CLOSING IN.
There was, indeed, as Nick Carter shrewdly suspected, a mysterious bond
between the several crimes thus far engaging his attention, and the
secret operations for which David Kilgore and his gang had ventured into
the city of New York.
Nick had remarked, however, that the game would become as hazardous and
stirring as one could desire, as soon as it was fairly driven from
cover.
And Nick began to drive it from cover that very night.
Shortly before nine o'clock, and just as the two detectives were parting
from the Hindoo snake charmer, Mr. Rufus Venner rang the bell at the
door of Cervera's uptown residence.
It was answered by Cervera herself, much to Venner's surprise.
"Where's the butler to-night?" he abruptly demanded, as he entered and
closed the door.
"Gone," said Cervera, curtly.
"Gone?"
"I've sacked him along with all the rest."
"Not discharged all of your servants?"
"Nothing less."
"But why?" demanded Venner, with a frown settling about his dark eyes.
"You cannot remain here alone."
"I don't intend to."
"But what are you going to do? When are you going?"
While thus speaking they had repaired to the library at the rear of the
house, the room in which Nick had encountered the gang nearly a
fortnight before. It was the only room then lighted. Even the hall
through which they had passed was in darkness.
Yet Cervera was dressed in an elaborate evening gown, fitted close to
her lithe, nervous figure, and augmenting in a marked degree her
dangerous, dark beauty.
"You know where I am going--or should!" she replied, facing Venner, with
an odd smile on her red lips.
"Not to the diamond plant?" cried he, with a start.
"To the diamond plant--yes!"
"Impossible!"
"You will find it's not impossible, Rufe," she retorted. "I generally go
where I wish, and do what I undertake. I have already sent my own jewels
and other valuables there by Pylotte. He was here this morning."
"But consider, Sanetta," protested Venner, with a darker frown. "Think
of what chances you are taking."
"Of what?"
"Suppose Nick Carter suspects you, and has a shadow on your movements--"
"Bah!" interrupted Cervera, with a snap and flash of her black eyes. "I
care nothing for Nick Carter. _Caramba!_ do you think I fear him? I will
fool and foil Nick Carter as I have fooled and foiled his betters. I
shall go to the plant to-morrow, and that settles it."
"Stop a bit," insisted Venner, almost angrily. "Do you forget that
Kilgore and all his gang are there? Do you forget that we are just
about launching our gigantic enterprise? We now have nearly a million
dollars' worth of diamonds manufactured, or in the process of making,
and I already have begun to distribute them on the market at a fabulous
profit."
"Well, I know all that. What has it to do with my going there?"
"Such a move on your part may give Carter a clew to our location,"
declared Venner.
"Oh, no, it won't," sneered Cervera, scornfully. "I'll look out for
that."
"Discovery would ruin all, and possibly land the whole gang behind
prison bars."
"Faugh! I'm as well at the plant as here, and there I am going. You let
me alone to evade the Carters."
"But why in thunder are you so determined to make this change?" demanded
Venner.
An amorous fire came stealing into the woman's resolute eyes, and she
shrugged her shapely shoulders significantly.
"You should know why without asking," she slowly answered, with her gaze
fixed upon his changing countenance. "It is because I love you, Rufe,
and wish to be where you spend so much of your time."
"So much of my time?" echoed Venner, inquiringly.
"So at least you tell me."
"Do you doubt it?"
"I know that five days and nights have passed since you came here to see
me," cried Cervera, bitterly. "I have only your own word in explanation
of your neglect."
"That should be enough," said Venner, curtly.
"Yet a man after a new love does not shrink from lying to an old,"
retorted Cervera.
"Pshaw! You are jealous again."
"A woman who loves as I love is always jealous."
"Of whom now?"
"You know of whom."
"I tell you I have not seen Violet Page since the theater closed."
"I have only your word for it," repeated Cervera, with incredulity
bright in her sensuous eyes. "You know what I told you, Rufe. I'll not
tamely permit that pale-faced nightingale to come between you and me.
You know what I told you. I would kill her as I would a--a snake!"
Despite his own stiff nerves, Venner recoiled from the look on the
woman's desperate face. Her voice had fallen to a hiss like that of the
reptile mentioned.
"You are mad, Sanetta," he cried, irritably. "You have no occasion for
this jealousy and hatred."
"I have had! You know that I have had--and your face shows it!"
"You have none now--absolutely none now!"
His emphatic declaration fell upon Cervera with an effect which Venner
did not at first understand.
She sprang quickly toward him, gripping him hard by the wrist, while her
every nerve seemed stimulated with sudden agitation.
"None now? None now--now?" she fiercely reiterated, in inquiring
whispers. "Do you mean that--that it is done? that it is done?"
"Done?" gasped Venner, amazedly. "Is what done? What the devil are you
driving at?"
She drew back, searching his eyes with hers, and hers were like those of
a demon, in her momentary suspense.
"Then it isn't--it isn't?" she hissed, through her white teeth. "I
thought from what you said that it was. I thought--"
"Good God! what do you mean?" cried Venner, aghast for a moment.
Then, struck with a sudden recollection, he turned and snatched an
evening paper from a pocket of his coat, which he had tossed on a chair.
He had recalled certain leader lines which had caught his eye earlier in
the evening, yet which he then had not had sufficient interest to
follow.
Now he hurriedly opened the paper and read the story, or so much of it
as enabled him to guess the truth.
It was the newspaper story of the girl found dead in Central Park that
afternoon, with the mystery involving the sudden fatality, and the names
of the murdered girl and her mistress, Violet Page.
A half-smothered oath of horror and dismay broke from Venner, after a
moment.
It brought Cervera to his side, and she snatched the paper from him and
read--the story of her own failure; the miscarriage of her own jealous
and murderous design.
She suppressed the shriek of mingled disappointment and fury that rose
to her twitching lips, then passionately cast the paper upon the table.
"Well, what do you make of it?" she demanded, glaring at Venner's
colorless face.
"No need to ask," he replied, hoarsely. "You know what I make of it."
"You think I did it?"
"I know you did it!"
"And killed the wrong girl?"
"And killed the wrong girl!"
"Can you guess how?"
"I don't care how. I know that you did it."
"You will not betray me?" hissed Cervera, crouching before him, with
eyes never leaving his.
"I have no wish to betray you."
"You dare not! you dare not!"
"I shall not!"
"If you do--"
The woman checked her words for an instant, and ran her hand into the
bosom of her dress. When she drew it forth it gripped a naked poniard,
upon the polished blade of which the rays of light flashed with many a
wicked gleam and glint.
"If you do," she repeated, "I will send you after her, Rufus Venner! I
will do even more! I will expose our whole game, and our whole gang!"
"I have said that I shall not betray you, nor will I," cried Venner,
signing for her to put up the weapon. "Yet you were mad, Sanetta. You
had no grounds for such jealousy, no occasion for such a crime."
"I had--and you know it! I told you I would do it."
"Well, you have tried it, at least," growled Venner, forcing a smile to
his gray lips.
"And you dare not betray me," repeated Cervera, thrusting the glittering
weapon within her dress. "I have not failed entirely, Rufe, since it
makes the criminal tie between you and me all the stronger. It binds us
together with links of steel, Rufe, and they are stronger far than any
marriage contract."
"Then you love me like that, eh?"
"You know that I do."
"Yet your infernal jealousy, and your determination to quit this house
and go to the plant with the gang, may yet ruin us all. If Nick Carter
were to get a clew--"
"Bah!" Cervera fiercely interrupted. "I despise him, not fear him! I
tell you again, I will fool and foil Nick Carter, as I have fooled and
foiled his betters!"
"His better as a detective never lived, Sanetta."
"I care not! I defy him, and will yet show you that--"
"Hush! Hark! A cab has stopped outside!"
Cervera changed like a flash.
With the bound of a leopard, one of those lightning moves with which she
could electrify an audience from the stage, she crossed the adjoining
room, which was in darkness, and reached the front window.
One glance through the lace draperies was enough.
Nick Carter was just alighting from his carriage.
Cervera darted back and rejoined Venner.
"It is Carter--Nick Carter himself!" she fiercely whispered, with all
the fire of her passionate Spanish nature ablaze in her eyes.
"Carter! Good God!"
"Be off, Rufe, and leave him to me!"
"To you alone?"
"Yes."
"He already is on your track for this crime."
"I'll foil him yet! Leave him to me alone!" Cervera fiercely cried. "Be
off by the back stairs, then through the stable and the side alley. Go
to your own home, and from there signal Kilgore to have the secret way
to the plant open for me. Here--the paper! Take it away with you! I'll
elude Carter--"
"But he may arrest you at once," protested Venner, excitedly. "If he
does--"
"_Caramba!_ do you stop to question?" Cervera furiously interrupted. "If
he takes me from this house he will take me--dead!"
"But--"
"Quick--he's at the door! Leave him to me alone, and do what I told you!
Away! There's the bell!"
Venner caught up his coat, darted down the back stairs and quickly
departed by the way mentioned.
At the same time, while Nick's summons was still echoing through the
great house, Sanetta Cervera swept haughtily through the main hall,
switched on the electric light, and then opened the front door.
She appeared as cool and composed as if she had just arisen from her
dinner.
Yet in the vestibule stood the one man whom she had most cause to fear,
the man who now held her fate in his hand--Nick Carter.