The opening of that rear door had set off the burglar alarms in the house. Automatically it had switched on the lights in the house—and Nick understood that it was not Nan Nightingale he had followed, but Jimmy Duryea. Jimmy, in a woman’s wrapper and with the veil over his head, so that in the dim light, and with the hasty glance through the partial darkness, Nick Carter would not be able to recognize him. When that rear door opened, and the figure passed through it; when the lights flashed on, and the ringing of the alarm gongs began their din, Nick Carter leaped forward toward the open door; but only to trip and fall headlong in the hall before he had taken three more steps. He had tripped over a rope that had been stretched across the hallway, purposely to catch him. As he fell, he heard the whir of an automobile engine, and the chug-chug of the machine as it started forward. As he sprang to his feet again, he not only knew that he was too late to overtake it, but he realized that he had fallen into a trap of some sort that had been carefully prepared by Jimmy Duryea. Men think quickly in emergencies like that one; and Nick’s first thought as he leaped to his feet was that the crux of the occasion remained inside the house, and that the apparent escape from it could be nothing more than a blind. Of course the house was instantly in an uproar. Doors opened and closed. Heads and shoulders were thrust over the balustrades. Voices called from above, demanding to know what was the matter. Men and women appeared from every conceivable quarter, in all stages of dress, and undress. Foremost among them, incased in a bathrobe which he was tying around his person, was Jimmy Duryea, otherwise Mr. Ledger Dinwiddie. Behind him appeared the owner of the house, Theodore Remsen. He was followed by Mrs. Remsen, and by Lenore. Other guests, in various conditions, so far as clothing was concerned, appeared on the stairs, all demanding with one voice, almost, to know what had happened. Nick Carter was the only person in that motley group who was fully clothed; but even as he turned to face those who were rushing toward him he noticed that there were two absentees. Nan Nightingale and Chick were nowhere to be seen. Because Nan was not there, Nick instantly felt undefined misgivings; because Chick was not present, Nick experienced a certain amount of assurance, for he knew that unless Chick were otherwise employed, he would have been among the first to put in an appearance. It was Jimmy Duryea who gave expression to the first coherent thought, in the midst of that scene. He exclaimed: “Really, Mr. Carter, if it is a part of the practice of your profession to scare us all to death, you might have given us some warning of it.” “There has been a burglar in the house!” shouted one of the women. “Some one entered my room, and stole——” “Oh dear, I never was so frightened in my life. I——” “Did he get away?”