The Call of Death: Nick Carter's Clever Assistant
9781465675071
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“There’s no question in my mind, inspector, as to who did the job,” said Nick Carter. “You feel sure of it, then?” “As sure as water runs downhill. I refer, of course, to the mechanical part of the work. I looked it over on the morning following the burglary, every part of the looted vault, and I am as sure of the cracksman’s identity as if I had seen him getting in his work. Only one yegg in the business has the mechanical genius to crack a vault as that was cracked.” “James Nordeck?” “Surely. I have seen Nordeck’s work before, and I know it when I see it. It is invariably stamped with his mechanical ingenuity. Jim Nordeck is in a class of his own at that business.” “Here is his mug, front and profile, chief, also his record. Have a look at them.” The last came from Chick Carter, the celebrated detective’s senior assistant, and the remarks of both were addressed to Inspector Mallory, then head of the detective force identified with the New York police department. They were discussing the recent burglary of a savings bank up in Westchester County, a crime committed about a week before, in which the remarkably skillful drilling of the vault for the use of explosives, as well as other details of the felonious work, plainly showed it to have been that of professional cracksmen. As may be inferred from the remarks he had just made, it revealed something more to Nick Carter—the identity of one of the criminals, at least, with certain characteristics of whose skillful work along such infamous lines the detective was already familiar. Though discovered before having completed their work, the burglars had succeeded in getting away with nearly two hundred thousand dollars in cash, bonds, and negotiable securities; but not until one of their number had been seriously wounded with the revolver of a citizen who had heard and pursued them, as was evidenced by a trail of blood, to the motor car in which they escaped with their plunder. None of it had since been recovered. Negotiations with the crooks had been undertaken by the bank officials through the newspapers, with a view to recovering part of the stolen funds, and a liberal reward had also been offered for information leading to the discovery and arrest of the thieves. All of these endeavors, however, had proved entirely futile. The trail of the crooks had, in fact, been hopelessly lost. Nor was there any clew to their identity, aside from the opinion expressed by Nick Carter on the day following the crime, when he had been called upon to inspect the work of the burglars, despite the fact that he had declined to take the case in conjunction with the police and detectives already employed on it. Nick’s views had been mentioned to Inspector Mallory, and this had occasioned his visit that morning, and the discussion then in progress in the business office of the detective’s Madison Avenue residence, then occupied only by the three persons mentioned. Inspector Mallory took the card tendered by Chick Carter with the remarks above noted. It had been taken by Chick from a large cabinet of drawers containing the Bertillon signaletic cards of thousands of other crooks, and it contained two photographs and the criminal record of the man then under discussion. The face that met the inspector’s gaze was not a prepossessing one. It was that of a man of fifty—a hard and sinister face, with a low brow and narrow eyes, a hooked nose, like the beak of a bird of prey, a square jaw, and thin lips, drawn downward at the corners—a more evil and cruel face than one often viewed.
