave you alone. When you are ready to come
down, you know how to work the elevator. Although it is possible that
some of the other ladies below will be up to see the idols before you
have finished looking at them.”
“Oh, but I don’t know whether I dare be left here alone with these
dreadful things,” she protested, with a shudder. “I’m rather afraid of
them.”
Ched Ramar laughed good-naturedly as he shook his head at her.
“I beg your pardon for laughing, Miss Bentham,” he said. “But, really, I
had never thought of my poor idols in that light before. These things
that so many thousands of people in Asia believe can save them from all
ill, and bring succor to them in distress--surely ought not to frighten
any one, even an American young lady. But, if you are timid, why, I’ll
take you down at once.”
This offer seemed to bring Clarice to herself. She was ashamed of her
apprehensions, and Nick saw her shoulders stiffen as she declared, in a
resolute voice:
“No, I’ll stay till I’ve looked at all of them. I hope you won’t think
I’m a coward. When I said I was afraid I meant that I felt a sort of
awe. I should think most persons would experience some such feeling on
beholding all these strange figures for the first time. No doubt, if I
lived in Tibet, or wherever these images come from, I should regard them
only with reverence, and believe in them as sacred guardians, like the
others who have been familiar with them from childhood.”
Nick Carter slipped behind a tall vase on a stand close to where he had
been standing. He saw that Ched Ramar was about to go downstairs, and he
did not want to be seen.
“I’ll stay up here till she has finished her examination,” he thought.
“Then, if she should get frightened--as she may when she is alone--I’ll
step forward and try to give her courage. She knows me only as Doctor
Hodgson, and I flatter myself I took the part of a grave and reverend
medico pretty nearly to perfection.”
Ched Ramar, with a low bow, turned away from the girl, strode to the red
velvet curtains, and pulled open the railed door. That was the last Nick
saw of him, for the curtains fell together before he had stepped into
the elevator.
Clarice, her two delicate, white-gloved hands interlocked behind her,
stood gazing thoughtfully at the gigantic Buddha.