Chapter XVIII: What DID It Mean?

What in the world did it mean?

This new development was certainly startling in the extreme, and even more incomprehensible in its way, if that were possible, than the appalling crime itself.

It was unnecessary for Nick to piece the check together in its entirety in order to be fairly certain that it had not been cashed. Any one with the slightest knowledge of banking methods would have understood at a glance that the check had either never been deposited, or else that it had been stolen afterward. There is no legitimate way in which a payer’s check can fall into the hands of the payee after the money has been paid, except when payer and payee are one and the same.

Moreover, in the ordinary course, supposing Grantley had cashed or deposited the check at once, it would not even have returned to Baldwin in such a short time.

To make absolutely sure that it had not been stolen from the bank after being deposited, Nick arranged all of the fragments, not because he believed it necessary, but for the purpose of eliminating any such possibility at once.

As he had anticipated, the back of the check bore neither indorsement nor bank stamp of any sort.

Grantley had deliberately torn up the equivalent of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars--a fortune in itself--and sent the fragments to his greatest enemy as a challenge of some sort.

But why?

The surgeon’s act promised to prove itself one of the most difficult puzzles of a case that had, all along, been full of unusual problems.

Both Grantley and the tragically obstinate millionaire himself had scored most heavily against the detectives when they had argued that the promised reward was so tempting that it made double-dealing out of the question. And yet, Grantley had now spurned that reward in the most contemptuous manner, after he had apparently brought pressure to bear on Baldwin in order to obtain the check two days before.

At this point Nick’s thoughts took a new turn.

How was the note to the millionaire’s secretary to be explained, he asked himself.

He still felt sure that Baldwin had written it, but if so, it was obvious that it had not been written since the operation on the financier’s head.

If Doctor Vanderpool were not greatly mistaken, the millionaire was not in a condition to know his own name, much less to write and sign a note without a tremor or a single false stroke.

Had the second operation been performed in the last two or three days? Apparently not, for Vanderpool was authority for the statement that the marks of it were several days old.

Nick had the note with him, and he examined it anew. It stood every test, as before, but there was one fact about it which, the detective had previously noted, became significant: It was not dated.

That had not appeared to mean anything of importance up to that time, but in the light of recent revelations it suggested that the note had been written soon after Baldwin’s arrival at the private hospital, before either operation had taken place.

If that had been the case, no element of gratitude could have entered into the matter. And not only that, Baldwin was a shrewd man of affairs, and would never have consented to write such a note except in return for value received.

In other words, it became startlingly clear to the detective that the financier had not been himself when he had written to Craven.

But what about the sureness of the handwriting, which had always been characteristic of Baldwin, despite his handicap of blindness?

That would have puzzled almost any other detective in the country, but it did not long stand in Nick Carter’s way.

His mind played over the various possible theories with lightninglike rapidity and quickly focused upon one, which alone answered every requirement.

The note must have been written and signed at Grantley’s dictation while his distinguished patient was under hypnotic influence.

Men of Baldwin’s type are not usually susceptible to hypnotism, but the financier had trusted Grantley implicitly, and, doubtless, had never known the base use to which the surgeon had put his confidence.

He probably had been unaware that he was being hypnotized, and, of course, had had no recollection of writing the note when Grantley had restored him to consciousness.

As for the normal character of the handwriting, that was easily explained. Baldwin had been accustomed for years to write without seeing what he wrote. Therefore, the peculiar condition of the hypnotic sleep would not have modified his handwriting to any such extent as would have been the case with an ordinary person. In fact, they would not necessarily have modified it at all, any more than they modify one’s voice, or walk, or manner of using the hands.

All of this, however, failed to explain the trouble Grantley had evidently taken to procure the note and check, and his strange action in subsequently destroying the latter.

He had laid himself open to suspicion by his unprofessional eagerness to collect his fee, and, seemingly, all to no purpose, unless he had merely desired to keep the detective and Doctor Vanderpool guessing. But surely his motive went deeper than that.

It now appeared obvious that his motive had been one of revenge, but that did not account for the failure to keep the huge sum he had obtained. He was believed to be a comparatively poor man, one to whom a cool quarter of a million would have meant a good deal.

Whatever his reason for committing so ruthless and revolting a crime, why had he not kept his ill-earned fee? It could hardly be that he had any moral scruples about doing so. Nick had sometimes suspected that Grantley was merely the tool of one or more of the millionaire’s financial rivals, but the fact that he had looked elsewhere for his pay need not have prevented him from putting his hand into the pockets of his employers and his victim.

The most likely theory seemed to be that the surgeon had realized, too late, that he was probably being watched and would not be allowed to make away with the proceeds of the check. In that case he might have seen that it was practically valueless to him, and suddenly decided to tear it up and send it to the detective--a spectacular act of defiance that would have been characteristic enough of him.

But even that explanation involved many difficulties.

Grantley was not the man to have failed to look ahead and take account of all the difficulties in advance. That was one objection, and there were others almost equally as strong.

On the whole, therefore, the detective was obliged to admit to himself that this last tangle in the line would be far from easy to unravel.

Fortunately, however, it might be ignored for the present, and later on it was possible that it could be cut out instead of untangled. In other words, whatever the motive, the crime had undoubtedly been committed by Grantley and his assistant, with the connivance of the nurse, at least.

Consequently, the hunt for motives could well wait until after the hunt for the men themselves had been carried to a successful conclusion.

Grantley and Siebold had obtained very little start--hardly more, if any, than they would if they had attempted to cash the check. That fact told heavily in the detectives’ favor, but, on the other hand, Nick realized that he was not dealing with ordinary criminals.

The very fact that Grantley had been satisfied with such an apparently unsatisfactory get-away, knowing that the driver of the taxi would doubtless tell all he knew as soon as he was questioned, indicated that the fugitives were either plain fools or else that they had something up their sleeves which gave them unusual confidence in their ability to escape the net.

Grantley was certainly not a fool, and Nick was prepared for some extraordinary matching of wits.

He left the mansion of the stricken millionaire and set to work at once.