“You look ugly and you would commit murder if you had an opportunity; but you won’t get one. Did you ever happen to hear of Bare-Faced Jimmy, the gentleman burglar? Well, that’s me. I came here just in time, didn’t I? I happened to see you—all three of you—when you killed that Russian colonel last night, so you didn’t have to make that confession we just heard. Have you got ’em all, Juno?”
“Yes.”
“Every one of them? Are you sure that you have not overlooked a knife or a pistol, or a bottle of acid, or poison?”
“Quite sure,” she smiled back at him.
“Good! Now, my festive assassins, turn around. Your backs are more agreeable than your faces. That’s right. Juno, take one of these pistols; I’ll keep the other. Now, you three cutthroats, stand still. If you move it means a broken knee for each of you. Juno, I regret the necessity for taking down some of these pictures on the walls, but I need the wire.”
Five minutes after that, bound hand and foot with wire picture cord, the three men were lying on their back on the floor of the library. Then, and not till then, Juno stepped forward demurely and gave the pistol back to Nick Carter.
“We will leave those fellows where they are for the present, Juno,” the detective said. “They can’t get away. That wire cord is too strong for them, and I am too good an expert in its use. Have you another room to which you can take me, countess?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Come with me.”
He followed her and she led him through the hall and up the broad stairway to the parlor of her own private suite. There she turned about and faced him.