The next moment, unable to restrain himself, Chick had leaped from his hiding place and hurled himself upon the Chinaman!
CHAPTER VIII.
CHICK MAKES DISCOVERIES.
It was not a wise thing for Chick to do, of course. But that same excessive enthusiasm which had induced him to come here, on his own responsibility, instead of going to bed, as he had been told to do by his chief, made him indiscreet now.
That he had the man whom Nick Carter had told Patsy to find, he was sure. But whether the Chinaman had killed Andrew Anderton or not was a question he could not answer positively.
“I don’t doubt it,” he thought. “Anyhow, what is he doing up in this room at this time in the morning? I’ll lay him out on general principles.”
It is pretty certain that Chick would have carried out this purpose if he had had only the Chinaman to deal with. But there was an interruption. He had the fellow by the throat and was cheerfully throttling him, when a heavy weight came down on the back of his head. He knew no more.
When Chick came to himself again, there were thin, white threads of light stealing into the room between the slightly parted window curtains. Daylight had come.
“Fool!” was Chick’s first articulate utterance.
The epithet was not applied to the man who had knocked him down, or the Chinaman with whom he had been struggling when the blow came, either. He was calling himself a fool.
“The chief is always telling me not to fly off the handle,” he continued, in a mumbling whisper. “And I’m always doing it. What chance had I when that tall old fraud was right behind me? As soon as I tackled the chink, of course, Mr. Professor let me have it with a sandbag.”