She was strangely composed, too, although a trifle pale, as she entered the room and paused beside Nick Carter.
“Will some one please tell me what has happened?” she asked. The question was a general one, addressed to all alike, but she looked at the detective when she uttered it. And, she added, speaking directly to him this time: “I heard only the latter part of what you were saying. You said that the time had come to denounce some one. Who was it?”
She was outwardly calm and collected, though exceedingly pale. Nick realized that Nan was trying to convey some sort of intelligence to him, with her eyes; but he could not read it, for truth to tell he was as greatly amazed as were the others by her sudden appearance among them.
Before he could reply, Duryea took the centre of the stage, so to speak. He thrust himself forward, into the limelight, if the expression may be used here, and with a smiling sneer on his handsome face, confronted Nan and Nick, both.
“I will tell you who it was, Miss Nightingale—and I call upon all who are here to let me finish what I have to say. If there are others here who have comments to make upon my statements, let them be made afterward.”
He paused an instant. No one spoke. Nick Carter believed that it was best to let the man have his head at that moment. The detective had not seen through the plot, as yet, and it was necessary that he should see and know more about it before he continued with the denouncement he had intended to make. The things that Duryea intended to say might have some effect upon what Nick Carter would say in reply. Nick Carter waited; and he placed a restraining hand upon the arm of Nan, to bid her wait, also.
“What is it, Ledger? What have you to say about this?” asked Theodore Remsen, turning to him. “Do you mean to tell us that you know something about it?”
“I certainly do, Mr. Remsen,” was the reply. “It was because I already knew something, and believed that we would yet catch the thief who stole Lenore’s necklace and the other jewels, that I advised the repairs to the burglar alarm, which worked so perfectly to-night. I anticipated precisely this result.”
“Go on; go on, Ledger. Come to the point. Don’t beat about the bush!” exclaimed Lenore’s father.
Jimmy deliberately turned his back upon Nan and Nick; he faced the other members of the company.