“The Birches,” one of the summer residences of Theodore Remsen, multimillionaire, financier, Wall Street wizard, and one of the recognized powers in the moneyed world, stood, and still stands, a prominent landmark at the location already described. It stands upon a high bluff overlooking the Hudson, and is approached from the main highway by a winding, macadamized road, which, from the lodge gate to the mansion, is more than a mile in length, and shaded on either side by a double row of white birches; hence its name. The lawn, directly in front of the house, is laid out in tennis courts, and there Nick Carter and Chick discovered nearly all the guests of the house assembled, when they drove beneath the porte-cochère at four o’clock that Monday afternoon. Nancy Nightingale had evidently been watching for their arrival, for as Nick stepped down from the car and gave Danny a few directions, he saw her approaching. He went forward to meet her, followed by Chick. As the detective moved toward her he cast his eyes rapidly over the assembled people—there was a score of them, all told—and thought he saw Jimmy Duryea among them, engaged in an animated conversation with a group of which he appeared to be the centre. But the man’s back was turned, and Nick could not be certain. Nan, in an outing gown and coat of white flannel, with her black hair and sparkling eyes, looked more beautiful than ever as she approached the two detectives, and her smile of greeting was warmth itself. She conducted them directly toward the place where Mrs. Remsen was seated, and presented them. She added, after she had done so: “I told Mrs. Remsen that I had invited you to stop here to call upon us, and now she insists that you shall join our party for as long a time as you can remain.” After that, with Nan on his arm, Nick passed from group to group on the lawn, acknowledging introductions here and there as he went along. Chick remained with the group that had formed around the hostess. Presently Nick and his companion approached that particular group of which the man who called himself Ledger Dinwiddie, and whom Nan believed to be Jimmy Duryea, formed one part. Nan purposely left the introduction to him, for the last of that particular group; and then she said: “Mr. Dinwiddie, this is an old friend of mine—Mr. Carter;” and Duryea turned about lazily, as if he had not noticed the arrival of a stranger till that moment. “Glad to know you, Mr. Carter,” he said imperturbably, and with just the faintest trace of a smile on his handsome features; and then he turned back again to the companion with whom he had been talking, and who happened to be the daughter of the house, Miss Lenore Remsen, who was not more than two years younger than her beautiful stepmother.