CHAPTER III

ANOTHER MURDER

Nat Ridley was accustomed to seeing strong men exhibit fear under many circumstances. Sometimes it was a fear over the consequences of the crimes the detective had fastened on them. Again it might be a fear over the outcome of some fight about to take place--a fight with revolvers or daggers. More seldom he had seen clients of his exhibit terror under just such circumstances as now confronted him--fear of vengeance from some cause.

"But I never," declared Nat, telling of the matter later to his two assistants, Berry Todd and Baldy Stoler, "saw a man in such a state of fear as Lemberg was."

Realizing, as he sat there facing the German sleuth, who, as a last resort, had applied to a rival for aid, Nat Ridley realized that he must say or do something to reassure Lemberg.

"If I don't, he may have a nervous breakdown in my office and make an unpleasant sensation," decided the great detective.

Accordingly, Nat strode over to where Lemberg was sitting in a chair, and fairly trembling now. He placed a firm hand on the German's powerful shoulder--Lemberg would have made two Nat Ridley figures, with something left over--and exclaimed sternly:

"Look here, now! Don't make a fool of yourself, Lemberg! You are in no immediate danger. You are safe in my office. Pull yourself together. No one can harm you here, and if I am to help you I must have more particulars. You are in no danger here."

"I--I am not so sure of that," whispered the German, looking nervously around and out of the windows. "This Tola gang is terrible!"

"They may be. I know, from reading their history, that they were a blood-thirsty offshoot of the Aztecs," admitted Nat. "But they can't get you here!"

"Dan Steele thought they couldn't get him," said Lemberg in a low voice. "But they did! And after my brother's murder and my uncle had received mysterious warnings to leave the country, he boasted that they couldn't get him. But they did! And now I think they will get me."

"But why?" asked Nat. "You aren't down there in Mexico. You're in the heart of New York."

"And some of the Tolas may be in this very building!" declared the German sleuth.

"What object would they have in killing you, granted that they have some of their agents in New York?" Nat wanted to know.

"As the heir of my uncle and brother, I inherit most of those oil wells," was the answer. "Their enmity will run against me now, unless I relinquish my claim. I am going to do that, only I fear it will be too late. Vengeance may already be sworn against me."

"Nonsense!" Nat said, with a short laugh. He was trying to make his visitor forget some of his fear. "The wells are legally yours. Why should you give them up? Especially when it well may be that these fellows are scoundrels--that they are just playing on your fears to get you to give in. The wells were bought and paid for, and you are entitled to them."

Lemberg shook his ponderous head, and remarked:

"It seems that the Tola society, or the present-day members of it, want money from the wells to re-establish their ancient splendor and power. They want to make the Tola what it was in the days of the Spanish Conquistadores. My uncle and brother did not know, when they bought the wells, that the land, centuries ago, was owned by the Tolas. Now they want it back again."

"How did you learn this?" asked Nat.

"From the reports Steele sent in before he was killed."

"Where are those reports now?"

"In my office."

"I should like to look at them," said Nat with interest--"that is, if I am to help you in this matter."

"Oh, but you will help me, won't you, Ridley?" gasped Lemberg, seizing the detective's hand. "I need help, and I don't know where to turn but to you! See if you can't run these criminals down--find out where they are hiding. Tell them I'll give back the wells if they will only let me sleep in peace at night. I'm a wreck!"

Indeed the man looked it. There were big, puffy bags under his eyes, and his hands trembled.

"But why did they kill Dan Steele?" asked Nat. "He had no interest in the mines, did he?"

"No. I sent him to Mexico to run down the gang, and he was hot on their trail when the double dagger got him. Poor Dan!"

"Poor Dan is right!" echoed Nat. "I knew him well. He was a friend of mine, and for his sake--to avenge him--I'm going to take this case, Lemberg."

"Thank you for that, Ridley!" exclaimed the other fervently. "It will take a load off my mind. But be careful of yourself. Once it is known you are seeking the Tola gang--those who carry the symbol of the double dagger--your life may pay the forfeit."

"I've been threatened before," replied Nat grimly.

"But never in this way!" and Lemberg's voice was very serious. "Once they find out you are working against them to help me--to avenge the murders of my brother and uncle--they will----"

"They will not find out I am working on the case," interrupted Nat Ridley. "I've dealt with fellows like this before."

"You don't know them!" warned Lemberg. "I took a roundabout way in riding to your office, but I fear I was followed. I doubled on my tracks and made a twisting trail, but I still fear I was followed."

"Well, we'll see that they don't see you leaving here," Nat promised. "I have means of getting from this room to the floor above and down a rear freight elevator that will fool the cleverest stalker. Don't worry about that, nor about me. Now let's get down to brass tacks. Tell me everything you can."

For an hour or more Carl Lemberg related all the details of the triple crime, and Nat made shorthand notes, to the no small admiration of his fellow sleuth, who declared it was a valuable adjunct to Nat's talents. At the end of the talk Nat said:

"I must go over Steele's reports. There may be something in them that you have forgotten."

"Very likely there is," admitted Lemberg. "I'm in such a state that at times I hardly know what I am doing. If you will come to my office you shall see all the papers."

Nat made an appointment for that afternoon, and then escorted the German out of the office by a special stairway leading to the floor above, so he could get out by a freight entrance.

"Don't worry," advised Nat as he shook hands with Lemberg. "They won't spot you leaving here. And I think it is mostly your imagination that is causing your fears."

"It is no imagination!" declared Lemberg, fervently.

However, he seemed to have gotten safely away from Nat's Times Square office, for the sleuth sent Baldy down to Broadway to make sure nothing happened, and the old detective reported that Lemberg had "scurried into a taxicab like a rabbit in the hunting season."

"What's it all about, Chief?" asked Baldy, with the freedom of an old retainer.

"You and Berry might as well hear the outlines of the case, and Mary Dotley, also," remarked the sleuth, naming his clever woman detective. "If I am going to take it, and I have promised Lemberg that I will, you may be called on to lend a hand now and then. Come in and I'll go over it with you."

The story of the Tola murders was told briefly, and Nat showed the card, bearing the device of the double dagger, and also the little weapon that was used as a pin.

"I want you to take this pin to Professor Watson, of Columbia University, and have him analyze it for possible poison," said Nat to Berry at the end of the conference. "And be careful you don't scratch yourself with the point."

"I'm wise," declared Berry. "But suppose you do find it poisoned?"

"It may give me a line on the scoundrels who are using it and who have killed three men," said Nat. "Those ancient Aztecs were devils in more ways than one, and maybe the Tolas have inherited some of their cunning and kept alive some of their knowledge."

While Berry went to the university laboratory, Nat, after going over some matters in his office and starting his other assistants on the new cases that had come in, went to Lemberg's suite of rooms in a building on lower Broadway.

Though the sleuth rather discounted the fears of the German, yet Nat was taking no chances. So he adopted a suitable disguise, in the art of which he was a master, and was also very careful how he approached the building where the German detective had his offices.

Nat looked carefully about as he approached the entrance, and his keen eyes searched every face. Not until he was satisfied that he was not being shadowed, did he enter.

He found Lemberg nervously pacing the floor and waiting for him.

"Ah, you are come! It is good!" exclaimed the German. "Now you shall read what devils they are!"

He spread out on a desk the various reports Dan Steele had sent in from Rolamotaza, the town nearest the Mexican oil wells. The first reports contained little but routine matters, but as Dan remained longer in the place he began to uncover some queer information about some queer characters.

"It begins to look a little more promising," commented Nat, glancing up from the reports.

"Yes," agreed Lemberg. "But read on."

Nat read, coming to the bottom paper in the pile, where Dan wrote that he was going out to a certain place where, he had reason to believe, the Tola gang held secret meetings. Nat read to the end of this report and looked up.

"Where are the others?" he asked.

"What others?"

"The other papers--the rest of the report."

"There are no more," Lemberg sadly answered. "Dan Steele never came back after writing that. He went to his death!"

Even the stoical Nat Ridley was startled at hearing this. But he shook off for the time what sentiment gripped him and bent to the business in hand. He made copious notes of all Steele had reported on, and then definitely announced to Lemberg that he would at once begin work on the case.

"And may you track down the murderers!" exclaimed the German. "I shall sleep a little sounder to-night from knowing that you have this case, Nat Ridley."

"Yes, Lemberg, I'll do my best. And I hope you do sleep soundly. I will see you to-morrow and make further arrangements."

Nat bid the other detective good-day and hurried back to his own office, using the same precautions as before. It was early afternoon, and he had several matters to clear off his desk before going into the Mexican puzzle. For three hours Nat was kept busy.

It was about five o'clock, and nearly time for Nat's office to close, when Tommy Ray, or more popularly "Toodles," the office boy, came rushing into the office, having gone to the street to get a paper for Miss Dotley. Tommy's face showed great excitement, so much so that Nat Ridley, coming out of his office for a moment, noted it and asked:

"What's up, Toodles--did the Giants lose?"

"Look!" gasped the lad, holding out a paper across the front page of which, in big letters were the words:

MURDERED IN A TAXI

"Well, there's nothing new in that," commented Nat as he held out his hand to glance at the sheet a moment.

"Wait until you see who it is!" Tommy exclaimed. He pointed to a name in the first paragraph of the story.

"Carl Lemberg!" gasped Nat, shaken out of his calm. "Why, I was in his office only a few hours ago!"

Nat read hurriedly how the well-known detective had been stabbed through the heart while riding home from his office in a taxicab.

"I've got to get busy on this right away!" cried Nat, as he tossed the paper back to Tommy. "Lemberg killed, just as he feared he would be! The Tolas got him!"