The game of tennis was over.
There were indications of a shower, and the spectators had scampered toward the wide verandas for shelter, so that Nick Carter and the so-called Ledger Dinwiddie stood alone near one end of the net. It was the opportunity which Nick wanted.
“Well, Jimmy, this is a bolder game than usual, that you are playing, isn’t it?” he asked smilingly.
Duryea raised his eyes to the detective’s without a trace of resentment in them, and also without a vestige of surprise visible. He also raised his brows interrogatively.
“Now, I wonder where in the world you hit upon that name?” he said, in reply, and his expression denoted nothing more nor less than wonderment. “That is what my dear old dad used to call me, Jimmy! James Ledger Dinwiddie is my full name. How’d you hit upon the Jimmy part of it?”
“Oh, come, Jimmy, don’t try to play it out with me. You know it won’t work. You are Jimmy Duryea, all right—and the climate of The Birches isn’t good for you, just now.”
“What the blazes do you mean?” was the indignant ejaculation; and then: “I say, we’ll get caught in that shower, old chap. Come along!”
He seized his racket from the ground and started toward the house; but he had not taken two steps before Nick Carter seized him by the arm and propelled him toward a summerhouse that was near at hand.
“This place will shelter us, Jimmy,” he said coldly. “You come along with me. If you attempt to resist, I shall take you there anyhow, so if you don’t want a scene here on the lawn, come.”