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  Nick Carter's Ghost Story

  Nicholas Carter

  The Killmaster tracks the KGB into the jungles of Central America

  NICK CARTER'S GHOST STORY

  Nicholas Carter

  CHAPTER I. THE VANISHING THIEF.

  Nick Carter's friends often ask him whether, in the course of his remarkable experience as a detective, he has ever encountered anything which could not have been the work of human hands.

  Few people, nowadays, will own that they believe in ghosts. Yet most of us would be less sure about it in a grave-yard at midnight than on Broadway at noon.

  A man who can tell a reasonable story about having seen a ghost may not find many believers, but he will get plenty of listeners, for we are all eager to hear about such things.

  So Nick, who always likes to oblige his friends, does not deny the existence of spirits when he is asked whether he ever saw any. On the contrary, if he has the time to spare, he usually tells the following story:

  A broad-shouldered, square-jawed, bright-eyed young man called on Nick one afternoon, and was ushered into the study.

  His card had gone up ahead of him, and it bore the name—Horace G. Richmond.

  Nick ran his eye over his visitor, and decided that he was a fellow who knew the world and was getting everything out of it that there is in it.

  He met Nick's eye with the air of a man who is going to do something unusual, and wants to announce at the start that he can back it up.

  “I have a case for you, Mr. Carter, if you will take it,” he said.

  “State it,” replied Nick.

  “It's a robbery case, and a mighty queer one. I don't pretend to understand it or any part of it.”

  “Who's been robbed?”

  “My uncle, Colonel Richmond, or, I should say, his daughter, Mrs. Pond. But the robbery affects my uncle perhaps more seriously than his daughter. It is on his account that I am here.”

  “Tell the story.”

  “I'll do it, but first let me say that whatever others may think of the case, I believe it's just simply theft. Mrs. Pond has a lot of jewelry and somebody is stealing it a piece at a time.

  “That's my view, but my uncle's is different. He says that these robberies are not the work of human hands.

  “Now, as for me, I try to keep my feet on the earth all the time. I want you to understand right at the start that I don't believe in any stuff about ghosts and hobgoblins.

  “In my opinion, ghosts that steal diamonds ought to be in the jug, and will probably get there unless they turn over a new leaf.

  “My uncle doesn't see as straight as that. Perhaps you remember that, three or four years ago, he fell into the hands of a couple of sharks who pretended to be mediums.

  “He had always believed in spiritualism, and those crooks caught him just right. They called up the spooks of all the dead people he could think of. They got messages from the spirit land seven nights in the week and two matinees. My uncle simply went wild about it. You remember. It was all in the papers. They worked him beautifully, and if I had not stepped in and exposed them just in time they'd have got every cent he had.”

  “That would have been quite a haul,” said Nick.

  “Well, I should remark! He's worth more than four million dollars. I tell you, those bogus mediums thought they'd struck something very soft.

  “However, I showed them up, and convinced my uncle that they were rank frauds. They're in Sing Sing now.

  “My uncle did not give up his belief in spirits. He said 'these people are frauds, but there are others who honestly and truly hold communication with the departed.'

  “I tell you, we've had a hard time keeping him out of the hands of sharpers since then. But we've succeeded.

  “And now, by bad luck, this queer affair has come up, and all my uncle's faith has returned. He wants to consult mediums, and all that sort of thing.

  “That's the only serious part of it. The jewels that have been stolen aren't worth over a couple of thousand dollars, all told.

  “Of course, it's a nuisance to have such a thing happen in anybody's house, but we wouldn't care much if the mysterious circumstances were not driving my uncle's mind back to his pet delusion.”

  “What are these mysterious circumstances?” asked the detective.

  “Why, it's like this: Colonel Richmond's aunt, Miss Lavina Richmond, was a queer old lady, who was once very rich. At that time she had a passion for collecting jewels. She used to invest her money in diamonds, just as another person might buy houses or railroad stock.

  “Only about a tenth part of her fortune was invested so that she got any income out of it. In the last part of her life she lost all that part of her property, so that she hadn't anything in the world but her jewels.

  “She wouldn't sell one, and there she was as poor in one sense as a lodger in City Hall Square—for she hadn't a cent of money—and yet owning diamonds and other precious stones worth nearly a million dollars.

  “She wouldn't borrow on them; she wouldn't do anything but keep them locked up; and so she had to depend absolutely on my uncle for the necessities of life.

  “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 Ast
ors.

  “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.
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  “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.