CHAPTER VIII.
UNDER THE SPELL.
When, at nine o’clock, Nick Carter gave final instructions to the Japanese-appearing young man, who looked at him soberly through his large spectacles, any one who knew Swagara would have been ready to swear that this was he.
Patsy Garvan had not promised more than he could achieve when he said he could make himself look like the young man from Tokyo who was expected to go to Ched Ramar’s house that night.
By the deft use of grease paint, and the careful adjusting of a wig of coarse, straight black hair, he had changed his appearance so marvelously that there was nothing left of the broad, freckled face of Patsy Garvan. His features seemed to be pinched, like those of the Jap, and he had even made his gray eyes look a deep black.
It was a triumph of make-up, and Nick Carter secretly acknowledged it to himself. He did not tell Patsy what he thought. If he had, there was danger that his assistant would depend too much on his appearance, and perhaps grow careless in keeping up his character in other respects.
They had carried Swagara to an unoccupied bedroom at the top of the house, and, after undressing him and putting him into a set of pajamas owned by Patsy Garvan, had left him there in a deep sleep. Then they locked the door on the outside, to make assurance doubly sure.
“Not that there is any likelihood of his coming to his senses until I wake him,” remarked Nick Carter. “Ched Ramar is not the only person in Greater New York who has made a study of mental control. I know something about hypnotism myself.”
Swagara’s clothes fitted Patsy as if they had been made for him, and the gentle manner of the original owner went with the costume, so that there was practically no danger that Ched Ramar would suspect the substitution.
For it was Ched Ramar that Nick Carter meant to deceive, and it was all part of a well-laid plan to get to the bottom of the mystery of the stolen records.
The great detective had not promised positively that the papers would be restored to their legitimate possessor, but he intended that they should be, nevertheless.
Nick did not believe Ched Ramar was the person he pretended to be. He doubted even whether he were an Indian at all. Well did the detective know the almost diabolical skill of the notorious Sang Tu, head of the Yellow Tong, and it would not surprise him at all to find that Ched Ramar was carrying out the behests of the unscrupulous Celestial in obtaining his strange power over Clarice Bentham.
“That there is much more in the queer performance of that Buddha than merely frightening that young girl, I am convinced,” mused Nick, while Patsy was putting an overcoat over his costume, and Chick was getting into a disguise. “I’ll find out what it is if I have to pull that image all to pieces.”
It was at this moment that Chick came into the library, attired as a Chinaman of the poorer class. He wore the blue blouse and trousers common to laundrymen in America, and his face was of the pale yellow that is always associated with Mongolians in the average mind. He wore a large, soft black hat, which completely concealed his head. He wore a wig, with a queue, but it was not convincing if closely examined, and Nick Carter had told him to keep on his hat under all circumstances.
Patsy Garvan had his instructions, and when the taxicab in which all three were carried over to Brooklyn reached the vicinity of Borough Hall, they got out and sent the cab away.
It happened to be a cloudy night, so that when the three detectives turned into a side street, with only an occasional arc light to relieve the gloom, there was no danger of their being closely inspected by passers-by.
Three blocks from Ched Ramar’s house Patsy left his companions and walked on, with the short steps peculiar to Swagara, and presented himself at the basement door to one of the Indian guards, who opened it cautiously.
“Swagara!” whispered Patsy.
Without a word, the guard opened the door and admitted the supposed Jap. Then he closed it and walked away, leaving Patsy in a half-lighted kitchen.
“Gee! What am I to do now?” thought Patsy. “Why didn’t that big chocolate drop tell me what to do?”
It was evident that Swagara had a regular routine of duties, and that Keshub, the guard, assumed he would go about it as usual.
Chance aided Patsy in his dilemma. He had taken off his overcoat and was carrying it on his arm as he walked through the kitchen to a dark hall, where he saw a flight of stairs, when the deep tones of Ched Ramar came down to him:
“Is that you, Swagara?”
Patsy did not know exactly in what terms Swagara would have answered this query. So he gave an inarticulate grunt, which he turned into a singularly distressing cough.
“What is that, Swagara? You have a cold? Well, never mind. You need not talk. You know, I have always told you I prefer you to answer me by signs, rather than by words.”
“Gee! That’s a good one,” muttered Patsy. “He doesn’t know what a fine thing he has handed me.”
He walked forward, happy in the knowledge that he could not be seen well in the gloom, and waited for further instructions.
“Go to the room of the great Buddha,” rumbled Ched Ramar. “Stay there. Make no sound when visitors come. I want you to see, but not to show yourself. You understand?”
Patsy bowed in acknowledgment, and began to ascend the stairs. He was wondering how he would stand the scrutiny of those fierce eyes when he should pass close to the red-shaded electric light in the main hall.
Ched Ramar gazed at him as he came up, and the eyes followed him on his way up the other stairs to the second floor of the great, shadowy house. Patsy had not been directed to the elevator. That seemed to be reserved only for the use of Ched Ramar and his guests.
He found himself in the idol room, where the dim red glow from a large lamp enabled him to see the gigantic Buddha squatting in the middle of the apartment, while other small images, equally grotesque, were ranged about.
“Say! This is a regular museum, all right,” thought Patsy. “Hello! Here’s a feather duster in this corner. That means that Swagara is supposed to keep things clean. Well, that’s me!”
He was passing the duster over the great Buddha when he heard a sound behind him. It was Ched Ramar. He nodded approvingly as he saw how Patsy was occupied.
“It is well!” he boomed. “But when you hear the bell over there, you will know guests have arrived, and you will keep behind there.”
He pointed to a space at the back of the big image, where Patsy saw there was a small door, which now stood partly open. Then, with a careless wave of the hand toward a large gong which Patsy decided was rather of Chinese, than Indian, design, Ched Ramar disappeared behind the velvet curtains which concealed the door of the elevator.
“Now is the time,” thought Patsy. “I’ll do what he says about going behind this big brass dub of an idol. But, first of all, I’ve got a little private business of my own to pull off. I didn’t see anybody in the kitchen when I came through. I hope it will be the same now. If it isn’t—— Well, the chief said I wasn’t to mind getting into a scrap when it was forced on me. I’d just like to land on that black guy who let me in.”
It was in this disrespectful way that Patsy Garvan referred to Keshub. But Keshub was not in the kitchen. He, with his fellow guard, was in the large double drawing-rooms into which Matthew Bentham, Clarice, and the others had been ushered the night before.
Patsy got down to the kitchen without meeting anybody. He slipped noiselessly down the stairs and found himself at the back door, entirely unopposed.
As he opened the door a little way, the voice of Nick Carter sounded in a whisper from the darkness:
“All right?”
“Fine as silk,” was Patsy’s response. “Come in.”
Nick Carter, followed by Chick, stepped into the kitchen, and Patsy closed and secured the door. Then he directed the others to stand still, against the wall, where they would be in deep shadow, while he reconnoitered. Almost directly, after creeping up the back stairs and making sure the hall was empty, he was back.
Two minutes later they were all in the idol room. Patsy hastily related what his orders were—to hide behind the idol.
“He expects some guests, he says,” continued Patsy. “And I think he means to put something over on them.”
“I think I know who the guests will be,” returned Nick. “You go to the place you’ve been told. Is there room for more than one there?”
He went to the cupboard Patsy had pointed out and stepped inside. With his pocket flash light he examined it, and a grim smile illumined his face as he saw how it had been arranged to deceive strangers.
There was a door at the other end of the little room, communicating with a ladder that went down from a trap in the floor. Another ladder led upward, and it did not take Nick more than a moment to see that, standing on this ladder, a person could lean forward into the hollow brass head of the Buddha, and speak through its parted lips.
“It’s an old trick of the Buddhist priests,” he murmured. “They keep their devotees well in hand by these supposed miracles. No doubt thousands of devout believers in this old god have listened to priests in this way, and been bent to their will because they supposed they were listening to the voice of Buddha himself. This whole trick is transparent when you have a clew.”
This was all straight enough so far. But Nick Carter well knew that, without the hypnotic power that this mysterious Ched Ramar possessed, he could not have used the idol so effectively to make Clarice Bentham do what he wanted.
That the girl had been made an unconscious agent in crime he never doubted for an instant. Just how it had been done he hoped to find out now.
“I know he got a promise from Clarice to obey,” he thought. “I saw how the image held her in its power. But that is as far as I have been able to go. I may even be wrong in supposing the girl will come to-night. But I think not. Let me see, they are all going to a ball to-night, Bentham told me. That means they will leave home about eleven o’clock. It isn’t ten yet. Can it be possible that she would come here first?”
“Look out!” suddenly whispered Patsy. “He’s coming. I’ve been watching the hall below. He’s on his way to the elevator. Hide somewhere, both of you!”
Nick Carter and Chick both stooped behind one of the draped tables on which the small idols were displayed, and Patsy crept behind the big Buddha.
There were a few moments of silence. Then the red curtains moved, and from the elevator came forth Ched Ramar. He held the curtains open to allow a companion also to come through. That companion was Clarice Bentham.
She wore a rich evening gown of white silk and lace. Over it was thrown a handsome opera cloak, and covering that again was another cloak of black, which draped her from head to foot.
Her eyes were wide open, as if she were staring hard. But, from his retreat at the back of the table, Nick Carter had a full view of her face in the light of the red lamp.
“She is fast asleep!” he murmured.