Nick Carter ended his interrogations quite abruptly.
“I will look around for myself in search of evidence,” he remarked, turning to Arthur Gordon. “You had better remain here with Mr. Strickland and his niece. If I require anything, or wish to add to my inquiries, I will call you. I shall return in a few minutes.”
“Go ahead,” Gordon nodded. “The case is in your hands.”
Nick Carter glanced at Chick and led the way into an adjoining front room.
It was a handsomely furnished music room. An expensive piano occupied one corner. Racks of music, a viola, with many articles of like significance, evinced the refinement and musical genius of the owner. Mr. Rudolph Strickland had, in fact, an international reputation as a violinist.
“Well, chief, the rascals have left the piano, at least,” Chick dryly observed, noting also in this room convincing evidence of the visit of the thieves.
“Yes, so I see,” Nick replied, more seriously.
“What do you make of it?”
“A remarkable job has been done here, if all that Gordon stated is correct. I think, Chick, you had better set about confirming it, while I look farther.”
“You mean?”
“Go down and talk with Madame Denise and the janitor. You can measure them better than Gordon. Have a look at the area back of the house and see what possibilities it presents for getting away with such a quantity of plunder. Find out whether a wagon, or a conveyance of any kind, has been standing in the avenue, the side street on which the Carroll Building fronts, or in any locality available for such a job.”
“I understand,” Chick nodded.
“Step to the door of the next house, also, and question Mr. Vaughn and his sister. It’s barely possible that one of them may have seen or heard the thieves, without having suspected what was going on in here. Find out, at all events, then rejoin me.”
Chick hastened to follow these instructions. A brief talk with Madame Denise and the janitor, one James Donald, convinced him that both were honest and could add nothing to what they already had stated.
An inspection of the area mentioned was equally convincing. It was only a narrow, paved space back of the Vanhausen dwelling and that adjoining it, which occupied a corner lot on the side street on which the Carroll Building faced.
There was no exit to the street, and Chick saw plainly that crooks not only could not have removed their booty from the rear door of the building, but also that they would have found it impossible to ascend to the back windows of Mr. Strickland’s apartments, which were more than twenty feet from the ground. A long ladder would have been necessary, and their movements in the quietude of the inclosed area would surely have been heard by the janitor.
“Nothing was done out here,” thought Chick, turning to retrace his steps to the front of the house. “That’s dead open and shut. The stuff must have been taken out of the front door, despite the assertion of Madame Denise to the contrary.”
Investigation outside, nevertheless, seemed to confirm the statement of the milliner. Chick could not learn that any suspicious conveyance had been seen in the neighborhood. Both the avenue and side street were brightly lighted. Pedestrians were constantly passing. It seemed impossible that crooks could have committed such a crime without being detected. There would not have been greater risk in attempting it in broad daylight.
More deeply puzzled, now, as to how it could by any means have been accomplished, Chick went to question the occupants of the corner house. It was an attractive brownstone dwelling of three stories, its side wall adjoining that of the Vanhausen residence, with no passageway between them. A light in the front hall denoted that the Vaughns had not retired.
A large wreath tied with purple ribbon hung on the knob of the door, a token that the shadow of death had fallen upon the house. But this did not deter Chick from ringing the bell, in accord with Nick’s instructions.
It was answered almost immediately by a slender, serious-looking man about thirty, clad in a black suit. He was of dark complexion, with wavy black hair and a peculiarly clear and pallid skin, accentuated somewhat by a flowing black mustache. He gazed inquiringly at Chick, who bowed politely and said:
“I wish to see Mr. Vaughn. Is he at home?”
“I am Mr. Vaughn. What can I do for you?”
The reply was agreeably made, but with a gravity Chick was quick to observe and attributed to the death of one of the household.
“I am sorry to trouble you at such a time,” he rejoined. “My name is Carter. I am a detective. The apartments of your neighbor, Mr. Strickland, have been robbed this evening, and I——”
“Robbed!” Mr. Vaughn exclaimed, interrupting with a quick display of surprise and consternation. “Dear me, is it possible? Robbed of what, Mr. Carter?”
“Of several very valuable paintings, many of his art treasures, and his almost priceless Stradivarius, together with——”
“Oh, oh, that is dreadful!” Mr. Vaughn again interposed. “Strickland is such a fine old gentleman. I am sorry for him, more than sorry for him. Come in, Mr. Carter. Can I be of any assistance?”
Chick accepted the invitation and stepped into the hall. Through the open door of an adjoining parlor, dimly lighted by the rays from the hall lamp, he could see a closed casket on a bier, also numerous boxes of flowers, evidently prepared for removal the following day.
Observing his furtive glance in that direction, Mr. Vaughn said gravely, while he considerately closed the door of the room:
“My aunt, who long has been the housekeeper for my sister and myself, died suddenly of heart failure yesterday morning. She is to be taken to Springfield to-morrow for burial. Step into the library, Mr. Carter. Clarissa will be terribly shocked by Mr. Strickland’s misfortune. She is really fond of the old gentleman, and often runs in to see him and hear him play on his rare old Strad. Stolen—that is too bad! It will be a terrible loss to him.”
“I agree with you,” Chick replied. “He appears heartbroken.”
“No wonder. This is my sister, Miss Vaughn, Mr. Carter.”
Chick had entered an attractively furnished library, where a handsome, dark girl, in the twenties, sat reading a book. She laid it aside at once and arose to acknowledge the introduction, though with manifest wonderment as to the visitor’s mission.
Gerald Vaughn hastened to inform her, however, evoking repeated expressions of surprise and sympathy, and Chick then said:
“I came here only to ask whether you have heard any disturbance outside this evening. We wish to find out, if possible, how the thieves entered Mr. Strickland’s apartments and got away with such a quantity of plunder without being seen or heard. It really is very mysterious.”
“Decidedly so, Mr. Carter,” Vaughn agreed. “But we have heard nothing unusual, not a sound suggestive of anything wrong.”
“We have been here alone, too, since dinner,” put in Clarissa, gazing with demure, dark eyes at the face of the detective. “Both of us have been reading, and it has seemed unusually quiet. If there had been any noise outside, Gerald, dear, we surely ought to have heard it.”
“It seems so, indeed, Clarissa.”
“I have not heard a sound that I can recall.”
“Nor have I, Mr. Carter, I assure you.”
“The circumstances are such, too, that I am unusually sensitive,” Miss Vaughn added. “The sudden death of my Aunt Amelia has made me very nervous. I think we should send a message of sympathy, Gerald, to Mr. Strickland. He was very kind to us yesterday, when he heard of our bereavement.”
“I think so, too,” Vaughn said quickly. “I had better step over there, perhaps, and see him personally.”
“That will be even better, Gerald.”
“Is there any objection, Mr. Carter, to my doing so?”
“Not the slightest,” said Chick. “You may go with me, if you wish, since there is no information you can give me.”
“None whatever, Mr. Carter, I regret to say,” Vaughn replied. “I hope you will command me, however, if I can be of any assistance. You don’t mind being alone here, Clarissa, for a few minutes?”
“No, indeed. I will sit here till you return.”
“I have closed the parlor door.”
“Very well. Good evening, Mr. Carter. I do hope you will recover Mr. Strickland’s property. Tell him, Gerald, how deeply grieved I am over his misfortune.”
“I will, Clarissa. Now, Mr. Carter, I am ready to go with you.”
Chick saw nothing to be gained by further inquiries. He accepted the slender, shapely hand of the young woman, tendered while she was speaking, noting that there were tears in the sad and somber eyes with which she regarded him, forcing a faint, momentary smile to her finely curved lips.
Gerald Vaughn, too, was equally impressive. There was something about both that lifted them above the ordinary, those indefinable qualities which denote class and character, and which alone serve to avert distrust and suspicion.
Chick bowed and said a word of apology for having intruded, then accompanied Gerald Vaughn from the house.
Nick Carter was in the meantime proceeding with the investigations in the Strickland apartment, but only with negative results.
Adjoining the two front rooms was a third, partly furnished for a dining room and connecting with a spacious library. Back of these were two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen, evidently but little used. A window in the kitchen and in one of the bedrooms, also a small ground-glass window in the bathroom, overlooked the area back of the house.
Nick found that the first two were closed and securely locked, but that in the bathroom was open a few inches for ventilation. It was only about two feet square, and Nick looked in vain for any evidence denoting that a person had entered through it.
Gazing out, he could see the gloomy area below, also the dark wall of the Carroll Building some twenty feet away, much too far for access to have been gained from any of its windows, all of which were those of business offices of one kind or another.
Looking up, all that could be seen were the gloomy walls of the several buildings and a portion of the star-studded sky.
“By Jove, the rascals have cleverly covered their tracks,” Nick muttered a bit grimly after these futile observations. “It was the work of no ordinary crooks. I should need daylight, I reckon, in order to pick up a thread worth following.”
He was laboring at some disadvantage by means of the incandescent lamps only, and he returned in a few minutes to the front parlor.
“Are those back windows as you found them, Arthur, when you returned with Mr. Strickland?” he inquired, when Gordon started up to meet him.
“Yes, precisely,” he replied. “What have you learned?”
“Very little thus far,” said Nick. “I see that the bathroom window is open a few inches, Mr. Strickland. Are you in the habit of leaving it open?”
“Yes, Mr. Carter, I am,” was the reply. “But the bathroom door is always locked. The window, moreover, is hardly large enough to admit a man, nor could it be easily reached from the outside. I don’t see how the thieves could possibly have entered it.”
“Crooks devise means which no honest man would think of,” Nick replied. “It is my opinion that——”
He did not finish the remark, for Chick returned at that moment in company with Gerald Vaughn, and introductions and a brief discussion of the crime immediately followed. It was soon interrupted by the arrival of the photographer, however, who occupied the entire upper floor of the remodeled house.
“We will go up at once, Mr. Gilbert,” said Nick, after their greeting. “Come with us, Chick. Gordon will wait here with Mr. Vaughn.”
The photographer hastened to lead the way through the hall and up the stairs, switching on the light in his reception room, his studio, and in the extensive rear room containing the cameras and other paraphernalia required in his business.
“There appears to be nothing wrong,” he remarked, as the detectives followed him to the rear room. “Everything is just as I left it at six o’clock, Mr. Carter, as far as I can see.”
“I will look a little farther, Gilbert, with your permission,” Nick replied.
“Certainly. Go as far as you like.”
Nick then began a careful inspection of the three back windows, all of which were found to be securely locked. None bore any evidence of having been recently opened. The floor near them bore no trace of earth, or dirt, denoting the recent presence of intruders.
So far as could be seen, in fact, even by the keen-eyed detective, everything in the rooms of Mr. Victor Gilbert was, as he had stated, precisely as he had left it.
“Is there a way to the roof?” Nick inquired, glancing up at a slightly sloping, twelve-foot skylight nearly in the middle of the ceiling.
“Yes. There is a ladder and a scuttle in my dark room,” said the photographer.
“Let’s go up there,” Nick said shortly. “I see that the roof is a flat one, or nearly so, and I wish to cover all of the ground.”
Mr. Gilbert again led the way.
One after another they mounted the ladder and crawled through the narrow scuttle. A stretch of slightly sloping, tar-and-pebble roof, the huge skylight aglow with light from below, the two chimneys with which the house was provided, the lower roof of that adjoining it, the gloomy side wall of the lofty Carroll Building, the black intervening abyss, the glare from the brightly lighted streets in other directions—only these and the purple dome of the starry sky met their searching gaze.
A fierce gust of wind caused the photographer to retreat toward the scuttle.
“By gracious, Carter, I’d rather venture up here by daylight, and in calm weather,” he shouted. “Go as far as you like, you two, but I am ducking back on the ladder.”
“I guess, Gilbert, daylight will be necessary for a further investigation,” Nick replied.
“That’s right, too,” Chick agreed. “It don’t seem possible that the job could have been done from here. The rascals would have been blown away with their plunder.”
“It is much more windy than early in the evening,” Nick rejoined. “We’ll wait till morning to seek further.”
“That’s good judgment, Nick, in my opinion.”
“Go ahead. I’ll follow you.”
Both crawled through the scuttle and picked their way down the steep ladder, and five minutes later found them again in the Strickland apartment.
The elderly German still was moaning over the loss of his costly treasures. He looked up with anxious eyes when the detectives entered, saying quickly:
“Don’t keep me in suspense. What have you learned, Mr. Carter?”
Nick smiled faintly and shook his head.
“You must not expect too much of us, Mr. Strickland,” he replied kindly. “Such problems as this are not solved in a moment. Most of our discoveries thus far are of a negative character.”
“The police——”
“Could not possibly accomplish more than we,” Nick interrupted. “Immediate publicity, too, might result in a disadvantage. You must leave the case entirely to me and wait patiently until morning. We will return at an early hour to continue our work.”
“I shall remain here with uncle to-night, Arthur,” said Wilhelmina, turning to her lover.
“That will be wise, Mina, I think,” Gordon readily agreed. “But I will return to see you in the morning, Nick.”
“Very good,” nodded the detective. “You may expect us about seven o’clock.”