morning. Let it be played as well, Philip, even to the finish--even to
the last ditch!"

Philip Garside's color had returned, and he smiled confidently and
nodded in approval.

Plainly enough, this hushed yet emphatic intercourse between these two
indicated one fact--that Detective Nick Carter was up against a far
deeper game than he then imagined.




CHAPTER IV.

GETTING DOWN TO WORK.


"Well, Nick, old man, what have you made of it?"

The question came from Chick Carter, in his familiar and cheerful
fashion, several hours after the interview held by the two detectives
with Rufus Venner and his partner in their Fifth Avenue store.

It was now about six o'clock in the evening, and Chick had just returned
from having a confidential talk with one of the stage hands of the
theater in which the then famous attraction, the mammoth European and
American vaudeville troupe, of which Señora Cervera was a star
attraction, had for several months been playing to crowded houses.