“How can I?” was the dejected response. “If I had never touched it, nothing of this would have happened. I am the person responsible, and it is I who must make good.” For three hours all four of the men who were trying to hunt down John Garrison Rayne lay quietly in their respective bedrooms in the Ionic Hotel. Nick Carter was the only one of the three who did not undress entirely. He contented himself with removing part of his clothing and taking off his shoes. Lying on the outside of the bed, he slept as soundly as any of his associates. It was about eleven o’clock when he awoke. Immediately he sat up, with all his faculties about him. The famous detective had long before trained himself to wake at the very instant he desired, without any outside help. When he lay down he impressed it on his mind that he must arouse at a certain time. Never yet had he failed to do so. So, when he woke up now in the darkness, he knew, before he turned his pocket flash lamp on his watch, what the time would be. Pulling down the window shade in the darkness, he switched on two electric lights at the dresser and smiled at his own reflection. “I’ll have to change this a little,” he muttered. “Just a gray mustache and goatee, with a few lines on my face, will make me safe. My clothes will do, I think.” Porto Rico is one of the most healthful climates on the American side of the world. The mean temperature in San Juan is officially a little over eighty degrees, and it never goes above ninety-five at any time. So the costume worn by Nick Carter was a business suit of light cloth, such as might be suitable for New York or Chicago in the summer. The detective was careful in making up his face to represent a man in his sixties. Crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes, a deep line on either side from the nose to the corner of the mouth, and gray brows, as well as mustache and beard, made him look the part. He topped it off by adjusting a well-made gray wig, which fitted so well that it appeared actually to grow on his head. When he put on his broad-brimmed panama hat, so that it shaded his eyes, he was a typical Porto Rican, and nothing at all like the Nick Carter familiar to so many people in New York. He moved about very quietly, for he did not want to disturb either of his assistants, who occupied a double-bedded room adjoining his own. When he was ready to depart, he listened, for an instant, at the communicating door. Then, satisfied that nobody was stirring within, he went down the stairs to the office of the hotel, and out to the beautiful, verdure-scented avenue. He had gone two blocks along the avenue on which the hotel stood, and was turning a corner, when he noticed two persons walking slowly along the other side, shadowed by the trees. “Taking an evening stroll for their health, I reckon,” he thought.