Senora Cervera still retained her uptown house, and frequently received
Venner as a visitor; but never a sign of the diamond gang, or of any
stranger, could the detectives discover, in or about her place.
Rufus Venner was attending to his business as usual, and appeared all
aboveboard. Now and then he called upon Nick about the stolen diamonds,
expressing a hope that they would be recovered; but in no way did he
lay himself open to further suspicions than Nick had at first conceived.
Yet Nick was too shrewd to press him with questions, and so perhaps
betray his own hand. As a matter of fact, the famous detective was in
quite a quandary over the case, because of his conviction that some big
game was secretly afoot, and his utter inability to strike any tangible
clew to it.
Such a state of affairs was very unusual, and Nick chafed under it. It
indicated that he was up against men as good as himself, and his vain
work of the past ten days served only to aggravate him, and embitter his
grim and inflexible determination to unearth the whole business.
This Monday afternoon, as Nick and Chick were passing Central Park, the
attention of the latter was drawn toward a group of men in one of the
park walks, somewhat removed from the street.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81