Chapter XXIV: The Double Tragedy

It was four o’clock in the morning when Nick Carter got into his bed, and, contrary to his custom, it was eight o’clock when he left it. He had been roused from sleep by the raucous cries of men in the street and avenue, who were shouting unintelligible information concerning an extra that was just out.

The cries sounded like:

“Wuxtra! Wuxtra! Fullercountuv----” Nick gave it up at that, although he believed that he had distinguished the word murder among the jargon. He rang his bell and called Joseph to him.

“What is that extra about, Joseph?” he asked.

“A double murder, sir, discovered early this morning--soon after four, I think. Danny is reading about it now, sir. I only saw the headlines over his shoulder.”

“A double murder? Where did it happen, Joseph?”

“I don’t know, sir. I did not notice. Shall I prepare your bath?”

“No; I’ll fix it myself. Go down and get me a paper. I’m rather curious to know what it is all about.”

“Yes, sir; at once, Mr. Carter.”

Joseph departed, and the detective repaired to his bath. When he came out of it he discovered the paper that Joseph had brought to him, on the table in his sleeping room.

One glance at the headlines riveted his attention instantly, and, naked as he was, he seized upon the paper and seated himself upon the edge of the bed to read the account of the double tragedy it partly described.

The word that had attracted his attention was the name, in large type, of the same apartment house at which he had met with his adventure during the preceding night--the Creotoria.

We won’t attempt to give the headlines as they were printed, but in substance they were something like this:

“Murder. A Double Tragedy at the Cretoria Apartments in Upper Broadway. Another Babbington Mystery. Woman lately tried for murder and acquitted is found unconscious beside the two victims of New York’s latest murder mystery. Triple crime intended. Bullet intended for the third victim went astray and her life was spared, although a slight wound was inflicted where it plowed its way along the side of her head just over the left temple. Only clew is mysterious late caller. A man giving the name of Parsons inquired for Colonel Grafton after eleven o’clock, but remained with that gentleman less than half an hour, and was seen by the night clerk to leave the building after three in the morning.”

The detective paused right there long enough to utter a low whistle of astonishment; and then he skipped down from the headlines to the article itself, for he was amazed to find that there had been three persons in that apartment when he left it. He had supposed there were only two--Madge Babbington and Nora McQueen.

We will not attempt to give more than the substance of the article, sufficient for the purposes of this story, but the account of the tragedy, briefly, was about this:

Mrs. Babbington, who occupied the apartment in question, kept two servants. One of them, the cook, had been given a night off to attend a wake in a distant part of the city, but had returned to the apartment shortly after four o’clock in the morning.

She had entered the place with a key, with which she had been provided, and had found that a brilliant light was still showing in the parlor, which, by courtesy, was called the library.

After listening and hearing no sound from that room, she went to it to investigate, and then ran screaming from the room to the telephone, which is in the dining room.

“Murder! Murder! Murder!” she shouted three times over the phone to the clerk at the desk, and then dropped to the floor in a faint, where the clerk and the night watchman presently discovered her.

They also found what they at first supposed was a triple murder in the library of the apartment. Three women were stretched upon the floor, apparently dead from bullet wounds, and in two of the cases the bullets had entered the brain directly in the middle of the forehead. In the third one something had deflected the aim of the assassin, and the bullet that was doubtless intended to slay her as her companions had been slain had glanced along the left side of her skull above the temple and ear. This wound is, however, not considered dangerous, the skull is not fractured, and Mrs. Hurd-Babbington will recover.

It will be remembered that Mrs. Hurd-Babbington was lately tried for the murder--and so forth, and so forth. Nick skipped that. He read on again, in substance as follows:

One of the victims of the double tragedy which came so near to being a triple one is the personal maid of Mrs. Babbington; the other victim is so far unknown, and has not been identified. At the time this paper goes to press Mrs. Babbington has not recovered consciousness sufficiently to give a coherent account of the affair, if, indeed, she knows more about it than has already been printed.

At a late hour last night--eleven-thirty, or near that time--a man appeared at the desk and inquired of the clerk for a gentleman named Grafton. This man gave his name as Parsons. The clerk sent him to the apartment of Colonel Horace Grafton, which is on the tenth floor of the building, and immediately telephoned to the colonel of the fact.

Colonel Grafton received him, and entertained him for about half an hour, at which time he took his departure; but it is certain that he did not leave the building or attempt to do so until after three o’clock in the morning, and it was then not later than midnight.

Where did he pass the three hours that intervened?

The theory of the police is that he intended to go through the place thoroughly, and that at last he found his way into the apartment of Mrs. Babbington, who was absent, having attended the opera; and it now appears that the apartment was entirely deserted at about that time. The cook was absent, as has already been stated, and the maid, who is dead, had been passing the time with another servant on the eleventh floor of the building.

It is supposed that the man was in the apartment when Mrs. Babbington returned to it with the other woman who accompanied her; that she encountered her maid in the corridor or at the door, and that the three entered together; that the thief, being discovered and probably threatened by the three women who found him there, shot them.

The clerk gives only a partial description of the man who asked for Colonel Grafton--et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

No further details of the tragedy can be given until Mrs. Babbington has recovered sufficiently to relate her own experiences, which doubtless will be the case by the time our evening editions are on the street.

The detective laid the paper aside with a mixture of feelings.

There was one, of course, which was not without amusement, that he should be the one to be charged with the crime, and, when he realized that he had gone there without disguise, he saw that it would be well for him to alter his appearance for a few days, until some investigation could be made into the mystery.

That the unidentified dead woman was Miss Nora McQueen he had not a doubt; but who had done the thing?

Some one opened the door at that moment, and Chick entered the room. His first glance alighted upon the paper that the detective had been engaged in reading, and, with a half smile on his face, he asked:

“Well, what do you think of that, Nick? What do you make out of it?”

“Nothing--as yet. How do you read it, between the lines?”

“It’s an odd circumstance, isn’t it? I thought at first that that chap who gave the name of Parsons might have been you.”

“It was,” was the quiet reply.

“What? Do you mean that?”

“Yes.” And then the detective gave his assistant a correct account of all that had happened while he was at the apartment house; and, in closing, he said:

“Now, Chick, I have reason to think, from what the McQueen woman said to Madge last night, that nothing would have suited Carleton Lynne better than to put both of those women out of the way. But you can dispose of that idea at once, since you were----”

“Unfortunately, Nick, I cannot. I lost him.”

“Lost him?”

“Yes; just that.”

“Where? When? How? Tell me about it.”

“I’ll tell you all I know.”

“Well?”

“After the opera he went with the people who were in that other box where he made a call during the performance, to Louis Martin’s, for supper. I went there also, and found a small table not far from where they were seated. I was hungry myself, and, perceiving that they had ordered a substantial meal, I did likewise, not fearing but that they would be longer about it than I.”

“Well, go on.”

“It never occurred to me that Lynne might leave the table before they had finished, and I was unfortunately seated so that I was obliged to turn my head to look at them. I did not want the Babbington woman to get onto the fact that I was trailing them, and, knowing that she is as sharp as needles, I did not pay very close attention to them for a time; and finally, when I did look around, my man had disappeared.”

“Do you mean that he left there during the progress of the meal?”

“Just that.”

“Well?”

“I went out in search of him, but could find no trace, so, thinking that he might return, I went back to the dining room and waited for the others to leave. When they did break up I followed Madge and the woman you say was Miss McQueen to the Creotoria. When they had gone inside the building I came away.”

“Where did you go then?”

“I came home. I decided that either Lynne was safely in bed in the big house where he lives--the Lynne house--and that he would come out at the usual hour this morning, which is nine-thirty or ten, or that he had gone somewhere else where I could not get trace of him. I am going now to the Lynne mansion to watch for him.”

“All right. Go ahead. If he does come out at the usual hour, telephone the fact to me.”

“I will. What are you going to do about the matter of Parsons?”

“I’m going to get into a disguise and go to the Creotoria at once, to investigate this business in my own way.”

“And I?”

“You wait at the Lynne place until Carleton comes out or goes inside, no matter how long it takes. Afterward, come directly to me at the Creotoria. I’ll need you there.”

“Very well.”

“In case I am not there, wait for me. I’ll have arranged with headquarters so that we may have privileges on the case. Tell the manager who you are, and go ahead with the investigation in your own way.”

“Why, where will you be, if not there?”

“‘The Latest News,’ printed in red at the bottom of the page in that paper, states that Madge was taken to a hospital. I may go there to see her.”