“And then?”
“Then,” echoed Royal, with a gasp and shudder, “then I stumbled on Kendall’s dead body, not ten feet away from the library window. My God, Mose, you cannot imagine my horror and my dreadful alarm. The desperate threats I had made in your place suddenly recurred to me. I saw myself under arrest for the crime. I was like a man in a hideous nightmare, and I did only what men do in such a frenzy of terror and dismay.”
“What was that?”
“I fled like a madman from the spot and returned to the city. Avoiding observation, Mose, and stealing into this house by one of the side doors, I came here to my room. I have not since been out of it. I have not dared to go out. I have been waiting here, in abject fear and trembling, for the worst that may come. I know I am a coward Mose—a cur and a coward; but, so help me God, I have told you the whole truth!”
“I believe you, Royal,” said Nick. “But you have overlooked one very important fact.”
Royal started at the change of tone, and again grew deathly pale.
“What fact, Mose?” he faintly gasped.
“You have confessed yourself, not to Moses Flood, but to Nick Carter, the detective.”
And Nick grimly removed his heavy beard while he spoke, and rose abruptly to his feet.
For the bare fraction of a second Harry Royal hung fire under his sudden stress of alarm and excitement. He sat like a man momentarily dazed, with his hueless features drawn and twitching convulsively, and his wild eyes half starting from his head.