"It was I who tore your mask of red hair from your head that night. I
had mistrusted you for a villain, and I meant to unmask you to save
Nell Darrel, whom I loved, from your wiles. You struck me with a knife
and pushed me into the river. I, however, was not harmed. The point of
your knife glanced on a small book that I carried in an inner pocket.
I escaped from the river, and resolved to follow you to your doom. I
overheard your plans of abducting Nell Darrel, when you fired at my
masked face that night as I peered into Mother Scarlet's room. I then
knew you to be a villain of the deepest dye. Since, I learned that you
were the man in disguise on the emigrant train in Iowa, and this wart
will, with other evidence, condemn you before an honest jury of your
peers."
A groan alone answered the denouement made by Harry Bernard.
Dyke Darrel removed the glove from his prisoner's right hand, and
exposed a scarcely-healed scar near the joint of the little finger.
The chain of evidence was complete. The red hair in the clutches of
the murdered Nicholson had evidently been torn from the false beard of
the disguised assassin.
The New Yorker was removed from the house and taken at once to prison.
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