“That goes, too.”
“I doubt very much that he would have gone so far as to buy a big estate, build and furnish a fine residence, and then bolt with a girl he has known less than six months.”
“But he evidently met her voluntarily yesterday afternoon.”
“She may have wheedled him into doing so.”
“But how, if Gordon did not remove them, could she have got the bonds and securities from his vault?”
“Chick will try to find out. I have left that to him, and given him all of the necessary points. It is useless for us to speculate upon it.”
“Gee, it’s surely some case, chief, and likely to become a difficult one,” said Patsy. “It’s odd, too, that Miss Strickland has felt so apprehensive of deviltry by Mortimer Deland since his escape.”
“That’s like a girl of her sensitive nature.”
“For all that, chief, Deland must be a mighty slick gink, or he never could have given the hospital guards the slip in female attire, to say nothing of having contrived to secretly get the garments. That whole business is still a mystery.”
“And likely to continue one,” said Nick. “It looked to me like bribery, Patsy, rather than cleverness on Deland’s part, and the bribery of a prison official is difficult to expose.”