CHAPTER IV.
THE RESULT OF A RUSE.
It was eight o’clock when Nick Carter left the Clayton residence. He departed without so much as a backward glance, as if he had no further interest in the house and its surroundings. He walked briskly out to his touring car, in which Danny Maloney had been waiting, and was driven rapidly away.
One would have supposed that his visit was all aboveboard, that he was actuated with no covert designs, that he entertained no secret suspicions, aside from those he had expressed during his interview with Mr. Chester Clayton.
Earlier that evening, nevertheless, while discussing the case with his junior partner, Patsy Garvan, it was very obvious that Nick Carter had from the first been working under the surface. Their interview occurred immediately after dinner, while Nick was making ready for his call upon Clayton.
“Nothing is more effective, Patsy, than a shot from behind a masked battery,” he remarked, while knotting his cravat. “When fired at a concealed adversary, even, whose position and designs are only suspected, it is almost sure to drive him from cover.”
“There is something in that, chief, for fair,” Patsy agreed. “But why do you feel so sure you are right in suspecting Clayton’s private secretary?”
“For several reasons,” said Nick. “First, Patsy, because we can find no one else to distrust. I have spent three days in a vain search for another suspect and a reasonable motive for this murder.”
“That’s true, chief. It sure has been a vain hunt.”
“Doctor Thorpe, I have learned, was a man of strong and sterling character. Suicide is out of the question. He is absolutely above suspicion, moreover, in so far as having given Madame Clayton any cause for shooting him. The evidence, also, shows that that theory is utterly improbable, in spite of the fact that I told Garside I suspected it, and then took the precaution to bind him to secrecy.”
“But why did you suspect him so quickly, chief?”
“Because he entered so quickly after Chick and I arrived there,” Nick explained. “Scarce three minutes had passed. If not a coincidence, which I could not easily swallow, it must have been premeditated. That smacked of something wrong, of a knowledge of what had occurred, if not having had a hand in it, even.”
“I see the point,” said Patsy.
“I at once suspected, therefore, that Garside had been watching outside, that he had seen us entering the house, and that he followed us as quickly as he dared, bent upon learning how we regarded the crime, and also lest Madame Clayton might say something of definite significance, in spite of her mental derangement.”
“You decided, then, that he was responsible for that, also.”
“Certainly. That was a perfectly natural deduction, Patsy, if I was justified in suspecting him at all.”
“Sure thing, chief; so it was.”
“I immediately shaped a course, therefore, which I thought would enable me to confirm my suspicions.”
“I see.”
“I soon succeeded in doing so,” Nick continued. “I sent Chick from the room and pretended to make Garside my confidant. I soon found that he was very willing to fix the crime upon Madame Clayton. For he not only agreed with all I said to that effect, but he no sooner found that I was forming that opinion, or supposed that I was, than he began to point out evidence and circumstances in support of it. All this, mind you, regardless of the woman’s lofty character and exemplary past.”
“I get you, chief,” nodded Patsy. “He evidently was afraid you might overlook something.”
“He appeared to be, certainly,” Nick replied. “He then informed me that the revolver found there belonged to Clayton, also that it had been taken from the table drawer. He did so before having examined it, Patsy, when he could not possibly have been positive of the fact.”
“He overleaped his mount, eh?”
“That is precisely what he did,” said Nick. “I then felt reasonably sure that I was justified in suspecting him.”
“He left himself open, all right.”
“I saw plainly, however, that he was a rat of more than ordinary craft and cunning. Otherwise he could not have committed the crime and planted the evidence we found there, and then got out of the house and returned in so confident and self-assured a way, all within the half hour since I had heard Madame Clayton’s voice by telephone.”
“It sure was quick work, chief,” declared Patsy.
“I at once decided, therefore, to meet the scamp with his own weapons,” Nick added. “I felt sure I could fool him and finally clinch my suspicions, providing I could throw him off his guard for a time. I have given him three days’ grace, so to speak, in which to get rid of any misgivings he may have felt. He ought to be well rid of them by this time. Now, by Jove, I propose to get after him and drive him from cover.”
“That’s the stuff, chief.”
“We must discover his game, how and why he committed the crime, and whether he had confederates,” Nick said, more forcibly. “We must make dead sure, in fact, that I am justified in suspecting him.”
“That is why you have established a new butler in the Clayton house,” observed Patsy, with an expressive grin.
“Exactly.”
“Does Clayton suspect his identity?”
“Not yet. I told him merely that I knew a man admirably qualified for the position. I had no difficulty in persuading Clayton to employ him on trial.”
“On trial, eh?” laughed Patsy. “Gee whiz! he’ll make good, chief, all right. My money goes on that.”
“If he fails, Patsy, it will be the first time,” Nick replied, smiling. “Slip into a disguise, now, and get ready to go with me. I shall leave in about five minutes.”
“I’ll be ready, chief, all right. Danny has just arrived with the touring car.”
“We will drop you about a block from the Clayton place,” Nick added. “You already know why I am going there and what I require of you. If you get a line on this suspect—well, that should open the way. You must be governed by circumstances.”
“You leave him to me, chief,” said Patsy confidently, as he hastened from the chamber in which Nick had been dressing. “I’ll get all that’s coming to me. Trust me for that.”
In the foregoing may be found not only the occasion for Nick Carter’s call upon Clayton, with a hint at the subterfuge involved, but also why he departed without a backward glance, or the slightest sign of interest in the surrounding grounds.
For Patsy Garvan had arrived there immediately after Nick entered the house, and upon him devolved the most important part of the work laid out for that evening by the detective.
It was a fit night, moreover, for the task engaging Patsy. The sky was clouded, with not a solitary star relieving the inky gloom of the heavens. A gray fog hung like a thin veil near the earth, sufficiently dense to lend a sallow glow to the arc lights, and add to the obscurity in localities beyond the reach of their searching rays.
A gusty wind was blowing, driving the gray mist in confusing swirls over the Hudson, and sighing dismally through the dripping foliage of the trees adorning the grounds of the crime-cursed home of the Claytons.
Patsy did not approach the house from in front. Stealing into the grounds from the side street, he crept around the garage, then picked his way over the damp lawn, taking advantage of the deeper gloom under the trees, until he found shelter under a huge clump of rhododendrons a few feet from the driveway, and within easy view of the side veranda and the French window of the brightly lighted library.
Patsy arrived there just in time to see Peterson usher Nick into the room. Both were dimly discernible through the lace draperies and under the partly drawn shades.
“Gee whiz! there’s the new butler,” chuckled Patsy, when he caught sight of him. “I hardly expected to get my lamps on him. Stiff as a ramrod, eh? But he’ll limber up, all right, if there should be anything doing.”
Peterson, having withdrawn from the library, encountered Mr. Garside just at that moment descending the front stairs. He paused and bowed respectfully when the private secretary spoke to him.
“Mr. Clayton is engaged, Peterson?” he said inquiringly.
“Yes, Mr. Garside, sir.”
“With whom, Peterson?”
“With Mr. Carter, sir, the detective,” said Peterson, with becoming humility.
Garside eyed him more sharply.
The florid face of the butler was as inscrutable as that of the sphinx.
“I want Mr. Clayton’s signature to these letters,” Garside remarked, displaying two typewritten sheets. “It will do in the morning. Would you mind taking them up to my room, Peterson, and leaving them on my desk?”
“No, sir. Very willing, sir,” said Peterson obsequiously.
He received them with a bow and went upstairs.
Garside sauntered toward the side hall, into which he vanished, only to peer out cautiously and watch the butler until he disappeared. Then he seized a woolen cap from a rack on the wall and stole quickly toward the rear door of the house.
Patsy Garvan caught sight of him a moment later, a stealthy figure noiselessly picking his way around a corner of the house, against the lighter background of which his dark outlines were dimly discernible.
“Gee whiz! the chief sure has called the turn,” thought Patsy, instantly alert. “The rat is coming from his hole. It’s that private secretary, all right, or my lamps have gone mighty misty. Yes, by Jove, I’m right. Let the chief alone to drive him from cover.”
Garside was passing one of the lighted windows, when, for a moment, he could be seen more distinctly and his identity positively determined.
He paused briefly, then moved on like an evil shadow, darker than the surrounding darkness, until he came to the veranda steps. Up these he crept, crouching on his hands and knees, until he was within a yard of the broad French window, through which he cautiously peered, lingering and listening.
“Driven from cover is right,” thought Patsy, intently watching him. “He’s out to play the eavesdropper, just as the chief suspected. What will he do next, after Nick has filled his ears with that fake story about a Philadelphia physician? It’s dollars to fried rings, now, that it will drive him to a move of some kind. It will be a chilly day, by gracious, if I fail to get next.”
Nearly half an hour passed.
Garside remained crouching on the veranda.
Patsy continued to watch him from under the rhododendrons.
The interview in the library came to an end. The crouching man crept quietly from the veranda, then stole hurriedly to a front corner of the house. He saw Nick emerge, watched him stride quickly down the driveway, and enter the touring car, departing without a backward glance; and then he straightened up, lingering for a moment, and fiercely shook his fist after the receding car.
“Good enough! That shows your true colors, all right,” muttered Patsy, still watching him. “Now, you rascal, go ahead and cut loose. I’m right here to note your next move.”
Patsy had not long to wait.
Garside lingered only until the rear red light of the touring car had disappeared in the misty distance. He did not return to the house. Instead, now moving less cautiously, he hastened toward the rear grounds, passing the garage and seeking the narrow back street adjoining the Clayton residence.
Patsy stealthily followed him.
The back street was deserted. The scattered dwellings were in darkness. An incandescent lamp here and there, looking sallow and sickly in the gray fog was all that relieved the misty gloom.
Garside soon brought up at a narrow wooden door in a high brick wall flanking one side of an old estate. He opened the door with a key and disappeared into the inclosed grounds.
Patsy paused and briefly sized up the place. He could see beyond the wall the upper part of an old stone house, shrouded in darkness. An iron grille gate in front was all that broke the stretch of the grim brick wall, which was about seven feet high, and the cement capstone of which was surmounted with a threatening array of broken bottles and jagged pieces of glass, a vicious safeguard against unwelcome intruders.
“Gee whiz! that says keep out, all right,” thought Patsy, while he made a closer inspection of the side wall. “It’s up to me to get in there, all the same. This may be where the party lives whom Garside said he was visiting on the night of the murder. Professor Abner Busby was the name he gave Nick, but it don’t appear in the city directory. I’ll have a look at the back wall.”
Patsy already had tried the wooden door and found that Garside had locked it after entering. Near the rear corner of the wall, however, he found that the branches of the tree overhung the jagged capstone, and he promptly decided that that would serve his purpose.
Quickly climbing to one of the lowest branches, Patsy worked himself out on it hand over hand, until he reached a point beyond the wall, when he dropped noiselessly upon the greensward within the inclosed grounds.
Crouching in the darkness near the wall, he then had another view of the house, this time from the rear. It looked as grim and gloomy as a country jail, or the habitation of a recluse bent upon dwelling in absolute seclusion.
Only one curtained window was lighted, that of a room on the ground floor, a window in the rear wall. The rest of the house was shrouded in darkness while most of the surrounding grounds, running to rank grass and high weeds, appeared to be deserted.