CHAPTER I.
TWICE IN THE HEART.
The electric bell from Andrew Anderton’s study rang sharply. It was close to the ear of the butler dozing in his little room off the hall at the back of the main staircase, and he awoke with a start.
“Lord love ’im!” exclaimed that functionary, stalking to the door with as much haste as his dignity would permit. “Why doesn’t ’e stop ringing? I ’eard ’im the first time, without ’im keeping the blooming bell going all the time.” Then, as he reached the door and made for the stairs, he continued grumblingly: “All right, Mr. Anderton. I ’ear you. You certainly are a most impatient gentleman. I never seed anything like you for ’urrying a man, not even in the old country. Though the Marquis of Silsby—my last master before I left England—was a ’asty sort of gentleman, too. This was the way ’e always acted. Wanted me to be right on the spot as soon as he touched the bell, although ’e knew very well I was two floors below ’im. My word! That bell’s still ringing. I can ’ear it from up ’ere.”
The butler, by this time, was on the second floor of the handsome house in upper Fifth Avenue, where Andrew Anderton, the millionaire traveler and Oriental student, lived. He pushed open the door of the study.
“Did you ring, sir?”
He had these words out, from force of habit, before he even looked around the room. When he did, he gave utterance to a shout that brought a maid, who had been passing along the hallway, surging in, white-faced and round-eyed, to see what was the matter.
Andrew Anderton, in the handsome, velvet, embroidered dressing gown he generally wore when alone in his study, was lying across the floor, face down. His body, pressed on the electric foot button, kept the bell below ringing continuously.
“What’s the matter with him, Ruggins?” whispered the maid.
The butler knelt by the side of the still figure and gently turned it over. The face of the student was white—the awful gray white of a corpse—and the eyes were closed. The expression was peaceful. There was nothing in it to suggest that he had died a violent death, or even that he had suffered as he passed away.
“Heart disease, I should say,” murmured Ruggins. “Telephone for Doctor Miles, Amelia.”
The girl took up the desk telephone on the large, heavy table that Andrew Anderton had been writing at when stricken, and called up Doctor Theophilus Miles, who had been a lifelong friend of the dead man, as well as his physician.
As she telephoned she pointed mutely to a pen that evidently had dropped from the fingers of the master at the moment of his collapse, for it was still wet with black ink, and there was a smudge of it on the white paper of the letter he had been inditing.
“Yes, I see,” nodded Ruggins. “It was awfully sudden. ’E must ’ave been took all at once. I wonder whether it was ’eart disease, after all.”
He opened the front of the velvet dressing gown—which was not fastened, but had fallen together—and gave vent to a mumbled ejaculation, as he saw that the waistcoat was open.
“And ’is shirt is the same way,” he went on. “You can see ’is bare flesh. ’Ello! What’s this?”
Something glittering had caught his eye. A closer look revealed two long needles, crossed and welded together in the center, where they were in contact with each other.
“Save us!” muttered the butler. “This is murder!”
The points of both needles were deeply embedded in the flesh on the left side, and Ruggins knew at once that they pierced the heart!
His first impulse was to pull the needles away. Then some vague recollection of something he had heard about the illegality of touching a body until it had been viewed by a coroner held his hand.
“I’ll wait till the doctor comes, anyhow. My poor master’s dead. It wouldn’t do ’im any good to take out the needles. ’Ave you got the doctor, Amelia?”
“Yes. He will be here in five minutes. His automobile is all ready at his door, and he will come right along.”
It was less than five minutes when Doctor Theophilus Miles—a rather gruff, although good-natured, man of sixty—came into the room, and, with a nod to Ruggins, knelt by the side of the stiffened form upon the floor. He opened one of the eyes with a calm, professional finger, felt for a pulse, and then pulled aside the dressing gown to put his hand over the heart.
He started as he saw the needles. Carefully he pulled them out, gazed at them in silence for nearly a minute. Then he told Ruggins and the maid to go out of the room.
“And don’t say anything about what has happened in this room to the other people in the house until I tell you. If they have found out anything, tell them Mr. Anderton is sick. Understand? And, whatever you do, don’t mention these needles.”
“Don’t you want any ’elp, sir?” asked Ruggins, who did not like to be thus dismissed.
“I’ll get all the help I want in a few minutes. I’m going to telephone for it. A gentleman will come here soon—probably in less than a quarter of an hour. If he says his name is Carter—Mr. Nicholas Carter—bring him up at once. That’s all.”
He waved them both from the room. Then he shut the door and took up the telephone. Soon he had a response to the number he had called, and he asked whether Mr. Carter was on the wire. A reply came, and he went on:
“Oh, all right, Carter! This is Andrew Anderton’s house. You know where it is. Can you come at once?... Yes, very important.... You will? Ten minutes? All right! I’ll wait for you.”
As he hung up the receiver, he soliloquized: “That’s one good thing about Carter. He doesn’t bother you with a lot of questions over the telephone. He knew that if I had anything to tell I would have said it. I wish everybody I have to deal with was like that. I’d have a much easier life. So they got him! The Yellow Tong! This is the second time I’ve seen their work. I believe some of those people on the Yellow Sea must get their devilish ingenuity from the Evil One himself.”
He had placed the crossed needles on the white letter paper, which had only the date line written upon it, and covered the face of Anderton with a newspaper. Now he sat down in the big swing chair from which the stricken man had fallen, to stare at the needles.
Soon he dropped into a doze, for he was a busy man, with a practice that kept him out a large part of his time, and his sleep was a thing he had to take when he could get it. He had acquired the ability to drop off anywhere so long as he could sit down, and a short nap always did him good.
He was brought to himself by the announcement of Ruggins, at the door, as he ushered in a visitor:
“Mr. Carter!”
The great detective looked at the doctor—who jumped from his chair, wide awake, at the first sound of the butler’s voice—and then glanced at the figure stretched across the floor, with a newspaper over the face. A frown drew his heavy brows together. He stooped and removed the newspaper.
“Poor Anderton!” he murmured. “Ah, well! I’m not surprised. How was it, doctor?”
For answer, Doctor Miles pointed to the white paper on the table.
“The crossed needles!” whispered the detective, in an awed tone. Then, sternly: “The Yellow Tong is at it again. This is the second.”
“Yes, Carter. The other one was that poor hobo they got in a Bowery lodging house. It was the same thing, you remember. But I was coroner at that time, and I believed the ends of justice would be served by not letting any one know what I found inside his shirt. I have those crossed needles locked up in my laboratory now.”
“You’ve examined them, haven’t you?” asked Nick Carter.
“Of course. They are poisoned. Not that that is necessary,” replied the doctor. “When an inch of steel pierces the heart in two places, it is quite likely to prove fatal, without introducing poison. Still, the poison hurries the crime. Of course, when a victim dies on the instant, as he does with these needles, it may save the murderer some inconvenience. Poor Anderton! This is the penalty he pays for falling foul of the tong.”
“Will there be an inquest?” asked Nick quietly. “Or can you avoid it by certifying that he died of natural causes? I suppose you couldn’t do that—although, in one sense, he did die that way. It is quite natural for a human being to pass away when two poisoned needles are in his heart,” he added, in a thoughtful tone.
“That’s good logic, Nick,” admitted the doctor, with a slight smile. “But it wouldn’t do. In cases of sudden death, there must be an inquiry by the proper officer. But I can keep the crossed needles out of sight. I will cause the inquest to be entirely perfunctory, by certifying that poor Anderton came to his death at the hands of some person or persons unknown, without going too much into details. It will be passed up to the police, of course, and I shall have to show the weapon to the man in charge of the case from headquarters. But I can prevent its going any further.”
“That’s what I want,” answered Carter. “You know, as well as I, that this rascally gang from China, who call themselves the Yellow Tong, intend to fairly honeycomb this country with secret avenues for bringing in their people, if they can, and that, when they are ready, they will commence a series of crimes that will give the government, as well as the police of all the big cities, more trouble than the average citizen dreams of as possible.”
“Yes, I know that,” agreed Miles.
“Poor Anderton was a warm, personal friend of mine,” said Nick Carter, with a sobbing catch in his voice, “just as he was of yours. If I haven’t expressed much grief since coming into this room, it is because I feel that it is more important to avenge him than to mourn over his remains.”
Doctor Miles put out his hand and grasped the firm, strong fingers of the detective.
“I know you, Carter,” he returned. “You need not explain.”
“There is more than that,” went on Nick. “This is the first serious blow they have struck. I don’t count the poor fellow in the Bowery so much, because he was an unimportant person. If he had never accidentally come across some of their secrets in China, when he was a seaman on board that tramp steamer, they never would have troubled to wipe him out. But Andrew Anderton is different.
“Yes, of course. He is a member of several scientific associations, a wealthy New Yorker, and he has the confidence of the United States government. He has done notable work in China for Washington, and I have no doubt he has submitted a valuable report to the department of state, with papers to verify it, that no other man could have given to it. It is because he is so well informed a man that he has been cut off by the Yellow Tong. There can be no doubt about that.”
“Not the slightest,” assented Nick Carter. “By the way, can you have this room fastened up, so that there is no danger of anybody disturbing it? I should like to go through it alone after the coroner has been here.”
“I’ll fix that, of course,” was the doctor’s ready promise. “The coroner is Doctor Farrell. I’ll call him up and get him to make his preliminary investigation right away. When do you want to come back?”
“Let me see,” answered Nick, consulting his watch. “It is now nearly nine. I’ll come back at ten. The coroner will be through by that time?”
“Long before,” replied Miles confidently. “I will be here with him, to tell him all he wants to know. He’ll bring a jury with him in the morning, and they’ll reach a verdict very soon. Do you want me here when you get back at ten?”
“Not unless it is convenient to you. I should like to have you present, of course. But, if you——”
“I’ve got half a dozen calls I ought to make to-night. I shall try to cover some by telephone. But, anyhow, I have enough to keep me out of bed till one in the morning, and I’m rather tired.”
“Don’t say a word,” interrupted Nick. “I’ll look through the room by myself. I shan’t even bring my assistant with me. Good night, if you are not here when I come back.”
They shook hands again—for each respected the ability and sterling qualities of the other—and Nick Carter went out.
The detective was sharp-eyed, and it was seldom that any detail escaped him. But he did not see an ugly yellow face, with black, oblique-set eyes, in the narrow slit between the heavy brocaded curtains that covered one of the windows. Yet that yellow face had been there from the first—even when Ruggins was involuntarily summoned by the murdered man when he fell from his chair with the crossed needles in his heart.