Nick was right: one glance at the man’s death-swept face was enough.
In the awful stress of his horror, terror, and excitement, Nathan Godard had ruptured an artery of his brain.
The rest, involving the subsequent fortunes of those who have figured in these pages, may be briefly and simply told.
Godard died within an hour, without regaining consciousness, and thus cheated human justice, only to meet at a divine tribunal the punishment he deserved.
From Belle Braddon, however, whom fear of punishment now drove to a confession, the facts were obtained that fully established Godard’s guilt.
He had left the faro-bank just after seeing Kendall win the ninety thousand dollars, and when the latter emerged Godard shadowed him to Fordham.
As Nick Carter had shrewdly reasoned, Kendall went to peer through the library window before entering the rectory. Godard, meantime, had seen Flood arrive and hitch his team at the rear gate, putting his heavy cane in the body of the buggy.
Flood, however, wishing to see Dora Royal alone, had not gone directly to that side of the house on which the crime was committed, but had passed slowly around it, in the hope of attracting her attention from one of the windows.
Godard, meantime, secured Flood’s cane, waylaid and killed Kendall, then made off with the satchel of money, afterward concealing the cane in the brushwood, that the crime might be charged to Flood.
The latter, upon coming around the house, had seen only Harry Royal, with the results already set forth.