CHAPTER XXX.

BARE-FACED JIMMY’S DOUBLE.

Nick Carter, after he escaped from his pursuers that night, and could take it more easily for the remainder of the distance he wished to go, had thought deeply. Even before he had the interview which followed with the ambassador, he had determined upon his future course of action.

Since Turnieff had been murdered, evidently in cold blood, and merely to get rid of him, the detective was convinced that the Russian colonel had been the real instrument in the theft of the tin cylinder and its contents.

Whether Juno had engineered and directed the affair or not was a mere incident in the matter. There was no longer any doubt in the mind of Nick Carter that Turnieff had been the really guilty one.

And that Turnieff had had it in his power to betray those whom he had served in performing the act—and might have done so, if driven to it—was sufficient cause for his untimely taking off, from the standpoint of those who had ordered his assassination.

Again Turnieff was really the only person who could have had access to the sleeping room of the ambassador, and who could have gone through the corridors of the house toward it, or have returned through them from it, without exciting suspicion. After all, the ambassador had been wiser than he realized in directing the detective to study the man thoroughly and well.

But Juno, “The Leopard,” where was she in the matter?

During that conversation with Nick in the conservatory, she had said enough to make it plain to him that she was really in the service of that country which they had agreed to call Siam.

Practically she had admitted as much when she charged him with being in the employ of Russia.

Nevertheless, Nick could not bring himself to the belief that she had taken any part in the assassination of Turnieff, actively or passively, or that she had knowledge of the intention to kill him.

He believed that in that respect she had been maligned. He believed the statements she had made in regard to herself at the time of that conservatory conversation, and he looked upon her now as not half so bad as she had been painted, or as she had permitted others to believe her.

Her conduct toward him when she drove him away from her home left no sting after it, for, after all, that was part of the game, and it was up to her to take all the tricks she could take. Aside from the assassination, Nick had a notion that the country Juno was serving had more of right on its side than Russia did.

Nevertheless, Nick had pledged himself to recover those secret documents for the ambassador, and he meant to do so; and now that Turnieff had been killed, he had promised himself that the assassins should be caught.

“Whether Juno is the person sought in this case or not, she is the real key to the situation,” he told himself; and believing that, he made arrangements for the next move.

He had determined now to move quickly. The murder of Turnieff should not go unpunished, nor would he consent that he should himself be thought guilty of such a crime if it could be avoided.

By the time he had finished his talk with the ambassador, morning had come; and the ambassador, at the detective’s request, arose much earlier than usual, and went forth to make some purchases for Nick, since it was not safe at that time to trust another with the errand.

The things he wanted were the necessities for the disguise he had determined to wear when night should fall again, and in the meantime he intended to keep very quiet indeed within the house of the ambassador.

When the prince returned with the articles needed, he brought with him several of the morning papers, and Nick learned from their contents the exact status of affairs at that time. After he had discussed the matter to some further extent with the ambassador, he shut himself in a room and began to make the transformation in his appearance which now seemed so necessary.

“Once there was a man who called himself Bare-Faced Jimmy,” he said to himself with a smile as he regarded his own reflection in the mirror of the room, “and now I shall proceed to bring that man—although he is in Sing Sing prison at the present moment—into this room for my especial benefit.”

Much had been said about the ability of Nick Carter in the way of disguises. It was an art that his father had taught him, and which he had studied in all its branches ever since then, at every time and place where opportunity offered. One of the things that Nick Carter could do, and do well, was to make himself like another person, provided that stature and physical development were approximately the same.

Nick’s first occupation in arranging the present disguise was to make a careful drawing of Jimmy, and this, when he began to manufacture the actual disguise, he pinned against the wall beside the mirror.

Midnight found the detective in the vicinity of the home of Juno, Countess Narnine. He studied the dwelling for a time, and then walked away from it, satisfied that he would have no difficulty in carrying his design into execution.

He satisfied himself on another point also, and that was that Juno was not only at home, but that she had denied herself to all callers; for he saw several persons approach the door of her home, only to be turned away again by the servants.

“I shouldn’t wonder if the murder of Turnieff and the hue and cry after me, as a consequence of the crime, has got on her nerves,” he told himself.

At two in the morning he was back again near the house. This time, watching for his opportunity, he sprang over the fence, for the house was a detached one, crept through the shrubbery, and presently approached a side door which he had selected for the beginning of his operations.

He did not know that, during his absence between midnight and two o’clock, three men had called there, had been admitted, and were even at that moment in consultation with Juno in the library of her home.

Perhaps, if he had known it, it would only have rendered him the more eager to proceed with the undertaking in hand; at all events, he did go ahead with it.

It consisted, first, in using his picklock upon that side door; a small instrument of his own invention of which he often had occasion to make use.

A chain bolt inside the door was quickly snipped through by nippers he had brought with him for that purpose, and he stood inside the home of Juno shortly after two o’clock in the morning.

His pocket flashlight showed him the way around. He pressed the button of it long enough to determine his course, and went ahead slowly and cautiously, and so he arrived in the main hallway at the front of the house, from which point he knew his way fairly well.

There was more light burning in the hall than he had expected to find there, and he decided that Juno might not have retired as yet. As he bent his head to listen he could plainly hear the murmur of voices from some place not far away, which he rightly judged to be the library.

Nick knew the location of the library from his visit to the house the preceding night. He knew that it communicated with one of the parlors of the house which was directly in front of it, and so he passed through the hall to the parlor door and entered that room.

At once the voices became more distinct, though as yet he could not determine words of the conversation. He crept forward and drew the heavy curtain a trifle aside from the doorway that connected the two rooms.

As he did so, he started back so suddenly that he almost betrayed himself, for Juno at that moment, expressing something about the closeness of the room, left her chair, came directly toward him, and with a quick motion pulled the curtain all the way back.

It was a miracle that she did not discover him, but she did not, and Nick understood the reason why. It was because she was greatly exercised with the matter she had in hand at the moment.

She wheeled about where she stood, facing the others in the room, who were seated at a table whereon were bottles, glasses, and cigars. There were three men there, and Juno faced them from the curtained doorway, standing with one of her hands still grasping the curtain. She was angry. Nick could see that at once.

“There is absolutely no use in discussing the matter further,” she told them in a tone which was emphatic. “I will not countenance what has happened, and I will have nothing more to do with you or with your crowd of assassins. You may go your ways. That is final. I am sorry that I ever came here at all.”

“Beware, my purring leopard,” said one of the men in reply, with a short and not pleasant laugh. “You may find that you call us assassins to some purpose.”

“You threaten me?” she demanded, her lips curling with contempt.

“Yes, countess, I threaten you.”

“You would murder me, doubtless, as you murdered poor Turnieff.”

“Very likely,” replied the man coolly. “Very certainly, if you defy us.”

“Bah! As if I feared you! You—was it you who struck the blow, Delorme? Was it you who stabbed Turnieff to death? You would stab me also; eh?”

“Yes. It was I. His death was necessary, and if it should happen that you were in the way, my fair one, you could die quite as easily.”

She laughed at him deliberately, mockingly. She bent forward toward him, still holding her grasp upon the curtain.

“You are a brute and a coward, Maurice Delorme!” she exclaimed. “But—have you forgotten the tin cylinder with its contents? What would you do without that? Offer to do me the least harm, and I will return it to the Russian ambassador.”

“By heaven, you shall give it up now!” cried Delorme, leaping to his feet and starting toward her; but he had not taken the second step in that direction when Juno was seized from behind, pulled backward through the open doorway and Maurice Delorme found himself facing a man instead of a woman. The man was coolly pointing a pistol at his heart and commanding him to throw up his hands or take the consequences.

Nick Carter had not anticipated any such development as this, when he determined to enter the house of the Countess Narnine as a burglar would. He had intended, then, merely to personate Jimmy, to surprise Juno, and if possible to force a confession of some sort from her.

But here was a gathering of the very men he wanted to find, at her house. And here she was resenting what they had done in murdering the Russian officer; defying them to their faces, and admitting in his hearing that she could place her hand upon the papers he was seeking. And more, here was the confessed murderer of Turnieff, with two of his accomplices.

Nor would Nick have interrupted the scene just when he did had he not realized the necessity of immediate action.

He had seen enough to know that Delorme was ugly, and to understand that the man was quite capable of killing Juno then and there.

Indeed, Delorme afterward confessed that the countess would not have lived a moment longer had Nick Carter not appeared when he did.

Nick saw the flame in the man’s eyes; he saw the temper the fellow was in. The detective realized that he must act at once, and so he snatched Juno out of danger, whipped out his own weapons and took her place, getting the “drop” on all of the three men at once.

And they did not know him.

Had he been Nick Carter in proper person, they would have done so; but in his character of Bare-Faced Jimmy, he was a stranger to them.

More than that, when he seized Juno, dragged her back away from Delorme, and took her place, they heard her cry out in evident consternation:

“_Jimmy!_”

They were frightened.

They did not dare to move, and doubtless they supposed that it would be possible to temporize.

In obedience to the stern command that the detective uttered, they raised their hands high above their heads and held them there, staring. The two revolvers he held, one in either hand, with the muzzles wavering from one to another and keeping each of them constantly covered, confirmed a sufficiently convincing argument.

“Juno?” said Nick without turning his head, and for the moment forgetting to imitate the voice of James Duryea.

She stared for a moment without replying. Then she moved forward until she stood near him, still staring.

“Yes?” she replied. And then as if impelled by a second thought she added: “What is it, Jimmy?”

Nick chuckled. He knew from the manner of her reply that he had already betrayed himself, but that she preferred to accept the deception as fact. Then he spoke calmly.

“I want you to know,” he said, still keeping the pistols wavering so that they covered all three of the men, “that I believe all that you said to me in that last interview we had. And now will you help me to do something? Will you, Juno?”

“Yes. I will help. You want me to disarm those men?”

“Yes. Tell them that you know me; that if they make the slightest move I’ll drop every one of them with a bullet; not dead, you understand; just maimed. I’ll shoot one knee out from under each one of them. Now go ahead, Juno. Be careful there, mister man, you who are called Maurice Delorme.

“You look ugly and you would commit murder if you had an opportunity; but you won’t get one. Did you ever happen to hear of Bare-Faced Jimmy, the gentleman burglar? Well, that’s me. I came here just in time, didn’t I? I happened to see you—all three of you—when you killed that Russian colonel last night, so you didn’t have to make that confession we just heard. Have you got ’em all, Juno?”

“Yes.”

“Every one of them? Are you sure that you have not overlooked a knife or a pistol, or a bottle of acid, or poison?”

“Quite sure,” she smiled back at him.

“Good! Now, my festive assassins, turn around. Your backs are more agreeable than your faces. That’s right. Juno, take one of these pistols; I’ll keep the other. Now, you three cutthroats, stand still. If you move it means a broken knee for each of you. Juno, I regret the necessity for taking down some of these pictures on the walls, but I need the wire.”

Five minutes after that, bound hand and foot with wire picture cord, the three men were lying on their back on the floor of the library. Then, and not till then, Juno stepped forward demurely and gave the pistol back to Nick Carter.

“We will leave those fellows where they are for the present, Juno,” the detective said. “They can’t get away. That wire cord is too strong for them, and I am too good an expert in its use. Have you another room to which you can take me, countess?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Come with me.”

He followed her and she led him through the hall and up the broad stairway to the parlor of her own private suite. There she turned about and faced him.

“Why did you make yourself so like Jimmy?” she demanded. It was the last thing he expected her to say.

“Because I realized the necessity of another interview with you, and because I thought that for a few moments at least I could deceive you.”

“You might have done so indeed, for a moment; but not for long. But why did you wish to do it?”

“Juno, every wish that I had was built upon the desire to recover possession of the tin cylinder, which I was sure you held in your possession. To-night I have heard you admit that you have it. I want it, Juno.”

“Suppose I should refuse it?”

“In that case I would keep on searching till I discovered it; that is all.”

She came a step nearer to him.

“You saved my life to-night, Nick Carter. Do you realize that? That man would have killed me. You appeared on the scene just in time.”

“That is why I appeared,” he replied.

“I owe you something for that, my friend. But first of all, I owe you an apology—for what I said and did when you were here at my reception. Will you forgive me?”

“Oh, that is all in the game, Juno. I think I admired you when you did it. It was a very plucky thing to do.”

“No. That is a mistake. It was not a plucky thing to do; it was a despicable thing for me to do. Will you forgive it? Say yes, if you mean it.”

“Yes. Wholly. Entirely. And now——”

“Before we refer to the tin cylinder and the papers it contains, will you do me a favor, please?” she interrupted him.

“I think so. What is it?”

“That door opens into a lavatory. Go in there and remove the disguise. Let me talk to you as Nick Carter; not as what you appear to be.”

Without a word he turned away. Five minutes later he was back again, and stood before her with not a trace of the disguise left upon him. He noticed that she was holding in one of her hands the tin cylinder about which so much had been done, and which had been the cause of so many things happening.

With only a few words of comment, she placed it in his hands.

“Take it,” she said. “I hate it and all that is connected with it. Somehow I feel as if I were responsible for the death of poor Turnieff, although I swear to you——”

“You need not, Juno. I am already convinced of that much.”

“But I had nothing to do with the theft of it. I did not even ask him to get it for me or if it was in his power to get it. Once I did mention those papers to him, and say that if I could get possession of them my fortune would be made. Then one day he brought them to me—and I hated him for it; hated him for the weakling he was. I did not come here in the service of that country that wanted the papers. It was only after I arrived here that I was induced to take part in their affairs; but I swear to you that I have never done one single thing for them, or abetted one of their acts, which could reflect upon me in the slightest degree. Oh, please believe me, Nick Carter.”

“I do believe you, Juno.”

“One more thing and I have done. I want to swear to you again that I had nothing to do with the death of Turnieff’s father. Maurice Delorme did that, too, I believe, although I do not know. The money and the jewels that were stolen from the old prince I never saw out of his possession, although I think that Delorme could explain about that part of it, too. And now, now——”

She turned her back to him for a moment, and waited. After a little she turned about again, and raising her head proudly, asked:

“What are you going to do with me?”

“I am going to give you a bit of advice, Juno; that is all. It is that you give up the life of an international spy, and of a diplomatic agent, and live the life that will make you happy. That is all.”

* * * * *

After a time she asked him:

“What will you do with those men downstairs, Nick Carter?”

“I have been thinking about that,” he replied to her. “It would not do for them to be taken to jail from your home. I will telephone for the ambassador from here. He will send a closed carriage. We will bundle these men into it—and, unless I greatly mistake, he will know how to handle the situation.”

And the ambassador did know.

Just how it was done nobody ever discovered, but the men made a full confession, and ultimately they suffered the extreme penalty of the law in such cases.

Another thing: Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, with the many aliases, died that same night in the prison where he was confined.

THE END.

No. 1288 of the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY will be entitled “A Play for Millions.” This story by Nicholas Carter holds many thrills and surprises for the reader.

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