Читать книгу A Battle for Right; Or, A Clash of Wits - Carter Nicholas - Страница 5

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“You know that Howard had a fight in the Inn to-night?” asked Nick, in a low tone.

“Yes. He has told me. But—but it was an accident. He did not mean to do it. You know my son too well to believe anything else.”

“I know he is hot-tempered, and that he had been drinking to-night,” was the response. “But I want to tell you——”

“No, no! Don’t tell me! I know all about——”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Yes, I do. My boy told me. What is the use of repeating——”

The detective smiled protestingly, as he took the millionaire’s wrist in his fist, to keep him quiet.

“Let me speak, Mr. Milmarsh. I came to tell you that your son did not kill Richard Jarvis.”

“Not kill him? Are you sure of that? Is he alive?”

“He was alive for ten minutes after your son struck him. In fact, he was as well as ever. The blow on the chin was only one of the sleep-producing kind that are dealt at many boxing matches. What they call a ‘knock-out.’ Jarvis had entirely recovered from that almost before Howard was out of the Inn.”

“Then Dick Jarvis is alive?” asked Milmarsh eagerly.

“No, he is dead!”

Howard Milmarsh fell back, his mouth dropping open and a terrified light gathering in his eyes.

“Dead?”

“Yes. But, as I have told you, your boy did not kill him. You need have no fear about that. Where is your son? I should like to tell him. I have no doubt he is nearly out of his mind over the belief that he has committed murder.”

“He is. But he is not at home. He has gone away—to New York, I believe. I hope he will be back in the morning. Tell me how it is that Richard Jarvis is dead. I have had no communication with him or his father since long before my wife died, but I am sorry Richard is dead.”

“He was not really a cousin of your son’s, was he?” asked Carter.

“No. His father was my wife’s half brother, so that I never considered him a relative, in the true sense of the word. And yet, if I had no son——”

“I know all about that,” interrupted the detective. “Don’t think of it. You have a son, and a good one, take him altogether. As for Richard Jarvis’ death, it is not easily explained. After your son left the Inn, Thomas Jarvis, Richard’s father, appeared there, in a rage, asking for his son.”

“They always quarrel a great deal, I believe,” remarked the millionaire. “Richard’s drinking and gambling is the cause of it, I’ve been told. They have not any too much money, and it makes Thomas Jarvis angry when Richard wastes any in dissipation. But go on.”

“Thomas Jarvis forced his way upstairs, to the poker room, and there was a hot dispute between father and son. One of the waiters was the only other person in the room. He says that, in the midst of the fuss, Richard made a lunge at his father with his fist, but, being stupid with drink—for he had a lot more after the trouble with Howard—he stumbled over the disordered rug and pitched headlong on an iron fender in front of the open fireplace.”

“And it killed him?”

“Fractured the skull. I saw him. He was quite dead. But—there was a peculiar little circumstance that I have not said anything about, and shan’t, unless the coroner brings it up.”

“What was that?”

“Some small fragments of glass were in the wound, and a broken champagne bottle lay at his side. It may have been that he fell upon the bits of glass, if the bottle had been previously broken. But—if the coroner is suspicious, he might make an exhaustive inquiry in the hope of proving that the bottle had been used as a weapon and that Thomas Jarvis had killed his son. That is all I came to tell you,” added the detective. “I hope your son will be home in the morning. If not, he’ll come as soon as he learns the truth, anyhow. I don’t know just what the papers will publish about it to-morrow. I don’t think they will have anything.”

The detective said this with a curious smile that caused the millionaire to ask him why he thought so.

“There are ways of holding back news from even the livest papers—if you know how to do it, and have a little influence,” he admitted significantly.

“I wish you would stay and smoke a cigar with me, Carter,” said the millionaire, as the detective got up to go. “There is something I wanted to speak to you about.”

Carter nodded and took the seat proffered by his host. He accepted a cigar from the humidor at his elbow. Then, as he lighted up and blew a ring of smoke from his lips, he glanced inquiringly at the millionaire.

“It is only about my health, Carter,” explained Milmarsh. “I don’t believe I shall live very long. When I die, of course Howard will succeed me, and I have little doubt he will take an active part in managing the business. He won’t have to change the title of the firm. It will continue to be Howard Milmarsh & Son. That is my desire, expressed in my will.”

“I know Howard wouldn’t want to change that,” declared the detective. “Howard has considerable respect for the name you both bear. But I don’t believe you are going to die for many years.”

“I know better,” returned the other. “I know the symptoms, unfortunately, too well. That is why I am not smoking this evening. All I want to ask of you is that you will see Howard gets his birthright.”

“You have made all proper, legal arrangements, have you not? Your will is in a safe place, I suppose?”

“Yes. That is not it. One copy of my will is in my safe-deposit box in my New York bank, and another is in the possession of my attorneys, Johnson, Robertson & Judkins, of New York. What has always troubled me is that Howard is a little wild, and that he might do something which would give enemies an opportunity to rob him of his inheritance.”

“How could anybody do that?” queried Nick, smoking steadily. “Even if you had not made a will, Howard is your only child, and he would succeed as heir at law.”

“But, suppose he were not to claim his inheritance? Suppose, for some reason, he could not be found?”

“What do you mean?” asked the detective. “Don’t you know where he is now? If he went to New York, we could hear of him at the Hotel Supremacy, I have no doubt. That is where he generally goes when he’s in the city. Of course, he may have gone to one of his clubs. But, even then, it would not be hard to find him.”

Nick Carter smoked in silence for a full minute before he spoke again. Then he asked, more earnestly than he had spoken hitherto:

“Do you think Howard has gone farther than New York—that he has sailed to some foreign country, for instance?”

“I don’t know where he is,” replied the millionaire. “What I do know,” he continued slowly, and with his breath coming fast between his words, “is that I am not well to-night, and that a presentiment hangs over me that I should have taken better care of my boy.”

“Pshaw! You have nothing to reproach yourself with in that respect. I can testify to that,” said Carter encouragingly. “You have been excited over this unfortunate affair at the Old Pike Inn, and it has got on your nerves. Howard deserves to be spanked for upsetting his father in this way. Let me give you a little brandy.”

He went to the handsome mahogany cellaret at one side of the room, and brought out a decanter of brandy.

The detective had visited Howard Milmarsh many times, and he knew just where to find anything that might be wanted in this room. He poured out a little of the liquor and gave it to the millionaire.

“Thanks!” gasped Milmarsh. “That will do me good. Now, Carter, will you promise me that in case anything happens to me before Howard comes back, you will see that he is not defrauded in any way?”

“Upon my word, I don’t see the necessity,” laughed the detective. “But, of course, I will do it.”

“That is not all,” went on the millionaire, who seemed to be stronger now than at any time since Carter had been with him. “I have already taken legal measures to give you the authority you might require. The papers are in the hands of Johnson, Robertson & Judkins, all properly drawn up.”

“What papers?”

“Making you the legal guardian of my son until he is in full possession of my estate. After that, he can take care of himself.”

“Rather a queer—or, at least, an unusual—proceeding,” remarked the detective.

“Possibly. But it will make Howard safer. Now, I know you would do anything for Howard or his father. We have been friends too long for me to doubt that. But I like to do matters of business in a businesslike way. Therefore I have provided that you shall receive five per cent of the value of the whole estate when Howard takes legal possession. Will that be satisfactory?”

“Satisfactory?” repeated Nick. “Why, you are rated at ten million dollars—perhaps more. Five per cent of that would be——”

“Never mind about figuring it up,” interrupted Howard Milmarsh, smiling wanly. “You will accept the trust?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks, old friend! I felt sure you would. I hope I shall hear something about my boy by the morning.”

“You shall if I can do anything to bring it about,” said Nick, rising. “I am going to New York now, and I think I know about all the places in which Howard is likely to take refuge in the great city of light.”

He went over to Milmarsh and shook hands. It struck the detective that the millionaire’s hands had never been quite so thin before, and that he had never noted such a weary look in the hollow eyes. But he made no comment, of course.

“Good night,” he called out from the door. “I’ll telephone the house as soon as I find the boy. Good night!”

“Good night!” was the response. “I’ll have some of the servants take the message. I’m going to bed. I feel that I need rest—a long rest!”

Nick Carter had not reached the bottom of the hill leading from the Milmarsh mansion to the State road, when he saw the lights of a car coming toward them, and he knew it must be the car in which young Howard had gone to New York.

“Stop!”

As the detective gave this order to his chauffeur and his big car came to a halt, the other car drew up alongside and also stopped as the driver perceived they were waiting for him.

“Where is Mr. Milmarsh in New York?” asked Carter imperatively.

“I put him down at the Hotel Supremacy,” was the reply.

“Did he put up there?” asked Nick, as the other driver pushed his lever forward, preparatory to going on. “Don’t be in a hurry, please. You know me, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mr. Carter!”

“Then you know you’d better answer me without any quibbling. I asked whether Mr. Howard Milmarsh went into the Hotel Supremacy, to stop there for the night?”

“I don’t think he did, sir.”

“Why don’t you think so?”

“Because he stood just inside the lobby after getting out of the car, and wouldn’t let any of the porters take his bags.”

“Well?”

“As I turned my car around, I had a view of the doorway, and I saw Mr. Milmarsh come out and get into a taxi.”

“Where did the taxi go?”

“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t think of following it. That would not have been any of my business. It vanished among all the other taxis and motor cars in the avenue. I shouldn’t have thought anything of it at all if you hadn’t asked me.”

“I suppose that’s true,” remarked Carter, half to himself. Then, louder: “That will do. Good night!”

The detective called up every club, hotel, restaurant, and private home in which it might be possible to hear of Howard Milmarsh. But the same answer was returned from all. Nobody had seen him that day or evening. Even the Hotel Supremacy could give him no information.

Nick Carter went to his comfortable home in New York, and settled himself behind the great oaken table he used in his library, as he lighted one of his own particular perfectos, to think over the incidents of the evening.

He was only half through his cigar when the telephone bell rang. With his customary deliberation, he picked up the instrument and responded, in his grave, firm tones:

“Hello! This is Nick Carter speaking!”

“This is Mr. Howard Milmarsh’s residence, in Westchester. Mr. Milmarsh died five minutes ago of heart failure!”

It was the voice of the millionaire steel man’s valet. The detective knew it at once.

“I will come there as soon as my car can bring me,” he answered. “In less than an hour.”

As he hung up the receiver, he pressed a button that brought into the room his confidential assistant, Chick Carter.

“Chick, Howard Milmarsh, the steel manufacturer, is dead. While I am at the house—which will be all night, and, perhaps longer, try to find the son, Howard Milmarsh, junior. At least, he is not junior, now that his father is gone. Young Milmarsh was in New York to-night, and he has not gone home. Understand?”

“I understand,” replied Chick quietly.