The Second Nick Carter MEGAPACK®, page 20
“He didn’t mind that, of course, for he had plenty. She lived at his house, and eventually died there.
“She and my uncle never got along well, in spite of his kindness to her, and she had no friends except a Mrs. Stevens and her daughter. They’re related to the Richmonds, but the money is all in the colonel’s branch of the family.
“Mrs. Stevens and Millie, her daughter, are poor. They have just enough to live on. The colonel would take care of them, but they won’t have it. They’re too proud.
“Now, everybody thought that old Miss Lavina Richmond would leave her tremendous pile of diamonds to Millie Stevens. Indeed, Miss Richmond used to say so continually. I’ve heard her say, in the colonel’s presence, that Miss Stevens should have the jewels; that such was her wish.
“Well, she died suddenly a year or more ago, and the only will that could be found was dated many years back, and left everything she possessed to the colonel’s daughter.
“It was the greatest surprise that you can imagine. We all knew that such a will had been made, but we hadn’t the slightest idea that it still existed, and that she had made no other. On the contrary, we knew positively that she had made a much later will in favor of Millie Stevens. But the document couldn’t be found, and so the old one was submitted for probate.
“The colonel expected a contest, but the Stevenses did not make a murmur. It must have been a tremendous disappointment to them, but they bore it with perfect good nature. They didn’t seem to feel half so badly about it as my uncle did. If he had had his way, he would have given all the jewels to Miss Stevens.
“He said over and over again that he believed it was his aunt’s wish that the girl should have them. And I can tell you, there’s no man so particular as he is about respecting the wishes of the dead.
“Mrs. Pond would have turned over the whole lot to Millie Stevens, I believe, if it hadn’t been for her husband.
“Mr. Pond isn’t a rich man, and he didn’t feel that he could afford to yield up a million dollars’ worth of property that had been thrown at him in that way. And, to speak plainly, he isn’t the sort of man to let go of anything that comes within his reach.
“My uncle offered to do the fair thing out of his own pocket, but, as I’ve said, the Stevenses wouldn’t touch his money; and there the case has stood ever since.
“The most valuable of the jewels are in the vaults of the Central Safe Deposit Company in this city. Some of the smaller pieces are in Mrs. Pond’s possession. She is a woman who likes to wear a lot of jewelry, and, by Jupiter, she can do it now if she likes, for she owns more diamonds than the Astors.
“Mr. and Mrs. Pond live in Cleveland. Mrs. Pond, as I’ve told you, is now visiting her father. You know he bought the old Plummer place on the shore of Hempstead Harbor, Long Island.
“She has been with him about two weeks. She has two rooms on the second floor of the house, a sitting-room and a bed-room. The bed-room opens off the hall. It has only one other door, which leads to her sitting-room.
“The first robbery occurred on the second day after she had arrived. It was late in the afternoon.
“Mrs. Pond had been out riding. When she returned she hurried up to her room to dress for dinner.
“She took off some of her jewelry—some rings, pins and that sort of thing—and laid them on the dressing-table. Then she went into her sitting-room.
“Remember, I’m telling this just as she told it. How much of it is fact and how much is hysterics I can’t say. She was scared half out of her wits by what happened afterward, and may have got mixed up in her narrative.
“This is what she told us: When she had been in the sitting-room about a minute she turned toward the bedroom and saw the door slowly shutting.
“She was surprised at this, for she had locked the other door of the bed-room, and it did not seem possible for anybody to be in there.
“In fact, such a thing did not come into her mind. She supposed that a draught of air was swinging the door.
“She hastened toward it, but it closed before she got there.
“She turned the knob and tried to open the door, but was unable to do so. It did not seem to resist firmly, as it would if it had been fastened. Instead it gave slightly, as if some person had been holding it.
“If that was the case, he was stronger than she was, for she didn’t succeed in opening the door.
“Then she screamed. Such a yell I never heard a woman utter. I was in my own room, which is over hers, and I jumped nearly out of my skin, it startled me so.
“I was dressing, and was in my underclothes, so it took me a minute, I should say, to get a pair of pantaloons on.
“Then I ran out into the hall and down the stairs. At the same moment my uncle ran up from the ground floor.
“I mention these facts, because they seem to me to be important. You see, we approached that room by two ways—by the only two ways except that by which Mrs. Pond came.
“Just as I got to the hall door of her bed-room she opened it, and fell into my arms in a faint.
“She lost consciousness only for a moment, and, on coming to herself, she cried out that a thief had been in her room.
“By this time there were three or four servants in the hall below. One of them staid there by my uncle’s orders. The others went outside and made a circuit of the house.
“We led Mrs. Pond back into her room, and she pointed to her dressing-table.
“There lay two or three rings and a pin, but the most valuable ring that she had put there was gone.
“It was a queer, old-fashioned ring in the form of a snake, and in its mouth was a ruby worth about two hundred and fifty dollars. The eyes were made of small diamonds.
“She declared that she had left the ring there. She told us how the door between the two rooms had closed.
“It appears that after she had struggled to open it for several minutes it suddenly yielded, and she almost fell into the room.
“Of course, she expected to rush straight upon the thief. He had been holding the door, and naturally he couldn’t have gone far after releasing it.
“She was inside just as soon as the pressure on the other side was removed. But the room was empty.
“She thought of her jewels at once. She rushed to her dressing-table, and instantly missed the ruby ring.
“Now, that’s all there is to it. We hunted high and low for the thief, and did not find a trace of him.
“How did he get away? That’s where I give up the riddle. The door in the hall was locked on the inside, and practically guarded by my uncle and myself. At the other door stood Mrs. Pond.
“There is only one window. It looks out on a sort of court with the house on three sides of it.
“A man with a wagon was almost under the window all the time. He was delivering groceries to the cook.
“It’s absurd to suppose that anybody got in or out by that window. No thief would have been fool enough to try it at that time of day, and, as I’ve told you, there were two persons who would have been perfectly sure to see him if he had. And he couldn’t have got in or out without a ladder.
“I admit that it looked very queer. What do you make of it, Mr. Carter?”
“Are you sure the ring was really taken? Couldn’t she have been mistaken about it?”
“That’s the idea that occurred to me. But it happens that when Mrs. Pond came back from the drive my uncle banded her out of the carriage, and he distinctly remembers seeing the ring on her finger.
“She went straight to her room, and she couldn’t have lost the ring by the way, for there was a guard ring on the outside of it, and that we found on the dressing-table.
“Of course, we hunted for the ruby ring. We took up the carpets; we made such a search as I never saw before. The ring was not there.
“I don’t think there’s a shadow of doubt that the ring was stolen, but I can’t form an idea of how it was done.
“The more I think about it the more confused I get. To my mind the queerest part of it is that somebody held the door, and then let go of it and vanished in a quarter of a second. How are we going to explain that?”
“Didn’t the thief put something against the door?”
“I thought of that, and tried to work out that theory, but it’s impossible. Not a piece of furniture was out of place, and there wasn’t a stick or a prop of any kind in the room that could have been used for such a purpose.”
“Well, that’s strange, I must admit,” said Nick. “I guess it will be necessary for me to go down and look the ground over.”
“That’s just what we want.”
“Come along, then. I’m ready.”
CHAPTER II.
NICK IS BOLDLY CHALLENGED.
Nick knew the old Plummer mansion well. There is not a house to match it in this country.
A hundred years and more ago it must have been the scene of strange adventures. It was built, certainly, by one who did not expect a peaceful and quiet life within it.
The thick stone walls, which look so unnecessarily massive, are really double. There are secret passages and movable panels and trap-doors enough in that house to hide a man, if a regiment of soldiers was after him.
Evidently such a place offered every chance to shrewd criminals who might have a motive for playing upon the superstitious beliefs of the present proprietor.
Anybody who couldn’t get up a respectable ghost in the old Plummer house must be a very poor fakir.
The mere fact that all the doors and windows of a room were closed did not prevent any person from going in or out at will, if he knew the secrets of the house.
Nick thought of these things as he rode down there in the cars, and he prepared himself for an interesting time, chasing bogus ghosts through secret doors and panels.
But a surprise awaited him on his arrival. Colonel Richmond met him at the door, and, by Nick’s request, took him at once to the room from which the articles had been stolen.
It was a modern room in a new part of the house.
Nick was entirely unprepared for this. He did not know that the colonel had built any additions to the old mansion.
Colonel Richmond spoke of this remarkable feature of the case at once.
“If this thing had happened in the old part of the house,” he said, “I shouldn’t have thought that it was anything but an ordinary robbery.
“Every room there can be entered in a secret manner, and no doubt there are plenty of panels and passages which even I do not know.
“But there’s nothing of the kind here. This wing was built under my eye, and from my own design. I saw the beams laid and the floors nailed down.
“There is absolutely no way to enter the room in which we now stand except by the two doors and the window.
“My nephew has told you about the robberies. You know that the doors and the windows were practically guarded all the time.
“I don’t believe that any mortal being could have got in here and got out again without being seen.
“As for myself, I understand the case perfectly. My belief will seem strange to you, because you do not see with the eye of the spirit. Everything has to be done by human hands, according to your matter-of-fact notion.
“I know better; and I tell you that these jewels were taken by the spirit of my deceased aunt, and that she did it to show me that my daughter was wrongfully in possession of them.”
When a healthy, hearty old man, who seems to be as sane as anybody else in the world, stands up and talks such nonsense as this, what can one say to him?
It is useless to tell him that he is wrong about the whole matter. It is folly to attempt to reason with him.
The only way to do is to show him a perfectly natural explanation of the mystery, and simply make him see it.
That was the task which Nick had before him, and it must be owned that, at the first glance, he did not see how he was going to accomplish it.
He examined the room and satisfied himself that it had no secret entrances.
Such being the case, Nick was unable to form a theory of the robbery which would fit the facts as they had been stated to him.
After looking at the rooms, he went with Colonel Richmond to the parlor, on the ground floor, and there proceeded to question him about the mysterious occurrences.
“There have been three robberies in all,” said the colonel, “and they have been exactly alike.
“In every case my daughter has left some articles of jewelry on the dressing-table in her bed-room, and one of them has vanished. Never more than one at a time.
“Twice it happened while she was in the adjoining room. The bed-room door which opens into the hall was locked on these occasions.
“The third time she was in the hall, talking with my nephew. He was standing in the upper hall, leaning over the banister rail. They were discussing a plan for a drive out into the country. Quite a party was to go.
“Horace had just received word from a gentleman whom they had invited that he would be unable to go. He had read the note in his room, and he called downstairs to my daughter to tell her about it.
“That was how they happened to be standing in the hall. Presently she went back into her room, and almost immediately noticed that a small locket set with diamonds had been taken.
“She screamed, and Horace and I came running to her room. We searched it thoroughly.
“There was nobody there. The door between the bedroom and the sitting-room was open, but the other door of the sitting-room, which opens into the old portion of the house, was locked and bolted on the inside.
“Now, I submit to you, Mr. Carter, whether in that case any other way of entrance or exit was possible except by the windows.”
“I’m bound to admit,” responded Nick, “that if the doors were in the condition you describe, no person could have entered or left those rooms except by the windows.”
“Well, it had been raining hard, and the ground was soft. We looked carefully under all the windows.
“There was no sign of a footprint, and nobody could have walked there without making tracks. Oh, it is clear enough! Why do we waste your time in a search for invisible spirits of the dead?”
He rambled on in this way for several minutes, and Nick did not try to stop him.
The colonel was at last interrupted, however, by the entrance of his daughter.
Mrs. Pond had been out driving. She learned, on her return, that a stranger had come to the house, and she hurried into the parlor, suspecting who was there.
“I am delighted to see you, Mr. Carter,” she exclaimed. “You will clear up this abominable mystery and relieve my father’s mind from these delusions.”
“Then you do not share his opinions,” said Nick.
Mrs. Pond laughed nervously.
“No, indeed,” she said, “and yet I must admit that I am quite unable to explain the facts. I suppose you have heard the story?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think about it?”
“It is much too early in the case for me to express an opinion. But there are one or two questions that I should like to ask you.”
“Do so, by all means. It was at my request that you were called in.”
“At your request?”
“Yes; I talked with Horace about it, and at last we agreed to ask you to take the case. He didn’t believe in it at first, for he did not want to let anybody into our family secrets.”
She glanced at her father as she spoke. It was evident that the family was a good deal ashamed of Colonel Richmond’s spiritualistic delusions and wanted to keep quiet about them.
“I talked Horace into it after a while,” Mrs. Pond continued, “and at last he became as enthusiastic as myself. We know that you will find the thief.”
“Thank you,” responded Nick. “There is one point which seems peculiar to me. After you had been robbed once, why did you continue to leave the jewels unwatched in the very place from which one of them had previously been taken?”
“I insisted upon it,” said Colonel Richmond. “I told my daughter that she must make no change in her habit of wearing or caring for my aunt’s jewels. I wished to show that we were not foolishly trying to hide them from the eye of a spirit, but that we wished to learn the desire of my departed aunt as soon as possible.”
“It was by your order, then,” said Nick, “that your daughter continued to put the jewels on her dressing-table when she laid them aside for any reason?”
“It was.”
“I have just left some of them there now,” said Mrs. Pond. “I went to my room after my ride, and took off a light cloak which was fastened with three pins, each having a diamond in its head. I stuck them all into a cushion on that dressing-table.”
“Is the room locked?” asked Nick.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Pond, and she produced the key of the door which opened from the hall above.
“Will you allow me to go up there now?”
“Certainly.”
She handed the key to Nick.
He took it and walked out of the parlor.
Nick had already formed a sort of working theory in the case. He scarcely believed that it would hold water, but it would do for a starter.
The most probable explanation that had come to him was that Mrs. Pond had not really been robbed at all.
It might be that she had some motive for making these articles vanish. Perhaps she had some need of money, and was secretly selling them against the wish of her husband and her father.
So, when Nick took that key and went toward that room he did not expect to find the three diamond pins in the position described by the lady.
He found the door locked, and he opened it by means of the key. Then he locked it behind him, leaving the key in the lock.
He turned at once to a dressing-table.
The three pins were there, just as Mrs. Pond had said.
Nick laughed softly to himself.
“That looks bad for my first shot at this queer case,” he said; “but perhaps she didn’t dare work the game while I was in the house.”
