“All right?”
“Fine as silk,” was Patsy’s response. “Come in.”
Nick Carter, followed by Chick, stepped into the kitchen, and Patsy closed and secured the door. Then he directed the others to stand still, against the wall, where they would be in deep shadow, while he reconnoitered. Almost directly, after creeping up the back stairs and making sure the hall was empty, he was back.
Two minutes later they were all in the idol room. Patsy hastily related what his orders were—to hide behind the idol.
“He expects some guests, he says,” continued Patsy. “And I think he means to put something over on them.”
“I think I know who the guests will be,” returned Nick. “You go to the place you’ve been told. Is there room for more than one there?”
He went to the cupboard Patsy had pointed out and stepped inside. With his pocket flash light he examined it, and a grim smile illumined his face as he saw how it had been arranged to deceive strangers.
There was a door at the other end of the little room, communicating with a ladder that went down from a trap in the floor. Another ladder led upward, and it did not take Nick more than a moment to see that, standing on this ladder, a person could lean forward into the hollow brass head of the Buddha, and speak through its parted lips.
“It’s an old trick of the Buddhist priests,” he murmured. “They keep their devotees well in hand by these supposed miracles. No doubt thousands of devout believers in this old god have listened to priests in this way, and been bent to their will because they supposed they were listening to the voice of Buddha himself. This whole trick is transparent when you have a clew.”
This was all straight enough so far. But Nick Carter well knew that, without the hypnotic power that this mysterious Ched Ramar possessed, he could not have used the idol so effectively to make Clarice Bentham do what he wanted.