“That goes without saying,” he admitted. “As a matter of fact, Nick, it was not the same portfolio.”
“The whole business had been substituted?”
“Exactly. The substituted portfolio was so like his own, however, that he did not detect the difference until after he had opened it,” said Welden. “His own was nearly new and his name was written with ink on the inside of a flap that closes it, and which is secured with two small straps and buckles. There was no name in the substituted portfolio. It was slightly defaced, moreover, so like his own that he detected no difference.”
“Which plainly denotes that whoever turned the trick, or planned and directed the job, was perfectly familiar with Garland’s portfolio,” said Nick.
“That is obvious, of course,” Chief Welden agreed.
Nick Carter took up the matter as if it were merely a petty theft, instead of one threatening the nation. No need to tell him, nevertheless, of the terrible danger from further construction in accord with the stolen plans, or of the vast expense and innumerable difficulties in changing them, they presumably having been made to the best advantages discernible to the expert government engineers in charge of that part of the work. One scarce could conceive of a more serious and possibly far-reaching loss.
Nick gazed at Chief Welden for a moment, then asked tersely:
“Any clew?”
“None, so far,” was the reply.
“You suspect it was the work of the spies mentioned?”