This was the question that would not keep out of Nick Carter’s mind. It might have worried him, too, only that he had quite determined that he would answer it before he was many days older.
“Perhaps not to-night,” he told himself. “But when I get alone, in my own room. I’ll go through my portrait gallery of people I have met, and I’ll place him, or know the reason why.”
There were other rooms besides these two great double drawing-rooms to which the guests were invited. In all the apartments of the house were some strange things worth seeing, and Ched Ramar took pleasure in offering them to the inspection of those who had honored him by coming.
He said this himself, and he seemed sincere when he did so. He seemed inclined to pay particular attention to Matthew Bentham, Clarice, and Mrs. Morrison. He talked to them more than to any of the other guests, Nick Carter thought.
The two tall Indian guards, in glittering military uniforms, with curved swords at their sides, and gaudy turbans setting off their dark, solemn faces, were always at the wide door of the reception rooms, and the detective noted that they watched every move of the throng as it surged about the apartments.
Ched Ramar had the air of a man who trusted everybody, but his guards’ vigilance suggested that he had given them orders to be suspicious unceasingly.
“Hello! Where’s he taking that girl?” suddenly exclaimed the detective.
Ched Ramar had directed the general attention to a large glass case filled with magnificently jeweled weapons at one end of the drawing-room. Then he called one of the guards.
“Show and explain these, Keshub,” he ordered shortly.
Keshub, the guard, made a deep salaam and marched to the end of the case. He spoke as good English as his chief, and his sonorous tones rolled through the rooms[Pg 8] as he told the history of each dagger, sword, and gun to his open-mouthed listeners.