“And here, Carter, before we bolt for parts unknown, is where I shall get even with you and with him, where I will forever wipe you out of my path. Gordon is bound hand and foot in a room on the top floor.” “Thanks again, Deland.” “I will send you both to the devil.” “By what route, pray?” “In a chariot of fire!” cried Deland, with a sudden outburst of ferocity. “Well, well, that will beat walking,” Nick declared, not in the least daunted by the significance of the miscreant’s threat. Deland swung around to Foster and Gribham, who had stood listening with stoical indifference to the foregoing colloquy. “Go and get him, you two,” he fiercely commanded. “Bring Gordon down here. We will wipe them out together. We will leave no evidence here to tell the story. We will bind both, lock them in the library closet, and then fire the house.” “That’s the stuff!” Henley said, with a growl. “It will burn like tinder. That will finish them.” “Get Gordon--get Gordon!” Deland fairly shrieked. “Bring him to the library. We can be out of here with our plunder, with the deed done, in less than a dozen minutes. Go and get Gordon. Bring Carter after me, Henley. Bring him into the library. I’ll do it--I long to do it! It shall be my hand that starts the flames!” In another moment all of them, Nick Carter included, were striding into the dimly lighted hall. CHAPTER X. THE OTHER STRINGS. Patsy Garvan did not ride far with Danny Maloney after their parting from Nick Carter and Henley. Glancing back over his shoulder, Patsy waited only until they had rounded the curve in the road, when he called quickly: “Slow down, Danny, and drop me. We’re out of sight.” Danny obeyed at once, saying regretfully: “Gee! I wish I was going with you. I might be needed.” “One is better than two,” Patsy replied, leaping down to the road. “There’s only half the risk of being seen. I can fill the bill, all right, single-handed.” “So long, then, and good luck.” “Same to you.” Danny sped on with the car. Patsy Garvan, however, plunged into the woods, at once shaping a course that would bring him in sight of the crossroad through which Nick and Henley were to pass. It was to enable Patsy to make this detour that Nick repeatedly stopped on the road, pretending he wanted to find footprints left by the missing couple. Patsy accomplished the move with no great difficulty, and entirely unsuspected by Henley, owing to the artful attitude toward him that Nick had assumed. Patsy saw them pass along the road; in fact, saw them on the edge of the pond, and then he followed them at a discreet distance until, from behind one of the outbuildings, he saw Nick held up by Henley and afterward taken into the house.