NICK CARTER STORIES _Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post Office, by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Ave., New York. Copyright, 1914, by_ STREET & SMITH. _O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors._ Terms to NICK CARTER STORIES Mail Subscribers. (_Postage Free._) Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each. 3 months 65c. 4 months 85c. 6 months $1.25 One year 2.50 2 copies one year 4.00 1 copy two years 4.00 =How to Send Money=--By post-office or express money order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage stamps in ordinary letter. =Receipts=--Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once. =No. 121.= NEW YORK, January 2, 1915. =Price Five Cents.= THE CALL OF DEATH; Or, NICK CARTER’S CLEVER ASSISTANT. Edited by CHICKERING CARTER. CHAPTER I. A CURIOUS LETTER. “There’s no question in my mind, inspector, as to who did the job,” said Nick Carter. “You feel sure of it, then?” “As sure as water runs downhill. I refer, of course, to the mechanical part of the work. I looked it over on the morning following the burglary, every part of the looted vault, and I am as sure of the cracksman’s identity as if I had seen him getting in his work. Only one yegg in the business has the mechanical genius to crack a vault as that was cracked.” “James Nordeck?” “Surely. I have seen Nordeck’s work before, and I know it when I see it. It is invariably stamped with his mechanical ingenuity. Jim Nordeck is in a class of his own at that business.” “Here is his mug, front and profile, chief, also his record. Have a look at them.” The last came from Chick Carter, the celebrated detective’s senior assistant, and the remarks of both were addressed to Inspector Mallory, then head of the detective force identified with the New York police department. They were discussing the recent burglary of a savings bank up in Westchester County, a crime committed about a week before, in which the remarkably skillful drilling of the vault for the use of explosives, as well as other details of the felonious work, plainly showed it to have been that of professional cracksmen. As may be inferred from the remarks he had just made, it revealed something more to Nick Carter--the identity of one of the criminals, at least, with certain characteristics of whose skillful work along such infamous lines the detective was already familiar.