The tall stranger never finished the sentence. With a sudden heave, Nick Carter swung him clear off his feet and threw him high in the air, helpless and kicking. “Oh!” cried the girl, half in terror and half in admiration of the strength and activity of her champion. Nick Carter’s blood was up now, and he determined to finish the job in a thorough manner. Exerting all his strength, he flung Prince Miguel bodily to the floor. The prince fell like a bag of sawdust, and with no more animation. His head struck against the wall, and as he fell sprawling across the body of the unconscious Don Solado, there were the two of them dead to the world. The girl covered her face with her hands. For a few moments she saw nothing. When she looked up again, Nick Carter was calmly adjusting his mask, which had slipped slightly to one side. His eyes were on her, and he beckoned. When she went over to him, he said, in a cool voice, without any symptom of disturbance: “The corridor seems to be clear. We can do nothing more here. Let us go.” Drawing her hand through his arm with the courtly ease that came naturally to him, the detective stalked down the side hallway in which the encounter had taken place, until they were in the main corridor. “I think I will go home now, if you will have somebody call a taxicab for me,” she said. “I wish I could thank you, as I ought. But--but, you see, I do not even know your name.” “My name is Carter--Nicholas Carter.” “Carter!” she repeated. “I shall not forget that name.” He took a cardcase from his pocket and from it drew a card, on which was his address, as well as his name. It did not strike him as peculiar that she did not seem to have heard of him--or, if she had, did not connect him with the detective of international renown. He knew that such a girl as this, who, presumably, lived a sheltered life, in a home where police matters were very much detached from her existence, was quite likely never to have heard of Nick Carter. It pleased him just as well to think that she never had. “My services are small enough,” he answered, with a smile. “Should you desire them at any time, I shall always be pleased to aid you. I cannot help thinking there may be a sequel to this adventure of to-night. If there is, I should like to be in it.” “You mean that?” “I most certainly do.” Nick Carter turned his head as he heard a scuffling and loud talking behind him. What he saw was the shorter and thicker of the two figures in the dress of Indian princes at the other end of the corridor, supported by two of the hallboys of the Supremacy. He seemed unable to walk. The detective did not wait to see whether Don Solado would recognize him or not. As a taxicab drew up under the porte-cochère, in response to his call, Nick handed his fair companion into the vehicle.