Following a Chance Clew; Or, Nick Carter's Lucky Find — Context and Discussion

sign over the jeweler’s store on Eighth Avenue and stopped to glance critically at the place.

He noticed that the “regulator” indicated midnight.

His thoughts flew back to another midnight earlier in the week, when Lusker’s store had been cleaned out by burglars.

The robbery had been charged to a mysterious crook known as Doc Helstone, who was supposed to be the leader of a clever gang of lawbreakers.

Nick had been asked to break up this gang, which had baffled some of the best men of Inspector McLaughlin’s staff. A proposition had been made to him that day, and he had promised an answer on the morrow.

Probably he would have decided to refuse the job, for he had a lot of work on hand; but, as he strolled up the avenue on that September night, an adventure was waiting for him which was to alter his purpose, and set him upon the track of a remarkable scoundrel.

Lusker’s place was nearly in the middle of a block. As Nick turned his eyes away from the window, he noticed, on the street corner beyond, a group of about a dozen men and women.

There was nothing unusual about them except that they were all looking one way. Their attention had evidently been strongly attracted by something which was taking place on the side street, to the westward.

Suddenly they all hurried in that direction. Other persons, attracted by this movement, joined in it.

All whom Nick could see were hastening toward this center of interest--all, except one man, who was walking the other way.

This man came out of the street wherein the crowd was gathering, and turned up the avenue. Nick saw him for only a moment, and at a considerable distance, but he remembered him.

When Nick came to the street corner, he saw, about forty yards from the avenue, a considerable crowd, upon the downtown side. He quickly made his way to the midst of it.

There he saw a young man kneeling on the sidewalk, and supporting upon his arm the head of a woman.

The man seemed considerably agitated. The woman’s face, indistinct in the dim light, was white and rigid.

“Do you know this woman?” asked Nick, quickly, of the young man, after he had cast a single glance upon the unconscious figure.

“No; I never saw her before.”

“Do you know a tall man with a light brown beard parted in the middle, a dark suit of----”

“Why, that’s the man who has gone to ring for an ambulance,” was the reply. “This lady was with him when she was taken sick.”

Nick did not wait to hear any more. He slipped through the crowd like an eel, and darted away.

He was on the track of the man whom he had seen walking away from the spot to which everybody else was hurrying.

The avenue was brightly lighted, but the man was not in sight. By rapid, clever work, Nick traced him to Forty-first Street, where he had entered a carriage.

A hackman, who had seen this, did not remember ever to have seen the carriage or the driver or the passenger before.

“Was the man looking about for a carriage when you first saw him?” asked Nick.

“No; he knew where to find one,” was the reply.

“Did he give any directions to the driver?”

“He held up his hand in a queer sort of way, and the driver nodded. Nothing was said.”

Evidently the carriage had been waiting, and the coachman and the passenger knew each other well. They would be harder to trace on that account.

For the moment Nick gave up the chase. He returned to the crowd around the unconscious woman.

She still lay where Nick had last seen her. A policeman had come, and had rung for an ambulance.

The young man who had been supporting the woman’s head had relinquished his burden, and just as Nick came up he was edging away through the crowd. He seemed to desire to escape further observation.

Nick touched him on the arm, and the young man faced about.

“Don’t try to get away,” said the detective. “You won’t help matters by that.”

“Why shouldn’t I go away?”

“Because,” said Nick, calmly, “you will direct suspicion toward yourself.”

“Suspicion! Suspicion of what?”

“Murder!” replied the detective, in a low, steady voice.

This sinister word produced a tremendous effect upon the young man. But he came out of it in a way which showed he had plenty of nerve.

Nick had drawn him into a doorway, and the two were almost unobserved.