CHAPTER IV.
NICK CARTER’S RUSE.
Two o’clock found Nick Carter at the door of an office on the second floor of the local bank building. He was reading the tenant’s sign on a polished brass plate: “Kate Crandall. Public Stenographer.”
Nick listened briefly, hearing nothing from within, and he then opened the door and entered.
The office was attractively furnished. A costly Persian rug covered the floor. Against one of the walls stood an expensive roll-top desk. On a stand near by were two typewriters. On a table in the middle of the office, covered with books and magazines, was a huge cut-glass jar, literally overflowing with magnificent roses.
Nick instantly noticed these costly furnishings, which were much too expensive for one who works for a living, and he drew a correct conclusion—that Kate Crandall had wealthy admirers, and that she had no scruples over accepting valuable tokens of their affection.
She was seated in an armchair near one of the lace-draped windows, absorbed in a magazine story when the detective entered.
She was a pronounced brunette, strikingly handsome, with regular features, a rich velvety complexion, languorous dark eyes, and full red lips, a face evincing a sensuous nature and a fiery temper. Her fine figure was a bit showily clad. Several costly diamonds adorned her shapely hands. One high-heeled French shoe and a bit of silk hosiery protruded from below her stylish blue skirt.
“Fly and fancy is right,” thought Nick, recalling Patsy’s prediction.
Looking up when he entered, Kate Crandall received him with a smile and laid aside her magazine.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she said, greeting him agreeably. “Take a seat.”
“You are Miss Crandall?” returned Nick inquiringly.
“Yes, sir,” said Kate, bowing.
“My name is Henderson,” said Nick, taking a chair. “Do I find you busy just now?”
“No, indeed, not at present. What can I do for you?”
“Not very much just now, Miss Crandall, but considerable later, providing your terms are satisfactory and my work agreeable to you,” Nick said suavely.
“I work entirely on a space basis.”
“That will suit me.”
“What is the character of the work, Mr. Henderson?”
“I am a writer of photo dramas for a leading New York moving-picture concern,” Nick glibly informed her. “I have a long contract with the firm and require the help of a competent stenographer to prepare my scenarios. The work is not difficult and will pay you well.”
“I will undertake it,” said Kate, nodding her finely poised head. “I can discontinue it if found distasteful.”
“Certainly.”
“When will you want me to begin?”
“Probably on Monday, when I will show you how I wish the work done and discuss other details with you.”
“That will be agreeable to me, Mr. Henderson,” said Kate unsuspiciously.
Nick had detected, up to that time, nothing beyond the points mentioned, but he had hit upon a ruse for evoking a self-betrayal from the woman, as may be inferred from his artful pretensions.
“I will see you here Monday morning, then,” said he, apparently about to go. But he immediately added, as if hit with an idea: “Before leaving, by the way, I will employ you to write a letter for me to my firm, whom I wish to inform of my intentions. Will you take it in shorthand, or——”
“I will typewrite it from your dictation?” Miss Crandall interposed, taking a seat at one of the typewriters and deftly adjusting a sheet of blank paper. “Shall I date it from here, Mr. Henderson?”
“If you please,” said Nick.
Click—click—click—click!
Miss Crandall’s tapering fingers moved swiftly over the keys. Nick saw at a glance that she was an expert. He moved his chair near the end of the table, to a position enabling him to watch her face.
“All ready, Mr. Henderson.”
She glanced at him and smiled a bit oddly.
Nick began to dictate:
“Klein & Coster, Eccles Building, New York.”
Click—click—click—clickerty—click!
“Dear sirs.”
Click—click—clickerty—click—click!
Nick continued, amid continuing clicking:
“I have to-day made arrangements with a competent stenographer and will set to work upon the series of dramas we were discussing yesterday. You may expect a scenario of the first one early next week. I think you will prefer for a starter the sensational detective drama I mentioned to you, featuring the peerless American sleuth, Nick Carter. The story of the drama relates to the mysterious disappearance of a parish priest, who, in spite of his religious vows, falls desperately in love with a very wealthy and beautiful girl, who——”
The clicking suddenly stopped.
Kate Crandall’s deft hands had gone wrong. She had struck several wrong keys. She reached for an eraser, saying quickly:
“One moment, please.”
Nick saw that she was turning pale. Her arching dark brows had knit perceptibly.
“Certainty,” he said, suavely.
Kate erased the misprinted letters and readjusted the traveler. She then gazed steadily at the detective for a moment, as if fain to read his mind, and she then said tersely:
“Continue.”
Nick went on without a change of countenance, quite as if there had been no interruption.
“The wealthy and beautiful girl, deeply in love with the parish priest, permits him to renounce his vows and pledges her hand to him in marriage.”
Click—click—clickerty—click!
The shapely, swiftly moving hands of the stenographer were unsteady, were trembling visibly.
“It appears, however, that another woman suspects the intentions of the parish priest, a woman involved with him in a way ultimately revealed in the drama, and she subjects him to a secret espionage, which leads to a crime——”
The clicking stopped short again.
A crimson flood imbued Kate Crandall’s cheeks for a moment, then faded quickly, leaving her ghastly pale. She steadied herself with an effort. She reached up and removed the sheet of paper from the typewriter, tearing it quickly and tossing it into a wastebasket.
“Excuse me!” she said curtly, her dark eyes turning upon Nick with a fiery glance. “I have decided, Mr. Henderson, that I will not take your work. Do not call here again, sir. Good day.”
She arose while speaking, then turned quickly and gazed from the window.
“Dear me!” Nick exclaimed, with affected astonishment. “Why so, Miss Crandall? What is the meaning of this sudden change of mind?”
“I do not care to make any explanation,” she said sharply. “Attribute it to a whim, to caprice, or anything else that suits you.”
“But you must have a reason, some cause for——”
“The work would be distasteful,” snapped Kate, wheeling sharply around and facing him. “I shall not discuss the matter. That settles it.”
“On the contrary, Miss Crandall, it does nothing of the kind,” Nick now said, quite sternly. “This matter will be settled only when it is settled right. I know, without your informing me, the cause of the attitude you now have taken.”
“And I know without your informing me, sir, that you are not what you pretend you are,” Kate angrily retorted. “You are here with covert designs. I have nothing more to say to you. Leave my office.”
“Not until you have told me what you know about the disappearance of the Reverend Austin Maybrick,” Nick sternly rejoined.
“Disappearance of Mr. Maybrick?”
“That’s what I said.”
“He has disappeared, then?”
“You know that he has and that——”
The woman interrupted him with a derisive laugh.
“I know nothing of the kind,” she said curtly. “I neither know nor care anything about it. I——”
“You know, at least, what occurred in the rectory last evening,” Nick sharply interrupted. “You were spying outside of the library window at the time. You know——?”
“See here, Mr. Whatever-your-name-may-be!” Kate cut in defiantly. “Anything that I know I shall keep to myself. You are a detective—that’s what you are. But I’ll put you wise to one thing right off the reel. You haven’t got anything on me, nor can you get anything. You cannot persuade, frighten, nor intimidate me. I will tell you nothing, absolutely nothing, and you may go to thunder. Get out of my office, now, or I will call a policeman and have you ejected. That’s all. I’m done with you.”
Nick came to a quick decision. He saw plainly that the woman meant what she said and could not be turned then and there. He abruptly changed his course.
“Very well,” he replied. “It will not be necessary to call a policeman.”
Nick turned with the last and departed. He had directed Patsy to wait in a doorway on the opposite side of the street, in case he might want to signal him from Kate Crandall’s window.
Nick reasoned that she might watch from the window, and see him if he rejoined his waiting assistant.
He wrote a few lines in his notebook while descending the stairs, then tore out the leaf and folded it. As he walked briskly up the street a moment later, he caught Patsy’s eye and dropped the wad of paper on the sidewalk.
“Gee! there’s something doing,” thought Patsy. “He don’t want to be seen again with me. He has dropped me written instructions.”
Sauntering across the street, Patsy picked up the paper and read what Nick had written:
“Kate Crandall knows, but will not speak. Shadow her constantly until otherwise directed. Be governed by circumstances. I’m off for home. Phone me there of any discoveries.”