Nick Carter Stories Series

Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from all sorts of troubles and landed the criminal just where he should be—behind the 

Nick Carter leaned nearer to the wall and listened to what the two men were discussing. The wall was that of a booth in the café of the Shelby House. It was a partition of matched sheathing only, through which ordinary conversation in the adjoining booth could be easily overheard, and both men in this case spoke above an ordinary tone. Obviously, therefore, they were discussing nothing of a private nature, or anything thought to be of much importance, or serious significance. It meant no more to them, in fact, than it would have meant to most men, to all save one in a million.

“No, Carter! I shall not go back until I have got my hands on that wretched crook, William Pike, and I don’t care if it leads me into the very heart of this strange country where they say a white man never has come from alive.” The speaker was Jefferson Arnold, the multimillionaire shipowner and importer of Oriental goods, whose establishment was one of the best known of its kind in New York City. His firm jaw came together with a snap, and his dark eyes sparkled with determination in the red light of the camp fire, as he looked at the world-renowned detective for approval of his determination.

Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from all sorts of trouble, and landed the criminal just where he should be—behind the bars.

A spear shot into the midst of the camp, and stuck, quivering, in the ground! Patsy Garvan and Chick jumped to their feet, rifle in hand, and looked inquiringly at Nick Carter. The detective had not moved. He was sitting with his back against a rock, a cigar in his mouth, and silently contemplating the small fire that he had consented to have made. When the spear came sailing over the bluff, at the foot of which was the little camp, he merely glanced at it, as if it were a rather curious visitor, but not one to cause untoward agitation. There were other persons around the camp fire besides Nick Carter and his two assistants.

Nicholas Carter, and his first assistant, Chickering Carter, had risen early that morning, but not for the usual reason. It was a very unusual occasion in the great detective’s household, for he and Chick were actually going away for two weeks’ vacation in the Adirondacks. The train that was to carry the two to the Great North Woods was scheduled to leave shortly after eight o’clock, and many preparations had been deferred until that morning. Now, however, everything was practically ready, their trunk was packed, locked, and strapped, their suit cases were nearly filled, and they had time for a bite of breakfast and a glance at the morning papers, which had thus far been neglected.

Five men were playing cards in a room in the Old Pike Inn. It was a road house, on a well-traveled highway—a great favorite with automobiles—in one of the picturesque valleys that alternate with towering heights within easy motoring distance of New York City. The Old Pike Inn had its spacious verandas, its big restaurant, its smaller dining rooms for private parties, and its great reception hall, with polished floor, in which dances, formal and informal, were in progress every evening during most of the year.

“Mr. Maxwell Kane!” The announcement was made by Nick Carter’s valet, Joseph, who threw open the door of his master’s study with a gesture as nearly approaching a flourish as any in which he ever permitted himself to indulge. Joseph had a wholesome respect for millionaires, and many a one of them came at one time and another to the detective for consultation; but it was rarely that Joseph admitted such a one as Maxwell Kane. It was a name which was an open sesame at all doors, however exclusive; it was the name of a man who counted his millions by hundreds—of a man who, notwithstanding his great wealth, still found time to be a good fellow; of an athlete, a sportsman—in short, and in a word, a gentleman.

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“Move on, old man, and go home!” It was the stern voice of one of New York’s finest policemen that uttered these words. “Home! I wonder where it is?” muttered the old man to whom the policeman had spoken, and a shudder ran through his frame, as he slowly moved down the street. As he reached the corner near old St. John’s Church, on Varick Street, he paused, rubbed his eyes and gazed dreamily around him. For some time before the policeman had addressed him he had been standing inside the church, looking through the railings into the churchyard. His form was bent by decrepitude and sorrow, and his hair was as white as the flaky snow that clung to the steeple of the old church, the bells of which had just sounded the knell of the dying year.

Nick Carter—known to the captain and crew of the tramp steamer Cherokee as Sykes, the bos’n—heard this shout, taken up by man after man, as he lay stretched out on the foc’s’le head, in the early morning, just as the ship nosed her way into San Juan harbor, on the northern coast of Porto Rico. The thrilling warning that somebody has fallen into the sea, which always sends a shock through both crew and passengers whenever heard, does not permit any ordinary person to remain quietly dozing. The famous detective was one of the first to rush over to the side of the ship when the alarm had been given. Close by him were his two assistants, Chick and Patsy Garvan, who, in the rôles of common sailors, had come down to Porto Rico to help him get back the fortune in jewels which had been stolen from Stephen Reed, the well-known New York millionaire.