Chapter XIX: Awaiting Nick Carter

While these events were transpiring in Chicago the New York chief of police was being interviewed by a woman who had a most remarkable story to tell.

So remarkable, indeed, that the chief persuaded his caller to defer any action till Nick Carter returned home.

The result was that when Nick reached his office he found this note awaiting him:

“Please call and see Miss Louise Templin at the St. James Hotel.
Don’t wait to see me first. See her. Very urgent.”

Nick did not need to glance at the signature to find out who had written this characteristic note.

“When the chief says ‘very urgent,’ he means it,” was Nick’s inward comment.

A pile of letters had accumulated in his absence, but it did not take him long to deal with his correspondents; then directing one of his assistants to inform the chief that he had returned and was acting on the urgent message, he started for the St. James and sent up his card to Miss Templin.

He was invited to “come right up,” and he soon afterward stood before the entrance to a suite of rooms on the second floor.

His knock was answered by a woman’s voice, which bade him enter.

Accepting the invitation, he found himself standing in the presence of a young lady, richly and tastefully dressed, and remarkably handsome.

She held in her hand the card which Nick had sent up, and, glancing at it, the young lady said:

“You are Mr. Carter?”

“At your service, Miss Templin.”

“You come from the chief of police, I presume?”

“I have just arrived in the city and have had an urgent message from the chief asking me to call here.”

“Please be seated, Mr. Carter.”

When Nick had taken the chair which the young lady pointed out to him, she continued:

“It can scarcely be necessary, Mr. Carter, for me to apologize for receiving you here, rather than in the public reception rooms of the hotel, where we might be overheard in our conversation.”

“I understand all that, Miss Templin. You wish to consult me professionally.”

“Yes. I called on your chief of police yesterday, and he advised me to put the case in your hands. He also promised to send you to me, and I see he has kept his promise promptly.”

“I will be pleased to hear from you the nature of the work which you have for me to do,” said Nick, in order to hasten matters.

“Briefly, it is to find a man with a long, white beard,” she replied.

“That is rather a vague undertaking,” smiled Nick.

“You will not think so after I have told you more about it.

“Five years ago my father, as I have up to a recent date had reason to believe, died, and was buried. Last week I met either him alive and in the flesh, or his double. I want you to run this mystery down and solve it. That is the gist of the story. Now I will go into details.”

“If you please, Miss Templin.”

“As I said before, I had, up to last week, a perfect belief that my father, Jason Templin, was dead and buried for three years.”

“You were not present at his death and burial?”

“No. I have been in Europe for four years.”

“From whom did you get the news of his death?”

“From my guardian, and my father’s most intimate friend.”

“His name?”

“Lawrence Lonsdale.”

“Where does he live?”

“In San Francisco.”

“Where your father lived, and--is supposed to have died?”

“Yes.”

“Cannot you trust this Lonsdale?”

“I have always believed I could until the sight of that man last week raised a doubt in my mind of Mr. Lonsdale’s honesty. I am very anxious to speedily have the doubt removed, or confirmed, and that is why I applied to your chief of police for help. The affair must be cleared up within the next few days.”

“Why?”

“Because I am the promised wife of Lawrence Lonsdale. He left San Francisco for New York last evening, and we are to be married when he reaches this city. There must be no uncertainty about this affair when he arrives.”

“Well, give me the details of the case, and I’ll see what can be done,” said Nick.

“For several years before his death,” began Miss Templin, “my father was mentally dead and helpless.”

“Insane?”

“Hardly insane. His case puzzled the most eminent physicians on the Pacific Coast. He retired one night, apparently in his usual good health. Next morning he was found lying in bed, helpless, speechless and, as it was soon discovered, with a brain which was mentally a blank.

“After that day he never spoke, or showed signs of possessing the powers of reasoning, understanding or hearing, and he never moved a muscle of either leg.

“The most wonderful part of the case was that his appetite was not impaired, and he took nourishment regularly. Physically, he was as well as ever, except that he never afterward would, or could, walk, talk or hear.

“For two years we called into his case all the medical skill on the coast, but without a particle of success. Mr. Templin lived on, his physical form as perfect as ever, but his mental or spiritual part seemed to have died and left the body.

“At the end of these two years a Dr. Greene, who conducted a sanitarium near Oakland, devoted to mental diseases of the milder form, expressed the belief that he could restore my father to the use of all his faculties, if the afflicted man was placed in his care at his private retreat.

“I visited the sanitarium, and was shown the suite of rooms which Greene offered to set aside for my poor father’s use. He also introduced me to the two nurses and a male assistant, who would be in constant attendance.

“I saw at once that my afflicted parent would receive better attention than he had been getting, and, although Greene’s charges were excessively large, Mr. Lonsdale and I concluded to have him removed to the retreat.

“This was the more readily agreed to by me because I was going to Europe for a four years’ stay among the art studios of Italy.”

“You have been there as a student?”

“Yes. From my mother, who died when I was young, I inherited a love for painting, and it was my father’s dearest desire that when I came out of school I should go to Italy and get the benefit of the best teachers in painting. Mr. Lonsdale, therefore, urged me to place my father in this retreat, where he would have better care than we could give him, and go to Europe, as originally arranged.”

“Your father, as you supposed, died in the retreat?”

“Yes. The first news I got of it was about a year after I had been in Rome. Mr. Lonsdale cabled that papa was dead. Several weeks later I got his letter, which set forth the details.”

“Then the death was tragic?”

“You shall judge for yourself. Mr. Lonsdale, as he wrote to me in his letter, was summoned to the sanitarium by a telegram which informed him that my father was dead.

“He was not surprised at the bare news, for by that time we had surrendered all hopes of a final recovery; but the manner of the death was a shock.

“The weather was cool, and a grate fire burned in my father’s room that night. In the temporary absence of the attendants from the apartment, it was supposed the patient recovered the use of his legs, got up and went to the fire.

“While there it was thought he fell in a fatal faint.

“When the attendant came back, he found the patient dead at the grate, with his head on the fender, and his face nearly burned away.

“Mr. Templin wore a long, white beard, and very white hair. All of the beard and hair had been consumed.

“Dr. Greene wanted to hold an autopsy, but Mr. Lonsdale would not consent. In fact, he had the remains consigned to a vault, because he feared the intense desire of the medical profession of California to get a look at the brain of the man who furnished this remarkable case was so great and so general that the body would not be safe in a grave.”