NICK CARTER STORIES
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=No. 123.= NEW YORK, January 16, 1915. =Price Five Cents.=
HALF A MILLION RANSOM;
Or, NICK CARTER AND THE NEEDY NINE.
Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE WOMAN WHO FAINTED.
Nick Carter caught sight of the couple only by chance. His touring car,
in which he was seated with his chauffeur and Patsy Garvan, his junior
assistant, was speeding through one of the winding driveways in Central
Park, New York, and heading for Fifty-ninth Street.
“Hold on! Slow down, Danny!” he cried to his chauffeur. “That woman has
fainted, or is in a fit.”
The woman was lying on the greensward near a diverging driveway, and
some fifty yards from where Danny Maloney, startled by the detective’s
sudden sharp commands, brought the touring car to a quick stop.
A girl in a white apron and a starched linen cap was bending over the
woman and gazing around affrightedly, uncertain what to do. Seeing the
car stop and the detectives alighting, she suppressed a scream for help
and awaited their approach.
“She is down and out, chief, for fair,” said Patsy, while they ran
toward the couple.
“Fainted, most likely,” said Nick tersely. “If more serious, we’ll rush
her to the nearest physician, or call an ambulance.”
“By Jove, she’s getting up!” cried Patsy. “It’s not so bad, chief, after
all. She’s not completely in the soup.”
They were rapidly approaching the couple while speaking.
The nurse, or governess, for such the young woman appeared to be, had
arisen and was assisting the other to her feet.
She was a well-dressed woman of thirty-five, with an abundance of wavy
auburn hair and rather thin features, fairly prepossessing, but then
quite pale. She was wiping a white froth from her lips, and appeared
weak and confused.
“What’s the trouble?” Nick asked, addressing the nurse. “When was she
taken ill? Do you know her?”
He now suspected that the woman might be subject to fits, and that she
would recover without medical aid.
“No, sir, I don’t know her,” replied the girl. “I was tending the
children just around the curve, sir, when a boy ran up and told me that
a woman had fainted. He pointed this way, and I hurried to help her, and
that’s all I can tell you.”
“I shall be all right in a few moments,” said the woman, evidently
striving to pull herself together. “Don’t be alarmed, nor do anything
more. I shall come out of it.”
“Are you subject to such attacks?” Nick inquired, turning to her, while
Patsy also drew nearer.
“Yes, sir, at times. It’s epilepsy, sir, but this was only a slight
attack. I must have come out of it very quickly.”
“Do you want a physician?”
“No, sir. I shall be able to go home presently.”
“Where do you live?”
“In Eighty-first Street.”
“What name? I ask only lest you have a second attack.”
“Miss Margaret Hanson, sir. But I shall not have another attack at
present. I never have two in quick succession. I now am able to go, sir,
thanking you for your kindness.”
“I will take you home in my automobile, Miss Hanson, if you wish me to
do so,” said Nick kindly.
“Oh, no, sir, thank you,” she quickly objected, gradually drawing away.
“These attacks are not as serious as they appear. It will do me good to
walk home, sir, thanking you again.”
She bowed and moved away with the last, evidently quite herself again,
and Nick turned to Patsy and started to return to his touring car, in
which Danny was waiting.
The girl in an apron and starched cap was just departing around a curve
in the driveway some thirty yards distant, her trim figure partly
hidden by some intervening shrubbery.
“Come on,” said Nick. “It was nothing serious, after all.”
He recalled the last with rather grim sentiments a few minutes later.
“An ordinary fit, chief, wasn’t it?” questioned Patsy.
“Yes, but only a mild one, as she said. I knew what the trouble was, all
right, when I saw her wiping froth from her lips.”
“What a beastly affliction!”
“Beastly hardly expresses it,” said Nick. “Any disorder that knocks one
out without warning is a deucedly bad affliction. If she had---- Hello!
What now?”
A cry of alarm came from the direction in which the nurse had
disappeared. Looking back, for Nick and Patsy had nearly reached the
waiting touring car, they now beheld the girl running wildly hither and
thither, excitedly wringing her hands, and evidently in a frantic search
for some one.
Beyond the fringe of shrubbery flanking the curve of the driveway stood
a baby carriage containing a child about two years old, then crying
piteously.
“By Jove, there’s more trouble,” said Patsy. “What’s the matter with
her? She spoke of tending the children. I can see only one. She must
have lost track of the other.”
“It has strayed away, probably, or----”
Nick broke off abruptly, wheeling sharply around to gaze in the
direction Miss Margaret Hanson had taken.
She had disappeared. Neither in the driveway, the adjoining grounds, nor
in any part of the near avenue, was there any sign of her.
Nick Carter’s strong, clean-cut face underwent a decided change. He
turned to Patsy, saying hurriedly:
“By Jove! This may be a put-up job. Get a move on, Patsy. Hunt up that
woman who fainted. Find her, if possible, and keep your eye on her.”
“You think----”
“A child in charge of that nurse may have been stolen. The woman’s fit
may have been only a trick to lure the nurse away while----”
“Holy smoke!” Patsy interrupted. “I’ve got you.”
He darted away at top speed with the last in search of Margaret Hanson.
Nick already had turned, and was hurrying toward the distracted nurse,
who still was seeking here and there like one bereft of her senses.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks when the detective approached her
and grasped her arm, saying firmly yet kindly:
“Come, come, my girl; calm yourself. What’s the trouble?”
“It’s Amy, sir,” moaned the girl. “I can’t find her.”
“You left her here?”
“Yes, sir, when I went to aid that woman. I told her to stay right here
and tend the baby. Oh, I must find a policeman, and----”
“Stop a moment,” said Nick, detaining her. “I can do more than a
policeman. I am a detective. Compose yourself, now, and tell me just
what occurred. I will help you find the child. How old is she?”
Glancing sharply around, Nick had seen plainly that the child would be
easily discovered unless she had strayed to a considerable distance,
which was quite improbable in the short time the nurse had been absent.
The circumstances, moreover, already led him to suspect something far
more serious.
Somewhat encouraged by his assurances, the nurse governed her agitation
and hastened to reply.
“Amy is six years old, sir.”
“How long had you been with the woman when I joined you?”
“Not more than a couple of minutes.”
“What is your name?”
“Lucy Sloan. I am employed by Mr. John Madden, sir, who lives in the big
marble house on the other side of the avenue. I have been there five
years, sir, ever since Amy was a baby. Oh, what shall I do to find her?
The master’s heart will break unless I can find her.”
The girl pointed to a palatial marble residence on the opposite side of
Fifth Avenue, that of a millionaire banker and broker, whose operations
in the stock market a dozen years before had given him not only vast
wealth, but also a national reputation. He then had subsided, however,
and during more recent years he had devoted only part of his time to
business, though he still retained his interests in the firm of which he
long had been the senior member, that of Madden, Mellen & Mack.
Though not acquainted with the other members of the firm, Nick long had
been a personal friend of John Madden, having served him in several
important financial cases. This fact, together with certain
circumstances in the family history of the man, the nature of which will
presently appear, not only caused Nick to regard the disappearance of
the child more seriously, but also to take up the affair with increasing
zest.
Turning to Lucy Sloan, who was a pretty girl in the twenties, and whose
face was a voucher for her honesty, Nick said more earnestly:
“I am well acquainted with Mr. Madden. In fact, Lucy, I am the first
person on whom he would call for aid in case his little girl is really
lost. Tell me, now, just what occurred here that sent you to assist the
woman who fainted.”
Lucy Sloan, however, could add but little to what she already had
stated. She had been walking in the park about ten minutes before, the
immediate locality then being otherwise deserted, when a boy about ten
years old came running toward her, crying that a woman had fainted, at
the same time pointing around the curve in the direction from which he
had approached. It then was about four o’clock on a charming May
afternoon.
Without waiting to question the boy, Lucy hurriedly directed him to
watch the two children, and she then ran to the woman’s assistance, with
whom Nick had observed her two or three minutes later. Returning while
the detective was talking with the woman, Lucy found only the child
crying in the carriage, and at once began a vain and frantic search for
the missing girl. The boy also had disappeared, and all had transpired
within a period of five or six minutes.
In the meantime, too, Margaret Hanson had vanished. For Patsy Garvan
returned just as the nurse ended her hurried statements, and his face
alone told the story.
“Couldn’t find her, eh?” Nick tersely questioned.
“Not hide nor hair of her, chief,” said Patsy; “nor any one who had seen
a woman of her description. She must have made a bee line for the
avenue, and taken a conveyance of some kind.”
Nick glanced around again and sized up the possibilities of the
immediate locality. Twenty yards away was a divergent driveway running
north, in which, as well as the one near by, the tracks left by the
tires of automobiles could be distinctly seen. None of these denoted
that a car had recently passed that way, however, nor had Nick seen any
during the episodes described.
“Are you in the habit of coming here with the children in the
afternoon?” he asked a bit abruptly, again addressing the nurse.
“Yes, sir, every pleasant day.”
“At about this time?”
“Yes, sir; from three until five.”
“Did you see any one looking at you, or acting suspiciously, before the
lad came and spoke to you?”
“I did not, sir. There was no one near here except people passing at
times.”
“Would you know the boy if you were to see him again?”
“Indeed, sir, I would,” Lucy declared emphatically. “He is about ten
years old, with red hair and freckled face. I’d know him among a
million.”
“Was he well dressed?”
“Not very, sir.”
“Did he appear like a street gamin, or somewhat refined?”
“More like a boy of the street, sir, and he spoke like one.”
“How so?”
“He said he’d mind the kid, sir, and he called the woman a skirt,”
explained Lucy. “I knew what he meant, sir, but only rough boys talk
like that.”
“True,” Nick nodded. “At what time does Mr. Madden usually come home?”
“About five o’clock, sir, and he always wants the children there when he
comes in. They are his only comfort, sir, since the mistress died. It
would break his heart to lose Amy. Oh, what shall I do? I’ll go crazy,
sir, unless we can find her.”
“That certainly would do no good, my girl, though I appreciate your
feelings,” Nick replied.
Then, turning to Patsy, he added quickly:
“You rejoin Danny, and take a turn around here with the car. See what
you can learn, and also keep an eye open for the lad this girl has
described. Report to me at Mr. Madden’s residence. I’m going over there
with the nurse and will wait until he comes. I can explain this case to
him much better than she. You understand.”
“Sure thing, chief,” said Patsy, with unusual gravity. “I’m on, all
right.”