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The Crime of the French Cafe
Nick Carter's Ghost Story
The Mystery of St. Agnes' Hospital
_THREE COMPLETE STORIES OF THE EXPLOITS OFNICHOLAS CARTER, AMERICA'S GREATEST DETECTIVE_
THE CRIME OF THE FRENCH CAFE.
CHAPTER I.
PRIVATE DINING-ROOM "B."
There is a well-known French restaurant in the "Tenderloin" districtwhich provides its patrons with small but elegantly appointed privatedining-rooms.
The restaurant occupies a corner house; and, though its reputation isnot strictly first-class in some respects, its cook is an artist, andits wine cellar as good as the best.
It has two entrances, and the one on the side street is not well lightedat night.
At half-past seven o'clock one evening Nick Carter was standing aboutfifty yards from this side door.
The detective had shadowed a man to a house on the side street, and waswaiting for him to come out.
The case was a robbery of no great importance, but Nick had taken it tooblige a personal friend, who wished to have the business managedquietly. This affair would not be worth mentioning, except that it ledNick to one of the most peculiar and interesting criminal puzzles thathe had ever come across in all his varied experience.
While Nick waited for his man he saw a closed carriage stop before theside door of the restaurant.
Almost immediately a waiter, bare-headed and wearing his white apron,came hurriedly out of the side door and got into the carriage, whichinstantly moved away at a rapid rate.
This incident struck Nick as being very peculiar. The waiter had actedlike a man who was running away.
As he crossed the sidewalk he glanced hastily from side to side, as ifafraid of being seen, and perhaps stopped.
It looked as if the waiter might have robbed one of the restaurant'spatrons, or possibly its proprietor. If Nick had had no business on hishands he would have followed that carriage.
As it happened, however, the man for whom the detective was watchingappeared at that moment.
Nick was obliged to follow him, but he knew that he would not have to gofar, for Chick was waiting on Sixth avenue, and it was in that directionthat the thief turned.
So it happened that within ten minutes Nick was able to turn this caseover to his famous assistant, and return to clear up the mystery of thequeer incident which he had chanced to observe.
Nick would not have been surprised to find the restaurant in an uproar,but it was as quiet as usual. He entered by the side door, ascended aflight of stairs, and came to a sort of office with a desk and aregister.
It was the custom of the place that guests should put down their namesas in a hotel before being assigned to a private dining-room.
There was nobody in sight.
The hall led toward the front of the building, and there were threerooms on the side of it toward the street.
All the doors were open and the rooms were empty. Nick glanced intothese rooms, and then turned toward the desk. As he did so he saw awaiter coming down the stairs from the floor above.
This man was known by the name of Gaspard. He was the head waiter, andwas on duty in the lower hall.
"Ah, Gaspard," said Nick, "who's your waiter on this floor to-night?"
Gaspard looked at Nick anxiously. He did not, of course, know who thedetective really was, but he remembered him as one who had assisted thepolice in a case in which that house had been concerned about two yearsbefore.
"Jean Corbut," replied Gaspard. "I hope nothing is wrong."
"That remains to be seen," said Nick. "What sort of a man is thisCorbut?"
"A little man," answered Gaspard, "and very thin. He has long, blackhair, and mustaches pointed like two needles."
"Have you sent him out for anything?"
"Oh, no; he is here."
"Where?"
"In one of the rooms at the front. We have parties in A and B."
"You go and find him," said Nick. "I want to see him right away."
Gaspard went to the front of the house. A hall branched off at rightangles with that in which Nick was standing. On the second hall werethree rooms, A, B and C.
Room C was next the avenue. The other two had windows on an open spacebetween two wings of the building. Nick glanced at the register, and sawthat "R.M. Clark and wife" had been assigned to room A, and "John Jonesand wife" to room B. Room C was vacant.
The detective had barely time to note these entries on the book whenGaspard came running back.
His face was as white as paper, and his lips were working as if he weresaying something, but not a sound came from them.
He was struck dumb with fright. Whatever it was that he had seen musthave been horrible, to judge from the man's trembling limbs anddistorted face.
Nick had seen people in that condition before, and he did not waste timetrying to get any information out of Gaspard.
Instead, he seized the frightened fellow by the shoulder and pushed himalong toward the front of the house.
Gaspard made a feeble resistance. Evidently he did not want to see againthe sight which had so terrified him.
But he was powerless in Nick's grasp. In five seconds they stood beforethe open door of room B.
The door was open, and there was a bright glare of gas within.
It shone upon the table, where a rich repast lay untasted. It illuminedthe gaudy furnishings of the room and the costly pictures upon thewalls.
It shone, too, upon a beautiful face, rigid and perfectly white, exceptfor a horrible stain of black and red upon the temple.
The face was that of a woman of twenty-five years. She had very abundanthair of a light corn color, which clustered in little curls around herforehead, and was gathered behind in a great mass of plaited braids.
She reclined in a large easy-chair, in a natural attitude, but thepallid face, the fixed and glassy eyes, and the grim wound upon thetemple announced, in unmistakable terms, the presence of death.
Nick drew a long breath and set his lips together firmly. He had feltthat something was wrong in that house. The waiter who had run acrossthe sidewalk and got into that carriage had borne a guilty secret withhim, as the detective's experienced eye had instantly perceived.
But this was a good deal worse than Nick had expected. He had looked fora robbery, or, perhaps, a secret and bloody quarrel between two of thewaiters, but not for a murder such as this.
One glance at the woman showed her to be elegant in dress and of arefined appearance.
She could have had nothing in common with the missing Corbut, unless,indeed, he was other than he seemed.
Certainly, whatever was Corbut's connection with the crime, there wasanother person, at least, as intimately concerned in it. And he, too,had fled.
Where was the man who had brought this woman to this house? How was itpossible to account for his absence except by the conclusion that he wasthe murderer?
That was the first and most natural explanation. Whether it was the trueone or not, the man must be found.
Nick turned to Gaspard. The head waiter had sunk down on a chair by thetable and seemed prostrated.
From previous experience Nick knew Gaspard to be a man without nerve,and he was not surprised to find him prostrated by this sudden shock.
There was a bottle of champagne standing in ice beside the table. Thedetective opened it and made Gaspard drink a glass of the sparklingliquor.
It put a little heart into the man, and he was able to answer questions.
Nick, meanwhile, closed the door of the room. Apparently t
he tragedy wasknown only to Gaspard and himself and to the guilty authors of it.
"Did you see this woman when she came in?" asked Nick.
"No."
"Who showed her and the man with her to this room?"
"Corbut."
"Who waited on them?"
"Corbut."
"Who waited on the people in room A?"
"Corbut."
"They are gone, I suppose?"
"Yes; I looked in there before I came in here."
"Did you see any of these people?"
"I saw the two men."
"How did that happen?"
"One of them came out into the hall to call Corbut, who had not answeredthe bell quick enough."
"Which one was that?"
"The man in room A."
"How do you know?"
"Because I saw the other man, later, coming out of room B."
"This room?"
"Yes."
"You are sure of that?"
"Perfectly."
"Did he see you?"'
"I think not. I was standing right at the corner of the two halls. Theman came out and glanced around, but I stepped back quickly, because wedo not like to appear to spy upon our guests. He did not see me."
"What did he do?"
"He went out the front way. I supposed the lady went with him, for I wassure that I heard the rustling of her dress."
"Where was Corbut then?"
"In room A."
"How long did he stay there?"
"Only a minute. I went back to the desk, and then was called by a waiterupstairs. Just as I turned to go I saw Corbut coming through the hall."
"Did you speak to him?"
"Yes; I called to him to stay by the desk while I went upstairs."
"Did he answer?"
"Yes; he said 'very well.'"
"And that's the last you saw of him?"
"Yes."
"All right; so much for Corbut. Now for the two men. Would you knowthem?"
"Not the man in room A. I didn't notice him particularly."
"But how about the man who came out of this room? He's the one we'reafter."
"I would know him," said Gaspard, slowly. "Yes; I feel sure that I couldidentify him."
"That's good. Now for the crime itself. Go back to the desk and ring fora messenger. When he comes, send him here. Don't let anybody else come,and don't say a word to anybody about this affair."
Gaspard, with a very pale face, went back to his desk.
Nick remained alone with the beautiful dead.