Even then the three men had not suspected what had happened. They supposed that Turnieff had merely been knocked down and had rushed to his assistance; but on attempting to lift him to his feet, they discovered that he had received his death wound. They had called for help. Two other men, unknown to them till then, had rushed to their assistance, and the five together had endeavored to hold the murderer. But the strength of the man had proven to be prodigious. He had torn himself away from them. He had piled them into a heap upon the pavement. He had made his escape. Then other men came to the rescue, among them two policemen. They had pursued the murderer; but that terrible man had made good his escape and disappeared. The city was being scoured for him. Every nook and corner of it was being searched. A fairly good description of him had been obtained, and the chief of police gave it as his opinion that the fellow would quickly be apprehended. In the meantime the “murderer”—that terrible fellow who had thrown five men into an ignominious heap on the pavement _had_ made good his escape, although for a time it seemed that it might be impossible for him to do so. Nick Carter had never been in quite such a predicament as that one, and he realized on the instant that he decided to run for it, that his reputation would not save him. His life, or at least his liberty, would be sworn away by those five hired assassins who had taken advantage of the opportunity offered to rid the principals who hired them, of a man who had become obnoxious. For so Nick Carter read the truth of the incident. Doubtless the life of Turnieff had already been sworn away by the spies of that unnamed country, which, for the purpose of this story, had been called Siam, but which, of course, was not Siam. Doubtless it had already been decreed that Turnieff should die that night, after he came away from the reception at the home of the countess. More than likely the five men who appeared so opportunely for their own purposes upon the scene would have murdered the Russian anyway, before he reached his own home. In the quarrel with Nick Carter they had seen an opportunity not only to accomplish what they had been ordered to do, but to cast the blame of it upon another. Nick regarded it merely as a coincidence that that other should have been himself. He did not associate the murder with that other incident of the night, at the house of the countess. He did not connect her with it, although there were moments when he thought of doing so. The thing that the crime did tell the detective was this: That Turnieff had been in some way instrumental in the theft of the tin cylinder with its contents, from the house of the ambassador, and that his usefulness was over. Considering him a weakling who might at any time betray them, he had been sacrificed. And yet—the matter was most opportune.