A PERPLEXING PROBLEM.
Nick Carter had only to enter the hall of the house to see the first
signs of the sanguinary conflict of the previous night.
On the wall opposite the dining-room door were spots and streaks of
blood, great, irregular streaks and smooches, as if drops and splotches
that had spurted upon the wall paper had been rubbed and spread by the
garments of persons engaged in a terrific struggle. A rug near by had
been kicked into a shapeless heap near the baseboard.
Nick merely glanced at these, then paused at the open door of the dining
room, in which the scene was doubly shocking.
The roller shades of both windows had been raised, admitting the morning
sunlight.
One lamp of an electric chandelier still was burning. It looked wan and
yellow in contrast with the bright light from outside.
“Great guns!” Chick Carter muttered, then at Nick’s elbow. “What a scene
of disorder.”
“It’s the limit,” Nick tersely agreed.
“Slaughter pen is right,” added Chick, recalling the remark of the
physician.
The scene was, indeed, a shocking one. The table was out of place.
Broken glasses from the sideboard strewed the floor. Chairs were
overturned and broken. Spots and splashes of blood were everywhere. It
stood in a great, partly dry and congealed pool on the floor between the
table and the hall door--a pool in which the corpse of a murdered man
was lying.
He had fallen upon his back and was lying with face upturned in the
sunlight shed through one of the windows. There was a great bruise under
one eye and a gash in his cheek.
He had been stabbed twice in the breast, and from the second wound
still protruded the weapon used by his assailant, a knife driven home to
the victim’s heart with all the merciless energy of bitter vengefulness,
or utter desperation.
He was a man in middle life and of powerful build, a smooth-shaven man
of dark complexion, close-cut hair, and a hard, somewhat sinister cast
of features.
“Do you know him?” asked Nick, after viewing the scene for several
moments.
“No,” said Chick. “Do you?”
Nick stepped into the room and bent above the corpse. With the tip of
his finger he lifted the dead man’s upper lip, revealing a quantity of
gold bridgework on three of the teeth. He turned the left hand, also,
and found that part of the third finger had been amputated.
“I thought I recognized him,” he remarked, rising and glancing again at
the battered face. “We have his photograph in our album.”
“Who is he?” Chick questioned.
“Cornelius Taggart,” said Nick. “Better known to the police as Connie
Taggart.”
“By Jove, you’re right,” Chick declared, gazing. “I recognize him, now.
Connie Taggart, the yegg and cracksman.”
“He’s the man,” Nick nodded. “He has cracked his last crib and paid the
price. He has been about as bad an egg, Chick, as one often finds in a
basket. Have you examined this body, Doctor Boyden?”
Sergeant Kennedy and the physician had approached as far as the open
door.
“Only superficially,” was the physician’s reply.
“How long would you say he has been dead?”
“Fully twelve hours, Mr. Carter; probably longer.”
“The crime must have been committed last evening, then.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“You raised these roller shades, Kennedy, I infer,” said Nick, glancing
at the sergeant.
“I did, sir.”
“You found the electric lamp burning, of course.”
“Yes, sir. I thought I had better leave it until you arrived. Aside from
the two curtains, Mr. Carter, the room is as Brady found it when he
entered.”
“Very good.”
“There is the hat found in the next yard by the milkman,” Kennedy added,
pointing.
Nick took it from a chair on which it had been tossed and began to
examine it.
It was of gray felt, much worn and defaced with grease and dirt. A
twisted cord encircled it, with two small silk tassels, or the frayed
remnants of them. There were two round holes through the crown, on
opposite sides of it.
Nick noted the size and examined the greasy interior. He found several
short black hairs sticking to the sweat leather. The hat bore no
trade-mark, however, nor any name or initial pointing to the identity of
the owner.
Nevertheless, after a brief inspection, Nick said confidently:
“The owner of this hat is a Mexican. It is like those worn by some of
the Mexican troopers. He has done military service, too, as appears in
these two holes through the crown. They are bullet holes.”
“Could they have been made last night?” asked Chick.
“No. The edge of the felt around them is much soiled, which would be
comparatively clean if they were so recently made.”
“I see.”
“A bullet passed through the man’s hat in a battle, or some sort of a
skirmish,” Nick added. “He is a man of middle size, I judge, with dark
complexion and black hair.”
“That answers the description the woman living opposite gave me,” put in
Kennedy. “She saw him quite plainly when the two men came around the
corner and entered the house.”
“She stated that his companion wore a beard, I think you said.”
“She did, Mr. Carter, and that he was well dressed.”
“It could not have been this man, then, unless he was in disguise,” said
Nick, glancing at Taggart’s beardless face. “The disguise should be
here, in that case, even though he removed it.”
“I have not seen it,” said Kennedy.
“Nor the suit case brought in by his companion?”
“No, sir. That is not to be found. I have looked through the house.”
“There must have been several men here, Nick, judging from the fight
that came off,” Chick remarked.
“Yes, undoubtedly,” Nick agreed. “I am seeking evidence that might
explain the fight.”
“It must have occurred quite soon after the two men entered.”
“True.”
“Others must have been here when they came in, then, or----”
“One moment,” Nick interposed. “I’ll see what more I can find.”
He crouched again above Taggart’s body and searched his pockets. Aside
from a fully loaded revolver, he found only a few articles of no special
significance, nor any letter or writing whatever, that might otherwise
have shed a ray of light on the mystery.
Nick then removed the weapon from the wound and examined it. It was a
double-edged sheath knife with a blade about six inches long, and with
an elkhorn handle. It bore no mark of any kind, though it evidently had
seen considerable service.
“This undoubtedly belongs to the Mexican,” said Nick, placing it on the
table after inspecting it. “Not one man in ten thousand in these parts
carries such a knife. They’re common in Mexico, however, which further
confirms my theory as to the man’s nationality.”
“I think you’re right,” said Chick. “It looks very much, too, as if he
killed this crook in self-defense.”
“That is my opinion, Chick, at present,” Nick replied, turning toward
the hall. “We will look farther.”
“This way to the kitchen,” said Kennedy. “The other body is there. You
can go that way, if you prefer.”
The sergeant pointed to a closed door between the dining room and the
kitchen, and Nick then turned in that direction.
“Did you find this door closed, Kennedy, or open?” he inquired.
“Closed, sir, just as you see it,” said Kennedy. “But I know it leads
into the kitchen.”
“I judged so.”
“The fight evidently continued from here to the kitchen, but it was
through the hall, not that way,” Kennedy added, as Nick opened the
door.
The scene in the kitchen was equally tragic, though the room was in less
disorder than the other.
A door leading into the rear yard was wide open.
Nearly on the threshold, so near that one foot touched it, though his
head was toward the middle of the room, lay another victim of the fray
of the previous night.
He then was lying on his back, though the body evidently had been turned
over since the fatality, for the pool of blood in which it had lain was
at one side.
The body was that of a man in the twenties, a well-built man in a dark
plaid suit. A woolen cap had fallen from his head. His right arm was
extended, the hand still holding with rigid death grip a loaded
revolver.
He had been shot through the heart.
Both detectives immediately recognized this man, and Chick said quickly:
“By Jove, it’s Batty Lang, Nick, the gangster. He finally has got what
was coming to him.”
Nick bowed without speaking, with his gaze still fixed intently upon the
man on the floor. He was noting his position, the direction in which he
had fallen, the weapon in his extended hand, and the outlook through the
open back door.
Doctor Boyden broke the brief silence.
“You appear to know this man, also, Mr. Carter,” he said gravely.
“Yes, I know him,” Nick now replied. “His name is Bartholomew Lang. He
is an East Side product, and at times has been identified with the
notorious Ben Badger gang. He is more commonly called Batty Lang.”
“Good heavens!” Doctor Boyden exclaimed. “It appears, then, that the
house was filled with crooks and desperadoes last evening.”
“And all here to nail that Mexican, Mr. Carter, if your theory as to his
nationality is correct,” added Kennedy. “He must have put up an awful
fight, if he got the best of them single-handed.”
“I thoroughly agree with you, Kennedy--if that is what he did,” Nick
said, a bit dryly.
“Well, he evidently stabbed Taggart and shot this fellow, Batty Lang, as
you call him,” Kennedy confidently vouchsafed. “He must have got away
with the suit case, too, though he lost his hat in his flight. How else
can you size it up?”
Nick Carter did not inform him. Instead, without replying, he began a
closer inspection of Lang’s body, carefully searching his several
pockets, in none of which he found anything that appeared to bear in any
way upon what had transpired the previous night, or what had led up to
it.
Nick noted the probable direction from which the fatal bullet had been
fired, however, and also that every chamber of the revolver in the
gangster’s rigid hand still contained a cartridge.
“Wait here, Kennedy, both you and Doctor Boyden,” he said, rising after
making these investigations. “I shall return in a few minutes. Come with
me, Chick.”
Nick led the way from the back door with the last, Chick following him.
He then began an inspection of the ground in the rear yard, tracing
numerous footprints to the back fence, over which he vaulted.
There the trail appeared to divide, tracks in the greensward showing
that one or more persons had fled to the left and through the grounds of
an adjoining estate, while others had gone directly through the yard in
the direction of the side street. The distance between the tracks,
which were too faint to be of additional value, showed that all of these
persons were running.
“Follow those leading to the side street, Chick, and see what more you
can learn,” Nick directed, after calling Chick’s attention to them.
“I’ll trace the others and rejoin you out there in a few minutes.”
Nick traced his part of the trail through the adjoining grounds, as far
as a gravel walk leading to the street on which the residence fronted.
There he lost it, though the fleeing men evidently had hurried to the
street, where no further traces of them could be found.
Nick then walked around the corner and rejoined Chick in the side
street.
“Nothing doing, Nick, except these tracks of an automobile which
evidently stood here for some little time last evening,” said Chick,
pointing to the ground near the curbing. “These drippings of oil show
that it remained here for some time. It would have been out of view by
the woman living opposite the vacant dwelling, and it may be that the
Mexican and his companion came here in it.”
“Very possible,” said Nick. “The tire marks indicate that it was a
touring car. It’s about ten to one that the gang which fled this way
departed in it.”
“You speak as if you thought that there was more than one gang,” said
Chick, with a look of surprise.
“That is precisely what I think.”
“For what reason?”
“Several,” said Nick. “Circumstances indicate, to begin with, that the
house was obtained from the broker, Gibson, only in order to turn a
knavish trick on some one. Naturally, if that is true, we must infer
that the Mexican was to be the victim of the job.”
“Surely, since he was brought there and evidently had come from a
distance, possibly all the way from Mexico,” said Chick.
“The evidence in the house shows plainly, however, that four or five men
were there, possibly more,” Nick continued. “A less number could not
have put up such a fight, nor have caused so much destruction, in the
brief time in which it must have occurred.”
“I agree with you.”
“It is obvious, too, that the Mexican could not have licked half a dozen
men single-handed, surely not such desperate men as Connie Taggart and
Batty Lang.”
“Certainly not,” replied Chick decidedly. “They would have downed him
right off the reel.”
“He must have had help, then,” Nick reasoned. “That is why I think there
were two factions in the fight. I mean, of course, two different gangs.”
“Both out to get the Mexican?” questioned Chick.
“I’m not sure about that, though it now appears so,” Nick replied. “What
they were going to gain by getting him is also an open question.”
“Decidedly.”
“Be that as it may, Chick, he evidently stabbed Taggart and undertook to
escape in great haste. Otherwise he would not have left his knife in the
yegg’s breast.”
“Surely not.”
“The stabbing may have precipitated the fight, or have occurred after
the fight began,” Nick proceeded. “There is no way by which that can be
immediately determined. It continued through the hall and into the
kitchen, where Batty Lang was shot. Here, now, is an important point.
It further indicates that there were two gangs in the house.”
“What point is that?” Chick inquired.
“You saw where Lang was lying, with his feet near the open door and his
head toward the middle of the room. He pitched forward on his face when
shot, as the blood on the floor plainly shows.”
“True. That was very evident.”
“The bullet entered his breast, and came from the direction of the hall
door,” Nick went on. “Obviously, then, he was facing the hall, with his
back to the rear door of the house. That position, together with the
fact that he had a revolver in his hand, convinces me that he was
attempting to prevent others, presumably including the person who shot
him, from following others who had fled through the back door, probably
including the Mexican.”
“By Jove, that does appear logical,” said Chick. “That may explain how
the Mexican got away with his suit case.”
“I think I am right, Chick, despite that the case opens up a wide held
for conjectures,” Nick replied. “I did not inform Kennedy and the
physician, however, for we may find it of advantage to keep his theory
to ourselves.”
“Quite likely,” Chick agreed.
“The matter must be sifted to the bottom.”
“I’m with you.”
“We will return to the house, now, and wait until Gibson arrives,” said
Nick. “He can supply us with a clew, perhaps, to the persons who
pretended they wanted to rent the house. He can give us a description of
them, at least.”
“Most likely,” said Chick, as they moved on. “It may be, Nick, that
Taggart and Lang were confederates in a job to get the Mexican, or----”
“I don’t think they were confederates,” Nick interposed.
“Why not?”
“Because I feel sure that Taggart was killed by the Mexican, and his
escape and the evidence that Lang was preventing others from pursuing
him, indicate that Lang was not a confederate of Taggart, but was
opposed to him. No other deduction would be consistent with all of the
circumstances.”
“That’s right, too,” Chick quickly nodded. “I see the point.”
“Lang has been identified at times with the Ben Badger gang,” Nick
added. “Badger is a tough ticket, also that notorious sister of his,
Sadie Badger. They’re the kingpins of about as bad a bunch as can be
found in the East Side.”
“Right again, Nick.”
“I never have heard, however, that Connie Taggart was friendly with
them. If any of them were with Lang last night, we may be able to find
positive evidence of it and to force a squeal from them.
Otherwise--hello!”
Nick broke off abruptly when they turned the corner, and Chick also saw
the occasion for it.
“Goodness!” he exclaimed. “There is Patsy, and--yes, by Jove, it’s Frank
Mantell. What the deuce has sent them here?”
The touring car containing Patsy Garvan and Mantell, driven by the
latter’s chauffeur, had just swerved to the sidewalk near the house in
which the two murders had been committed.