Nick Carter Stories No. 148, July 10, 1915; The Mark of Cain; or, Nick Carter's Air-line Case

The girl at the switchboard held her breath. The detective waiting in the business office saw her. The girl at the switchboard was Helen Bailey. The waiting detective was Nick Carter.

No man was ever more quick than he to rightly interpret a facial expression. The partition through which he saw her was of glass, or a portion of it, dividing the general manager’s office in the central telephone exchange from the room in which the great switchboards were stationed.

There were other girls, half a score of them, seated in front of the innumerably perforated boards. They were too busy to notice one another. Their eyes were intent upon their work. Their deft hands flew from plug to plug, withdrawing some, inserting others. Their frequent, monotonous calls, the noise of the buzzers and the snapping of the rubber-covered plugs were the only sounds to be heard in that busy room.

“Hello! hello!”

“Number, please.”

“The line is busy.”

They were like machines, those switchboard girls, human, living, palpitating machines, each a connecting link for others in every phase of life, every calling and vocation, from the gilded mansions of exclusive society to the smoke-begrimed dives of the underworld. They are the servants of all, and, in a measure, the confidantes of all.

The girl who had caught Nick Carter’s eye was striking not alone because of her facial expression at that moment, but because of her remarkable grace and beauty. She was about nineteen, a pronounced blonde, with regular features, large, blue eyes, and a sensitive mouth, a pink-and-white complexion, an abundance of wavy, golden hair, crowning a shapely head, finely poised on a graceful, slender, yet well-developed figure, then clad in a navy-blue skirt and a dainty white waist.

It was the expression on her fair face, however, that had riveted the detective’s attention, though he could see her only in part profile.

Nick never had seen a look of more poignant anguish on a human face.

The girl was pitched forward on her high chair, her hand grasping one of the plugs which she had pushed into the switchboard--and now seemed impelled to withdraw.

That would have abruptly ended the conversation between the two persons whom she had brought into communication, and to whose intercourse she was listening.

That she really was listening, listening as one might to the reading of one’s own death warrant, was painfully apparent. Her eyes seemed to be starting from her head, but with the wildly vacant expression of one horrified, one whose mind was elsewhere. Every vestige of color had left her cheeks. Her lips were gray and drawn, her graceful figure as motionless as if every nerve and muscle was as strained and tense as a bowstring.

“Great Scott!” thought Nick, watching her. “To whom is she listening, and to what?”

The girl suddenly withdrew the plug.

Then, with a quick change of expression, with a look of heart-racking determination, she inserted it again, renewing the telephone connection.

Then she listened again, ghastly and horrified, for nearly a minute--and then her head dropped to one shoulder as if her neck was hinged, her arm fell like that of a corpse, dragging the plug out of the switchboard, while her tense form relaxed and fell from the chair, dropping with a thud upon the floor beside it.

Nick Carter had seen what was coming, and he already was on his way to the room, darting out of the manager’s office and through the adjoining corridor. He heard the screams of the frightened girls, when he entered, and, with quick discrimination, he turned to the least-alarmed one and said:

“She has only fainted. Bring a glass of water. Be quick about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The girl addressed ran to a near closet and obeyed him.

Nick raised the prostrate girl a little, supporting her against his knee, and, with a wet handkerchief, he bathed her brow and cheeks, paying no attention to the fright and consternation of his observers.

The girl revived in a very few moments. A low moan, as pathetic as the facial expression which had preceded her collapse, broke from her gray lips. Her eyelids fluttered spasmodically, then were raised, and she gazed up vacantly at the detective’s kindly face.

“Did they--did they get him?” she gasped impulsively, almost frantically. “Did they--did they get him?”

Nick waved aside the several girls who had gathered near.

“Open one of the windows!” he commanded. “Give her some fresh air. Get whom, my girl?”

The last was addressed to the stricken girl, while Nick gently raised her to a sitting position on the floor.

She turned and looked at him, then suddenly seemed to realize what had occurred. She gazed at Nick again, striving to rise, and replied, more calmly:

“Get whom? What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know what I mean?” Nick inquired, helping her to a chair.

“No, I don’t,” she replied. “Thank you for assisting me. I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Nick was sure of the contrary, but he did not say so. Instead, he smiled and explained his presence there by saying:

“I happened to be in the manager’s office when you fainted. I saw you fall and hurried in to aid you. Are you subject to such attacks?”

“No, sir. I don’t remember ever having fainted away before.”

“You may have heard something that alarmed you, or----”

“No, no, sir; nothing of the kind,” interrupted the girl. “I cannot account for it.”

“Do you remember what number had been called, what connection you had made?”

“No, sir.”

“Or what was being said?”

“I do not,” the girl insisted. “I remember nothing about it. I know only that I was not feeling well this morning. I awoke with a racking headache. I suddenly felt dizzy and then I fainted. That is all I know about it. Please don’t question me further. I’m able, now, to return to my work. Thank you again, sir.”