PARTNERS IN CRIME.
Nick Carter was not disturbed in the least degree by the threats of
Gaston Goulard. He had been threatened too frequently by crooks to pay
any attention to their sinister predictions.
They had no weight with the detective, therefore, those of this whilom
merchant who had wrecked the big department store in which he had been a
partner, and who then had gone deeper into the criminal mire, mingling
with crooks and gangsters, resulting in a murder for which he now was
wanted by the police, whom he had eluded less than a month before in the
manner described.
Aside from his surprise at beholding Goulard alive, the entire incident
would have had no great weight with Nick Carter, in fact, except for one
reason--the extraordinary episodes that immediately followed.
These alone, with their far-reaching results and because they exhibited
from the first the remarkable discernment and versatility of the
celebrated detective, made this night a noteworthy one in the record of
his professional work.
Finding that immediate escape from under the stone steps was impossible,
and that he could not at once pursue Goulard, Nick proceeded more
deliberately to seek means to liberate himself. He knew that he could
not have been overheard by any person in the house, having spoken only
in whispers, while hardly a sound had been made that would have been
audible ten feet away.
"The rascal must have been watching me, as he said, and contrived to
intercept me in front of this house, probably having learned that this
grille door was open, also that it could be quickly and securely locked.
Securely locked, by Jove, is right!"
Nick had taken out his electric searchlight and was inspecting the
grille door. He found that it had a strong Yale lock, to pick which was
out of the question. It looked, in fact, as if it would be utterly
impossible to open the door without a key.
"By gracious, I don’t half like this," thought Nick, pausing to consider
the situation. "There is no getting out unaided by the way I entered. I
can bang on this other door, of course, and raise some one in the house,
who could come down and liberate me. That would necessitate a truthful
explanation, however, and the story might leak out.
"It would be embarrassing, at least, to read in all of the newspapers
that the famous New York detective was caught and cornered in such a
hole as this by a midnight marauder. The sensational journals would
feature it with red letters, for fair, and make the most of it. I don’t
think I could stand for that.
"Instead of raising any one, therefore, I’ll try to quietly open this
other door, which evidently leads into a basement hall. If I can enter
unheard, I then can steal up to the main hall and out through the front
door. None will then be the wiser, as far as I am concerned, and Goulard
will not be fool enough to expose me. He will foresee, of course, that I
shall keep my mouth closed. Let the crafty rascal alone to feel sure of
that."
Having decided that to be the easiest way out of his dilemma, Nick
turned his attention to the door leading to the basement hall. He found
it had only an ordinary lock, and that the key had been removed.
"Well, well, this will be soft walking," he said to himself. "I can open
it with a picklock in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. In a minute more,
that done, I can slip out of the house unheard."
Fishing out a ring of keys on which he had the practical little
implement mentioned, Nick quietly inserted it into the lock, and a
moment later he noiselessly shot the bolt and opened the door.
Then began the series of sensational episodes that made his work of that
night so noteworthy.
Nick stepped into the basement hall, then quietly closed the door,
locking it with a key found hanging on a nail near the casing, and which
he discovered by means of his searchlight.
He then paused and listened vainly for any sound from the floors above.
Obviously, no one in the house had yet been disturbed.
"The way is open, all right, so here goes," he said to himself, after a
moment.
A flash from his searchlight revealed the stairway leading to the main
hall.
Nick tiptoed toward it and began the ascent.
The top of the stairway ended near the middle of the main hall, and
under the rise of stairs leading up to the next floor.
Nick arrived at the top stair, holding his breath, treading as if on
eggs, and feeling his way by means of the wall on one side and the
baluster rail on the other.
Despite his exceeding care, however, the top stair creaked slightly
under his weight.
The noise, though hardly perceptible under ordinary conditions, fell
audibly on the surrounding stillness.
It was instantly followed by another, hardly more perceptible, but
sufficient to make the detective doubly alert.
The sound came from a room across the hall, the door of which was open.
Nick waited, lest the stair might creak again if he stirred. Bending
nearer the baluster rail, nevertheless, he could see through the open
door of the opposite room.
It was the library of the handsomely furnished house.
With the exception of one part of the room, all was invisible, shrouded
in inky darkness.
The exception was a circle of light shed upon an open desk--faintly
revealing a figure crouching in front of it.
It appeared to be that of a man engaged in robbing the desk, or quietly
forcing the interior drawers in search of something.
Nick waited and watched.
"By Jove, here’s a curious coincidence," he said to himself. "Have I
stolen in here just in time to catch a crook? Apparently, however, I’m
in his class. He may, on the other hand, be some one who lives in the
house and who has some motive for stealthily searching that desk. No, by
gracious, that’s not probable. He certainly is a crook."
The figure crouching at the desk had turned slightly and gazed toward
the hall, as if under the impulse of sudden uneasiness, or that subtle
sense which at times impresses one of the presence of another.
Nick then saw that the lower part of the man’s face was covered with a
black cloth--convincing him that he was a thief from outside, rather
than a resident of the house.
He turned, after listening for a moment, and resumed his knavish work.
Nick Carter’s first impulse was to arrest the thief then and there--but
he did not do so.
Another and better move, in view of the greater possibilities it
presented, quickly occurred to him.
"By Jove, this may be the opportunity of a lifetime," he said to
himself. "It’s odds that the rascal is not alone, that he has one
confederate, at least, who may be watching outside, probably in the rear
of the house. I can fool this scamp and gather in both of them, I think,
or even round up a bigger gang with which they may be identified. That
surely would discount taking in only this fellow. I’m blessed if I don’t
try it."
Nick had recalled his sinister make-up, also that he had several changes
of disguise in his pocket. He deftly adjusted one over his already
hangdog type of countenance, then glided quickly under the rise of
stairs mentioned, crouching low against the baseboard in one corner.
The top of the basement stairs creaked again when he left them,
precisely as he had anticipated.
The effect, moreover, was exactly what he was expecting.
The figure at the library desk started up as if electrified by the faint
sound.
The circle of light from the flash lamp vanished instantly, leaving the
room and hall in impenetrable gloom.
"He heard it," thought Nick, holding his breath. "He’s waiting and
listening. He fears that some one is here, but he is not sure."
The waiting detective was right. He presently could hear the stealthy,
catlike tread of the crook approaching the near door. It ceased after a
moment, and Nick knew that the rascal then had reached the threshold and
again was listening intently.
Nearly a minute passed, one minute of absolute silence and inky
darkness.
Then a swift beam of light shot through the hall--but not under the
stairs.
It was gone as quickly as it came, only to be repeated a moment later,
leaping swiftly the entire length of the broad hall.
The crook saw no one, and he then stepped noiselessly toward the main
stairway, where he paused once more to listen.
It was the move the detective had expected, and for which he was
waiting. Rising noiselessly, Nick quickly glided nearer, then suddenly
clasped the motionless black figure in his arms.
A thrill of amazement went through him from head to foot.
The form he had clasped, confining both arms and preventing the use of a
weapon--was that of a woman.
Amazement, however, did not cause Nick Carter to lose his head. He held
fast to the supple, writhing figure of the unknown female, who wriggled
vainly to free herself and reach for her revolver, while the detective
quickly whispered, in tones well calculated to dispel her fears:
"Whist! Keep quiet! I wa’n’t wise to your being a skirt. What’s your
game here?"
Nick’s quietude also was assuring. The woman ceased struggling, but
turned sufficiently to gaze at his face, as well as it could be seen in
the faint light that came through the pebbled-glass panes of the front
door.
Nick now could see the sharp glint of her eyes and the outline of her
brow and cheeks above the bandage of black cloth that covered her mouth
and chin.
"What’s your own game?" she questioned quickly, under her breath. "What
sent you here?"
"I’m on the lift and----”
"You’re not a dick?"
"Dick be hanged! I saw the iron door under the front steps was open, so
I picked the lock of the other to see what I could nail," Nick
explained. "I piped you in yonder at the desk when I crept up the
stairs. But I did not dream you was a skirt."
"Let me go, will you?"
"Sure--if you’ll keep your yap closed."
"Trust me for that."
"I’m not here to be nailed by a bull," Nick added.
"You can gamble that I’m not," muttered the woman. "Say, step in there
with me. We ought to know each other better."
"That hits me all right--but walk on your toes."
Nick had released her, when requested, but the woman clung to him for a
second, as if fain to express her relief with a momentary display of
affection. Together they stole into the library, and she noiselessly
closed the door.
"You’re not a dick, then," she remarked, in whispers. "Say, that’s some
load off my mind. I thought sure I was a goner."
"Dick nothing!" Nick muttered derisively. "Have a peek. Do I look like a
dick?"
He fished out his searchlight while speaking, throwing the beam upon
himself. He then removed the disguise he had put on a few moments
before, and displayed the sinister, make-up face beneath it.
It was a ruse that would have deceived the most suspicious of mortals.
None would have supposed for a moment that he was there in double
disguise--this man who now was pretending to be no less a crook than the
woman herself.
She laughed softly and clasped his arm with both hands.
"Say, you’re all right, pal," she whispered. "Flash it on me. I’ll go as
far as you have gone, since you sure seem on the level. Have a look at
my mug."
She drew down the black cloth from her face, on which Nick flashed the
beam of light, giving him still another surprise.
"Great guns!" he mentally exclaimed. "Sadie Badger, the queen of the old
Badger gang."
Nick knew both her and the gang, all of whom had figured in the recent
murder case against Gaston Goulard, and all of whom had been sentenced
to prison, with the exception of Goulard himself, who was supposed to
have been drowned, and this one woman against whom sufficient evidence
to connect her with the murder, or show complicity after the crime,
could not be found. She had been liberated, therefore, after the trial
and conviction of the rest of the notorious gang, and she had not since
been seen in her customary haunts.
Nick Carter’s surprise was the greater for that reason, when he now
beheld her in the very act of robbing the house outside of which he had
so unexpectedly encountered Goulard. That they were not confederates in
this robbery was obvious to him, however, for he at once reasoned that
Goulard would not have put the woman in danger of arrest, if he had
known that she was in the house.
Nick now saw, too, that Sadie Badger was clad in a tight-fitting black
jersey, under a loose dark coat, and that she wore knickerbocker
trousers, black stockings, and rubber-soled shoes, all combining to give
her the appearance of a youth under twenty, who might have walked the
streets at almost any hour of the day or night without a challenge from
the police.
Nick was quick to appreciate all that this signified, and to take
advantage of the situation he had in part framed up, though his sinister
face reflected none of his true sentiments and designs.
"You’re all right, kid, if looks count for anything," he said quietly.
"We meet by chance, a dead queer chance, but there might be something in
it for both. What’s your name?"
"What’s yours?" questioned Sadie circumspectly.
"Bosey Magee," Nick promptly informed her.
"Bosey?"
"That’s short for Ambrose," whispered Nick. "That’s my moniker. I hang
out in Boston most of the time, but I blew in here last night and went
broke in the stuss joints."
"I get you, pal."
"I held up a bloke an hour back and lifted a small wad. It was not
enough, when I saw that the front-basement door of this crib was easy to
get at. You can find out all about me from Jack Gleason, who runs the
Orient House in Richmond Street, where I hail from," Nick added. "He’ll
tell you Bosey Magee wouldn’t crab a game or squeal on a pal. That’s me,
kid."
"And it listens good to me, all right," said Sadie, in approving
whispers. "I’ll meet you on even ground. My name is Sadie Badger, and
I’m out for the coin as you see me, or in any old way I can get it."
"That’s the right sort, Sadie, and you’re in my class. But you’re not
cracking this crib alone, are you?" questioned Nick.
"That’s what, Bosey."
"Where are your pals?"
"I’m leary of pals just now," said Sadie. "I was in with a good bunch
and in right, but an infernal dick got them a month back and sent them
up the river."
"Tough luck," said Nick.
"I ducked the same dose by the skin of my teeth," added Sadie. "I have
got no pals I would bank on now, unless----”
"Unless what?"
"I say, Bosey!" The woman’s low whispers took on a more sibilant
eagerness. "Since you’re here after plunder, and fate has chucked us
together, let’s run in double harness on this job. What d’ye say? Are
you game? Will you be my partner in crime?"
Nick Carter did not hesitate for the hundredth part of a second. He saw
more to be gained than by arresting Sadie Badger then and there. He
grasped her extended hand, replying quickly:
"Will a duck swim? I’d be a fool, Sadie, if I wouldn’t take a chance
with you. Partners in crime--that’s what?"