“Yes, Nora,” the boy replied, in firm tones, “and I am going to stay, too. My stepfather, Martin Murdock, is a wicked man. He lured me to a wretched tenement in West Randolph street, where an Italian villain has been keeping me a prisoner. But after a month of captivity I escaped from there to-night, and now I have come back to make Martin Murdock tell me why he did this?”
“Oh, the rascal!” indignantly cried the girl. “He told us that he sent you off to boarding-school. Come in, Joe, come in.”
“Is my stepfather in the house?”
“Yes; you will find him in the front parlor.”
The boy entered the mansion and disappeared from the detective’s view.
Reynard vented a whistle expressive of intense astonishment.
“Holy smoke!” he muttered. “Here’s a daisy game! Never thought I was going to drop onto a family affair of this kind. Wonder if I could hear what goes on in the parlor if I get up on the stoop?”
He saw that the parlor windows were partly open at the top, and mounting the stairs he crouched in the doorway.
Joe had gone into the parlor.
A well-built man, in stylish clothing, stood in the room.