“Gee whiz!” thought Patsy. “If he makes good as he looks, I can see my finish.”
CHAPTER XXI.
STOLEN PEARLS.
Nick Carter wore a worried look at eight o’clock that evening. Both he and Chick then were dressing for the elaborate reception and ball tendered to the local National Guards, generally admitted to be the chief social event slated for that season in Madison, and during which the unknown crook whom the detectives were so anxious to identify had threatened to commit the crime the latter were grimly determined to prevent.
Nick Carter’s anxiety, however, was not because his life also had been threatened and might possibly be taken, in case he became an insurmountable obstacle to the designs of the mysterious and daring desperado. He was thinking of Patsy Garvan, his prolonged absence, the occasion for which he could not fathom, knowing that Patsy ordinarily would have reported by telephone, at least, in view of the work engaging him, unless something very unexpected and equally serious prevented him.
The detective did not blind himself, moreover, to the fact that his own designs had been repeatedly anticipated and balked by the unknown knave or by members of his gang, in spite of his own expeditious work and the precautions he had taken. He realized most keenly that he was up against a remarkably crafty and resourceful scoundrel. He began to fear that Patsy had fallen into his hands and, in spite of his confidence in his own skill and prowess, that he also might be booked for failure and utterly unable to prevent the threatened theft of Mrs. Mortimer Thurlow’s pearls.
“It would be perfectly easy to foil the rascals, if that was all we wished to accomplish,” said the detective, while he and Chick were discussing their plans. “But that is not enough.”
“Certainly not,” declared Chick. “We must take advantage of the circumstances to discover their identity and in some way contrive to arrest them.”
“Exactly. We must allow them enough leeway, therefore, to be sure they will attempt the crime,” Carter pointed out. “They know what they are up against and that we are out to get them. If we remain too near to Mrs. Thurlow, as if ready to instantly grab any one that lays a finger on her, there will be nothing to it. The miscreants will throw up the job.”
“Surely,” Chick agreed. “No sane man would attempt it under such conditions.”