“The result of a week’s debauch,” growled Nick censoriously. “It serves him right. Did you inform him of Kendall’s murder?”
“He had already heard of it, Nick, and that Flood is suspected of the crime.”
“H’m! So the news has spread, eh? Well, I’ll soon settle that chap’s breakfast. I want a bout with him before others can get in a blow. Just wait a bit, Chick; I want your opinion of a disguise.”
Nick hurried from the room and Chick resumed his cigar. At the end of ten minutes the former returned, yet one would never have known him.
His figure was slightly padded, his brows darkened, his lower features heavily bearded, and he was tastefully clad in a suit of black, with a generous display of immaculate shirt-front and a piercing solitaire stud.
Barring the heavy beard, Nick at that moment was a counterfeit presentment of—Moses Flood.
CHAPTER XII.
DRIVEN TO THE WALL.
To strike while the iron is hot, to seize upon every clue while it was fresh, to be alert for the least sign, the slightest word, the fleetest glance, that might even remotely suggest the key to a mystery, and then to quickly follow every thread, however finely spun, and discover whither it led—all this was characteristic of Nick Carter, and to it he owed much of his success.
Few detectives, however, though of the shrewdest, would have discerned the spider-web clues which Nick had that morning detected, or have been able to turn them to the best advantage.
It required a man of Nick Carter’s superior art to execute the delicate and superlatively crafty move that took him to the Carleton Chambers.