“I intend to marry her, as it is. I have got a name to perpetuate, Carter; the name of Dinwiddie. There is not an older or a better one in this benighted country of yours.”
“Perhaps you will tell me how you came by that name,” suggested the detective; and he was surprised when Duryea laughed aloud.
“I’d like to tell you; by Jove, I would, and no mistake, Carter. It is almost too good to keep. But that would be throwing altogether too much information in your way—and it cannot be done. Look here, Carter, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”
“Well?”
This was what Nick had been hoping for. He had now got his man to a point where he was tacitly admitting his position, and was doing his share of the talking.
“We’ll admit, for the sake of the circumstance, that I am the ghost of Bare-Faced Jimmy, or at least that I represent the ghost. We’ll admit that the ghost got the diamonds. We’ll admit that the ghost can return them. See?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll confess to you that I badly need those diamonds, in order to carry out my plans, for I am short of money. Nevertheless, since you make such a point of it, I’ll get the ghost to return them to their proper owners—on a condition.”
“What is the condition?”