“You say your name is Marcos--Prince Marcos?” howled Solado. “Do I say so? I don’t remember saying anything of the kind. Still, you know me, don’t you?” “Yes, I do know you! Curse you! I thought there was something wrong about you as they brought you on the yacht a little while ago. That’s why I came down here to look at you again, and particularly to hear you speak. Now I know you are an impostor!” “Who do you think I am, then?” asked Nick. “I don’t know who you are, except that I believe you are the man who assaulted me at the Hotel Supremacy a few nights ago.” “You were assaulted there, then?” The coolness with which the detective asked this question evidently increased the rage of the other, and he snorted inarticulately. “It was I who assaulted you--most likely,” went on Nick Carter. “I was obliged to teach a lesson to a masked man there, because he attacked me. I am pleased to meet you again, under more peaceful conditions.” “You’ll find they are not so peaceful, perhaps!” Don Solado’s tones had risen to a shriek again, and he shook his fist at the quietly smoking detective. “Don’t do that,” advised Nick calmly. “It annoys me.” “I’ll do what I please. I don’t know who you are, but I know you are not Prince Marcos!” “Well? And then?” “You have helped him to escape. Now escape yourself--if you can!” As Solado shouted this last sentence, he jumped up and flung himself out of the door. It closed with a bang, and Nick heard the lock turn. CHAPTER X. CHICK REPORTS PROGRESS. For five minutes after the departure of the infuriated Don Solado, the detective remained in his seat, smoking and pondering. He might have got to the door before Solado if he had tried, and for a fleeting moment he had some such idea. Then he decided that it would have been premature, and might have interfered with a plan he had been forming during the latter part of the interview. “If they go after Marcos at once, they may catch him,” he thought. “It isn’t likely but they might. Let them stew over it a while.” Nick Carter knew that Marcos would have plenty of money for his traveling expenses, and that Claudia Solado would help him in every possible way. “Whether that young lady is in love with Marcos, or whether it is merely cousinly regard she feels for him, is of no consequence,” he murmured. “The point is that she seems to be entirely devoted to the young man. I hope they won’t be so foolish as to stop long at Crownledge. That is not a safe place for him just now.” He decided in his own mind that Claudia was too sensible to let her cousin get into a trap again in a hurry. “She may take him to her own home, on the other side of the river,” he reflected. “Of course Don Solado knows where she lives, but, unless he suspects his niece of helping Marcos, he never would think of looking for him there.” It was characteristic of the famous detective that he was troubled only about Marcos, and thought little of his own predicament.