Nick Carter Stories No. 149, July 17, 1915: A Network of Crime; or, Nick Carter's Tangled Skein.

A frantic phone call draws Nick Carter’s junior assistant, Patsy Garvan, into a high‑stakes mystery. A wealthy client, Frank Mantell, demands an audience with the famed sleuth, insisting that half a million dollars and a “very important” matter hang in the balance. With the detectives already on the road, Patsy scrambles to locate them, setting the stage for a race against time.

Carter and his chief aide, Chick, arrive at a quiet suburban home on the outskirts of Manhattanville, where a gruesome double murder has shocked the neighborhood. A crowd of onlookers is held back by police, while the local physician, Doctor Boyden, offers his grim assessment of the scene. The house’s owner, George Roland, vanished months ago, leaving the property seemingly vacant—and now the detectives must untangle the clues that suggest a deeper web of crime lurking behind the apparent slaughter.