With Links of Steel Part 21

"True," admitted Nick, thoughtfully. "Do you think, Chick, that we could make up to pa.s.s for those two swarthy Orientals?"

"Could we!" exclaimed Chick, promptly. "Well, Nick, I should say that we could."

"I think so, too."

"You could do the snake charmer, all right, and easily gabble a lingo that would pa.s.s for his."

"Well, rather," laughed Nick.

"And if I was wise to the game you wished to play I easily could act as the interpreter, and run the conversation correctly on my own hook."

"No doubt of it."

"Do it? Why, surely we could," repeated Chick "Why did you ask?"

"I think it may yet become necessary or desirable to make a move of that kind," replied Nick.

"Why so?"

"Because, as I have suspected all along, I still think there is some big game in the wind, with the Kilgore gang back of it, and that the murder of this Barton girl may have some connection with it, or at least give us a clew to it."

"Egad! I hope so, Nick."

"We soon shall see."

"Going after Cervera now?"

"Yes; at once," said Nick, with grim austerity. "We shall find her at home, as usual. She'll not imagine that I can have got on her track as quickly as this, so no doubt I can easily land her. Before midnight I want bracelets on the white wrists of that Spanish dare-devil."

CHAPTER XII.

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 pa.s.sed 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."