The disguise removed, revealing a weak-featured man of forty, Darling hastened to open the door of the laundry, into which he vanished. Chick crept down the stairs and to the open door. Darling was hurriedly cutting the bonds from Nick and Patsy, at the same time crying in nervous, frantic, agonized whispers: “Enough of this--enough of it! I’m going to confess; going to tell the whole truth. I’ve been a blinded, cursed fool, an infernal madman, crazed with love for an unscrupulous woman. I am Cyrus Darling--Cyrus Darling himself. I’ll tell the whole truth and take my medicine. Come with me, Mr. Carter. Come with me, for God’s sake, and arrest that she-devil and her knavish confederate. Come with me and----” “Hush!” Nick calmly interrupted him. He then was free and on his feet, as was Patsy. He saw Chick entering the room, also, and he knew that the case was precisely what he had asserted, that of a man with a lost head, and that the finish was but the work of moments. Nick waited only to hear Chick’s statement. Half a minute later, still engaged in discussing their devilish plot, Dacey and Kate Crandall beheld the three detectives and the undisguised man enter the sitting room. Both instantly guessed the truth, and while Dacey weakened perceptibly, only a loud laugh came from the woman. “Oh, it’s all off, then,” she cried, with mingled disgust and defiance. “You have called the turn on us, Carter, have you?” “You’ll find that I have,” Nick replied. “Oh, well, that don’t rattle me any,” Kate sharply asserted. “You have got nothing on us, Carter. I told you I never would lay myself liable. Any man may pretend to commit suicide, if he wants to, and turn all of his fortune into cash. The more fool he, in that case, and he’s the one who must pay the price. You’ve got nothing on us, Carter, and well you know it. Otherwise, you’d have had us in irons by this time.” Nick Carter knew that there was some truth in this, yet he said sternly: “Don’t you be so sure of it, Kate Crandall. I can send you up for a term of years for conspiracy, abduction, and opposing officers of the law. If I don’t do so--there will be but one reason,” he added pointedly. “What reason is that?” Kate demanded, with color fading. “You have made an infernal fool of this man, and he knows it, now. I think he will behave himself in the future, and I’m going to give him a chance. I shall do so for the sake of his wife, who is as fine a woman as you are the reverse. I shall invent a story to account for all that has occurred, and shall send Cyrus Darling home to his wife. Neither she nor the public must know the truth. Your only hope, Kate Crandall, and that of your confederates, lies in your permanent secrecy.” “I agree to that, Carter,” cried Kate quickly. “The truth shall never be told.” “Does that go with you, Dacey?” Nick sternly demanded. “You bet!” Dacey eagerly cried. “And you will silence Moran?”