Hidden Foes; Or, A Fatal Miscalculation — Story, Setting & Ideas

A MYSTERIOUS FATALITY.

Nobody had heard the report of a pistol.

There had been no disturbance; in fact, no audible altercation, no startling cry for help, or even a groan of sudden, terrible distress.

The man lay there as motionless, nevertheless, as if felled by a thunderbolt. His life had been snuffed out like the flame of a candle by the fury of a whirlwind. Death had come upon him like a bolt from the blue. By slow degrees his face underwent a change--but it was not the change that ordinarily follows sudden death, that peaceful calm that marks the end of earthly toil and trouble.

Instead, the smoothly shaven skin seemed to shrink and wither slightly over the dead nerves and lifeless muscles, and a singular slaty hue that was hardly perceptible settled around his lips and nostrils, partly dispelling the first deathly pallor. It was as if the blast from a furnace, or the searing touch of a fiery hand, had withered and parched it.

He was a comparatively young man, not over thirty, and he was fashionably clad in a plaid business suit. He was lying flat on his back on the floor of the second-story corridor of a building known as the Waldmere Chambers, in the city of Madison.

Presently the door of one of the several adjoining rooms was opened and a stylish young woman emerged. She was clad for the street, and lingered to lock the door and put the key in her leather hand bag. Then she turned, and her gaze fell upon the prostrate man, several yards away and nearer the broad stairway leading down to the lower floor and the street door.

“Good heavens! Is he drunk?” she gasped, shrinking involuntarily.

She feared to approach him, though her hesitation was only momentary. For she heard the tread of some one on the stairs, obviously that of a man, and she ventured nearer just as the other appeared at the top of the stairs, a well-built, florid man of middle age.

“Oh, Doctor Perry, look here!” she cried excitedly. “What’s the matter with this man? Is he drunk or ill, or what is the----”

“Well, well, I don’t wonder you ask.” Doctor Perry approached and gazed down at him. “I don’t know, Miss Vernon. He appears to be----”

He stopped short; then crouched and raised the man’s arm, dropping it quickly. It fell back upon the floor as if made of clay.

“Heavens!” he exclaimed, rising hurriedly. “The man is dead.”

“Dead!” Miss Vernon echoed, turning pale.

“Stone dead. Do you know him?”

“No. I just came from my rooms to go to lunch and saw him lying here.”

“Did you hear him fall, or any disturbance, or----”

“I heard nothing, Doctor Perry, not a sound.”

“We must call a policeman. I will wait here while you do so. Go down to the street and find an officer.”

“Won’t it be better to telephone? I can do so in a moment.”

“Yes, yes, in that case,” Doctor Perry nodded. “Hasten.”

Miss Vernon ran back and entered her rooms, on the door of which a modest brass plate stated that her business was that of a manicure and ladies’ hairdresser. She ran to a telephone in one of the attractively furnished rooms, crying quickly to the exchange operator:

“Give me the police headquarters. Hurry, please! It’s an emergency case.”

Seated with Chief Gleason in the latter’s private office when the telephone call was received in the outer office was the celebrated American detective, Nicholas Carter, who had arrived in Madison early that morning with two of his assistants, and who then was discussing with the chief the business which had occasioned his visit, the nature of which will presently appear. They were interrupted by a police sergeant, who knocked and entered, saying quickly:

“A man has dropped dead, chief, in a corridor of the Waldmere Chambers. Shall I send the ambulance?”

“What man? Is he known?” Gleason questioned, swinging around in his swivel chair.

“A woman telephoned that the body had just been found. Doctor Perry, the dentist, was watching it while she telephoned. His office is in the Waldmere Chambers. Neither of them knew the dead man.”

“Yes, send the ambulance,” Chief Gleason directed. “You had better go, also, and look into the case. If----”

“One moment,” Nick Carter interrupted. “I think I’ll go with him, chief, if you don’t mind.”

“What need of that? It is merely a case of----”