“I agree with you, Miss Strickland,” he said kindly. “Arthur Gordon is, in my opinion, a thoroughly honorable man. As you are so sure of it, too, and that he is the victim of a conspiracy, you best can serve him by subduing your agitation, and telling me precisely what has occurred. I can do nothing, nor form any opinion of the case, until I know all of the circumstances.”
“Mr. Carter is right, Wilhelmina,” said her elderly uncle, Mr. Rudolph Strickland. “It is very kind of him to come out here, with his assistant, this morning. Dry your eyes, therefore, or let me talk with him. I can inform him, Mina, better than you.”
“Do so, Mr. Strickland,” said Nick, turning to him. “What has befallen Arthur Gordon, as far as you know?”
The scene of this interview, which was the beginning of one of the most extraordinary criminal cases in the career of the famous detective, was the library of a new and exceedingly fine wooden residence in one of the most beautiful rural sections of the Bronx.[Pg 3]
The hour was about ten o’clock, on a charming May morning, nearly seven months since Nick Carter first met these people, and recovered for Mr. Rudolph Strickland the costly art treasures stolen from the Fifth Avenue flat, in which he then resided, resulting also in the arrest of the notorious European crook, Mortimer Deland, together with a gang of local confederates.
Nick had frequently met Arthur Gordon since then, and he knew that this wealthy young banker and broker of Wall Street was contemplating matrimony, but he was ignorant of many of the particulars which Mr. Strickland hastened to impart.
“This is Mr. Gordon’s new house,” said he, “though he already has deeded the entire estate to Wilhelmina, who soon is to be his wife.”
“We were to be married next Wednesday evening,” put in the girl more calmly.
“This is to be their home, Mr. Carter, and I am to live with them,” Mr. Strickland continued. “Both insist that I shall dwell no longer alone in the flat I recently occupied.”
“You now are living here, I infer,” Nick remarked.