"Yes, and fixed things with Busby."

"You can get in upon the stage to-night?"

"Sure thing, as I told you," laughed Chick. "Busby is the boss scene shifter there, and he consented to work me in as a stage hand."

"Ah! very good."

"I have got to make up for the part, however, and must soon be about it.

I am due there at half-past seven."

"Get at it, then," said Nick, rising. "See what you can learn about Cervera, and what you make of her from observation. In case Venner is about there, keep your ears alert, so that you can overhear."

"You trust me for that, Nick," cried Chick, laughing.

"Meantime, Chick, I'll have a look at the show from the front," added Nick. "And after Cervera does her turn, in case Venner is there, and she departs with him, you then may leave the couple to me. I'll be waiting for them at the stage door."

"Right you are, Nick. So here goes!"

Shrewd deductions, indeed, those of Nick Carter.

Plainly enough, Garside was quite justified in his apprehension that Rufus Venner had barked up the wrong tree.

CHAPTER V.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

Nick Carter had a double object in the work laid out for that night. If Senora Cervera was indeed in league with the Kilgore gang, and in any way responsible for the diamond robbery, Nick was resolved to secure positive evidence of it.

While her letter to Venner appeared to implicate her, since it had taken him from his store just at the time of the robbery, it seemed hardly probable that this brilliant Spanish girl, whose extraordinary grace and whirlwind dances had made her the talk of the town, could be identified with a gang of criminals notorious the world over. Yet the bare possibility existed, and Nick never ignored even the shadow of a clew.

He further reasoned that, in case Cervera was in league with the suspected gang, one or more of them might visit the theater in which she was performing, and Nick decided to have a look at the audience that evening. He was sure he could identify Kilgore or any of his gang, even if disguised, as would be very probable.

Nick's second object was that of learning the exact relations between Senora Cervera and Rufus Venner, and a part of that work he confided to Chick. With himself in the front of the house, and Chick on the stage, Nick believed that nothing worth seeing would escape them.

His own search early in the evening, however, proved futile. It was the last week but one of the mammoth vaudeville attraction, and the theater was densely crowded. Though Nick watched the lobbies and the smoking room, and also made a systematic study of the auditorium, he could discover no sign of the parties he was seeking.

About nine o'clock he returned to his chair in the orchestra, and settled himself to have a look at Cervera, whose act was one of the last on the program.

Just at that time Chick Carter, in the overalls and blouse of a scene shifter, made his first pertinent discovery--that Rufus Venner, clad in immaculate evening dress, and carrying an Inverness topcoat on his arm, had arrived upon the stage.

"He seems to be at home behind the scenes," soliloquized Chick, furtively watching him. "Evidently he has some kind of a pull with the manager, or he could not get admission to the stage. Probably through his friend, the Spanish senora."

Venner was then in one of the left wings, apparently indulging in small talk with a handsome girl of about twenty, who had just finished her turn upon the stage. She was rather simply clad, but was strikingly pretty and modest appearing; and upon consulting a program with which he had provided himself, Chick learned that her stage name was Violet Marduke; and that she was cast as a singer of ballads.

"Evidently employed to fill in," thought Chick, who had not been much impressed with her songs, though he decided that the girl herself was a beauty. "And by his admiring glances, Venner also thinks pretty well of her," Chick mentally added.

"Room here, mister," growled a voice at his elbow. "Make room for the reptiles."

Chick turned quickly about, and then involuntarily recoiled from the startling object that met his gaze.

In front of a scene then set in the second grooves of the Stage, the continuous performance was still in progress. Meantime, several of the stage hands were wheeling to the center of the stage, back of the scene, the properties of the next performer on the program--and grewsome properties they were.

The object beheld by Chick was a huge, cagelike den, mounted on low wheels, and having a broad front of plate gla.s.s. Inside of this den were several wicker baskets, some of which were open, while others were covered and locked.

In the open baskets, or writhing freely about the floor of the den, were fully fifty serpents of various sizes, many being only a foot or two long, while several were as many yards in length.

A more repulsive and blood-curdling sight Chick had never experienced, and the stage hand who had asked him to move laughed at his look of mingled horror and repugnance.

"Ever seen any like 'em after a jamboree?" he inquired, good-naturedly.

"Well, hardly," said Chick, subduing his aversion. "If I were to go on a drunk and see anything like them, I'd sign the pledge the next morning."

"A good scheme, too."

"I should say so."

"Some o' the crawling divils are as bad as they look," added the stage hand, while he helped to place the snake den squarely on the stage.

"What do you mean?" inquired Chick, still gingerly surveying them.

"Pizen!"

"Venomous?"

"You bet! Durn 'em, I wouldn't touch one of them for the wealth of Rockefeller."

"Do you mean that some of them still have their fangs and poison bags?"

"Sure! D'ye see that little copper-colored cuss down there in the corner, not more'n a foot long? If he got a crack at you, you'd not live ten seconds."

"Well, I will take deuced good care that he gets no nip at me," declared Chick, with a grin. "Why do they have such dangerous things around?"

"H'm! What would be the excitement, or the credit of snake charming, if the wriggling beasts were made harmless by pulling out their fangs?"

demanded the stage hand. "It would be like a dog fight, with the dogs muzzled. These belong to that heathen Hindoo, the snake charmer. He shows next."

"Pandu Singe?" inquired Chick, glancing at the name on the program.

"Sure. He handles 'em like so many babies. There he is now, just coming from his dressing room. He looks a bit like a snake himself."

Chick turned and gazed curiously at the approaching foreigner.

Pandu Singe was a tall, swarthy man, with straight, black hair, an Indian cast of features, and a pair of intensely black and piercing eyes. Their glitter was indeed like that in the eyes of a snake, yet the Hindoo, approaching without a word to anybody, or a glance to either side, was not without a certain sort of savage dignity.

He wore a red turban around his head, while a loose, black robe, belted around his waist, reached nearly to his ankles. With a gesture he signed the several men away from his hideous den of reptiles, and Chick retired up the stage.