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  The House of Secrets

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  THE HOUSE OF SECRETS; OR, NICK CARTER'S MIDNIGHT VIGIL

  Nick Carter Weekly no. 549 (July 6, 1907) Words: 23,400.

  Edited by CHICKERING CARTER,

  This is an ePub created from a scan of the original magazine hosted at dimenovel.org.

  This ePub was created by Brian Earl Brown, 2020. It reusing this text please credit Brian Earl Brown as it's source.

  CHAPTER I - THE HAUNTED MANSION.

  The morning mail brought a short letter to Nick Carter, it was postmarked at Loyola Park, Long Island, and it read:

  MY DEAR MR. CARTER : Do you think that you could make it convenient to see me on Sunday next? I realize that perhaps I should go to you, instead of asking you to come to me, but--I wish you would come to me if you can and will. The truth is that I am surrounded by some indefinable danger which I cannot name. I do not know what it is; I only know that it exists. It has been so almost ever since the death of my brother Clarence. I think, to be exact, it began about two weeks after that--or, in other words, rather less than two weeks ago, for it is not quite a month since Clarence was killed. I think I can talk with you much better here than there at your office; and, moreover, to tell you the truth, I have become so terrorized that I am afraid to stir out of doors.

  "This condition of things cannot endure any longer, and I have decided to appeal to you. I remember how fond you were of Clarence, and also how kind you have been to me, and so I feel sure that, if it is possible, you will come to me, here at my home.

  "Most sincerely yours,

  "MABEL VAUGHAN."

  `It was Saturday morning when the detective received the letter, and on the following morning, immediately after his breakfast, he started for Loyola Park, with Danny Maloney for his chauffeur.

  The distance is considerable, so it was almost noon when he arrived at the stately mansion which the Vaughans had called home for five generations.

  It is pertinent too, to say a word right here about that same mansion.

  The original house, a square and ugly edifice of rough stone, was erected by Gerald Vaughan in 1755; it had descended from Gerald to his son William in 1780, and William, having inherited a considerable fortune with the house, had built large additions to it, entirely changing its appearance. In the year 1810 William had shuffled off the mortal coil, and left his home, with all its appurtenances and belongings, to his son Charles; and Charles had built more additions to the house, adding a turret here and a tower there, and entirely altering its outward appearance, although, be it said, the original of the very old house in the center of the structure remained unchanged--inside, at least.

  In the year 1835 Clarence Vaughan's father, who was the second Gerald, inherited the property, together with a vast fortune; and again a horde of workmen had entered upon the place, changing and adding to the huge pile.

  Clarence Vaughan was only ten years old when his father died; his sister Mabel was barely two, and the great property had been left equally to the two children, for the mother had died when she brought Mabel into the world.

  And now Clarence Vaughan was dead, having been murdered with poison administered by one Melville Birge,[Nick Carter Weekly #548] who had already been convicted and sentenced to the death-chair.

  But now this strange old house, with all its curious history and all the immense wealth that went with it, amounting to millions, had fallen to the possession of a girl who was just past her twenty-second birthday--Mabel Vaughan.

  There had been a conspiracy against the Vaughans, brother and sister, to despoil them of their wealth; a conspiracy hatched and almost carried out by that same Melville Bergen to whom reference has just been made--and that it had not succeeded was due entirely to the timely intervention of Nick Carter.

  When Nick turned into the winding driveway which led from the main road to the mansion, he found himself going over in his mind the history of the old residence, as Clarence Vaughan had once recited it to him; and one statement that was made at the time recurred to him at the moment. It was:

  "I haven't a doubt, Nick, but what that great-great-great-grandfather of mine, old Gerald, was a pretty bad egg in his day, and I have always believed that the foundation of the fortune I now enjoy was rather shady. Anyhow, there are a lot of mysteries about the old house which I wish I knew about."

  "Mysteries?" Nick had asked him at the time.

  "Yes. There used to be an old servant in the family, named Pedro Pasquale. He had been a confidential servant of my father's. I have always thought, from dark hints that Pedro used to throw out when I was a boy, that he had some dark secret to reveal to me when I should have arrived at a certain age--but Pedro disappeared when I was fifteen. We never knew what had become of him."

  "Disappeared? Nick had asked again. "How?"

  "Went up in smoke, I suppose, or something like that. He was noticed around the house an hour before his disappearance--and after that he was never seen again by anybody."

  Somehow, this conversation, almost forgotten, recurred to the detective that Sunday morning while Danny was driving him toward Loyola Park, and now, as he turned into the drive, he wondered if the terrors to which Mabel had referred in her letter could by any possibility have any connection with that ancient history of the family.

  But the car swept around a bend of the road and glided under the porte-cochere before he had time to seek for an answer, and old Simpson, the butler, came out of the great front door to bid him welcome.

  "Miss Vaughan is expecting you, Mr. Carter," he said, rubbing his hands together, for the old servant was fond of Nick. "She is in the library. I am to take you directly to----"

  "No; I am not in the library. I am here," came a voice from the doorway, and Mabel herself came out upon the steps, with both hands extended in welcome to the detective.

  "It was so good of you to come," she said, raising her matchless eyes to his; and there was a wonderful charm about Mabel Vaughan; a charm that was not beauty of feature alone, but which breathed in her presence, sounded in her voice, looked out of her eyes, and dwelt with her always.

  "I think it was good of you to ask me to come," replied the detective, following her into the house. "It is a beautiful day, and it is Sunday. I should not have known what to do with myself if it had not been for your letter. It happens that every one of my assistants are away, and that I was quite alone--so you see you have really done a charitable thing in asking me here. It doesn't seem possible that any terrors can exist for you in a place so beautiful as this, Mabel."

  She had been smiling upon him, but now her face clouded and a hunted look came into her eyes.

  "Don't let us refer to that--yet, please," she said hastily. "Let us keep it until after dinner."

  "As you please, Mabel."

  "I have ordered dinner for one o'clock, knowing that you would be hungry after your journey. After that, while you smoke, we can talk over all the disagreeable things."

  And so it was not until after dinner was disposed of that the subject uppermost in the minds of both was mentioned at all; then Mabel said to him:

  "Now, if you please, I want you to come with me to my own private sitting-room, on the second floor. I feel more at home there than anywhere else in this great house. I can talk much more freely there--and you may smoke your cigar just the same."

  "Thank you," he replied; and followed her up the wide stairway.

  "You are in no hurry to return, are you?" she asked as they seated themselves. "I hope you are not"

  "No. I have plenty of time at my disposal--and Joseph knows where I am if I should be wanted. He would telephone, you know."

  "Yes. That means that you have no engagements for
to-day, doesn't it?"

  "Yes."

  "And how about to-morrow?"

  "Well, I have no engagements for to-morrow, either. But why do you ask about to-morrow?"

  "Because I want to prevail upon you to remain here until to-morrow, or the day after, if it is possible for you to do so. You shall have Clarence's old room, and with Simpson to wait upon you, you will be very comfortable. Simpson will take care of Danny for you, too."

  "You have some especial reason for wishing me to remain, more than the mere desire for my society, I take it," replied Nick, with a smile.

  "Indeed, I have. I think I will get one night of good rest if I know that you are in the house to protect me."

  "To protect you, Mabel? To protect you from what?"

  "From the mysteries, the terrors, the horrors that haunt this place, and that have haunted it for the last two weeks."

  The detective regarded her narrowly and seriously.

  "I hope," he said, "that you have not permitted your imagination to play tricks with you, Mabel."

  She shook her head emphatically, but without other reply; and he added:

  "You know, my dear friend, that you have been through a great deal in the last month, and even though you are a very self-poised young woman, you still have nerves."

  "It is not my imagination," she replied, with low emphasis. "But there is something that is going on in this house nightly that frightens me--that fills me with an unnameable terror--that horrifies me in spite of my better judgment."

  "What is it?"

  "Of course you do not believe in ghosts; of course I do not believe in them. And yet----"

  "And yet--what?"

  "And yet I might well believe, from what I have seen and heard, that this house has suddenly become haunted by a colony of ghosts who are determined to drive me away from it--or worse."

  "A colony of ghosts, eh?" Nick smiled. "That is rather an original idea. What sort of ghosts? Whose ghosts are they?"

  "You must not make fun of me, Nick, for I am in deadly earnest. I have stood it just as long as I could, determined that I would not be frightened. You know that I am no weakling, if I am a girl. My brother used to tell me that I was almost as fearless as a man. I have always supposed that I was so--until now."

  "And now?"

  "Now I have to confess to myself and to you that I am miserably afraid."

  "But afraid of what, Mabel ?"

  "Of the ghosts. Of what they threaten; of what they may do to me. I am afraid, afraid, afraid--horribly afraid."

  "I believe, Mabel, that you are overwrought. I think that perhaps you should----"

  "I tell you it is not my imagination. It is all very real. The house is haunted by something; but whether it is by ghosts, or by men and women in flesh and blood, I do not know. I only know I am afraid. That is why I sent the appeal for you to come here."

  "Well, now that I am here, will you promise not to be afraid any more?" he smiled at her.

  "Yes; while you are here."

  "And now, if you please, I will ask you to tell me all about it. I must know exactly what it is that is troubling you."

  CHAPTER II -- NIGHTS OF HORROR.

  "It will be two weeks to-morrow night since it began," said Mabel.

  "Since what began?"

  "These visitations that I am to tell you about."

  "And how did they begin?"

  "I was awakened in the middle of the night by feeling a cold, wet, clammy hand passed across my face. I----"

  "You were in your own bed?"

  "Of course. It was in the middle of the night."

  "Well, continue."

  "I was startled wide-awake instantly, and I tried to rise--to leap from the bed and to scream out; but I was prevented from doing either one."

  "How?"

  "Something or somebody held me down tightly on my back in the bed; another hand was pressed over my mouth. I could neither struggle nor cry out. I was utterly helpless--as helpless as if a giant were holding me."

  "Did you see nothing?"

  "I could see very dimly the outlines of two figures standing beside my bed. My first idea was that burglars had somehow entered the house, and had penetrated to my room, although I always lock the door of my room carefully."

  "It is a very easy matter to turn a key in a lock from the wrong side of a door, Mabel," said the detective. "One needs only to have the necessary implement."

  "I do not lock my door with a key. I bolt it."

  "Well, go on."

  "My first idea was that they were burglars, and, of course, I was frightened that they should venture to waken me; and then, of a sudden, a light was flashed across my bed from the opposite side of it, straight upon the features of the person--if person it was--who still held that cold and moist hand against my forehead."

  She shuddered as she said this, and Nick could see that the experience had been a terrible one for her to pass through. He wisely kept silence until she was ready to resume.

  "It was a horrible face," she said at last. "It was the face of a woman, but it was also the face of a corpse. It was white and drawn and haggard, with staring, glassy eyes and expressionless face. The sight of it was so horrible that I fainted."

  "Fainted away? Became unconscious?"

  "Yes."

  "And then?"

  "When I came to myself again dawn was at hand. It was not exactly daylight, but it was rapidly becoming so."

  "And you remembered?"

  "The horror of it was still with me. I leaped from my bed and ran to the door. I do not know what I intended to do when I had opened it, but I was brought to my senses by the discovery that my door was exactly as I had left it when I went to bed; that is, it was bolted on the inside."

  Nick nodded.

  "It was instantly plain to me that whoever it was that had been in my room during the night, they had not entered by that door," she continued. "Daylight gives one courage. Having found that my door was bolted as I had left it upon retiring, I began to wonder if I had not dreamed it all--if it had not been a horrible nightmare."

  The detective nodded again.

  "Really," she went on, "I was in doubt about it; so much in doubt that I at last determined that I had dreamed it."

  "Is that door to which you refer the only one which gives access to your sleeping-room?" asked the detective.

  "No; there are two others. This room in which we are seated is a part of my personal suite. Beyond this room is my dressing-room; beyond that is the bath; next beyond that is my sleeping-room, and still beyond that is a room where my maid sleeps--when I have one. It happens that I am without a maid just now."

  "So, in fact, your sleeping-room has three doors leading into it?"

  "Yes."

  "Were all of those doors fastened?"

  "Each one of them was fastened in the same manner, by being bolted on the inside. You see, when I considered all that, it convinced me that my experience was not a real one, notwithstanding the vividness of it."

  The detective nodded his head.

  "I succeeded in convincing myself of that idea, at least--and I said absolutely nothing about my experiences to anybody. Of course, there was no one to whom I could tell it, save Simpson, or Mrs. Drew----"

  "Who is Mrs. Drew?"

  "She is a woman whom I have asked to live with me since the death of Clarence. She ostensibly fills the position of housekeeper, although Simpson really sees to all that. She is more a guest than anything else; but a guest who will remain as long as I wish her to do so, you know."

  "Do you know about her? Do you know who and what she is?"

  "Perfectly. I have known her ever since I can remember."

  "Oh! That is all right, then. Go ahead with your story, please."

  "I must confess that it was with some trepidation that I retired to my room the succeeding night, notwithstanding the fact that I had convinced myself that it was all a dream."

  "But you forced yourself to do so?"

/>   "Yes; and the night passed without incident, so you see I was thoroughly convinced then that it was all the result of my imagination. But when the second night came--oh, it was awful!"

  "What was awful, Mabel?"

  "I was awakened again, in the middle of the night, by the touch of that same clammy hand upon my face. I started wide-awake, as before, and, as before, to find that I was held down upon the bed by invisible hands, which refused to release me and against which it was useless to struggle.

  "Again the light flashed across the bed upon that horrible countenance--the same one that I have already described to you. It is like a dead face--like the face of a corpse--of a person who has been dead for several days, so that discoloration has begun. It is too horrible to describe to you.

  "I tried to scream out, and could not do so. If I had, it would have done no good, for nobody was near enough to me to have heard me."

  "What was it that seemed to hold you down upon the bed, Mabel?"

  "The first time--that first night--I thought it was human hands. The second time it appeared as if something had been passed across me which bound me in my place, as if a weight were upon me. But let me continue."

  "Go on."

  "I have told you about the light shining upon that horrible face. It remained there perhaps a minute, and then it went off as suddenly as it had appeared. But a moment passed only before it appeared a second time, and this time it shone straight across the foot of the bed, and upon a face"--she shuddered, and for a moment stopped, as if to collect herself--"and upon a face that was like, and yet not like, my brother."

  "Clarence?"

  "Yes."

  "But surely you knew that it could not be Clarence?"

  "Of course I knew that it could not be Clarence. I don't think it was even intended that I should suppose it to be Clarence. It had only been made grotesquely like him in order to frighten me the more--in order to make the visitation the more horrible. But there the light shone steadily, never wavering, until the horror of it overcame me so that I did as I had done that other time--fainted."