“That may be a matter of days—or weeks—yet, Clayton,” the detective warned him. “You must try to forget it sometimes.”
“How can I?” was the dejected response. “If I had never touched it, nothing of this would have happened. I am the person responsible, and it is I who must make good.”
For three hours all four of the men who were trying to hunt down John Garrison Rayne lay quietly in their respective bedrooms in the Ionic Hotel.
Nick Carter was the only one of the three who did not undress entirely. He contented himself with removing part of his clothing and taking off his shoes.
Lying on the outside of the bed, he slept as soundly as any of his associates.
It was about eleven o’clock when he awoke. Immediately he sat up, with all his faculties about him.
The famous detective had long before trained himself to wake at the very instant he desired, without any outside help. When he lay down he impressed it on his mind that he must arouse at a certain time. Never yet had he failed to do so.
So, when he woke up now in the darkness, he knew, before he turned his pocket flash lamp on his watch, what the time would be.
Pulling down the window shade in the darkness, he switched on two electric lights at the dresser and smiled at his own reflection.
“I’ll have to change this a little,” he muttered. “Just a gray mustache and goatee, with a few lines on my face, will make me safe. My clothes will do, I think.”