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Man Without a Conscience

<h2>CHAPTER IX. BODY AND LIMBS.</h2> “Chick, I’m hit with an idea!” This exclamation came from Nick Carter about ten o’clock one morning, two days after the highway robbery last reported, and the talk that followed showed with what remarkable insight this great detective arrived at the subtle deductions which contributed largely to his success. Chick and Patsy had arrived in Boston two days before, and both were now present with Nick in his room at the Adams House. Both had been fully informed of the facts thus far learned by him, moreover, as well as of his interview with the Badgers, and his visits to Madame Victoria. When he uttered the above exclamation Nick was seated at one of the windows of his room. In one hand he held the photograph that figured so curiously in the case, and which would have convinced any ordinary detective that Madame Victoria and Mrs. Amos Badger had been robbed precisely as alleged, for the camera, at least, would not have lied. Yet this bit of convincing evidence was so out of the[104] ordinary, as well as the circumstances under which it had been obtained, that Nick from the very first had been inclined to distrust the picture. In his other hand he now held a large magnifying-glass, through which he was carefully studying the photograph, holding it in the full glare of the morning sunlight. “What’s that, Nick?” inquired Chick, starting up from his chair and dropping a morning paper reporting the last robbery. “Hit with an idea, did you say?” “Exactly.” “What is it, Mr. Carter?” asked Patsy, at once displaying a lively interest. “Have you discovered something lame in that picture?” Nick laughed. “That about hits the nail on the head, Patsy,” said he, with a glance in the lad’s direction. “I think I begin to see a ray of light in the darkness.” “What have you discovered?” asked Chick. And both he and Patsy came to lean over the back of Nick’s chair. Nick held the large glass and the photograph so that all three could plainly view the magnified picture. “I’ll explain what I find, and I wonder that I have[105] not noticed it before,” said he quite earnestly. “It relates to this tall woman who appears in the picture.” “Gee! but she is a tall one,” remarked Patsy, with a laugh. “She’s tall enough to fit in a dime museum.” “That’s right, Patsy,” assented Nick, smiling. “What’s peculiar about it, Nick?” “As you probably know, Chick, there is a general uniformity in the proportions of the human body—a regular length of arms and limbs when compared with the trunk. In all normal subjects the proportions are nearly the same.” “Sure,” nodded Chick. “A man’s reach, from the tips of his extended arms and fingers, is usually the same as his height.” “Correct.” “But what has that to do with the picture, Mr. Carter?” asked Patsy. “It has to do with this woman,” Nick rejoined, drawing out his pencil to be used for a pointer. “I want you to notice her extended arm and hand, the one in which she held the leveled revolver.” “That’s plain enough, sir.” “It’s good fortune that it is, Patsy,” nodded Nick. “It also is plain, now that I study it closely, that the arm is a little out of proportion with her exceeding height.” [106] “By Jove! it does appear so!” exclaimed Chick, bending nearer to view the pictured figure. “Notice the distance from her shoulder to her hand, then the distance from her shoulder to her hip, which is plainly outlined by this curve of her long auto coat. Her hip is here, Chick, where I have the point of my pencil.” “Exactly.” “Notice, now, that her extended hand, if it were to be dropped to her side, would reach only to this point, measuring the same distance, a point only a trifle below her hip.” “That’s clear,” cried Chick. “Yet the camera may——” “The camera never lies,” interposed Nick. “Then the woman must be out of proportion,” declared Chick. “Not necessarily.” “But her arm should be longer than it appears there,” Chick insisted. “I’m well-proportioned, I’ll swear to that, and my hand, when lowered, reaches half-way down my thigh.” “Which is about right, Chick.” “Yet you say the woman is not out of proportion——” “I said not necessarily,” interposed Nick. “If she was as tall as she appears in the picture, however, I’ll admit that her arm would be too short for her body.” [107] “Oho, I see!” exclaimed Patsy, starting up. “You think, Mr. Carter, that she is not as tall as the picture indicates.” “That’s exactly it, Patsy,” nodded Nick. “How do you make it out?” asked Chick. “Notice this fold of her skirt, where the skirt shows below the edge of her auto coat?” “Well, what of it?” “Plainly enough, Chick, the fold does not hang quite naturally,” Nick went on to explain, still pointing with his pencil. “It appears drawn a little to one side and back of her, with the edge of the skirt carefully arranged to touch the ground, precisely as if to conceal something beneath it.” “Something on which she was standing!” exclaimed Chick, quickly seeing the point. “That’s just it,” declared Nick impressively. “No skirt ever hung quite like that, if it hung naturally.” “Surely not.” “Notice also the distance from her hip to the edge of the skirt, where her feet should be,” added Nick. “Her limbs would be as much above the regular proportions as her arm is below them.” “I see what you mean.” [108] “In a nutshell, Chick, such an anomaly could not be,” continued Nick decisively. “A person with abnormally long legs and disproportionately short arms is out of the question.” “And in your opinion——” “In my opinion, Chick, the woman was standing on something, possibly a rock, with her skirts lengthened to conceal it. Obviously the whole was done to give her the appearance of being very tall.” “And with what object?” “With a design to thus blind the police to the real looks of the woman operating with this gang of crooks.” “You think they aimed to send the police searching after some very tall woman?” “Exactly.” “I’ll wager you are right.” “Furthermore,” added Nick, “these discoveries conclusively prove that the picture was deliberately taken, with the several persons calmly posing to make it effective, and that the two women said to have been held up and robbed were not robbed at all.” “And the design of the photograph?” “It was taken purposely to be offered as evidence to corroborate the story told to the police.” [109] “With a view to averting suspicion and throwing them off the right track,” added Chick. “Precisely.” “By thunder, that was a crafty scheme!” declared Patsy, rather pleased with the originality of it. “Yes, it was crafty enough,” assented Nick. “But the rascals overleaped their mount, Patsy, in not anticipating the deductions I have mentioned. All this sheds a new and very bright light upon the case,” the speaker added, as he tossed the photograph upon the table. “I should say so,” nodded Chick, resuming his chair and lighting a cigar. “It indicates that those two women, who claim to have been robbed, may be in league with this gang of thieves.” “Even more than that, Chick.” “What more, Nick?” “It suggests that Badger himself may be one of the gang, if not the chief figure in it, and that their headquarters may be at that isolated suburban place of his.” “By Jove, that may be so!” “Let’s look a little deeper, Chick, and see how far some of the other facts sustain this theory. I was held up when on my way out there Tuesday morning,” continued Nick. “That may have been merely a coincidence,[110] the scamps possibly having been laying in wait for some victim, though there still remains a chance of something even more than that under the surface.” “Decidedly so,” replied Chick. “Such things don’t often happen by chance.” “We’ll investigate that a little later.” “Sure.” “After the hold-up, Chick, I hastened to Badger’s house, arriving there within ten minutes after the robbery,” Nick went on. “Then it must have occurred pretty near his place.” “Within half a mile.” “That, too, is significant.” “In a measure,” assented Nick. “I found his chauffeur cleaning a Stanley machine in the driveway, where I could not help observing him. Ordinarily such a job would be done in the stable or garage, and I am now inclined to think that it was done outside only intentionally to make me believe, in case of any distrust, that Badger uses a Stanley machine, and not such a car as that in which I saw the thieves escape.” “Do you know how many machines he owns?” “I do not, Chick. In fact, I know very little about him or his place.” “We’ll make it a point to learn.” [111] “I did not fancy the looks nor air of his chauffeur,” continued Nick. “He appeared to avoid my questions, and I now suspect that may have been done to give Badger time to get out of his rig as a highwayman and into the house suit and red flannel bandages in which he received me.” “You think that whole business was designed only to blind you, in case you had any suspicions?” “That certainly would have been the design, Chick, providing that we are justified in suspecting him at all.” “There are too many of these significant little circumstances, Nick, for us to doubt that we are hitting somewhere near the mark,” Chick shrewdly reasoned. “That’s the way I now regard them,” said Nick. “After my talk with Badger, in which I stated I should call upon Madame Victoria, he may have telephoned the fact to the fortune-teller. I noticed that he had a telephone in the hall.” “That would explain her knowledge of you, Nick,” said Chick. “But bear in mind that you were in disguise when you first called upon her.” “I remember that, Chick.” “How can she have known you?” “Badger may have been alarmed by my visit,” argued Nick, “and he possibly suspected that I might adopt[112] some disguise. Very likely he mentioned some distinctive feature about my person, one which I would not ordinarily remove, by which Madame Victoria may have identified me.” “That may have been the case,” admitted Chick. “The knowledge she displayed certainly points to some such move on Badger’s part, and adds to our grounds for suspicion,” continued Nick. “She had me well marked in some way, there is no denying that. Furthermore, the fact that she warned me to drop the perilous business I was about to undertake, predicting that I should meet only with failure, points plainly to a possibility that they were taking that method to influence me to drop the case.” “Gee whiz!” exclaimed Patsy. “That now looks dead open and shut, Mr. Carter.” “It certainly is significant.” “I’ll bet you landed right in the midst of this gang of road thieves. In that case, Nick, the rest of our work should be easy,” Chick quickly remarked. “It should be child’s play for us to round them up.” Nick thoughtfully shook his head. “I’m not so sure of that, Chick,” said he. “We as yet have no tangible evidence against them, and nothing less will serve us in a court of law,” replied Nick. [113] “That’s true.” “Our theory is built chiefly upon trivial circumstances, all of which are significant enough, I’ll admit, and sufficiently numerous to warrant considerable suspicion. But we must secure more positive evidence before we can take any decisive action against these suspects.” “I guess that is right, Nick.” “We ought to get the evidence easily enough, if we really have located the crooks,” declared Patsy. Nick Carter laughed again, with a glance at the eager eyes of the youthful detective. “That one word, really, is quite important, Patsy,” said he. “It is barely possible that we are mistaken, at least in part, if not entirely so. Circumstantial evidence is never wholly trustworthy.” “I’ll bet you are right, sir, for all that,” insisted Patsy, with abiding faith in Nick’s shrewdness. “I shall first make sure that I am,” said Nick, “by taking some step to confirm my theory. As for securing the evidence with which to convict these rascals, Patsy, that may not be done as easily as you think. If they become wary, fearing that we suspect them, they not only may drop the business entirely for a time, but may also cover their past tracks so cleverly as to conceal the evidence that we require.” [114] “I hadn’t thought of that, sir.” “It’s too true for a joke, Nick, and we cannot be too careful and crafty at the outset,” Chick gravely put in, now taking the measure of the case quite as clearly as Nick himself. “What do you intend doing?” “Personally, Chick, I am going down to State Street this morning, and see what I can learn about Badger. Then I am going up to police headquarters and return these documents to Chief Weston. He loaned them to me that I might learn what lines of investigation his men have followed.” “Do they appear to have accomplished anything?” “Nothing more than to note in detail the facts of the various robberies,” smiled Nick. “Not one of them has hit upon a rational clue.” “Is there anything you want us to do while you are thus engaged?” “Yes. I want you and Patsy to go out to Brookline and see what you can discover at Badger’s place,” replied Nick. “I don’t want you to be seen about there, however.” “H’m! Let us alone to be discreet.” “His estate is backed by quite an extensive woodland, through which you can easily approach after locating the place.” [115] “That will be an advantage.” “Take what time you require,” added Nick, “and learn how many men are employed in and about the house and stable. Also learn how many automobiles and horses he keeps. Several of these hold-ups have been committed by horsemen, and I wish to learn what Badger owns in both lines.” “Automobiles and horses?” “Exactly.” “We’ll ferret out the whole business, Mr. Carter, trust us for that,” cried Patsy, impatient to be at work. “Meantime,” said Nick, rising, “I’ll employ myself as stated. It is now half-past ten. You may require three or four hours to learn what I would like to know, so we will plan to meet here again about an hour or two before dinner, say at four o’clock.” “That will give us ample time,” declared Chick. “We’ll be here at four sharp.” “You’ll find me here,” said Nick, with no thought that anything would occur to prevent him. The three left the house together, parting at the Washington Street door, both Chick and Patsy heading for the subway to take a Brookline trolley car. Neither so much as dreamed, however, that many an anxious[116] hour would pass before they again saw Nick’s familiar face or heard his genial voice. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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