NAT RIDLEY DETECTIVE STORIES
THE DOUBLE DAGGER
or
Nat Ridley's Mexican Trail
By Nat Ridley, Jr.
Author of "Guilty or Not Guilty," "A Daring Abduction," "A Scream in the Dark," etc.
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
1926
NAT RIDLEY RAPID FIRE DETECTIVE STORIES
BY NAT RIDLEY, JR.,
Copyright, 1926, by GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
The Double Dagger
MADE IN U. S. A.
CONTENTS
THE DOUBLE DAGGER
CHAPTER I
A CALL FOR HELP
With a vicious bang, which indicated that his thoughts were not on what he was doing, Nat Ridley hung the receiver on the telephone hook. He swung around in his swivel chair and looked out of the window of his Times Square office at the hurrying throngs converging at Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
"That's a new one, all right!" exclaimed the famous detective, more to himself than to anyone else, though Berry Todd, his capable assistant, was at a desk near by. "It sure is a new one! And to think that some of those human ants down there may have had a hand in it!"
He leaned forward the better to see out of the window.
"What's that?" asked Berry, who was shuffling over some papers. "Whose aunt are you talking about?"
"Nobody's aunt!" was Nat's reply. "I might just as well have said flies or bugs—that's what they look like!" He waved his hand to the hurrying throng—men and women mixed with automobiles.
"Oh—that bunch!" chuckled Berry. "Yes, there sure is a crowd. But is anything wrong?" he went on, for he realized that the mere sight of the crowd, almost always in evidence at this busy section of New York, was no new one for his chief. "Anything wrong?" asked Berry again, though in a lower voice, for he noted that the celebrated sleuth, whose exploits were the talk of two continents, was gazing abstractedly at the telephone.
"Yes, there is," snapped out Nat Ridley, though the crisp tone did not indicate impatience with his helper's insistence. "I can't quite make out why he should 'phone me."
"Who?" asked Berry, who was a privileged character.
"Carl Lemberg."
"That German sleuth?" cried Berry.
"He isn't as German as his name sounds," was Nat's reply. "Though of course he has many of the earmarks. But why he should want me to come in on one of his cases——"
"You don't mean to say he admits he's stuck, do you?" and Berry laughed. "That's pretty good! Lemberg up a blind alley—at the end of his trail—that's pretty good!"
The joke, if such it was, was all the more appreciated by Berry Todd, for of all the private detectives in New York, Nat Ridley's chief rival was this Carl Lemberg.