ng carriage.

As it rolled rapidly away a second hack came bowling up to the curbstone
in front of Nick's residence. It was the carriage for which Chick had
sent a call.

"Don't cover your horses, cabbie!" cried Nick, sharply. "Wait about
three minutes, and we'll be with you."

"Right, sir!"

And Nick dashed back up the steps and into the house, meeting Chick in
the hall.

"What do you make of it, Nick?"

"Make of it?" cried Nick, with a laugh. "It's a cinch, Chick, dead open
and shut. Grab your hat and come with me. I'll explain in the carriage."

"Good enough! I'm with you, old man!"

"And we have no time to lose," cried Nick, "Now, then, we're off."

CHAPTER XI.

THE CRIME AND THE MEANS.

"Yes, Chick, it's as simple as two plus two, and we'll presently try to
bag a part of our quarry. But first of all, I want a bit of
corroborative evidence which I expect to get from that Hindoo snake
charmer, Pandu Singe."

"Going there first, Nick?"

"Yes; it will not take long. Then I think we shall have the strands for
a rope strong enough to hold that she-devil who murdered Mary Barton,"
grimly added Nick.

These remarks were made while the carriage containing the two detectives
was speeding through the city streets, then bright with the light and
life of the early evening.

"What a dastardly crime it was, Nick," observed Chick.

"It was the crime of a treacherous demon."

"With jealousy the chief motive, eh?"

"No doubt of it."

"Yet her venomous arrow found the wrong mark."

"That's just the size of it," said Nick. "In the light of what you saw
and heard on the stage that night, it is plain that Cervera is
passionately in love with Venner."

"Surely."

"You remember that you saw him talking with Violet Page, and then
observed Cervera in the opposite wings, angrily watching something or
somebody out of your range of view. Plainly enough, now, she was
watching Venner and the singer."

"No doubt of it," declared Chick. "And she looked fit to use a poniard
then and there."

"Jealousy," growled Nick. "She had been secretly watching Venner. She
had discovered his love for Violet, and decided that the girl was a
rival to be feared. Her fiery Spanish blood would shrink at nothing. She
went the limit, and tried to murder her rival. In so doing, however, she
but killed another."

"She must have worked adroitly to have accomplished what she did."

"It may not have been so very difficult," repl