He had long conferences with the district attorney and laid before him all the necessary facts in the conspiracy, avoiding, as far as it was possible, dragging the family into the case. In this he had the hearty cooperation of the prosecuting officer to whom he frankly turned over all the data he had gathered, bearing either directly or indirectly on the charge of murder, asking in return only that the family be spared as much as possible in the presentation of the evidence.
There was scarcely any defense offered at all, and, indeed, so apathetic had the prisoner appeared to be, that it was thought he had abandoned hope.
The idea that all that time he was lying low for the very purpose of averting suspicion from his real plans never once occurred to anybody.
The trial was short, although the prisoner was forced to spend many weeks in his cell in the Tombs before the case was reached on the calendar. The result was a conviction, and Nick felt that a great load had been lifted from his mind when he learned that Rogers, strangely calm in the face of the verdict, had been led from the court-room a condemned murderer.
If Nick could have known what that calm, unruffled demeanor meant he would not have been so greatly relieved.
Following his usual custom of washing his hands of a case after turning a criminal over to the proper authorities, Nick, when he had placed all the evidence at his command in the hands of the district attorney, had gone away to New Brunswick, on a fishing-trip.
Isabel Benton could not be connected with the murder at all, either before or after the fact, and the charge against her had been so vague that she escaped with a light sentence in the penitentiary.
Mercedes Danton, worn by the thrilling events of the past few weeks, went to Europe, and Reginald betook himself to parts unknown to pass away the hot season of the year.
But even on his outing trip Nick Carter was destined to be called into a case of mystery that, however, was so soon solved that the detective regarded it as only one of the side issues that come to him now and then, and which he dabbles in either from motives of friendship, curiosity, or amusement. In this case, however, it led to a strange development.
He was about to bring his visit to an end, and was spending his last evening of “loafing” in the cozy study of his host, Jack Northrup, smoking and chatting, when the servant announced a visitor.