Doctor Farrell clattered down the stairs and out to the avenue, where his automobile was waiting. Nick Carter was glad to get rid of him. He sat down at the big table and took a white envelope out of the top drawer.
A moment’s comparison of the envelope with the scrap that Patsy had found on the stairs at Sun Jin’s laundry was sufficient to convince the detective that they were of the same kind. Then he looked into the wastebasket, which had never been emptied since the death of Anderton.
A low cry of satisfaction came from Nick Carter’s lips as he found some scraps of an envelope among the other torn paper.
With patience and care, the detective pieced the fragments together, until he had a sort of framework of an envelope. From the middle of it had been torn part of a name and address, which he was convinced had been that of Matthew Bentham.
“Yes,” he murmured, looking at the pieced envelope through the strong glass. “Here is the ‘M’ which he failed to tear off, and below is the whole word, ‘Brooklyn,’ with the initials ‘N. Y.’ I see. He wanted the address of Bentham, but he did not trouble to take the name of the borough. He knew it was in Brooklyn, anyhow.”
“Have you got something, chief?” asked Patsy, who had been watching in silence. “Did that bit of paper I got help at all?”
Nick Carter laughed a hearty, but silent, laugh.
“It has helped me to know where Professor Tolo has gone, or will go, I think,” he answered. “I’m going to see if I can find him. You stay here, however. I have a feeling that the mystery of Andrew Anderton’s death may be solved in or near his own home.”
“I don’t see, exactly,” replied Patsy. “But if you think Tolo had something to do with it, why don’t you nab him, and prove it on him afterward. That’s the way the police do, generally.”
“It’s a good way, too, in some cases, Patsy. But I want to get more than one man now. Besides, I don’t believe Professor Tolo actually committed this murder.”