CHAPTER III.
THE FACE OF A CROOK.
“There are only six hundred Stradivarius violins known to be in existence. Their value varies from three to ten thousand dollars, but in a few cases these figures are greatly exceeded. Two are said to be worth no less than fifty thousand dollars each. One is the famous Emperor Stradivarius. It is two hundred years old, and the only one comparable with it is that left by Paganini to the city of Genoa. A sum running into five figures sterling was offered for it.”
“Gee! That sure is some fiddle, chief,” declared Patsy Garvan sententiously.
Nick Carter was having an early breakfast with Chick and his junior assistant before returning to the Strickland apartment on the morning following the robbery. They had nearly finished, when Nick, after a general discussion of the crime, made the foregoing comments concerning that rare make of violin that had been stolen from the elderly German.
“Some fiddle, Patsy, is right,” Chick agreed, laughing over his coffee.
“All Strads are very valuable, and many have had a strange and eventful history. Some have been repeatedly stolen, and at times have passed from one uninformed person to another at ridiculously low prices. I recall that one was accepted by a Geneva blacksmith from a traveler who had not money enough to pay for shoeing his horse. It hung for years on a wall in the blacksmith’s house, till a collector of violins happened to see and purchase it. Upon cleaning off the dirt and grime he found the Strad mark on it. He had acquired for a paltry sum an instrument worth thousands of dollars.”
“That was tough luck for the poor blacksmith, chief.”
“Not at all,” said Nick. “For the violin collector was as square as a brick. He returned and paid the blacksmith all that the instrument was worth.”
“Good on his head!” said Patsy. “He was one man in a thousand.”
“Make it ten thousand, Patsy,” Chick said dryly.
“The Strad stolen from Strickland is of great value, no doubt, and possibly worth what he has stated,” Nick continued. “With the rare old masters he mentioned, together with his antique gems, his collection of jade and the other missing treasures, his loss runs up over a hundred thousand dollars. He will have a complete list for us this morning. We’ll get a move on, now, if you are ready.”
Followed by both, Nick led the way to his library. His chauffeur, Danny Maloney, had not yet arrived with his touring car, but all three were engaged in putting on their outside garments when the doorbell rang, and Patsy glanced from one of the screened windows.
An erect, muscular, dark-featured man was standing on the front steps, awaiting the coming of Joseph, the detective’s butler.
“It’s Detective Conroy, of headquarters,” said Patsy.
“What sent him here before seven o’clock?” Nick remarked. “He must have something on his mind.”
“A case, perhaps, on which he wants to employ us, or ask your advice,” Chick suggested.
“I shall take on no case until after I have sifted this robbery to the bottom,” Nick said decidedly. “I promised to recover Strickland’s stolen treasures, and I’m going to do it.”
“That’s the stuff, chief,” nodded Patsy. “Let’s make good, or bu’st a tire.”
Joseph ushered in the headquarters man at that moment, and Conroy said at once, with a look of surprise at all:
“Great guns! I hardly expected to find you out of bed, Nick, to say nothing of all hands being ready to leave the house. Something doing, eh?”
“Yes,” Nick bowed. “What’s on your mind, Conroy?”
“It’s in my pocket, Nick, rather than on my mind,” said Conroy, smiling. “I have an early appointment at headquarters, but thought I’d take a chance of seeing you for a few moments, as I was passing your house on my way. Have a look at this.”
He drew from his pocket while speaking a small photograph, not more than three inches square, which evidently had been snapped with a kodak, or a small camera, when the subject was ignorant of the fact. For he was walking at the time, a man clad in clerical robes, and his face was somewhat shaded from the sun by the broad brim of a black felt hat.
It showed quite distinctly, nevertheless, that he was a man about thirty years old. The smoothly shaved features were of an almost effeminate cast. The square jaw and thin lips denoted firmness, however, with bulldog nerve, tenacity, and determination. His figure evidently was of medium build and in no respect specially distinctive.
Nick took a large reading glass from his desk and viewed the picture quite intently.
“Who is he, Conroy?” he inquired.
“He is without exception, bar none, Nick, the most accomplished, most versatile and original, and for those reasons by far the most dangerous crook now at large in this wicked world,” said Detective Conroy forcibly. “That face is a libel on his character. He looks more like a saint than a thief. That is because, perhaps, it was taken while he was posing as a priest in Berlin, where he swindled an Austrian duchess out of jewels worth sixty thousand dollars and got safely away with them. He has a record of which the devil himself would be proud. That’s the only photograph of him known to be in existence. That’s Mortimer Deland.”
Nick knew him by name and reputation, and had read of his knavish exploits in Europe, where most of his evil work had been done; a series of crimes covering a period of nearly ten years, but accomplished with craft and elusiveness that had enabled him to avoid arrest and baffle the trained police of nearly every European country.
Mortimer Deland was, in fact, almost a myth and mystery, so little was known of him aside from the extraordinary crimes that had made his name notorious abroad, and comparatively well known to the police of America.
Nick viewed the photograph with considerable interest, therefore, and then handed it to Chick and Patsy for inspection.
“Where did you get it, Conroy?” he inquired.
“It was sent to me by Jenks, of Scotland Yard,” replied the headquarters man. “It was snapped by an English woman who was in Berlin when the robbery of the Austrian duchess was committed.”
“There is no doubt about it, you think?”
“Not the slightest. Jenks is absolutely sure that the woman made no mistake and is thoroughly reliable. Here is a copy of Deland’s writing, merely the fictitious name he inscribed on a hotel register. Both this and the photograph are entirely reliable.”
“Make a tracery copy of the writing, Patsy,” Nick directed, handing him the scrap of paper Conroy had taken from his notebook. “We may find it useful, perhaps, sooner or later. Mortimer Deland, eh? If all I have read of him is true, Conroy, it will be a feather in the cap of the man who rounds up the rascal.”
“I thought you might wish to see the photograph.”
“Very much,” Nick nodded. “I’ll fix the face in my mind, though the print is too small to be of much value. The writing may prove useful, however.”
“I had another reason for dropping in to show them to you.”
“What is that?”
“Jenks wrote me that Mortimer Deland is probably in this country, if not in New York City.”
“On what does he base that belief?”
“First, on the fact that there has been a complete cessation of Deland’s knavish work abroad for more than six months. That is a very long and unusual period for him to be idle. Scarce a month has gone by for six or eight years Nick in which he has not committed a crime of some kind, easily identified as his because of their peculiarly original and crafty character. There is no mistaking his work.”
“And the other reason?” questioned Nick.
“Because, though it was not suspected at the time, it now is known that Deland fled from Vienna about six months ago and went to England. He is known to have been in London with a notorious English crook and adventuress named Fannie Coyle, and that they bought passage for Boston more than four months ago. Boston would be poor picking for a man of Mortimer Deland’s knavish aspirations, and it’s long odds that he was heading for New York, or one of the big Western cities. Be that as it may, Nick, his whereabouts now is unknown.”
“Fannie Coyle still is missing from England, I infer?”
“Yes.”
“When did you hear from Jenks?”
“Only two days ago. This photograph, or one like it, was given to him about ten days ago. He has clinched the points mentioned since then.”
“Did he give you any information about Deland himself, his early life, or his family?”
“Nothing is known about him,” said Conroy, shaking his head. “The name probably is an alias. He is said to have as many others as he has hairs in his head. If he is half as clever as the foreign police assert——”
“Here is Danny, chief, with the car,” put in Patsy, turning from the window.
“We must be off, Conroy,” said Nick, returning the photograph. “I’m glad you came in, however, and I will keep Deland in mind. Let me know if you hear anything more about him.”
“I will, Nick, surely,” Conroy nodded, while he accompanied the three detectives from the house and proceeded on his way to police headquarters.
Ten minutes later Nick’s touring car rounded a corner of Fifth Avenue and stopped in front of the Vanhausen building.
The inclosed black wagon of an undertaker was standing in front of the Vaughn residence, also a hack, at the open door of which the driver was waiting.
The casket had been brought out and placed in the great, somber wagon, the rear door of which still was open. The undertaker’s assistant was bringing out the last of the numerous boxes of flowers, which nearly filled the wagon.
Preceded by the undertaker, just as Nick and Chick alighted from the touring car, Gerald Vaughn emerged from the house with Clarissa and closed the door.
“They are just leaving for Springfield with the body,” Chick remarked in an undertone to Nick.
Gerald Vaughn observed them and bowed gravely, while he descended the steps with his sister, who was heavily veiled. He placed her in the carriage, then turned and said a few words to the undertaker, afterward approaching the detectives, who were but a few feet away.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, bowing and smiling faintly. “I have seen Mr. Strickland for a few moments this morning. He is much more composed than he was last night. I wish I might do more than merely wish you speedy success.”
“Many thanks,” Chick replied.
“We shall do all that we can with the case,” Nick added.
Vaughn bowed again, then turned away and entered the waiting carriage. The door closed with a bang. The hackman mounted to his box, caught up the reins, then drove rapidly away.
The undertaker’s wagon already had departed.