Читать книгу The Traitors of the Tropics; or, Nick Carter's Royal Flush - Carter Nicholas - Страница 4

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There was no other word spoken for an appreciable space of time. Prince Marcos could hardly comprehend the possibility of the plan, and was silent. Nick waited for him to say something.

“I should think it could not be done if it were any one but you, Carter,” were the broken words that came from Marcos at last. “But I can see only success if you undertake the thing.”

“There must be success,” returned Nick gravely.

“Of course. Now let me tell you what you must do. When I left Joyalita I wore a small mustache. I shaved it off before I got to New York. Will you kindly hand me my coat—or take the small packet of letters, fastened by a band, in the inside pocket? That will be better.”

Nick obeyed, and Marcos took from one of the envelopes a photograph of himself as he had appeared before taking off the mustache.

“You see, Carter,” he said, “I looked a little different when wearing that. Could you not put one on like that? It would make your disguise absolutely perfect.”

“I will do that, of course,” answered the detective. “Will you lend me this photograph? I will get a mustache, and make up my face with the photo as a guide. That is a common method with professional actors when they are to represent some well-known personage—such as President Lincoln, Disraeli, or Taffy, in ‘Trilby.’ They generally ‘make-up’ from a portrait of the original. I can get myself exact, I know.”

“You can have the photo. And you’d better take Phillips with you. He will be a great help, because he knows Joyalita and its people as well as I do.”

“Certainly. I could hardly undertake it without Phillips,” answered the detective. “I intended to ask you for him.”

“Who else will you have with you?”

“I shall take my principal assistant, Chick, in the guise of a medical attendant, and my second man, Patrick Garvan, in place of your late servant, Jason, who managed to get burned to death during the last attempt of the gentle Miguel to keep you away from Joyalita.”

“So you will have three people with you,” observed Marcos. “That will make four in the party, and it ought to be strong enough to throw off Solado and Miguel, if they should try any tricks on you as you go along.”

“Which they are likely to do,” said Nick.

Marcos fumbled under his pillow and brought out a chamois leather bag which he had worn around his neck under his clothing, but had taken off when his valet had undressed him.

Phillips knew that his employer always had this bag under his pillow. He often had assisted him to remove the cord from his neck without making any comment. Any well-trained valet would do that.

“Here is something you must take, Carter,” said Marcos.

He fumbled in the bag, and took out a richly jeweled watch and diamond fob. Laying them on the counterpane, he regarded the fire and luster of the precious stones admiringly.

“This watch is known as the Seal of Gijon,” he remarked quietly. “It has been handed down in my family through a dozen generations, and is the insignia of the reigning house of Joyalita. You see that it is old-fashioned in design. But it is an accurate timekeeper, and its value, merely as gold and gems, is several thousand dollars.”

“I know that,” nodded the detective. “I’ve seen the watch before, you will remember.”

“Yes, I remember. But here is something that perhaps you have not seen,” continued Marcos, as he pressed a spring. “This is the great seal of Joyalita, and it must be used on all official documents. You will perceive that it is in the form of a double-headed dragon, with the letter ‘J’ twisted about it like a rope.”

Nick Carter bent over the watch and admired the ingenuity with which the seal—almost as large around as the watch case itself, but fitting just inside—would stand forth when the spring was pressed, so that it could be used on sealing wax.

He put the Seal of Gijon carefully in an inside waist-coat pocket, and went away, after promising to come back before he started on his long journey to Penza, in Joyalita.

It was a quarter to nine that night when two taxicabs arrived at the Grand Central Terminal in New York. Five persons left the cabs and crossed the great concourse, on their way to the express train ready to leave.

Three of the four men in the party carried hand baggage of various descriptions. The fourth was wrapped in a large overcoat, and only his eyes, nose, and mustache could be easily distinguished between the two points of the large upturned collar as he walked along.

He was conversing with a very pretty, dark-eyed girl, expensively dressed and bearing all the marks of good breeding so easily to be distinguished when present, and quickly missed otherwise.

The man in the big overcoat was Nick Carter; the young lady, Miss Claudia Solado, niece of the villainous prime minister of Joyalita, Don Solado, and cousin of Prince Marcos.

Claudia was a warm champion of her Cousin Marcos, and her greatest regret was that Don Solado was the brother of her dead father.

“I am sure you will get there safely, Mr. Carter,” she was saying, as they crossed over to the train gate. “Poor Marcos! He would be lost if it were not for you.”

“Not a bit of it,” laughed the detective. “So long as he has such an earnest and faithful cousin as Miss Claudia, he could not fail to win out at last. Will you see me into the train, so that you can report to him?”

“Yes. If they will let me pass the gate,” she answered.

“I’ll attend to that,” returned the detective confidently. “They will let you through.”

So they did. She walked up the platform to the Pullman car by the side of him, talking in low, earnest tones all the way.

Immediately behind came Chick, with a pointed beard, dark spectacles, and carrying a black leather medical case in his gloved hand. In his dark clothing and high hat, he was the very picture of a well-to-do physician, and, when he coughed a sonorous “Hem!” as he passed the gate, was as impressive as Doctor Sloane himself.

Patsy Garvan wore a light check suit and leather leggings, with a cap of the same material as his suit. In his pockets were a pair of handcuffs and the automatic revolver which he always carried when out on business.

Incidentally, it may be said that both Nick Carter and Chick were provided with similar useful implements.

The drawing-room which had been reserved for Mr. Marcos and his physician, “Doctor Fordham,” was ready, and Nick Carter and Chick went in at once, accompanied by Claudia.

Patsy Garvan and Phillips were to ride in the Pullman in ordinary seats, and they busied themselves in placing the baggage that had not been stowed in the drawing-room. Everything was done in the regulation manner, and no one could doubt that the wealthy gentleman in the drawing-room was all he appeared to be, with his two servants in attendance.

“You have not seen anything of our friends the enemy, have you, Miss Solado?” asked Nick, when they were shut in.

“I cannot be sure,” she answered. “I did not see Miguel or my uncle, Don Solado, anywhere about the station. But I saw one face I thought I recognized—only I know he is dead.”

“Whom do you mean?”

“Jason, who used to be Marcos’ undervalet.”

“Do you think you saw his face?” asked Nick Carter thoughtfully.

“I saw a face like his. But, as you know he is dead, of course I must have been mistaken.”

“Of course,” agreed Nick. “Did you see what became of this man who looks like Jason?”

“I missed him near the gate. He may be on this train.”

“That’s possible,” put in Chick. “It’s a long train, and there might be a score of people on it whom we know without our ever seeing one of them.”

“I wish I could come with you, Mr. Carter,” said the girl. “But my mother does not want to leave New York just yet. She does not go out much, but she likes to be near the bustle of this big city. It is just a notion, but it is insistent, too. I do not care to leave her, although she would not mind, for both she and I are used to traveling alone.”

“You will be safer here, with your mother,” returned the detective. “So long as I have Phillips to give me a hint now and then, I shall be able to act the part of your cousin satisfactorily, I am sure. Then, if I need any other kind of help, I have my two assistants, and——”

The cry of “All aboard!” came echoing along the platform at this moment.

With a hasty “good-by, and thank you, Mr. Carter!” Claudia Solado left the drawing-room and was helped down to the platform by Chick.

In another minute the train was softly gliding away, without noise or fuss, as the electric motor got to work. Claudia was left on the platform watching the red tail lights as they glimmered smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared.

As she walked slowly from the station and entered the taxicab which had been waiting for her, she did not perceive a slim, ratlike-looking young man, hardly out of his teens, who had been watching her, and who was close behind her as she told the driver to take her to Crownledge.

“Seen the prince guy off,” muttered the young fellow. “That is all I wanted to know. I’ll get up to the boss and hand it to him.”

It was a small, subdued-looking sort of hotel, in a side street to which the spy made his way, and asked for Mr. Miguel.

“There he is, on the other side of the lobby,” replied the clerk at the desk. “Do you know him when you see him?”

“Sure I know him,” was the reply, as the fellow slouched over to Prince Miguel.

“Well, Collins?” was Miguel’s greeting. “Did you see Prince Marcos go away?”

“Yes. He’s gone, with three other fellows. One of them was the man I’d seen before—his valet, Phillips. I don’t know the other two.”

“Ah! How did the prince look? Was he sick?”

“Didn’t seem so.”

“Couldn’t you tell?”

“No. He was muffled up in a big overcoat, and you could see only his nose and mustache.”

“Mustache? Did he wear a mustache?”

“Yes. It was a little one, but I lamped it all right. He walked along steadily, talking to the girl.”

“What girl? Who are you talking about?”

“Miss Solado. At least, that’s who you said she was, when you was showing me the people I had to pick up later. She was with this here prince, and she went into the train with him. Afterward she came out, called a taxi, and told the driver to take her to a place in upper Broadway. She said she would show him the house she wanted when she got there.”

Collins delivered all this information with the smoothness of one accustomed to making detailed reports, and Miguel knew he had heard all that his spy could tell him.

“You are quite sure Prince Marcos was not seriously hurt?”

“I’ll bet on that. He swung his arms as he walked, and you could tell, from the move of him, that he felt pretty good all around. I know how a guy acts when he’s been plugged. There ain’t nothing wrong with this prince, and you can bet on it.”

“That will do, Collins,” said Miguel, after a pause, during which he finished the cigarette he had been smoking and lighted another. “Be at your home, so that I can call you up when I want you.”

“I’ll be there right along as soon as I can get there. It’s a regular hotel, even if it does look like a saloon, and we have a telephone and everything to make a fellow comfortable. So why shouldn’t I stay there?”

When Collins had gone, Prince Miguel got up, stretched himself, and walked up and down the lobby, cigarette in mouth, and deeply cogitating.

“Solado was right!” he muttered, between his teeth. “He’s a sharp man, is Solado. He knew Marcos was too badly shot to go to Penza just now. Yet a man supposed to be Marcos has gone. I guess I’ll call up Marcos’ mother from Newport on the long distance, and tell her Marcos has met with an accident. She’ll come rushing up to Crownledge to see her son, and if he’s still there, in bed, as I believe, why, I shall know what to wire to Solado.”

He chuckled as he lighted another cigarette and strolled over to the telephone desk to tell the operator to call up Newport.