CHAPTER III.
THE ASSAULTED WAITER.
Chick Carter, hastening to follow Nick’s instructions, found nothing in the side hall nor out-of-doors that shed any light on the mystery.
Several guests were departing in a limousine from under the porte-cochère, but Chick knew two of them personally and that none was worthy of the slightest suspicion.
Returning through the hall, he found Patsy Garvan and quickly told him what had occurred, while both hastened out of the rear door of the house. As they were descending the steps, one of the kitchen servants, who was on her way in, approached them and said somewhat excitedly, addressing Chick:
“Sure, sir, there’s something wrong around here. Would you mind telling Mr. Langham, sir?”
“Something wrong?” questioned Chick, sharply regarding her. “Where? What do you mean?”
“Round here, sir,” she replied, leading the way. “I was after taking out some refuse for the barrels, sir, and I heard moaninglike, as if some one was hurted.”
“Heard it where?”
“Here, sir, under the cellar door. I was after—there ’tis again, sir!”
The corpulent Irishwoman shrank back affrighted.
A hollow, half-choked moan had issued from under a slanting bulkhead door abutting the foundation wall on that side of the house.
It was the opposite side from that on which was located the driveway making around from the front of the vast stone mansion and leading out to the stable and garage. Aside from the bulkhead door leading down to the basement there was only another door opening upon an entry and stairway for the use of the servants.
The adjoining grounds in that locality were deserted, and lighted only by the stars glittering in the purple sky. A path led across a strip of lawn to several outbuildings. Beyond this were the trees of the park and woodland covering the vast estate. Through the gloom beneath them some fifty yards away could be faintly seen a gray gravel driveway making off to the east.
Patsy caught sight of something white on the ground, just as the hollow moan interrupted the woman, and he stopped to pick it up.
It was a partly burned cigarette, yet from which only a few puffs had been taken.
Instinctively Patsy slipped it into his pocket, just as Chick exclaimed:
“By Jove, the woman is right. Lend me a hand, Patsy. This door is not locked. Here’s a man on the stone steps.”
His words evoked another moan from the prostrate man.
“Wait a bit!” said Patsy. “Here is my searchlight.”
Chick had opened both sections of the slanting door, and Patsy now sent a beam of light down the several stone steps. In the area below, against an inner door of the cellar, lay a man in evening dress, bound hand and foot with stout cords and brutally gagged.
“Gee whiz!” cried Patsy. “Something wrong, Chick, is right.”
“Help me lift him out.”
“Lord save him!” said the woman, crossing herself. “Is he dead, sir?”
“Far from it,” said Chick. “Dead men don’t moan. He’ll be all right when he can breathe freely. Now, sir, speak for yourself. How came you in this mess?”
The two detectives had placed him on the greensward outside of the bulkhead door, and Chick had quickly cut his bonds and removed the gag from his mouth.
The man choked and gasped convulsively for a moment, then explained with an effort that he was Pierre Toulon, employed as a waiter by Mr. Jean Lenaire, the French caterer; that he had stolen out a short time before to smoke a cigarette, and that he had been suddenly assaulted by three masked men, who had bound and gagged him, and then confined him under the bulkhead door.
Chick did not wait to look more deeply into the man’s story, but turned to Patsy and said hurriedly:
“Go tell the chief. You’ll find him on the second floor, probably in Clayton’s room. I will help Toulon into the house. Nick will question him later.”
Patsy hurried away without replying.
He found Nick, Mr. Langham, and two physicians in Clayton’s room. The latter had begun to revive from the effects of the drug. He already could talk intelligently, and in a vague way could recall and state what had occurred.
It appeared, Nick already had learned, that the same waiter who had called Vandyke from the room, or a man so closely resembling him that Clayton detected no difference, returned almost immediately after Vandyke departed, saying that he missed his cuff link and thought it might have dropped on the floor.
Clayton naturally had bowed to look for it, whereupon the rascal instantly threw one arm around his head, covering his mouth, and at the same moment thrust the needle of a hypodermic syringe into his neck, injecting a quantity of the same potent and quick-acting drug with which, Nick immediately suspected, Clayton had been overcome by Margate at the time of his escape after the jewel robbery.
Clayton knew nothing of what had followed, having quickly lost consciousness, and Nick now left Mr. Langham and the physicians to enlighten him with the sad information. He withdrew with Patsy and hastened down to the private library in which he had been talking with Langham only a few minutes before.
Patsy already had told him about finding the waiter, Toulon, and Nick’s next move was to send for Mrs. Julia Clayton, whom he briefly informed of his suspicions, and then cautioned the dismayed woman against inadvertently betraying the secret she so long had kept from all the world.
The shocking news now was generally known, and the house was in confusion. Guests were hurriedly departing, leaving sympathetic messages with the butler and other servants. All keenly felt that they could be of no assistance in the investigations then in progress, and that they were better out of the way.
“Gee whiz! there’s nothing to this, chief,” commented Patsy, turning after closing the door upon Mrs. Clayton. “This is Margate’s doings, all right.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Nick. “He served Clayton the same trick as before.”
“Surest thing you know.”
“We will try later to find out how he got away with the girl. It would be useless to undertake it at present, and immediate pursuit is out of the question. A hundred conveyances have left here during the past half hour.”
“I guess you are right, chief,” Patsy agreed.
“I know that I am,” Nick replied. “We may, however, accomplish something of importance. Margate is a past master of the art of making up and impersonating others. It seems very evident that he impersonated the waiter Toulon, but whether with Toulon’s consent and assistance, or whether he is an innocent victim of the rascal, is an open question.”
“That’s right, too,” said Patsy.
“We may find the correct answer to it,” Nick added. “Did Toulon appear to be in bad shape, as if the assault was a genuine one?”
“He did, chief, for fair, as far as that goes,” Patsy reported. “He appeared to be telling the truth. Here is the cigarette he began to smoke. I found it near the bulkhead door.”
“I will size up the fellow and judge for myself,” said Nick. “Find Chick and have him bring Toulon in here. See the caterer, also, and tell him not to leave before I have talked with him.”
Patsy hastened to obey.
Chick entered with the waiter a few moments later and closed the door.
Pierre Toulon had recovered from the assault. He was a man of medium build, with dark features and a black mustache, waxed at the ends. There was a bruise on his forehead and his lower lip was slightly scratched, also one side of his neck. His collar was wrinkled and soiled, but his garments had been brushed.
“Come nearer, Mr. Toulon, and be seated,” said Nick. “I want to question you about the assault. You are employed by Mr. Lenaire, I am told.”
There was nothing in Nick’s voice, looks, or manner denoting that he had any covert designs. He spoke very pleasantly, with a tinge of sympathy for his hearer. Toulon approached a bit gingerly, nevertheless, and seated himself on the edge of a chair, directly opposite the detective.
“Yes, sir, I work for Mr. Lenaire,” he replied. “I am a waiter.”
“How long have you been in Lenaire’s employ?”
“About two weeks, sir.”
“I understand that he sent you up to Mr. Clayton’s room, Toulon, to ask Mr. Vandyke to join him in the dining room.”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“About what time was that, as near as you can tell?”
“I would say it was near ten o’clock, sir.”
“Did you return to the dining room after taking the message to Mr. Vandyke?”
“No, sir. You see, sir, I didn’t take the message,” said Toulon, with some signs of embarrassment.
“No?” queried Nick, as if surprised. “I understood that you did. How was that?”
“Well, you see, sir, I was near dying for a smoke,” Toulon explained. “I thought it would be a good time to slip out and have one. So I went out to one side of the house, thinking I’d stay only a couple of minutes, just long enough to have a whiff or two, sir. But——”
“Ah, I see,” said Nick, interrupting. “You then were attacked by the three men.”
“Yes, sir. Hang them, that’s just what came off.”
“One of them must have impersonated you, Toulon, for the message was taken to Mr. Vandyke.”
“Taken to him?” Toulon appeared astonished. “Is that so, sir?”
“Yes, surely,” Nick nodded. “But what now puzzles me, Toulon, is how he could have known anything about the message, Lenaire having given it to you.”
“Well, sir, he might have been listening under the dining-room window when Mr. Lenaire gave me the message,” Toulon quickly suggested, with his gaze fixed on the detective’s face.
“Ah, by Jove, I hadn’t thought of that,” Nick exclaimed, with countenance lighting. “That may explain it, Chick, after all.”
“Yes, indeed,” Chick quickly agreed, now seeing precisely at what Nick was driving. “It certainly clears up that point.”
“Surely,” Nick added. “I’m glad he suggested it. So, instead of immediately taking the message, Toulon, you slipped out to have a smoke.”
“Yes, sir, a short one.”
“From your pipe, or——”
“No, sir, a cigarette,” Toulon quickly put in.
“Ah, I see,” Nick bowed, glancing at the waiter’s hands. “I don’t know that you are to be blamed. I know what it means, Toulon, to hanker for a smoke. Are you in the habit of smoking cigarettes?”
“I am, sir.”
“What kind do you use?”
Toulon hesitated for the hundredth part of a second. He then said quickly:
“Any old kind, sir. I’m not particular.”
“I prefer the Egyptian,” Nick remarked agreeably. “They have rather more flavor. I wouldn’t mind having one, too, or any old kind, as far as that goes—if you have yours in your pocket, Toulon.”
A tinge of red appeared in Toulon’s cheeks, while his brows knit perceptibly.
“I haven’t, sir,” he replied, in some confusion. “I lit the last one I had and threw away the box. Mebbe one of the other waiters has some. I’ll ask them, sir, and——”
“Oh, no, we’ll not go to that trouble,” Nick interposed, smiling. “I can get along without one. I merely thought that I’d try one of yours while we were discussing this knavish business.”
“I’m sorry, sir, that I haven’t one.”
“It don’t matter. Just where were you, Toulon, when you saw the three men?”
“I was near the bulkhead door and steps to the cellar,” Toulon now replied glibly. “But I didn’t see the men, sir.”
“Why was that?”
“Because they were hidden on the steps, sir, and they jumped on me before I could get a look at them.”
“Was the bulkhead door open?”
“It must have been, or I would have heard them open it.”
“I see.”
“The first I knew, sir, was when they sprang on me from behind,” Toulon proceeded to explain. “One of them cracked me on the head with a sand bag. Another got me by the throat and jabbed something into my neck. Here’s where it scratched me. It seemed to take all the strength out of me. Then they bound and gagged me, sir, and then threw me down the steps and closed the door.”
“Possibly, Toulon, I can find the finger prints on your neck,” said Nick, rising. “They might enable us to identify your assailant, if he is a crook and——”
“I don’t think so, sir,” Toulon quickly objected. “I have been rubbing my neck, sir, and——”
“Ah, of course,” Nick cut in, resuming his seat. “That would obliterate them. Could you identify either of the men, Toulon?”
“No, sir. They wore masks.”
“All three?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m, that makes it bad,” Nick remarked.
“So it does, sir.”
Then, without having evinced the slightest suspicion of his hearer, but rather the contrary, in fact, Nick added pleasantly:
“That’s all, Mr. Toulon, and I’m very much obliged to you. When I find the three rascals, I will make them pay dearly for what they have done to-night.”
“I hope so, sir,” Toulon declared, rising to go. “I’d like a crack at them myself. I bear them no good will, sir, you can bet on that.”
“I guess, Toulon, it would be a safe bet,” laughed Nick, as the waiter withdrew from the room.
Toulon glanced back over his shoulder and grinned expressively.