Chapter XXVI: The Murderer Is Found

Several things had happened to affect the case by the time Nick Carter entered the apartment.

The small safe had been discovered on the roof and had been traced to apartment nine hundred and one; a woman who would not give her name, and who was thickly veiled from observation, had appeared there and had inquired for Mrs. Babbington, and when told that Madge was at the hospital had departed with the avowed intention of seeking her at the institution. One of the headquarters men had followed her; the coroner had “viewed” the case and had given permission for the removal of the bodies, and that very thing was happening when Nick arrived; information had been received that Madge had recovered consciousness, and her brief statement boiled down to one sentence was merely that a man whom she did not know had appeared suddenly in the parlor of her suite and had begun firing his revolver the instant he did appear; and she claimed to know no reason why he should have done so, and that she had had no idea of his presence until the actual shooting began.

No weapon had been found; nothing had been discovered to assist in the solution of the mystery, save the incident of the safe, concerning which Madge insisted that she knew nothing, but which seemed to bear out the original theory of the crimes.

Nick returned to the office floor of the building.

“I want two things,” he told the clerk with whom he had already talked.

“Well, sir?”

“I want to see the night clerk who was on duty last night, and----”

“He is here now, sir, in the office of the manager.”

“Very well. Show me to that office, and I will tell the manager of the other thing I want.”

“Right this way, Mr. Carter,” was the reply, and he was ushered to a hidden office behind the desk.

“I am Nick Carter,” he said abruptly, “with authority from headquarters. Mr. Brixton, you are the manager here?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to go with me now to the apartment occupied by one Henry Carroll; never mind why till we get there. I want this night clerk to accompany us.” And, on the way to the apartment mentioned, after he had overcome the objections of the manager, Nick asked the clerk:

“Who came into the building after the man Parsons made his appearance and went to the suite of Colonel Grafton?”

“Only Mr. Carroll. No one else.”

“Who went out of the building?”

“Only that man who called himself Parsons--that is, until after six o’clock.”

“What time was it when Carroll went out?”

“Half-past seven.”

“Did he speak to you at the time?”

“Merely to say that he might not return to-day.”

“Would you recognize his voice if you should hear it again--say from another room--if you could not see him and if he could not see you at the time?”

“I am sure that I would. Sure thing.”

“All right. I’ll give you an opportunity to prove that assertion before you are many hours older.”

Brixton was at that moment opening the door of the apartment they sought, with his pass key. They entered together.

There were a few articles of clothing strewn about on chairs; some cheap toilet articles were on the dresser in one of the bedrooms; two suits of cheap clothing, almost new, were hanging in one of the closets; two trunks, both quite heavy when Nick lifted one end of each of them, were in another room.

“It doesn’t look as if Mr. Carroll was very domestic in his habits, or intended to remain here a very long time,” the detective remarked; and then, without announcing his intention, he drew a heavy bronze paperweight from one of his pockets--he had brought it with him surreptitiously from the manager’s office for the very purpose to which he now applied it--and he struck the hasp of the lock of one of the trunks a mighty blow, which broke it in half.

“What do you mean by such a proceeding?” the manager cried out; but, instead of replying, Nick calmly threw back the lid of the trunk.

The trunk was empty, save for about a dozen lengths of sheet lead, which had been cleated fast to the bottom of it.

Without a word of comment, Nick turned to the second trunk, and served it in the same manner--and with precisely the same result.

“You see?” he said, turning upon the manager. “Find Henry Carroll, and you will find the murderer--and I will find him before dark to-night. Come away. There is nothing more to be accomplished here.”

Chick was in the office awaiting the detective when he returned to it with the manager and the night clerk. Nick drew him at once to one side after telling the clerk, whose name was Pryor, to wait for him.

“Well?” he said to Chick.

“I think that Lynne must have spent the night at his house. He came out at the usual time this morning and went downtown. I let him go, and came here.”

“Good. Go now to the telephone; call up Ben Oaks; find out if Lynne is there. If so, tell Oaks to find an excuse for detaining him till we get there. If he is not there, ask Oaks to notify us the moment he arrives. I happen to know that Oaks had an appointment with him this morning.”

“There is another thing that is important--a message from Patsy,” said Chick. “I telephoned to Joseph, and he read it to me. I put it down as he stated it. Here it is.”

The detective took the paper and read:

“Will arrive nine-thirty, morning. Have important information.
Don’t lose sight of C. L. before I get there.

PATSY.”

“Patsy did not receive the messages I sent early this morning,” was the only comment that Nick made as he put the paper into one of his pockets; but Chick had already gone to the telephone. He came hurrying back again a moment later.

“Lynne is there,” he said. “Oaks will detain him till we get there. Shall we go now?”

“Yes; only I want you, Chick, to go in another direction. Go to the Lynne residence and make a thorough search of the rooms and everything in them that this man has used since he has been recognized as Carleton Lynne. Telephone me from there, at Oaks’ office. I want you to find, most of all, an iron-gray wig, cropped false mustache, and a pair of oiled-silk face scars, such as we have had to use in disguises before now--and anything else that turns up. Come along, Pryor. We’ll take the subway.”

The detective left Pryor in the corridor of the office building while he entered the office of Benjamin Oaks; but a moment later he opened the door and beckoned to the clerk, who followed him inside, led him across the room to another door that was partly ajar, and said:

“Listen, and tell me whom you suppose to be in that room.”

After a moment of silence, during which Pryor listened to the murmur of voices that could be heard in the private office, he turned and, with a strange expression on his face, but without hesitation, said:

“Mr. Carter, one of the two men who are talking together in that room is Henry Carroll. I would swear to it anywhere.”

“Good. That is all. You may return to the Creotoria now and wait there till I need you, Pryor.” Then, when the clerk had gone, the detective walked calmly into the private office of Benjamin Oaks.

Oaks looked up at the detective’s entrance, and nodded his head in recognition. The other man, who had been called Carleton Lynne, half arose from his chair, and then, with a curt nod at Nick, reseated himself upon it.

Nick, with a genial “Good morning, gentlemen,” passed behind Lynne’s chair in crossing the room; but when he was directly behind it he moved with lightninglike quickness. He drew a pair of steel handcuffs from his coat pocket; he seized Lynne’s wrists and drew them together so suddenly that the man could not resist him, and he snapped the handcuffs into place, pinioning the man’s wrists behind his back, before there was an opportunity of escape or resistance.

Of course, there was a struggle, but it was shortlived, and the man who was known as Carleton Lynne found himself on his back on the floor, with Nick Carter standing over him, and smiling down upon him as he said coolly:

“Henry Carroll, alias Carleton Lynne, alias a lot of other names--I have no doubt--you are under arrest for the double murder at the Creotoria apartment house early this morning, and, incidentally, for the lesser crime of impersonating one Carleton Lynne, and for the temporary theft under that name of some twelve millions of dollars. Call up headquarters, Oaks, and tell them to send a wagon down here after this fellow. I’ll stand here till it comes.”

* * * * *

That practically ends this story, although not quite. There are a few interesting odds and ends to pick up, as yet, which are important.

Chick found the wig, the mustache, the oil-silk scars, and five letters addressed to Henry Carroll at Hailey, Idaho, at the house he searched. Four of the letters contained not a thing that seemed to be important; the fifth one was in cipher; none of the letters bore a signature; all were typewritten, and bore the New York City postmark. It is worthy of comment right here that not a thing was found to implicate Madge Babbington in the affair, and to state that at the trial of Carroll, which followed in due time, he steadily denied that she had had any complicity with him in his acts. When asked why he had attempted to murder her, he admitted that he had known her for a long time--insisting, however, that she had known him only as Carleton Lynne, and had believed that to be his right name--and that she had repulsed him when he declared his love for her. It was all a lie, of course, but there was no way of establishing that he did lie about it.

The veiled woman who had called at the apartment, and who had gone from there to the hospital to see Madge, proved to be the missing Miss Hunt who had formerly and for so long a time been in the employ of Benjamin Oaks.

The information she had to give was as unimportant as were the statements of the man Carroll. It was merely to the effect that she had been bought off from her “job” by the woman, now dead, who called herself Nora McQueen, and had gone on a trip in the meantime, having been assured that she could get her job back again at the end of six months, or less; and that she had been lately notified by Miss McQueen that she could return at any time, being advised when she did so to apply first, for information, to Mrs. Babbington, at the Creotoria. She had returned to the city that morning, had seen the account of the murders, had gone to the Creotoria, had seen the dead body of Miss McQueen, and had hastened to the hospital for further information--which she did not get.

Down at the office of Benjamin Oaks, when the patrol wagon had taken the prisoner away, the lawyer and Nick had spent a few moments in conversation, and then Nick had hurried away to his own house to meet Patsy, who had notified him by telephone at the lawyer’s office of his arrival. Chick was there, too, waiting.

Nor was that all.

Patsy had not returned alone.

He had brought with him an emaciated but convalescent gentleman, and when he introduced that person to Nick Carter it was done in these words:

“Mr. Lynne, this is Mr. Carter. Chief, this man is the real Carleton Lynne. He went to the Klondike at the time of the rush with a friend named Henry Carroll. He got lost in a storm while there and was reported dead. In reality, the silence and the cold destroyed his reason, and for years he wandered about the world, not knowing who he was. But his memory returned to him a few months ago, and he made his way back again to Hailey, Idaho, where he is well known, and where there is sufficient proof of his identity, as I have found.

“You will notice that there is a strange as well as an unaccountable resemblance between him and Henry Carroll--at least, he tells me there is, and Chick agrees with him; and that, I think, in part accounts for the daring effort on the part of Carroll to pass himself off as Lynne. Of course, the stolen papers and photograph assisted in that--and Carroll took good care not to appear in Hailey as Lynne.”

And so it was that the rightful heir came into his own at last.