CHAPTER X.

A PLOT MOST FOUL.

But it was Nan Nightingale, fully dressed as she had been when the members of this oddly assorted group had parted with her at retiring time, not arrayed in a red wrapper, and with an automobile veil thrown around her head, who faced them all.

She was strangely composed, too, although a trifle pale, as she entered the room and paused beside Nick Carter.

“Will some one please tell me what has happened?” she asked. The question was a general one, addressed to all alike, but she looked at the detective when she uttered it. And, she added, speaking directly to him this time: “I heard only the latter part of what you were saying. You said that the time had come to denounce some one. Who was it?”

She was outwardly calm and collected, though exceedingly pale. Nick realized that Nan was trying to convey some sort of intelligence to him, with her eyes; but he could not read it, for truth to tell he was as greatly amazed as were the others by her sudden appearance among them.

Before he could reply, Duryea took the centre of the stage, so to speak. He thrust himself forward, into the limelight, if the expression may be used here, and with a smiling sneer on his handsome face, confronted Nan and Nick, both.

“I will tell you who it was, Miss Nightingale—and I call upon all who are here to let me finish what I have to say. If there are others here who have comments to make upon my statements, let them be made afterward.”

He paused an instant. No one spoke. Nick Carter believed that it was best to let the man have his head at that moment. The detective had not seen through the plot, as yet, and it was necessary that he should see and know more about it before he continued with the denouncement he had intended to make. The things that Duryea intended to say might have some effect upon what Nick Carter would say in reply. Nick Carter waited; and he placed a restraining hand upon the arm of Nan, to bid her wait, also.

“What is it, Ledger? What have you to say about this?” asked Theodore Remsen, turning to him. “Do you mean to tell us that you know something about it?”

“I certainly do, Mr. Remsen,” was the reply. “It was because I already knew something, and believed that we would yet catch the thief who stole Lenore’s necklace and the other jewels, that I advised the repairs to the burglar alarm, which worked so perfectly to-night. I anticipated precisely this result.”

“Go on; go on, Ledger. Come to the point. Don’t beat about the bush!” exclaimed Lenore’s father.

Jimmy deliberately turned his back upon Nan and Nick; he faced the other members of the company.

Pausing just long enough to give emphasis to what he would next say, he continued:

“I arrived here last Thursday, as you will remember. I made my first appearance before you at the dinner table. There was one guest who was in the house at that time, and who is present now, in this room, who did not appear at the dinner table that night. I did not then know that that guest was here.

“Many of you will remember that we passed a pleasant evening, and that the guest to whom I have referred did not come downstairs at all during it. Also, that we parted early and that I complained of being very tired with my long ride.”

There were nods in the affirmative, around the room.

“Notwithstanding the fact that I was greatly fatigued,” he continued, “I could not go to sleep. Some time during the middle of the night I left my bed, partly dressed myself, and descended to the library to obtain a book, intending to read myself to sleep; but, as I stepped into the library, I discovered that it was occupied, and that one of the persons who was there was the guest to whom I have referred, and who was not present at the dinner table.

“That guest, as you may have surmised, was a woman. She was not alone when I discovered her in the library. There was a man there, with her, and they were bending across the library tables, conversing in whispers, so low that I could not hear what was said. At the moment I did not suspect more than a clandestine meeting—and, inasmuch as I recognized the aforesaid guest as an old acquaintance, and knew a great deal about her, I was not surprised.

“I withdrew, as silently as I had gone there; and as I did so I heard just one remark that passed between the two. It was made by the man, to the woman, and he said: ‘Very well, then. I will return here next Monday night.’”

Jimmy paused a moment to permit his words to take full effect.

“The day following, which was Friday,” he continued, “I was duly presented to the woman in question. She did not remember me, or if she did, succeeded in concealing the fact from me, as well as from others. Some years have passed since I saw her, and at that time she was—well, she was associated with the notorious character whose name has been mentioned by Detective Carter to-night; with the notorious Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, who is now dead, although Mr. Carter seems not to know that fact. I will say one word more about that man, although it pains me to do so. He was a burglar, a thief, everything that was bad and low, but he was my cousin, and his real name was the same as mine. Moreover, there was a personal resemblance between us. I can tell more about him when the proper time comes.”

Again he came to a pause, and found this during it to glance exultingly around toward the detective. Then he continued:

“That day, Friday, it became known that certain jewels had been stolen from this house. I was instantly convinced that the woman had stolen them; also that she had taken them after the hour when she met the man in the library, because there had not been time, or opportunity, then. But I said nothing to anybody, until to-day, on the lawn, when, in a conversation that happened after the arrival of the detective, I ventured the opinion that the thief was a woman. But I determined to keep careful watch to-night.

“Now I am coming down to the explanation of present circumstances. I went to my room, determined to keep watch; but I half undressed, and I was sleepy. I fell asleep in my big chair. I was aroused from that sleep by the clanging of the burglar alarm, which I advised Mr. Remsen to have fixed, and which was done yesterday. I rushed into the hall, and down the stairs. I saw that same woman to whom I have referred passing rapidly through the lower hall, and directly behind her was Nick Carter, evidently in pursuit. But as I looked the detective tripped over something, and fell. The woman ran out at the rear door, which had been opened for her escape, and which act set off the alarm, thus enabling me to discover her.

“She sprang into a motor car. She wore a red wrapper and an automobile veil; but I recognized her, nevertheless. Nick Carter thinks it was a man in disguise, or he says he does. But I know it was a woman, and that woman stands—_there_!”

He wheeled and pointed an accusing finger at Nan Nightingale, who shrank away from him as from a loathsome thing.

“Deny it if you can Nan Nightingale, alias Nan Drummond, and alias many other names!” he cried out. “And you, Nick Carter, deny if you can that you knew this woman when she was Nan Drummond, a thief, and the wife of Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, the crook.”

It was a clever statement, cleverly devised, cleverly delivered.

It had all the effect that Jimmy anticipated.

The women in the room shrank away from Nan, and looked at her askance. It was evident that it did not occur to them to doubt Ledger Dinwiddie’s statement.

“I will hear all of your remarkable story, Jimmy, before I reply to it,” said the detective quietly. “That isn’t all, is it?” He put out one hand and grasped Nan’s arm, holding her firmly, to give her courage, for he did not want her to faint just then.

“No; it isn’t all,” said Jimmy, as coolly, in return. “There is more.” He turned again toward the others. “Nick Carter knows the history of Nan Drummond, who calls herself Nan Nightingale, as well, or better than I do. He secured her a position on the stage, when she gave up thievery. He has been her sponsor ever since; and now I can see just how she has played upon his belief in her. When she went to the city, Saturday, and remained over Sunday with Mrs. Remsen, she must have looked him up. She must have told him—not that I was here, but that Jimmy Duryea, the burglar, was alive, and here under an assumed name. I have mentioned the fact that we were cousins, and resembled one another.

“The proof of my assumption is that when I was in the summerhouse alone with Nick Carter, during the shower of this afternoon, he actually charged me with being that same Bare-Faced Jimmy, here under disguise, and he demanded that I leave this place at once, and forever forego my hopes of making this beautiful girl, here, my wife. That I laughed at him goes without saying; that he did not mention what had passed between us to others is sufficient proof that he had made a mistake.

“Now, two things more: I do not know what part of this woman’s plot it is to have returned here now, as she has done, fully dressed, after having made her escape with a wrapper on and a veil over her head, but she will probably tell you some cock-and-bull story in regard to it, in order to establish her innocence.

“The other thing is this: Those jewels that she stole, unless she has had opportunity to-night to pass them on to her confederates, are concealed somewhere in these rooms, without a doubt. That is all, my friends. Now, Nan Drummond, do you deny that you are Nan Drummond?”

“Don’t reply to him, Nan,” said Nick, speaking quickly.

“Do you dare, woman, to deny that you were once the wife of Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, the crook and burglar?” thundered the supposed Dinwiddie, still addressing Nan, who shrank away from him until she rested her body against Nick Carter.

“Don’t answer,” said Nick, again.

“Then you answer for her!” cried Jimmy, wheeling upon the detective, and playing his part to a finish. “You answer for her. You know all about her. You know that she was Nan Drummond. You know that she was once a thief. You know that she was everything else that was low and——”

Jimmy got no farther than that.

Somewhere, in the past, we have said that Nick Carter rarely let his temper act for him. But, like all men, he has a temper, and Jimmy Duryea had tried it sorely, in more ways than one, since Nick’s arrival at The Birches.

It cannot be said that Nick exactly lost it at just that moment, but it is certain that he permitted it to act just long enough to stop Jimmy’s mouth, and to stop it effectually, too.

The detective stepped forward, loosening his grasp upon Nan’s arm.

For just an instant he peered into the face of Jimmy Duryea, and then he acted.

His right fist shot forward, and it struck Jimmy squarely upon the jaw; and Jimmy went down like a clod of earth that is thrown from a shovel.

Some of the women there cried out. The men uttered various exclamations, and several of them rushed forward at once. There was a commotion outside, in the hall, and the local constable, with two or three men to assist him, rushed into the room. Evidently they had been brought there for the occasion by Jimmy Duryea.

But they halted at the aspect of Nick Carter, who stood facing them, directly over the figure of the prostrate man on the floor.