"I wasn't at home. It was placed in my hands yesterday."
"And that is why you are here?"
"Not wholly."
There was a gloomy look on the face of the detective, not natural to it, and young Bernard knew that something had gone decidedly wrong with his detective friend.
"It is about Nell," said Dyke Darrel, when questioned. "She came to the city last evening, in answer to a letter purporting to come from me. The letter was a decoy from some villain, and I fear that Nell has met with a terrible fate."
A groan came at the last.
Harry Bernard's face blanched, and he, too, seemed excited and deeply moved. The keen eyes of Dyke Darrel noticed the young man's emotion, and he felt a suspicion growing stronger each moment.
"Nell in the city—decoyed!" exclaimed Harry at length. "Great heaven! Dyke, this is awful!" "It is."
Then the detective laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, and piercing him with a stern look, said in an awful voice:
"Harry Bernard, on your honor as a man, what do you know of this enticing of Nell to the city?"