“That’s quickly told——” Henley began to reply.
“But better told first hand,” Nick cut in curtly, with his gaze intently fixed on the man he addressed. “I’ll give you the information you want. I’ll tell you what I’m after and what I’ve been doing.”
“Ah!” Dayton spoke with an icy drawl. “Better first hand, indeed, as you say. I do not yet place you, however, nor——”
“Oh, a truce to subterfuge,” Nick again interrupted curtly.
“Subterfuge?”
“You know me perfectly well—but not better than I know you.”
“Indeed?”
“You place me, all right, as I sooner or later will again place you where you belong.” Nick went on sternly, disregarding the other’s queries. “A wig, a beard, a reverse curve of the eyebrows, a more florid skin, an altered voice—it takes more than those to blind me, though you might get by others. Fly your true colors, Mr. Mortimer Deland, and I’ll tell you what I am after and what I’ve been doing.”
“Ah! That is a great inducement, so great that I find myself utterly unable to resist it.”
Deland replied with unruffled composure. He drew up a little in his chair, gazed steadily at the detective for a moment, then raised his slender white hands to his head, deftly removing the exceedingly artistic disguise which Nick alone had been able to penetrate, and which had fairly transfigured the mobile, sinister, clean-cut, yet strangely effeminate features of—Mortimer Deland.