CHAPTER VIII.
PLOTTING AGAINST A PLOTTER.
It should be permitted us to look inside the brain of Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea for a moment, in order that we can see just how he was working out the existing situation. It will help us better to understand the events which followed; although, of course, the one who reads must understand that no such privilege could have been afforded the detective at that time.
He had to form his judgments as to what Jimmy might determine to do next, from his past knowledge of the man, and that, he decided wisely, was to his credit.
We cannot relate here just how it happened that Jimmy appeared at the summer residence of Theodore Remsen in the character of a Southerner named Ledger Dinwiddie, and was prepared to establish that character, and the reputation that went with it, to all comers. That is another story.
But that Jimmy Duryea never entered upon any task without having thoroughly prepared himself to meet all the emergencies that might arise has already been made sufficiently clear.
His presence in that house as an accepted suitor for the hand of Lenore Remsen was the result of careful study and preparation, and the step had been taken with due recognition of all the risks that had to be met and overcome.
The encounter with Nan, in that house, and the manner of it, as related by her to Nick Carter, were, of course, unforeseen; they could not have been anticipated.
When Jimmy met Nan that night in the library, while he was sorting over the jewels he had stolen, it came in the nature of a surprise to him. He was absolutely unprepared for it.
Nevertheless, he had met it with his customary aplomb and coolness. We already know the consequences of that encounter.
Jimmy had no intention of keeping his promise to her, when he agreed to return the jewels to their rightful owners; and that was because he really needed the cash that the jewels would supply, rather than any reluctance he felt to keeping his word with her.