Flood threw back his head with a cry of relief too great for words, and Nick Carter laughed deeply and sprang up to grasp him by the hand.
“You are one man in ten million, Mose, who would thus lay down his life for the love of another,” he cried warmly. “Calm yourself, old chap. I told you I was a friend on whom you could rely.”
Flood gazed at him with glistening eyes.
“Before Heaven, Nick, I owe you a debt I can never repay,” said he, with much emotion.
“Pshaw,” laughed Nick heartily. “As you men say who writhe under the tiger’s claws, as you lately have been writhing, Mose, I have merely called the turn for you. Run you in, eh? No, no, my man, not I. When I make a move of that kind I want the right man. To get the bracelets on him—that’s the work that still lies before me. It may prove to be the most difficult and dangerous of all. The relations of you two men—humph! the adjustment of them was easy.”
Even thus indifferently could the great detective regard the clever work by which he had verified many of his suspicions through bringing these two men together.
The explanations that presently followed served to greatly clear the situation, despite that they offered no clue to Kendall’s assassin.
Harry Royal’s story, as previously told to Nick, was entirely true.
As regarded Flood, it appeared that he had driven to Fordham in a buggy, in the body of which he had placed his cane. Wishing to secretly have a last interview with Dora Royal, he had hitched his team at the rear gate, then crossed the rectory grounds to try to see her. As he approached the house, however, he saw Royal by the light from the library windows, crouching above the body of Kendall, who must have been slain but a brief time before.
Before Flood could accost him, Royal leaped up and fled at the top of his speed. After the threats the latter had made, Flood felt sure he had committed the murder. Overwhelmed by the discovery, he had at once driven back to town and put up his team, entirely forgetting the cane which he had when starting out.