CHAPTER XIX.

Hands showed down.

Spotty Dalton stood at the door of the open carriage when Nick and Chick emerged from the house, still clad in the character of Hindoos.

“Are you sent here by Mr. Venner?” inquired Nick.

Dalton touched the cloth cap drawn low over his brow, and stroked his dark, false beard as he replied: 

“Yes, sir,” said he, half in his throat.  “You’re the interpreter, I take it.”

“At your service.”

“I’m a bit late, but it couldn’t be helped.  We’ll not be long in getting there.”

“Time does not matter to the great Pandu Singe,” replied Nick, as he followed Chick into the open landau.  “The night is still long.”

“It’ll be infernally long for you two meddlers,” Dalton grimly said to himself, as he banged the carriage door and mounted to the box.

Then they rolled rapidly away toward a northern suburb of the city.

The dusk of evening was already deepening to darkness, a gloom more noticeable far up in the heavens than among the myriad of lights in the city streets.  For not a star was visible in the murky sky, and away in the west huge banks of inky clouds were sweeping up toward the zenith, indicating the rapid approach of a sudden storm.

“Do you think it is going to rain, driver?” called Nick, from the rear seat of the carriage.

“Not soon,” Dalton turned to answer; and then he added with grim significance, which he did not dream would be appreciated:  “Whether it rains or not, you’ll be brought back home in a closed carriage.”

“It’s my private opinion that the boot will be on the other leg,” thought Nick, smiling faintly at the scoundrel’s grim levity.

For Dalton had implied that Nick would be brought back in a hearse.

From that time but few words were spoken during the ride, though the detectives occasionally passed a remark in their meaningless lingo, merely to keep up appearances.

At eight o’clock they had left the throbbing body of the city behind them, and at half-past eight they were speeding along the deserted suburban road leading to Venner’s rather isolated homestead.

Only the yellow glare of an incandescent lamp here and there now relieved the terrestrial gloom, but across the distant heavens intermittent flashes of light, followed by the low, sullen roll of thunder, told of the approaching storm.

Soon the lighted windows of Venner’s house came into view through the woodland, and Nick now murmured softly to Chick: 

“If I fail to rejoin you in ten minutes, you will know what to do.”

“You bet!” whispered Chick.  “Trust me to do it, too!”

“Here we are, sirs,” cried Dalton, as he pulled up at the gate of the gravel walk.  “You can go right in, while I wait to look after my horses.”

Chick—­as Pandu Singe—­pretended to give Nick a brief command, and Nick alone sprang out upon the sidewalk.