CHAPTER XII.

THE REVELATIONS OF NAN.

“Found it, didn’t you?” exclaimed Jimmy, with a return of his old assurance. He had managed to raise himself to a sitting posture, and to turn about so that he had a full and uninterrupted view of the exposure, when it happened. When nobody replied to him, but remained staring in more or less stupid wonder at what had taken place, he added: “Now, I wonder how in the world you knew it was there, Carter? Did Miss Nightingale tell you where she had hidden it?”

Nick made no reply—in words.

But he did take a hasty stride or two across the floor, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket as he did so, and the next instant Jimmy’s jaws were forced apart, and the soft linen of the handkerchief was introduced between them.

“I told you that I would gag you if you interrupted,” said the detective; and then, as Lenore attempted to rush forward toward her lover, the detective restrained her.

“Young lady,” he said, “I honor you for your loyalty. You are ready to fight for, and to defend with your last breath, the man who has been your accepted sweetheart. It is hard for you to believe that he is not the man he has pretended to be.”

“I won’t believe it. I will never believe it!” she cried out. “You are no better than a brute to treat him so, Nick Carter. I hate you!”

Nick smiled down upon her, somewhat sadly.

“Some day you will thank me,” he told her. “In the meantime, you must be patient. But, tell me. Do you also hate Miss Nightingale?”

“Hate Nan? No; I love her. But she has had nothing to do with this——” she stopped; and again the detective looked at her and smiled. Then, in a low tone, he spoke to her again.

“Do you believe that Nan stole your necklace?” he asked, so that the others, who were now examining it, could not hear.

“No; I don’t.”

“You would never believe that of your friend Nan, would you?”

“Indeed I would not.”

“But somebody did steal the necklace. Now, who do you suppose it was?”

“I should sooner think that you did it than that he did,” she retorted.

At that point they were interrupted by Mrs. Remsen, and as that lady spoke, all the others in the room turned and looked squarely at Nick Carter.

“Mr. Carter,” she said, “I would like you to tell me, if you please, how you knew that the necklace was inside that vase?”

The question was a cold one. It was not reassuring. Nick saw that the spectators of the scene were now regarding him with suspicion.

“I did not know that it was there,” he replied. “I only suspected it. As I stated before we discovered it, I was satisfied, by things that the thief said to me, that he had concealed the necklace in these rooms, or that he intended to do so. It was part of his plan.”

“But——”

“One moment, please. When I came here to search for a hiding place for the jewels, the necklace had not yet been concealed here. I doubt if I would have discovered it, if it had been. But, as I left the room, I met him. He turned and ran away. I followed him quickly, but nevertheless I remembered, afterward—while I was seated in my own room to-night, in fact—that in leaving this room I saw on the mantel at the opposite side of the hall a vase that had not been there before. I saw it, and noticed it, only from force of habit in taking particular notice of the furnishings of every place where I happen to be.

“I could not have told you what vase it was. I could not have described it. I was merely conscious of the fact that such a thing was there—and that, later, when I came to the hallway out there particularly to look for that extra vase, to see if it was still in the place where I had seen it, it had disappeared.

“And so, madam, when we all entered this room a little while ago, I used my eyes in looking at vases. I saw that the vase that was just now broken was not in the position that it was when I supposed I had seen it last. It was not exposed to view in precisely the same way; and while I was talking, I changed my position somewhat, so that I could see behind it.

“It was then, madam, that I noticed the fact that this vase here had been broken, and mended; also that it was a long time since it had been mended. _I knew that the vase that was here when I came to this room earlier had not been broken and mended._

“Do you see the deduction?

“There must have been two vases just alike, one of which had been broken and mended—and the one that had been broken and mended, had been, during that short time, exchanged for the perfect one.

“It was only necessary, then, to establish the point that the other vase had been kept in the room occupied by Jimmy Duryea, or Mr. Dinwiddie as you know him. Your answers to my questions established that fact.

“A moment later, when you said that there was something white inside the vase that had not been there before—something resembling plaster of Paris—the solution of what remained of the problem was apparent.

“Some years ago there was a great robbery in a jewelry store, in Paris. Afterward those jewels were discovered, imbedded in plaster of Paris, at the bottom of two huge vases that were ornaments in that store. That robbery was committed by the scapegrace younger son of a good family in England, whose people hushed the thing up and permitted him to go to South Africa on condition that he would never return. In South Africa, he changed his name to James Duryea; afterward he came to this country, and was known here as Bare-Faced Jimmy; still later, he wormed his way into your household under the name of Ledger Dinwiddie.”

Mrs. Remsen came nearer to the detective.

“Mr. Carter,” she said slowly, “I have heard many good things said of you. Are you sufficiently positive of all that you have said to swear to me that you know it to be true—all of it?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Nan,” Mrs. Remsen turned to her as she spoke, “will you explain now how it happened that you were outside the house, and returned here just when you did?”

“Yes,” replied Nan. “I will explain. I hope you will believe me.”

“I see no reason why I should not do so.”

Nan hesitated for a moment. Then she turned so that she faced the assembled company.

“It is necessary that I explain to all of you,” she said falteringly. “For a little while I have hoped that the necessity for it might be escaped; but now I see that it is essential.”

“No, no, Nan, it is not essential. It need not be,” said Nick Carter.

“Yes it is,” she replied. “Let me have my way about it.”

“Very well. Proceed.”

Again Nan hesitated. Then, before she spoke, she half turned about and opened her arms toward Lenore. When Lenore hesitated, she said:

“Come here, dear. I want you near me when I speak, for you, above all others, must believe what I will tell you now. Come, dear.”

Slowly Lenore moved forward. She seemed to sense the truth of what was coming, and a dark scowl crossed the face of Jimmy Duryea. Had it not been for the gag in his mouth, he doubtless would have interrupted them, then; but he could not speak, and nobody offered to relieve him of the impediment to speech.

“You must hear all of the truth, now, all of you,” said Nan, then, with one arm tightly around the quivering form of Lenore Remsen; “and in order to explain the circumstance that Mrs. Remsen had asked about, it is necessary that I should tell other things, first.

“That man there”—she pointed an accusing finger at Jimmy—“told a great deal that was true, when he talked to you a little while ago, accusing me; but he did not tell all the truth about one part of it, and he told much less than the truth about another part of it.

“He is not an American. He never had any right whatever to the name of Dinwiddie, and how he possessed himself of it I do not know. He is an Englishman. His real name is James Howard Drummond. He is the younger son of a titled family in England. I knew him when I was a girl. I have known him all my life. As a girl I fell in love with him. As a girl and woman I still loved him, and finally I became his wife.

“Hush, Lenore. I am not his wife now. I secured a divorce from him when he was sent to prison eight years and more ago. Later, I married again. But I was his wife, and I am the Nan Drummond he referred to—his wife, then, when I bore that name.

“It was this way: My family became impoverished. I sought a position as governess, and went to South Africa with the family of an army officer. Later, Howard Drummond came there, also sent out by his family matters, as he informed me. My old love for him revived, and we were married.

“Then we came to this country. All the while he was a thief and a cracksman, and I did not know it—until later.

“After the discovery, my life seemed an utter wreck. I permitted myself to be led into crime by that man. I was afraid of him. He threatened my life if I did not obey him. Then he was caught and sent to prison, and I escaped him. And then Mr. Carter found me, held out hope to me, secured me a position on the stage, and so helped me back to an honorable life.

“I married a Mr. Smathers, an actor, and he has since died. Howard Drummond was supposed to be dead, also. Mr. Carter believed him dead; everybody who had known him thought the same. I did not know differently until last Thursday night, in the middle of the night, when I went to the library of this house to get a book to read, and found him there with Lenore’s necklace and the other stolen jewels on the table before him.

“The recognition between us was mutual in an instant.

“He threatened me with a pistol. He even tried to make love to me again, believing that his old influence over me still existed. But he found that it did not.

“We were there, in the library, a long time. At the end of the scene, he promised me that he would return the stolen property, and that he would leave here for good and all. Formerly he possessed one virtue; he would keep his word; so I believed him then.

“But he did not restore the stolen property, and I threatened him with exposure.

“Then I went to New York with Mrs. Remsen. I encountered Mr. Carter by accident. I told him everything, because I knew that there, at least, was one man who knew the truth about me, and in whom I could trust.

“And now I come to what took me out of the house to-night, and so the explanation of my return here at an unexpected moment—for it was not expected that I would return—at the least, not until that scoundrel had won the victory he anticipated.

“Have any of you happened to notice the absence of one guest from this room? Mr. Carter, will you call your first assistant, Chick? He is outside waiting. His presence will help me to explain fully.”