A Sharper’s Downfall

OR, INTO THE NET 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 {4} 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

(Printed in the United States of America) All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. {5}

CHAPTER I. A SUCCESSFUL BURGLARY.

In Thirty-fifth Street, east of Fifth Avenue, there is a house conspicuous among its neighbors in that it differs in construction by being of the variety known as the English basement style.

Entrance to the house is secured through a door reached by one or two steps from the pavement. The dining-room of the house is nearly on a level with the street, while the parlors are on the second floor, reached from the lower hall by a flight of stairs.

The front parlor is enlarged and the front of the house ornamented by a bay window extending some three feet beyond the line of the house.

It was not so long ago that, at an early hour in the morning, a man carefully and cautiously lifted a sash in this bay window, and, thrusting out his head, sounded a low whistle as a signal.

Had any one been present on the opposite side of the street, or looking from the windows of the houses opposite, they might have seen another man cautiously come from a corner of the little courtyard in front, and, after a careful look up and down the street, return the signal in the same cautious manner.

Thereupon a bundle was let down from the bay win{6}dow, which was quickly detached, the rope drawn back and another bundle lowered, which, as the other had been, was detached and the rope drawn up again, and this time to lower what appeared to be a heavy box.

Immediately after, something was thrown from the window which in shape looked like an old-fashioned portmanteau, but was smaller.

Then a man rapidly let himself down from the window until he was within four feet of the ground, when he drew a knife, cutting the rope above him.

This gave him a drop of at least four feet, but it left only a short end of the rope dangling from the bay window at a height not likely to attract the attention of a passer-by, the evident object of cutting the rope.

In the meantime, the man below had shouldered the heavy box and rapidly run down to the east, to the corner below, where he had been met by a man who had come from a carriage standing around the corner.

This one took the box from him, and the man rapidly returned to pick up one of the bundles concealed behind the fence and the article that had been thrown from the window.

As rapidly he ran down the street as before, the while the other man, who had come from the parlor floor by the rope, stationed himself across the street and anxiously looked up and down as if standing ready to make a signal.

As the man with the bundles disappeared around the corner, with no interference, the other dashed across the street, and, seizing the last bundle left, hurriedly ran to the east.

He had hardly shouldered this bundle and set out on his run when a man came into view at the corner on the west, quickly catching sight of the fellow running to the east.

He came from the west on a run, and, arriving opposite{7} the house where these strange things had occurred, stopped a brief instant to look. He noted the open window and the dangling rope.

Without hesitation he hastily ran down the street to the east, but reached the corner too late for any purpose except to see a carriage some distance off, going at full speed.

This man was Nick Carter, the famous detective.

Nick immediately realized the folly of attempting to follow the carriage, which had so great a lead, though he was satisfied that there had been a robbery of the house and that the carriage contained the booty as well as the thieves.

He contented himself with sounding an alarm, in the hope that the attention of the policemen on the beats along which the carriage traveled might be directed toward it and their suspicion excited.

But, so far as he was able to judge, the only result of his alarm was to call to him a policeman from another direction than that in which the carriage went.

“What is it, Mr. Carter?” asked the officer, coming up on a run, and recognizing the famous detective.

“Robbery, I fancy,” replied Nick; “and that carriage contains the thieves and what they’ve stolen.”

“We’d have to be race horses,” said the officer, looking after the carriage now disappearing in the distance, “to overcome that lead.”

“No; it is useless to attempt to follow it,” replied Nick.

“Where was the job done?” asked the officer.

“Up there in Thirty-fifth Street,” replied Nick. “Is that your beat?”

“Yes, and I was over it half an hour ago.”

“They waited for that,” replied Nick. “Come with me and let us look at the house.”

They went back to the house, where Nick pointed out{8} the open bay window and the short end of the rope dangling therefrom.

The officer went inside the little yard and found the rope that had been cut off lying on the ground.

He picked it up, and, looking at the end, said:

“This rope has been cut with a sharp knife.”

Nick joined him, and, looking at the end, agreed with the officer, while both wondered why it had been cut.

“Do you know who lives here?” asked Nick.

“Yes; the man’s name is Jacob Herron.”

“What is he?”

“A Wall Street man.”

“A broker or banker?”

“I don’t know what he is. A sort of speculator, I guess. Anyhow, he’s a pretty big man.”

“Well,” said Nick, “we ought to arouse the family and make an investigation.”

The two went to the front door, where the officer rang the bell several times without securing a response.

Then he beat on the door with his night stick, sounding an alarm on the stoop as well.

This finally aroused some one in the upper story, who raised a window to ask what all the row was about.

“Come down and let us in,” replied the officer. “You have been robbed.”

“Who are you?” asked the voice above.

“A police officer, and Mr. Carter, the detective,” was the officer’s reply.

The head was quickly withdrawn from the window, and, after the two on the stoop had waited what seemed to them a long time, a light flashed up in the hall and the door was immediately opened.

The two stepped in to see a young man of possibly twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age standing there{9} with neither coat nor vest and his bare feet thrust into slippers.

“You say the house has been robbed?” asked the young man. “I see no indications of it.”

“They are not likely to be found in the halls,” said Nick. “But I should judge they are to be found in the parlor above.”

The young man without a word led the way up the stairs to a furnished hallroom, into which the stairs opened. Here he lit one of the lights of the chandelier, and Nick saw in a glance that the parlor in the front communicated with this furnished hall, occupying the whole width of the house.

They entered the parlor to discover little that was noteworthy. The window was open in the bay, and they could see in the parlor, what was not observable from the street, that a side window of the bay had been raised sufficiently to permit a rope to pass under the sash, and that the rope had been made fast around the division between the windows.

There had been little, if any, disturbance of the furniture. On a sofa in the corner lay a silver mug.

Nick pointed to the mug, without making comment upon it, however.

“What room is that at the rear of the house?” he asked.

“I suppose it might be called the library,” replied the young man, “since all the books that are in the house are there. It is the largest room in the house, and is occupied by the family in the evenings when the folks are at home.”

“Then the family is not at home?” asked Nick.

“No, Mr. Herron has gone to Chicago, and took his wife and daughter with him as a sort of a pleasure trip for them.”

“Who are you?{10}”

“I am George Temple, a nephew of Mr. Herron.”

“Are you a member of this family?”

“In a way,” replied the young man Temple. “I am very intimate here, but I am here now only because the family are away. Uncle Jacob asked me to sleep here and guard their house in his absence.”

“Well,” replied Nick, “it doesn’t seem as if you guarded it much.”

“No,” laughed the young man, “I never heard anything until I heard the sound of the officer’s club on the door.”

“Take us into that rear room.”

Temple led the way across the hall to this room, which occupied the whole width of the house, lighting a jet of the chandelier.

If there had been no indications of a robbery elsewhere, there were plenty to be seen in this room.

Two handsome desks had been forcibly opened and rifled, the contents being scattered on the floor; that is to say, such as had not been carried away.

The drawers of the bookcases had been pulled out, their contents hastily pulled over, much having been thrown on the floor.

In a hasty glance about the room it did appear as if every object in it had passed under the hands of the thieves.

There was not a picture hanging straight on the walls, and there were many in the room.

“Mr. Temple,” asked Nick, “did your uncle keep anything of special value in this room?”

“What do you mean by special value?” asked Mr. Temple.

“Something which your uncle especially valued, was very careful of and generally kept hidden.{11}”

“I know of nothing of the kind,” replied Temple. “Why do you ask that particular question?”

Nick pointed to the pictures, saying:

“It would look as if the thieves, in hunting for some special things which they did not find, had hunted behind every picture in the room. The inference is that they knew that some object of value, which they were anxious to obtain, was concealed somewhere within this room.”

The young man, Temple, looked curiously at the detective, as if the remark of Nick indicated a shrewdness not known to him, but he made no reply.

“Do you miss anything from this room?” asked Nick.

The young man closely examined the room, and, completing his investigation, came back to Nick to say:

“I miss two rather valuable bits of bronze that my uncle picked up abroad. However, it may be that before leaving on this journey these bronzes and other valuable things were picked up and locked away. You see, I only stay at the house occasionally, and though I am here nearly daily, I am yet not as familiar with it as if I was living here all the time.”

“What room were you occupying when we aroused you?”

“The front room on the fourth story.”

“Were there any servants in the house?”

“No; you see I only sleep here, and Uncle Jacob gave his servants a sort of vacation until his return.”

“The rooms on the floor above, who are they occupied by?” asked Nick.

“The front room by Uncle Jacob and his wife; the rear room by his daughter; and the room between as a nursery.”

“Take us to those rooms.”

The three mounted to the third floor, and on enter{12}ing the front room the first thing that attracted Nick’s attention was a little house safe in the corner.

The door stood wide open and the safe itself was empty.

Nick examined the lock and saw that it was of the combination order.

Apparently the safe had been opened by one familiar with the combination.

“What was kept in this safe?” asked Nick.

“I don’t know; I never knew the safe was here. I have not been in this room in a long time.”

It was clear that every drawer and receptacle in the room had been rifled in great haste, articles having been thrown upon the floor in the most reckless manner.

Investigation showed that the daughter’s room in the rear had been treated in the same manner.

The little party now went down to the first floor, and, entering the dining-room, saw that it had been literally stripped of its plate.

“Was it valuable?” said Nick.

“On my word,” replied Temple, “I couldn’t tell you whether it was genuine silver or merely plated ware. My impression is that there was a great deal of silver here.”

“When will Mr. Herron be back?” asked Nick.

“He’s expected back to-morrow.”

Nick turned away after saying to the policeman that he had no further business there, and that the officer should make his report to the station house as quickly as he could.

He then left the house.{13}

CHAPTER II. ANOTHER PHASE.

The next morning Nick Carter had hardly concluded his breakfast when a card was brought to him by the servant.

He smiled as he read it, and, tossing it to his wife across the table, said:

“I expected that call, but hardly so early.”

He went into the parlor, where a middle-aged man rose to greet him.

“Mr. Carter, I presume,” said the visitor.

Nick bowed and requested his visitor to be seated, seating himself in such a position that the light fell on the face of his caller.

“My card has given you my name,” said the gentleman.

“Yes, Mr. Herron,” replied Nick; “I visited your house last night, or, rather, early this morning, but you were not at home.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Herron, “and under circumstances that are not at all to my liking. I arrived home early this morning, and, on learning that my house had been robbed in my absence and that you had been promptly on hand to investigate, I have lost no time in coming to you, for I understand, from something you said to the officer, that you had no intention of following up the case.”

“That is so,” replied Nick; “unless I am especially retained in the case, it is without my province.”

“I am here to retain you, if you will take my retainer.”

“I should like to hear more about the case before I{14} either accept or decline,” said Nick. “If it is an ordinary case of robbery, the police will deal with it.”

“First,” said Mr. Herron, “I would like to ask you what impression was received by you on your investigation last night. Evidently you think it is more than an ordinary robbery.”

“That was my impression last night,” replied Nick. “It seemed to me as if the men who robbed that house were searching for some one particular thing.”

“You are entirely correct,” replied Mr. Herron. “So well satisfied am I of that, that I believe that such things as were taken from the house, other than that particular thing, were so taken for the purpose of leading to the belief that it was a common burglary.”

“I should hardly go so far as that, Mr. Herron,” said Nick. “There were too many evidences of the work of skillful and professional burglars to justify that belief. But give me the facts.”

“Silver plate and jewelry were taken from the house to the value of probably $8,000. The jewelry was taken from a small safe standing in my wife’s bedroom.”

“Was that safe locked when you left town?”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Herron, “and the curious thing is that, before leaving town, I changed the combination without informing my wife of the change—a habit of mine always on leaving town.”

“Did you tell no one of that change?” asked Nick.

“I told no one, but, making a memorandum of it, placed it in my pocketbook.”

“And yet the safe was opened?” asked Nick.

“Yes, and without force.”

“I observed that your plate was kept in a dining-room safe?”

“Yes; and that has, also, a combination lock. That,{15} however, was not changed, and was in the possession of the butler, who is an old and trusted servant.”

Mr. Herron paused a moment, and then went on:

“Of course, no one likes to lose a value of $8,000, but I would have been quite willing to have sustained that loss if that which I believe was the sole purpose of the burglary had been left me. It was for that that the desks and drawers were ransacked. That cost me, in actual outlay, $25,000, and, in the loss of its possession, deprives me of what I feel that I am justified in calling a large fortune.”

“What was that?” inquired Nick.

“The story is a long one to tell in all its details. But I will give it to you as briefly as I can.

“Some five or six years ago an acquaintance of mine, whom I knew to be a worthy man—an electrician of the name of Pemberton, who was a great experimenter—came to me with the statement that he was satisfied that he had discovered the practical principles of storing electricity and of operating a motor with a minimum of leakage, by an invention of his own.

“He had not the money to continue the experiments necessary to bring it to perfection.

“Becoming convinced of the value of the idea, I loaned him the money he required, with the understanding that, if it was successfully accomplished, upon the investment of a sufficient amount of purchase money, I should become interested and have a part ownership in the complete invention.

“From time to time I was forced to advance more money. But finally the experiments ended in complete success. Drawings were made, with a view to obtaining the patent rights, and even the papers which were to make me a half owner in the invention were drawn.

“About the time that everything was in readiness, the{16} model even being completed, the electrician was taken suddenly ill and as suddenly died. The drawings and models were all in the possession of his widow. As soon as I could, properly, I made known to the widow what rights I had in the invention. While neither denying nor admitting my rights, she consulted a lawyer who had done business for her husband, who advised her not to admit my rights, but to see if she could not dispose of the invention in a more profitable way.

“However, by showing her that I had already advanced to her late husband some fifteen thousand dollars and the papers of co-ownership, which were drawn, but not signed, whereby I was to pay the expenses of obtaining the patents, and subsequently to invest fifty thousand dollars in the manufacture of the machine, I persuaded her to admit that I had actual rights.

“To bind and confirm her in this position I paid her ten thousand dollars, and thus got possession of the drawings and models.

“But she had already consulted some promoters, and the very day that she concluded this arrangement with me and delivered the models and drawings, on receiving my ten-thousand-dollar check, an offer, on its face more advantageous to her, was made.

“An effort was made by her and her friends to get out of the bargain entered into with me and a suit to recover the models from me was begun.

“At this time a new difficulty arose, and that was the doubt and difficulty as to the procedure in obtaining the patents. There had been, upon the part of my deceased friend, no assignment to me, and who was to act in obtaining those patents was a question.

“I was advised by my lawyer that the executors of the estate were the ones to move in it and that executor was{17} the widow, who was in an antagonistic position to me, and refused to take the necessary steps.

“But the secrets of that invention—all the drawings, models, statements, papers relating to it—were in my possession.

“I carefully guarded these, going to the lengths of having a case built which should accommodate and keep safe all of them, under lock and key.

“And then I sat down to await developments.

“Various efforts have been made by the widow, through her lawyer, and by a number of promoters who, at least, know the value of the invention, to obtain possession of these things, but I have defeated every effort until now.

“That case, containing the drawings, models and all the papers relating to it, was stolen from my house last night.”

“And you desire to retain me to recover that case?” asked Nick.

“That is my purpose and the reason of my call.”

The great detective arose from his seat and began pacing the apartment, as was his custom when deeply thinking.