Chapter V: The Man in the Summerhouse

It was early in the afternoon when the well-appointed limousine motor car belonging to Nick Carter--seldom used, although always ready--skimmed along Riverside Drive, going uptown.

The driver was the detective’s trusted chauffeur, Danny Maloney, and there were four passengers: Nick Carter, his assistant, Chick, Miss Claudia Solado, and Captain, the big bloodhound.

Nick had chosen the limousine, in preference to the powerful touring car he generally used in expeditions of this kind, because the closed vehicle shut off any prying eyes that possibly might be trained upon them.

“I don’t like to put you to all this trouble, Mr. Carter,” declared the girl. “It may be that Prince Marcos will be at home now. There is no certainty that he has been taken away against his will. Strange coincidences occur sometimes. One of them may account for the simultaneous absence of my Cousin Marcos, the servants, and Aunt Laura.”

“All that is possible,” conceded Nick, “but does not seem probable. At all events, we’ll go and see. By the way, when did you see Don Solado and Prince Miguel last?”

“I dined with them at their hotel, the Constitutional, last night. It was at the request of my uncle. My mother was with me. I have not found out yet whether my uncle and Prince Miguel recognized me on the night of the ball or not. I am inclined to think they did. They seemed to be pumping me during dinner.”

“They did not get much out of you, I’ll bet a dollar,” put in Chick.

“I did not tell them anything, because I feel sure they are concerned in Marcos’ disappearance now, and that they wanted to find out whether I knew anything about it. I did not at that time, so I was able to appear quite innocent. My mother is very deaf and something of an invalid. She took no part in the conversation.”

“Your mother was not at the ball at the Supremacy, was she?” asked the detective.

“No. She is not strong enough to bear much excitement. Indeed, she did not know that I was there. But I had my own reasons for being present, when I found there was a conspiracy against Marcos. You can understand there is at least one person who would like to take the place as head of this country.”

Nick Carter nodded, without speaking. He understood the situation very well. There was nothing to be gained by questioning Claudia further.

They got to the gateway of Crownledge, and Chick opened the big iron gates, which were unlocked.

The limousine slipped around the curving roadway and stopped before the front entrance of the house.

The residence stood in a lonely part of the road, and as there was a thick growth of large trees inside, the visitors were well screened from the observation of any casual passers-by.

Nick went up on the porch. One glance at the letter box told him no one had been at the house for twenty-four hours, at least. The box was stuffed with newspapers which had not been taken in after the mail carrier had been there.

“No doubt there are letters in the box, too,” muttered the detective.

Turning to Chick, he ordered him, in an offhand way, to open the front door.

There was a lock on the door, and a good one. But Nick Carter knew his assistant would make little of that if he were told to get in.

It took Chick about five minutes to get the door open. He had used a piece of thin wire to pick the lock, and had done it as skillfully as would have been possible to a professional burglar.

The two detectives and the girl entered, followed by Captain. Chick closed the door behind them.

The hall, spacious and lofty, ran straight through the house from the front door to the back, and by it the girl led her companions to the kitchen.

“Nobody here!” she remarked, in a low, awe-stricken tone, such as comes natural to many people when going through an empty house. “I thought I might find one of the maids in the kitchen. Though that was not likely, either, or they would have come to the front door.”

“They must have got out in a hurry,” remarked Nick.

He nodded toward the table--on which were the remains of a half-consumed meal--and then at a coffeepot on the stove.

After visiting the servants’ bedchambers, in which they saw other indications of a hasty packing and departure, Claudia showed them the door of the large bedroom in which Prince Marcos usually slept.

Adjoining it was his mother’s chamber. It was large, like her son’s, and more luxuriously appointed.

The latter apartment was in an orderly condition, with the bed neatly made and decorated with pillow shams. But the bedroom belonging to Marcos showed that it had been disturbed by some rather turbulent proceedings.

“Seems to have been a fuss of some kind in here,” observed Chick. “A regular rough-house, from the look of things.”

It did look like a “rough-house,” as that term is used in its slang sense.

The window curtains were hanging in disorder from a broken pole, and the mirror of the dresser was cracked in a star, as if something had been hurled into the middle of it. The drawers were open, and their contents strewn about the floor.

Nick Carter carefully studied the room, and his brain worked rapidly in piecing together the evidence before him. It did not take him long to arrive at a definite conclusion.

“The bed has not been slept in,” he remarked. “But you can see where a person has been thrown down on it. The condition of the window shows that somebody--perhaps the man who had been thrown down on the bed, tried to escape by the window, but was overcome before he could raise the shade.”

“They attacked Marcos in his own home,” murmured Claudia. “It was Marcos who was thrown on the bed, no doubt. The question is, where is he now?”

“That’s what we are going to try to find out,” returned Nick. “Come here, Captain.”

The detective had picked up a pair of bedroom slippers that were partly under the bed. He held them close to the broad nostrils of the bloodhound.

“Seek, Captain!”

It took Captain a few moments to get to work. He seemed rather uncertain at first. Soon, however, he realized what he was to do, and, after padding about the carpet backward and forward, halting and sniffing at intervals, he made for the doorway.

“Come along!” whispered Nick. “He’s got the scent!”

The dog went down the staircase, sniffing on each stair, until he was in the lower hall. Then he crossed to what was obviously the drawing-room.

The door was opened for Captain, and he took advantage of this to cross the floor of the big room to the grand piano, which was open. Here he smelled about for a little while, and then suddenly trotted off at a tangent to one of the big windows that extended from floor to ceiling, and gave upon a side porch.

Nick Carter noted that the catch of this window was unfastened. He pushed open the casement, and out went Captain, across the porch and down the flight of steps close by.

“It is easy to see that the tenant here is only temporary,” remarked Nick, as he pointed to the neglected condition of the grounds. “The lawn has been cut in a sort of way, but the flower beds have not been weeded, and the edges of the lawn are grown up with long, straggly grass.”

“That’s true,” agreed the girl. “Marcos has not lived here long, and he would have been on his way home to Joyalita before this if there had been no interference with him.”

The hound moved slowly along. The scent appeared to be very weak. He stuck to it, however, and at last, on reaching the end of the garden, went to the door of a wooden summerhouse fashioned like a Chinese pagoda.

It was built solidly of hard woods. The door was shut.

There was a wide wooden step in front, and here Captain crouched, his nose to the slit under the door.

There was no mistaking the meaning of the dog’s movements. Something or somebody was in the pagoda carrying the scent he had been following.

A cry of terror and apprehension broke from the lips of the girl.

“Oh, Mr. Carter, he is in there, I know. Suppose he should be dead!”

Nick Carter gave Chick a look he understood, and attacked the padlock which held a hasp in place and secured the door.

Chick touched Claudia on the arm and beckoned her away, as if he had something important to say. Nick, with a piece of wire, picked the padlock as deftly as his assistant had the lock of the front door of the house, and threw open the door.

One look inside was enough. Again he turned and gave his assistant the warning look on which he had acted so promptly before.

Chick was not quick enough this time, however. The girl slipped past him and was in the pagoda almost as soon as Nick.

Uttering a gasp of horror, she forced her way farther into the little place.

Nick Carter was between her and the object she tried to see, and he was busy.

On a wooden bench, with a perforated seat, which ran around three sides of the summerhouse, lay a man, unconscious apparently. He was bound hand and foot, and the ropes about his body had been run through the perforations of the seat, as well as around the whole bench itself.

Whoever had done the work had used cruel ingenuity to make sure the prisoner should not break loose.

“It is not Marcos!” suddenly exclaimed Claudia.

Nick Carter first of all pulled from the mouth of the captive a handkerchief that had been tightly fastened about his lips. As he did so, a wedge of cloth dropped from between the teeth.

“Is it murder?” asked Chick, trying to look over his chief’s shoulder.

“Looks like it,” was Nick Carter’s curt reply.

It did indeed look like it, for the victim’s lips were blue, his face livid, and his eyes had closed.

The detective cut the bonds with two or three slashes of his pocketknife, and Claudia Solado heaved a deep-drawn sigh.

“Poor fellow!” she murmured. “I believe I know who he is. Unless I am much mistaken, he is Marcos’ valet.”

Nick Carter knelt by the side of the still figure and listened intently at the chest. A moment later he got up, and took one of the nerveless wrists in his cool, steady fingers.

“There is a slight pulse,” he murmured, half to himself. “I think we can bring him around.” Then, louder: “Chick! Give me a hand! Let us put him on the floor. We shall have a better chance of handling him there.”

They stretched the unfortunate valet on the floor, where Nick Carter and his assistant applied “first-aid” methods, rubbing his limbs, loosening his clothing, and so forth.

Claudia did not remain. She had darted away while the two detectives were taking the man from the bench, and went to the house.

In a few minutes she was back, with a decanter and a glass. As she poured some strong brandy into the glass, to give to Nick Carter, he noticed that her hand was bleeding, and commented on the fact.

“I couldn’t help it,” she returned. “There was no time to get to the front door, so I broke a glass panel at the side and got in that way.”

“You have pluck!” observed Nick Carter, in simple admiration.