The Second Nick Carter MEGAPACK®, page 53
The deep, friendly voice had a certain charm in it which the detective found it impossible to resist.
“Of course I’ll come gladly,” he said.
He and Crawford left the hotel and strolled along the crowded pavements. The grizzled miner seemed to find a keen delight in halting to examine almost every window they passed.
“Spending years in the open makes a man fairly hungry for this sort of thing. I’ve longed to be back home again just to look into these very shop windows.”
His enthusiasm was infectious, and he and Chick walked along, laughing and chatting together. They dropped in at the public library, and Crawford could hardly tear himself away.
When they reached the street again and started back toward Broadway, Chick happened to glance at a jeweler’s clock.
“Half past five!” he ejaculated. “By George! I had no idea it was as late as that.”
“Late be hanged!” Crawford answered, with a laugh. “The game is young yet. Let’s have a look in at one of those continuous performances I’ve heard so much about—that is, unless you have to get back.”
The detective had nothing pressing in view, and he was thoroughly enjoying Crawford’s comments on what they saw. He, therefore, expressed his willingness to do whatever his companion wished, and conducted the latter to a combination moving-picture and vaudeville house, where they spent a little over an hour.
It was after seven when they returned to the hotel.
“I’ll just go and see if Stone has come back,” Crawford said anxiously. “I won’t be long.”
Chick nodded assent and seated himself in one corner of the lobby, while the miner made for the elevator.
Nick Carter’s assistant had bought an evening paper and stuffed it into his pocket. He now took it out and began glancing over it.
Presently, as he lowered the paper to turn the page, his eyes chanced to look into a mirror set into the wall beside him. The mirror was so placed that it reflected the wide entrance of the hotel, and just at that moment Chick saw a lean, curious figure approach from the street. He gave a slight start, and stared for a moment at the familiar reflection, then instinctively raised the paper again so that it hid his face.
He never forgot features, and that one brief glance had been enough for him. As a matter of fact, however, there was little chance of any one forgetting Doctor Stephen Follansbee after even the most casual meeting.
“The ‘Buzzard’!” he muttered to himself, using the name he had applied to the famous specialist. “I wonder what the dickens he’s doing here.”
CHAPTER XIV.
NICK’S ASSISTANT DECAMPS.
Chick knew all about Doctor Follansbee’s tendencies, and had assisted his chief in an attempt to scrape up sufficient evidence against the man to warrant some definite action.
They had failed to build up a case that would amount to anything if brought to trial. To be sure, they could have brought charges against the head of St. Swithin’s, and placed him before the medical association, but there was more than one reason for refraining from that. For one thing, Carter hesitated to stir up a scandal which would be bound to follow the publication of such charges. Owing to Follansbee’s great prominence, and the very responsible character of his position as head of a big hospital, the accusation would tend to discredit the whole profession more or less, and to shake the public’s faith in such institutions.
Finally, the detective had always been a firm believer in the right of a man to have a second chance, especially when he had much to lose. Follansbee had had his warning, and nothing had happened since to give the detective and his assistants any particular reason for believing that he had failed to profit by it. They were by no means sure that he had, however, and had continued to look out for further trouble in that direction; consequently, Chick was more than commonly interested in this chance glimpse of Follansbee.
As for his action in hiding himself behind the newspaper, that was merely a mechanical sort of routine precaution. There was always a certain possibility that Follansbee might be up to something questionable, and if he were in this instance the detective did not wish to be recognized. That would scare the game away, and his hunter’s instinct shrank from the possibility of such a catastrophe.
Half a minute later he had cause to congratulate himself on his presence of mind.
He was not more than twenty feet from the clerk’s desk, which Follansbee had approached.
“Is Mr. James Stone in?”
The question was put in the doctor’s thin, piping voice, which hardly carried to Chick, and wrenched a little gasp of amazement from him.
“Stone!” he thought. “That can’t be anybody but Crawford’s partner. The Buzzard is asking for Stone. What does it mean?”
He strained his ears to catch the reply, but the clerk’s voice was low and indistinct. A moment later, however, Follansbee remarked audibly: “All right, I’ll wait for him here in this first sitting room for a few minutes.”
Manipulating his paper cautiously, so that Follansbee could not see his entire face, even in the glass, Chick glanced at the latter with one eye. He was just in time to see the doctor move off and pass into one of the rooms which opened off from the lobby, the one nearest to the clerk’s desk.
Chick felt instinctively that the discovery he had made was of considerable importance. He had come to look upon Follansbee with suspicion, and he was aware of Stone’s attempts upon Crawford’s life. To be sure, he also knew that Stone had been advised to consult a specialist in New York. It might well be, of course, that the specialist in question was Stephen Follansbee, and that the miner had gone to him in good faith. The connection between them, however, whatever it was, seemed to deserve a little more attention. At any rate, he felt that he ought to inform his chief at once of the fact that Follansbee had been inquiring for James Stone.
“I’ll have to clear out of this,” he thought, “and I mustn’t let the Buzzard see me, either. If Crawford should come down and speak to me, Follansbee might be put on his guard—supposing there’s anything fishy about his call on Stone. It’s up to me to make tracks before Crawford comes back.”
He rose to his feet, and as he did so the elevator bell gave a subdued buzz. The man in charge closed the gate, and the elevator shot upward. Chick felt morally certain that it was Crawford who had rung the bell, and was waiting to descend. Another might have laughed at him for the thought, when the big hotel was well filled with guests, but Chick put enough faith in it to cause his heart to give a startled bound. Without a look toward the elevator, he strode along the lobby in the direction of the door, and hurried out. He had barely disappeared when the car sank to the level of the ground floor, and Winthrop Crawford emerged.
The miner looked expectantly toward the corner where he had left Nick Carter’s assistant, and stopped short when he found it vacant. His bewildered gaze traveled over the whole room, and then he approached a bell boy who was standing in a near-by doorway.
“Do you happen to know what’s become of the young man I left in that corner less than five minutes ago?” he asked, pointing to the chair Chick had occupied.
“He’s just gone out, sir,” was the reply. “He hurried past me just before you came down, and shot out of the door as if he had been sent for.”
“Did any one speak to him?”
“No, sir, not that I know. Maybe he just thought of something he had to do.”
“That’s queer!” Crawford muttered. “I don’t understand it.”
Then he suddenly made up his mind. “See if you can catch him,” he said to the boy. “Hurry! There’s a dollar in it if you do.”
The bell boy broke into a run, and Crawford hastily followed. When he reached the street he saw the uniformed boy in full flight after a slender, well-dressed man who was walking swiftly down the street to the left. It looked like Chick, but in order to make no mistake, Crawford halted where he was and looked to the right, then crossed the street. He saw no one else whose appearance tempted him to follow; consequently, he strode in the wake of the boy. The latter soon caught up with his man and spoke to him. Crawford saw the pedestrian halt and turn about.
“Confound it!” the miner ejaculated under his breath, when he caught sight of the man’s face. “That isn’t my man. That fool boy has gone off on a wild-goose chase!”
He remained where he was and waited for the return of the bell boy, who came back sheepishly.
“It was the wrong man, sir,” the boy explained.
“So I saw,” was the answer. “Well, here’s something for your trouble, anyway. I can’t imagine how my friend got away so quickly.”
“Thank you, sir!” said the boy, as he possessed himself of a coin. “Maybe he caught a car.”
“That’s probably what he did,” agreed Crawford.
The boy left him and walked swiftly back to the hotel, but the miner followed much more slowly. He had been very favorably impressed by Chick and could not account for his sudden disappearance.
“Did I bore him as much as that?” he wondered. “He might at least have left some excuse, I should think, even if I had taken up too much of his time. If he had stayed he could have advised me about Jimmy.”
He had failed to find Stone in his room, and the place seemed to indicate that his partner had not been there since morning. Yet, despite his anxiety, he was very reluctant to do anything, since he knew that if Stone were all right, he would greatly resent anything which looked like meddling with his affairs. When Crawford returned to the lobby of the Windermere, however, he found that his brief absence had brought developments.
These developments were to have considerable bearing on his affairs, although he was not to know of that for the present. While he was out of the building, Stone had returned, and had met Doctor Follansbee.
When Crawford reappeared, the clerk beckoned to him.
“Mr. Stone has just come in, Mr. Crawford, and has gone to his room with a friend,” he was informed.
CHAPTER XV.
A BAD COMBINATION.
A look of great relief passed over Crawford’s face as he thanked the clerk.
“Friend, eh?” he said to himself. “I didn’t think he had a single one in these parts, except myself, and I’m afraid he doesn’t think I’m his friend now.”
The elevator was not at hand; consequently, he walked upstairs to the second floor. Passing along the corridor, he halted in front of number twenty-two and knocked.
“Who is that?” came the thick voice of James Stone.
“It’s only Win Crawford,” he returned, turning the knob of the door. He found it locked, however, and his partner’s voice called out impatiently:
“I’m busy just now, and don’t want to be disturbed.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, and a return of the old troubled look on his face, Crawford turned away and went on to his own room to dress for dinner.
“Don’t want to be disturbed,” the mine owner thought, half bitterly. “There’s no mistake about it. All of his old affection for me is dead. Heaven only knows how it’s come about, but I’m sure it isn’t my fault!”
Presently he was standing in front of his dresser, glancing mechanically at his bearded face in the mirror, and shaking his head.
“I’d give all I possess to find out what is the matter,” he said. “Jimmy and I have been like brothers for years, and the way he’s treating me now is almost more than I can bear. I sometimes wish we’d never found the mine, and were back again footing it through the bush together. We didn’t have any money, and we never knew where the next meal was coming from, but—we were friends then.”
As he crossed to the wardrobe he imagined he heard his name spoken, and came to a halt close to the connecting door. It was evident that the barrier was a thin one.
A murmur of voices came to his ear; but it was much too indistinct for him to make out any words. He could distinguish Stone’s gruff tones, and also the sound of another voice—a much sharper, higher-pitched one. But that was all.
With an effort, Crawford roused himself and turned away. “Come, come!” he said to himself. “That isn’t fair. You’ve never been an eavesdropper, and you’re not going to turn to that sort of thing at your time of life.”
He went on with his dressing, and at length heard the scrape of a key in the lock of the next door. Crossing to his own, Crawford opened it quietly and looked out. Stone was striding down the wide corridor, and by his side walked a thin, short, dried-up-looking individual.
As the two figures turned at the end of the corridor to go on down the stairs, the electric light at the landing shone for a moment full on the face of Stone’s companion. Crawford had a glimpse of a bony jaw, a hooked, cruel nose, and a pair of small unprepossessing eyes.
“By George! What an ugly-looking fellow Jimmy has picked up!” the miner exclaimed, as he quickly withdrew his head, in order not to be seen spying on his old partner. “I wonder who the runt is, and where Jimmy got hold of him. They seemed to have something interesting to talk about.”
He little dreamed that the subject they had found interesting was himself, and that the object of their conversation had been the devising of ways and means for taking his life.
The future, however, was to reveal it all to him, and, although he did not suspect anything at that moment there were others who did.
The bell boy had been right.
Chick had indeed run for a passing car and boarded it after emerging from the Windermere, and that explained his sudden disappearance from the street.
He had been so full of his discovery, and so anxious to escape from the hotel before Doctor Follansbee could see him and connect him with Crawford, that he had run a certain risk in dodging through the traffic and flinging himself on a moving trolley.
When he reached home a few minutes later, he found dinner waiting for him, and his chief and some of the others at the table.
“Hello, Chick!” was the greeting his chief gave him. “So you’re back at last, are you? I got your message. Have you been with Crawford all this time?”
The young detective seated himself hastily, gave an account of the afternoon’s program and then wound up with the startling information that he had heard Doctor Follansbee asking for Stone. At the mention of the specialist’s name, Carter’s lithe body stiffened, and he darted a quick glance at Chick.
“Follansbee and Stone!” he repeated. “That combination looks bad. I don’t like it.”
CHAPTER XVI.
A BIRD OF ILL OMEN.
“Neither did I,” his assistant answered. “Don’t forget, though, that that young doctor down in South America insisted that Stone should consult a specialist upon reaching New York. It looks as if Follansbee were the man.”
“That seems probable,” Nick agreed, “but it doesn’t help matters very much. For all I know, Floyd may be a scamp himself, and even if he isn’t, and has communicated with Follansbee in good faith, the latter may try some trick. Both Crawford and Stone are the sort of men who would be looked upon as easy marks. They’ve been out of the country for many years, and they now possess a million dollars between them. What’s more, they’re almost friendless here in New York. That fact would appeal to Follansbee. He made the mistake of aiming too high the last time—of trying to victimize a man who was too well known. If he hasn’t turned over a new leaf—and I fear he hasn’t—we may be pretty sure that he’ll tackle a different proposition the next time.”
“Well, I didn’t feel easy about it,” Chick admitted. “That’s why I hurried out without waiting for Crawford to return.”
A brief silence fell between them, although some of the others at the table renewed in lower tones the conversation which Chick’s entrance had interrupted. The chief was eating mechanically and hurriedly, and the absent-minded expression on his face told Chick that something was in prospect.
Presently the detective refused his dessert, and rose to his feet. “What’s the number of Crawford’s room at the Windermere?” he asked.
“Twenty-one,” Chick answered.
Carter went out into the hall, where the nearest of the several telephone connections in the house was located. The listening Chick heard him shuffling over the pages of the directory, and then caught the click as the receiver was removed from its hook.
The chief gave a number, and after a little delay asked: “Is this the Windermere?” In another moment he went on: “I wish to engage a room for a few days, and I’m particular about its location. Is number twenty-two vacant?”
A slight grin parted his assistant’s lips. “It isn’t?” he heard his chief ask. “Then how about twenty?” There was another pause, and then: “Good! I’ll take it. Mortimer is the name—Thomas Mortimer. Got that? Thanks!”
In a moment Carter put his head in at the dining room door. “I’d like to see you in the study when you get through,” he said to Chick. “Don’t hurry, though. There’s time enough.”
His assistant did justice to the meal, but wasted no time in conversation with the rest. Fifteen minutes later he went up to the study and found his chief seated at the desk.
“You think Crawford is in danger, then?” Chick asked, as he entered.
Carter’s face was grave. “I fear he is,” he said. “Something tells me that I may be called on to save our friend’s life again before long—or try to. It’s more than possible, of course, that my suspicions are groundless. It isn’t likely that Stone knew Follansbee was a crook before he called on him. He may not know it now, and Follansbee may not be planning anything out of the way. The situation is full of sinister possibilities, however, and I feel compelled to get on the ground without much delay. It promises to be a complicated affair. If Follansbee is running straight, all well and good. On the other hand, he may be planning to victimize one or the other of the partners, or both.”
