CHAPTER VII.
THE WARDROBE OF GASPARD'S FRIEND.
Nick Carter is hard to kill. A good many crooks have tried to put him out of the world, and a fair percentage of them have lost their own lives in the attempt without inflicting any injury upon Nick.
He is a man of resources, and that's what saves him. When one thing fails him, he finds something else to take its place.
And so, when that rope gave way, he took the next best thing.
That happened to be the sill of the window of Mr. Jones' bath-room. Nick seized it with a grip of iron as he shot downward.
The strain on his arms was something awful, but he held on. His fingers gripped the wood till they dented it.
In two seconds he had scrambled through the window into Jones' flat.
It was done so noiselessly that the colored servant in the room directly opposite, across the narrow shaft, was not disturbed in her reading.
From the bath-room Nick made his way to the hall, and thence to the parlor, where Mr. Jones—to judge by the light in the window observed by Musgrave—had decided to spend the evening.