CHAPTER IX.
EXCITEMENT IN THE NIGHT.
Nick Carter was seated alone in the room that had been assigned to him.
It was rather more than an hour after midnight, and the guests of the house had retired to their respective rooms, and it so happened that Chick had been roomed in an entirely different part of the house from Nick.
The detective was uneasy in his mind. The atmosphere, somehow, seemed filled with portent of some sinister kind, and he could not define just the feeling that was upon him.
No further opportunity had been obtained for conversation with Nan Nightingale since that talk in the corner of the veranda; indeed, when Nick returned downstairs, after his inspection of Nan’s rooms, and the encounter, at the door of them, with Jimmy, the party had divided itself into groups, some of which were playing cards, and others were indulging in music and the usual occupations of an evening of that sort.
But Nick was uneasy about Nan.
He realized that Jimmy could protect himself only by casting suspicion upon the songbird of the stage, and Nick knew that Jimmy would not hesitate to do that very thing—if it happened that the opportunity was offered him.
The detective’s own impotency, so far as Jimmy was concerned, was apparent, and the reader must understand that, too.
Put yourself in his place for a moment.
Nick Carter could not arrest Ledger Dinwiddie and charge him with being Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea, without the ability to produce proofs of the assertion—and Jimmy was undoubtedly prepared to meet and to refute all such charges; was prepared to prove his claim to the name and reputation of Ledger Dinwiddie, and therefore to establish a sufficient alibi to whatever charge the detective might bring against him.