Read Ebook: Nick Carter Stories No. 124 January 23 1915: The girl kidnaper; or Nick Carter's up-to-date clew. by Carter Nicholas House Name Jenkins Burke

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"Telegram? I have only sent one since I have been here, and that was to a person in New York."

The colonel smiled.

"Exactly. You sent it to a person who was supposed to be in New York. But it happens that he was much nearer."

"I don't understand," faltered Savage.

"I don't, either," added Mallory, who had been sitting behind his desk, listening in bewilderment. "Do you know anything about that person, Colonel Pearson?"

"If you will permit me to close the door," was the response, "I will tell you."

He shut the door and slipped the bolt into place. Then, as he approached the desk to which Paul Savage had retreated, as if seeking the moral support of his partner, he said quietly:

"You telegraphed Nicholas Carter, at his home in Madison Avenue, New York, to come here quickly, on an important case. That is how this telegram reads," he adds, as he smoothed out the yellow paper and looked at it. "I have only to say that, though I chose to be known here as Colonel Pearson, since I came to enjoy a short vacation, my real name is Nicholas Carter, and I live in Madison Avenue, New York."

"You Nicholas Carter?" gasped Savage. "Why, I thought Carter was an altogether different sort of man."

"I understand," laughed Nick. "You did not bargain for my being here, in light clothes and white canvas shoes, with a golf club in my hand. It did not occur to you that I might be an everyday man. You thought that, as a detective, I should wear a lowering look and salute you with a mysterious 'Hist!' when you opened the door just now."

"Yet a detective must be allowed his play time, like any other man," continued Nick. "I have just been playing golf with the Baroness Latour. She is an early riser, as I am, and when I chanced to meet her on the links, we agreed to play together, instead of singly. So we have done nine holes. It was a drawn game. Here is your telegram. It was redirected to me, in my assumed name of Colonel Pearson, to this hotel, as you see, by my assistant."

Paul Savage continued to look steadily at the calm face of the detective, as if not quite satisfied. But Mallory broke in, with an impatient grunt:

"Of course, you have no idea what induced us to send for you, Mr. Carter?"

"It has to do with the disappearance of Mrs. de Puyster van Dietrich, has it not?"

"Why, how did you know?" demanded Savage. "Not a word has been said about it outside of this office and the housekeeper's room. We have been very careful to keep any inkling of the affair from our guests."

The detective glanced at him quickly, and there was a narrowing of the dark eyes which told of swift thinking.

"Indeed? Are you sure nothing has got out about it?" he asked.

"Quite. There are four persons who know about Mrs. van Dietrich's disappearance: My partner, Mr. Mallory, the housekeeper, and Mrs. van Dietrich's maid. That is all. Well, there is one more--yourself, of course. We did not know that you had found it out. We don't understand how you did it, either."

"Well, I prefer not to tell you that just now," answered Nick Carter. "That is, if you desire me to take this case."

"We most certainly do," declared Paul Savage earnestly.

BITS OF EVIDENCE.

"Sit down, won't you, Mr. Carter?"

James Mallory, who had been so interested in gazing at the great detective as to forget the ordinary amenities, offered this invitation. Getting up from his own chair behind the flat-topped desk, he placed one for the visitor, with a propitiatory smile.

"Now, what is the first move, Mr. Carter?" asked Paul Savage, as they settled down.

"Let me go over the particulars, as they have come to me," replied Nick. "We will see if they agree with the information you have."

"Good idea!" commended Mallory.

"To begin with, Mrs. van Dietrich was put to bed by her maid, Mary Cook, about eleven o'clock last night. The maid sleeps on the sixth floor, at the top of the house. Mrs. van Dietrich's three rooms and bath are on the fourth."

"That's correct," nodded Savage.

"At eight o'clock this morning, Mary Cook went to awaken her employer, according to her custom. She could not make the lady hear, and she got scared. So she went to the housekeeper, Mrs. Joyce, and told her she was afraid Mrs. van Dietrich was sick. Mrs. Joyce went with her, and, with her master key, unlocked the door, and, also, with another key, shot back the bolt."

"When the two women went into the room, they found the bed had been slept in, and Mrs. van Dietrich's nightgown had been thrown carelessly across it. The windows were closed, except for a few inches at the top, for ventilation. This was the case in all three rooms, and the ventilator in the bathroom was open, as usual."

"There were no signs of a struggle," remarked Savage.

"So I understand," assented Nick. "Another thing is that the clothes which Mrs. van Dietrich wore the day before went with her. She must have dressed herself--or been dressed by somebody else--before going away."

"That is all true, as I got it," observed Paul Savage. "But there is another point, which you have not mentioned."

"All the jewelry in her trunks was taken out, although the trunks were locked when the maid examined them this morning. The girl had the keys."

"Oh, she had?"

The intonation with which the detective made this remark caused Savage to shake his head decidedly.

"I understand," went on Nick. "You mean there is no suspicion attaching to the maid? Well, I am of the same opinion. You have not been able to find the slightest clew, have you?"

"None."

"Have any of the guests left the hotel this morning? I mean, left altogether?"

"No. All of them will stay with us for several days, at least, so I expect. They are here to enjoy the quietude and beauty of the place. They are not transients, such as you find in city hotels."

"None of them have given notice to leave, have they?" continued Nick, disregarding the encomium on the hotel and its surroundings.

"I don't think so. Are there any, Mallory?" asked Savage, turning to his partner.

"I haven't heard of any. I'll ask the clerk, if you like. The phone is right here," replied Mallory, laying a hand upon his desk telephone.

"That is not necessary," declared the detective. "I have already asked him. I came through the office to this room, and I picked up what information I could on the way."

"You're a pretty good picker, too, I should say," remarked Mallory, with a grin. "You seem to know about all we have found out."

"If any of the guests say they are going to leave, I wish you'd let me know at once," requested Nick, as he got up from his chair. "I'll go and send a telegram to New York. Then I should like to look at Mrs. van Dietrich's rooms. They haven't been disturbed, I hope."

"No. I gave orders that no one should go into them after the maid had looked at the trunks. Mrs. Joyce has her own keys, and she has fastened all the doors as they were before, except that she had to knock out one of the keys that had been left in the bedroom door, so that she could put in her own."

"That's good. I'll send a message by telephone to the telegraph office at Dorset, from one of the booths in the lobby. I'll be right back."

The detective telephoned the message, as he had said, directed to his assistant Chick, in Madison Avenue, New York. He told Chick to come down to the Hotel Amsterdam at once, and to bring the bloodhound, Captain--which had done so much effective police work for them at various times--with him.

Nick Carter knew perfectly well that Mallory, or Savage, had taken the receiver off the hook in their office, and were listening to him over the wire.

That did not disturb him. He had rather expected it, and his object in telegraphing from the booth, instead of from their office, as he might have done, was to satisfy himself that they would descend to the meanness of "listening in" to a private message.

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