Transcriber’s Notes:
The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained,
with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
Text in Italics is indicated between _underscores_.
Text in Small Capitals has been replaced by regular uppercase text.
* * * * *
NICK CARTER STORIES
New Magnet Library
_Not a Dull Book in This List_
ALL BY NICHOLAS CARTER
Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that
the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the
work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no
other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of
new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from
all sorts of troubles and landed the criminal just where he should
be—behind the bars.
The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories
than any other single person.
Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been
selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of
them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth
covers which sells at ten times the price.
If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet
Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.
_ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_
901—A Weird Treasure
902—The Middle Link
903—To the Ends of the Earth
904—When Honors Pall
905—The Yellow Brand
906—A New Serpent in Eden
907—When Brave Men Tremble
908—A Test of Courage
909—Where Peril Beckons
910—The Gargoni Girdle
911—Rascals & Co.
912—Too Late to Talk
913—Satan’s Apt Pupil
914—The Girl Prisoner
915—The Danger of Folly
916—One Shipwreck Too Many
917—Scourged by Fear
918—The Red Plague
919—Scoundrels Rampant
920—From Clew to Clew
921—When Rogues Conspire
922—Twelve in a Grave
923—The Great Opium Case
924—A Conspiracy of Rumors
925—A Klondike Claim
926—The Evil Formula
927—The Man of Many Faces
928—The Great Enigma
929—The Burden of Proof
930—The Stolen Brain
931—A Titled Counterfeiter
932—The Magic Necklace
933—’Round the World for a Quarter
934—Over the Edge of the World
935—In the Grip of Fate
936—The Case of Many Clews
937—The Sealed Door
938—Nick Carter and the Green Goods Men
939—The Man Without a Will
940—Tracked Across the Atlantic
941—A Clew from the Unknown
942—The Crime of a Countess
943—A Mixed-up Mess
944—The Great Money-order Swindle
945—The Adder’s Brood
946—A Wall Street Haul
947—For a Pawned Crown
948—Sealed Orders
949—The Hate that Kills
950—The American Marquis
951—The Needy Nine
952—Fighting Against Millions
953—Outlaws of the Blue
954—The Old Detective’s Pupil
955—Found in the Jungle
956—The Mysterious Mail Robbery
957—Broken Bars
958—A Fair Criminal
959—Won by Magic
960—The Piano Box Mystery
961—The Man They Held Back
962—A Millionaire Partner
963—A Pressing Peril
964—An Australian Klondike
965—The Sultan’s Pearls
966—The Double Shuffle Club
967—Paying the Price
968—A Woman’s Hand
969—A Network of Crime
970—At Thompson’s Ranch
971—The Crossed Needles
972—The Diamond Mine Case
973—Blood Will Tell
974—An Accidental Password
975—The Crook’s Double
976—Two Plus Two
977—The Yellow Label
978—The Clever Celestial
979—The Amphitheater Plot
980—Gideon Drexel’s Millions
981—Death in Life
982—A Stolen Identity
983—Evidence by Telephone
984—The Twelve Tin Boxes
985—Clew Against Clew
986—Lady Velvet
987—Playing a Bold Game
988—A Dead Man’s Grip
989—Snarled Identities
990—A Deposit Vault Puzzle
991—The Crescent Brotherhood
992—The Stolen Pay Train
993—The Sea Fox
994—Wanted by Two Clients
995—The Van Alstine Case
996—Check No. 777
997—Partners in Peril
998—Nick Carter’s Clever Protégé
999—The Sign of the Crossed Knives
1000—The Man Who Vanished
1001—A Battle for the Right
1002—A Game of Craft
1003—Nick Carter’s Retainer
1004—Caught in the Toils
1005—A Broken Bond
1006—The Crime of the French Café
1007—The Man Who Stole Millions
1008—The Twelve Wise Men
1009—Hidden Foes
1010—A Gamblers’ Syndicate
1011—A Chance Discovery
1012—Among the Counterfeiters
1013—A Threefold Disappearance
1014—At Odds with Scotland Yard
1015—A Princess of Crime
1016—Found on the Beach
1017—A Spinner of Death
1018—The Detective’s Pretty Neighbor
1019—A Bogus Clew
1020—The Puzzle of Five Pistols
1021—The Secret of the Marble Mantel
1022—A Bite of an Apple
1023—A Triple Crime
1024—The Stolen Race Horse
1025—Wildfire
1026—A _Herald_ Personal
1027—The Finger of Suspicion
1028—The Crimson Clew
1029—Nick Carter Down East
1030—The Chain of Clews
1031—A Victim of Circumstances
1032—Brought to Bay
1033—The Dynamite Trap
1034—A Scrap of Black Lace
1035—The Woman of Evil
1036—A Legacy of Hate
1037—A Trusted Rogue
1038—Man Against Man
1039—The Demons of the Night
1040—The Brotherhood of Death
1041—At the Knife’s Point
1042—A Cry for Help
1043—A Stroke of Policy
1044—Hounded to Death
1045—A Bargain in Crime
1046—The Fatal Prescription
1047—The Man of Iron
1048—An Amazing Scoundrel
1049—The Chain of Evidence
1050—Paid with Death
1051—A Fight for a Throne
1052—The Woman of Steel
1053—The Seal of Death
1054—The Human Fiend
1055—A Desperate Chance
1056—A Chase in the Dark
1057—The Snare and the Game
1058—The Murray Hill Mystery
1059—Nick Carter’s Close Call
1060—The Missing Cotton King
1061—A Game of Plots
1062—The Prince of Liars
1063—The Man at the Window
1064—The Red League
1065—The Price of a Secret
1066—The Worst Case on Record
1067—From Peril to Peril
1068—The Seal of Silence
1069—Nick Carter’s Chinese Puzzle
1070—A Blackmailer’s Bluff
1071—Heard in the Dark
1072—A Checkmated Scoundrel
1073—The Cashier’s Secret
1074—Behind a Mask
A STOLEN NAME
OR
The Man Who Defied Nick Carter
By NICHOLAS CARTER
Author of “The Taxicab Riddle,” “Nick Carter’s Last Card,”
“Bandits of the Air,” etc.
[Illustration]
STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS
INCORPORATED
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York
Copyright, 1910
By STREET & SMITH
A Stolen Name
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
Printed in the U.S.A.
A STOLEN NAME.
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNING OF A PLOT.
Bare-Faced Jimmy, so-called gentleman crook, expert cracksman, and
a master criminal in any department of the underworld to which he
cared to devote his attention, leaned backward in his chair until it
tilted against the wall behind him, blew a cloud of Perfecto smoke
ceilingward, and remarked:
“It will be the easiest thing in the world, Juno. If the objective
point were a fortune—even a moderate one; if the thing contemplated
included the theft of a single dollar, in cash or in estate, it would
be different; but it doesn’t. No, it does not. Really, Juno, if one
pauses to think seriously about it, from that point of view, it is
almost laughable.”
“That is why I have been smiling at the idea ever since you mentioned
it,” returned the woman, applying a lighted match to a cigarette with
all the grace and abandon of one who had been long accustomed to the
practice.
“As a matter of fact,” Jimmy continued, as if he had not heard her
remark, “if I do decide to undertake it, the only things that I steal
will be a lot of debts; and who ever heard of stealing debts? Eh?”
“There certainly is novelty in the thought,” was the quick reply. “If
some gracious person had done you the honor to steal yours, long ago——”
“Oh, yes, my dear; that is quite true; only we won’t go into the ‘long
ago’ matters, just now, if you please.”
The woman shrugged her shoulders and picked up from her lap a book
that she had been reading. For a time she devoted her attention to the
pages, and then her companion broke the silence again.
“I think I’ll do it,” he said decidedly. “I see great possibilities in
the adventure. Juno, will you be good enough to lay that book aside for
a few moments, and to give me your undivided attention?”
“Gladly,” she replied, “if you will condescend to speak out plainly,
instead of confining yourself to generalities.”
“All right, my dear; here goes. In the State of Virginia, bordering on
the Potomac River, and washed by the waters of two other streams—which
by courtesy are also called rivers—lies an estate which consists of
something more than eight hundred acres. The title to that estate is in
the name of James Ledger Dinwiddie, who——”
“Who, at the present moment lies dead in the adjoining room in this
house,” she interrupted him; but he only chuckled as he responded:
“On the contrary, he is seated here before you, now; he is talking
with you; he is referring to that dear old plantation in dearer old
Virginia which, ever since the days of Bushrod Washington, has been
called by the name of Kingsgift—the Lord only knows why, unless
some dead and forgotten king gave it as a present to the original
Dinwiddie. Henceforth, my dear, I am Ledger Dinwiddie, owner of an
estate in Virginia that is mortgaged for more than it was ever worth;
for much more than it would ever bring at a forced sale. I am also the
undisputed owner of a choice collection of debts, of an old colonial
house that is now falling into ruins, of numerous other buildings that
are in various stages of dilapidation, and of numerous other things of
the same sort, all of which are not only entirely worthless, but are
really much worse than worthless; and there you are.”
“Will you tell me, Jimmy, just what you expect to gain, then, by this
remarkable adventure, as you call it?” the woman asked quizzically.
“Decidedly I will tell you. I gain the one thing I need most, just
now—a name. My own—but I have never told you what my own really was,
have I? No; and there is no use going into that, now—but my own
name has been so long abandoned that I have forgotten the use of it;
especially the application of it. The name that has been given me by
the police of various localities, isn’t sufficiently high-sounding;
and——”
“No. Bare-Faced Jimmy is hardly a name to have engraved upon one’s
cards,” she interrupted him.
“——and, as I was saying, James Duryea, who has been called Bare-Faced
Jimmy, is popularly supposed to lie buried on an island in the Sound,
just off South Norwalk, Connecticut. I would much rather that the
police should not be undeceived about that, and so we will let Jimmy
Duryea, cracksman, lie there and rot; eh?”
“If you please. I don’t mind. A rose by any other name, you know.”
“Yes; I know. And that reminds me. In the future I will thank you to
address me as Ledger. Eh? By Jove! Juno, that chap in there was the
most unbalanced ledger I ever saw in my life. If he hadn’t sort of come
to, during the last hours of his life, and told all he ever knew about
himself and his people, this idea would never have occurred to me.”
“It looks to me like a fool idea, anyhow,” she commented, with a toss
of her beautiful and shapely head, crowned as it was with a wealth of
raven-black hair. Juno was undeniably a beautiful woman—a fact of which
she was perfectly well aware.
“Fool idea?” he retorted. “Not much. It’s a splendid one. It is the
idea of my life, and it is worth about three or four times as much as
it would have been had the chap in there left a million in money and
unencumbered estates behind him when he died. I would rather have his
debts than a fortune that he might have left. Really, I don’t think
that I would have undertaken the thing if he had left property that was
worth anything.”
“Why?”
“Why, to what, Juno?”
“Why is the name and the identity of that poor fellow worth more to
you, so, than if he had left a fortune behind him?”
“Why? Can you, my dear, ask such a question as that?”
“I do ask it.”
“Then know this: Nobody will want what Dinwiddie has left behind him.
No one will be desirous of shouldering his debts; and consequently
nobody will step forward to dispute the rights that I shall assert
belong to me. Word will travel around the neighborhood, and throughout
the county, that Ledger Dinwiddie has come back; then there will be
a few convulsive shrugs of a few shoulders, a score or so of knowing
winks—and that will be about all. On the other hand, if there was
property, there would be a hundred disinterested persons, neighbors
and otherwise, who would find a chance to doubt if I were the real
Dinwiddie returned to what had once been his own.”
“But what do you get out of it, Jimmy?”
“I get a name, my dear; an old, old name; an older lineage, than
which there is none better in the Old Dominion; an ancestry that is
unimpeachable; a reputation which stands for gentility, and which has
stood for gentility for generations; a career, all made in a moment,
but which is, nevertheless, three centuries old; an established place
in the world which none can deny me—Heaven knows that I need one just
now; and a safe refuge in which I can hide myself for the rest of my
natural life, without the trouble of attempting to disguise my face, or
my mannerisms.”
“All the same, Jimmy, there are plenty of people in the world, honest
men and crooks, policemen and judges on the bench, lawyers and
ex-convicts, who will quickly recognize the features of Jimmy Duryea,
if those features happen to be seen.”
“Juno, that is just the point; they won’t. Ledger Dinwiddie will bear a
strong resemblance to the late lamented Bare-Faced Jimmy, to be sure,
but nobody will ever think of associating the two; never. Besides,
if the necessity should arise, Ledger Dinwiddie could establish his
identity beyond question. People could be found who knew him when he
was a boy.”
“And you might even claim, if you choose, that the defunct Jimmy was a
distant relation who went to the bad in his early youth, and who had
been cast off by ‘the family,’” said Juno.
“Precisely. Not at all a bad idea.”
“Well, what then?”
“Everything then, Juno. Like Monte Cristo, the world will be mine.
I will only have to reach out my two hands and take it. And with my
accomplishments I do not anticipate that it will be a difficult task to
do so.”
“Probably not—with your accomplishments.”
“It will never occur to any of those Virginians, up there, that a man
would be ass enough to lay claim to a worthless estate, encumbered by
unnumbered debts; to a broken fortune—and all that. They will accept me
on the spot, and without asking a question.”
“Yet, Jimmy, you do not in the least resemble that dead man in there.”
“I know it. What of it?”
“There may be a few persons left alive, at or near Kingsgift, who will
remember the young man who left his home in Virginia, so long ago.”
“Bah! Nonsense, my dear. They will look at me and exclaim. ‘How you
have changed!’ or, ‘You’re right smart altered since you went away,
Ledger.’ But to offset that, there will be dozens who do not remember
at all how Dinwiddie really looked, who will declare, ‘Why, boy, I’d
have known you anywhere. You ain’t a mite changed since you was a
leetle chap, so high.’ That is the way of the world, Juno.”
“But what will you do with the name, and with the mortgaged estates,
when you get them?” Juno asked lightly. “Considering that part of it
as settled, for you generally accomplish whatever you undertake to do,
what will you do with it all?”
“I’ll make your fortune and mine. I’ll square Dinwiddie with the people
around there, and tell them all what a great man I intend to make of
myself. I’ll pay off a year’s interest on the mortgages and other
debts, and make out new papers, just to give them confidence in me.
When that is done, I’ll be ready for the real work of—succeeding.”
“Succeeding at what?”
“At making a fortune.”
“And you really think that you can do it?”
“With such a name, such a lineage, such a reputation for gentility? Of
course I can do it.”
“It doesn’t strike me that people will be any more eager to lend you
money——”
“Lend me money? I don’t want them to do that.”
“Then how——”
“I shall take it. If they accept me, they must take the consequences.”
“Do you mean that you will do it in the old way?”
“Sure. What other way do I know?”
“What if you should get caught at it, Jimmy?”
“Caught at it? Ledger Dinwiddie caught at burglary? At thievery? What
an absurd idea! Oh, no, I won’t get caught at it. Not at all. And
the world will open itself wide, inviting me to take it. I’ll have a
winter home for you, in Washington; I’ll get those fools to send me to
Congress, and—— You’ll see!”
Such was the beginning of the “Great Coup” undertaken by James Duryea,
alias Bare-Faced Jimmy, the gentleman crook, alias Howard Drummond,
one-time gentleman, graduate of Rugby and Cambridge, ex-officer in
the dragoons, and ex- a lot of other things which had come to him by
inheritance.
But Jimmy had run the gamut of his short, but varied career.
Nothing had been too swift for him to overtake it, to distance it, and
finally to wear out its usefulness, and finally his own, too.
Once, according to Nick Carter’s records, the man had really tried
to reform; “had made a stab at it,” as he expressed it; but the old
temptations had been too strong for him; the “call of the contest”
had proved too alluring. The desire to pit his own wit against the
representatives of law and order had overcome the better self that
reposed somewhere within the strange complexity of this man, and he had
gone again, deliberately, into the life of the underworld.
The woman who was seated upon the chair opposite, and to whom his
conversation was addressed, had proved herself to be the only person of
whom Jimmy had ever stood in the least in awe.
The name by which Jimmy addressed her, was one that he had bestowed
upon her himself.
She had never been known by that name to any other person than this
man who had just determined to steal a birthright, although there were
half a dozen aliases by which she had been known to the authorities of
Paris, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and London; and under each one
of those half dozen aliases she had earned reputations which filled
pages of private but official records of the secret police of five
different nations.
Her dossier had been written down in five languages—and more; and now,
as Juno, she had started out to carve a new career for herself, with
the aid of Jimmy, whom she respected for his wit, his daring, for his
past achievements and the promise he gave of attempting new and greater
ones.
These two represented the masculine and the feminine of all that is
masterful in the life of rogues; they were the perfection of the
imperfect, if the expression may be used.
Jimmy was a handsome man, and one who would be noticeable in any
company. He was distinguished in appearance, Chesterfieldian in his
manners, graceful in his motions—a somebody in everything that he did,
educated, refined by instinct and by early training; he was a graduated
crook in every part and branch of the “profession.”
And Juno? Draw her picture for yourself. It cannot be too strongly, too
perfectly outlined.
She was of that type of beauty which only the Latin races achieve,
and it had been vouchsafed to her in the superlative degree. Her hair
was black, beautiful, and there were masses of it. Her complexion
was almost fair, but there was just enough of the olive tint to give
to the red blood in her cheeks an added warmth. Her eyes were large,
luminous, dreamy, or ablaze with eagerness or passion as the case might
be. Her figure was perfect, her hands and her feet were “dreams for
the contemplation of an artist,” her every motion was lithe, lissome,
sinuous, catlike in the sense that she could not have been lacking in
grace had she made the effort. Indeed, there was something about Juno’s
every act which suggested the black leopard—and that was one of the
aliases by which she had one time been known in Paris. Reduced to five
words, Juno’s description was entirely comprehended by the expression:
She was a beautiful woman.
Juno’s antecedents were no less aristocratic than Jimmy’s.
She, too, had been born and bred within the exclusiveness of the
blue-blooded. Her father and her mother had worn titles of distinction;
she had been given all the “advantages” when she was a child, and a
young woman—she was that, still. She spoke many languages, and spoke
each one so perfectly that it was a matter of indifference to her which
one she made use of.
In the long-ago, when both had been respectable children, she and Jimmy
had played together. Many years after that, when Jimmy had gone to the
bad, and Juno had achieved an international reputation in her various
lines, they met again—to drift apart as they had done in those early
days.
After that there was another lapse of years during which Jimmy had
visited South Africa, had married, had drifted to New York with
his wife, had been sent to Sing Sing, had been divorced, and then,
according to official reports concerning him, had died and was buried
on an island in Long Island Sound. During these years Juno had served
the Nihilists of Russia, the Socialists of Germany, the secret
societies of other nations—during which she had been a spy, also, for
these several governments, and had won an international reputation, and
become almost everything that a beautiful woman should not be.
But the continent of Europe, and the British Isles, had grown too
hot for her. She came to America—and almost the first person she
encountered after leaving the steamer that brought her here, was
Bare-Faced Jimmy. And this happened within the year that followed upon
his supposed death.
“Two souls with but a single thought,” although by no means a
sentimental one, might well have applied to them; the single thought
being their desire to victimize the rest of mankind.
“Let’s strike up a partnership, Juno,” Jimmy had said to her.
“Together, with your craftiness and my skill, nothing can stop us.
Let’s strike up a partnership;” and she had replied:
“Very good, Jimmy; but a minister, not a lawyer, shall draw the
contract.”
And so they were married—strangely enough, under their right names, too.
Jimmy had more than twenty thousand dollars cached away in a secret
hiding place; Juno possessed half as much more. The marriage occurred
in the late fall, and they went South, to one of the Florida beaches,
where they secured a villa, and where they passed what was really a
honeymoon.
When issuing from their cottage door one morning, they had found the
insensible form of a man upon their doorstep.
One may be a crook, a burglar, and all that, and still possess much
kindness of heart; two may be so, and these two were.
Together they carried their unconscious burden inside the cottage,
summoned the one servant who waited upon their wants, and attended to
the stricken man.
They did not ask where he came from, nor how it happened that he had
fallen upon their doorstep in his present condition; and he could not
have informed them, then, if the questions had been asked.
But they ministered to him; they kept him there and cared for him,
making no inquiries concerning him, since by doing so they would have
attracted attention to themselves, which was the one great thing they
desired to avoid.
But the stricken man had arrived at the end of his journey. He had
fallen upon their doorstep to die, and die he did, after three weeks,
easily, painlessly, composedly, and tenderly cared for until the last,
by these two bits of flotsam.
And there had been some hours of clearness of vision, of return to
memory, before death claimed its prize. He had told them his name, and
all about himself—and also that nowhere in the world did there remain
one person who was nearly enough related to him to care whether he
lived or died; that he was the last of his race, in the direct line,
and that he bore an old and honored name upon which there had never
been a blemish, save that one which poverty imposes.
Ledger Dinwiddie died in the spare bedroom of that cottage inhabited by
these two products of the underworld, cared for during his last hours
by two as uncompromising crooks and rogues as ever lived to prey upon
mankind.
And so, Ledger Dinwiddie did not die, but lived on again in the
person of Bare-Faced Jimmy, who adopted the name and the lineage of
his uninvited guest, and who went forth, presently, to assume all the
prerogatives which the possession of that name could bestow upon him.