IN THE SOUNDPROOF ROOM.
It was evening of the day after Nick Carter’s encounter with the Cuban whom he had recognized as John Garrison Rayne, and Acting Governor Portersham, who temporarily represented the United States in San Juan, had just finished dinner.
Jabez Portersham was a young man, considering the importance of the office he held, and, as he was a bachelor, he had taken dinner alone. Afterward he had strolled into his library, lighted a cigar, and sat himself down for an hour or two of reading.
The palace, which was the governor’s official residence, was well supplied with books, so that it would be easy for Mr. Portersham to find something that would interest him.
He could have gone into the billiard room if he had cared for a game, and a touch of his electric bell would have brought somebody to play with him.
His official family included several bright, companionable men of about his own age, somewhere in the thirties, and very often he had one of the heads of departments to dine with him and spend the evening afterward.
This happened to be an evening when he was disinclined for society, and he was quite alone when he sank into a well-cushioned rocker, with a novel in his hand.
Jabez Portersham had lived in a Middle State, and had been prominent in the affairs of his own city. Also, he had had experience in the government service in Washington. Natural ability, plus some influence, had put him where he was.
He had hardly got well into the first page of his book, when there was a discreet tap at the door, followed by the entrance of a soft-footed butler, who had a card on a salver.
The acting governor took up the card, with a slight frown at being interrupted at this hour of privacy, but with the knowledge that Briggs would not have come unless he had felt sure that he had a sound excuse.
“Senator Micah Garnford” was the name on the card.
Portersham threw his book on the table at his elbow and sat up in his chair, as he told the butler, in a sharp, businesslike tone, to “Show the senator in.”
Senator Garnford was an influential man. Portersham had met him only once, and then but for a minute or two, in company with many other people, at a reception at the senator’s house in Washington, but he knew that he was largely indebted to Garnford for his present appointment.
It must be urgent business of some sort that had induced the senator to come to the palace at this hour.
The acting governor had not known that he was even in Porto Rico. The last he had heard of Senator Garnford, he was taking an active part in the deliberations of the distinguished body of which he was a member in the Capitol at Washington.
Briggs was not long in bringing the visitor into the library.
Portersham got up and shook hands heartily with the ruddy, white-haired man who came forward with a springy step that was much younger than his appearance.
“Your cigar smells good,” laughed the senator. “May I have one?”
He took a cigar from the open humidor on the table, and, as he lighted it by the wax candle that burned beside it, remarked:
“Two things I have a weakness for—a good horse and a good cigar.”
Portersham nodded and smiled. He liked the free-and-easy manner of this important lawmaker, and he was glad he had come.
“What about a motor car, senator?” he asked, as his visitor took a chair. “It hasn’t knocked out the horse for you altogether, eh?”
“Not in the least,” was the positive reply. “You can’t pat the neck of a motor car. At least, unless you call the hood its neck. You can pat that, if you like. And, even then, the pesky thing does not acknowledge the caress. Now, a horse——”
At that moment the door clicked behind the retiring Briggs. The noise was slight, but a curious change came over Senator Garnford as he heard it. The smile left his face, his rather big body seemed to stiffen in his white suit, and his strong, white teeth bit into his cigar.
“No chance of our being overheard in this room, is there?” he asked, in a grave, sharp tone.
“Not the slightest,” replied the acting governor. “It was made soundproof when the palace was built. Many a secret meeting was held here in the days of the Spanish sovereignty of San Juan.”
“I suppose so. Only right, too.”
“I’ve looked into it since I’ve been here,” went on Portersham. “The walls, ceiling, and floor are lined with felt. You might shoot off a gun in here without its being heard inside.”
“Fine!” smiled the senator. “How about the door?”
“That is so thick that a person on the other side could not hear anything—even a very loud noise. The keyhole is blinded, of course, and I can slip the deadlatch with a touch of my finger. See!”
He walked over to the door and touched a spring, which clicked rather loudly in response.
“That makes it safe for anything you might have to say that must not be heard outside—state secrets, I mean?” remarked the senator.
“Yes. You could commit a murder in here without any one knowing it—until the door was broken open.”
Portersham said this a little impatiently. He was curious to hear what Senator Micah Garnford had to say to him. It was not often that so important a personage came with a special message from Washington.
“I am glad to know that the room is so well protected,” observed the senator. “Just draw a little closer to the table, will you? I want to show you the papers that have brought me all the way from Washington—and at a time when I really ought not to have left the Senate.”
He got up from his own chair, as if to move it, and, as Portersham hitched nearer the table, the senator managed to get right behind him.
At the same instant he thrust his hand into an inside pocket.
If the acting governor had chanced to turn, he would have observed that the good-humored expression had entirely left his visitor’s face. His lips had drawn down at the corners, while his eyes seemed to narrow and come closer together.
There was a strange ferocity in the whole countenance, curiously at variance with the light and pleasant words with which he had entered the room.
When Senator Garnford’s hand came out of his pocket, it did not hold papers. Instead, he brought forth a small bottle and a folded pad of white cloth.
Keeping a wary eye on Portersham, who was trying to get his chair into a convenient position at the table, the senator gently drew the cork from the bottle in his hand.
He placed the pad of cloth over the neck of the bottle and let the contents saturate it through and through.
“What’s that?” exclaimed the acting governor, as he began to turn in his chair. “I thought I smelled a strange——”
He did not get any further. Senator Garnford seized him around the throat in an iron grip and pulled his head back.
“Let go!” gasped Portersham. “What the——”
The pad, reeking with the sickly smelling stuff, was jammed over his mouth and nostrils and held there.
The acting governor was a sturdy fellow, and if he had not been taken so entirely by surprise, might have given this steel-muscled senator a hard tussle. As it was, he could only struggle feebly, while vainly endeavoring to shout for help.
Not that it would have done him any good. He had spoken truly when he said that any sort of disturbance might take place in this felt-lined room without its being heard outside.
But it was only natural for him to endeavor to cry out. It was the involuntary act of an animal in extreme peril or pain, when a human being does not reason any more than a dog.
The chloroform worked rapidly. Moreover, the senator had jerked his head against the back of the chair with a force that would have half stunned him, even without the anæsthetic.
Jabez Portersham managed to emit a gurgling cry. But the arm around his throat pressed more tightly, while the fumes of the drug crept upward and gripped his brain.
Vainly the acting governor tried to get out of the chair, with only a vague consciousness of what was happening.
In the few seconds during which he tried to fight off the effect of the deadly, nauseating fumes, he half realized that he actually was being drugged by one of the most prominent men in the United States—one who might have been supposed absolutely incapable of such a crime—or of any crime, for that matter.
That was his last incoherent thought. Then everything became blank to him.
The senator stepped back when he saw that his victim was thoroughly overcome, and an evil grin spread over his face.
“It would be possible to commit a murder in this room without any one knowing it!” he muttered. “If you had known just who Senator Garnford was, my trusting friend, I guess you wouldn’t have said that.”
He snatched from his face the gray mustache and beard he had worn, and, if Nick Carter had been in the room, he would have known that the real name of this Senator Micah Garnford was none other than John Garrison Rayne, alias the Apache!