The last did not come from Kate Crandall, who looked as if turned to stone by the detective’s utterly irrefutable discovery.
The interruption came, instead, from a man who flung aside a portière masking a doorway, and quickly entered the room—a well-built, dark-featured man, wearing glasses and a short, pointed beard.
He also wore, as Nick was quick to notice—a figured vest.
CHAPTER VII.
THE AMBUSH.
“The man with a figured vest, Jack Conroy, mentioned by Patsy.”
This thought passed like a flash through Nick Carter’s mind when the intruder stepped into the room. Instantly, too, Nick suspected trickery, and his right hand went instinctively toward his hip pocket.
On the instant, however, the intruder covered him with a revolver.[Pg 27]
“Hold on!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you attempt to pull a gun, Carter, or there’ll be nothing left but the clean-up. I’ve got the drop on you.”
“So I now observe,” Nick put in dryly.
“But not because I thought it specially necessary, mind you, beyond preventing you from putting something over on me, as you have threatened my friend here,” Conroy quickly added. “You sit quiet and keep your hands in sight, as you told her, and there’ll be no bloodshed. This business can be settled without using guns—and settled right.”