CHAPTER V.
NICK CARTER’S ANALYSIS.
“Yes, it is human blood. There is no question about it. It is human blood—but not from the veins of Matilda Lancey.”
These declarations came from Nick Carter about three o’clock that afternoon. They were addressed to Chick and his junior assistant, Patsy Garvan.
All three detectives then were seated at a broad zinc-covered table in Nick’s finely equipped laboratory, a large rear room in his Madison Avenue residence.
Lying on the table were the bloodstained articles belonging to Arthur Gordon, the disjointed jimmy, and also the handkerchief which Nick had dipped in the blood of the murdered woman.
Near by stood a costly microscope, a stand of small test tubes, several vials containing chemicals, together with numerous other articles which Nick had been using.
He replaced on the table one section of the jimmy, while speaking, and Patsy took it up to gaze at the dark-red stains on it, remarking, with some surprise:
“Human blood, chief, but not from the veins of the murdered woman? Gee whiz! that’s mighty significant. Are you sure of it?”
“Absolutely sure,” said Nick.
“You now have tested the blood on each of these articles?” Chick inquired.
“Yes.”
“And the results are convincing?”
“Decidedly convincing,” said Nick, with a look of satisfaction on his strong, clean-cut face. “There is no question as to the reliability of a microscopic examination of particles of blood, if made by a person thoroughly informed on the subject. I have, as you know, made an exhaustive study of it.”
“I am aware of that, Nick, of course.”
“The blood of no two creatures is precisely alike,” Nick continued. “Under the microscope, and with proper tests, that of two human beings, even, presents certain distinct differences, often by a small margin, of course, but nevertheless clearly distinct.”
“So I have read,” Chick nodded.
“It is perfectly easy to tell the blood of a white man from that of a negro, that of a lower animal from that of a man, or that of one animal from that of another, as well as to determine the animal from which it comes. That is because the blood of each crystallizes in invariable definite forms.”
“Gee, that’s some study!” Patsy remarked sententiously.
“The existence of disease is also apparent under the microscope and with proper tests,” Nick went on. “Science immediately recognizes one from another. Thin, anæmic blood presents a distinctly different appearance from the strong, rich blood of a vigorous person. That’s the very point, in connection with this case, without further elaboration on the subject.”
“These bloodstains tell the story, do they?” questioned Patsy.
“They tell part of it, Patsy, with absolute certainty,” Nick replied. “The blood on my handkerchief, which we know positively came from Matilda Lancey, is very rich with red corpuscles, obviously that of a strong, healthy woman.”
“Tilly Lancey looked it,” Chick observed.
“The blood on these articles, however, shows a distinct difference,” said Nick. “There is a decided lack of the red corpuscles. It is thin and anæmic. It is human blood, nevertheless, and it came from a woman. The proportion of red corpuscles in the stains on each of these articles, with the exception of my handkerchief, plainly shows that same anæmic condition.”
“In other words, then, the stains on the jimmy and on Gordon’s garments are not caused by the blood of Tilly Lancey,” said Chick.
“They are not,” Nick replied. “I am absolutely sure of that. It is distinctly different from the blood on my handkerchief. That on these other articles came from a rather frail and delicate woman, very probably with a tendency to consumption.”
“Gee whiz! that suggests something to me, chief,” said Patsy, drawing nearer the table.
“What is that?”
“I have frequently seen Tilly Lancey with the woman referred to by Phelan as her running mate, the woman named Cora Cavendish. She is just that type, chief, slender and noticeably pale, barring the rouge with which she hides it.”
“That is suggestive, indeed, Patsy,” Nick agreed. “But I already suspected that Cora Cavendish had a hand in this job.”
“Why so, chief?”
“Because I now am sure that it was a frame-up, and because the intimacy between Cora Cavendish and Tilly Lancey, now knowing that the blood on these articles came from a second woman, probably made the job possible.”
“I see.”
“In other words,” Nick added; “I suspect that Cora Cavendish and one or more confederates are responsible for the whole business. I’m doubly sure of it, in fact, if she is that anæmic type of woman.”
“By Jove, I think you may be right,” said Chick, more earnestly. “But there are a good many points that I cannot fathom.”
“To begin with?” inquired Nick.
“We must assume that Gordon has told the truth, of course, and that he left Tilly Lancey alive just before midnight.”
“Certainly.”
“And that he immediately hastened home?”
“I have no doubt of it.”
“How, then, came the blood on his garments?”
“Bear in mind, Chick, that it is not Tilly Lancey’s blood,” said Nick. “It is some that was obtained for this job. The crooks knew that human blood would be required, as tests would surely be made after the crime; but they overlooked the fact, or were ignorant of it, that tests would reveal the difference between it and that of their victim.”
“You now think, I infer, that the blood was drawn from the veins of Cora Cavendish.”
“I do,” Nick nodded. “Only a small quantity would have been required. It could have been easily obtained by an incision in one of the veins of her arm, and received in a small vial.”
“But when and how could it have been spattered upon Gordon’s garments, to say nothing of the smooches in his overcoat pocket?”
“Easily,” said Nick.
“Tell me.”
“Assume, for instance, that several persons comprised the gang. They laid their plans, paved the way to execute them, and provided themselves with the blood required.”
“Well?”
“Tilly Lancey may have been duped into admitting one of them to her flat last night, possibly more, and they may have been concealed there during her interview with Gordon. That could have been craftily accomplished by Cora Cavendish, if she was out to deceive and murder her intimate friend.”
“I admit that much, Nick, of course,” Chick allowed.
“Tilly Lancey could have been killed, then, and probably was, immediately after Gordon left the house,” Nick continued. “She was struck down with a jimmy, which was afterward used to pry open her desk, and later carried away by her assailants.”
“But you say the blood on this jimmy is not Tilly Lancey’s blood.”
“True,” Nick nodded. “This is not the jimmy used for the murder, mind you, but one precisely like it.”
“Ah, I see.”
“The crooks were working along fine lines,” Nick pointed out. “They wanted a weapon found that would correspond with the wounds inflicted. So they got two like jimmies, one of which they stained with blood and concealed after a fashion in Gordon’s grounds. I say after a fashion, Chick, because they designedly put it where it would soon be discovered.”
“Two like jimmies, eh?” said Chick. “You may be right. I think you are, in fact, or the blood on this one would be that of the murdered woman.”
“Surely. That’s the very point.”
“But who stained this one and put it where it was found?”
“Another of the crooks, one who was waiting outside of the house while Gordon was there,” said Nick. “He was the one who had the vial of blood, also the duplicate jimmy. The vial may have been provided with a stopper like those in the bottles used by a barber, from which a few drops can be easily shaken.”
“I see the point.”
“Gordon, mind you, did not put on his overcoat until after he had walked about a block,” Nick continued. “It would have been child’s play for the crook to have followed him, and, while passing him, to have stealthily dashed a few drops of the blood on his garments.”
“That’s right, chief, for fair,” cried Patsy. “There would have been nothing to it.”
“Gordon was a bit upset, moreover, and he did not afterward notice the spots on the black cloth, which would have quickly absorbed it.”
“All that is plain enough,” Chick admitted. “But how about the overcoat pocket. How was the blood put into that?”
“It would have been equally easy.”
“By what means?”
“Very much the same,” said Nick. “The crook could have continued to follow him, taking the same seat with him in the subway train. He could have stealthily soiled his own hand with a few drops of the blood, and then slipped it for a moment into Gordon’s overcoat pocket. Any sly fellow might do that.”
“Very true,” Chick nodded. “There is no denying it.”
“He then must have followed Gordon home, where he stained the duplicate jimmy with blood and hid it under the shrubbery. All would have been very simple and easily accomplished.”
“I now admit it, Nick,” Chick said thoughtfully. “But what about the drops of blood in the front room and hall adjoining the flat?”
“That was Tilly Lancey’s blood,” said Nick. “The crooks who killed her scattered that trail of blood, that it might indicate that it had dropped from the hand of her assassin when he left the house. That naturally would appear to have been Gordon.”
“I agree with you,” Chick again assented. “You certainly have gone deep below the surface, Nick, and developed a plausible theory.”
“Plausible!” exclaimed Patsy, a bit derisively. “Jiminy crickets! that plausible gag don’t half express it, Chick. It’s a copper-riveted cinch. There’s nothing else to it.”
“There is considerable more to it, Patsy,” Nick corrected. “The theory alone is not enough. It might fall flat on the ears of a jury of boneheads. It’s not easy to penetrate solid ivory.”
“That’s right, too,” said Patsy, laughing.
“We must clinch it, therefore, by learning positively whether Cora Cavendish had a hand in this crime. We must discover the identity of her confederates, and round them up in such a way as to fix the crime upon them.”
“That’s the proper caper, chief, for fair.”
“Have you any suspicions, Nick, as to their identity?” Chick inquired.
“Aside from Cora Cavendish?”
“Certainly.”
“Yes.”
“On what do you base it, and whom have you in mind?”
“To begin with, Chick, I base it on the probable existence of the Madison letters, and the fact that they were missing this morning from Tilly Lancey’s desk. Bear in mind that she told Gordon about them and invited him to her flat to read them. She may have told Cora Cavendish about them, also, and if double-crossed by the latter, as I suspect, she certainly had no apprehension of being murdered when she invited Gordon to her flat.”
“Surely not.”
“It is a safe assumption, then, that the package of letters was in her desk last evening, as she told him.”
“True.”
“That is further confirmed by the fact that the desk was broken open by her assailants, who probably could not find the key. If the murder of Tilly Lancey was their only object, they would not have broken open the desk.”
“True again,” Chick nodded.
“There was a package of compromising letters, then, and they now are in the hands of the woman’s assassins—barring one very possible contingency.”
“What is that?”
“That the man who wrote them, whose reputation they evidently involved, was back of the whole job in order to get the letters, and to incriminate Arthur Gordon as to insure his defeat in the coming election. He now may have the letters.”
“Jack Madison,” said Chick.
“Yes.”
“It seems incredible that he——”
“Oh, I anticipate your objection,” Nick interrupted. “But as I told you this morning, Chick, men with political ambitions, some men, I mean, are capable of any degree of knavery.”
“That’s right, too, chief,” declared Patsy.
“Madison is a strong, aggressive, bulldog type of man, and his standing as a lawyer is far from the best,” Nick added. “He was abroad without his wife and family for several weeks last year and I happen to know that Tilly Lancey then was absent from New York. They returned at pretty near the same time. One must draw one’s own conclusions. Be that as it may, I suspect Madison of knowing something about this affair, whether he was responsible for it, or not.”
“My money goes on that, chief,” said Patsy. “We must get after him.”
“I intend doing so.”
“Have you any other suspicions?”
“One other, Chick.”
“Namely?”
“It is rather more than a suspicion,” Nick continued, with brows drooping. “I felt it vaguely this morning, but I then was in too great haste to be deeply enough impressed to act upon it, or rightly interpret it.”
“When do you mean?”
“When I returned from police headquarters and found that reporter, Hawley, still waiting at Tilly Lancey’s door,” said Nick. “I feel sure, now, that I know why he was there, and how he happened to be there so far in advance of other genuine reporters.”
“Genuine?”
“That’s the word.”
“You think he is not a reporter.”
“I would stake my reputation on that,” said Nick, with ominous intonation. “I eyed the man more closely than when I first saw him, Chick, and it was then that I vaguely felt that we had met before to-day. It came over me all of a sudden, a short time ago, just who he is and where we met him.”
“A crook?”
“The worst of crooks,” Nick grimly nodded. “The very man to have devised such a job as this and to have pulled it off successfully, most likely with the sanction of Jack Madison. His disguise was perfect, however, or so nearly that it blinded me for a time. I refer to the rascal who twice has committed crimes involving Arthur Gordon, and who——”
“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Patsy, interrupting. “I’m on to your curves, chief. You mean Mortimer Deland.”
“None other,” said Nick.
“By Jove, that alone would clinch the theory you have formed,” said Chick. “If Deland is in this job, if you really are right——”
“I know I am right,” Nick interposed. “I ought to have instantly recalled the eyes of that rascal, at least, as I since have done. It is nearly a year, however, since we last run him down and sent him to prison, from which he was afterward brought into court on a habeas-corpus writ and contrived to escape from the two officers in charge of him.”
“I remember,” Chick nodded. “We decided that he had fled to Europe.”
“That then seemed to be his most likely course,” Nick replied. “It now is ten to one, however, that he decided to lie low right here, and where he since has fallen in with Cora Cavendish. He may have learned from her about the Madison letters, and with her framed up this rascally job.”
“By Jove, that now seems more than probable,” Chick said, with some enthusiasm. “You are weaving a net with fine meshes, Nick, for fair. No fish of Deland’s size could slip through it.”
“Not if we can get him into it,” supplemented Patsy.
“We will set about that without more delay,” Nick declared, rising abruptly. “You slip into a disguise, Patsy, and get after Cora Cavendish.”
“Leave her to me, chief.”
“Find out where she is and what she is doing, and with what man she has been chiefly friendly of late. It’s ten to one that the man, in whatever disguise you find him, will be Mortimer Deland.”
“Shall I arrest him, chief, if sure of his identity?” asked Patsy, eagerly starting to prepare for his work.
“No, not immediately,” Nick directed. “We want all of his confederates and positive evidence against them. Watch him, or the woman, until that can be obtained.”
“I’ve got you, chief.”
“In the meantime, Chick, we will get after Madison and find out with whom he is having covert relations,” Nick added. “You go to his law office, Chick, and see what you can learn.”
“Leave him to me, Nick, in case he is there.”
“I will go to his residence, to make doubly sure of finding him, and we then shall have the ground pretty well covered,” Nick declared, as all three hastened to the library. “You both may be governed by circumstances, of course, and we will compare notes between now and midnight—barring that we accomplish something much more to the purpose. That’s all. We will get a move on at once.”