Chapter IV: A Man, or a Monster?

Nick Carter looked at the man closely.

“Mr. Lynne, were you out with your car last night?” he asked abruptly.

“Really, Mr. Carter,” was the slow reply, given with another raising of the eyebrows, “you amaze me. You send up word to me that you have information of the utmost importance; I receive you because I recognize the name on your card as representing one of the greatest detectives of modern times, and I assume that your important news must really be important, or you would not have come here at all; then you say that the important information you have has something to do with Pleasantglades, and in the next breath you ask me if I was out with my car last night. Will you be good enough to tell me why you are here?”

The cordiality and affability had all gone from his voice now, and it was cold, distant, and genuinely the one of a man who is not accustomed to being intruded upon for nothing.

“Would you mind answering the question?” Nick replied, with equal coldness. “My important information will follow at once.”

“Before I reply to any questions at all, Mr. Carter, I must ask for the information; or, at least, for the character of it,” was the reply.

“Very well. Pleasantglades was entered last night, I believe. One of my assistants has already given the information to the local police.”

“Is that all?” exclaimed the millionaire, with an air of great relief. “I really thought it might be something else; that the place was burned down, or something of that sort. It was good of you to come here yourself to tell me, however. I appreciate it.”

“Thank you. Now, will you reply to my question?”

“About the car? What has that to do with it?”

“Merely that it might have been yourself who visited Pleasantglades last night--or very early this morning.”

“Oh! I see. No, I was not there, nor near there, in fact.”

“Nor your car, either?”

“My dear, sir, I have three cars. Which one do you refer to?”

“To any one of them. Do you know where all three of the cars were last night?”

“No; but I could easily ascertain, if it is important.”

“It may prove to be quite important, sir. One of your cars was there last night.” This was merely a guess on Nick’s part, but he thought best to make it at that point.

“At Pleasantglades?” asked the millionaire, elevating his brows again. It seemed to be a favorite gesture of his.

“Yes; or near there.”

“Then it was entirely without my knowledge. I will inquire about it at once;” and he started to leave his chair.

But the detective interrupted him.

“Please keep your seat a moment longer, Mr. Lynne,” he said. “Of course it is not likely that you will know just what happened at your country place last night, until the local police have investigated, but there are a few questions which you might answer me, if you care to do so, which might be important.”

“Pardon me, but I don’t quite see what you have to do with it, Mr. Carter. You have not been asked for an opinion.”

Nick shrugged his shoulders, determined not to pay any attention to this man of so many attitudes.

“You have a daughter, Mr. Lynne. Do you happen to know where she is at this moment?” he asked.

The man sat up straight in his chair, grasping both arms of it tightly so that his knuckles stood out white and distinct. His brows drew together in a straight frown, and in a voice that was entirely unlike any that he had used before, so harsh was it, he exclaimed:

“Really, sir, you go too far. You exceed----”

“Do you know if your daughter went to Pleasantglades last night?” Nick interrupted him.

“I know that she did not go there. But what----”

“She did go there.”

It was an interruption, but it was a very quiet one; yet the four words were said with such a precise enunciation that the man stared at the detective for several seconds before he at last exclaimed:

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Your daughter went to Pleasantglades last night. I wished to know if you were aware of the fact, and if you could tell me who accompanied her.”

The reply was cool, cutting, and precise.

“I will answer no to both your impertinent questions, and will ask what the devil business it is of yours, anyhow. You have intruded here upon my quiet morning, and now I will ask you to----”

“Just one moment, Mr. Lynne, if you please. If you could forget your dignity, and the position you occupy, and the millions you possess for just a moment, and come down to earth, it would not be amiss. I have heard many things about you, sir, and never an unkind one. I have had the highest estimate of your personal character until this moment, when you fly into a rage over nothing at all. You received me pleasantly enough when I came, but the moment I mention Pleasantglades, your entire attitude changes. Is it because you were going there, to-day?”

The millionaire had leaned back in his chair again while the detective was talking, and was smiling now, with a certain superciliousness that would have been an insult under any other circumstances.

“I am greatly indebted to you for your good opinion of me,” he said, with cool insolence. “Have you been--er--drinking?”

“No,” replied the detective calmly.

“Then will you be good enough to tell me exactly why you have made this call upon me?”

“I came, Mr. Lynne, to tell you that your daughter did go to Pleasantglades last night; that she arrived there about two o’clock this morning; that she entered the grounds and the house; that she is there now.”

“That she is there now? What do you mean? Has something happened to her? Has she been injured? And why should she go there at all?”

“Something has happened to her, Mr. Lynne,” said Nick slowly--for the life of him he could not feel sympathy for this man whom he had gone there prepared to like immensely, and to sympathize with greatly, and to offer every talent that he possessed--“something very serious indeed has happened to her.”

The man got upon his feet, white now to the lips, and the hands with which he grasped the back of the chair upon which he had been seated, trembled visibly; and all the while the detective never took his eyes from Lynne’s face. He wanted to sympathize with the man and could not, and for once in his life he was entirely at fault as to what judgment to pass, or to understand why he hesitated to form one.

There was not an expression of feature, not a line of the face, not a motion of any part of the body of the man before him that was lost upon the detective at that moment, for he could not believe that any man could be guilty of connivance at the death of his own daughter--and yet had he been a stepfather instead of a father, or had he borne any other relation than he did to that beautiful dead girl, Nick Carter would unhesitatingly have pronounced him the murderer then and there.

“What--what has happened to her--to Edythe?” faltered Lynne.

“She--is--dead,” was the slow reply.

“God!” cried the man, and dropped again upon the chair, and then his arms upon the tray filled with dishes, scattering them right and left, and burying his face in his arms; and Nick Carter could not help thinking that John Drew or Bob Hilliard could scarcely have done it better.

The reader must not misunderstand.

Nick Carter did not really suppose that this man was the murderer of his own daughter--but the only reason why he did not was because he could not bring his mind to believe such a monstrous thing.

But, all the same, the detective could not get it out of his mind that this millionaire had been acting a part from the moment the detective entered the room; and that the dramatic climax that had just occurred, with the scattering of the dishes, and all, was not in keeping with the attitude of thoroughbreds, when they receive a blow.

They take it standing, full in the face, and there is never even a touch of the dramatic about it.

The detective made no move forward. He waited; and presently, after a moment of silence, Lynne raised his head, then got upon his feet again, and with an apparent effort at calmness he said, half brokenly:

“Tell me about it.”

“I have told you about it, Mr. Lynne.”

“But--what does it mean? What killed her? What happened?”

“Who can know what happened, who was not there to witness what happened?”

“But--you keep me in doubt. I do not know what you mean.”

“The body of Miss Lynne is in the parlor of her own private suite of rooms; it is upon the divan couch, among the pillows, as if she had thrown herself there to rest. Her left arm extends along the top of the pillows; her right one hangs over the edge of the couch, and on the rug beneath the right hand there is an empty vial that has contained prussic acid. That is as much as I can tell you.”

“Suicide? Do you mean that she killed herself?”

“Appearances would point to such an answer, Mr. Lynne. Do you know of any reason why your daughter should have killed herself? or why she should have thought of doing so?”

“No, no, no! Why should she do such a thing?”

“That is what I came here to ask you?”

“But, if she did not do it herself, who could have done it?”

“That is another question that I wished to ask of you.”

“But there is no one, no one.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Oh, you have shocked me so that I do not know what to answer. It is all so amazing; so unbelievable. Was there nothing--did you find nothing to indicate that another, or others, had been there with her?”

“The local police, up there, will report to you on that point, Mr. Lynne. They were going to the house to investigate when I started for the city to tell you about it. It seems to me that you should have heard from them before this; but, perhaps, they would consider it a wiser course to send a messenger to break the news.”

And then, as if in reply to the thought of Nick Carter, there was a tap at the door, and the butler again made his appearance.

“An officer of the police to see you, sir,” he said to his master.

“Show him up; show him up at once,” was the reply, and the owner of so many millions began to pace the floor, wringing his hands, and showing every appearance of great excitement.

“If I were you, sir, I would calm myself, and hear quietly what this man has to report,” said the detective, at the same time drawing back toward a far corner of the room.