CHAPTER XXII.
WHERE THE TIDE TURNED.
Nick Carter did not attempt to stop the fleeing crooks. He saw that the avenue was unobstructed, that the motor car already was attaining high speed, that a shot from his revolver would probably be wasted, and that pursuit was utterly out of the question. He turned back and hastened to rejoin Chick—just as Jack Dorson returned from the ballroom, bringing a glass of water.
Chick was the first to see him, and, having at once suspected him of aiding the crooks, he impulsively started to call him down.
“See here!” he exclaimed. “What motive did you have in bringing this woman——”
“A glass of water! Presumably, of course, because Mrs. Thurlow wanted it. She must have felt ill, for she appears to have fainted.”
Carter had cut in quickly with the interruption, but with a blandness that at once told Chick that he did not want his suspicions revealed to Dorson, and he immediately permitted his chief to take the ribbons.
The entire episode had transpired in far less time than is required to describe it. Scarce three minutes had passed since Professor Karl Graff, most skillfully disguised, an art in which his proficiency soon will become obvious, had seen the opportunity for which he had been waiting.
Mrs. Thurlow was beginning to recover, nevertheless, though still too dazed to realize what had occurred. But the stimulant or counteracting agent held to her nostrils by Tim Hurst, even while he robbed her of her pearls, was rapidly reviving her—as rapidly as in the case of the girl on a cot in the Osgood Hospital.
Nick had glanced in Dorson’s direction when interrupting his assistant, and in the light shed through the French window he caught sight of something glistening back of Mrs. Thurlow’s chair. He picked it up and slipped it into his pocket—the vial accidentally dropped by Tim Hurst in his hasty departure.
Though the stir had been noticed by a few of the persons on the balcony, none supposed that a robbery had been committed, and none had approached to aid or interfere.