ed
Nick. "And after Cervera does her turn, in case Venner is there, and she
departs with him, you then may leave the couple to me. I'll be waiting
for them at the stage door."

"Right you are, Nick. So here goes!"

Shrewd deductions, indeed, those of Nick Carter.

Plainly enough, Garside was quite justified in his apprehension that
Rufus Venner had barked up the wrong tree.

CHAPTER V.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

Nick Carter had a double object in the work laid out for that night. If
Senora Cervera was indeed in league with the Kilgore gang, and in any
way responsible for the diamond robbery, Nick was resolved to secure
positive evidence of it.

While her letter to Venner appeared to implicate her, since it had taken
him from his store just at the time of the robbery, it seemed hardly
probable that this brilliant Spanish girl, whose extraordinary grace and
whirlwind dances had made her the talk of the town, could be identified
with a gang of criminals notorious the world over. Yet the bare
possibility existed, and Nick never ignored even the shadow of a clew.

He further reasoned that, in case Cervera was in league with the
suspected gang, one or more of them might visit the theater in which she
was performing, and Nick decided to have a look at the audience that
evening. He was sure he could identify Kilgore or any of his gang, even
if disguised, as would be very probable.

Nick's second object was that of learning the exact relations between
Senora Cervera and Rufus Venner, and a part of that work he confided to
Chick. With himself in the front of the house, and Chick on the stage,
Nick believed that nothing worth seeing would escape them.

His own search early in the evening, however, proved futile. It was the
last week but one of the mammoth vaudeville attraction, and the theater
was densely crowded. Though Nick watched the lobbies and the smoking
room, and also made a systematic study of the auditorium, he could
discover no sign of the parties he was seeking.

About nine o'clock he returned to his chair in the orchestra, and
settled himself to have a look at Cervera, whose act was one of the last
on the program.

Just at that time Chick Carter, in the overalls and blouse of a scene
shifter, made his first pertinent discovery--that Rufus Venner, clad in
immaculate evening dress, and carrying an Inverness topcoat on his arm,
had arrived upon the stage.

"He seems to be at home behind the scenes," so