It was about half past ten when Patsy Garvan heard Carney and Larry Trent hurry out of the house in which he found himself effectively trapped.
Less than half an hour later a rather roughly clad man with bearded face and rounded shoulders, a face and figure denoting that he was well along in years, passed the Carnegie Library and crossed Vernon Square, and a few minutes later fell to sizing up an apartment house in a neighboring street.
It was one of those attractive places of the kind with which Washington abounded, a double rise of flats entered from a neatly trimmed front yard, with well-shaded grounds on either side of the ivy-grown brick edifice.
The ground-floor flat on one side was occupied by a solitary and exclusive tenant, the ex-army officer, Captain Casper Dillon. He kept no servants and had very few visitors. He was lounging in his library, clad in a smoking jacket and absorbed in the morning newspapers, when his bell rang.[{32}]
He glanced through the partly open French window, which overlooked the side grounds and a walk leading around to the rear door. He could not see who was in the front vestibule.
He arose, pausing for a moment, and then took a revolver from the table drawer and slipped it into his hip pocket.
Striding through the hall, he opened the front door and gazed a bit sharply at his caller—the bearded man with rounded shoulders.
“Well, sir?” he said shortly.
“I’m sent here to see Captain Dillon, sir,” said the visitor, with subdued and husky voice. “Is he at home this morning?”
“He is seldom at home to strangers,” Captain Dillon replied, with sharper scrutiny. “What is your business?”