A Battle for Right; Or, A Clash of Wits

Title: A Battle for Right; Or, A Clash of Wits

Author: Nicholas Carter

Release date: June 19, 2020 [eBook #62428] Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62428

Credits: David Edwards, Nahum Maso i Carcases, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Transcriber’s Notes:

The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been corrected.

For convenience, a table of contents, which is not present in the original, has been included.

CONTENTS

[1]

NICK CARTER STORIES

New Magnet Library

PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS

Not a Dull Book in This List

Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from all sorts of trouble, and landed the criminal just where he should be—behind the bars.

The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories than any other single person.

Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth covers which sells at ten times the price.

If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.

[3]

A Battle for Right

OR,

A CLASH OF WITS

BY

NICHOLAS CARTER

Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures, which are published exclusively in the New Magnet Library, conceded to be among the best detective tales ever written.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION PUBLISHERS 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

[4]

Copyright, 1916 By STREET & SMITH

A Battle for Right

(Printed in the United States of America)

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

[5]

A BATTLE FOR RIGHT

CHAPTER I. AT A GAME OF POKER.

Five men were playing cards in a room in the Old Pike Inn.

It was a road house, on a well-traveled highway—a great favorite with automobiles—in one of the picturesque valleys that alternate with towering heights within easy motoring distance of New York City.

The Old Pike Inn had its spacious verandas, its big restaurant, its smaller dining rooms for private parties, and its great reception hall, with polished floor, in which dances, formal and informal, were in progress every evening during most of the year.

It was a place to which wealthy New Yorkers often brought their wives and daughters for luncheon or dinner, and its “tone” was regarded as above criticism. Everything suggested refinement, the lavish expenditure of money for the comfort and entertainment of guests, and an artistic atmosphere that was both subtle and unmistakable. Captain Brown, who managed the Old Pike Inn, knew his business.

Only a privileged number of his patrons were aware that they could play a quiet game of “draw” in secluded rooms, with the assurance that there could be no interference, and where their occupation would never be suspected by anybody not in the secret.

The five men playing were all young, and every one showed in the flushed countenance that something more than the excitement of the game had heated his blood and rendered his speech at times somewhat thick.

[6]

Other evidence along this line was the fact that a glass stood near each man, on a separate stand, while bottles of liquor on a table within arm’s length of the players were frequently brought into use by the two soft-footed waiters, who were the only persons in the room besides the gamblers.

There was very little talking. Men who play poker are not apt to say much. Their attention must be concentrated on the game, if they expect to hold their own.

An occasional remark on some general topic was uttered, but as a rule each player, holding his cards well concealed in the hollow of his hand, watched the play of the others, and sought, by strained vigilance, to get the better of the struggle. Silence is a good thing in a poker game.

Suddenly, just as one of the waiters leaned over to pour some liquor into one of the glasses, the person for whom it was intended jumped to his feet and sent the light stand to the floor with a crash—bottle, glass and all. At the same time he pointed an accusing finger at the man opposite him.

“Cheat!” he shouted.

At the ominous word, the other four men were also on their feet.

“What’s that, Howard?” demanded one of them.

“He heard what I said, Jack!” thundered the other. “Look at him! He knows he brought up an ace of clubs from under the table. I saw him do it. He was so clumsy that I actually was able to make out what the card was.”

“You’re a liar!” cried the man accused.

It was useless for the others to try to keep the two apart after that.

With a mighty sweep, he who had cried “Cheat!” pushed the rather heavy table, with its green baize top and its stacks of chips and scattered cards, to one side, and leaped upon the man he had denounced.

[7]

The two waiters were big fellows, notwithstanding their ability to move noiselessly about the room. They hurled themselves between the combatants.

Their interference was only just in time to prevent a straight left from landing on the chin of the player who had been charged with cheating, and at that, one of them got the fist himself in the back of his neck.

“Don’t, Mr. Milmarsh!” begged the other waiter, as he wound his arms around the waist of the infuriated owner of the fist. “Don’t make a noise! They’ll hear it downstairs. It’s a mistake! It must be!”

But Howard Milmarsh cared only for vengeance just then.

“Get away, will you?” was all he replied. “If you don’t, I’ll break your skull with a bottle. I’m going to make that scoundrel over there confess, and then I’ll thrash him till he won’t know that he ever had a face. It never will be the same face again,” he added grimly.

But the waiter hung on to the young fellow, while his comrade tried to push the other man back toward the door of an anteroom where hung the coats and hats of the players, and which was also fitted up as a lavatory.

“Come back here, you white-livered cur!” shouted Milmarsh. “You, I mean—Richard Jarvis! The fellow who calls himself a cousin of mine! Come back and let us look at what you have inside your cuff!”

The man he had called Richard Jarvis, who had been slinking behind the others, as if he had changed his mind about fighting, and desired only to get away, made a quick move toward the door leading to the other part of the house.

“Stop him!” shouted Milmarsh. “If once he gets out of that door he’ll destroy the evidence.”

“What do you mean by evidence?” asked Jack Denby. “Do you think Jarvis is hiding cards about him now?”

“I know he is,” was the hot reply.

[8]

“Bring him back, then!” cried Denby. “Let’s look!”

The two waiters and the three other players, including Jack Denby, surrounded Jarvis, keeping a wary eye on Howard Milmarsh, to see that he did not take the cowering wretch by the throat.

“His left cuff!” cried Milmarsh. “Look inside!”

“By Jove!” broke out Jack Denby.

He had thrust his fingers inside the stiff shirt cuff of the accused man and brought out three cards. They were the ace of hearts, the king of diamonds, and the king of clubs.

He threw them upon the table, faces upward, with a grunt of disgust.

“There you are, boys!” exclaimed Howard Milmarsh. “He brought out the other ace, as I told you—and I saw him do it. His idea was to ‘sweeten’ his hand, of course. He meant to do the same thing with these other cards you’ve just taken from him. He may have others about him—in his pockets, down the back of his neck, or anywhere. He seems to have the trick of hiding cards down fine.”

“I haven’t any other cards,” protested Richard Jarvis.

“You had those,” Jack Denby reminded him.

“I don’t know how they got caught in my cuff.”

A burst of laughter from Denby and the three other men rang through the room.

“You don’t know how they got ‘caught,’ eh?” sneered Denby. “Cards don’t often get ‘caught’ inside a man’s shirt cuff without some help. I guess you’d better give up all the money you have won to-night, and we’ll divide it among the rest of us. I don’t know which has lost the most, but it is quite sure that all you have is not your own—as an honest man. Eh, Milmarsh?”

“I don’t care what is done with the money he cheated us out of,” returned Howard Milmarsh coldly. “That is not of any importance to me.”

[9]

“It is to me,” declared Denby, laughing. “I was about broke. I should have had to drop out before the next hand.”

“All right, Jack! You can have my share, and welcome,” said Howard indifferently. “You have earned it by holding that rascal back when he was going to sneak away. What he has to answer to me for are two things.”

“That so? What are they?”

“In the first place, he is a cheat—a blackleg—and he insulted me by presuming to sit in a poker game with me.”

“Well, he insulted us all in that respect, old man,” observed Denby.

“In the next place, he applied a word to me that he must answer for, and which can be done only in one way,” continued Howard Milmarsh. “That way is to stand up and take his thrashing. Or, if he prefers, to take it lying down. It is immaterial to me.”

Milmarsh threw off his coat and continued to walk toward Jarvis, who was hiding behind the two big serving men.

“Come out of that, Jarvis! Stand aside there, you two!” commanded Milmarsh, addressing the waiters.

The men shrugged their shoulders. They were supposed to keep order if any persons unknown to the management of the Old Pike Inn happened to intrude. But these five young men were all members of wealthy and prominent families, and were not to be treated like mere brawlers, of no social standing.

Howard pushed past them, and they stepped out of his way. They did not care much for Richard Jarvis, anyhow.

When Jarvis saw that he could not avoid an encounter with his cousin, he tried to pull himself together, and made a show of putting up his hands.

Hardly had he done so, when Milmarsh sent a[10] crashing swing into his chest. The blow was intended for the chin, but Jarvis, by quick defense, diverted it, thus saving the vulnerable part of his person.

Jarvis knew something about boxing, and he retaliated to Milmarsh’s onslaught with a glancing blow on the forehead that made his cousin mad. The consequence was a feint to the chest, which Jarvis blocked, and then a tremendous jab at the chin that stretched the latter across the floor, senseless.

“By George, Milmarsh! He’s dead!” cried one of the other players, in startled tones, as he knelt by the side of the prostrate Jarvis. “You gave him a tap that settled him.”

The speaker was Budworth Clarke, a young doctor, who had lately taken his diploma and hung out his shingle, and he delivered himself with authority.

“It can’t be, Bud,” protested Milmarsh. “I only landed an ordinary knock-out.”

“You thought you did,” was the reply. “But he must have had a weak heart. Now, the thing for you to do is to get a lawyer, quick. We may show that it was an accident, but we can’t get over the fact that he has passed out.”

Howard Milmarsh did not wait for the end of this oration. He walked deliberately to the outer door of the room, unlocked it with the key that had never been removed from the keyhole, and went down the two flights of stairs which led to the great reception room.

The usual nightly “hop” was in progress. But Milmarsh was in evening dress, and, though a close observer might have noted his flushed face and guessed the cause to be drink, he was able to pass around the throng without particular regard from anybody.

“I’ll go right home,” he muttered. “It’s the only thing I can do. Then I will see.”

It was just as he reached the outer door—where[11] half a dozen automobiles were drawn up on the great asphalt space where visitors to the Old Pike Inn could park their machines when they did not care to have them run into the garage—that he exchanged a cheerful good evening with a handsome man, in evening clothes, whose keen eyes followed him as he passed out.

“Young Milmarsh!” observed this gentleman to himself. “He’s been drinking again! Great pity! A fine young fellow! And owner of more property than any one in this part of the country. That is, he will own it when his father dies. Well, I suppose he feels that he must have his fling. But I’m sorry.”

The maker of these observations was a person known the world over as a great detective. His name was Nick Carter.

He watched Howard Milmarsh go to a handsome car, in which the chauffeur was sitting half asleep, and get in. The young man himself took the wheel. Then, after one quick glance in the detective’s direction, he drove hurriedly away up the winding road that led to the great Milmarsh mansion on the hill.

CHAPTER II. REMORSE.

The great steel-manufacturing firm of Howard Milmarsh & Son, with its immense plant in western Pennsylvania and its palatial offices in New York, was not any better known in business circles than was the palatial home of the head of the house among the Westchester hills.

It had been the custom of Howard Milmarsh, the elder, to entertain lavishly for years, his brilliant wife being an acknowledged leader of society. Then, one night, she took cold in her limousine, riding from a[12] ball in New York to their home, dressed only in the light ball gown, with a flimsy lace scarf over her bare shoulders.

It is unnecessary to go into the details of her illness. Pneumonia is a swift disease. In ten days she was dead, and a pall settled over the spacious and luxurious mansion.

There was a large funeral, of course. That was the last large gathering of the friends and acquaintances of the Milmarshes the house saw. Her husband became a broken man, physically and mentally. He had an efficient and honest manager at the head of his vast business interests, so that there was no lack of money. But he seemed to lose all care for the world after his wife passed away.

Howard Milmarsh, the younger—the personage who struck down his cheating cousin, Richard Jarvis, in the poker game at the Old Pike Inn—lived alone with his father, and was the only comfort the elder man had.

But young Howard was full of life and youth, and it was natural for him to desire entertainment away from the great, gloomy house.

Thus it was that he often spent days and nights in the gay districts of New York City, and often drank rather more than was good for him. He was not a drunkard. In fact, most persons would have said that he did not drink at all, measuring him by other young men of his social position and wealth. Nevertheless, he did give way occasionally—as he had done on this night in the Inn—and there was always danger that he might plunge deeper into dissipation if he were left to himself.

“But never again!” he muttered, as he drove the high-powered car up the winding hill, while the chauffeur nodded beside him. “I’ve played my last card and I’ve taken my last drink. I wish I’d made that resolution before I went into that cardroom to-night.”

[13]

“Beg pardon, sir!” interrupted the chauffeur drowsily. “Did you tell me to take the wheel?”

“I didn’t speak.”

“Oh, didn’t you, sir? I beg your pardon.”

“But we are nearly up to the house. You can take hold now.”

They changed places. Then, when the machine was again making its way up the road, Howard Milmarsh—who had been trying to collect his thoughts in the cool night air, and who had so far succeeded that he had managed to throw off the effects of the liquor he had consumed—directed the chauffeur to keep the car in front of the entrance, under the porte-cochère, while he went inside.

“I am going out again,” he added briefly, as the car drew up at the doorway.

Howard hastened, first of all, to his own room, where he found his valet, busy brushing some clothes.

“Fill two traveling bags with clothes and things for a week, Simpkins,” he ordered briefly. “But first help me into a business suit, with a soft hat. Give me my automatic revolver, and that heavy hickory stick I use for walking in the country.”

“Very good, sir,” replied the imperturbable Simpkins.

In five minutes Howard Milmarsh had changed his clothes, with the help of the valet, and, telling the latter to place the bags in the car at the door, the young man went to his father’s private room adjoining his bedroom, and knocked at the door.

“Why, Howard, what’s the matter?” demanded the millionaire, as his son entered hastily, before his father could tell him to come in. “You look excited. Haven’t been drinking, have you?”

“Not much. I’ve killed Richard Jarvis.”

The young man said this coolly, but it was the coolness of desperation. His wild eyes and haggard[14] cheeks told their own story. No further confirmation of his startling confession was necessary.

Howard Milmarsh, the elder, was a slender man, with a pale face and hollow cheeks. He arose from the cushioned chair with difficulty, and, as he moved toward his son, he swayed, as if he had not complete command of his limbs.

“How was it?” he gasped at last.

“He cheated at cards.”

“Ah! That has been charged against him before.”

“And we fought.”

“Yes?”

“I struck him a blow harder than I had intended. It killed him. He had a weak heart, Budworth Clarke said. But—father, he called me a liar.”

“I see. And you struck him.”

“Yes. He had been caught with aces up his sleeve, inside his shirt cuff. That was the beginning of the trouble. Then, when he was accused of what there was actual proof of, he applied the word to me that I could not take. I killed him!”

“Killed him!” echoed the older man vacantly, as he sank back into his chair.

“So, now, father, I am going away. I cannot stay here and face a trial for murder.”

“You would be acquitted,” his father put in quickly. “The provocation was one you could not pass over. Then, again, his death was an accident. If his heart was weak——”

“I know, father. We can make all the excuses we please, and, perhaps, they might convince a jury. But the disgrace on our name would remain, and I should still feel that I had become a murderer—even though I did not mean it. So, good-bye, father! Good-bye! I will let you hear from me when I can. I do not know where I am going, and, if I did, I would not tell you, so that you would not have to say what was not true when you said to people that you did not know.”

[15]

The manufacturer went to a safe that stood at one side of his room and took out a package of bank notes. He handed them to his son.

“There are ten thousand dollars, Howard. When you need more, let me know. And now, good-bye, my son. I may never see you again. I am not well. But come back soon, if you can. You will know what the result of the inquiry into the death of Dick Jarvis is if you watch the papers.”

“I may be where I cannot easily get New York papers, father. I intend to go as far away from what we call civilization as I can. I don’t know where. But it doesn’t matter. There is one thing I want to say in your presence, father, before I go away—one vow I mean to make.”

“Yes?”

“I will not raise my hand in anger against anybody again. I don’t care what the provocation, I will not fight.”

“I don’t see how you can make such a resolution as that, my son. Sometimes an occasion will arise when you cannot avoid fighting.”