Chapter III: Nick Confirms His Theory

Nick Carter stopped at his Madison Avenue residence on his way to Brooklyn only to pick up his junior assistant, Patsy Garvan, whom he aroused from bed and with whom he soon was seated in the waiting taxicab.

“I thought I might need you,” Nick remarked, as they sped away. “There’s no telling what we may learn, and it’s always well to be on the safe side.”

“Sure thing, chief,” Patsy readily agreed. “But what’s up?”

Nick then told him what had occurred in the Carrington mansion, carefully covering all of the essential points, as was his custom when discussing a case with any of his assistants.

“Gee whiz! it don’t look good to me,” said Patsy, after listening attentively. “Some one has it in for Waldmere good and strong, chief, or such chances would not have been taken.”

“That is what I told Mr. Carrington,” Nick nodded.

“But why did they take that way to get him?” Patsy doubtfully questioned. “They could have nailed him much more easily by----”

“But it is not easy to get away with a man like Waldmere,” Nick interrupted. “He is interested almost solely in his home, his business, and his social enjoyments. Any covert attempt to lure him from either would at once be regarded with suspicion. Besides, there may be much more to this affair than appears on the surface.”

“Have you any suspicions?”

“None whatever, Patsy, at present,” said Nick. “We must dig up evidence that will supply us with a definite clew. I think the Ringolds may be able to aid us.”

“Are you acquainted with them?”

“With Mr. Ringold, but not with his wife,” said Nick. “We will ring them up, however, in spite of the hour.”

It was two o’clock when they sprang from the taxicab in front of the fine Ringold residence in a fashionable quarter of Brooklyn. With Patsy following, Nick hastened up the walk leading to the house and rang the bell.

The summons brought a response from one of the front windows on the second floor. It was hurriedly opened and the head and shoulders of Mr. Ringold himself appeared.

“Who’s there?” he called, gazing down.

“Nick Carter,” replied the detective. “Slip on your bath robe, Ringold, and come down to the door. I want to talk with you.”

“Great Scott!” Mr. Ringold exclaimed audibly. “You here, Nick, at this hour? What’s wrong?”

“Come down and admit me. I then will tell you.”

“I’ll be with you in half a minute.”

Little more than that had elapsed when Mr. Ringold opened the door and admitted the detectives, conducting them in to the library, and switching on the light.

“Now, Nick, what’s it all about?” he inquired, gazing curiously at him.

“It’s about the Carrington ball,” Nick replied. “How happened it that you and your wife did not go?”

“For only one reason,” said Mr. Ringold. “It had been postponed, Nick, because of the sudden illness of Mr. Carrington.”

“That so?” queried Nick, smiling. “Who informed you?”

“A messenger sent out by Mrs. Carrington. He came in a limousine this afternoon. He stated that Carrington was ill, that the ball had necessarily been postponed, and that the invitation and admission cards had been recalled and would be reissued later.”

“Did you see the messenger?”

“No. I had not returned home from my office.”

“Who saw him?”

“My wife talked with him. She gave him the cards of our invitation. He said that he and the Carrington butler had been sent to collect them from all who had been invited.”

“Mrs. Ringold suspected nothing wrong?”

“Why should she?”

“Nor you, when she informed you?”

“Certainly not. The messenger told a plausible story. He appeared trustworthy, or my wife would have detected it. Is there something wrong, then, that you have called here?” Mr. Ringold demanded, a bit impatiently.

Nick then told him the circumstances, or in so far as served his purpose, while his hearer gazed amazedly and with manifest regret.

“By Jove, this is most astonishing, Carter,” he then said gravely. “Who would have thought of such an imposition? I care less for having been cheated out of a fine evening’s enjoyment, than that our invitation cards have been turned to such a despicable use. I will ask my wife to join us, if you wish to question her.”

“You may, Ringold, if you have no objection,” said Nick. “I want a description of the messenger, also any other information that your wife can give me.”

“I will speak to her.”

“Gee, it looks like a neatly framed-up job, chief, for fair,” said Patsy, while they waited.

“Decidedly so,” Nick agreed. “See whether that telephone is in working order.”

He glanced at one on the library table and Patsy hastened to obey, presently reporting that he could get no communication from the local exchange.

“The instrument has been put out of commission,” said Nick.

“That’s about the size of it,” nodded Patsy.

“It was done to prevent the Ringolds from calling up Mrs. Carrington to inquire concerning her husband’s alleged illness, or to verify the postponement, in case of any suspicion.”

“Right again, chief, for a hundred.”

“It’s ten to one that the wires have been cut outside where they enter the house,” Nick added. “We’ll have a look at them presently.”

Mr. Ringold returned with his wife at that moment and Nick resumed his inquiries. The woman could add but little, however, to what her husband already had stated. She described the messenger as a dark man of medium build, wearing a livery and accompanied by a chauffeur, who remained in the limousine while the other performed his supposedly genuine mission.

“At what time did he call, Mrs. Ringold?” Nick inquired.

“I think it was shortly after five o’clock,” she replied.

“It then was dark out-of-doors?”

“Yes, indeed. It had been dark for some little time.”

“It did not occur to you to telephone to Mrs. Carrington, I infer, to inquire concerning her husband, or to express your sympathy,” said Nick.

“Well, I think quite likely I should have done so,” Mrs. Ringold replied; “but I first undertook to call up my friend, Mrs. Waldmere, and I found that the telephone was out of order. That precluded both communications.”

“And you suspected nothing wrong?”

“No, nothing whatever. I did not dream of such an imposition as my husband has just mentioned.”

Nick did not add to his inquiries. He directed both to say nothing about the matter, and after a word of regret for having disturbed them, he withdrew from the house with his assistant.

“Now, Patsy, we’ll have a look at those wires,” he said quietly, after Ringold had closed the front door.

“I’m with you, chief,” Patsy nodded.

They had no difficulty in finding where the wires entered the house, a point near one of the library windows. As Nick had predicted, moreover, they were found to be neatly cut and the instrument temporarily rendered useless.

“Here are tracks of the rascal’s boots,” he remarked, pointing to some imprints in the damp earth. “He stole in here after getting the invitation cards and cut the wires.”

“Surest thing you know,” said Patsy.

“That is why he waited until after dark before calling here,” Nick added. “He then could turn the trick without being seen. Come, we’ll go home. We can accomplish no more until to-morrow.”

“But what can we then accomplish?” questioned Patsy. “We seem to have no clew to the identity of the rascals, nor any thread worth following up.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Nick replied. “We’ll consider it later.”

It was three o’clock when they arrived home, and they found Chick waiting for them in the library, with a cigar in his mouth and his heels elevated to the edge of the table.

“Well, we don’t get much beauty sleep to-night,” he remarked, with a laugh, when Nick and Patsy entered.

“You don’t need any,” said Patsy dryly.

“So my mirror tells me,” replied Chick, laughing again. “What more have you learned, Nick?”

Nick informed him of the results of his hurried visit to Brooklyn.

“By Jove, it’s a curious case,” Chick then declared. “The job certainly was well planned and very neatly executed. But what’s the big idea? Who is out after Waldmere? With what object, Nick, and who are the culprits?”

“Those are questions more easily asked than answered,” said Nick. “It is hard to say why Waldmere has been abducted.”

“You think, then, that he has been abducted?”

“The circumstances point strongly to that. Waldmere is not a man to be mixed in a mess with another woman.”

“That’s true,” Chick agreed. “The motive may have been revenge. Stuart Floyd is at large, you know, and he may have had it in for Waldmere because of those former cases, and for having put us on his track. He is capable of any kind of a knavish job.”

“There is nothing in speculations,” said Nick. “I’ll think it over in bed and we’ll discuss it in the morning.”

“That’s good judgment, in view of the hour,” Chick vouchsafed, rising. “There is a bare possibility, too, that Waldmere will have returned by that time.”

Nick did not reply to this, nor was it verified the following morning.

Ten o’clock found all three seated in the detective’s business office. Nick had been in communication with Mrs. Waldmere, also with Mr. Carrington, but only with negative results. The situation stood precisely where it had stood the previous night.

Nick Carter’s mind had been active in the meantime, however, and he had decided what steps must be taken.

“The motive for this crime is beyond conjecture,” said he, in reply to a question from Chick. “It can be learned only when we have identified Waldmere’s abductors, discovered what relations have existed between them, and unearthed additional evidence in the case. That is what next must be done.”

“But along what lines?” Chick inquired.

“One is opened, Chick, by a single significant point,” Nick replied. “The crooks must have learned several days ago what costume Mrs. Waldmere intended wearing, or they would not have been able, nor have had time, to prepare a duplicate of it.”

“True, Nick; that goes without saying.”

“The question is, then, from whom did they get their information?” Nick proceeded. “Mrs. Waldmere discussed the costume with her husband, and also confided in only one intimate friend, Clara Ringold.”

“The crooks may have got their information, then, from a servant in one house or the other.”

“That’s the very point. But it was a servant in the Ringold house.”

“Why do you feel so sure of that?”

“For several reasons,” said Nick. “First, because Waldmere is a fine fellow and his wife a lovable mistress, and their servants would be much less likely to be treacherous than persons employed elsewhere.”

“There is some truth in that,” Chick allowed.

“Second, because the crooks made a mark of the Ringolds and used their invitation cards,” Nick went on. “Why did they select that Brooklyn couple, instead of some invited couple living nearer?”

“You say.”

“First, because there would be less danger of detection, of a personal call at the Carrington residence when the telephone proved useless, than in the case of persons living in town.”

“That’s true.”

“Second, because the rascals most likely selected the very couple from whose servant they had got the information, knowing that inquiries would subsequently be made, and that the servant could keep them still further informed as to what investigations were being made and what was suspected.”

“By Jove, there is something in that, Nick, also.”

“And that is why I suspect a servant in the Ringold house, some one who overheard Mrs. Waldmere and Mrs. Ringold discussing their costumes.”

“Why didn’t you question the Ringolds about their servants last night, then?”

“Because I had rung them up at two o’clock in the morning,” said Nick. “If the servant heard the bell, he, or she, as the case may be, would have suspected my mission and might have been in a position to play the eavesdropper without being detected. I didn’t want my suspicion discovered. It would put the servant on his guard, and us at a corresponding disadvantage.”

“I see,” Chick nodded. “It was a wise precaution.”

“You had better go over there this morning, however, and talk with Mrs. Ringold,” Nick added. “Your identity and mission may not be suspected, while the servant might have seen Patsy and me last night when we passed through the lighted hall. Find out who is employed in the house and what is known about them.”

“I’ve got you,” said Chick. “Leave it to me.”

“Aren’t you overlooking one point, chief?” questioned Patsy, who had been listening to the foregoing.

“What point is that, Patsy?”

“The crooks may have learned from the costumer, or from one of his clerks, what costume Mrs. Waldmere intended wearing.”

“I have thought of that, but it is quite improbable,” said Nick. “They would not have known, to begin with, that Mrs. Waldmere had any intention of hiring a costume from Perrot. Furthermore, costumers of his high standing do not betray their patrons, and crooks know it and would have sought elsewhere for the desired information.”

“Gee! I guess you’re right, chief, after all.”

“I think my other suspicion is the correct one.”

“I’ll run over to Brooklyn, then, at once,” said Chick.

“Do so,” Nick replied, rising. “I’ll pay Perrot a in the meantime and see what I can learn from him. The costume worn by Mrs. Waldmere must have been previously seen by the duplicate Night, whoever she was, or she could not have duplicated it. We’ll look into that. You may go with me, Patsy.”