“I don’t know about that. But I hope we are getting a net around the rascals. I don’t think I shall be away more than an hour. I’m going to see Mr. Bentham, over in Brooklyn. If I don’t find anything there, I’ll come back as fast as Danny Maloney can bring me. If there is anything to keep me, I’ll telephone you right in this room from Mr. Bentham’s house. Get all that?”
“Every word. So long!”
Patsy moved over to the window and ensconced himself behind the curtain, in accordance with his instructions, and Nick Carter drove away to Brooklyn.
CHAPTER XI.
THE LETTER.
Although this was the first time Nick Carter had ever visited Professor Matthew Bentham in his home, he had met him several times, at meetings of scientific societies and at public dinners.
The detective was a student, and whenever he could take time away from his main calling, that of investigator into strange crimes and seemingly unsolvable mysteries, he was pretty sure to be actively interested in the progress of the world from a scientific standpoint.
So, when he was ushered into the library of Matthew Bentham, in a quiet avenue in the shadow of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, the two met as old and valued friends.
Matthew Bentham had been sitting at his large table, an open letter in one hand and a crumpled newspaper in the other, as Nick entered. That he was deeply shocked was evident at the first glance. His hand shook as he gave it to the detective, and it was in a shaky voice that he requested his old friend to take a chair.
“I see you have read the awful news of Andrew Anderton’s death at the moment you got his letter, professor,” remarked Nick. “I thought it might happen in that way.”
“Why, how did you know?” asked Bentham, in surprise. “It seems to me sometimes as if you know things that you could get only by some supernatural intuition. How did you know I have a letter from Anderton?[Pg 37]”