“I can do that, perhaps,” said Patsy. “I can learn from police headquarters just where he has gone. You can go there and see him, or—where are you phoning from, Mr. Mantell?”
“From the office of Gray’s wharf, East River. I cannot explain by telephone. If——”
“One moment,” Patsy interrupted. “Have you a taxi?”
“I have my touring car.”
“Good enough! Join me here as quickly as possible. I’ll find out in the meantime where Nick is engaged. We’ll go there and see him.”
“Thanks, Garvan, a thousand times. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”
It then was about ten o’clock in the morning. One hour earlier, complying with an urgent telephone request from the police headquarters, Nick Carter and Chick arrived in the detective’s touring car at a dwelling in one of the outskirts of Manhattanville, the scene of a shocking crime evidently committed the previous night.
It was an attractive wooden house somewhat back from the street and occupying a corner lot.
It was in a quiet and entirely reputable locality, though somewhat thinly settled, and it was about the last neighborhood in which such a crime would have been expected.
More than a score of people had collected on the opposite side of the street, and were viewing the house with feelings of morbid curiosity. They were prevented from coming nearer, however, or encroaching upon the surrounding grounds, by policemen who had been stationed on both the front and side gates.