Originally published: 1917
Genres: Mystery
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62860
Chapters: 24
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
A MYSTERIOUS FATALITY
Nobody had heard the report of a pistol.
There had been no disturbance; in fact, no audible altercation, no startling cry for help, or even a groan of sudden, terrible distress.
The man lay there as motionless, nevertheless, as if felled by a thunderbolt. His life had been snuffed out like the flame of a candle by the fury of a whirlwind. Death had come upon him like a bolt from the blue. By slow degrees his face underwent a change—but it was not the change that ordinarily follows sudden death, that peaceful calm that marks the end of earthly toil and trouble.
Instead, the smoothly shaven skin seemed to shrink and wither slightly over the dead nerves and lifeless muscles, and a singular slaty hue that was hardly perceptible settled around his lips and nostrils, partly dispelling the first deathly pallor. It was as if the blast from a furnace, or the searing touch of a fiery hand, had withered and parched it.
He was a comparatively young man, not over thirty, and he was fashionably clad in a plaid business suit. He was lying flat on his back on the floor of the second-story corridor of a building known as the Waldmere Chambers, in the city of Madison.
Presently the door of one of the several adjoining rooms was opened and a stylish young woman emerged. She was clad for the street and lingered to lock the door and put the key in her leather handbag. Then she turned, and her gaze fell upon the prostrate man, several yards away and nearer the broad stairway leading down to the lower floor and the street door.
“Good heavens! Is he drunk?” she gasped, shrinking involuntarily.
She feared to approach him, though her hesitation was only momentary. She heard the tread of someone on the stairs, obviously that of a man, and she ventured nearer just as the other appeared at the top of the stairs, a well-built, florid man of middle age.
“Oh, Doctor Perry, look here!” she cried excitedly. “What’s the matter with this man? Is he drunk or ill, or what is the—”
“Well, well, I don’t wonder you ask.” Doctor Perry approached and gazed down at him. “I don’t know, Miss Vernon. He appears to be—”
He stopped short; then crouched and raised the man’s arm, dropping it quickly. It fell back upon the floor as if made of clay.
“Heavens!” he exclaimed, rising hurriedly. “The man is dead.”
“Dead!” Miss Vernon echoed, turning pale.
“Stone dead. Do you know him?”
“No. I just came from my rooms to go to lunch and saw him lying here.”
“Did you hear him fall, or any disturbance, or—”
“I heard nothing, Doctor Perry, not a sound.”
“We must call a policeman. I will wait here while you do so. Go down to the street and find an officer.”
“Won’t it be better to telephone? I can do so in a moment.”
“Yes, yes, in that case,” Doctor Perry nodded. “Hasten.”
Miss Vernon ran back and entered her rooms, on the door of which a modest brass plate stated that her business was that of a manicure and ladies’ hairdresser. She ran to a telephone in one of the attractively furnished rooms, crying quickly to the exchange operator:
“Give me the police headquarters. Hurry, please! It’s an emergency case.”
Seated with Chief Gleason in the latter’s private office when the telephone call was received in the outer office was the celebrated American detective, Nicholas Carter, who had arrived in Madison early that morning with two of his assistants, and who then was discussing with the chief the business which had occasioned his visit, the nature of which will presently appear. They were interrupted by a police sergeant, who knocked and entered, saying quickly:
“A man has dropped dead, chief, in a corridor of the Waldmere Chambers. Shall I send the ambulance?”
“What man? Is he known?” Gleason questioned, swinging around in his swivel chair.
“No, sir.”
“Who informed you?”
“A woman telephoned that the body had just been found. Doctor Perry, the dentist, was watching it while she telephoned. His office is in the Waldmere Chambers. Neither of them knew the dead man.”
“Yes, send the ambulance,” Chief Gleason directed. “You had better go, also, and look into the case. If—”
“One moment,” Nick Carter interrupted. “I think I’ll go with him, chief if you don’t mind.”
“What need of that? It is merely a case of—”
“We don’t know what kind of a case it is, Gleason, at present,” Carter cut in again. “A sudden death always warrants more or less suspicion. It is barely possible that this has some connection with the series of mysterious crimes that we have been discussing, and which has finally led you to call on me for assistance. Be that as it may—”
“Hang it, Carter, I’ll go with you myself, then,” Gleason interrupted, rising and taking his cap. “You may be right, of course, and the chance is worth taking. You remain here, sergeant, but send along the ambulance. We’ll take a taxi.”
Chief Gleason started for the street while speaking, closely followed by the famous detective, and they were so fortunate as to find a taxicab just passing the headquarters building.
Thus it happened that Nicholas Carter arrived upon the scene of the sudden fatality scarcely ten minutes after it was discovered. He was not without an intuitive feeling, moreover, that he was to be confronted with a mystery of more than ordinary depth and obscurity, a case that would tax not only his rare detective genius, but also his skill, craft, and cunning in every department of his professional work.
“I think, Gleason, that you had better not mention my name while we are looking into this matter,” he remarked, as they were alighting from the taxicab.
“Very well,” Gleason readily assented. “But what do you expect to gain by suppressing it?”
“Just what is hard to say at this stage of the game,” Carter replied. “If all you have told me is true, however, and Madison is afflicted with a crook whose crafty work has completely baffled your entire police department, it may be of some advantage to me, at least, if he does not immediately learn that I have been employed to run him down. That would serve only to put him on his guard.”
“I see the point,” Gleason nodded. “I agree with you, too.”
“The fact has not been disclosed, I understand.”
“Only to a few members of the force, Carter; all of whom were ordered to say nothing about it. They may be trusted.”
“Very good! If there should be occasion to introduce me to others, then, present me as Mr. Blaisdell,” Carter directed. “That is the name under which I am registered at the Wilton House.”
“Blaisdell—I’ll bear it in mind.”
“Come on, then,” the detective added. “We are none too soon. A crowd is beginning to gather.”
Their remarks had been made while they were entering the building. A group of men had collected at the top of the stairs. They were restrained by a policeman who had been called in from the street, and a passageway was hurriedly made for Chief Gleason and his companion. That the latter was the famous New York detective, not even the policeman then suspected.
The scene in the second-floor corridor was about what Nick Carter anticipated. Half a score of men and women had come from the adjoining rooms and offices and were gazing with mingled awe and consternation at the lifeless man on the floor. He was lying where he had fallen. A physician had been hurriedly summoned and was bending over him, engaged in making a superficial examination.
Chief Gleason started slightly when he beheld the upturned face of the dead man.
“Good heavens!” he muttered. “It’s Gaston Todd.”
Carter heard his muttered exclamation. Restraining him, at the same time furtively watching the physician, he said quietly:
“One moment, chief. Who is Gaston Todd? What about him?”
“He was born and brought up here,” Gleason replied. “He had been in the stock brokerage business for ten years, cashier for Daly & Page. He was a club man and a figure in society.”
“Married?”
“No. He had a suite in the Wilton House. By Jove, it’s barely possible that—”
“What is barely possible?”
“That you are right.”
“Right in what respect? Tell me.”
Carter had noticed the chief’s hesitation, his dark frown as if he had started to say something that discretion quickly led him to withhold. He demurred only for a moment, however, then explained with a lowered voice:
“Right, perhaps in thinking there is knavery back of this. There had been a feeling of bitter rivalry between Todd and a young local lawyer, Frank Paulding, who is an exceedingly impetuous and hot-headed chap. They had an ugly altercation in the Country Club last night, I have heard, and it is said that they nearly came to blows. That may have ended it, of course, though this sudden death of Todd, following it so quickly—”
“Is somewhat significant,” Nick Carter put in quietly. “I agree with you. In what have the two men been rivals?”
“For the hand of Edna Thurlow, by far the most beautiful and accomplished girl in Madison. She inherited half a million when her father died. Her mother, Mrs. Mortimer Thurlow, is also very wealthy and fashionable. She’s the acknowledged leader of the local smart set. The two men may have met here this morning. Possibly the fight of last night was resumed, resulting in—”
“Let it go at that,” the detective interrupted. “The physician has ended his examination.”
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