Miss Page did not suspect any duplicity in this, and she cheerfully gave Nick the address of the snake charmer, whereupon the detective graciously thanked her, and then escorted her to her waiting carriage. As it rolled rapidly away a second hack came bowling up to the curbstone in front of Nick's residence. It was the carriage for which Chick had sent a call. "Don't cover your horses, cabbie!" cried Nick, sharply. "Wait about three minutes, and we'll be with you." "Right, sir!" And Nick dashed back up the steps and into the house, meeting Chick in the hall. "What do you make of it, Nick?" "Make of it?" cried Nick, with a laugh. "It's a cinch, Chick, dead open and shut. Grab your hat and come with me. I'll explain in the carriage." "Good enough! I'm with you, old man!" "And we have no time to lose," cried Nick, "Now, then, we're off." CHAPTER XI. THE CRIME AND THE MEANS. "Yes, Chick, it's as simple as two plus two, and we'll presently try to bag a part of our quarry. But first of all, I want a bit of corroborative evidence which I expect to get from that Hindoo snake charmer, Pandu Singe." "Going there first, Nick?" "Yes; it will not take long. Then I think we shall have the strands for a rope strong enough to hold that she-devil who murdered Mary Barton," grimly added Nick. These remarks were made while the carriage containing the two detectives was speeding through the city streets, then bright with the light and life of the early evening. "What a dastardly crime it was, Nick," observed Chick. "It was the crime of a treacherous demon." "With jealousy the chief motive, eh?" "No doubt of it." "Yet her venomous arrow found the wrong mark." "That's just the size of it," said Nick. "In the light of what you saw and heard on the stage that night, it is plain that Cervera is passionately in love with Venner." "Surely." "You remember that you saw him talking with Violet Page, and then observed Cervera in the opposite wings, angrily watching something or somebody out of your range of view. Plainly enough, now, she was watching Venner and the singer." "No doubt of it," declared Chick. "And she looked fit to use a poniard then and there." "Jealousy," growled Nick. "She had been secretly watching Venner. She had discovered his love for Violet, and decided that the girl was a rival to be feared. Her fiery Spanish blood would shrink at nothing. She went the limit, and tried to murder her rival. In so doing, however, she but killed another." "She must have worked adroitly to have accomplished what she did." "It may not have been so very difficult," replied Nick. "She was on the stage each night, and also that infernal snake den. She quietly learned which of the venomous reptiles would best serve her deadly purpose, and then found an opportunity and a way by which to secretly steal it." "A hazardous job at that," muttered Chick.