"Not I, Senora Cervera."

"How dare you utter my name with your foul mouth?" screamed the dancer, with a vicious display of scornful resentment. "Not kill you? I've a mind to order it done at once, you wretch! I hate such reptiles as you!"

Nick laughed.

"If you were to order it done, senora, and the knife were at my throat,"

said he, "your order would certainly be countermanded."

"What! By whom?" cried Cervera, with her pa.s.sionate, dark eyes fiercely blazing. "I'll have you know that I rule here--and not here alone!"

"Yet your command would be revoked, senora."

"For what reason, villain?"

"It would be revoked at the request of our mutual friend, Mr. Rufus Venner, to whom I presently shall explain my conduct, and also implore your own pardon, senora, for having made you the mark of my very unworthy suspicions," cried Nick, with a sudden dramatic display of dignity and confidence.

It brought Venner sharply to his feet.

"Good heavens!" he cried. "What do you mean, sir?"

"Ay, what do you mean?" roared Kilgore, bracing straight up in his chair and reaching for his gun--a move Nick pretended he did not see.

"I only mean, gentlemen, that I am no burglar," cried Nick, in his natural voice, at the same time raising his bound hands to remove his disguise. "Allow me, Mr. Venner, to present myself in proper person."

"The devil and all his followers!" yelled Venner. "You're--you're Nick Carter!"

"None other," bowed Nick, smiling and tossing his disguise upon the table. "Plainly, Venner, you are greatly surprised at seeing me--and I do not wonder at it."

Yet for all that Nick did wonder a little, since he could not yet determine just how much of this scene was on the level.

The faces of Kilgore and Matthew Stall, however, betrayed more secret exultation than surprise. Plainly enough both were now convinced that Nick did not recognize them, nor even suspect that he himself had been recognized--and these were precisely the two convictions Nick had aimed to convey by his masterly move in thus disclosing himself.

"Yes, Senora Cervera," he hastened to add, before any of the startled group could speak, "I owe you a profound apology. I did you the injustice to suspect you, not only of being a thief, but also of being identified with the notorious Kilgore gang, three of the cleverest and most dangerous swindlers in the world."

"Perdition!" gasped Cervera. "You astound me."

"I was led to suspect you, senora, because your letter to Venner took him from his store just at the time of the robbery," Nick quickly went on to explain, thus putting his own strategy on a solid basis. "I shadowed you from the theater to-night, intending to watch you and your house, a design which has nearly cost me my life at the hands of your faithful watchman.

"I am glad to add, senora, that I now have completely changed my views, and I trust that you will bear in mind that you were a stranger to me, and so pardon my unworthy misgivings. It is impossible that you, Senora Cervera, could be guilty of any evil, or know aught of so accomplished a knave as David Kilgore, or any of his clever gang."

A shrewder move could scarce have been conceived. That Nick would thus have declared himself in the very presence of Kilgore, if known to him, seemed utterly absurd; and the eyes of both Kilgore and Matt Stall were aglow with a vicious amus.e.m.e.nt and satisfaction much too genuine to be entirely concealed.

"Well, Mr. Carter," cried Venner, now hastening to release the defective's hands, "you certainly have had a close call, and are lucky to come out of it with a whole skin. These two men are employed by senora to guard her house at night, and they naturally mistook you for a burglar."

Despite his keen discernment, Nick could not determine whether this man was lying, or was really as blind as his words implied. Content to await further discoveries, however, Nick laughed quickly, and replied:

"Well, well, Mr. Venner; I am quite accustomed to close calls and hard knocks, and I a.s.sure you that I bear the senora's watchmen no ill will for having done their duty as they saw it. Senora Cervera is to be congratulated upon having secured the services of two such faithful fellows."

Kilgore had all he could do to keep from laughing aloud, so blinded was he by Nick's artful duplicity.

"And when I inform you, senora," cried Venner, "that Detective Carter is in my employ, and is really a royal good friend, I am sure that you will pardon him for having been so misled by your letter of this morning."

Senora Cervera was blushing now, yet to Nick it appeared a little forced, and there was in her evil, black eyes a gleam he did not like.

Yet she at once arose and came to shake the detective by the hand.

"Oh, if my dear friend, Mr. Venner, says it is all right, I am sure it must be so," she cried, smiling up at Nick. "But I am afraid, Detective Carter, that you will now think me dreadfully severe, and my two watchmen more brutal than bulldogs."

Nick laughed deeply, and glanced at the display of diamonds on the table.

"When one has such valuable toys as those in her house, senora, bold men and vigilant bulldogs are both essential," said he, heartily.

"That's true, sir; indeed, it is."

"And with your permission, senora, I will shake hands with your two watchmen also, to show them I bear no resentment. After which I will take myself home, to nurse my little tokens of their vigilance and prowess."

This brought a laugh from all, and Nick, ever shrewd and crafty, now shook hands with the two criminals he fully intended to finally land behind prison bars. Then he bowed himself out of the room, and was accompanied by Rufus Venner to the front door of the house, where he bade him a genial good-night and departed.

When Venner returned to the room, he found Dave Kilgore seated on the edge of the table, with his false beard in his hand, and a look of intense distrust on his evil, forceful face.

"Crafty--infernally crafty!" he cried, as Venner entered. "I tell you, Rufe, that man must be watched. He is a man to be feared--constantly feared! I'm cursed if I can tell whether he gave us that on the level or not."

"Pshaw!" sneered Venner, contemptuously. "Of course it was on the level."

"I'm not so sure of it--not so sure of it!" reiterated Kilgore, with clouded brow. "I tell you, Venner, that he must be watched, and we must be guarded. We have too much at stake to suffer Nick Carter to queer our game."

"There is one sure way of preventing it," cried Cervera, with pa.s.sionate vehemence.

"Kill him?"

"Yes! Take his life!" hissed the dancer, through her gleaming white teeth. "You were fools to have missed it to-night. Even the law would have acquitted you."

"There are nights to come!" Kilgore grimly retorted.

CHAPTER VIII.

FOUND DEAD.

"What's the trouble yonder, Nick?"

"Where?"

"In the park."

"Humph! Something wrong, evidently. Come on, Chick, and we'll see."