CHAPTER XVIITHE GIRL AND THE CRIME.
It was with a feeling of some chagrin that Nick Carter realized his desperate situation the moment the heavy iron doors of the walled passage closed upon him, leaving him alone in the Egyptian darkness of the tomblike place.
Yet the trick by which he had been caught was one to have deceived any man. Only a clairvoyant could have seen that the doors worked jointly and under the motive of powerful springs.
Though alert and watchful from the moment he had entered the house with Belle Braddon, he had not looked for such a trap as this.
Keenly suspicious, knowing in fact that the girl was up to some knavish game, Nick had suspected that he was being led into Flood’s house with a design to throw him into the hands of several assailants, a situation which w
