“Anyhow,” said Chick, smiling a bit grimly, “Jimmy seems to be on top at the present moment. He has established his legal right to the name of Dinwiddie; he has placed on record, legally, the death of Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea. He has won out.”
“For the present—yes.”
“But,” volunteered Adelina, “there is still the charge against him of the theft of the diamond necklace, and the other jewels; and there is the unpleasant fact that he posed as a single man, and affianced himself to Lenore Remsen from whom he stole the necklace, when all the time he was a married man. That——”
Nick Carter shrugged his shoulders so significantly that Adelina stopped. Then she asked:
“What will he do about those charges?”
“He will manage to slip away from them,” replied the detective; “and, for the present, I am quite content to let him do so. In fact, I would rather he would succeed, for the moment.”
“Isn’t it an unfortunate circumstance,” asked Patsy, “that the Remsens should have started away for an unlimited stay in Europe, the moment after they had given their testimony?”
“Yes; and no. The additional testimony they might have given would have done little or no good to our side of the case; at least, it would not have injured Jimmy. He would have succeeded in establishing himself just as firmly as he has now done, if they had remained. And, when all is said, one cannot blame them for wishing to get out of the country. It isn’t a very pleasant experience for people in their position to have had their only daughter engaged to be married to a man who is even suspected of having been the sort of crook that Bare-Faced Jimmy was, to say nothing of the fact that he was already married.”
“I suppose that is why Theodore Remsen came out in that interview in the paper and stated over his own signature that the report of his daughter’s engagement to Jimmy was all a mistake; was not true, and that there had never been the slightest foundation for the report.”