CHAPTER I. THE WOMAN WHO FAINTED.

Nick Carter caught sight of the couple only by chance. His touring car, in which he was seated with his chauffeur and Patsy Garvan, his junior assistant, was speeding through one of the winding driveways in Central Park, New York, and heading for Fifty-ninth Street.

“Hold on! Slow down, Danny!” he cried to his chauffeur. “That woman has fainted, or is in a fit.”

The woman was lying on the greensward near a diverging driveway, and some fifty yards from where Danny Maloney, startled by the detective’s sudden sharp commands, brought the touring car to a quick stop.

A girl in a white apron and a starched linen cap was bending over the woman and gazing around affrightedly, uncertain what to do. Seeing the car stop and the detectives alighting, she suppressed a scream for help and awaited their approach.

“She is down and out, chief, for fair,” said Patsy, while they ran toward the couple.

“Fainted, most likely,” said Nick tersely. “If more serious, we’ll rush her to the nearest physician, or call an ambulance.”

“By Jove, she’s getting up!” cried Patsy. “It’s not so bad, chief, after all. She’s not completely in the soup.”

They were rapidly approaching the couple while speaking.

The nurse, or governess, for such the young woman appeared to be, had arisen and was assisting the other to her feet.

She was a well-dressed woman of thirty-five, with an abundance of wavy auburn hair and rather thin features, fairly prepossessing, but then quite pale. She was wiping a white froth from her lips, and appeared [Pg 3]weak and confused.

“What’s the trouble?” Nick asked, addressing the nurse. “When was she taken ill? Do you know her?”

He now suspected that the woman might be subject to fits, and that she would recover without medical aid.

“No, sir, I don’t know her,” replied the girl. “I was tending the children just around the curve, sir, when a boy ran up and told me that a woman had fainted. He pointed this way, and I hurried to help her, and that’s all I can tell you.”

“I shall be all right in a few moments,” said the woman, evidently striving to pull herself together. “Don’t be alarmed, nor do anything more. I shall come out of it.”

“Are you subject to such attacks?” Nick inquired, turning to her, while Patsy also drew nearer.

“Yes, sir, at times. It’s epilepsy, sir, but this was only a slight attack. I must have come out of it very quickly.”

“Do you want a physician?”

“No, sir. I shall be able to go home presently.”

“Where do you live?”

“In Eighty-first Street.”

“What name? I ask only lest you have a second attack.”

“Miss Margaret Hanson, sir. But I shall not have another attack at present. I never have two in quick succession. I now am able to go, sir, thanking you for your kindness.”

“I will take you home in my automobile, Miss Hanson, if you wish me to do so,” said Nick kindly.

“Oh, no, sir, thank you,” she quickly objected, gradually drawing away. “These attacks are not as serious as they appear. It will do me good to walk home, sir, thanking you again.”

She bowed and moved away with the last, evidently quite herself again, and Nick turned to Patsy and started to return to his touring car, in which Danny was waiting.

The girl in an apron and starched cap was just departing around a curve in the driveway some thirty yards[Pg 4] distant, her trim figure partly hidden by some intervening shrubbery.

“Come on,” said Nick. “It was nothing serious, after all.”

He recalled the last with rather grim sentiments a few minutes later.

“An ordinary fit, chief, wasn’t it?” questioned Patsy.

“Yes, but only a mild one, as she said. I knew what the trouble was, all right, when I saw her wiping froth from her lips.”

“What a beastly affliction!”

“Beastly hardly expresses it,” said Nick. “Any disorder that knocks one out without warning is a deucedly bad affliction. If she had—— Hello! What now?”

A cry of alarm came from the direction in which the nurse had disappeared. Looking back, for Nick and Patsy had nearly reached the waiting touring car, they now beheld the girl running wildly hither and thither, excitedly wringing her hands, and evidently in a frantic search for some one.

Beyond the fringe of shrubbery flanking the curve of the driveway stood a baby carriage containing a child about two years old, then crying piteously.

“By Jove, there’s more trouble,” said Patsy. “What’s the matter with her? She spoke of tending the children. I can see only one. She must have lost track of the other.”

“It has strayed away, probably, or——”

Nick broke off abruptly, wheeling sharply around to gaze in the direction Miss Margaret Hanson had taken.

She had disappeared. Neither in the driveway, the adjoining grounds, nor in any part of the near avenue, was there any sign of her.

Nick Carter’s strong, clean-cut face underwent a decided change. He turned to Patsy, saying hurriedly:

“By Jove! This may be a put-up job. Get a move on, Patsy. Hunt up that woman who fainted. Find her, if possible, and keep your eye on her.”

“You think——”

“A child in charge of that nurse may have been stolen. The woman’s fit may have been only a trick to lure the nurse away while——”

“Holy smoke!” Patsy interrupted. “I’ve got you.”

He darted away at top speed with the last in search of Margaret Hanson.

Nick already had turned, and was hurrying toward the distracted nurse, who still was seeking here and there like one bereft of her senses. Tears were streaming down her cheeks when the detective approached her and grasped her arm, saying firmly yet kindly:

“Come, come, my girl; calm yourself. What’s the trouble?”

“It’s Amy, sir,” moaned the girl. “I can’t find her.”

“You left her here?”

“Yes, sir, when I went to aid that woman. I told her to stay right here and tend the baby. Oh, I must find a policeman, and——”

“Stop a moment,” said Nick, detaining her. “I can do more than a policeman. I am a detective. Compose yourself, now, and tell me just what occurred. I will help you find the child. How old is she?”

Glancing sharply around, Nick had seen plainly that the child would be easily discovered unless she had strayed to a considerable distance, which was quite improbable in the short time the nurse had been absent. The circumstances,[Pg 5] moreover, already led him to suspect something far more serious.

Somewhat encouraged by his assurances, the nurse governed her agitation and hastened to reply.

“Amy is six years old, sir.”

“How long had you been with the woman when I joined you?”

“Not more than a couple of minutes.”

“What is your name?”

“Lucy Sloan. I am employed by Mr. John Madden, sir, who lives in the big marble house on the other side of the avenue. I have been there five years, sir, ever since Amy was a baby. Oh, what shall I do to find her? The master’s heart will break unless I can find her.”

The girl pointed to a palatial marble residence on the opposite side of Fifth Avenue, that of a millionaire banker and broker, whose operations in the stock market a dozen years before had given him not only vast wealth, but also a national reputation. He then had subsided, however, and during more recent years he had devoted only part of his time to business, though he still retained his interests in the firm of which he long had been the senior member, that of Madden, Mellen & Mack.

Though not acquainted with the other members of the firm, Nick long had been a personal friend of John Madden, having served him in several important financial cases. This fact, together with certain circumstances in the family history of the man, the nature of which will presently appear, not only caused Nick to regard the disappearance of the child more seriously, but also to take up the affair with increasing zest.

Turning to Lucy Sloan, who was a pretty girl in the twenties, and whose face was a voucher for her honesty, Nick said more earnestly:

“I am well acquainted with Mr. Madden. In fact, Lucy, I am the first person on whom he would call for aid in case his little girl is really lost. Tell me, now, just what occurred here that sent you to assist the woman who fainted.”

Lucy Sloan, however, could add but little to what she already had stated. She had been walking in the park about ten minutes before, the immediate locality then being otherwise deserted, when a boy about ten years old came running toward her, crying that a woman had fainted, at the same time pointing around the curve in the direction from which he had approached. It then was about four o’clock on a charming May afternoon.

Without waiting to question the boy, Lucy hurriedly directed him to watch the two children, and she then ran to the woman’s assistance, with whom Nick had observed her two or three minutes later. Returning while the detective was talking with the woman, Lucy found only the child crying in the carriage, and at once began a vain and frantic search for the missing girl. The boy also had disappeared, and all had transpired within a period of five or six minutes.

In the meantime, too, Margaret Hanson had vanished. For Patsy Garvan returned just as the nurse ended her hurried statements, and his face alone told the story.

“Couldn’t find her, eh?” Nick tersely questioned.

“Not hide nor hair of her, chief,” said Patsy; “nor any one who had seen a woman of her description. She must have made a bee line for the avenue, and taken a conveyance of some kind.”

Nick glanced around again and sized up the possibilities[Pg 6] of the immediate locality. Twenty yards away was a divergent driveway running north, in which, as well as the one near by, the tracks left by the tires of automobiles could be distinctly seen. None of these denoted that a car had recently passed that way, however, nor had Nick seen any during the episodes described.

“Are you in the habit of coming here with the children in the afternoon?” he asked a bit abruptly, again addressing the nurse.

“Yes, sir, every pleasant day.”

“At about this time?”

“Yes, sir; from three until five.”

“Did you see any one looking at you, or acting suspiciously, before the lad came and spoke to you?”

“I did not, sir. There was no one near here except people passing at times.”

“Would you know the boy if you were to see him again?”

“Indeed, sir, I would,” Lucy declared emphatically. “He is about ten years old, with red hair and freckled face. I’d know him among a million.”

“Was he well dressed?”

“Not very, sir.”

“Did he appear like a street gamin, or somewhat refined?”

“More like a boy of the street, sir, and he spoke like one.”

“How so?”

“He said he’d mind the kid, sir, and he called the woman a skirt,” explained Lucy. “I knew what he meant, sir, but only rough boys talk like that.”

“True,” Nick nodded. “At what time does Mr. Madden usually come home?”

“About five o’clock, sir, and he always wants the children there when he comes in. They are his only comfort, sir, since the mistress died. It would break his heart to lose Amy. Oh, what shall I do? I’ll go crazy, sir, unless we can find her.”

“That certainly would do no good, my girl, though I appreciate your feelings,” Nick replied.

Then, turning to Patsy, he added quickly:

“You rejoin Danny, and take a turn around here with the car. See what you can learn, and also keep an eye open for the lad this girl has described. Report to me at Mr. Madden’s residence. I’m going over there with the nurse and will wait until he comes. I can explain this case to him much better than she. You understand.”

“Sure thing, chief,” said Patsy, with unusual gravity. “I’m on, all right.”

CHAPTER II. A VOICE BY WIRE.

Five o’clock that afternoon found Nick Carter and Patsy seated in Mr. John Madden’s handsomely furnished library in the Fifth Avenue residence mentioned, in front of which the detective’s touring car then was standing.

Their only companion was Mr. Madden himself, who arrived soon after Nick was admitted by the butler, and the detective already had stated the distressing circumstances.

Arriving in the meantime, Patsy could make only a negative report. Despite his energetic efforts for upward of half an hour, he could find no trace of the un[Pg 7]known lad, or the missing girl, nor any person who could add to the information already obtained.

Mr. Madden, though a man of nearly seventy, had received the terrible news with characteristic fortitude and habitual dignity and composure. He had figured in too many serious situations, and suffered too many domestic afflictions, for his self-possession to be easily overcome.

He was not less deeply affected, nevertheless, for, as the nurse had said, his two children were his only joy and comfort. He had no others. He had lost his first wife thirty years before. His second, a beautiful girl much younger than himself, had died shortly after the birth of her second child.

Since then, though he had retained his magnificent residence and several of his faithful and devoted servants, Mr. John Madden had found but little enjoyment in life beyond that derived from the two pretty children a loving wife had left him.

He sat gazing at Nick Carter at five o’clock that afternoon, with tears in his eyes and his hands gripping his knees—a portly, smoothly shaved man with gray hair and a remarkably attractive countenance, despite the shadow of sorrow that never left him. He was saying deliberately, with a voice rendered steady only by the strength of a superior will:

“I agree with you, Nick, in that Lucy is not at fault. That would be very unlike her. She has been faithful, always cautious and careful, during the five years she has been in my service. No, I will not censure her.”

“It really would be very unjust,” Nick said earnestly. “She did perfectly right in acting upon her impulse to aid a woman said to be in distress, and she cannot reasonably be blamed for not suspecting that she was the victim of a put-up job. Even with all of my experience, Mr. Madden, I did not at first suspect it.”

“Do you now feel sure of it?” Mr. Madden gravely questioned.

“Yes, absolutely,” said the detective. “The circumstances admit of no other interpretation. This whole business was cut and dried, carefully planned, and cleverly executed.”

“You reason that——”

“It may be told in a nutshell,” Nick interposed. “No such lad as Lucy Sloan described would have remained to watch the two children while she ran to aid a fainting woman. A well-bred boy, accustomed to obey his elders, might have done so, but not a lad of the streets. He, boylike, would have returned to learn how the woman fared and to see all that occurred.”

“Sure!” put in Patsy expressively. “I know. I’ve been there.”

“In view of what occurred, moreover, the almost immediate recovery of the woman shows that she was only feigning. That is confirmed, too, by her speedy disappearance. She had to make a quick get-away before the absence of Amy was discovered. She got a move on, I remember, the moment the nurse started to return to the children.”

“You do not believe, then, that her name is Margaret Hanson?”

“Not for a moment,” said Nick. “That was only a blind. She is a very cool and clever woman, Mr. Madden, and one of an equally clever gang by whom your daughter has been abducted. The circumstances admit of no other conclusion.[Pg 8]”

“My Lord, this is terrible!” Mr. Madden said, with a groan.

“I do not think, however, that the child is in any immediate personal peril,” Nick quickly added. “She probably has been abducted with a view to bleeding you out of a large sum of money.”

“I will pay any sum, Nick, to have her safely restored to me.”

“No, no, don’t do that,” Nick protested. “Surely not at present. It may become necessary, of course, after we have exhausted all other resources, but not until then. You owe it to the community, as well as to yourself, to defer yielding to such knavery as long as you can consistently do so. In the meantime I will devote all of my energies to running down the crooks and finding the child.”

“But they may kill her, or——”

“Not at present,” Nick insisted. “Not as long as they see a ghost of a chance of forcing you to comply with their demands. That would be the worst step they could take. Have no fear of it, Mr. Madden. They will not kill the goose from which they hope to get a golden egg.”

“What do you advise?” Mr. Madden asked gravely.

“I want you to give me entire charge of the case.”

“I would demur over it, Nick, if that proposition came from any other man. Coming from you—well, I know I cannot do better than accept it.”

“I think so, too.”

“That settles it, then.”

“Very good,” said Nick. “You must, therefore, take no steps beyond what I may direct. In imposing that condition, Mr. Madden, I have only a word to add. I will do all that you could do, or the entire metropolitan police, to trace and recover your daughter. I will also accomplish it before she suffers any serious harm, even though I am finally forced to throw up my hands and pay a ransom for her safe return.”

“I understand, Nick, and have absolute faith in your judgment,” Mr. Madden said feelingly. “I give you entire charge of the case. You evidently think, I infer, that we shall hear from her abductors.”

“Hear from them!” Nick exclaimed, smiling. “Don’t you doubt that for a moment, Mr. Madden. You will hear from them much sooner than you expect, providing I have sized up the case correctly.”

“Well, possibly.”

“What would you do,” Nick added, “if you were engaged in such knavery? Your first step would be to prevent too much publicity, too great activity by the police, both of which could best be insured by communicating promptly with an anxious parent and stating the precise situation. You will hear from these rascals within an hour, unless I am much mistaken, either by telephone or——”

Nick’s prediction was verified even while he was speaking. The bell of a telephone on the library table interrupted him. He laughed in somewhat sinister fashion, and held up his hand.

“Keep your seat, Mr. Madden,” said he. “I will see what’s doing. This may be the first gun on the skirmish line.”

“Gee! My money goes on that,” put in Patsy.

Nick turned and picked up the telephone while speaking. Removing the receiver, he called hurriedly, almost perfectly imitating Mr. Madden’s voice:[Pg 9]

“Hello! Hello!”

A woman’s voice came over the wire. It was a cold, curt, sinister voice, with a ring of metallic hardness denoting will power, decision, and a sort of bulldog aggressiveness:

“I want Mr. John Madden. Is he at home?”

“Where in thunder have I heard that voice?”

The question flashed through the detective’s mind the instant he heard it. Still imitating that of the venerable millionaire, Nick quickly answered:

“I am he. John Madden is talking. Who are you?”

The response came with more threatening intonation:

“Never mind who I am. You keep your trap closed, and let me do the talking. If you butt in with any questions, I’ll hang up the receiver. Do you get me?”

“Yes,” said Nick.

“Listen, then, and don’t butt in,” continued the woman. “It’s about a piece of live stock that you must have missed by this time. I’ve got the lamb, and she’s all right. Whether she’ll come home all right, wagging her tail behind her, depends on yourself. You’ll get a letter to-morrow morning stating the conditions. It will be mailed to your business office—and it will mean business, too; you can bet on that.”

“Tell me——”

“You keep quiet,” snapped the woman. “I’ll do all the telling that’s necessary. You do the listening.”

“Go on.”