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, 1915, 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. 152.= NEW YORK, August 7, 1915. =Price Five Cents.= THE FORCED CRIME; Or, NICK CARTER’S BRAZEN CLEW. Edited by CHICKERING CARTER. CHAPTER I. A TALE OF BURGLARS. “You say this burglar has got into your bedroom three times?” “Yes, Carter. Three times that I know of. He may have got in oftener for aught I know.” “Hardly likely, Mr. Bentham. If you woke up three times and saw him, it indicates that there is something in his presence which affects you even in your sleep. It is a psychological influence, evidently.” Professor Matthew Bentham, one of the most learned scientists in Brooklyn, shook his head. He knew too much about psychology to believe it was an agent in his case. “That explanation won’t do, Carter,” he declared. “On each occasion I have been awakened by a distinct noise in the room.” “But you never got up to interfere with the man,” Nick Carter reminded him. “That isn’t your way. No one ever has insinuated that you lack in physical courage. You are an athlete, too. I have had the gloves on with you, remember, and I know how you handle yourself. There must have been something to make you lie still in bed while a stranger was ransacking your bedchamber.” The famous detective was sitting comfortably in Professor Bentham’s well-appointed library on the ground floor of the latter’s home near Prospect Park, and both were smoking. Carter had dropped in casually to see his friend, and the subject of the mysterious burglar had come up without any previous knowledge of it by the detective. They had been talking about other things, particularly about some important records of a Chinese secret organization which were in Matthew Bentham’s care, and which were soon to be sent to Washington.