INTO THE TRAP.
“No,” said the detective presently, “I think I’d better go myself,
though it may be a trap. Hold these people here while I slip down to
the phone.”
During the absence of the detective the red-headed young man moved
swiftly about the room. To Maynard he seemed to be looking for
something. He hung constantly in the vicinity of the chair upon which
the murderer’s clothing had been placed after the exchange of garments.
Once or twice he got down on the floor and examined the carpet. Maynard
thought this remarkable, but said nothing.
When Nick returned from the phone booth and the young man was still
busy in his search of the room, Maynard explained his actions to the
detective, who smiled and said not a word in reply.
“Well, I’ve got to get a move on,” said the young fellow, in a moment.
“Are you chaps coming with me?”
“We must wait for the coroner,” replied Nick.
And so they waited, while the young man fumed up and down. Nick turned
to the clerk again, motioning him into the hall, where he followed.
“When Townsend entered the office,” he asked, “how did you know that he
was the one this Martin Haynes had asked for?”
“Oh, Haynes gave me a description and a name.”
This set Nick to thinking on new lines for a moment. Then he said:
“While we are waiting for the coroner, we may as well go to the office
and inspect the signature.”
Leaving Maynard and the reporter in the room, Nick and the clerk
descended to the office. The signature, when inspected through a
powerful glass, proved to be a very ordinary one, but Nick made certain
that it was written by a woman.
“How did that reporter get in here?” asked Nick.
“I suspect that the elevator boy gave him a tip,” was the reply.
Nick called the boy, who looked confused, and neither admitted nor
denied the accusation.
Presently a deputy coroner arrived, and Nick accompanied him to room
43. While the reporter was asking him impossible questions, Nick took
the clothing left by the murderer to the office, and left it with the
clerk, carefully wrapped.
“Give that to no one,” he said. “I will call for the package in person.”
Then the reporter and Maynard came down the elevator, and the former
started off.
“I’m going,” he said. “Come along.”
“Shall I come?” whispered Maynard.
“It is a trap,” said Nick, “and you may as well go home so as to be fit
to-morrow.”
“Why do you say it is a trap?”
“Because that chap is not a reporter. How do I know? If he was a
reporter he would have telephoned in something for the first edition
the minute he saw the body, without waiting for anything more. Besides,
what has he learned about the dead man or the circumstances of the
murder?”
“But if it is a trap, why do you go?”
“Because, if it is a trap, it is set by the murderer or some of her
confederates, and going with this young man will place me in touch with
the gang.”
“But it is dangerous.”
“All my work is dangerous.”
“Why don’t you take officers with you?”
“I shall not be alone,” replied Nick significantly, and turned away
with the red-headed young fellow.
As the detective and his young companion passed out of the square
of light in front of the hotel, Maynard, standing irresolute at the
window, saw two men who had been hidden in a stairway across Broadway
leave their shelter and follow them. Alarmed at the occurrence, Maynard
stepped out into the street and passed on in the direction taken by the
detective, the reporter, and their pursuers.
He saw them turn east, and then they were lost to his sight. With a
heavy heart the young millionaire returned to the hotel. Policemen were
standing guard out in the hall.
There was a door connecting room 43 with 44. Maynard secured the latter
room and threw himself on the bed. He lay for a long time listening to
the talk of the officers, but finally fell into an uneasy slumber.
When he awoke again there was a bright light in 43. His door was a
trifle ajar, and he could hear voices in the room where the dead man
lay. He arose and stepped toward the door. Then a voice that he knew
came to his ears. It was the voice of a woman.
“I think we’ve settled Nicholas for good and all,” she said. “That was
a clever thought.”
Maynard started back in terror. What was that woman doing there, in the
room with his murdered chum? Why should she desire to see the detective
come to harm? Maynard actually pinched himself to see if he was not
dreaming. But what he heard was a reality, fast enough. Had this woman
whose voice he heard taken any part in the murder? While the young man
puzzled over the matter, another voice reached his ears:
“Yes, Nick will trouble us no more,” it said. “He went up against the
wrong bunch this time.”
This voice was as familiar to Maynard as the other, only it was a
man’s voice. He could not figure it out. Why should these people be
here, and why was the room open at all? Had Nick Carter come to harm?
With this thought prominent in his mind, Maynard moved toward the
doorway. In the half light of the room he stumbled over a rocker and
fell heavily to the floor. Before he could get on his feet again he
heard quick steps rushing into the room, saw a blaze of light from
the doorway; saw, also, two faces that he knew, rage and apprehension
showing upon them. Then he called out, saw an uplifted arm, heard a
wrathful voice, and a blow descended.
When the officers came to 43 in the early morning, they found the door
to 44 open. Entering, they found Maynard lying on the floor with a
frightful wound in his head and a stab in the region of the heart. Room
43 gave many evidences of having been searched thoroughly. Even the
carpet had been loosened in places. The body of Townsend, however, had
been in no wise disturbed. Maynard was conveyed to his hotel, and the
dead man taken to the residence of his parents.
“If Maynard lives,” the doctor said, “it will be a wonder. He was left
for dead.”
The clue to the murderer which he had stumbled on was of no avail
at that time, for what he knew might never aid in the detection of
the criminals. The wound on the head, the doctor said, was liable to
produce a lapse of memory which would go further back than the night on
which it was received.
In the meantime, Nick Carter was satisfied that Maynard had gone to his
rooms from the hotel, and would remain there until the next day. As he
walked down the street with the self-styled reporter, the detective
listened between steps for a sound he hoped to hear not far away. No
such sound came to his ears. Presently he found himself in Houston
Street.
The house occupied by the African fortune teller with whom Maynard and
Townsend had made an appointment was not far away. Nick knew the place
well, for, as much out of curiosity as anything, he had called upon the
woman when she had first attracted the attention of the town, and had
made a close scrutiny of her apartments, which were on the first floor
of an old residence not far from the East River.
There was a red light over the door, but the building seemed still and
the window shades were closely drawn. The young man stopped directly in
front of the house.
“This is the place,” he said.
Again Nick listened for the expected footfalls, but in vain. There
was nothing for it but to go in alone and trust to luck. He had
summoned Chick and Patsy from his home when he had called the coroner,
instructing them to hasten to the hotel and trail him, wherever he
went. Something had possibly happened to disarrange the plan.