The millionaire was a little too impetuous now and then, and this was one of the occasions. His reason told him that he had been misled in some unaccountable way, and that this was the real Nick Carter, but reason spoke in a very small whisper, and he did not choose to listen—in fact, he hardly heard it. He had kept his rage and sense of injury bottled up, thus far, but now it exploded. “I’m driving at just this, Carter,” he said hotly. “You are found out—the game is up! I don’t know whether this is the first time temptation has been too much for you, or not, but I have you where I want you, you thief! Your spectacular career is at an end. My papers have a circulation well into the millions, you know, and as soon as I say the word, the greatest broadside of publicity that was ever fired will be hurled at your crime of the night before last! Oh, you need not glower at me! I’m not in the least afraid of you, and what I say, I mean, as you will learn to your cost.” Any one who knew Nick Carter well would have seen that he was growing dangerously warm, but the increasing tension was much more noticeable in Chick. That young man wore his “fighting face,” and was bending forward longingly, with twitching hands on his knees. Nick, seeing his assistant’s attitude and look, laid a restraining hand on Chick’s arm. “Easy there, my boy!” he murmured, then turned again to Griswold. “I fear you are a little hasty, and will soon regret it, Mr. Griswold,” he said as quietly as he could. “If I were not sure of your identity, and inclined to believe that you are laboring under a very serious misapprehension, I should not be so patient. I have been in the Adirondacks for several days, and know nothing whatever of the circumstances to which you allude.” “You lie!” replied the millionaire, his face purple. “You went to the Adirondacks several days ago with your assistant, but you came back alone. I have your own butler’s word for that. What’s more, I saw you with my own eyes yesterday at your home, whither Cray took me.” Again Nick and his lieutenant exchanged glances. It was beginning to look more and more serious. Had Nick not recognized the newspaper proprietor at once, they might have supposed the man to be irresponsible, despite his references to Cray, but that explanation seemed out of the question in Griswold’s case. Yet, the alternative appeared to be just as far beyond belief. Had some one passed himself off as the detective under any ordinary circumstances, it would have been easy enough to believe, for such things had happened often enough in the past. The millionaire’s statements, however, seemed to imply that some person had been passing as the detective in his own house, and had done so in such a skillful and thoroughgoing way that not only the servants, but even Jack Cray, had been completely deceived. It was unbelievable, and yet what else were they to think?