Originally published: 1911
Genres: Mystery
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/193502792-the-babbington-case-or-nick-carter-s-strange-quest
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69263
Chapters: 39
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR
“A man and a woman together; then a man alone.”
Nick Carter thought this remark rather than uttered it in words, as he came to an abrupt pause in his walk and looked down upon the tracks in the snow.
There were no other tracks than those anywhere visible, save only his own, which he had made in his approach to the spot, and he was careful not to approach too near while he made the examination which only his curiosity suggested—for there could have been no other reason at the moment than curiosity to attract him.
But before him was a huge iron gate between two enormous posts; a gate which had the outward appearance of not having been opened in a long time, and, indeed, upon it now, as the detective looked at it, there was a formidable padlock, with its heavy chain, to hold the great barrier against all comers.
Nick Carter could see from where he stood that the lock was securely locked, that the chain had been drawn tightly around the spindles of the iron gate, and, therefore, that the man who had come out of the place alone, after having passed inside with the woman not very long before, had locked it.
There were the tracks he had made when he had turned about to fasten the gate when he came out alone, and there were his tracks when he walked away from the place.
But where was the woman? and why had she not come again with the man?
These were perfectly natural questions which the detective asked himself; natural, because he knew something about the grounds upon which those gates opened, and also something about the house within those grounds.
Still more, he knew something about the people to whom the magnificent residence and grounds belonged.
He remembered also that the light flurry of “sugar” snow which now covered the ground like a white sheet of tissue paper—and it was scarcely thicker than that—had fallen within the last hour.
So it followed that those tracks must have been made within that hour.
Within an hour a man and a woman had entered the grounds of Pleasantglades—for that is the name by which the magnificent estate was known, or, at least, it is one that we will use here to represent it—within an hour the two had entered together, and the man had come out alone, locking the gate after him, and, therefore, leaving her there.
And Nick Carter knew that the great house was unoccupied; that there was not even a caretaker there, so—
Why had two gone in and only one come out?
Curiosity gave place to interest; and as he studied the footprints with still more care, interest became absorption.
Both persons had been well shod. The woman daintily so, for, as the detective looked even more closely, he came almost to the opinion that she had been wearing slippers.
And the tracks of the man suggested dress shoes, even pumps, if one was to call upon one’s imagination just a trifle.
The hour, be it said, when the detective discovered the tracks in the snow, was between two and three o’clock in the morning, and a hundred feet away from the gate an arc light glowed brightly. Otherwise, the place would have been intensely dark, for, although that flurry of snow had lasted but a few minutes, it was still cloudy and threatening.
If Nick had approached the gate from the opposite direction, he might not have noticed the tracks at all; but, as it happened, he had approached toward the light, and had looked directly down upon them, plainly revealed.
The place was quite near to New York; near enough so that the detective had gone there in his car since dark that night.
The business that had taken him there had nothing to do with this thing that now interested him, and, if it seems strange to the reader that he should have been strolling along such a thoroughfare alone at that hour of the morning, we need only to say that that is quite another and different story.
What would be your impulse, reader, if you made just such a discovery as this one?
Would it not be to follow the footprints of the man without delay, to find out where he had gone, and with the probability of learning his identity? Probably. And yet Nick Carter knew at once how fruitless such a pursuit would be, since at the next corner toward the direction the man had taken, which was approximately three hundred feet distant, two trolley tracks passed, and it was upon a thoroughfare where there was considerable travel; the tracks left by this strange man, therefore, would be quickly lost at that point, even if he had not succeeded in stepping upon a trolley car, and being borne away in one direction or the other.
Nevertheless, after a moment of thought, Nick ran along the street to that corner, for it had occurred to him that possibly the two, the man and the woman, had come to that point in a motor car, and if that were so there would still be evidence of the fact that such a car had stopped there.
He found that much evidence, too, but no more.
There, beside the curb in this same street upon which the gate was located, were the plain tracks in the snow, showing where the car had pulled out after the man had returned to it, although there were no tracks to show its approach.
And this demonstrated the undoubted fact that the motor had arrived there just about at the beginning of the fall of snow.
Nick remembered that it had continued to snow not more than ten or fifteen minutes at the most, and so it was at once apparent to the detective that the car had arrived at the corner just before the snow began to fall; that the two had remained in the car for several moments thereafter, probably discussing the trip from the car to the house, and had finally left it while the snow was still falling rapidly.
Well, all that was not important save to demonstrate that one of the persons, probably the woman, had not left the car to go to the house willingly, but that persuasion of some sort had been resorted to.
If the car arrived at the corner before the snow began to fall—and Nick knew that it had done so—and if the snow had ceased to fall while they were midway of the distance of three hundred feet, it followed that they must have remained talking together in the car for at least eight minutes, and, at the most, thirteen minutes.
And yet there was no evidence anywhere to be seen that the woman had not accompanied the man willingly enough.
It was apparent that she had walked along by his side even without clinging to his arm, for the tracks were not close enough together to suggest that; there was no place where it appeared that she had made any effort to turn back; there was no suggestion anywhere, that the detective could see, save the one of the hesitation, while still in the car, that the woman had not gone willingly enough.
The car itself, upon leaving the corner, had been driven upon the trolley tracks where it had been turned southward toward the city.
It must not be supposed that the detective wasted any time in making these discoveries. A glance at the tracks in the snow as he ran to the corner, then at the tracks left by the car, was all that was needed to inform him of the points already made, and he turned and went toward the great gate again, thinking.
Plainly, as a humane man, if not as a detective, it was his duty to enter the grounds of Pleasantglades and to find out what had become of that woman who had entered there with a man, at or soon after two o’clock in the morning, and who had not come out again.
He decided, as he again approached the gate, to go inside.
To decide to go inside, and to get inside were quite two different things.
Nick decided that the top of the wall was quite fourteen feet above the pavement where he stood. He could see that it was guarded by that most effective of all means for such a guard—by broken glass set in cement.
The gate between the two high posts was a double one, which opened at the middle, and the tops of the highest spears were nearly as high as the posts themselves, while the shortest ones were only a trifle lower than the walls.
Plainly the only method of entering the grounds was by opening the gate, and that meant that he must either pick the lock or file through the chain that held the two gates together, for, although he had his nippers with him, they were by far too small and delicate to bite through a chain of that size.
And his picklock, which he was never without, had not been intended for locks of that sort, for he found when he examined it that it was of the most complicated pattern of padlock and that it had probably been made to order for the owners of the place.
Indeed, as he examined it more closely, he found it to be one of those rare locks which require the use of two, and sometimes three, keys, to open them.
His picklock was therefore out of business for once.
But he had his pocket case of delicate tools with him, and among those tools was a file which would eat through that chain, or any other one, in short order; and so, at last, he took it from the case and adjusted it.
It was the last extremity to which he resorted, for he disliked the idea of filing his way into the place, necessary as it seemed to be, that he should enter. He would greatly have preferred to scale the wall or to pick the lock if either had been possible.
He did not like the idea of leaving the place unguarded even temporarily, when he came out again, for, after all, there was no certainty that he would find anything wrong, and it was quite possible that there might be a plausible and logical reason and explanation for all the things he had discovered that had interested him so greatly.
But he had decided that he would go inside, and, therefore, he went inside with no more delay than was absolutely necessary.
That little file of his, no larger than the blade of a penknife, and not much longer, ate through the chain cleanly and rapidly, and, although we have taken so much time and space to describe his discovery of the tracks in the snow and to explain his reasonings upon that discovery, it is doubtful if more than fifteen minutes had actually elapsed after he first saw the footprints, until he opened one of the gates, passed through, and closed the gate after him.
Then, having rearranged the chain again with great care so that it would not be noticed that it had been tampered with, he turned to follow the tracks in the snow, that led toward the great mansion.
Komentáre