“Sure!” replied Patsy, glad to have something to do.
There was ten minutes at the telephone, and Patsy announced that Mr. Portersham had been a passenger on the steamer Spangled Star, which left at ten o’clock the night before.
“The blackguard!” ejaculated Portersham, adding something under his breath that was rather strong, but hardly to be wondered at in the circumstances. “You’ll follow him up, won’t you?”
The eyes of Nick Carter narrowed, and his firm jaw seemed to take on additional hardness, as he replied:
“I have business with that fellow, John Garrison Rayne, Mr. Portersham, that has brought me all the way from New York. That is the only reason I am here. When I do round him up—as I will before he is a month older—I’ll make him answer for all that he has done. That means that you will be avenged, I assure you.”
“You will have to go to New York after him, I suppose?”
“That is where we must look first,” returned Nick.
Portersham clenched his fists, and, although weakened by his many hours of torturing confinement, he showed an energy which would become more powerful as he regained his strength.
“I wish I could go with you, Mr. Carter,” he said. “I don’t mind a straight fight. But this——”
The telephone bell rang. Patsy whipped the receiver off the hook and shouted “Hello!”