The Doctor's Stratagem.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 168, 16 July 1907, Page 6

The Doctor's Stratagem.

By NICHOLAS CARTER

Autlwr of " The Silent Partner," " Under Cover of the Law," "Sealed Ordert," " Caught in a Web," " The Price of a Secret," etc.

CHAPTER X. COXCLUSIYE EVTDEXCE. In order to give Chick ample time for his work. Kick now proceeded to ask the servants numerous questions bearing upon the case, all of which were answered with a readiness and apparent frankness for which he was wholly prepared. Their replies shed no new light upon the afi'air, however, and Kick proceeded along this line only until he felt sure that Chick had accomplished his object. He received at the end of a quarter-hour, in fact, a signal previously agreed upon, and he then took the one other step lor ■which he had visited Rangeley that morning. Kick did not believe that Doctor Lecraw, if he had any definite knowledge of the several Italians, could meet an abrupt question concerning them without some involuntary self-betrayal. Presently, turning quite sharply to the physician, Kick said, somewhat curtly: "There is one question, doctor, I wish to ask you." "What is that. Detective Carter?" "Who i≤ Sanet'ta Derosa?" demanded Nick. Lecraw met him eye to eye. His grave, attractive countenance did not change by so much as a shadow. He replied at once, with unaltered voice and intonation. "Sanetta Derosa? I have never heard pf him, Detective Carter." "Nor of Pasquale Gallo?" "Xo, sir." '"Nor of Antonio ilaggi?" "Xor of him. Detective Carter," said Lecraw. The names, one and all. are entirely strange to mc. They appear to be Italian names."' "They are, Doctor Lecraw."' '""What of these men, sir? Have you any suspicion of persons bearing those nani9s." Kick huA alrea Iy risen to go. "Xo definite suspicions, Doctor Lecraw."' he evasively replied, with, an agTeeable air of candour. "If I form any later, however, I will hasten to tell you, and avail myself of your counsel. That is all for this morning, doctor, and I am greatly obliged to you. I hope that my subsequent investigations may result in discoveries worth reporting to you." "I may, then, depend upon you to report them?" inquired the physician, as the two men joined Chick in the hall. "Yes. certainly," said Kick, with a nod. "I shall confer with you frequently, doctor, and do all I can with the case."

"Very good, very good," bowed Doctor Lecraw, at the open door. "I hope you may accomplish something, Detective Carter—l do, indeed!" Kick smiled while he shook the physician's hand,, and backed down the steps, hut he made no reply. •■'Well?'" inquired Chick, when the two reached the street. "Does he know the Italians?" Nick Carter laughed. "He said that he does not. Chick, and said it with a face as inscrutable as that of a, sphinx," he replied. "Yet you doubt it?" I "Rather. , •'Because, when I sprung the question, "there was one face, not so well under control as that of the doctor." said Nick. "It was the face of Maria Marvin.' , "You noticed her, also?" "Yes, and the servarits, as well. The ■hand of one of the men went to his hip pocket, Chick, as if under an involuntary impulse to draw a weapon." "The deuce you say!' , exclaimed Chick. "What do you make of all this?" '"Nothing definite as yet," said Nick, as they passed out of view from the •house. "'What did you discover?" "Only this," said Chick, with a cautious glance backward. He had produced from under his coat a few pieces of soiled white duck, or light canvas, evidently the remnants of a piece Tised for making some desired article. "Where did you find those?" asked ESek. "They were thrust under some refuse in one corner of Doctor Lecraw's laboXatory." "How about the rest of the house?" "It appeared all right, Nick. I could discover nothing suspicious. There was no sign of the missing corpse, and I ibrought out these scraps of duck only because they appeared to have been concealed with some object." Nick now examined the remnants more carefully, noting the shape of the pieces. "By Jove! I have an idea," he suddenly exclaimed. "What is the time? Can we hit the noon express East? I "think, Chick, we must make a flying visit to the scene of the railway wrecK." ""'With what object?" asked Chick, in surprise. '".I'll inform you on the way." Nick Carter was not one to defer a move upon which he had decided. Without explaining his motive, , he harried. with Chick to the Forty-second Street station, arriving there just in time to board the east-bound express. Two hours later, or about the middle of the afternoon, they arrived upon the scene of the accident, having taken a team from the nearest stopping-place of the train. Without a moment's delay, Nick began searching along the track and the roadbed ,pntil he located the exact spot where he had discovered the ■empty casket of Etta Sheldon. Then, suddenly, he uttered a cry, start?mg Tip from the sand and gravel over ■■which he was crouching.

"Eureka! , he shouted triumphantly, calling Chick nearer. "I've found it!" "Not the body?" cried Chick, runiSig toward him.

"Xo. not the body," laughed Kick ex■urtantty. ""But I've found a clue, Chick —the only clue needed! I can now nail this man of mystery and get him dead to rights. Doctor Lecraw is, indeed, the tascal we wanted."

Nick Carter stood pointing at the ground when Chick approached him, at

a spot several feet to the right of the railway tracks, and near the edge of the yellow road-bed. '" What have you discovered? " Chick eagerly asked.

" It was here that the empty casket was lying immediately after the wreck," said Kick. "I can fix the exact spot by that just point of the ledge against which the haggage-cars collided. The broken casket was evidently hurled in, this direction, for one end of it nearly touched this pile of rocks." '•But what have you found?" Chick again inquired, for Kick was still pointing at the ground. "Do you notice that the surface of the road-bed is composed almost entirely of gravel and yellow sand?" he asked. '• Yes, I see that." " Yet here, near where the casket was lying, and directly opposite the side of it that was broken open is a spot where considerable sand of a greyish colour is mixed with that of the road-bed." " That's plain enough, Nick." '• Xotiee that there is none of the grey sand in any other locality. It is so near the colour of the other, in fact, and was so trampled into and mixed with the gravel and sand of the roadbed by the crowd about here soon after the wreck that I failed to discover iU the following morning, when I examined the casket, and looked about here for further evidence." " It might be easily overlooked," said Chick. '■ Yet this grey sand, now that you call my attention to it, is quite plainly distinguishable. As you say, however, it appears only in "this one spot, a few feet in diameter. What do you make of it. Kick?" " I was led to suspect that a more careful examination here might reveal it, Chick, when you showed mc those remnants of duck brought from Lecraw's laboratory," Kick replied. " Plainly enough, the shape of the pieces indicated that they had been cut from a large sheet of duck, from which one or two bags of considerable size had been made. Presumably they were made by Doctor Lecraw. since the remnants were found in his laboratory, and I was at once hit with an idea. Why should Doctor Lecraw want two large duck bags at just this time." "By Jove •"' exclaimed 'Chick, with countenance lighting. "You think he substituted two bags of sand for Etta Sheldon's dead body? " ■' Probably two, Chick, since one would have been awkward to handle." " You think he put them in the casket before it was taken from the house?' , '■'Either he did it, Chick, or the servants in his employ." '" Why do you feel so sure of it? " "Because of the sand 1 found here." Kick explained, again pointing to the ground. "It is foreign to this locality. It has been recently deposited here, and so scattered about as not easily to attract attention." "There's no doubt of that." '"This evidence, together -with the mysterious disappearance of the body supposed to have been in the casket at the time of the wTeck, literally compels one to believe that the casket then contained, not a dead body, but a couple of bags of sand substituted in place of it to give the necessary weight." "And spilled here after the wreck?" '•Not spilled, Chick, but deliberately emptied here immediately after the accident, and quickly scattered about," Kick confidently declared. "It is plain as two times two, Chick. "That Doctor Lecraw did it?' , "Exactly," nodded Kick. '"lie is the only one who could have done it. I know that Dane was penned in his car, the same as I was in mine, and that when he finally got out he met Leerajv on the road-bed. Knowing what the casket contained, and that the wreck might expose the duplicity of which I now know he must have been guilty, he evidently succeeded in quickly leaving bis car and reaching the immediate scene of the col-

lision." A "I see the point."

"There he at once discovered the broken casket, and he probably took the only step for averting exposure that the situation offered him," Nick gravely added. "Unobserved in the darkness, confusion, and excitement, he must have dragged the sand-bags out of the casket, then slit them open with his knife, and emptied them of the sand. This he quickly could have scattered about, and then concealed the bags under his coat till he could safely dispose of them." "Very likely-."

"The whole business could have been done in half a minute," added Kick; "and if not observed, he then would have caused the very state of affairs which I discovered a few minutes later —an empty casket and a body apparently stolen." "Thunderation!" exclaimed Chick. "Can that old rat have been as crafty and clever as that?" "I am now convinced | of it," said Nick confidently. '■'Also, that the body did not leave Rangeley." "Certainly." "And that Lecraw now has the corpse in his possession, or knows where it i 3 concealed?" "I would stake my reputation on that, Chick," Nick firmly declared. "It is obvious, too, that there has been some desperate occasion for his extraordinary conduct, for it required nerve and resolution, with which no ordinary motive could have endowed him." "I should say not." "There is a deep mystery in this case, Chick, and we by no means have st-Fuck bottom." '"Far from it," I should say," Chick rejoined, with a grimace. "It looks to mc as if the two-faced rascal had murdered Etta Sheldon, and disposed of her corpse to head off eveiy possibility of detection."

"That may be tha case, Chick, yet there is something deeper even than that."

"Relating to Derosa and the three Ita lians?"

"Certainly," said Nick, with a nod. "Their conduct is equally strange. Why were they so anxious to secure the corpse?" argued Nick inquiringly. "Why did they attempt to track it to Boston, after spying about Rangeley, and take the risks of robbing a grave in order to get the body? Why, moreover, did Doctor Lecraw deny any knowledge of these Italians, a denial which I am now convinced was a lie?"

"Plainly enough."

"These are questions, Chick, not easily answered. Yet they must be answered •with the whole truth, and back I'm going to Kangejey to demaad it."

"From Doctor Lecxaw?" "That's what/ Nick impressively rejoined. - "This evidence should now enable mc to drive him to the wall, and evoke a complete confession. I'll force the truth from him, or I'll know the reason why." It was a good example of Nick Carter's keen insight, his suspecting so quickly why Doctor Lecraw had been cutting duck-cloth in his laboratory. It was the importance of this evidence, moreover, if his suspicions could be confirmed, that had sent Kick again to the scene of the wreck, where he could, he felt sure, discover whether any sand or earth foreign to that locality had been emptied from bags previously placed in Etta Sheldon's casket. That these were the facts, despite the care taken to conceal them, Kick now had not a doubt. Yet his discernment did not end there. Though now convinced that Doctor Lecraw was guilty of serious duplicity, and that he for some reason was playing a deep game, Kick was averse to believing that he had deliberately murdered Etta Sheldon.

(To be eontinuea dally.)