“Not at all, Carter, of course. I merely stole down the stairs, clad like Clayton, and got the first casket. Biddle, disguised as a laundress and provided with a big, covered basket, relieved me of it in the corridor, and got away with it in the basket.” “Ah, I see,” Nick nodded. “I then got the other and whisked it up to my rooms,” added Guelpa. “Then I hurried into my own clothing and my Hungarian hair and whiskers, and I was right on the spot when wanted by lovely Mademoiselle Falloni when she fainted. Could anything have been easier? Why, it was like money sent from home.” “It does appear so, Guelpa, I admit.” “I wonder you have not thought of it, Carter,” grinned the rascal. Nick’s eyes took on a more threatening gleam. He now felt sure that this man did not suspect his relationship with Clayton, or know anything definite about his early life, as he already had predicted to Mrs. Clayton. “Oh, I have thought of it, Guelpa,” he said, a bit curtly. “Don’t think me quite a lunkhead. I knew the crook had garments and a pin like Clayton’s. I know also when the scarfpin was duplicated. It was when you rascals abducted Clayton three months ago.” Guelpa’s face changed like a flash. “How did you learn that?” he cried. “I have methods of my own for obtaining information.” “You have, eh?” “And that’s not all I know, Guelpa,” Nick added. “Is that so?” “Far from it.” “Tell me, then, as I told you.” Guelpa spoke with a scornful sneer, but looks of apprehension had arisen to the faces of his four confederates. “Why not, then, as you said?” Nick retorted. “Don’t imagine for a moment, Guelpa, that you lured me blindly into a net. I knew the instant I saw you in my office this evening that you were not Chester Clayton.” “Rot!” cried Guelpa derisively. “If you knew that, why did you walk into the trap?” “So as to get a line on your confederates, these fellows,” said Nick curtly. “I don’t believe it.” “I will tell you, then, something that you will believe,” said Nick. “What is that?” “That your name is not Guelpa. Your true name is David Margate. You are an English crook. You were convicted of burglary twelve years ago, and sent up for five years. You are----” “Stop!” cried Margate, ghastly white. “How did you learn that? How do you know----” “Oh, I know that you rascals will not get away with this job,” Nick sternly interrupted. “I’ll soon have you landed where----” Guelpa, or Margate, broke in upon him with a terrible oath. “You will, eh?” he fiercely added. “You’ll find you are wrong. You are depending upon that fellow, Garvan, but we’ve got him, also, as we’ve got you. See for yourself.” He flung aside the portière that hung across the open door of an adjoining room, then in darkness. Plainly visible in the light shed through the doorway, however, sat Patsy Garvan, bound and gagged and tied to a wooden chair. This was two hours after he had been transferred from the hotel, and his recovery from the drug Guelpa had injected.