CHAPTER VI.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER.
Nick Carter had an object in not revealing his suspicions to Kate Crandall and attempting to force a different story from her. He had seen plainly that such an attempt would be useless, that the woman felt secure in the position she had taken and was prepared to stick to her statements.
Nick believed very few of them, however. He keenly realized, nevertheless, that they ordinarily would appear perfectly plausible, that a woman is always given the benefit of a doubt in such cases, and that her story would be very generally accepted unless he could find positive evidence with which to refute it.
“There is only one way it can be done. That’s by producing the supposed suicide himself,” Nick decided, a bit grimly, after leaving her. “She was expecting my visit and had prepared herself for it. That was as plain as twice two. I scored one point on her, nevertheless, that she was not expecting, and which may prove to be her undoing.
“She certainly was rattled for a moment when she learned that I knew of Dacey’s doings. It forced her to come across with a plausible explanation. Not having anticipated that contingency, however, there may be a weak spot in her arrangements with Sheldon, or Floyd. I’ll try to find it. I’ll hunt up Sheldon before she can communicate with him and put him on his guard. I’ll see whether he will tell precisely the same story. Rear corridor, suite number ninety-four, eh? This must be the way.”
Hastening through several diverging corridors, Nick had entered one leading to the rear of the house. He would not delay to hunt up Chick and Patsy, being anxious to find the subject as quickly as possible, and it was less than five minutes after his parting from Kate Crandall, when Nick arrived at the door of Ralph Sheldon’s apartments. He listened vainly, then knocked. It brought an immediate response.
“Come in!”
Nick entered the parlor of an attractively furnished suite. A table covered with books and newspapers occupied the middle of the room. Amid them stood a library lamp with a large, drooping silk shade of nile-green color, which deflected the light upon, and immediately around the table, leaving other parts of the room in semi-obscurity, causing Nick to think at first sight that it was only dimly lighted.
In the bright glow close to the table, however, sat the solitary occupant of the room. He was lounging in a large armchair, with his slippered feet in another, and his tall figure wrapped in a long house robe. He seemed to be a man of fifty, of refined appearance, with hair and beard slightly shot with gray. He wore black-rimmed glasses and was reading a book, over which he gazed inquiringly when the detective entered.
“Sheldon himself,” thought Nick, recalling Nancy Nordeck’s description of the man. “Alone and absorbed in a book. It’s odds, then, I’m ahead of any warning from Kate Crandall. She certainly has not been here since I left her.”
These conclusions flashed through Nick’s mind while he bowed and said:
“I am looking for Mr. Floyd, or Mr. Sheldon. You are one or the other, I infer.”
“My name is Sheldon,” he replied, drawing up in his chair. “Mr. Floyd is out just now, but he may return at any moment. What is your business?”
“I want a little information which I think you, or Mr. Floyd, can give me.”
“Certainly. Sit down, Mr.——”
“Carter,” put in Nick. “I am a detective.”
“Not—not Nick Carter?” faltered Sheldon inquiringly, with a look of surprise.
“Yes. I see that you have heard of me.”
“Who has not?” and Sheldon smiled significantly. “But I do not recall having seen you before. I am glad to meet you.”
He certainly spoke as if pleased, but his smile appeared forced and his cheeks were pale. When he extended his hand without rising, moreover, Nick detected that it was trembling slightly and then noted that it felt abnormally cold and clammy.
“I am glad to find you here,” he replied, taking a chair near the table. “You were, I am told, a friend of the late Cyrus Darling.”
“Yes, in a way,” said Sheldon, settling back in his chair and fixedly eyeing the detective.
“In a way?” echoed Nick. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I met him only a few times,” Sheldon explained. “I called once at his residence in company with Mr. Floyd, but we did not find him at home.”
Nick could not deny that this coincided exactly with what Nancy Nordeck had told him.
“I did not know him well,” Sheldon added. “Floyd was much better acquainted with him. What about him, Mr. Carter, that you are seeking information?”
“I have been employed to do so.”
“By whom?”
“His wife.”
“For what reason? What is the occasion?”
“Have you no idea?” Nick inquired, with sharper scrutiny.
“I—not the slightest.” Sheldon quickly shook his head. “I knew nothing about Darling’s personal affairs. I know only that he shot himself, and—ah, here is Floyd, now,” he abruptly digressed. “You are just in time, Phil. Shake hands with Mr. Nicholas Carter, the famous detective. He is after information about Cyrus Darling. You can tell him, perhaps, what he wants to know.”
Floyd had entered while Sheldon was speaking, and Nick detected an accent of relief in the latter’s voice.
Floyd appeared to be about thirty, a compactly built man, under medium height, clad in a stylish plaid suit and a soft felt hat. He was very dark, his hair thick and curly, his mustache long and drooping, completely hiding his mouth. He wore gold-rimmed glasses, through which he fixed a pair of searching black eyes upon the detective, bowing indifferently and not tendering his hand.
“Pleased to know you, Mr. Carter,” he said, sitting directly opposite Nick at the table. “Information about Cyrus Darling, eh? He’s dead. What’s the big idea? What do you want to know about him?”
There was a sinister flippancy in this man’s voice and manner that Nick did not fancy. Like Nancy Nordeck, too, he somehow felt that he had seen Philip Floyd before, but he could not even vaguely determine when, or where.
Nick did feel positive, however, that Floyd was bent upon putting up a bluff, that he was by far the more nervy man of these two, and that Sheldon was much relieved by his timely arrival. All this presently impelled Nick to venture a counterbluff, which proved more effective than he anticipated.
“I want to know anything about him, Mr. Floyd, that you can tell me,” he replied.
“But what’s the big idea?” Floyd repeated, staring steadily at Nick. “Why are you seeking information about a dead man? Is there anything wrong with his record?”
“That’s what I wish to learn.”
“Who put you on the job?”
“His wife.”
“Why so? Why has she gone up in the air? What does she suspect?” Floyd glibly inquired.
“It does not much matter what she thinks,” Nick slowly answered. “That’s neither here nor there at this stage of the game.”
“Humph! Is that so?”
“What I suspect is much more material. I came here to ask a few questions, Mr. Floyd, not to answer a string of inquiries from you. Please bear that in mind.”
Nick’s voice had taken on a subtle and somewhat threatening ring. He gazed at his hearers with a sharper gleam in his impressive eyes. He saw Floyd frown quickly, while Sheldon’s bearded face grew quite haggard and ghastly in the greenish light cast upon it through the drooping silk shade.
“Bear it in mind, eh?” Floyd curtly questioned.
“That’s what I said,” Nick returned.
“Why do you speak like that? I’m not likely to answer questions put to me in that fashion.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” Nick retorted. “Otherwise, I shall take steps to compel you to answer them. Bear that in mind, also.”
Floyd jerked his chair nearer the table.
“See here, Mr. Carter, what’s the meaning of this?” he demanded aggressively. “What do you suspect, that you come here and——”
“Never mind what I suspect,” Nick interrupted. “What I want to know, Mr. Floyd, is what sort of a game you and Sheldon and Kate Crandall are playing? How does Jim Dacey figure in it? What are you scheming to get from Cyrus Darling by——”
“Get from him be hanged!” Floyd cut in sharply. “You’re talking through your hat. Cyrus Darling is dead and buried——”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Not dead?”
“Not by a long chalk!” Nick sternly declared. “He is alive, very much alive, as I shall presently convince you. I know that without your informing me. I know, too, that you fellows are responsible for his supposed suicide. I know that you——”
Nick stopped short at that point.
Floyd’s right hand suddenly appeared above the edge of the table. It held a revolver—aimed point-blank at the detective’s breast.
“You know too much, Carter, for your own good,” he hissed viciously between his teeth. “If you move foot or finger, I’ll send a bullet through your heart. Sit quiet, Sheldon, and keep your mouth shut.”
Nick Carter did not appear at all disturbed by the sudden threatening turn of the situation. He had deliberately invited it, in fact, though it came so much more quickly than he expected, that it found him partly unprepared. Without stirring from his position, he gazed across the table at Floyd’s hard-set face, replying sternly:
“Your threat is equivalent to a confession. You have decided, then, to fly your true colors. That is what I wanted.”
“True colors be hanged!” snapped Floyd. “You’ll never discover my true colors, Nick Carter, nor get me under your infernal heel. Keep your hands where I can see them, or you’ll get all that’s coming to you.”
Nick saw that the hand gripping the weapon was as steady as the voice uttering the threat. He saw, too, that the scowling rascal meant what he said, though his confederate, Sheldon, had gone as white and mute as a corpse.
“I shall do nothing to invite a bullet, Mr. Floyd,” he coolly answered, though watchful to seize the slightest opportunity to reverse the situation. “I value a whole skin too highly. But matters cannot remain as they stand. What do you propose doing, now that you have held me up, and——”
“You’ll soon see,” snapped Floyd, interrupting. Then, with voice raised: “Hurry up, Martin! Get a move on! Come here, and——”
Nick cut him short in characteristic fashion. For the hundredth part of a second Floyd’s eyes were diverted from him. Nick saw the opportunity, and seized it. He heard hurried steps in an adjoining room. He lifted his knees as quick as a flash and upset the table—just as a portière behind him was cast aside and two brawny, powerful men bounded into the room.
What followed was of brief duration.
The table and books went crashing to the floor.
Sheldon caught the lamp as it was falling.
Nick reached over the toppling table, and, with a lightninglike move, snatched the revolver from Floyd’s hand.
At the same moment came a blow from behind, dealt with the weapon of one of the ruffians who had entered. It was impossible for the detective to avoid it. It fell squarely on the back of his head, knocking him senseless on the instant. He dropped without so much as a groan, face forward over the table.
Floyd seized the ribbons again.
“Quick!” he cried fiercely. “Take him to my room. The crash must have been heard. Some one may come to investigate it. Wait here, Sheldon, and explain. State that you fell against the table and upset it. This way, Martin, this way! We must get him out of the house, Jim, or our game will go by the board.”
Meantime, Nick was being hurriedly removed from the suite, through a rear door.