"Did Mrs. Mantell hesitate, or appear to shrink from entering it?" "She did not, sir. She hurried to get in," said Perkins. "I noticed that in particular, sir." "And that shows plainly enough, Mantell, that your wife was completely deceived, that she had no doubt that the man in the taxicab was your father, nor looked at him sharply enough before entering to detect the exceedingly clever impersonation that already had deceived the butler," said Nick. "What soon afterward occurred in the taxicab can only be conjectured. Send Celeste here, Perkins. I will hear what she can tell us." The butler hastened to obey, and a slender, dark-eyed girl presently entered the library, whom Nick immediately began to question. Celeste could tell him, however, only that she had given the butler’s message to her mistress, that Mrs. Mantell had remarked that she must hasten, since her father-in-law had not entered the house, and that she immediately put on her hat and jacket, then hurried down to join him. Nick saw plainly that the girl was telling the truth. He dismissed her after a few inquiries and directed her to close the door. Frank Mantell had not interrupted him from the beginning. With jaws hard set, with every vestige of color gone from his cheeks, he had mutely listened to the hurried questions of the detective, all the while vainly searching Nick’s face for an expression from which he might derive a ray of hope. The black cloud of fear that had been hanging above this house had launched its thunderbolt, and the dreaded missile had found its mark. "Well?" Mantell’s terse inquiry, hoarse with anxiety and suspense, brought Nick Carter out of his momentary abstraction. He looked up quickly and said: "There’s nothing to this, Mantell, in so far as the crime, the motive, and the identity of the criminal are concerned." "You don’t mean," Mantell cried, "that you know who has committed this outrage?" "I certainly do." "Tell me." "Gaston Goulard." Mantell stared, dumfounded for a moment. "What do you say, Carter?" he demanded. "Are you mad? Goulard is dead----” "No, he isn’t," Nick interrupted. "He is very much alive. I saw him last night under circumstances that were entirely convincing." "You saw Gaston Goulard?" Mantell appeared unable to believe his own ears. "You saw him alive and----” "And very much in evidence," Nick cut in dryly. "Listen. I’ll tell you about it." "Good heavens! it seems utterly incredible," Mantell said more calmly, after Nick had described the encounter of the previous night, but not what had followed it. "That scoundrel escaped drowning, then, and now is out to persecute me again and----” "That is not his chief motive," said Nick. "Take it from me, Mantell, he is out after money, I know he was on the rocks financially a month ago, when he pulled off the job that cost Connie Taggart his life, and so nearly sent him to the bottom of the East River." "You suspect, then----”