Chapter XXII: A Daring Experiment

To say that one will visit an apartment in a large hotel-apartment house during the absence of its owner or occupant, and search it, and to perform that ceremony are two very different propositions, as Nick Carter was destined speedily to discover.

The name of the particular one in which Madge Babbington had elected to reside after her acquittal at the trial was the Creotoria, and it was located on Broadway in that uptown section of the city where so many of those great edifices have been erected in the last few years.

It was eleven o’clock at night when the detective arrived there and entered the wide and spacious corridor which led to the office desk, and Nick found out at once that it was impossible for him to ascend to any of the upper floors of the building without first giving some adequate reason for doing so.

The obstacles which confronted him in the carrying out of his design seemed almost insurmountable at first, as he approached the desk where an expectant clerk stood waiting to receive him, having seen him enter at the front doorway--for this was no transient place, at which one might apply for lodgings for the night.

Plainly, the only way for the detective even to begin the accomplishment of what he had set out to do was to pretend that some one whom he knew lived there; but at the moment he could not recall that he had ever heard of the house until he had been informed that Mrs. Hurd-Babbington had gone there to live.

“I am seeking the apartment of an acquaintance who possibly resides here,” he said to the clerk, as he stopped at the desk and leaned upon it. “Will you let me see your house directory, please?”

“If you will give me the name I can save you the trouble of looking through the directory,” replied the clerk.

“Grafton,” said Nick, mentioning the first name that occurred to him--the name, by the way, of a very oldtime acquaintance, whom he had not seen for years, and whose home, when last Nick Carter knew him, was in London.

And right here happened one of those strange coincidences--or phases of luck, whichever one chooses to name it--which occur in the experience of every person of active life; for the clerk replied at once, and without an instant of hesitation:

“Oh, yes; Colonel Grafton. Certainly, he lives here. It is not ten minutes since he went up in the elevator. Will you telephone up to him? Or--if you will give me your name, I will have it attended to for you.”

“I will go directly to the apartment, since the colonel has only just gone up himself,” the detective replied carelessly. “Will you tell me how to find it?”

“Certainly, sir. Tenth floor, Broadway front; number one thousand and one.”

“Thank you.”

“Give me your name, please, and I will telephone up that you are coming. It is the rule, you know.”

“Just say that it is Mr. Parsons,” replied the detective, as he turned and hurried toward one of the elevators; and he did some tall thinking while the swiftly moving cage was bearing him to the tenth floor of the enormous building.

For the Grafton whom Nick Carter knew and whose name he had made use of on the impulse of the moment was not a colonel, and this man of the Creotoria could not be he.

Nevertheless, Nick had hit upon a name of a resident of the building, and there was so much gained, at least.

The detective hurried through the corridor of the tenth floor toward number one thousand and one, and discovered, as he approached it, that a tall, military-looking gentleman, with white mustache and imperial, and with a distinctly soldierly bearing, was standing in the open door awaiting his approach.

And Nick, when he was close enough, pretended great surprise in greeting the man.

“Why!” he exclaimed; “there must be some mistake! You are not my friend Grafton. Have I, by any chance, been directed to the wrong apartment?”

“I think not,” was the smiling reply. “My name is Grafton, although I have not the slightest recollection of you, sir. I am Colonel Morely Grafton, of the British army. Will you step inside, sir? It is possible that I can aid you in finding the man you seek, for Grafton is not a common name. We all claim relation.”

“My friend by that name is Paul Grafton, a resident of London,” replied the detective.

“I have a nephew by that name, whose home is in London,” was the reply, as the colonel led the way into the sitting room. “He is now in India. Will you be seated, sir?”

Nick sat down.

He realized that now, in order to carry out what he had gone there to do, he must waste a few moments in conversation with this man, in order that no suspicion might be attached to his call; and in the conversation that followed it came out that the nephew of the old colonel was really the detective’s friend.

And so, nearly half an hour was used up in chatting with the British officer before Nick Carter ventured to rise and take his leave; and when he did so he had to promise the colonel that he would call again at some future time.

But he had found his way into the house, and the rest of his design was now open to him.

The number of the apartment occupied by Madge Babbington was known to the detective, and, because of that number, nine hundred and one, he knew it to be directly beneath the one occupied by the soldier.

It was then midnight.

The corridors were deserted.

It is true that from some of the apartments, as Nick passed them, came sounds which indicated that the occupants were still very much alive and awake; but he paid no attention to these things, hurrying onward and descending to the next floor below by the first stairway he could find; and so he found himself, presently, before the door of nine hundred and one.

He listened at the door for a moment, but not a sound came to him from within; and yet he figured that it was more than likely that at least one servant was somewhere inside, awaiting the return of the mistress.

He speculated for a moment as to whether he should use his picklock, and so force his way inside, or ring the bell and trust to his ready wit and assurance to be permitted to wait--and he decided on the former course, realizing fully the risk he ran in doing so if he should be discovered.

That picklock of his which has been mentioned has often been described in the Nick Carter histories, and needs no further description here, save to say that it is an instrument of the detective’s own invention, and is a magic wand in his possession when it comes to the opening of locked doors. Even Yale locks are not proof against it.

He took it from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, manipulated it for a moment, and so pushed open the communicating door, stepped inside, closed it after him, and then stood very quietly in the hallway while he listened for any sound that might be made.

But there was none.

A dim light shaded by a red globe burned in that hallway; beyond, from one of the rooms, a brighter light glowed invitingly, and Nick tiptoed his way toward it and peered inside the room.

It was deserted, and, after assuring himself of the fact, the detective began a tour of the apartment, passing from room to room, to discover if there was any living presence in the place at all.

It did not take him long to become assured that he was the only person there, although he saw many evidences of the recent presence of one or more servants, and he came to the decision--correctly, as it happened--that the maid and perhaps another servant had taken the opportunity of their mistress’ absence to pass an hour or two with other servants in another part of the building.

At all events, the detective was satisfied that the way was open to him--for how long a time he could not determine--to search the place for proofs of the things he suspected, if proofs were there.

Of course, there was the possibility that one or both of the servants might return at any moment and surprise him--for it was now considerably past midnight--but he relied upon his own resources to conceal himself until there was offered an opportunity to escape, if such a thing should happen.

During his first tour of the apartment he had selected the room in which he believed such evidence might be found if any existed--- a small room which opened off from the library and was separated from it by portières.

It contained a roll-top desk, which was closed and locked; a cabinet letter file, which was also carefully locked against intrusion--and, in short, bore the general resemblance of a sort of office room; and at one corner of it there was a very small safe, which Nick believed he could lift and carry away with him, if he so desired.

“If there is anything here at all to interest me, and to supply the proof I want, it is inside that little safe,” was the detective’s thought, as he looked at it and estimated its weight not to exceed a hundred pounds at the most.

It stood upon a shelf of hard wood that had evidently been placed there for its reception, and a Navaho blanket had been draped over it, to conceal it.

Nick tried the handle of the safe door, to discover if Madge had left it unlocked, by any chance; but it was safely locked against intrusion, and so the detective spun the dial of the combination lock, preparatory to resting one ear against it to find the tumblers by sound, for he was an expert in that art, which, be it known, is a profession by itself.

He had just placed one ear against the dial, or so close to it that not a sound that might occur inside the lock would escape him; he had just begun to turn the dial when he was startled by the rattle of a key in the lock of the outer door of the apartment, and was made conscious of the fact that somebody was returning; but whether it was one of the servants, or the mistress herself, he had no means, just then, of determining.

Instantly he switched off the light in that small room, and then, as he heard footsteps approaching the room which adjoined it, he stepped quickly behind a tall easel in an opposite corner, which held an almost life-sized portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Babbington.

He found that it entirely concealed him, for the bottom of the canvas on which the portrait had been painted was not more than three inches from the floor; and so he stood there waiting while the footsteps came nearer--and he could now determine that there were two persons approaching, instead of one.

They entered that adjoining room where the light was glowing brightly, and the unmistakable voice of Mrs. Babbington, in low laughter, reached his hearing.

“‘Ernani’?” she was saying. “Yes, that was the opera to-night; but I scarcely heard a note of it, Nora. I had other things to think about to-night. And then, of course, we had to go somewhere afterward. That is why I kept you waiting. But I got away as soon as I could do so. Now, what news have you? Tell me while I am taking off these wraps.”

“There is one thing, Madge, that seems to be of some importance,” was the reply, delivered in a voice that gave Nick Carter a start of surprise, for he instantly recognized it as the voice of Miss McQueen, stenographer and secretary to Benjamin Oaks, the lawyer. “That young man who went to Idaho--Patrick Garvan was his name, wasn’t it?--is on the track of something--I don’t know what. And Chris says, in his last letter, that he ought not to be permitted to return. He says that an accident can happen to him out there, just as well as not. It is up to you, Madge, to decide that question.”