Chapter VI: Playing the Spy

It was six o’clock when Sir Edward Chadwick left Nick Carter’s residence and departed in the waiting taxicab. Half an hour later Chick Carter came in and entered the library.

He found Nick seated at his desk. Lying on it were several articles that figured as evidence in the case, also a pad of cable blanks and a thick blue book as large as an unabridged dictionary.

On a chair near by was the gashed and bloody cape worn by Waldmere the previous night, the gory aspect and circumstances in connection with which seemed to tell beyond reasonable doubt his tragic fate.

“Ah, it’s you, Chick,” Nick remarked, looking up when his assistant entered. “Anything new?”

“No, nothing,” said Chick, removing his overcoat and hat and drawing up a chair. “I have tried in vain to trace the murder car, the limousine in which Waldmere was brutally done to a frazzle. There seems to be nothing in it, as far as I see, except murder most foul and----”

“Oh, but there is,” Nick interrupted, turning in his swivel chair.

“Something else to it?”

“Exactly.”

“What do you mean?” Chick questioned, gazing. “Have you discovered new evidence?”

“I have had a visitor and--and seen a devil,” Nick dryly asserted.

“Seen a devil!”

“A knave who has all the makings of one. None other than Stuart Floyd.”

“Great Scott!” Chick exclaimed. “You don’t mean, Nick, that he was your visitor?”

“Not exactly,” said Nick. “He only looked in, Chick, probably with some evil design, though I cannot say for what.”

“And your visitor?”

“He was Sir Edward Chadwick, of London, England, who said he arrived in Boston this morning. I am glad he called. He forms, unless I am much mistaken, the strongest link in the chain I am welding together.”

“Well, well, you surprise me,” said Chick. “Who the deuce is Sir Edward Chadwick, and what did he want?”

“I think he wanted to learn what I suspect and am doing in this case,” Nick replied. “He met with no success, however, but departed quite convinced that I am all in the dark. I made sure of that, for I had talked with him only a few minutes when I began to distrust him.”

Nick then stated in detail what had passed between him and the Englishman, and then proceeded to inform Chick what he since had been doing.

“I have been looking him up,” said he, with a glance at the English blue book mentioned. “Sir Edward Chadwick is the only brother of the Earl of Eggleston, Lord Waldmere having taken the name of his mother after his marriage and estrangement from his father, she having been his second wife and now dead for many years.”

“I remember his saying so.”

“Chadwick is married and has one son, now about thirty years old. I have cabled to Captain Grady for particulars as to the character and standing of both. I ought to receive an answer by to-morrow morning.”

“Most likely. They are very prompt.”

“Chadwick stated that he arrived in Boston this morning,” Nick went on. “I have telephoned to Boston, also, and learned that no liner arrived there this morning, none since last Saturday, four days ago.”

“By Jove, that smacks of a lie and certainly warrants suspicion.”

“I think Chadwick has been here longer, and has been framing up this job. Thinking himself entirely free from suspicion, and that the steps he has taken and his pretended anxiety to find Waldmere will shield him from distrust, he feels confident that no one will think of looking up his movements with a view to confirming any of his statements.”

“I see,” Chick nodded. “But what do you suspect?”

“Well, if there was no direct male heir to the estate and title of the Earl of Eggleston, both would fall legally, and possibly by will, to Sir Edward Chadwick,” Nick said pointedly.

“You suspect him of treachery, then, and of playing a deep game.”

“That hits the nail on the head.”

“You think he has conspired with others to murder Waldmere, and remove the only barrier to his inheriting the estate and title of his brother?”

“That also rings a bull’s-eye,” Nick nodded.

“But wouldn’t he incur such serious suspicion at home, Nick, that he might----”

“Not in the way he has undertaken the job,” Nick interposed. “He ostensibly is acting as agent for the Earl of Eggleston, and apparently is engaged in a genuine search for Waldmere. He has appealed to Scotland Yard and got a letter of introduction to me. I feel quite sure, however, that both steps were taken only to give color to his pretentions. If I am right, Chick, he is getting in his secret work with the help of knaves hired for the purpose, while he keeps well in the background and pretends to be playing an honorable part.”

“But the killing of Waldmere may enable him to----”

“I’m not sure that there has been any killing,” Nick again interrupted.

“No murder?”

“Not yet.”

“Great guns!” Chick exclaimed. “That’s encouraging, at least, but why do you think so?”

“I have been looking over some of this evidence again,” said Nick, glancing at the articles on his desk. “I think I detect the work of a crook who is as crafty and designing as Chadwick himself, assuming that I have sized him up correctly.”

“You mean Floyd?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think he figures in the case?”

“Because of his presence at my door to-night and the fact that, even while he fled, the taxicab containing Chadwick was approaching my house,” said Nick. “There was something more than a coincidence, Chick, in that both were here at the same time. It is very significant of relations between them.”

“By Jove, that does seem reasonable,” said Chick. “I agree with you.”

“Just what relations exist between them, however, and how the two came together, are open questions,” Nick added. “Floyd is a keen and clever rascal. He would not engage in such a job as this, if my suspicions are correct, without clearly seeing his way to getting all that would be coming to him. He would not undertake such a job, moreover, for any small sum.”

“That’s true.”

“Bear in mind, now, that Chadwick is a long way from home. It’s a hundred to one that he has not at immediate command any such sum as Floyd would require, nor could he easily obtain it from England without laying himself liable to subsequent suspicion.”

“That’s right, too.”

“What’s the logical deduction, then?”

“You say.”

“Simply this--that Floyd might go so far as to get away with Waldmere and plant all of the evidence indicating that he has been murdered, but he would go no further than that,” Nick pointedly reasoned. “He would not complete the job, nor put himself in a way to the electric chair, until he had received the price agreed upon for the murder. He would hold Waldmere a prisoner until he got his money.”

“I see the point,” Chick nodded. “That would, indeed, be very like him.”

“Here, now, is something in support of that theory,” said Nick, turning to his desk. “Here is the note that lured Mollie Waldmere to the west-front chamber that she might not see the duplicate Night and prevent her from enticing Waldmere from the house.

“Here are the two admission cards craftily obtained from the Ringolds, on which were written the names of the costumes worn by the two crooks. Here, too, is the note found in the pocket of the Mexican costume, apparently sent to the wearer by a confederate and indicating that Waldmere was to be taken away in a limousine and murdered.”

“I see,” said Chick, bending over the desk to examine them.

“Do you see anything specially significant in connection with them?”

“I can’t say that I do.”

“Well, I can,” said Nick. “The writing on all of these articles is the same, or so nearly alike that I am sure that the same man wrote all of them.”

“By Jove, I think so, too, now that you point it out,” said Chick. “They must have been written by the wearer of the Mexican costume, who hired it from Perrot under the name of Talbot.”

“Certainly, since it was he who wrote the note given by him to Mollie Waldmere.”

“Unquestionably.”

“Plainly, then, the chauffeur’s note was not sent in to him at all,” Nick continued. “He wrote it himself. He did so only to put it in the pocket of his costume, knowing it would be found later and that murder would then be suspected, a suspicion seemingly confirmed by the finding of the gashed and bloodstained cape worn by Waldmere.”

“You now think, then, that the whole business is only a blind?”

“The murder part of it.”

“And that Waldmere is alive?”

“I do.”

“And confined somewhere pending a settlement for the job?”

“That is precisely what I suspect.”

“By Jove, I am inclined to think you are right,” Chick now said earnestly. “But what’s to be done, Nick, in that case?”

“I already have decided,” said Nick. “I was waiting only for you to return.”

“What’s your scheme?”

“Chadwick is a stranger in New York. He cannot go about alone, nor will he venture into the underworld, where, if I am right, Waldmere is in custody. An interview with him may be necessary, however, possibly several of them, and it’s long odds that they will be held in Chadwick’s quarters in the Oriental, since he thinks he has blinded me and feels safe from suspicion.”

“Quite likely, Nick, but what’s your scheme?” Chick repeated.

“We’ll plant a dictograph in Chadwick’s apartments.”

“Ah, I see.”

“That is, providing we can get an adjoining, or an opposite room,” Nick added. “We then can watch his apartments and overhear anything said there. There is no time like the present, moreover, for he left here only an hour ago, presumably to return to the hotel, and he very likely will be at dinner when we arrive there.”

“We could, in that case, turn the trick in a very few minutes.”

“We’ll attempt it,” said Nick, taking the instrument and a coil of fine, pliable wire from a drawer in his desk. “We’ll go up there in disguise. Have a gun on your hip, also, for there’s no telling what may come off.”

“I’ll wear two, Nick, to make a dead-sure thing of it,” Chick said dryly.

It was seven o’clock when the two detectives arrived at the New Oriental, where they lost no time in getting in their work.

Nick confided in the chief clerk, from whom he learned that Chadwick had arrived that afternoon, that he was traveling alone, and had just gone in to dinner, also that he had a small suite on the third floor.

One directly opposite to it happened to be unoccupied, and no less than ten minutes after their arrival at the hotel both detectives were established in the vacant suite.

“Now, Chick, we’ll work lively,” Nick remarked, throwing off his coat and hat. “You keep an eye on the corridor. I’ll do the painting.”

“I’ve got you,” Chick nodded. “Lie low, if you hear me whistle.”

Nick stole out with the dictograph and wire, as well as the tools he required. He opened the opposite door with a picklock and entered the suite, which consisted of only a sitting room, bedroom, and bath. The Englishman had left the lights on, and his outside garments and luggage were in the bedroom.

A table stood in the middle of the sitting room. Near one of the walls, that adjoining the hall, was a desk supplied with writing materials. It was prevented from standing flush against the wall by a projection of the baseboard, and Nick quickly attached the dictograph to the back of the desk, well out of sight.

He then ran the fine wire downward to the floor, tucking it between the carpet and the baseboard, and conducting it to the door. Then he ran it over the threshold, close to the jamb on the hinge side, and then under the hall carpet and into the opposite room.

No warning whistle from Chick had delayed him, and the entire work had occupied less than fifteen minutes.

“We now will wait developments,” said Nick, when all was ready. “Out with the lights and set this door ajar. If this man has no visitor to-night, Chick, I shall be much mistaken.”

Chick adjusted the door, leaving a crack, through which they could see that of the opposite suite, and both then sat down to wait in the darkness.

The steps of others could occasionally be heard in the corridor, but half an hour had passed when the Englishman returned to his apartments.

Both detectives saw him enter his lighted rooms, consulting his watch when he closed the door.

“That may be significant,” Nick whispered. “He expects some one, perhaps, at an appointed time.”

Nick was right, and eight o’clock brought the expected visitor.

He knocked once, then twice, on the Englishman’s door. The detectives could see him quite plainly in the lighted corridor, a stocky, smooth-shaved man in a plaid overcoat and wearing a fur cap.

Nick could see his face only in profile while he waited, but he felt sure he had previously seen him, though he could not then say where.

When Sir Edward Chadwick admitted him, however, and the stocky man entered and removed his cap, revealing in the bright light of the room a strikingly bald head, as round as a bullet and glistening like a billiard ball, Nick identified him on the instant.

“Great Scott!” he whispered to Chick, as the Englishman closed the door. “That’s Baldy Gammon. That does settle it.”