“Nevertheless, it is not well to work seriously without proper meals. Will you honor me by taking breakfast here?”
“Thank you, I will,” answered Matthew Bentham. “Now that I have confided the case to your hands, I am not so worried, and my appetite seems to be returning.”
CHAPTER V.
THE HOLLOW TABLE LEG.
When Matthew Bentham’s motor car left Nick Carter’s house, it held, besides Bentham, the chauffeur, and Nick, the latter’s assistant, Chick.
The detective had explained that he often found Chick’s quick observation of inestimable benefit, and Bentham had been only too willing for him to accompany them.
“I confess the whole thing is such a puzzle to me that I cannot see how even you are to get to the bottom of it,” he remarked, as the car swept over the Manhattan Bridge. “Perhaps Mr. Chick will see into the problem. At all events, the more there are working on it, the better chance there seems to be of success.”
Once in the library in Matthew Bentham’s house, with the door locked, and only Bentham, Carter, and Chick in the room, the detective proceeded to make a close examination of the window. There was only one window, and it overlooked a garden at the back of the house.
Access to this garden could be obtained from the street through a narrow passageway at the side of the house, which was guarded by a high wooden gate, with a row of spikes on top. The gate had a spring lock, which could be opened from without only by a key.
“The window has an electric burglar alarm, Carter,” observed Bentham, as Nick began to look it over. “There was no indication that it had been tampered with when I examined it this morning. The catch was properly secured, too. I can’t think the thief got in that way.”
Nick Carter did not reply. Instead, he called to Chick, and throwing open the window, went through and dropped to the garden beneath.