NICHOLAS CARTER

Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures, which are published exclusively in the new Magnet library, conceded to be among the best detective tales ever written.

Street & Smith Corporation Publishers
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

1904

[Illustration:  Cover of With Links of Steel]

Chapter I A crafty robbery. 
Chapter II concerning senora Cervera. 
Chapter III the Kilgore diamond gang. 
Chapter IV getting down to work. 
Chapter V behind the scenes. 
Chapter VI A shot in the dark. 
Chapter VII A strategic move. 
Chapter VIII found dead. 
Chapter IX Nick strikes A startling clew. 
Chapter X on the trail. 
Chapter XI the crime and the means. 
Chapter XII closing in. 
Chapter XIII crafty Cervera. 
Chapter XIV in A warm corner. 
Chapter XV the diamond plant. 
Chapter XVI the cunning of Jean Pylotte. 
Chapter XVII the game uncovered.
Chapter XVIII at cross-purposes. 
Chapter XIX hands showed down. 
Chapter XX the boot on the other leg. 
Chapter XXI an only resource. 
Chapter XXII the last trick.

WITH LINKS OF STEEL

CHAPTER I.

A crafty robbery.

“Mr. Venner, sir?”

“Mr. Venner—­yes, certainly.  You will find him in his private office—­that way, sir.  The door to the right.  Venner is in his private office, Joseph, is he not?”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Garside, unless he has just returned.  I saw him go out some time ago.”

“Is that so?  Wait a moment, young man.”

The young man halted, and then turned back to face Mr. Garside, with an inquiring look in his frank, brown eyes.

“Not here, sir, do I understand?” he asked, politely.

Mr. Garside shook his head.  He was a tall, slender man of forty, and was the junior partner of the firm of Rufus Venner & Co., a large retail jewelry house in New York City, with a handsome store on Fifth Avenue, not far from Madison Square.

It was in their store that this introductory scene occurred, and proved to be the initiatory step of one of the shrewdest and most cleverly executed robberies on record.