CHAPTER IX.

EXCITEMENT IN THE NIGHT.

Nick Carter was seated alone in the room that had been assigned to him.

It was rather more than an hour after midnight, and the guests of the house had retired to their respective rooms, and it so happened that Chick had been roomed in an entirely different part of the house from Nick.

The detective was uneasy in his mind. The atmosphere, somehow, seemed filled with portent of some sinister kind, and he could not define just the feeling that was upon him.

No further opportunity had been obtained for conversation with Nan Nightingale since that talk in the corner of the veranda; indeed, when Nick returned downstairs, after his inspection of Nan’s rooms, and the encounter, at the door of them, with Jimmy, the party had divided itself into groups, some of which were playing cards, and others were indulging in music and the usual occupations of an evening of that sort.

But Nick was uneasy about Nan.

He realized that Jimmy could protect himself only by casting suspicion upon the songbird of the stage, and Nick knew that Jimmy would not hesitate to do that very thing—if it happened that the opportunity was offered him.

The detective’s own impotency, so far as Jimmy was concerned, was apparent, and the reader must understand that, too.

Put yourself in his place for a moment.

Nick Carter could not arrest Ledger Dinwiddie and charge him with being Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, without the ability to produce proofs of the assertion—and Jimmy was undoubtedly prepared to meet and to refute all such charges; was prepared to prove his claim to the name and reputation of Ledger Dinwiddie, and therefore to establish a sufficient alibi to whatever charge the detective might bring against him.

Nick Carter could not charge Ledger Dinwiddie with the theft of the jewels, because there was absolutely no evidence against him to support such a theory; there was only the statement of Nan, that she had seen him with them in his possession, in the library, during the night when they were stolen. That would be the unsupported word of one person against another—and Jimmy, as Ledger Dinwiddie, would not come off second best in such a scene. Nan could not, or at least would not, deny her past history, if it came to a show-down, and Jimmy would have to deny only that he was Jimmy, and to bring forward his proofs that he was, in reality, Dinwiddie.

Nick had had no opportunity to find out the exact location of Chick’s room. Rooms had not been assigned to either of them until it was too late to do that.

“It is a remarkable circumstance,” the detective told himself, in thought. “Here is a case where I know to a certainty the identity of the thief, and yet have no means of establishing the fact; a case where I know, approximately, where the stolen property is concealed, and yet I dare not make an open search for them; a case where the criminal is in a position to look me in the eyes and defy me, simply because his own proofs are far better and more convincing than any that I can supply.”

It was a remarkable circumstance.

The detective was cogitating upon these conditions when there came a low tapping against the panel of his door, and he sprang to his feet, snapped off the electric lights, and opened the door.

The hall outside was only dimly lighted, and Nick discovered, as he opened the door, the figure of a woman, clothed in a silken princess wrapper, and with a large veil, such as are worn in automobiles, thrown over her head, gliding rapidly toward the top of the stairs.

Nick followed swiftly, having not a doubt that the figure was Nan’s, and that she was conducting him to one of the rooms on the parlor floor for the purposes of further conversation; but she was so far in advance of him that he could not see her distinctly, and he did not dare to call to her lest he should arouse other members of the household.

But the figure ahead of the detective did not approach the library door when it reached the parlor floor of the house; it passed the door, still keeping far in advance of Nick.

It hastened to the rear of the house, it opened a door that was there, which gave upon a back porch—and instantly, when that happened, the air was filled with the ringing of gongs, and the house itself—all of it, it seemed—was flooded with light.

Nick Carter realized at once, if too late, just what had happened.

The opening of that rear door had set off the burglar alarms in the house. Automatically it had switched on the lights in the house—and Nick understood that it was not Nan Nightingale he had followed, but Jimmy Duryea. Jimmy, in a woman’s wrapper and with the veil over his head, so that in the dim light, and with the hasty glance through the partial darkness, Nick Carter would not be able to recognize him.

When that rear door opened, and the figure passed through it; when the lights flashed on, and the ringing of the alarm gongs began their din, Nick Carter leaped forward toward the open door; but only to trip and fall headlong in the hall before he had taken three more steps. He had tripped over a rope that had been stretched across the hallway, purposely to catch him.

As he fell, he heard the whir of an automobile engine, and the chug-chug of the machine as it started forward. As he sprang to his feet again, he not only knew that he was too late to overtake it, but he realized that he had fallen into a trap of some sort that had been carefully prepared by Jimmy Duryea.

Men think quickly in emergencies like that one; and Nick’s first thought as he leaped to his feet was that the crux of the occasion remained inside the house, and that the apparent escape from it could be nothing more than a blind.

Of course the house was instantly in an uproar.

Doors opened and closed. Heads and shoulders were thrust over the balustrades. Voices called from above, demanding to know what was the matter. Men and women appeared from every conceivable quarter, in all stages of dress, and undress. Foremost among them, incased in a bathrobe which he was tying around his person, was Jimmy Duryea, otherwise Mr. Ledger Dinwiddie.

Behind him appeared the owner of the house, Theodore Remsen. He was followed by Mrs. Remsen, and by Lenore. Other guests, in various conditions, so far as clothing was concerned, appeared on the stairs, all demanding with one voice, almost, to know what had happened.

Nick Carter was the only person in that motley group who was fully clothed; but even as he turned to face those who were rushing toward him he noticed that there were two absentees.

Nan Nightingale and Chick were nowhere to be seen.

Because Nan was not there, Nick instantly felt undefined misgivings; because Chick was not present, Nick experienced a certain amount of assurance, for he knew that unless Chick were otherwise employed, he would have been among the first to put in an appearance.

It was Jimmy Duryea who gave expression to the first coherent thought, in the midst of that scene. He exclaimed:

“Really, Mr. Carter, if it is a part of the practice of your profession to scare us all to death, you might have given us some warning of it.”

“There has been a burglar in the house!” shouted one of the women.

“Some one entered my room, and stole——”

“Oh dear, I never was so frightened in my life. I——”

“Did he get away?”

“It was a woman. I saw her. She ran out at that——”

“Where is Miss Nightingale? She isn’t here. Perhaps she has been murdered in her sleep. Oh, it is horrible. I wish——”

And so on, and so on, ad libitum, ad infinitum. Half-finished sentences, all of them. Excitement everywhere, and then a general rush toward Nan Nightingale’s rooms to find why she was not among them. Hysterical cries from the women; reassuring expressions from the men. Expressions of wonder at the din of the alarm, and at the sudden appearance of the lights—and then, the interior of Nan’s suite of rooms.

Nan Nightingale was not there.

Everywhere within those rooms were evidences of disorder, but Nan Nightingale, herself, had disappeared.

More than that, it was discovered, presently, that many of her effects had disappeared with her. In one of the rooms, where the maid slept, the maid herself was discovered, deep in the stupor of a drug which was supposed to be chloroform.

One by one the house guests crowded into the parlor of Nan’s suite. Some of them remained standing; some of the men perched themselves upon the arms of chairs, or upon the edges of tables; the women dropped upon chairs, or upon hassocks, and without exception they gazed at one another in utter consternation. Then, one by one, they began the recounting of the experiences of the night, which was still young, for it was not yet two o’clock.

Chick was not there, and, strangely enough, nobody seemed to have noticed his absence.

Without giving in detail all that was said at that informal meeting in Nan’s boudoir, suffice it to say that there was not a woman present who was not willing to swear that she had seen or heard some person in her room; and in the midst of it all Lenore Remsen exclaimed:

“But why should a burglar have carried Nan away?”

Every one was silent; then the voice of Duryea:

“Little goose! She wasn’t carried away. She ran away.”

“But why? Why?”

“My dear, there could be only one reason. Carter was right behind her. She had to escape, or get caught, and she took the former course. I caught a glimpse of her as she ran through the rear doorway, and apparently jumped into a motor car. That must have been held there by an accomplice who was waiting to take away the spoils; the swag, I believe they call it? Eh? Carter? You’re a detective. You ought to know.”

Every eye in the room was turned upon Nick Carter then.

The situation was a clever one, adroitly arranged by Jimmy Duryea.

Nick met their looks calmly, and he replied quietly:

“I ran after a person, but it was not a woman. It was not Miss Nightingale. Of that, I am certain.”

“Oh, come, Carter, what’s the use of all that?” exclaimed Duryea. “I saw her, too. She wore some sort of a red wrapper, and an automobile veil, and——”

“And trousers under the wrapper, and a mustache under the veil,” the detective interrupted him.

“Then where is Nan Nightingale?” demanded Theodore Remsen, stepping forward.

“She has been abducted,” replied the detective coolly.

“Abducted? Nonsense! By whom?”

“By a scoundrel named Jimmy Duryea, known to the police as Bare-Faced Jimmy, all-around crook and expert cracksman. Just now the man is posing under another name, and is imposing upon certain confiding people, who believe all that he tells them. But, Mr. Remsen, the time has come to denounce him, and now——”

He stopped suddenly. A figure had appeared in the doorway, and all turned to follow Nick Carter’s glance.

It was Nan Nightingale who stood there, facing them.