“Oh, yes, Mrs. Clymer. You do not offer your cheek to me to-day.”
He imitated perfectly Mr. Cary’s voice.
This was too much for the Brown Robin. She seemed to feel worse over this deception than over her arrest and defeat. Nick saw that she had been wounded in her conceit. Finally she said:
“Well, if I am no better than that, I deserve to fail. Lock me up.”
The Brown Robin and her servant were taken to the station house and locked up.
“Your imitation of me,” said Mr. Mountain to Chick, “was so good that when I passed behind that safe and saw you there waiting for me I was startled, though I expected to find you there. It was capitally done. I congratulate you.”
“Congratulate the chief, Mr. Mountain. It was his play from start to finish, and he made me up.”
The compromising photographs of Mr. Cary, together with the plate, were easily recovered in the house in which they were taken.
Nick’s inquiries into the life of the Brown Robin showed that she had been engaged in a criminal career almost from the moment that she had eloped with the man Stymers from Mr. Mountain’s employ, though at one time she had been on the stage and at another time a newspaper writer.
Stymers was a bank burglar, who had led her into crime. Her criminal career had been most successful, and the first check called in it was when she met Nick Carter and his faithful band.