“Not having communicated openly with Floyd, and I having said nothing about this at the Waldmere residence, Bannon naturally will not fear that he is suspected,” Nick added. “Do you know him by sight, Patsy?”
“Well, rather!” Patsy exclaimed expressively. “I know the face of every rat of his kind from Harlem to the Battery.”
“Get out in disguise, then, and see what you can accomplish,” Nick abruptly directed. “I will begin a still-hunt for Floyd himself, in the meantime, also for the two men who got away with the cases. This work must be done in record time, mind you, or it will be all off with the Waldmere plate.”
“Record time goes!” cried Patsy, hastening to make ready.
“By this time to-morrow, perhaps, unless we can prevent it, the melting pot will have turned the priceless plate into ingots, precluding identification, and which could be sold for good, hard cash,” Nick declared, rising. “It’s up to us to head off that deviltry and round up these crooks.”
CHAPTER V.
ANGEL FACE.
Chick Carter was the first of the three detectives to leave home on the work assigned him. Carefully disguised, Chick boarded a subway train and arrived shortly before three o’clock in the neighborhood of the Waldmere residence.
Nick had made it a point to learn before leaving that morning that none of the servants were in the habit of going out before three on the afternoon and evening allowed them.
Chick easily found a concealment from which he could watch both the side and rear door of the house, from one of which he knew that Minerva Grand would depart, if she availed herself of the privilege afforded. Though inclined to agree with Nick, in that the latter’s suspicions were correct, it seemed almost incredible to Chick that a girl of Minerva’s appearance and bearing could willingly have a hand in any kind of crime.
“She’s the most innocent-looking wisp of a girl I ever did see,” he said to himself while surveying the doors and windows of the stately residence. “She may have been lured into the job, or forced into it by some means. It would be very like Stuart Floyd to take advantage of her artlessness, knowing that she would be about the last to invite suspicion. This afternoon and evening ought to settle it, at all events.”