“We will do our best to find him, Miss Saulsbury, dead or alive.”
When she had withdrawn and the clicking of her small shoes diminished in the corridor outside, Millard stepped forward.
“That was mighty interesting, Captain! Don’t mind our listening! So that little lady was in love with Horton, eh? Saulsbury—from Bethlehem! She must be the daughter of ‘Big Jim’ Saulsbury, of International Steel! Do you think she was trying to—er, stall?”
“No.” The Captain shook his head. “Her motive was honest and straightforward enough, I think. She made only one misstatement, or attempt at evasion.”
“What was that?”
Storm drew closer to catch the reply.
“That she intended to put the case in the hands of private detectives; she has already done so.—At eleven o’clock this morning, to be exact. You see, gentlemen, her house has been watched since midnight and she has been under surveillance every moment. We could take no chances, and in cases of this sort we look first for the woman!”
Chapter XIX.
Found
When, a few minutes later, they came down the steps of the building, Millard was still descanting on the infallible methods of the bureau they had just quitted; but Storm was silent, although in his heart he gave grudging assent to the eulogy. They were thorough, for a fact; he had not anticipated such extensive work on the part of the police in so short a time. The alarm sent out at sundown from Pennsylvania for the missing man, and by midnight his record known and the house in which his sweetheart lived placed under surveillance!
To Millard and himself as mere curious visitors no information had been dropped, and he had an uneasy idea that the mental reservation indicated by Captain Nairn’s attitude concealed a far deeper knowledge of the case than had been given out to the press. In the latter’s manner, especially when they shook hands at the moment of departure, he felt that, had the Captain chosen to speak, he might have learned something of vital importance to himself. Had the bag been already discovered at the station, and was the porter’s memory for faces more keen than he had judged? Were detectives even now scouring the city for a man of his personal description?