"If you think I'm a thief, why don't you hand me over to the police?" he shrewdly demanded. The ruse worked. For a moment Cervera was caught with no ready reply, and Nick promptly decided that he was known, hence could not well be given to the police. Yet these parties so obviously aimed to hide the fact that he was known to be Nick Carter, that Nick quickly resolved to let them have all the rope they wanted, and to meet them with a counter-move--that of boldly declaring his own identity, and so disarming them of any misgiving that he had recognized Kilgore and Matthew Stall, or even had any suspicions of Señora Cervera. It was a very clever counter, and Nick went at it cleverly. "Why don't you give me to the police, if you think I'm a thief?" he repeated, when Cervera made no reply. "The police?--bah!" she now cried, with a sneer. "For what? That you may square yourself in some way, or make your escape, and then come back here to attempt the job again?" "H'm!" thought Nick. "They don't want to let me go before learning what I suspect. I won't do a thing but fool them in that." "Police be hanged!" Cervera quickly added. "In my country we have a surer way of removing such villains as you." "What way?" queried Nick, coolly. "_Caramba!_ The garrote!" "Choke 'em off, eh?" "Or the poniard!" "A stab between the ribs, I take it." "Yes! It is what you deserve." "But you will not try it on me," declared Nick, confidently. "Don't you be too sure of it." "Oh, I'm sure enough of it." "The law would never reach us--don't think that," cried Cervera, with a passionate sneer. "_Caramba!_ we'd plant your miserable bones where they'd never be found. Don't think, you wretch, that we fear to do it." "Yet I don't fear that you will." "You don't?" "Not I, Señora Cervera." "How dare you utter my name with your foul mouth?" screamed the dancer, with a vicious display of scornful resentment. "Not kill you? I've a mind to order it done at once, you wretch! I hate such reptiles as you!" Nick laughed. "If you were to order it done, señora, and the knife were at my throat," said he, "your order would certainly be countermanded." "What! By whom?" cried Cervera, with her passionate, dark eyes fiercely blazing. "I'll have you know that I rule here--and not here alone!" "Yet your command would be revoked, señora." "For what reason, villain?" "It would be revoked at the request of our mutual friend, Mr. Rufus Venner, to whom I presently shall explain my conduct, and also implore your own pardon, señora, for having made you the mark of my very unworthy suspicions," cried Nick, with a sudden dramatic display of dignity and confidence. It brought Venner sharply to his feet. "Good heavens!" he cried. "What do you mean, sir?" "Ay, what do you mean?" roared Kilgore, bracing straight up in his chair and reaching for his gun--a move Nick pretended he did not see.