CHAPTER VIII.
NICK CARTER WORKS THE SWITCHBOARD.
It seems an incredible tale that such a thing as that one described could happen within the city of Washington, but often the very boldness of a lawless proceeding is its principal safeguard, and that seemed to be the rule in this case.
Of course, we must understand that Mustushimi had placed his scouts out, to warn him of the possible approach of the police, and naturally he had investigated to discover if any were in the immediate neighborhood before he made the concerted attack.
But, even then, the thing could not have occurred without police interference had not Nick Carter in a measure prepared for it, as has been already outlined.
It may seem strange to the reader that he should voluntarily cut off from himself all chance of police assistance until after a certain hour; but Nick had plotted to capture as many of the members of the spy system as possible, and he realized that his only means of success existed in the possibility of inducing them to enter one the houses that he had prepared for their reception.
The real genius of his plan existed in the foresight he had used in calculating so exactly, as he had, that he could entice them there to make the attack; but we must remember that Nick Carter had passed all his life in the study of just such characters as he was pitted against now, and, like the hunter who stalks the deer, or the lesser one who seeks the hare, he knew just what courses they would take under given conditions.
He knew now, as be peered through the window toward them, that the crucial moment had arrived; that the attack was already upon him, and that now he had to depend upon the correctness with which his instructions had been carried out, for the success of his plan.
"Come!" he called to the senator; and he sprang back from the window, and led the way up the stairs to the second floor of the house, where, as we know, the switchboard of the electric apparatus had been installed.
The front door, which was to receive the first force of the attack, was not barred against the intruders.