"
"Thanks," said Nick, dryly. "I'll take you home with me for the night."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GAME UNCOVERED.
The following morning.
The clock in Nick Carter's library was striking nine.
Nick and Chick were seated at one side of the table, and Jean Pylotte
occupied a chair at the opposite side.
Upon the dark cloth top of the table between them lay two large
diamonds, declared by Pylotte to have been artificially made, the two
with which he claimed to have been swindled.
Yet to the eyes of a layman they had all the qualities of natural gems,
gleaming and glistening with magnificent fire in the cheerful sunlight
of Nick's library.
Pylotte had invented a very clever and consistent story about himself
and his mission in New York, as well as about the meeting and being
victimized by the counterfeit diamond shover, and Nick as yet saw no
occasion for seriously distrusting him, or connecting him with the
Kilgore gang.
He rather suspected, in fact, that Pylotte had shadowed the swindler,
whom Nick felt sure was Kilgore, with a view to learning just how the
diamonds had been manufactured, and possibly with a design to turn the
discovery to his own advantage.
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