THE HOLLOW TABLE LEG.
When Matthew Bentham’s motor car left Nick Carter’s house, it held,
besides Bentham, the chauffeur, and Nick, the latter’s assistant, Chick.
The detective had explained that he often found Chick’s quick
observation of inestimable benefit, and Bentham had been only too
willing for him to accompany them.
“I confess the whole thing is such a puzzle to me that I cannot see how
even you are to get to the bottom of it,” he remarked, as the car swept
over the Manhattan Bridge. “Perhaps Mr. Chick will see into the problem.
At all events, the more there are working on it, the better chance there
seems to be of success.”
Once in the library in Matthew Bentham’s house, with the door locked,
and only Bentham, Carter, and Chick in the room, the detective proceeded
to make a close examination of the window. There was only one window,
and it overlooked a garden at the back of the house.
Access to this garden could be obtained from the street through a narrow
passageway at the side of the house, which was guarded by a high wooden
gate, with a row of spikes on top. The gate had a spring lock, which
could be opened from without only by a key.
“The window has an electric burglar alarm, Carter,” observed Bentham, as
Nick began to look it over. “There was no indication that it had been
tampered with when I examined it this morning. The catch was properly
secured, too. I can’t think the thief got in that way.”
Nick Carter did not reply. Instead, he called to Chick, and throwing
open the window, went through and dropped to the garden beneath.
“Come down here, Chick, and look around,” he directed.
The ground below the window had been newly sown with seed, and as yet
was only sparsely covered with grass. Mr. Bentham intended to have a
small patch of lawn there eventually. So soft was the soil that the
footprints of sparrows who had been digging up the grass seed were
plainly revealed.
“No footprints, so far as I can see, chief,” remarked Chick. “If any one
had been here, his heels would sink in a couple of inches.”
“That’s true, Chick. I agree with you. But I guess we’ll make sure no
one has been in the garden. Look all over it on that side, and I’ll do
the same on the other.”
In about ten minutes both of them were in the library again, with the
window closed.
“Now will you show me the place in which you hid the papers?” asked Nick
Carter, in a businesslike way. “But, if you don’t wish my assistant to
know, he will step outside the room.”
“I don’t wish him to do so,” interrupted Bentham. “Why should I? This is
a confidential affair, and certainly Mr. Chick is in my confidence when
I know he has proved himself worthy of yours.”
He pulled down the window shade, and added to his precaution by closing
a solid, wooden shutter inside. Then he hung a velvet jacket he
generally wore in the library on the handle of the door, so that it
covered the keyhole.
“I am not afraid of anybody eavesdropping,” he explained. “But I do not
want you to feel that it is possible. We are quite sure nobody can peek
in here now.”
He pulled out the drawer of his massive, mahogany library table and laid
it on a chair. Then he thrust his hand into the opening and pressed in a
certain spot. His next move was to replace the drawer, following this by
clasping with fingers the thick, round leg on his right as he sat at the
table.
It seemed to take considerable strength to accomplish his purpose, and
it was several seconds before he slid the front of the leg around,
disclosing an opening in it some ten inches long and three wide. This
part of the table leg was hollow.
“There is the place, Carter. You see that it is empty.”
“Has anything about the table been forced?” asked the detective. “Or was
the table leg opened in the same way that you did it just now, by
pressing certain buttons and unscrewing part of the leg?”
“Nothing has been injured, so far as I can see,” returned Bentham. “Let
me show you just how it works.”
He took out the table drawer again, and Nick Carter, flash light in
hand, peered under the table. It did not take him a moment to understand
the ingenious contrivance.
“You see, what adds to the security of this table-leg cupboard, is that
the drawer must not only be taken out, but also put back, before the
opening can be made,” said Bentham. “It is not the kind of thing that
could be discovered accidentally.”
“That is apparent,” agreed Nick. “Whoever stole those papers knew just
how to get at them. Would you mind asking Miss Bentham to come into the
library for a few moments?”
“I will do so if you wish it,” was the reply. “But Clarice cannot help
us. She did not know anything about the papers being gone till I told
her, and she had no idea even then of their great importance.”
He rang the bell as he spoke, and in a minute a fresh-looking maid came
in and looked inquiringly at Matthew Bentham.
Nick Carter decided that it would be hard to suspect this maid of being
mixed up in the affair. Obviously, she was the sort of girl who would
attend to her work conscientiously, and think of nothing else after it
was done except her personal affairs--new clothes, and so forth.
“Mary, ask Miss Clarice to step here,” requested Bentham.
Almost directly, Clarice Bentham came into the room, followed by her
aunt, Mrs. Morrison.
“I took the liberty of coming with Clarice, Matthew,” explained Mrs.
Morrison. “I have not gone home yet, and I am very anxious to know
whether you have found out anything about your papers.”
Nick Carter bowed to Mrs. Morrison and Clarice. They returned his bow
with smiles, for both of them knew that the famous detective, Nick
Carter, was in the house. Neither had the slightest idea that this
keen-faced man, with the brisk manner, was the rather slow-spoken Doctor
Hodgson whom they had seen last night. It was not the detective’s
intention that they should know it, either.
“I am sorry to trouble you, Miss Bentham,” he began. “But it occurred to
me that it might be worth while hearing what Professor Ched Ramar said
to you last night when you were examining the big statue of Buddha in
his famous idol room. Everybody has heard of that wonderful image. Your
father tells me you examined it closely.”
“I did,” she admitted readily. “Professor Ched Ramar showed it to me
himself. He only told me that it was a fine specimen. Then he went away.
When I was alone, I climbed up to look at the face of the idol, and
Doctor Hodgson, who came into the room, spoke to me about it in a
general way. Professor Ched Ramar also came in, with my aunt, Mrs.
Morrison, and my father. Ched Ramar afterward gave me a small gold
idol.”
“Yes? Was Doctor Hodgson there at the time?”
“I believe so. But I am quite sure Doctor Hodgson had nothing to do with
the loss of these papers, any more than Ched Ramar had. You don’t think
my visit last night had any connection with the burglary, do you?” she
added, with a quizzical smile.
He passed over this query, as if it were too absurd to be taken
seriously, and turned the conversation by hoping that the ladies were
not fatigued by their examination of Ched Ramar’s antiques the night
before.
“That sort of thing always tires me excessively,” he explained. “I am
afraid I ought not to have come to you so early in the morning
afterward.”
“This is not early, Mr. Carter,” protested Clarice, still smiling. “I am
ashamed to be so late. We have only just finished breakfast. By the way,
here is the gold idol that was given to me. I was looking at it just now
when Mary told me I was wanted in the library, and I forgot to put it
down.”
She passed the idol to Nick Carter, and he stared at it intently for a
few seconds, as he tried to understand why the eyes looked so human,
although he knew they were only of skillfully fashioned glass.
“I will not detain Miss Bentham any longer,” he said to Bentham. “It was
hardly worth while to trouble her at all. But I thought possibly she
might have heard something that would put us on the right track.”
“You surely don’t suspect Professor Ched Ramar of stealing papa’s
papers, do you, Mr. Carter?” she asked, laughing. “I hope you’ll pardon
me if I say that you seem to look suspiciously at everybody. That is the
way it strikes me now. But I know it is the only way to find out things,
and I do hope you will find papa’s valuable papers. I hate to see him so
worried.”
With a playful wave of the hand to Nick Carter, as if she were asking
his pardon again for speaking so bluntly, the girl went out of the
room, followed by her rather stately aunt, and Chick whistled softly to
himself.
“She’s a mighty pretty girl,” he muttered. “But she’s rather too fresh
in the way she talks to the chief. He never suspects anybody without
very good reason.”