Before they could come near enough to use a weapon, however, the three ruffians scattered like frightened cats, leaping the wall near an adjoining woodland, into the gloom of which they speedily vanished.

It was obvious to Nick that pursuit would be vain, so he hastened to the side of the fallen man, who had been left prostrate in the road, and helped him to his feet.

The man was Jean Pylotte.

He was panting hard after the conflict, the fake character of which Nick could not then foresee. His coat was ripped up the back, his linen collar torn off, and he was deathly pale, with a smutch of blood across his cheek. In one hand he held a revolver, and in the other—a chunk of coal.

"Are you wounded, stranger?" Nick quickly demanded, as he studied the man's pale face.

"Not much—not badly, I think," gasped Pylotte, trembling violently. "But it's lucky you came. They'd surely have killed me."

Nick noticed that he spoke with a slight foreign accent, and was a man of considerable physical prowess.

"There's blood on your face," said he.

"It came from one of them, I think," said Pylotte, drawing his sleeve across his cheek to remove the stain. "I must have wounded one of them."

"It's a pity you did not kill him," said Nick, bluntly. "Was it you who fired the gun?"

"Yes. I tried to fire again, but one of them struck me down before I could do so. The ruffians came upon me before I fairly realized it."

"Do you know them?" inquired Chick.

"Only one of them, a man named John David," replied Pylotte, now appearing to pull himself together.

"John David, eh?" grunted Nick.

"He has swindled me, and I—I saw him at a theater to-night, and afterward followed him out here."

"For what? If he has swindled you, why didn't you have him arrested at the theater?" demanded Nick.

"Well, I—I wanted to learn where he lives. He must have discovered that he was being followed, and then tried to do me up."

Nick observed the speaker's faltering manner, and it increased his curiosity.

"Why do you wish to know where he lives?" he demanded.

Pylotte hesitated, and shrugged his shoulders.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," said he, after a moment.

"Not believe you?"

"I hardly think so."

"Suppose you tell me, and see," suggested Nick, with a faint smile.

"I have no objection to telling you, none at all," Pylotte now replied. "The man I spoke of, John David, swindled me yesterday with two artificial diamonds."

"Ah! is that so?" cried Nick, with a significant glance at Chick. "What is your name, my man?"

"Jean Pylotte, sir."

"Who are you, and where do you live?"

"I am a Frenchman by birth, and arrived in New York only this week. My home is in Denver. I am a diamond cutter by trade, and came here to buy some gems for a Denver woman of wealth, who wishes to obtain a certain size and quality."

"Then you are a judge of diamonds?"

"One of the best," Pylotte modestly admitted, with a faint smile. "I am an expert judge of diamonds, and so it happened that I discovered the swindle of which I am a victim."

"Then you bought a diamond of the man who said his name was John David, did you?"

"I bought two, sir," nodded Pylotte. "They appeared like natural and very perfect stones when I first examined them, but after subjecting them to more careful tests, I found them to be the most extraordinary imitations I ever beheld."

"Artificial diamonds, were they?"

"Yes, artificial. But only the best of experts, and after the most rigid tests, could discover the fraud. I never saw such imitations. The stones are really almost as good as natural ones."

"Have you them with you?"

"Yes."

"You feel quite confident that they were manufactured, do you?"

"Oh, I am positive of it," cried Pylotte, with emphasis. "That is why I was secretly following the swindler."

"You wanted to discover his house, and learn how he made such perfect imitations, eh? Was that your motive, instead of having him arrested at the theater?"

"Well, yes, it was," admitted Pylotte, with feigned reluctance.

"Do you know any process for manufacturing diamonds?" Nick next demanded.

"I am pretty well informed on the subject."

"Quite an art, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

"And one that could be made very profitable, perhaps?"

"I judge so."

"Put up your revolver," said Nick, abruptly. "What's that black object you dropped just now?"

Pylotte glanced down at his feet, then laughed faintly.

"That's odd," said he. "It's a piece of coal. I must have seized it from the road, thinking to defend myself with it."

"What is there odd in that?"

Pylotte laughed again.

"Diamonds may be made from coal," said he. "The fact that I should have got hold of a piece in the road here, while tracking that diamond swindler in search of his house, strikes me as being rather odd."

"So it was," said Nick, a bit dryly, thinking of Venner's house in the near distance.

Then he added, decisively:

"Put up your gun, Mr. Pylotte. I want you to go with me. I think you are the very man I want."

"Go with you!" exclaimed Pylotte, drawing back.

"If you please," said Nick, politely. "I want, at least, to hear more of your story."

"But who are you, sir?"

"My name is Nick Carter."

"Not the celebrated detective?" cried Pylotte, with feigned amazement.

"Precisely."

"That's quite sufficient, Mr. Carter!" the Frenchman now cried, with much bowing and scraping. "I'll go with you when and where you wish. If any man can run down these swindling ruffians, sir, you certainly are the man."

"Thanks," said Nick, dryly. "I'll take you home with me for the night."



CHAPTER XVII.

THE GAME UNCOVERED.

The following morning.

The clock in Nick Carter's library was striking nine.

Nick and Chick were seated at one side of the table, and Jean Pylotte occupied a chair at the opposite side.

Upon the dark cloth top of the table between them lay two large diamonds, declared by Pylotte to have been artificially made, the two with which he claimed to have been swindled.

Yet to the eyes of a layman they had all the qualities of natural gems, gleaming and glistening with magnificent fire in the cheerful sunlight of Nick's library.

Pylotte had invented a very clever and consistent story about himself and his mission in New York, as well as about the meeting and being victimized by the counterfeit diamond shover, and Nick as yet saw no occasion for seriously distrusting him, or connecting him with the Kilgore gang.

He rather suspected, in fact, that Pylotte had shadowed the swindler, whom Nick felt sure was Kilgore, with a view to learning just how the diamonds had been manufactured, and possibly with a design to turn the discovery to his own advantage.

This was, indeed, the most natural deduction for Nick to arrive at, after considering all the circumstances.

"So you are confident that these stones are works of art, rather than of nature, are you?" inquired Nick, who had been carefully examining the gems.

"I am absolutely sure of it, Mr. Carter," declared Pylotte.

"Have you any idea how such counterfeits can be made?"

"Oh, yes."

"By what process and means, Mr. Pylotte?"

Pylotte hastened to explain.

"A natural diamond, Mr. Carter, is pure carbon, crystallized under enormous heat and pressure in the bowels of the earth."

"I am aware of that."

"Charcoal and graphite are also pure carbon, but not in a crystallized condition," continued Pylotte. "If that condition could be imparted to the substances mentioned, we should have the artificial diamond."

"How may that be done?" inquired Nick.

"By subjecting the substance to the same condition under which the natural diamond was crystallized."

"Heat and pressure?"

"Precisely," bowed Pylotte. "Attempts to thus manufacture diamonds have frequently been made. A Mr. Acheson, of Pittsburg, while so engaged, and in obtaining graphite from coal by the heat of an electric furnace, discovered that combination of silicon and carbon now known as carborundum, which has commercial value as an abrasive."

"I know about that," bowed Nick.

"Now, then," continued Pylotte, with an unconscious display of enthusiasm; "while diamonds certainly have been made by artificial means, the great difficulty has been that of producing them at a low cost. Moissan, in my country, produced diamonds by heating charcoal and iron to a high degree, and letting the mixture cool under enormous pressure. He succeeded in obtaining very small crystals, or diamonds, but the cost of production made his method impracticable from a commercial standpoint."

"Ah! I see."

"In 1872 a chemist named Rose converted graphite into diamonds by a similar process, but with the same result."

"The cost of production being too great?" observed Nick.

"Precisely."

"Do you think that difficulty has now been overcome?"

"I am compelled to think so, Mr. Carter," cried Pylotte, pointing to the two diamonds on the table.

"You purchased them at a price compelling that belief?"

"Exactly."

"Then you think the man of whom you got them has discovered a way to make such perfect artificial diamonds at a low price?"

"I certainly do, Mr. Carter."

"Have you any idea of the machinery and ingredients he might require?" asked Nick, with a view to getting points by which to locate the diamond plant.

Pylotte could easily inform him, and he promptly did so, following the instructions given him by Dave Kilgore.

"He would require an electric furnace and a hydraulic press," said he. "Also the tools for cutting the crude crystals. The ingredients used would depend upon the process he has discovered, probably coal or charcoal, and possibly some quantities of iron salts and sulphur."

"In brief, then, Mr. Pylotte," said Nick, pointing to the diamonds on the table, "if those stones were made as cheaply as you think, the diamond market offers the manufacturers of them a field for a most gigantic swindle, does it not?"

"Indeed it does!" exclaimed Pylotte, throwing up both hands. "Enormous! Enormous! Millions could be made by so unparalleled a fraud!"

"It opens the way, in fact, to the most colossal swindle on record?"

"Undoubtedly."

Nick glanced significantly at Chick, then abruptly rose to his feet. That he had struck the big game which from the first he had suspected, he now had not a doubt.

"I require no more of you at present, Mr. Pylotte," said he, with courteous firmness. "I shall do all in my power to remedy your loss by this swindle, and to secure the perpetrators of it."

"Thank you, Detective Carter," bowed Pylotte, with a crafty display of appreciation and humility.

"Meantime," added Nick, "you will please take no action in the case, but leave it entirely to me."

"I will do so, sir."

"If you will leave me your city address, or call here again in a few days, I shall have something to report to you."

"I will call the day after to-morrow, Detective Carter," said Pylotte, promptly, too cunning to give Nick a fictitious address.

"Very well," said Nick. "Call in the evening. And now, Mr. Pylotte, we will bid you good-morning, and get to work at once upon the case."

Pylotte bowed very agreeably, taking his artificial diamonds from the table and replacing them in his pocket; and Nick then conducted him to the door, again assuring him that no efforts in his behalf should be spared.

Pylotte once more expressed his thanks, bowing and smiling as he descended the steps, and Nick closed the door and returned to the library.

"Well, Chick, the bag is open and the cat out," he cried, as he entered.

"Right you are, Nick."

"And a monstrous cat it is!"

"Never a larger one," declared Chick, with a laugh. "By Jove! Nick, if Kilgore has really found a way to produce such perfect counterfeit diamonds, his gang could work the greatest swindle ever known, unless headed off."

"That is their game, all right," said Nick. "From the very first I have suspected something extraordinary. They are not the stamp of criminals to dicker with petty jobs."

"I should say not."

"Far from it."

"One thing is plain."

"Namely?"

"Where Cervera gets her diamonds, and of what they consist."

"True. She certainly is one of the gang."

"With such counterfeits as those worked upon Pylotte, and one big jewelry concern to help market the goods, they could clean up millions in a very short time."

"No doubt of it. And they have their jewelry concern, all right."

"Venner & Co.?"

"Surely."

"We must get absolute proof of it."

"That's just what I intend doing, now that we have the game uncovered," said Nick, grimly.

"And then proceed to locate the plant where the goods are made, eh?"

"Precisely."

"What are your plans?"

"We'll first get a line on Venner, and see to what it leads," replied Nick. "There now is a way by which we can call the turn on him, and get proof of his co-operation with Kilgore and his gang."

"By getting him to sell us some diamonds?"

"Exactly."

"And then proving them to be artificial?"

"That's the idea."

"Can you get at him in a way to trap him?"

"What do you mean?"

"He may fight shy of us," suggested Chick, "in case he knows of Pylotte's scrap with the gang last night. He may fear that Pylotte has discovered the fraud, and reported it to the police."

"There's not much danger of that," replied Nick. "So stupendous a fraud would at once be given publicity through the press."

"That's true."

"In either case," added Nick, abruptly, "there's a way by which we can fool him. I'll explain it on the way. Get your make-up box and prepare to go with me. Since we have the game uncovered, we'll lose no time in rounding up these accomplished rascals."

"Good enough!" exclaimed Chick, as he hurriedly arose. "The sooner the better."

"We may have ragged work before the job is completed," added Nick. "So provide yourself with a brace of guns. I'll be ready when you are."

"Where first?"

"To the house of Pandu Singe, the snake charmer."



CHAPTER XVIII.

AT CROSS-PURPOSES.

It was not quite noon when Nick Carter and Chick arrived at the house of the Hindoo snake charmer.

They found Pandu Singe at home with his interpreter, and the two detectives were very cordially received.

Nick quickly disclosed his business.

"We wish to borrow your personalities for a short time, also some of your curious garments," he explained to Pandu Singe, through his interpreter, who also was a Hindoo of superior education.

The snake charmer appeared greatly surprised at such a request, but Nick readily invented a very plausible story to serve his purpose, without disclosing the true occasion.

He soon persuaded the foreigner to grant his request, moreover, and the amazement of Pandu Singe and the interpreter were redoubled when they beheld what followed.

This was the extraordinary transformation of their visitors.

Nick had already outlined his plans to Chick, and they at once began operations.

First they placed the two Hindoos in chairs near the windows, where the light revealed every peculiarity of their swarthy features.

Nick next adjusted a large mirror upon the table, and placed his make-up box near by.

Using the interpreter for his pattern, Nick then set to work with grease paints, powders, false hair, and the like, and at the end of twenty minutes he had, with most artistic skill, converted himself into a startling likeness of his model.

The addition of the garments already provided for him made the remarkable transformation absolutely complete.

Chick had not been idle meantime, but with equally clever manipulation had made himself into a counterfeit presentment of Pandu Singe.

The astonishment of the two Hindoos, and their delight as they beheld the progressive changes so artistically made, could scarcely find expression in words.

At the end of an hour, when the two detectives stood robed in their strange Indian attire, one would readily have declared that four genuine Hindoos, rather than two, occupied the apartment.

Having thus paved the way to his next move, Nick easily prevailed upon the Hindoos to remain indoors for a day or two, lest the deception should be discovered and his designs perverted.

He and Chick then returned to their waiting carriage, and half an hour later it drew up at the Fifth Avenue store of Venner & Co.

Chick alighted and led the way in.

In order that he might do most of the talking, and shape his course by whatever might occur, Nick had decided to personate the interpreter.

Yet both detectives had carefully noticed the peculiar characteristics of the Hindoo tongue, and believed that they could imitate it so cleverly as to prevent detection.

Several facts, which Nick then had no way of knowing, however, operated very quickly to betray him and the crafty ruse he had adopted, when Venner personally met them at the store door.

First, Kilgore had shrewdly reasoned that Nick's first move, after the disclosures made by Pylotte, would be that of thus getting positive evidence against Venner; and the crafty diamond swindler had warned Venner to be on the watch for the detective, and to handle him in a way to serve their own designs.

Furthermore, when visiting the theater with Cervera, Venner frequently had heard Pandu Singe talking with his interpreter; and before Nick fairly had begun speaking, Venner penetrated his disguise and saw that he was up against the two detectives.

Yet, despite the unexpected characters in which he now beheld them, the nerve of the polished knave did not weaken, nor his countenance in any way betray him. He at once proceeded to follow Kilgore's instructions.

"Ah! yes, I recognize both you and your interpreter," said he, in reply to Nick's dignified greeting. "I have frequently seen Pandu Singe at the theater, where I am admitted to the stage with Senora Cervera, the famous Spanish dancer. Perhaps Pandu Singe may have seen me there."

Nick gravely bowed, then pretended to interpret the remarks to Chick; who immediately began to bow and smile, at the same time glibly responding in a jargon that would have staggered a Chinese laundryman, yet which sounded as much like Hindoo as anything.

Had his own situation been less serious, and the entire outlook less desperate, Venner would have laughed at the consummate dignity and soberness with which the two detectives co-operated in their exchange of unintelligible talk.

"My employer, the great Pandu Singe," bowed Nick, "says he remembers the friend of the great Cervera."

"Ah! I am glad to hear it," cried Venner, shaking hands with Chick.

"He has seen the splendid diamonds of the great senora, and has heard that they came from your magnificent store," Nick then went on to explain.

"That is quite right," bowed Venner. "Many of them did come from here. Is Pandu Singe looking for some diamonds?"

Nick promptly bowed, and noted a gleam of satisfaction in the depths of Venner's eyes.

"The great Pandu Singe soon returns to his own country," replied Nick. "He wishes to take with him, as a gift to her august excellency, the Empress of all the Indies, six fine jewels of equal weight and value. He calls here to learn if you can provide him with them."

Venner plainly saw the game that was being attempted, and it suited him to the very letter.

"Does the great Pandu Singe wish to purchase diamonds?" he asked, bowing.

"Diamonds, yes! Are they not for the empress?"

"I should have thought of that, certainly."

"Only diamonds will answer."

"Of large size and the first water?"

"The great Pandu Singe would consider no other."

"Alas, then, this is most unfortunate!" Venner now exclaimed, glancing about the store. "You see that we are making some repairs here, in the walls of our store and vault."

"That is plain," bowed Nick. "But what has that to do with the diamonds?"

"Only this," replied Venner, with feigned regret. "During these repairs I have removed all of my most valuable diamonds to a vault in my private residence."

"For safer keeping?"

"Exactly."

"I will explain to Pandu Singe."

"Wait a moment," Venner quickly interposed. "Tell him, also, that I have at my residence the very gems he desires, six magnificent diamonds, precisely alike in weight, purity and cutting. They cannot be equaled in New York City, if in the entire country."

"Are they fit for an empress?"

"They are fit for a goddess."

"Ah! that will please Pandu Singe."

"Tell him, also, that he can purchase them at a marvelously low price," cried Venner. "Now, if Pandu Singe will come to my house, say early this evening, he may see the diamonds and examine them at his leisure. Tell him that, Mr. Interpreter, and say that I will send my carriage for him immediately after dinner. Say, too, that he may then see the diamonds both by daylight and lamplight, and so observe all the variety of their magnificent fire. Really, this will be greatly to the advantage of Pandu Singe."

Nick gravely heard him to a finish, and with never a change of countenance.

Yet, like a flash, one of those marvelous intuitions characteristic of this great detective, Nick Carter had suddenly grasped the whole truth.

That conflict of the previous night, the flight of three of the diamond gang, Pylotte left comparatively uninjured in the road, his subsequent disclosures, his extensive knowledge of the diamond-making art, the hints he had imparted, and now this manifest eagerness of Venner to lure his ostensible customers to his suburban house—all combined to reveal to Nick's keen mind the shrewd game by which Kilgore was hoping to entrap him.

Nick now knew that Venner recognized both Chick and himself, and was serving only the Kilgore gang.

Yet Nick bowed without the slightest self-betrayal, and said, gravely:

"I will explain the situation to Pandu Singe."

For several minutes the two detectives maintained their curious game of talk.

Then Nick, who had speedily planned his own counter-move, again turned to Rufus Venner.

"The great Pandu Singe will do what you suggest," said he. "He wishes to see the diamonds, and will be pleased to come to your house."

Venner had felt sure of this to start with, though he little dreamed that Nick had guessed the truth, and knew that he was recognized.

"Let it be to-day, then," said he, quickly.

"At your own pleasure," bowed Nick.

"I will send my carriage far you at seven this evening," cried Venner, with secret exultation.

Nick gravely tendered one of the snake charmer's cards.

"The great Pandu Singe will not keep your carriage waiting!" said he, with a dryness to which Venner then was blind.

"Well, Chick, what say you to that?" demanded Nick, as they were returning to the house of the snake charmer.

Chick laughed grimly.

"I say that we are now up against it."

"Right! There's a mighty wicked crisis near at hand."

"No doubt of it, Nick. Venner knew us all right."

"But he does not suspect that we are aware that he knew us, and in that at least we have the best of him."

"We'll turn it to a good account, too."

"Do you see the game this Kilgore gang is playing?"

"Plainly, Nick."

"They aim to lure us both to Venner's house, and there trap us and do us up."

"To which latter," said Chick, dryly, "we shall strenuously object."

"Well, rather!" laughed Nick. "Still, I can see nothing in evading this question or in making a raid upon Venner's house. If the Kilgore gang are about to lay for us there, it is evident that their diamond plant is located elsewhere. They would not take chances of failing to down us, and then having their plant discovered in the house where they slipped up."

"Surely not," admitted Chick. "Kilgore is too shrewd to take those chances."

"Undoubtedly."

For several minutes Nick calmly considered the situation, then bluntly observed:

"Chick, I see but one course for us. We must go up against the game, and give this gang what rope they want."

"That's just my idea, Nick."

"In no other way can we make sure of nailing the entire gang, and also locating their plant. Raiding Venner's house would not accomplish it. Some of the gang might not be there, or possibly escape us, and we might search in vain for their plant. Then we should have most of our work to do over again."

"That's right, Nick."

"So we'll take the one sure way, Chick," said Nick, decisively. "We'll let this gang continue to think they are fooling us, and go up against them till we get the whole truth."

"That's good enough for me, Nick," nodded Chick. "I'm with you."

"It may prove to be a desperate game, but we'll take our chances. Before night I'll have laid such plans as will best serve us, and possibly circumvent these scoundrels. Here we are at the house of Pandu Singe."

Nick dismissed their carriage, and entered the dwelling, where they decided to remain until evening. Meantime Nick perfected his plans and discussed them with Chick.

Then a wire was sent to Patsy, the detective's younger assistant, with careful instructions.

Seven o'clock came, then half-past seven, but no sign of Venner's carriage.

Nick readily suspected the true reason for the delay.

"They are waiting until dark," he observed to Chick. "They don't want our arrival at Venner's house to be observed. A crafty dog, this Kilgore!"

"That he is."

"Never mind. Darkness will serve us best, as well as them."

"Hark! There's a carriage."

Nick glanced from the front window.

"A landau!" he muttered, with grim satisfaction. "Yes, and with Spotty Dalton on the seat. I know him, despite his disguise. Come on, Chick! There's rough work to be done in the next two hours."



CHAPTER XIX.

HANDS SHOWED DOWN.

Spotty Dalton stood at the door of the open carriage when Nick and Chick emerged from the house, still clad in the character of Hindoos.

"Are you sent here by Mr. Venner?" inquired Nick.

Dalton touched the cloth cap drawn low over his brow, and stroked his dark, false beard as he replied:

"Yes, sir," said he, half in his throat. "You're the interpreter, I take it."

"At your service."

"I'm a bit late, but it couldn't be helped. We'll not be long in getting there."

"Time does not matter to the great Pandu Singe," replied Nick, as he followed Chick into the open landau. "The night is still long."

"It'll be infernally long for you two meddlers," Dalton grimly said to himself, as he banged the carriage door and mounted to the box.

Then they rolled rapidly away toward a northern suburb of the city.

The dusk of evening was already deepening to darkness, a gloom more noticeable far up in the heavens than among the myriad of lights in the city streets. For not a star was visible in the murky sky, and away in the west huge banks of inky clouds were sweeping up toward the zenith, indicating the rapid approach of a sudden storm.

"Do you think it is going to rain, driver?" called Nick, from the rear seat of the carriage.

"Not soon," Dalton turned to answer; and then he added with grim significance, which he did not dream would be appreciated: "Whether it rains or not, you'll be brought back home in a closed carriage."

"It's my private opinion that the boot will be on the other leg," thought Nick, smiling faintly at the scoundrel's grim levity.

For Dalton had implied that Nick would be brought back in a hearse.

From that time but few words were spoken during the ride, though the detectives occasionally passed a remark in their meaningless lingo, merely to keep up appearances.

At eight o'clock they had left the throbbing body of the city behind them, and at half-past eight they were speeding along the deserted suburban road leading to Venner's rather isolated homestead.

Only the yellow glare of an incandescent lamp here and there now relieved the terrestrial gloom, but across the distant heavens intermittent flashes of light, followed by the low, sullen roll of thunder, told of the approaching storm.

Soon the lighted windows of Venner's house came into view through the woodland, and Nick now murmured softly to Chick:

"If I fail to rejoin you in ten minutes, you will know what to do."

"You bet!" whispered Chick. "Trust me to do it, too!"

"Here we are, sirs," cried Dalton, as he pulled up at the gate of the gravel walk. "You can go right in, while I wait to look after my horses."

Chick—as Pandu Singe—pretended to give Nick a brief command, and Nick alone sprang out upon the sidewalk.

"Wait here, driver," said he, curtly. "I will return for Pandu Singe in a few minutes."

Dalton instantly became suspicious.

"What's that for?" he abruptly demanded. "Why doesn't his nibs go in with you now?"

"It is for me to obey the great Pandu Singe, not question his commands," replied Nick, with an air of offended dignity. "I shall return for him when I have followed his instructions."

"Hold on a bit! I want to know—"

But Nick had already turned, and was striding up the long gravel walk leading to the front door of the house.

Dalton then swung round and began to address Chick, who quickly signified that he could not understand; whereupon the puzzled scoundrel remained doubtfully on the box, growling under his breath, and quite at a loss just what he should do.

Chick was now counting the seconds and minutes, until he should arrive at ten.

Venner, who was waiting with the gang in the house, heard Nick's step on the wooden veranda, and he hastened to admit him.

"What's this!" he at once exclaimed, starting. "Where is your master? You did not come here alone!"

"No, not alone," replied Nick, entering the hall. "Pandu Singe waits in the carriage."

"Waits in the carriage! For what?"

"He fears the storm may break."

"Fears the storm!" exclaimed Venner, with a blaze of suspicion leaping up in his dark eyes. "Surely, then, he will not remain out there."

"You don't understand," coolly answered Nick, quickly sizing up everything in view.

"Don't understand?"

"Pandu Singe thinks of returning home before the storm shall break. He has first sent me in to see the diamonds, as I know just what he wants. If I think well of them, I am to return to the carriage and bring him in to see them."

"Oh, that's it, eh?" cried Venner, with unabated misgivings.

"Am I to see the stones?" demanded Nick. "Pandu Singe will not care to wait long."

"Yes, yes," replied Venner, as perplexed as Dalton by Nick's unexpected move. "Come out this way, where I have them ready to show you."

Nick bowed and followed him through the hall, and a glance into the two front rooms, both of which were well lighted, told him they were vacant.

Nick knew that he was entering a trap, however, and possibly carried his life in his hand. Yet he had several shrewd designs in the plan of operations adopted.

He aimed to prevent both Chick and himself being cornered, and possibly caught at the same time. Not wishing to evade this gang, and thus reveal his own knowledge and suspicions, he designed to leave Chick free to act in case of his own downfall.

Nick knew that he alone could force Venner and the gang to show their hands, even if it resulted in his own capture. He rather invited the latter, in fact, for he knew that the gang would see the need of instantly removing him from Venner's house, at least until they could lay hands upon Chick. In this case Nick believed that they might be compelled to confine him at their diamond plant, the location of which he thus hoped to discover.

For these reasons Nick was coolly taking very long chances, at the same time leaving Chick free to quickly get in his work, in case he himself went down at the outset.

Yet there was not a sign of any person save Venner, as Nick followed him through the hall and into a side room near the rear of the house, evidently a dining room.

Nick sized it up with a glance. Electric chandelier; two doors, one by which he had entered from the hall, and the other leading into a dark kitchen; two windows, with the curtains closely drawn; several chairs, a handsome sideboard, and in the middle of the room a large, square table, covered with a rich damask cloth hanging nearly to the floor.

Upon the table was also spread a piece of black velvet, on which was displayed nearly a score of blazing diamonds—the most magnificent artificial stones ever born of man's restless genius.

Nick rightly guessed their true character, yet he allowed an ejaculation of admiration to escape him.

"Ah! Magnificent!"

"Look them over," cried Venner, with a swift scrutiny of Nick's swarthy features. "You'll excuse me for a minute or two. I wish to make sure that my rear windows and doors are locked. Such gems are a terrible temptation to thieves."

"True, sir," bowed Nick. "Take your time. Meanwhile I'll examine the diamonds. They are splendid! magnificent!"

Nick rightly guessed that Venner wished to consult some of the gang. He saw that his entering the house without Chick had thrown their plans badly out of gear, as he had designed for it to do.

Venner went into the dark kitchen, rattled a doorknob merely for a bluff, then crossed the hall and entered the library, closing the door behind him.

The room was but dimly lighted, and on the floor stood Dave Kilgore and Matthew Stall, each with a drawn revolver.

"What's the meaning of this, Rufe?" Kilgore instantly demanded, in passionate whispers.

"How do I know?" Venner hurriedly rejoined, scarce above his breath. "You heard what he said?"

"Yes, curse him, but I don't swallow it."

"Nor I."

"I can't see into his game."

"That's just my trouble," cried Venner. "Can he have discovered that we recognize him?"

"Impossible! Pylotte is too cunning to have betrayed us in any way."

This was very true, in fact; but Venner himself had blindly done the betraying.

"It doesn't matter, Rufe," Kilgore fiercely added. "We must get them both."

"That's my idea."

"And it's all the easier to get them one at a time."

"Right you are, Dave."

"Has he discovered Pylotte?"

"Surely not!"

"Go back there, then," hissed Kilgore. "Learn what his game is, if you can. Force him to show his hand."

"Leave that to me."

"Waste no time, however, and on no pretext let him leave the house to return to the carriage."

"Not on our lives."

"A warning whistle will start Pylotte, and we'll be on hand to do our part," added Kilgore, hurriedly. "Go back at once, and waste not a moment in getting at his game."

"Trust me, Dave."

"We must land Nick Carter and get him away from here before that running mate of his can make any move against us."

"That's the stuff."

"And then we'll plan to get the other. Away with you!"

These forcible measures were precisely what Nick had felt sure would be adopted by the gang, and were the very steps to which he had so shrewdly planned to force them.

Venner darted softly across the hall and returned to the dining room.

Nick was still examining the diamonds.

He stood near the table, at a point midway between the two open doors. He had selected this position for a very good reason. He was inviting capture and removal, which he knew must be preceded by an assault; and he therefore laid himself open from either side, aiming to be put down and out with as little violence as possible.

He wanted all his resources for what he knew was very likely to follow.

Nick was quite as anxious as the gang to force matters, moreover; for at the end of ten minutes, in case he did not return to the carriage, Chick was to begin getting in his work.

Therefore the climax came quickly.

Six minutes had already passed.

"Well, sir, what do you think of them?" cried Venner, as he returned to the room.

"The diamonds?" queried Nick, tossing several of them back upon the table.

"Certainly. What else?"

"They are all right, Mr. Venner."

"I thought you would say so."

"Yes, indeed. They are all right—for what they are!"

"For what they are?"

"Precisely."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean."

"I do?" snarled Venner, inquiringly, with his frowning eyes shrinking from Nick's steadfast gaze.

"Certainly you do," declared Nick. "These diamonds are imitations, not natural stones. They are the most perfect and marvelous artificial diamonds ever made.

"Artificial!" cried Venner, now drawing back. "You are mad, sir! Why, man, you are away off the track!"

"Oh, no, I'm not."

"You are!"

"Not off the track at all, but very squarely on it," Nick now retorted, speaking in his own sternly resonant tones. "Hark you, Venner, I am the one to ask the meaning of this, not you!"

Venner's hand went stealing toward his hip pocket.

"So you are showing your true colors, are you?" he cried, with threatening significance. "By Heaven, you are no Hindoo!"

"That's right, Venner, I am not," said Nick, quickly throwing off the loose robe that hid his own apparel, fearing it might impede his movements. "I am no Hindoo, but am—"

"Nick Carter!"

"Exactly!"

"So this is your game, is it?" Venner fiercely began. "If you think—"

"Stop right there, Venner," Nick sternly commanded. "Speaking of games, I am here to discover what sort of a rascally game you and this Kilgore gang are playing. I have learned enough to show me that you are a knave and a—"

"By heavens, Carter—"

"Stop!" thundered Nick. "Don't pull a gun! If you do, I'll end your—"

But he got no further, for there the climax came.

A single sharp whistle sounded from the kitchen.

Instantly Nick felt a rope noose jerked taut around his ankles, nearly throwing him from his feet.

From beneath the table, the hanging cover of which had effectually concealed him, Jean Pylotte had managed to adjust the noose upon the floor about Nick's legs. At the signal given him, he had quickly drawn it taut.

At the same moment Kilgore and Matt Stall leaped upon Nick from the kitchen and hall doors, bearing him heavily to the floor, while Venner ran to clap a revolver to the detective's head.

"Hang to his feet, Pylotte," cried Kilgore, fiercely.

"I've got 'em fast," shouted the diamond maker, from under the table.

"Quit, Carter, or I'll blow your brains out," commanded Venner, with his pistol at Nick's head.

Nick had been making a great bluff at putting up an ugly fight, but now he very agreeably subsided.

The affair was going precisely as he desired, yet for the sake of appearances he angrily snarled:

"Let up, you dogs! So this is your game, is it? Turn that gun another way, Venner, you miscreant! It might go off, and I'm not fool enough to invite its contents. This dirty game that you've played—"

"Dry up!" Kilgore sharply interrupted, while he and Stall quickly secured Nick's arms with a rope. "You'll not live to know the game that we have played, Nick Carter."

"Won't I?"

"Not if I live!" cried Kilgore, with vicious significance.

"Well, maybe you'll not live long," retorted Nick.

"I'll close that saucy trap of yours, at all events," sneered Kilgore. "Give me that gag, Matt—quick."

Nick no longer resisted. A glance at the clock on the mantel told him that nearly ten minutes had passed since he left Chick. He suffered himself to be gagged, then raised to his feet, from which Pylotte now cast the line and emerged from under the table.

Nick bestowed one look upon him, from which the rascal shrank and shuddered.

Kilgore now turned quickly to Venner, and hurriedly cried:

"You remain here, Rufe, and leave us to dispose of this fellow. We'll run him over yonder, and return as quickly as possible. It's not safe to keep him here until we have landed his running mate."

"But—"

"Don't stop for buts!" cried Kilgore, fiercely. "Go see if you can sight Chick Carter. If he is still in the carriage, we are all right up to now. In six or eight minutes go down there and give him to understand that his interpreter wants him to come in here. Before you reach this room with him, we three will be back to help you turn him down. Do you understand?"

"Sure!" cried Venner, thrusting his weapon back in his pocket. "He cannot suspect that we have recognized Nick, and he'll come in, all right."

"Go, then! We'll be back here in six minutes."

Venner hastened to one of the front windows of the house and peered out toward the street. At that moment a flash of lightning, followed by the nearer roll of thunder, dispelled for an instant the intense gloom of the night.

A growl of profound satisfaction broke from Venner while he gazed, and he muttered exultingly:

"By Heaven! we're all right! He's waiting in the carriage, and Dalton is still on the box!"

Nick was being pushed out of a back door of the house, meantime, and then across the lawn and through the dark stable.

The ruffians who were hurrying him away did not stop there, however. Pylotte ran on ahead, while Kilgore and Matt Stall continued urging the detective across the grounds, making toward the old wooden mansion in which their secret plant was located.

It seemed to them the safest place in which to confine Nick, pending the delay in getting hands upon Chick.

Presently they came to a dry ditch, walled at each side, and originally built for draining the low meadows between the two estates. Into this they plunged, following it until they arrived near a wooden bulkhead in the foundation wall of the house. This was the secret way of entering, to which Cervera had referred the previous night.

Pylotte already had opened it, and Nick was quickly forced through a dark cellar.

"All right," cried Kilgore. "Let us in."

Instantly the secret stone door was thrown open, and Nick was nearly blinded by the flood of light in the room into which he was abruptly thrust.

He stood in the subterranean chamber of the diamond plant.

And there, erect on the floor, with her evil countenance a picture of malicious triumph, stood his crafty combatant of the previous night—Sanetta Cervera.

"Caramba!" she cried, shrilly, with a vicious laugh. "So you've got him! Well done, Dave! Well done!"

"Yes, and we'll presently have the other," cried Kilgore, panting hard after his exertions.

"Good for you, Dave," screamed Cervera, exultingly. "But this is the one I want most—this is the one!"

"Look lively, Matt. Lend a hand here, and we'll bind him to yonder chair."

"And leave Cervera to guard him, eh?"

"That's the stuff."

"Can she do it?"

"Can she!" growled Kilgore, with derisive vehemence. "You let her alone for that."

"Yes, yes, let me alone for that!"

"We must get back to stand by Venner. That Chick Carter is nearly as tough a customer as this fellow."

"I guess you'll find that that's no dream," said Nick to himself, as the ruffians bound him to the chair mentioned.

Cervera was laughing and capering around as if about to have a fit—yet her laugh had a terrible and chilling ring.

"Oh, yes, I'll guard him, Dave," she shrilly cried, with a frightful menace in her strained voice. "Caramba, yes! let me alone for that."

"So I do," snarled Kilgore.

"Knot the line fast, Matt—make sure of that," the woman fiercely added. "Yes, I'll keep him quiet—never doubt that, boys! He shall be like a baby taking milk. Perdition! but you shall have a sweet time, Mr. Nick, alone here with Sanetta Cervera!"

Kilgore paid but little attention to any of this, and only now and then bestowed a glance upon the vicious woman.

Within a minute after their arrival at the plant, the gang had Nick securely bound to a common wooden chair, when they condescended to remove the gag from his mouth.

"He may shout himself hoarse here, if he likes," growled Kilgore. "There will be none to hear him."

Then he hurried Pylotte and Matt Stall back to the Venner house, to land Chick Carter.

Left alone with Nick, Cervera darted to the stone door in the solid wall, and secured it within.

There was murder in her glittering eyes when she shot the heavy bolts into their iron sockets.



CHAPTER XX.

THE BOOT ON THE OTHER LEG.

In the heat of action and excitement ten minutes are as nothing.

The time seems longer, however, when one sits waiting in a motionless carriage, enveloped in the gloom of night, with grim distrust and uncertainty acting like spurs in the sides of one's impatience.

Before five minutes had fairly passed, after Nick's departure, Spotty Dalton had suffered his misgivings to the very limit of his endurance.

Chick sat mentally counting the passing seconds, then scoring each departed minute with his fingers, of which he had exhausted four and a thumb, the entire complement of one hand; and all the while his eyes were riveted with intense vigilance upon the growling ruffian on the seat above him.

Had Dalton ventured so much as a move to leave his perch, Chick would have been after him like a terrier after a rat.

At the end of five minutes, however, Dalton made a preliminary move. He hitched the reins around the whipstock, then stared for a second or two toward Venner's house, fifty yards away through the surrounding park.

Then he suddenly swung round on his seat, and growled ferociously at Chick, at the same time signifying with gestures the communication he imagined would not be verbally understood:

"See here, you swarthy-faced snake fiend, I'm bound up yonder, to see what's going on! You sit where you are, d'ye hear, and I'll be back in a jiffy, if things are all right! If they're not, —— you, I'll be back just the same—with a gun!"

As if moved by a wish to understand him, Chick arose in the body of the carriage while Dalton was thus declaring himself. He heard and understood, all right, and it necessitated his getting in his work a little earlier than was planned. For Chick would take no such chances as this that Nick's operations in the house would be interfered with.

As the last word left Dalton's lips, the arm of the detective shot out through the darkness, and closed with the grip of a vise around the ruffian's neck, throttling him to silence.

"With a gun, eh?" Chick fiercely muttered, yanking Dalton backward into the body of the carriage. "You open your lips again for so much as a whisper, and I'll close them with six inches of cold steel."

In the glare of a distant lightning flash, Dalton, though struggling furiously, caught the gleam of a polished blade at his throat, and a glimpse of the flaming eyes in the face above him.

He shrank, gasping for breath, as the truth dawned upon him; and then the voice of another sounded close beside the open carriage.

"Want any help, Chick?"

Nick's youthful assistant, to whom a wire had been sent from the house of the snake charmer, had appeared like an apparition out of the roadside gloom.

"Ah! you're here, Patsy!" muttered Chick. "Yes. Clap a gag into this cur's mouth. We'll choke off his pipes first of all."

Dalton uttered a vicious growl, then felt the point of the knife pierce the skin at his throat, and he wisely relapsed into silence.

For Patsy to fish out a gag, and bind it securely in the scoundrel's mouth, was the work of a few moments only.

Then Chick jerked Dalton up from the rear cushion and out into the road, in far less time than is taken to record it.

"Off with his coat and hat, Patsy," he hurriedly commanded. "Now the false beard, my lad. Now get into them yourself, as quickly as you can."

"I'm all in, Chick," chuckled Patsy, working like a trooper.

"Got all the traps with you?"

"Sure!"

"Clap the bracelets on him, then. Now give me a second pair, and a strip of line. That's the stuff."

"Oh, I brought the whole shooting match," laughed Patsy.

"Good for you! Now mount to the box, and leave this dog to me. I'll return in half a minute."

Patsy climbed up to the seat from which Dalton had been so speedily snatched and overcome, and Chick now ran the rascal a rod or more into the woodland on the opposite side of the road.

There he threw him to the ground beside a small oak, around the trunk of which he quickly twined Dalton's legs, and then fastened them at the ankles with a pair of irons.

"I reckon you'll stay there quietly until I want you, barring that you pull up the tree," he grimly remarked, as he turned to hasten back to the carriage, in which he quickly resumed his seat.

A moment later Venner peered from the distant window—and was satisfied with what he saw.

Five minutes later he came striding down the walk and approached the carriage. Without a word to the driver, whom he supposed to be Dalton, he opened the carriage door and laid his hand on Chick's arm, at the same time pointing toward the house.

Chick signified that he understood, and held out both hands, as if he wished to be helped to the sidewalk.

Venner promptly raised both of his—only to suddenly hear a quick, metallic snap, and feel links of cold steel confining his wrists. Their icy chill went through him like a knife, and he reeled as if stricken a blow.

"Good God!" he gasped, hoarsely. "What's this?"

Chick and Patsy were already beside him.

"This," said Chick, sternly, "is your wind-up!"

"My—"

"Stop! Not a loud word, Mr. Venner, or worse will be yours! Now tell me in whispers—where is Nick Carter?"

The sight of a revolver thrust under his nose had a potent effect upon the dismayed man, yet even while he saw that he was cornered, he seized upon the hope that Kilgore and the gang might discover and release him.

"Find him yourself, if you want him!" he hissed through his teeth, with an ugly frown. "I'm cursed if I'll inform you!"

Chick did not delay for arguments or persuasion. With Patsy's help he speedily put Venner in the same helpless condition in which he had left Dalton, stretched upon the ground, within a rod of one another.

Then he threw off his disguise, and shifted his revolvers to his side pockets.

"Now for yonder house, Patsy, and to see what the remainder of this gang are at," said he. "Come with me, and have your guns ready."

"I'm with you," cried Patsy, coolly. "Guns and all."

A dash up the gravel walk brought them to the front door, which Venner had left partly open.

There they paused and listened.

Not a sound came from within the house; but overhead the tempest now was breaking, with frequent crashing peals of thunder, and flashes of lightning that illumined all the landscape. Rain, too, now began pelting down on the veranda roof.

"We'll steal in and see what we can find," whispered Chick, drawing one of his revolvers.

"Go it, then."

He led the way, and Patsy followed. The silence in the house mystified them at first. It appeared to have been entirely deserted.

When they reached the door of the dining room, however, Chick discovered on the floor the disguise which Nick had discarded.

"I have it, Patsy," he cried, softly. "They have nailed Nick, just as he expected, and have taken him somewhere to confine him."

"Perhaps in the cellar," suggested Patsy.

"I hardly think so, yet we'll have a look."

Moving as quietly as shadows, they entered the kitchen and easily located the cellar door. It was closed and locked, with the key remaining.

"Evidently they're not down there," whispered Chick.

"Let's try the upper floors," suggested Patsy. "They may be laying for us up there, but I reckon we're good for them."

"We'll take the chance, surely. Come on."

They crept through the hall again, and then mounted the broad stairway, which led to the next floor.

There the utter silence and the semidarkness quickly convinced them that they were on the wrong track.

"The stable," muttered Chick, suddenly. "We'll try the stable."

"They certainly have vamosed this ranch," remarked Patsy.

"Plainly. Come on, then, and we'll try the stable."

Together they started downstairs.

A moment later Kilgore, Pylotte and Matt Stall came flurrying into the house by the rear door.

In the bright light of the broad hall each party discovered the other at precisely the same moment, and Kilgore instantly guessed the truth.

With a cry of rage, he whipped out his revolver and fired point-blank at the two men on the stairs.

"Down 'em, boys!" he yelled furiously. "Down 'em, or our game is done for!"

His bullet glanced from the baluster rail near Chick, and buried itself in the wall behind him.

"Drop them, Patsy!" he shouted, instantly. "Shoot to kill! It's them or us!"

"Let her go, Gallagher!" roared Patsy, pulling both guns.

Then, amid the tumult of the breaking tempest outside, there began a fusillade the thunder of which rivaled that of the night, and which, though comparatively brief, was as fast and furious as any man there had ever experienced.

Pylotte went down at the first shot from Chick, however, with a bullet in his brain.

Then shot followed shot with lightning rapidity.

Both detectives sprang down several stairs to evade the rain of lead, for both Kilgore and Stall were rapidly emptying two revolvers.

A bullet singed Patsy's ear.

Another dislodged Chick's hat.

Then Kilgore reeled with a slight wound in his left arm.

A score of shots were fired and wasted, meantime, for all hands were dodging about the hall and stairs in an utterly indescribable fashion.

It was the warmest kind of a fight for fully three minutes.

Then Chick got a line on Matt Stall from behind the baluster post, and dropped him with a ragged wound in his hip.

Stall fell with a yell of rage and pain, and Kilgore found himself alone, and against odds.

He turned like a flash, and darted out of the rear door of the house.

He knew that the game was up, his confederates done for, and his own chances of escape but small; and the situation stirred to their very depths the worst elements of this lifelong criminal.

But one thought possessed him—that of revenge, that of destroying the chief cause of his downfall—Nick Carter.

With this end in view, Kilgore tore like a madman through the blinding rain of that tempestuous night, and shaped his course back to the diamond plant.



CHAPTER XXI.

AN ONLY RESOURCE.

Despite the corner in which he had placed himself, a situation far more desperate than he at first imagined, Nick Carter was congratulating himself upon the success of his ruse by which he had so quickly located the secret plant of the diamond swindlers, even at the sacrifice of his personal freedom.

The fact that he now sat bound in a chair in the hidden stronghold of the gang, watched only by Cervera, did not seriously disturb the fearless detective.

Nick had been in many a worse corner than this, or in corners believed to be worse, and he felt confident of pulling out of the scrape with a whole skin, and with most of the gang in custody.

He had surveyed his surroundings with more than cursory interest, therefore, while Kilgore and his confederates were binding his arms to the rounds of the chair back, and his ankles to the legs of the same.

The rough foundation walls of the house, the massive stone wall built across the cellar to mask the secret chamber, the elaborate electric furnace, the huge hydraulic press, the workbench and tools, the powerful arc light pendent from the ceiling—half an eye would have convinced Nick that he occupied the workroom of that master craftsman whose chemical knowledge and inventive genius had given birth to a most marvelous production, long, earnestly, yet vainly, sought by others—

The production of an artificial diamond!

Not until Nick heard the stone door forcibly closed, and its iron bolts shot violently into their sockets, did he pay serious attention to Cervera, the venomous Spanish vixen left to guard him.

Then, as she swung round toward him, he took a sharper look at her darkly magnificent face, and was thrilled despite him by the extraordinary changes it had undergone.

It had lost its beauty. Its olive flush had given place to a chalky whiteness. The radiance of her eyes had become a merciless glitter, like the glint cast from the eyes of a serpent. The reflection of a consuming passion for vengeance had transfigured her countenance, till it had become like the face of a fiend.

Though Nick saw at a glance that his situation had taken on an unexpected and desperate phase, he suppressed any betrayal of it. He met the woman eye to eye, while she briefly paused and faced him, with a cruel smile curling her gray lips.

"So I have you now, Nick Carter," she cried, with mocking significance.

"Well, yes, in a way," admitted Nick, coolly.

"I have you in my power," hissed Cervera, with a vicious display of satisfaction.

"Ah! that's different," said Nick.

"How different?"

"That you have me in your power remains to be demonstrated."

"Are we not alone here, you fool?"

"Yes, very much alone."

"And you helpless?"

"Apparently."

"If I wish, Nick Carter, I can kill you."

"Then pray don't wish it," said Nick. "I am still too young to be heartlessly slain, even by so beautiful and accomplished a woman."

"Caramba! you mock me!" cried Cervera, darting toward him with eyes ablaze and her lithe figure quivering with passion. "You mock me!—you shall repent it! Perdition! you shall repent it!"

"Is that so?"

"You shall repent it, I say!"

"In this world, or in the next?" inquired Nick, bent upon prolonging the scene as much as possible, with a hope that Chick might suddenly turn up.

Cervera did not answer him immediately. She wheeled again and darted to the door, once more to make sure that she had secured its bolts.

She was clad in the black dress in which she had escaped from Nick the previous night, the somber hue of which was relieved only by occasional flashes of her dainty white lace underskirts, as she swept quickly from place to place, with her lithe figure crouching at times, and her every movement as swift and impulsive as that of a startled leopard.

As he sat watching her, Nick was reminded of her matchless work upon the stage, thrilling men and women alike with her wild grace and the fiery passion of her indescribable dances.

She returned to confront him after a moment, crouching before him, with her glowing eyes fixed on his.

"In the next world—not in this!" she now replied, with a voice that cut the air like the snap of a whip. "You'd have brief time for repentance in this."

"So you've decided to do the job, have you?" Nick coolly demanded.

"Yes."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear it."

"Here is where we even up accounts."

"Even them up, eh?"

"You heard what I said."

"But I wasn't aware that I have so very much the best of you."

"You have."

"How so?"

"Caramba! you know too much!"

"Ah! you mean about that girl."

"Yes."

"I see," nodded Nick, secretly working in vain to loose the ropes confining his arms. "Well, senora, as a matter of fact, I am rather likely to make things unpleasant for you one of these days."

"It will be this day, or never. You'll not live to see another."

"Possibly not."

"Caramba! do you doubt it?"

She darted nearer to him, with her hand tearing open the waist of her dress, and then the gleam of a poniard met Nick's gaze. She swept it before his eyes with a wild gesture, and gave vent to a mocking laugh.

"Do you doubt that I can slay you?"

"Not at all," answered Nick. "It's very evident."

"Or that I will?"

"That appears equally manifest."

"So it is!" hissed Cervera, with vicious intensity. "I intend to do it! Do you hear, Nick Carter? I intend to do it!"

"Oh, yes, I hear you."

"Why don't you shrink? Why don't you plead for mercy?"

"What's the use?"

She answered him with a laugh that made the room ring.

"Besides," added Nick, "it's not my style to show the white feather."

"We'll see! Caramba! we will see!"

She came nearer to him, crouching before him, so near that her breath fell hot upon his cheeks. Then, with a quick movement, she pressed the point of the blade through his clothing, till it pricked the flesh above his heart.

With his arms bound, with his ankles secured to the legs of the chair, Nick appeared utterly at her mercy—of which she had none.

Despite himself, Nick shrank slightly from the wound, and for the first time shuddered at the peril by which he was menaced, and from which there seemed to be no avenue of escape.

Cervera laughed again, a laugh freighted with the terrible ring of madness.

"Did it hurt you?" she screamed, with her glittering eyes raised to search his. "Perdition! I hope so! You have tortured me with a thousand fears. I'd like to repay you with a thousand pangs!"

Nick's eyes took on an ugly gleam.

"Why don't you do so, then?" he growled.

"I would, if I had the time," cried Cervera, through her teeth.

"You have all there is."

"Ten thousand times I'd thrust it into you—thus! thus!"

Nick set his jaws and met the blade without flinching.

Twice the vicious demon thrust it through his clothing, and now two crimson stains of blood on his shirt front followed the withdrawal of the weapon.

"See! see!" screamed Cervera, triumphantly, with her terrible face upturned to his gaze. "You're beginning to bleed! Did you know that the sight of blood affects me as it does a leopard? I thirst for more—if that of one I hate! When next I strike you, I shall strike deeper!"

That she fully intended to murder him, Nick now, had not a doubt. The homicidal madness was in her eyes, in her every feature, her every motion, and it rang in every word that fell from her bloodless lips.

Yet the inflexible nerve of the detective did not for a moment desert him.

"Send the blade home at once, if you like," he said, with a scornful frown.

"Not yet—not yet!" she cried, shrilly. "There'll be time for that."

"Time and to spare," sneered Nick.

"I first wish to torture you, as you've tortured me!"

"Go ahead, then."

"Once more! Are you ready?"

"Let it come."

Again she drew back the glittering blade, only to mock him with several pretended thrusts, hoping thus to create and prolong an agony of fear and suspense.

A more viciously cruel and vindictive creature never drew the breath of life.

She laughed again, and slowly pressed the weapon closer—and then, with a sudden startled cry, she drew back and leaped to her feet.

A noise like that of a mighty cannonade seemed to shake even the solid walls of this buried chamber.

It was the crash of thunder in the heavens overhead.

It was Cervera's first intimation of the terrible tempest that had been gathering outside.

At first she thought the sound was that of revolvers, and she darted to the door and listened, pressing her ear to the wall.

The instant her back was turned, Nick made a desperate attempt to free himself, straining cords and muscles under the determined effort. It proved vain, however. The ropes held him as if made of twisted steel.

Yet in his brief but desperate struggle his right arm came in contact with an object in the side pocket of his sack coat.

The object was a box nearly filled with parlor matches—one of the most dangerous and treacherous creations of man's inventive genius.

Like a sudden revelation, or a bolt out of the blue, there leaped up in Nick's mind a possible way of escape.

He thought of Cervera's garments, of the fluffy lace skirts beneath her gown, to which a single flash of fire would instantly prove fatal.

The resort to such means seemed horrible—yet Nick well knew it was the one and only resource left him.

He glanced sharply at Cervera. She was still listening at the door, with her evil face a picture of intense suspense.

With a quick turn of his wrist, Nick succeeded in extracting the box from his pocket. Then he forced it open, and with a move of his hand he scattered its entire contents over the floor around his chair. The tiny matches fell with scarce a sound, and Cervera, ten feet away, failed to hear them.

Then Nick quietly worked his chair back a foot or two, in order to bring some of the fateful things upon the floor directly in front of him.

A moment later Cervera turned from the door.

"Thunder—it was thunder," she muttered, under her breath. "There's a storm outside."

"Somebody coming?" queried Nick, with taunting accents.

He now aimed to provoke her, to force the situation to a climax, lest any mischance should have befallen Chick, or perverted in any way his own designs upon Kilgore and the gang. His taunting remark proved effective, moreover.

With a snarl of rage Cervera darted toward him, with eyes for him alone, never for the floor.

"You dog!" she cried, through her white teeth.

"Do you mock me again?"

"Oh! no, of course not," sneered Nick.

"You lie! You do! You think some one will come—that you will then escape me," screamed Cervera, quivering through and through with venomous passion.

Nick watched her as a cat watches a mouse.

Her face was ghastly and distorted, her breast heaving, her every nerve quivering, and her eyes were like balls of fire under their knitted brows.

Still clutching the poniard, her jeweled fingers worked convulsively around its haft, like those of one who fain would strike a death blow, yet whose hand was briefly held by consuming horror.

Suddenly she darted nearer, with a vicious snarl.

"You think you'll escape me," she screamed, with bitter ferocity. "It shows in your eyes. I'll make sure that you don't. Let come who may, you shall be found—dead! Dead!—do you hear?"

"Oh! yes, I hear."

"Yet you do not fear? We'll see—we'll see!"

She darted closer to him, with the weapon raised, above her head, and her knee touched Nick's knee. He swung quickly around toward her, and scraped his feet over the floor below her skirts.

Then came a quick, furious snapping, like the noise of a miniature fusillade. A score of the matches had been ignited by Nick's swift move.

Almost instantly a shriek of terror broke from Cervera's lips, and she reeled back, clutching wildly at her skirts.

"My God! I'm on fire!—on fire!" she screamed, with a voice so intense in its agony as to have chilled a man of stone.

A roar came from Nick as he sighted the flames under her gown.

"Release me! Release me!" he thundered, furiously, with a voice that drowned her frightful screams. "Cut me loose—loose! It's your only hope—your only hope!"

She heard him like one in a nightmare of agony and terror, and her instinct rather than her reason responded to his thundering commands.

Still with the poniard in her jeweled hand, still shrieking wildly, she leaped to his side, and with a single sweep of the keen weapon severed the rope binding his arms.

Then Nick snatched the poniard from her hand. With several swift cuts and slashes he released his limbs, and sprang quickly to his feet.

He had already shaped his course. He had observed on the sulphur barrels, near the wall, a strip of matting, used as a cover for them. Nick snatched it from the barrels, and rushed to wrap it around the skirts and limbs of the terror-stricken woman.

For several moments the result seemed doubtful, so doubtful that Nick finally threw Cervera heavily to the floor, the better to press the matting closely around her and so smother the flames. In this he presently succeeded, but not before she was so severely burned as to be rendered utterly helpless.

When Nick arose to his feet Cervera remained lying prostrate on the floor, moaning with pain, yet in a state of semi-consciousness only. A glance told Nick that she could make no move to escape, and he now had other work than that of looking to her comfort.

He ran to the stone door, threw the bolts, and quickly dragged it open.

Even as he did so, from out of the gloom of the adjoining cellar, a man came into view, as if suddenly arisen from the ground.

The man was Dave Kilgore.



CHAPTER XXII.

THE LAST TRICK.

"Carter!"

"Kilgore!"

Each man uttered the name of the other, as if with the same breath. The meeting came so suddenly that, for the bare fraction of a second, both men were nonplused.

Then both whipped out a weapon.

Crack!

Bang!

They fired together, and both missed, Nick's usually accurate aim being spoiled by the gloom of the cellar.

Kilgore instantly sprang further away in the darkness, and aimed again.

The hammer of his weapon fell as usual, but there was no report. In his recent fight at the Venner house he had emptied both of his revolvers, save the one bullet that had just missed Nick Carter.

Then Kilgore, failing to have found Nick at his mercy, thought only of making his own escape. He turned and ran toward the open door by which he had entered.

At that moment Chick's ringing voice sounded from outside.

"This way! this way, Patsy!" he cried, louder than the rolling thunder overhead. "I've found the rat hole!"

"I'm with you," yelled Patsy.

They were already at the door.

By the frequent flashes of lightning they had, after the fight at Venner's, succeeded in following Kilgore across the meadows, and they well knew that he was headed to get even with Nick.

Now Nick's voice rang through the cellar.

"Look out for him, Chick," he commanded. "He's coming that way. Look out for his gun."

"Hurrah!" roared Chick, the moment he heard Nick's voice. "Let him come, gun and all!"

Kilgore saw his flight cut off in that direction, but he knew every inch of the house. He turned like a rat in the darkness, and made for the stairs leading to the floor above. Up these he hurriedly scrambled.

Nick heard him through the gloom, and followed him, pitching headlong at the foot of the stairs just as Kilgore opened the door leading to the hall above.

There the dim rays from a hall lamp revealed the man for an instant, and showed Nick the way. He was up again and after Kilgore like a hound after a fox.

Kilgore dashed through the hall, but dared not take time to unlock and open the front door of the house. He had a profound respect for the revolver in the hand of his pursuer, who already had reached the hall.

It was a flight for life, and Kilgore knew it.

He turned like a flash and darted up the stairs, making for the second floor. Three at a stride he covered, and succeeded in reaching the corridor above before Nick could get a line on him.

Nick followed, gun in hand.

On the second floor Kilgore darted into a dark chamber, and then through that to one adjoining it, where he waited till he heard Nick plunging into the one first mentioned.

Then Kilgore slipped out into the hall again, hoping to retrace his steps downstairs and escape by the front door.

In the way of that, however, Chick and Patsy were now in the lower hall, the former shouting lustily up the stairs:

"Run him down, Nick! Run him down! We'll cover this way of escape!"

An involuntary oath broke from Kilgore's lips, and at the same moment a vivid flash of lightning from the inky heavens illumined all the house.

From the chamber in which he stood, Nick again caught sight of his man, and was after him in an instant.

Kilgore heard him coming, and again fled through the hall and up another flight of stairs.

"You'd better throw up your hands," roared Nick, as he followed.

The answer came back with a yell of defiance:

"Not on your life!"

"You're a lost dog," cried Nick, hoping to keep him replying.

"You'll not get me alive!"

"Then I'll get you dead!" cried Nick, as he mounted the stairs.

"You haven't got me yet!"

"Next door to it, my man."

This brought no answer.

In a moment Nick reached the second hall, where he briefly paused to listen. Save the rain beating on the roof of the house, only one sound reached his strained ears. It was like that of some one hammering against the side of the house with some heavy object. For a moment the detective was puzzled. He could not fathom the meaning of such a sound.

Then a gust of damp night air rushed through the hall and swept Nick's cheek.

"Ah! an open window!" he muttered. "That's easily located."

He groped his way into one of the rear chambers. There the night air was sweeping in through an open window, to the sill of which Nick quickly sprang.

Now the noise he had heard was instantly explained.

Cornered like a rat, yet viciously resolute to the last, Kilgore had, in order to make his escape, resorted to a means from which a less cool and nervy scoundrel would have shrunk on such a night as that.

He had, by reaching far out of the window, been able to grasp an old-fashioned lightning rod with which the ancient wooden mansion was provided, and by which he proposed to descend to the ground. Under the swindler's weight, the beating of this swaying rod against the side of the house was the sound Nick had heard.

Kilgore, whose courage was worthy a far better cause, already was halfway to the ground.

Yet Nick had no idea of letting the knave escape thus, and he raised his weapon to fire.

There was no need for a bullet, however, for the hand of the Almighty did the work.

From the black vault of the heavens a bolt of liquid fire suddenly shot earthward, with a crash of thunder that seemed to rend the entire firmament.

The fiery bolt reached the earth—but it reached it through the rod to which Dave Kilgore was desperately clinging.

Not a sound came from the doomed man as he went down—or if there was a sound, it was drowned by the deafening crash and successive reverberations of thunder.

Before Nick had fairly recovered from the blinding light and terrific concussion, he heard the voice of Chick yelling loudly from below:

"Nick, Nick, come down here! The house is afire. The whole house is afire!"

Nick heard and darted for the stairs, at once realizing how well the lightning had done its terrific work. Before he could reach the lower hall, dense volumes of smoke were pouring through the house, and one entire side of the fated dwelling was in flames.

Nick thought of the woman in the cellar below, and, with Chick and Patsy at his heels, he led the way to the diamond plant. The electric light had been extinguished by the lightning stroke, but Nick soon located the body of Cervera, and together the detectives brought her out and laid her upon the ground some rods away from the burning dwelling.

"She's done for, poor wretch!" muttered Nick, as he looked at her bloodless face.

He was right.

Senora Cervera had danced her last dance—a terrible one it was! She had lapsed into a merciful unconsciousness, from which she never emerged.

Next came Kilgore, and they easily found him. He lay stretched upon the ground, dead and scorched almost beyond recognition, at the base of the metallic rod through which he had met his fate.

"Lend a hand here," said Nick. "We'll place him with his confederate until we can have them properly removed."

"So be it," said Chick, gravely. "It's about the last we can do for them, and this nearly ends our work on this job."

"You've got the others?"

"Every man of them."

"Well done!" nodded Nick, as they raised the lifeless form between them. "Behold the way of the transgressor."

"Hark!" exclaimed Patsy. "There goes the fire alarm. In three minutes there'll be a mob about here."

"Much good the firemen will do," rejoined Nick. "That house is doomed, and all that's in it."

He was right. With the passing of the tempest, and the first sign of a star in the eastern sky, all that remained of the house above the diamond plant was a heap of red, smoldering embers, filling the cellar and the secret chamber—and blotting out, though perhaps not forever, the secret art of that misguided genius, Jean Pylotte, dead with a bullet in his brain, on the floor of Rufus Venner's hall.

There remains but little to complete the record of this strange and stirring case.

Before morning Nick had lodged Venner and Spotty Dalton in the Tombs, and had Garside arrested at his residence. The lifeless bodies of their three confederates,—Cervera having died at dawn—were taken to the Morgue.

Early the following day, Harry Boyden, the young man arrested for the murder of Mary Barton, was discharged from custody, and hastened to the home of Violet Page, to make her happy with the news of his release and his story of Nick Carter's extraordinary work. Both called upon Nick a day or two later, and expressed their gratitude and affection in terms which here need no recital. Incidentally it may be added that they were married, as planned, the following summer.

How strangely the circumstances and experiences of life are knit and bound together. But for the vicious crime of a jealous woman, Nick might have labored long, and possibly vainly, to run down the Kilgore gang and their extraordinary criminal project, in which Cervera so strongly figured. It was as Nick said, the two crimes seemed bound together as if with links of steel.

In the trial which preceded the conviction and punishment of the three living members of the gang, Nick learned all of the facts of the case.

Venner & Co., it appeared, were on their last legs, and went into the game to square themselves, the design being to market vast quantities of the artificial diamonds. With this project in view, Venner had purchased the house at the rear of his own, under the name of Dr. Magruder, and there had established the plant. How well the scheme would have succeeded, but for Nick Carter, will never be known.

At all events, in the stock of Venner & Co. were found numerous stones which only the most proficient experts could prove to be artificial; and even to this day it is intimated that, among the bejeweled women of New York there are some unconsciously wearing the manufactured diamonds of Jean Pylotte. What matters, however, since where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise?

Jean Pylotte: His art died with him, alas! For in the ruins of the diamond plant there could be found no evidence sufficient to reveal his great secret.

Surely it had opened the way to a great swindle, the possibilities of which can hardly be conceived. But, fortunately, in the way of it had come—

Nick Carter.

THE END.



NICK CARTER STORIES

New Magnet Library

PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS

Not a Dull Book in This List

Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from all sorts of trouble, and landed the criminal just where he should be—behind the bars.

The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories than any other single person.

Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth covers which sells at ten times the price.

If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

850—Wanted: A Clew By Nicholas Carter 851—A Tangled Skein By Nicholas Carter 852—The Bullion Mystery By Nicholas Carter 853—The Man of Riddles By Nicholas Carter 854—A Miscarriage of Justice By Nicholas Carter 855—The Gloved Hand By Nicholas Carter 856—Spoilers and the Spoils By Nicholas Carter 857—The Deeper Game By Nicholas Carter 858—Bolts from Blue Skies By Nicholas Carter 859—Unseen Foes By Nicholas Carter 860—Knaves in High Places By Nicholas Carter 861—The Microbe of Crime By Nicholas Carter 862—In the Toils of Fear By Nicholas Carter 863—A Heritage of Trouble By Nicholas Carter 864—Called to Account By Nicholas Carter 865—The Just and the Unjust By Nicholas Carter 866—Instinct at Fault By Nicholas Carter 867—A Rogue Worth Trapping By Nicholas Carter 868—A Rope of Slender Threads By Nicholas Carter 869—The Last Call By Nicholas Carter 870—The Spoils of Chance By Nicholas Carter 871—A Struggle With Destiny By Nicholas Carter 872—The Slave of Crime By Nicholas Carter 873—The Crook's Blind By Nicholas Carter 874—A Rascal of Quality By Nicholas Carter 875—With Shackles of Fire By Nicholas Carter 876—The Man Who Changed Faces By Nicholas Carter 877—The Fixed Alibi By Nicholas Carter 878—Out With the Tide By Nicholas Carter 879—The Soul Destroyers By Nicholas Carter 880—The Wages of Rascality By Nicholas Carter 881—Birds of Prey By Nicholas Carter 882—When Destruction Threatens By Nicholas Carter 883—The Keeper of Black Hounds By Nicholas Carter 884—The Door of Doubt By Nicholas Carter 885—The Wolf Within By Nicholas Carter 886—A Perilous Parole By Nicholas Carter 887—The Trail of the Fingerprints By Nicholas Carter 888—Dodging the Law By Nicholas Carter 889—A Crime in Paradise By Nicholas Carter 890—On the Ragged Edge By Nicholas Carter 891—The Red God of Tragedy By Nicholas Carter 892—The Man Who Paid By Nicholas Carter 893—The Blind Man's Daughter By Nicholas Carter 894—One Object in Life By Nicholas Carter 895—As a Crook Sows By Nicholas Carter 896—In Record Time By Nicholas Carter 897—Held in Suspense By Nicholas Carter 898—The $100,000 Kiss By Nicholas Carter 890—Just One Slip By Nicholas Carter 900—On a Million-dollar Trail By Nicholas Carter 901—A Weird Treasure By Nicholas Carter 902—The Middle Link By Nicholas Carter 903—To the Ends of the Earth By Nicholas Carter 904—When Honors Pall By Nicholas Carter 905—The Yellow Brand By Nicholas Carter 906—A New Serpent in Eden By Nicholas Carter 907—When Brave Men Tremble By Nicholas Carter 908—A Test of Courage By Nicholas Carter 909—Where Peril Beckons By Nicholas Carter 910—The Gargoni Girdle By Nicholas Carter 911—Rascals & Co. By Nicholas Carter 912—Too Late to Talk By Nicholas Carter 913—Satan's Apt Pupil By Nicholas Carter 914—The Girl Prisoner By Nicholas Carter 915—The Danger of Folly By Nicholas Carter 916—One Shipwreck Too Many By Nicholas Carter 917—Scourged by Fear By Nicholas Carter 918—The Red Plague By Nicholas Carter 919—Scoundrels Rampant By Nicholas Carter 920—From Clew to Clew By Nicholas Carter 921—When Rogues Conspire By Nicholas Carter 922—Twelve in a Grave By Nicholas Carter 923—The Great Opium Case By Nicholas Carter 924—A Conspiracy of Rumors By Nicholas Carter 925—A Klondike Claim By Nicholas Carter 926—The Evil Formula By Nicholas Carter 927—The Man of Many Faces By Nicholas Carter 928—The Great Enigma By Nicholas Carter 929—The Burden of Proof By Nicholas Carter 930—The Stolen Brain By Nicholas Carter 931—A Titled Counterfeiter By Nicholas Carter 932—The Magic Necklace By Nicholas Carter 933—'Round the World for a Quarter By Nicholas Carter 934—Over the Edge of the World By Nicholas Carter 935—In the Grip of Fate By Nicholas Carter 936—The Case of Many Clews By Nicholas Carter 937—The Sealed Door By Nicholas Carter 938—Nick Carter and the Green Goods Men By Nicholas Carter 939—The Man Without a Will By Nicholas Carter 940—Tracked Across the Atlantic By Nicholas Carter 941—A Clew From the Unknown By Nicholas Carter 942—The Crime of a Countess By Nicholas Carter 943—A Mixed Up Mess By Nicholas Carter 944—The Great Money Order Swindle By Nicholas Carter 945—The Adder's Brood By Nicholas Carter 946—A Wall Street Haul By Nicholas Carter 947—For a Pawned Crown By Nicholas Carter 948—Sealed Orders By Nicholas Carter 949—The Hate That Kills By Nicholas Carter 950—The American Marquis By Nicholas Carter 951—The Needy Nine By Nicholas Carter 952—Fighting Against Millions By Nicholas Carter 953—Outlaws of the Blue By Nicholas Carter 954—The Old Detective's Pupil By Nicholas Carter 955—Found in the Jungle By Nicholas Carter 956—The Mysterious Mail Robbery By Nicholas Carter 957—Broken Bars By Nicholas Carter 958—A Fair Criminal By Nicholas Carter 959—Won by Magic By Nicholas Carter 960—The Piano Box Mystery By Nicholas Carter 961—The Man They Held Back By Nicholas Carter 962—A Millionaire Partner By Nicholas Carter 963—A Pressing Peril By Nicholas Carter 964—An Australian Klondyke By Nicholas Carter 965—The Sultan's Pearls By Nicholas Carter 966—The Double Shuffle Club By Nicholas Carter 967—Paying the Price By Nicholas Carter 968—A Woman's Hand By Nicholas Carter 969—A Network of Crime By Nicholas Carter 970—At Thompson's Ranch By Nicholas Carter 971—The Crossed Needles By Nicholas Carter 972—The Diamond Mine Case By Nicholas Carter 973—Blood Will Tell By Nicholas Carter 974—An Accidental Password By Nicholas Carter 975—The Crook's Bauble By Nicholas Carter 976—Two Plus Two By Nicholas Carter 977—The Yellow Label By Nicholas Carter 978—The Clever Celestial By Nicholas Carter 979—The Amphitheater Plot By Nicholas Carter 980—Gideon Drexel's Millions By Nicholas Carter 981—Death in Life By Nicholas Carter 982—A Stolen Identity By Nicholas Carter 983—Evidence by Telephone By Nicholas Carter 984—The Twelve Tin Boxes By Nicholas Carter 985—Clew Against Clew By Nicholas Carter 986—Lady Velvet By Nicholas Carter 987—Playing a Bold Game By Nicholas Carter 988—A Dead Man's Grip By Nicholas Carter 989—Snarled Identities By Nicholas Carter 990—A Deposit Vault Puzzle By Nicholas Carter 991—The Crescent Brotherhood By Nicholas Carter 992—The Stolen Pay Train By Nicholas Carter 993—The Sea Fox By Nicholas Carter 994—Wanted by Two Clients By Nicholas Carter 995—The Van Alstine Case By Nicholas Carter 996—Check No. 777 By Nicholas Carter 997—Partners in Peril By Nicholas Carter 998—Nick Carter's Clever Protege By Nicholas Carter 999—The Sign of the Crossed Knives By Nicholas Carter 1000—The Man Who Vanished By Nicholas Carter 1001—A Battle for the Right By Nicholas Carter 1002—A Game of Craft By Nicholas Carter 1003—Nick Carter's Retainer By Nicholas Carter 1004—Caught in the Toils By Nicholas Carter 1005—A Broken Bond By Nicholas Carter 1006—The Crime of the French Cafe By Nicholas Carter 1007—The Man Who Stole Millions By Nicholas Carter 1008—The Twelve Wise Men By Nicholas Carter 1009—Hidden Foes By Nicholas Carter 1010—A Gamblers' Syndicate By Nicholas Carter 1011—A Chance Discovery By Nicholas Carter 1012—Among the Counterfeiters By Nicholas Carter 1013—A Threefold Disappearance By Nicholas Carter 1014—At Odds With Scotland Yard By Nicholas Carter 1015—A Princess of Crime By Nicholas Carter 1016—Found on the Beach By Nicholas Carter 1017—A Spinner of Death By Nicholas Carter 1018—The Detective's Pretty Neighbor By Nicholas Carter 1019—A Bogus Clew By Nicholas Carter 1020—The Puzzle of Five Pistols By Nicholas Carter 1021—The Secret of the Marble Mantel By Nicholas Carter 1022—A Bite of an Apple By Nicholas Carter 1023—A Triple Crime By Nicholas Carter 1024—The Stolen Race Horse By Nicholas