“Don’t say a word,” interrupted Nick. “I’ll look through the room by myself. I shan’t even bring my assistant with me. Good night, if you are not here when I come back.”
They shook hands again—for each respected the ability and sterling qualities of the other—and Nick Carter went out.
The detective was sharp-eyed, and it was seldom that any detail escaped him. But he did not see an ugly yellow face, with black, oblique-set eyes, in the narrow slit between the heavy brocaded curtains that covered one of the windows. Yet that yellow face had been there from the first—even when Ruggins was involuntarily summoned by the murdered man when he fell from his chair with the crossed needles in his heart.
CHAPTER II.
THE MAN WITH THE SCARS.
When Nick Carter went out of the home of Andrew Anderton, he stood for a moment in the shadow of the front entrance, looking sharply about him. Particularly his gaze rested upon the blackness of the park on the opposite side of the avenue, and he tried to make out whether anybody might be lurking in the deep obscurity of the shade trees.[Pg 7]
It was his experience, as a detective, that where there had been an unusual crime committed, some of those concerned were pretty sure to linger in the vicinity. Always they were anxious to know what direction suspicion would take.
“I believe I see something moving over there,” muttered Nick.
With an abrupt turn to the left, as he walked off the stone steps of the mansion, it seemed as if he were going to make his way on foot down the avenue, notwithstanding that a taxicab was waiting for him half a block up the thoroughfare. But this was only a ruse. As he got to a dark spot, where big trees overshadowed the roadway, he suddenly darted across to the other side.
“I thought so,” he remarked, behind his closed teeth. “But he’s inside the park railings. By the time I got to a gate he’d be far away, and the fence is too high to climb over—unless there were an absolute necessity. Even if I were to climb, it would take me too long to get that fellow.”
Nick Carter continued his stroll toward downtown, in the hope of deceiving the watcher, whoever he might be. Then, swinging around, he ran back. So sudden was this move, that he actually got to the railings and found himself close to the eavesdropper before the latter had time to get away.