NICK CARTER STORIES
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No. 133. NEW YORK, March 27, 1915. Price Five Cents.
* * * * *
WON BY MAGIC;
Or, NICK CARTER’S MYSTERIOUS EAR.
Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE COMING OF JAI SINGH.
“Message for Mr. Carter!”
The wireless operator of the steamship _Marathon_, in the linen clothes
and pith helmet ordinarily worn by white people in the tropics, came
along the steamer deck with a slip of paper in his hand and stopped in
front of a row of steamer chairs under an awning.
“Where’s it from?” asked the occupant of one of the chairs, springing to
his feet.
“From shore, sir--Calcutta.”
Nick Carter, who was holding out his hand even as he got up from his
chair, took the paper quickly and glanced at the few words it contained:
“Get up to Nepal quickly.”
That was all. There was no signature, and the operator could not say who
had sent it.
“It came from the main office of the telegraph company in Calcutta,” he
explained. “The operator told me a native man brought it in and paid for
it. He said there would be no answer, and his own name did not matter.”
“It is many years since I was in Calcutta last,” observed Nick Carter,
to his companions, as the operator went back to the wireless room. “Then
it was only for a few days, and I did not make many acquaintances.”
A tall, middle-aged man, whose square face and straight-seeing dark
eyes, as well as his decided manner of speech, were all suggestive of
the successful American business man, got up from one of the chairs and
looked over Nick Carter’s shoulder at the telegram he still held open in
one hand.
“Get up to Nepal quickly,” he read. “Does that mean that my boy is
there, do you think, Carter?”
“We don’t know that the telegram has anything to do with what has
brought us to India,” replied the detective.
“What else could it be?” demanded the other sharply.
Nick Carter shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, Mr. Arnold, you are known here--by name, at least--as owner of
several ships, including the _Marathon_, and your agent, William Pike,
has vanished, in a rather mysterious way, from your office in Calcutta.
Perhaps the telegram may be from somebody who has seen Pike up in
Nepal.”
“It may be, although I don’t know what Pike could want up in the back
country, away from civilization. He isn’t that kind of man, from what I
know of him. He is more likely to go over to Europe, or, if not, to get
to some other big city in India--Rangoon, Lucknow, Cawnpur, or
Hyderabad--where he can spend his money and be moderately out of the way
of arrest.”
“At all events, this message agrees with our own ideas of the direction
taken by Leslie,” said Nick Carter.
Jefferson Arnold did not speak for a few moments. He was not a
demonstrative man, and although his heart was wrung by the strange
disappearance of his only son, his face was as impassive as it generally
was when putting through some great business deal in New York, with
perhaps millions of dollars involved.
Here, on the deck of the finest steamer of his fleet of merchant
vessels, with the gently rolling waters of the Bay of Bengal scuffing up
under the prow, and the engines, at half speed, gradually bringing the
ship nearer and nearer to the wharves of Calcutta, he might have seemed
to strangers to be a man to be envied.
Yet, tearing at his heart was the greatest anxiety he ever had
known--the question whether his boy, whom he loved better than himself,
was dead or living.
The scene was as beautiful a one as nature can produce in her most happy
mood. The blue waves, with their lacy-white crests, the panorama of
mountain and forest in the distance--still hazy, as the mists of early
morning hung before them--and the big city of Calcutta in the
foreground, its white buildings glistening fairylike in the glorious
sunlight, all combined to make the approach to this famous Asiatic port
one of the most fascinating in the world.
“What’s that boat coming out?” suddenly exclaimed Jefferson Arnold.
“Couldn’t wait for us to get alongside the wharf, eh! We’re five miles
from shore, if not more. What do you make of it, captain?” he added, in
a louder tone to the skipper of the _Marathon_, who stood on the bridge
just over their heads.
“Don’t know, Mr. Arnold,” replied Captain Southern. “Perhaps they’re
crowded for room at the wharf. Looks like it.”
The commander had been gazing at the oncoming boat, as well as at the
distant shore line, through his binoculars, and, almost mechanically, he
gave orders to drop the anchors fore and aft.
“Going to stop, captain?” asked the millionaire ship owner.
“Yes. It will do no harm. And I want to see what these fellows in the
boat are after.”
“I’ll come up on the bridge. I guess,” grunted Arnold. “Come on,
Carter!”
The sacred bridge of a steamer is not going to be profaned by the feet
of an uninvited person unless he happens to be the owner or some one of
equal importance.
Jefferson Arnold and his friends, of course, had the privilege.
One of two young men who had been sitting in steamer chairs with Arnold
and Nick Carter seemed to have some idea of following them to the
bridge. But the elder of the pair shook his head.
“It wouldn’t do, Patsy,” he whispered. “Old Captain Southern is a crank
about some things, and he looks on his bridge as a sort of private
office. Let the chief size it up and tell us afterward.”
“I guess we’ll have to, Chick,” was the disgusted response. “But when
I’m working on a case I like to see all I can from every angle.”
“Regular angleworm, ain’t you, Patsy?” chuckled Chick.
“Oh, come off with the laughing-gas stuff! Better send that to the funny
papers,” snorted Patsy Garvan. “I’m talking serious business. I tell you
there’s more in young Leslie Arnold beating it out of Calcutta this way
than people think.”
Chickering Carter, principal assistant of Nick Carter, stared for a
moment at Patsy Garvan, who was only next in importance to Chick himself
on the great detective’s staff--as if trying to get his comrade’s point
of view. Then he shook his head, as if he feared there was a great deal
in Patsy’s opinion.
“What do you think of William Pike?” he asked, as he glanced around to
make sure neither Nick Carter or Jefferson Arnold overheard the
question.
“What do I think?” blurted out Patsy. “I believe he’s the guy
responsible for it all. From what I hear, he always was as crooked as a
pig’s tail. Leslie Arnold was a good-tempered sort of kid, and it
wouldn’t be hard for this slippery Pike to make him do anything.”
“And there was nearly a hundred thousand dollars in gold went with one
or the other of them,” observed Chick thoughtfully. “If Leslie Arnold
went up into the hill country to shoot tigers, he would hardly load
himself down with all that money.”
“Who believes young Arnold went to shoot tigers?” asked Patsy
scornfully.
“That’s all Jefferson Arnold has been able to hear about his boy,” was
Chick’s answer. “He told that to the chief when he persuaded him to come
all this distance to look into the matter.”
“Well, I’m glad he came, anyhow,” observed Patsy. “I’ve never seen India
before, and it was a good thing he brought us both along. And old
Captain, too. Gee! I didn’t think he’d let the good old dog come. But he
may be mighty useful before we get through. You never can tell how you
may be able to use a trained bloodhound--especially such a good one as
ours.”
Patsy stopped to pat an immense dog who lay stretched out on the hot
deck under the awning, too languid to move, except to let his great
eyeballs roll lazily in their sockets in appreciation of Patsy Garvan’s
caresses.
Meanwhile, Nick Carter, Jefferson Arnold, and Captain Southern were
taking the strong, double marine glasses in turn to inspect the boat
which was working its way through the surf toward the _Marathon_.
The four men at the oars were low-caste Hindus. They would not have been
doing this kind of work otherwise.
They were picturesque-looking rascals.
Naked to their waists, their brown skin glistened in the sunlight like
the top of a German loaf. Each wore the white turban that is part of the
costume of every Hindu, and on the wrists of some of them could be seen
heavy brass rings.
In the stern of the boat--which was a wide, heavy craft, well able to
stand the tossing of the surf and to make good time before the steady
pulling of the oarsmen--stood a tall native who looked very different
from the others.
This man wore a turban like the oarsmen, but there was a jewel fastened
in the front of the folds of snowy cloth that glistened like the lens of
a powerful flash lamp.
While it was not easy to make out his feature at that distance, Nick
Carter saw, with admiration, that the limbs were lean and muscular, and
that every movement of the lithe brown body indicated strength and
activity.
That this man in the stern was in command could be told in more ways
than one. He carried in his right hand a long lance, or spear, such as
is used by some of the Indian cavalry regiments, but without the pennon
which is generally attached.
Occasionally he emphasized his orders to the crew by giving one or other
of them a rap across the bare shoulders with the staff of the spear,
always accompanying it with a roaring command. Nick told this from the
opening of his mouth, although he could not hear the sound.
For a few minutes longer Nick Carter stared through the binocular glass
at the boat and its gigantic commander, while the captain and Jefferson
Arnold talked apart.
Suddenly the big Hindu caused his boat to swing around as it approached
the ship, and he waved a hand frantically at the rail where Captain, the
bloodhound, had poked out his nose and was barking and whimpering
alternately in recognition.
“Say, chief!” roared Patsy, looking up to Nick Carter. “That big busher
knows you and Captain, too. Look at him.”
“Of course he knows the chief,” put in Chick, who had begun to make
signs to the Hindu. “He knows me, too. We’ve been in this part of the
world before.”
“Well, who is he, anyhow?” asked Patsy.
“He is a chief in the hill country, and he calls himself Jai Singh.”
“Calls himself?” repeated Patsy. “Isn’t that his real name?”
“Why, yes. I suppose it is. But there was a famous rajah named Jai
Singh, who lived about two hundred years ago, and who built
observatories at Jaipur and Delhi. The remains of them are still in
existence, and astronomers say they were magnificent structures for that
time, and would be even in this day.”
“Gee! Where did you get on to all that?” asked Patsy, open-mouthed.
“You’re a wonder, Chick.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” returned Chick. “When I was here with the chief
before, we learned a whole lot about India. It was our Jai Singh himself
who told us about the rajah and his observatories. He’s a good fellow,
but he’s a terror when he gets into a fight. Don’t forget that.”
“He makes those sun-baked bluffs at the oars attend to business, I
notice.”
“Yes. They know that when Jai Singh is behind them, they have to keep
moving,” returned Chick. “Hello! He’s coming aboard.”
Even as he spoke, the boat came up to the steamer, and Jai Singh,
putting a hand on one of the anchor chains, held his small craft firmly,
in spite of the tossing of the waves. He seemed to have a grip of iron.
In another minute or two the boat was secured to the anchor chain by a
rope, and the tall Hindu climbed aboard like a monkey, spear and all.
Once on deck, he ran up to the bridge, and putting his right hand to his
forehead, made a deep salaam to Nick Carter.