Chapter XXV: The Advantage of Foreknowledge

It was a remarkable circumstance that Nick Carter should have placed himself under conditions where he found himself suspected of having committed one--or, rather, two--of the most wanton murders of the century.

There was a grimly humorous side to it when he stopped to think, nor could he attach any blame to the hotel clerk or to the police, because they had assumed that the mysterious caller on Colonel Grafton was the person who had committed the deed.

But in that very supposition on their parts he had the advantage of them, in that he personally knew the untruth of it--in that until the hour of two in the morning, or a few minutes before or after it, he was certain that one of the women now dead and the other now wounded at the hospital were perfectly well, and certainly anticipated no thought of imminent danger.

It will be remembered that he had escaped from the apartment where the double crime was committed, with the small safe in his arms; that he had made his way to the roof of the building, and that he had spent a considerable time there in opening the safe.

He had not seen any person in the corridors--anywhere, in fact, within that building, after he came away from that apartment--until he had passed through the office on his way to the street, shortly after three o’clock; he had not noted the exact time.

But some person had been there--and it was almost a logical deduction that the person who had committed that double murder was in the building at the time Nick Carter entered it and did not leave it until after the business of the ensuing day had begun--or that the murderer was an actual resident of one of the apartments there.

This latter theory naturally disposed of the idea that had partly formed in the mind of the detective that the man who called himself Carleton Lynne might be the guilty one, because Chick had already been indefatigably on Lynne’s track for ten days, and was supposed to know--believed himself that he did know--every move that the man from the West had made during that interval.

The conversation that the detective had overheard while he was in hiding in the little room and intent upon making his escape from it must not be forgotten.

It had made a marked impression on him, implying, as it had done, a deep-seated hatred and fear--which is a stronger incentive to the commission of a crime than hate ever was--on Lynne’s part, for Madge Babbington.

Nick Carter’s theory of the original condition of things, which had brought about the appearance of Carleton Lynne upon the scene bore out this idea, too.

It was quite natural that the man, having attained the possession of the Lynne millions, should wish to keep them for himself and should have a reluctance to sharing them with a woman whom he both feared and hated--save only when he was in her presence, and she fascinated him with her tigerish eyes and her beauty.

And that very fascination which she doubtless exercised over him would lead him all the more insistently to wish to rid himself of her; it would but add to his fear of her when he was not with her, and when there was opportunity to think calmly upon who and what she was, and of what extremes she was capable.

Possibly he feared for his own life, as soon as she should be his wife.

The poisoned cup, the stealthy dagger, the pistol shot in the dark; all were possibilities which he could see waiting for him in that future that the woman had doubtless planned for both of them.

And so, while on his way to the Creotoria apartments, wearing an adequate disguise, so that he would not be recognized as the man who had called there to see Colonel Grafton, Nick Carter could not figure out in his mind any other theory that was satisfactory to him in regard to the murders, save the one that Carleton Lynne must somehow be the guilty person.

That idea of the police, of a burglar or thief, surprised at work and shooting down in cold blood three women who opposed his escape, was, to Nick Carter’s mind, preposterous.

There was one other point, too, which the detective had noticed in the reading of the account of the crime, and that was the accuracy with which the bullets had been fired at the victims--all save one of them; probably the last one.

Something of the personal description of Carleton Lynne has already been given, and now, as the detective recalled it, he remembered the cold expression in his eyes, that were set so wide apart, denoting innate cruelty; he recalled the deliberate, almost cautious, motions of the man, his steady, fearless, defiant eyes; and he remembered, too, that Lynne was a man out of the great West, where marksmanship with a six-gun is almost a matter of inheritance as well as a universal talent.

Lynne’s eyes were the eyes of a dead shot--and the bullet holes were bored exactly in the center of the foreheads of the two women who were dead, while the one fired at Madge had only narrowly missed its mark.

Nick believed that he could explain that miss, too, on the same theory that applied to the other two shots. In this manner:

Nora McQueen and the maid had been shot first, and then the weapon had been turned upon the woman whose eyes and whose very presence fascinated Lynne.

Had he caught one flash of those eyes, even as he attempted to fire the fatal shot at her? Had the expression in them compelled his intention to waver, and so deflected his aim? Even as she had stood there facing almost certain death at his hands, had she, in the fraction of a second that was permitted her, been able to throw her spell over him? And had he, even at the instant when his finger was pressing the trigger of his gun, sought, against his own set purpose and will, to spare her?

It was the only manner in which Nick Carter could account for a third shot missing, when the two that had preceded it had been fired with such deadly accuracy.

The papers had contained no mention of robbery--even the fact that the small safe was missing had not been discovered.

If there had been robbery of jewels or money, the papers would have reported it; and so it was apparent to the detective that the person who had committed the crimes had gone there with that express purpose in view--had gone there to kill. More than that, had gone there with the deliberate intention of murdering Madge Babbington and her friend and associate who was with her--Nora McQueen. For Nick Carter, since he overheard that conversation, knew positively that the two were friends and associates, and that they were working together--probably had long been associated.

We have gone over all this ground in order that the frame of mind which governed the detective when he went to that apartment house may thoroughly be understood.

He could not see any solution of the double crime save through the active instrumentality of the man who called himself Carleton Lynne; there was no other acceptable theory, for who else was there who could have desired the death of Madge Babbington, to the point of murdering her?

He did acknowledge to himself that, had he been less well informed than he was--had he not been there himself almost up to the time when the crimes were committed, and had he been told the story of the clerk at the desk about the mysterious stranger who had called there--he might have been influenced by it.

And then came another thought--a perplexing one, too:

Was it possible that the murderer, watching and waiting for the return of Madge and her friend, had seen him force his way into the apartment with his picklock--had waited until Nick Carter came out of the place, carrying the safe in his arms, and had then carried out his own dark purpose, realizing with a sense of security that another than himself would be suspected?

Such a thing was possible--was even highly probable, under the circumstances, and in the light of all that the detective actually knew of the conditions.

Nick telephoned to headquarters before he started out, as he had told Chick he would do, and so when he presented himself at the desk of the great apartment house he merely announced that he was sent there from headquarters--and gave his name.

Please remember that in appearance he did not at all resemble the man who had applied at that same desk at half-past eleven the preceding night.

“There are half a dozen men here from headquarters, even now,” the clerk told him; but Nick only nodded his head to that statement, and asked to see the house directory.

It was shown to him--a book taken from the safe, which contained the names and the numbers of the apartments occupied by each one of them, of every person--man, woman, and child--in the house.

He went over them without comment. There was not one there that suggested anything to him; but as he was in the act of returning the book to the day clerk he withheld it for a moment, and said:

“Point out to me, please, the names of your latest arrived guests--and begin with the very latest, informing me as you indicate the names the time of arrival here.”

“You will observe that there is not a vacant apartment in the building,” said the man behind the desk.

“Yes,” replied the detective.

“Well, with the exception of one gentleman, there is nobody in this list who has not lived here two years, or more. Here is the name--Henry Carroll.”

“Mr. Carroll seems to live alone; also to occupy rather a large apartment for a man who does live alone,” was Nick’s comment.

“Yes. He regretted that the apartment was so large at the time he took it; but it was the only vacant one we had. I made the contract with him myself. He is a very quiet, unassuming man, with iron-gray hair and closely cropped gray mustache. He would be a handsome man, too, if it were not for a frightful scar that extends all the way down one side of his face, and another one just like it that reaches a third of the way down the other side.”

“When did he engage his apartment?” the detective asked.

“It was engaged and paid for in advance, in order to hold it, three months ago,” was the reply.

“By the gentleman himself?”

“No; by an agent who represented him.”

“Is the man a New Yorker, or where is he from?”

“I do not know as to that, but, if you are of the opinion that he might have had----”

“I have no opinions; I am seeking information. When did Mr. Carroll first occupy his apartment?”

“He arrived here just three weeks ago to-day?”

“Where from?”

“I do not know.”

“And he has been here steadily ever since then?”

“No. He remained just a week, and then went away, to Washington, D. C., on a business trip.”

“Has he returned?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Last night, at a quarter to twelve.”

“Do you know if he is in his rooms now?”

“I know that he is not. He went out at half-past seven this morning.”

“Thank you. I am going to the ninth floor now. When Mr. Carroll returns please notify me of the fact at once; I wish to have a talk with him.”

“Yes, sir; I will do so.”

It was then that Nick sought the apartment, nine hundred and one, and if he had expressed his thoughts aloud, that expression might have been found in the following sentence:

“Henry Carroll will not return at all, for Henry Carroll and Carleton Lynne are one and the same.”