Margate’s muscles went lax, his knees gave way under him. He uttered one groan, with head drooping, then fell from the detective’s arms and rolled down the stone steps, shot through the heart.
“This way, boys!” Chick shouted, dashing through the hall. “Nail every man.”
There was little need to thus instruct the half dozen officers who were following him—and little need for their display of weapons. For when they poured into the laboratory, the three dismayed crooks threw their hands into the air, nor lowered them save for the manacles.
The two women, Busby’s wife and Martha Dryden, were secured a little later, and one and all subsequently received long prison terms for their crimes.
One alone, Dave Margate, had gone to a higher tribunal for punishment.
In view of Nick Carter’s deductions, which covered most of the ground, together with what had passed between Patsy and Margate, but little need be added to these closing pages.
Patsy was quickly revived with an antidote, grimly supplied by Busby after he found himself under arrest, and the young detective was none the worse for his experience.
Madame Clayton was found in an upper room, still unconscious. But she afterward was restored and entirely recovered, when her story of the murder confirmed the conclusions at which Nick already had arrived. Her[Pg 41] secret died with her recreant son, for the detective’s lips were forever sealed, and others never knew of the twin relationship.
Nick Carter slipped in enough fiction to form a consistent story, in his report of the case, and Mr. Chester Clayton, nor the public, never knew the whole truth. It was better so, far better—and so it may be left.
THE END.