“I also said that I had no doubt you would see him, and that he’d better come over from Brooklyn—that’s where he lives—and get to our house by the time you were there.”
“That was right. Did he say he would come?”
“Yes. He said he would come over in his motor car and be there in a few minutes.”
So well had Matthew Bentham timed himself that his car drew up in front of the Madison Avenue house just as Nick Carter and Chick walked up from Madison Square. The three entered the house together, while the chauffeur kept the car at the curb, to wait.
“It’s gone!” were Matthew Bentham’s first words, as soon as they were in the library. “I’ve just found it out.”
“You mean the package of papers sent by Andrew Anderton?”
“Yes. There are not many things would have made me trouble you at this time of the morning, so you can easily guess. I was tired when I got home last night, after that reception at Ched Ramar’s, or I would have looked then to see that the records were safe. But I went to the place where I had put them the first thing this morning, even before breakfast.”
“In a secret place?”
“Yes. The one I told you about yesterday afternoon.[Pg 15]”
“Did you say nobody knew where they were but yourself? Think hard, please. You are quite sure you have never let it out to your daughter, for instance?”