BARE-FACED JIMMY’S DOUBLE.
Nick Carter, after he escaped from his pursuers that night, and could
take it more easily for the remainder of the distance he wished to go,
had thought deeply. Even before he had the interview which followed
with the ambassador, he had determined upon his future course of action.
Since Turnieff had been murdered, evidently in cold blood, and merely
to get rid of him, the detective was convinced that the Russian colonel
had been the real instrument in the theft of the tin cylinder and its
contents.
Whether Juno had engineered and directed the affair or not was a mere
incident in the matter. There was no longer any doubt in the mind of
Nick Carter that Turnieff had been the really guilty one.
And that Turnieff had had it in his power to betray those whom he
had served in performing the act—and might have done so, if driven
to it—was sufficient cause for his untimely taking off, from the
standpoint of those who had ordered his assassination.
Again Turnieff was really the only person who could have had access to
the sleeping room of the ambassador, and who could have gone through
the corridors of the house toward it, or have returned through them
from it, without exciting suspicion. After all, the ambassador had been
wiser than he realized in directing the detective to study the man
thoroughly and well.
But Juno, “The Leopard,” where was she in the matter?
During that conversation with Nick in the conservatory, she had said
enough to make it plain to him that she was really in the service of
that country which they had agreed to call Siam.
Practically she had admitted as much when she charged him with being in
the employ of Russia.
Nevertheless, Nick could not bring himself to the belief that she had
taken any part in the assassination of Turnieff, actively or passively,
or that she had knowledge of the intention to kill him.
He believed that in that respect she had been maligned. He believed
the statements she had made in regard to herself at the time of that
conservatory conversation, and he looked upon her now as not half so
bad as she had been painted, or as she had permitted others to believe
her.
Her conduct toward him when she drove him away from her home left no
sting after it, for, after all, that was part of the game, and it
was up to her to take all the tricks she could take. Aside from the
assassination, Nick had a notion that the country Juno was serving had
more of right on its side than Russia did.
Nevertheless, Nick had pledged himself to recover those secret
documents for the ambassador, and he meant to do so; and now that
Turnieff had been killed, he had promised himself that the assassins
should be caught.
“Whether Juno is the person sought in this case or not, she is the real
key to the situation,” he told himself; and believing that, he made
arrangements for the next move.
He had determined now to move quickly. The murder of Turnieff should
not go unpunished, nor would he consent that he should himself be
thought guilty of such a crime if it could be avoided.
By the time he had finished his talk with the ambassador, morning
had come; and the ambassador, at the detective’s request, arose much
earlier than usual, and went forth to make some purchases for Nick,
since it was not safe at that time to trust another with the errand.
The things he wanted were the necessities for the disguise he had
determined to wear when night should fall again, and in the meantime he
intended to keep very quiet indeed within the house of the ambassador.
When the prince returned with the articles needed, he brought with him
several of the morning papers, and Nick learned from their contents the
exact status of affairs at that time. After he had discussed the matter
to some further extent with the ambassador, he shut himself in a room
and began to make the transformation in his appearance which now seemed
so necessary.
“Once there was a man who called himself Bare-Faced Jimmy,” he said to
himself with a smile as he regarded his own reflection in the mirror of
the room, “and now I shall proceed to bring that man—although he is in
Sing Sing prison at the present moment—into this room for my especial
benefit.”
Much had been said about the ability of Nick Carter in the way of
disguises. It was an art that his father had taught him, and which he
had studied in all its branches ever since then, at every time and
place where opportunity offered. One of the things that Nick Carter
could do, and do well, was to make himself like another person,
provided that stature and physical development were approximately the
same.
Nick’s first occupation in arranging the present disguise was to make a
careful drawing of Jimmy, and this, when he began to manufacture the
actual disguise, he pinned against the wall beside the mirror.
Midnight found the detective in the vicinity of the home of Juno,
Countess Narnine. He studied the dwelling for a time, and then walked
away from it, satisfied that he would have no difficulty in carrying
his design into execution.
He satisfied himself on another point also, and that was that Juno was
not only at home, but that she had denied herself to all callers; for
he saw several persons approach the door of her home, only to be turned
away again by the servants.
“I shouldn’t wonder if the murder of Turnieff and the hue and cry after
me, as a consequence of the crime, has got on her nerves,” he told
himself.
At two in the morning he was back again near the house. This time,
watching for his opportunity, he sprang over the fence, for the
house was a detached one, crept through the shrubbery, and presently
approached a side door which he had selected for the beginning of his
operations.
He did not know that, during his absence between midnight and two
o’clock, three men had called there, had been admitted, and were even
at that moment in consultation with Juno in the library of her home.
Perhaps, if he had known it, it would only have rendered him the more
eager to proceed with the undertaking in hand; at all events, he did
go ahead with it.
It consisted, first, in using his picklock upon that side door; a small
instrument of his own invention of which he often had occasion to make
use.
A chain bolt inside the door was quickly snipped through by nippers he
had brought with him for that purpose, and he stood inside the home of
Juno shortly after two o’clock in the morning.
His pocket flashlight showed him the way around. He pressed the button
of it long enough to determine his course, and went ahead slowly and
cautiously, and so he arrived in the main hallway at the front of the
house, from which point he knew his way fairly well.
There was more light burning in the hall than he had expected to find
there, and he decided that Juno might not have retired as yet. As he
bent his head to listen he could plainly hear the murmur of voices from
some place not far away, which he rightly judged to be the library.
Nick knew the location of the library from his visit to the house the
preceding night. He knew that it communicated with one of the parlors
of the house which was directly in front of it, and so he passed
through the hall to the parlor door and entered that room.
At once the voices became more distinct, though as yet he could not
determine words of the conversation. He crept forward and drew the
heavy curtain a trifle aside from the doorway that connected the two
rooms.
As he did so, he started back so suddenly that he almost betrayed
himself, for Juno at that moment, expressing something about the
closeness of the room, left her chair, came directly toward him, and
with a quick motion pulled the curtain all the way back.
It was a miracle that she did not discover him, but she did not,
and Nick understood the reason why. It was because she was greatly
exercised with the matter she had in hand at the moment.
She wheeled about where she stood, facing the others in the room, who
were seated at a table whereon were bottles, glasses, and cigars. There
were three men there, and Juno faced them from the curtained doorway,
standing with one of her hands still grasping the curtain. She was
angry. Nick could see that at once.
“There is absolutely no use in discussing the matter further,” she
told them in a tone which was emphatic. “I will not countenance what
has happened, and I will have nothing more to do with you or with your
crowd of assassins. You may go your ways. That is final. I am sorry
that I ever came here at all.”
“Beware, my purring leopard,” said one of the men in reply, with a
short and not pleasant laugh. “You may find that you call us assassins
to some purpose.”
“You threaten me?” she demanded, her lips curling with contempt.
“Yes, countess, I threaten you.”
“You would murder me, doubtless, as you murdered poor Turnieff.”
“Very likely,” replied the man coolly. “Very certainly, if you defy us.”
“Bah! As if I feared you! You—was it you who struck the blow, Delorme?
Was it you who stabbed Turnieff to death? You would stab me also; eh?”
“Yes. It was I. His death was necessary, and if it should happen that
you were in the way, my fair one, you could die quite as easily.”
She laughed at him deliberately, mockingly. She bent forward toward
him, still holding her grasp upon the curtain.
“You are a brute and a coward, Maurice Delorme!” she exclaimed.
“But—have you forgotten the tin cylinder with its contents? What would
you do without that? Offer to do me the least harm, and I will return
it to the Russian ambassador.”
“By heaven, you shall give it up now!” cried Delorme, leaping to his
feet and starting toward her; but he had not taken the second step
in that direction when Juno was seized from behind, pulled backward
through the open doorway and Maurice Delorme found himself facing a man
instead of a woman. The man was coolly pointing a pistol at his heart
and commanding him to throw up his hands or take the consequences.
Nick Carter had not anticipated any such development as this, when he
determined to enter the house of the Countess Narnine as a burglar
would. He had intended, then, merely to personate Jimmy, to surprise
Juno, and if possible to force a confession of some sort from her.
But here was a gathering of the very men he wanted to find, at her
house. And here she was resenting what they had done in murdering the
Russian officer; defying them to their faces, and admitting in his
hearing that she could place her hand upon the papers he was seeking.
And more, here was the confessed murderer of Turnieff, with two of his
accomplices.
Nor would Nick have interrupted the scene just when he did had he not
realized the necessity of immediate action.
He had seen enough to know that Delorme was ugly, and to understand
that the man was quite capable of killing Juno then and there.
Indeed, Delorme afterward confessed that the countess would not have
lived a moment longer had Nick Carter not appeared when he did.
Nick saw the flame in the man’s eyes; he saw the temper the fellow was
in. The detective realized that he must act at once, and so he snatched
Juno out of danger, whipped out his own weapons and took her place,
getting the “drop” on all of the three men at once.
And they did not know him.
Had he been Nick Carter in proper person, they would have done so; but
in his character of Bare-Faced Jimmy, he was a stranger to them.
More than that, when he seized Juno, dragged her back away from
Delorme, and took her place, they heard her cry out in evident
consternation:
“_Jimmy!_”
They were frightened.
They did not dare to move, and doubtless they supposed that it would be
possible to temporize.
In obedience to the stern command that the detective uttered, they
raised their hands high above their heads and held them there, staring.
The two revolvers he held, one in either hand, with the muzzles
wavering from one to another and keeping each of them constantly
covered, confirmed a sufficiently convincing argument.
“Juno?” said Nick without turning his head, and for the moment
forgetting to imitate the voice of James Duryea.
She stared for a moment without replying. Then she moved forward until
she stood near him, still staring.
“Yes?” she replied. And then as if impelled by a second thought she
added: “What is it, Jimmy?”
Nick chuckled. He knew from the manner of her reply that he had already
betrayed himself, but that she preferred to accept the deception as
fact. Then he spoke calmly.
“I want you to know,” he said, still keeping the pistols wavering so
that they covered all three of the men, “that I believe all that you
said to me in that last interview we had. And now will you help me to
do something? Will you, Juno?”
“Yes. I will help. You want me to disarm those men?”
“Yes. Tell them that you know me; that if they make the slightest move
I’ll drop every one of them with a bullet; not dead, you understand;
just maimed. I’ll shoot one knee out from under each one of them.
Now go ahead, Juno. Be careful there, mister man, you who are called
Maurice Delorme.
“You look ugly and you would commit murder if you had an opportunity;
but you won’t get one. Did you ever happen to hear of Bare-Faced Jimmy,
the gentleman burglar? Well, that’s me. I came here just in time,
didn’t I? I happened to see you—all three of you—when you killed that
Russian colonel last night, so you didn’t have to make that confession
we just heard. Have you got ’em all, Juno?”
“Yes.”
“Every one of them? Are you sure that you have not overlooked a knife
or a pistol, or a bottle of acid, or poison?”
“Quite sure,” she smiled back at him.
“Good! Now, my festive assassins, turn around. Your backs are more
agreeable than your faces. That’s right. Juno, take one of these
pistols; I’ll keep the other. Now, you three cutthroats, stand still.
If you move it means a broken knee for each of you. Juno, I regret the
necessity for taking down some of these pictures on the walls, but I
need the wire.”
Five minutes after that, bound hand and foot with wire picture cord,
the three men were lying on their back on the floor of the library.
Then, and not till then, Juno stepped forward demurely and gave the
pistol back to Nick Carter.
“We will leave those fellows where they are for the present, Juno,” the
detective said. “They can’t get away. That wire cord is too strong for
them, and I am too good an expert in its use. Have you another room to
which you can take me, countess?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Come with me.”
He followed her and she led him through the hall and up the broad
stairway to the parlor of her own private suite. There she turned about
and faced him.
“Why did you make yourself so like Jimmy?” she demanded. It was the
last thing he expected her to say.
“Because I realized the necessity of another interview with you, and
because I thought that for a few moments at least I could deceive you.”
“You might have done so indeed, for a moment; but not for long. But why
did you wish to do it?”
“Juno, every wish that I had was built upon the desire to recover
possession of the tin cylinder, which I was sure you held in your
possession. To-night I have heard you admit that you have it. I want
it, Juno.”
“Suppose I should refuse it?”
“In that case I would keep on searching till I discovered it; that is
all.”
She came a step nearer to him.
“You saved my life to-night, Nick Carter. Do you realize that? That man
would have killed me. You appeared on the scene just in time.”
“That is why I appeared,” he replied.
“I owe you something for that, my friend. But first of all, I owe you
an apology—for what I said and did when you were here at my reception.
Will you forgive me?”
“Oh, that is all in the game, Juno. I think I admired you when you did
it. It was a very plucky thing to do.”
“No. That is a mistake. It was not a plucky thing to do; it was a
despicable thing for me to do. Will you forgive it? Say yes, if you
mean it.”
“Yes. Wholly. Entirely. And now——”
“Before we refer to the tin cylinder and the papers it contains, will
you do me a favor, please?” she interrupted him.
“I think so. What is it?”
“That door opens into a lavatory. Go in there and remove the disguise.
Let me talk to you as Nick Carter; not as what you appear to be.”
Without a word he turned away. Five minutes later he was back again,
and stood before her with not a trace of the disguise left upon him. He
noticed that she was holding in one of her hands the tin cylinder about
which so much had been done, and which had been the cause of so many
things happening.
With only a few words of comment, she placed it in his hands.
“Take it,” she said. “I hate it and all that is connected with it.
Somehow I feel as if I were responsible for the death of poor
Turnieff, although I swear to you——”
“You need not, Juno. I am already convinced of that much.”
“But I had nothing to do with the theft of it. I did not even ask
him to get it for me or if it was in his power to get it. Once I did
mention those papers to him, and say that if I could get possession of
them my fortune would be made. Then one day he brought them to me—and
I hated him for it; hated him for the weakling he was. I did not come
here in the service of that country that wanted the papers. It was only
after I arrived here that I was induced to take part in their affairs;
but I swear to you that I have never done one single thing for them, or
abetted one of their acts, which could reflect upon me in the slightest
degree. Oh, please believe me, Nick Carter.”
“I do believe you, Juno.”
“One more thing and I have done. I want to swear to you again that I
had nothing to do with the death of Turnieff’s father. Maurice Delorme
did that, too, I believe, although I do not know. The money and the
jewels that were stolen from the old prince I never saw out of his
possession, although I think that Delorme could explain about that part
of it, too. And now, now——”
She turned her back to him for a moment, and waited. After a little
she turned about again, and raising her head proudly, asked:
“What are you going to do with me?”
“I am going to give you a bit of advice, Juno; that is all. It is that
you give up the life of an international spy, and of a diplomatic
agent, and live the life that will make you happy. That is all.”
* * * * *
After a time she asked him:
“What will you do with those men downstairs, Nick Carter?”
“I have been thinking about that,” he replied to her. “It would not do
for them to be taken to jail from your home. I will telephone for the
ambassador from here. He will send a closed carriage. We will bundle
these men into it—and, unless I greatly mistake, he will know how to
handle the situation.”
And the ambassador did know.
Just how it was done nobody ever discovered, but the men made a full
confession, and ultimately they suffered the extreme penalty of the law
in such cases.
Another thing: Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, with the many aliases, died
that same night in the prison where he was confined.
THE END.
No. 1288 of the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY will be entitled “A Play for
Millions.” This story by Nicholas Carter holds many thrills and
surprises for the reader.
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