CHAPTER IV.
HOW NICK SIZED IT UP.
Nick Carter entered his Madison Avenue residence at four o’clock that afternoon and hurried into his library, in which Chick Carter and Patsy Garvan were awaiting him.
Their investigations in the Hotel Westgate had ended abruptly temporarily some time before. They had been productive of no more than has appeared. No additional clews were discovered. No trace of the stolen jewel cases had been found, nor any evidence or testimony obtained pointing to the identity of the thief, aside from that involving Chester Clayton, the one most important man in the house, and the only one, in fact, or a perfect counterfeit of him, could so have obtained the jewel cases from the hotel vault.
Numerous persons had been found who had seen him in the hotel office and corridor, nevertheless, or positively testified thereto; but none who had seen the stranger he described, and on whom alone he could depend to corroborate his statements and establish his innocence.
As a result of all this, both Mademoiselle Falloni and Madame Escobar had insisted that Clayton must be arrested, which was reluctantly done by Detective Webber, despite the objections of Nick Carter and his refusal to comply with the insistent demands of the famous vocalists.
The mission from which Nick was returning at four o’clock, however, appeared in his first remark.
“Well, I got him out,” he said, while removing his coat and hat.
“On bail?” Chick tersely questioned.
“Yes. I had to put up some argument, however, and his bondsmen a cool thirty thousand dollars,” said Nick, laughing a bit grimly. “I promised Judge Sadler that I would find the real crooks and recover the jewels, or, rather, I predicted it, and it now is up to us to make good.”
“Make good, chief, is right,” declared Patsy. “I’m on nettles to get at it, for fair, if I only knew where and how to begin.”