Driven From Cover: Nick Carter's Double Ruse

Nick Carter waited, listening intently, listening vainly, with his desk telephone in his hand and the receiver at his ear.

Chick Carter, the celebrated detective’s chief assistant, sat watching him, noting each changing expression on his strong, clean-cut face, and wondering what occasioned it.

It was about nine o’clock one evening in October, and both detectives were seated in the library of Nick Carter’s spacious residence in Madison Avenue.

“Hello!” Nick now called quite sharply. “Hello!”

No answer.

“What’s the trouble?” Chick inquired. “Don’t you get a reply?”

“No, Chick, and that’s not the worst of it,” Nick said quite gravely.

“Why so? What do you mean?”

“I heard my name called just as I removed the receiver from its hook,” Nick explained. “The voice sounded like that of a woman, though I am not positive about it. Then came a single sharp crack, like the report of a revolver, or as if the telephone had dropped from the speaker’s hand and crashed upon the floor. I suspect there is something wrong.”

“Can you hear anything now?”

“Not a sound.”

“Call central,” Chick suggested. “You may learn who rang you up.”

“Presently. I still am hoping to hear something of more definite significance.”

One minute passed. It brought no sound over the wire.

The silence then was broken by a voice which Nick knew must be that of the exchange operator addressing the person who had rung him up.

“Did you get him?”

No answer.

Nick waited a moment longer, then cried abruptly:

“Hello, central!”

“Well?”

“This is Nick Carter talking. I can get no reply from the party who rang me up. What’s the trouble?”

“There should be none. The circuit is not broken.”

“Did you hear any unusual sound after making the connection, as if the telephone had been dropped, or as if something occurred?”

“I did not. I will try to get the party.”

“Do so.”

Nick waited and heard the operator cry repeatedly:

“Hello! Hello! Hello!”

No answer—still no answer.

No sound so much as suggesting what had occurred, what fateful deed had been done, or what horror might then be in progress, whence the mysterious telephone call had come.

The stillness over the wire was like that of death itself.

Had death, indeed, stilled the voice heard for a fleeting moment by the detective, the voice that had uttered his name, as if a cry of appeal had been cut short when it left the lips of the speaker?

The operator spoke again.

“Mr. Carter.”

“Well?”

“There is something wrong. The circuit still is complete, but I can get no reply. The person who called you up evidently has left the telephone, but has not hung up the receiver.”