NICK IS BOLDLY CHALLENGED.
Nick knew the old Plummer mansion well. There is not a house to match it
in this country.
A hundred years and more ago it must have been the scene of strange
adventures. It was built, certainly, by one who did not expect a
peaceful and quiet life within it.
The thick stone walls, which look so unnecessarily massive, are really
double. There are secret passages and movable panels and trap-doors
enough in that house to hide a man, if a regiment of soldiers was after
him.
Evidently such a place offered every chance to shrewd criminals who
might have a motive for playing upon the superstitious beliefs of the
present proprietor.
Anybody who couldn't get up a respectable ghost in the old Plummer house
must be a very poor fakir.
The mere fact that all the doors and windows of a room were closed did
not prevent any person from going in or out at will, if he knew the
secrets of the house.
Nick thought of these things as he rode down there in the cars, and he
prepared himself for an interesting time, chasing bogus ghosts through
secret doors and panels.
But a surprise awaited him on his arrival. Colonel Richmond met him at
the door, and, by Nick's request, took him at once to the room from
which the articles had been stolen.
It was a modern room in a new part of the house.
Nick was entirely unprepared for this. He did not know that the colonel
had built any additions to the old mansion.
Colonel Richmond spoke of this remarkable feature of the case at once.
"If this thing had happened in the old part of the house," he said, "I
shouldn't have thought that it was anything but an ordinary robbery.
"Every room there can be entered in a secret manner, and no doubt there
are plenty of panels and passages which even I do not know.
"But there's nothing of the kind here. This wing was built under my eye,
and from my own design. I saw the beams laid and the floors nailed down.
"There is absolutely no way to enter the room in which we now stand
except by the two doors and the window.
"My nephew has told you about the robberies. You know that the doors and
the windows were practically guarded all the time.
"I don't believe that any mortal being could have got in here and got
out again without being seen.
"As for myself, I understand the case perfectly. My belief will seem
strange to you, because you do not see with the eye of the spirit.
Everything has to be done by human hands, according to your
matter-of-fact notion.
"I know better; and I tell you that these jewels were taken by the
spirit of my deceased aunt, and that she did it to show me that my
daughter was wrongfully in possession of them."
When a healthy, hearty old man, who seems to be as sane as anybody else
in the world, stands up and talks such nonsense as this, what can one
say to him?
It is useless to tell him that he is wrong about the whole matter. It is
folly to attempt to reason with him.
The only way to do is to show him a perfectly natural explanation of the
mystery, and simply make him see it.
That was the task which Nick had before him, and it must be owned that,
at the first glance, he did not see how he was going to accomplish it.
He examined the room and satisfied himself that it had no secret
entrances.
Such being the case, Nick was unable to form a theory of the robbery
which would fit the facts as they had been stated to him.
After looking at the rooms, he went with Colonel Richmond to the parlor,
on the ground floor, and there proceeded to question him about the
mysterious occurrences.
"There have been three robberies in all," said the colonel, "and they
have been exactly alike.
"In every case my daughter has left some articles of jewelry on the
dressing-table in her bed-room, and one of them has vanished. Never more
than one at a time.
"Twice it happened while she was in the adjoining room. The bed-room
door which opens into the hall was locked on these occasions.
"The third time she was in the hall, talking with my nephew. He was
standing in the upper hall, leaning over the banister rail. They were
discussing a plan for a drive out into the country. Quite a party was to
go.
"Horace had just received word from a gentleman whom they had invited
that he would be unable to go. He had read the note in his room, and he
called downstairs to my daughter to tell her about it.
"That was how they happened to be standing in the hall. Presently she
went back into her room, and almost immediately noticed that a small
locket set with diamonds had been taken.
"She screamed, and Horace and I came running to her room. We searched it
thoroughly.
"There was nobody there. The door between the bedroom and the
sitting-room was open, but the other door of the sitting-room, which
opens into the old portion of the house, was locked and bolted on the
inside.
"Now, I submit to you, Mr. Carter, whether in that case any other way of
entrance or exit was possible except by the windows."
"I'm bound to admit," responded Nick, "that if the doors were in the
condition you describe, no person could have entered or left those rooms
except by the windows."
"Well, it had been raining hard, and the ground was soft. We looked
carefully under all the windows.
"There was no sign of a footprint, and nobody could have walked there
without making tracks. Oh, it is clear enough! Why do we waste your time
in a search for invisible spirits of the dead?"
He rambled on in this way for several minutes, and Nick did not try to
stop him.
The colonel was at last interrupted, however, by the entrance of his
daughter.
Mrs. Pond had been out driving. She learned, on her return, that a
stranger had come to the house, and she hurried into the parlor,
suspecting who was there.
"I am delighted to see you, Mr. Carter," she exclaimed. "You will clear
up this abominable mystery and relieve my father's mind from these
delusions."
"Then you do not share his opinions," said Nick.
Mrs. Pond laughed nervously.
"No, indeed," she said, "and yet I must admit that I am quite unable to
explain the facts. I suppose you have heard the story?"
"Yes."
"What do you think about it?"
"It is much too early in the case for me to express an opinion. But
there are one or two questions that I should like to ask you."
"Do so, by all means. It was at my request that you were called in."
"At your request?"
"Yes; I talked with Horace about it, and at last we agreed to ask you to
take the case. He didn't believe in it at first, for he did not want to
let anybody into our family secrets."
She glanced at her father as she spoke. It was evident that the family
was a good deal ashamed of Colonel Richmond's spiritualistic delusions
and wanted to keep quiet about them.
"I talked Horace into it after a while," Mrs. Pond continued, "and at
last he became as enthusiastic as myself. We know that you will find the
thief."
"Thank you," responded Nick. "There is one point which seems peculiar to
me. After you had been robbed once, why did you continue to leave the
jewels unwatched in the very place from which one of them had previously
been taken?"
"I insisted upon it," said Colonel Richmond. "I told my daughter that
she must make no change in her habit of wearing or caring for my aunt's
jewels. I wished to show that we were not foolishly trying to hide them
from the eye of a spirit, but that we wished to learn the desire of my
departed aunt as soon as possible."
"It was by your order, then," said Nick, "that your daughter continued
to put the jewels on her dressing-table when she laid them aside for any
reason?"
"It was."
"I have just left some of them there now," said Mrs. Pond. "I went to my
room after my ride, and took off a light cloak which was fastened with
three pins, each having a diamond in its head. I stuck them all into a
cushion on that dressing-table."
"Is the room locked?" asked Nick.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Pond, and she produced the key of the door which
opened from the hall above.
"Will you allow me to go up there now?"
"Certainly."
She handed the key to Nick.
He took it and walked out of the parlor.
Nick had already formed a sort of working theory in the case. He
scarcely believed that it would hold water, but it would do for a
starter.
The most probable explanation that had come to him was that Mrs. Pond
had not really been robbed at all.
It might be that she had some motive for making these articles vanish.
Perhaps she had some need of money, and was secretly selling them
against the wish of her husband and her father.
So, when Nick took that key and went toward that room he did not expect
to find the three diamond pins in the position described by the lady.
He found the door locked, and he opened it by means of the key. Then he
locked it behind him, leaving the key in the lock.
He turned at once to a dressing-table.
The three pins were there, just as Mrs. Pond had said.
Nick laughed softly to himself.
"That looks bad for my first shot at this queer case," he said; "but
perhaps she didn't dare work the game while I was in the house."
He glanced out of the window of the room.
Two servants were in the yard. They seemed to be explaining the
robberies to a new driver of a groceryman's wagon, for they had one of
his arms apiece, and were pointing to the window.
Nick walked into the sitting-room, and spent some minutes examining the
walls, and especially the door leading toward the old part of the house.
He found nothing at all to reward his search. There absolutely was no
secret entrance.
The detective decided that nothing further could be done in that room.
He walked toward the other.
To his astonishment he found that the door had been closed while he had
been busy with his investigations.
He sprang against it.
The door yielded a little, and yet he could not open it.
Some person stronger than he seemed to be holding it on the other side.
He drew back for a spring. That door would have gone to splinters if it
had stood in his way again.
Instead, it swung open the instant he touched it, and the force of his
lunge took him nearly to the middle of the room.
In an instant he was on guard, but he saw no one.
The room was quiet, and it was empty.
The door into the hall was locked as he had left it.
All was the same, except that on the dressing-table was the cushion
bearing two diamond pins instead of three.
The robbery had been done, as one might say, under the nose of the
greatest detective in the world.
"Well, this takes my breath away," said Nick to himself. "It's the
nerviest challenge that ever was sprung on me."