er's dark face and he muttered under his breath,
as the store door closed upon Nick's imposing figure:

"Hear from you later, eh? Very good. Very good, indeed, Mr. Detective
Carter! Hear from you again--that is precisely what I want! Early and
often, Detective Carter; early and often, if you please! It is precisely
for what the little robbery of this April morning was invented!"

"But was it necessary--was it really necessary, Rufus?" whispered
Garside, who alone had overheard, and whose paler face and tremulous
figure betrayed fears which his swarthy senior partner would have
scorned to feel. "This Carter is a most artful and discerning man. I am
so afraid you have barked up the wrong tree. Was it necessary, really
necessary, Rufus?"

Venner turned upon him with a half-smothered snarl of contempt.

"Bah! You'd be afraid of your own shadow, Garside, if left alone with
it," he sneered, between his white, even teeth. "Necessary--of course it
was necessary! Otherwise, I should not have adopted the ruse. We are
about to attempt a big game--an infernally big game! When it matures,
when it is finally launched, the very first concern that finds itself
bitten will rush to Nick Carter for aid."

"There is no doubt of that, Rufus."

"Surely no doubt of it! He is the greatest detective in the country--and
the greatest will be none too clever, nor too expensive, for those who
find themselves duped by our unparalleled design."

"I should say so."

"What will be the result, Philip?--what will be the result?" added
Venner, with a curious mingling of exultation and asperity. "If our
victims appeal to Nick Carter for help--are we not also already in his
good graces? Have we not insured his confidence in us by this little
move of to-day? Will he not reveal himself and his suspicions to us,
just as I have designed, and keep us posted about his every move, and so
forewarned and forearmed? Of course he will--to be sure he will!"

"But he is such a crafty and daring--"

"Bah! Is he more crafty than Dave Kilgore?" demanded Venner,
significantly. "Is he more daring than Spotty Dalton, or more determined
than anyone of the Kilgore gang? Not by a long chalk, Philip, and I know
of them of whom I speak. Ay, as much and more of them than does
Detective Nick Carter."

"Perhaps you are right, Rufus," murmured Garside, nodding. "We certainly
are about launching a tremendous, an utterly unparalleled, swindle. The
like of it was never, neve