How was the robbery committed? How did Cady figure in it, and what became of him? How had Nick been overcome, and why had he been carried away by the bandits, assuming that he had not been killed and thrown from the car?
Chick did not believe the last. He would have seen the body when hastening up the tracks. He knew that these crooks would commit murder only as a last resort, moreover, and the evidence in the car did not point to bloodshed and murder.
Chick felt reasonably sure, in fact, that Nick was alive and in the hands of the desperadoes.
“Two empty packing cases and an open safe, opened by means of the combination,” he mused intently. “No force apparent except what must have been required to get the best of Nick and Cady. But could two men concealed in packing cases, and the cases could not have contained more than two, have overcome two such men as Nick and Cady? By Jove, it doesn’t seem possible.
“Nor could Janet Payson’s companion have had any hand in the work done in the express car. He would have had time only to disconnect the train, which he certainly went forward to do. All that was cut and dried, previously planned, and it was done by a man expert at such work.
“Is it possible, then, that Cady is in league with these crooks? Did he hold up Nick and get him with the help of his hidden confederates? Did he open the safe? Did he substitute—stop one moment! By Jove, there was no substitute money package in the car, nor in the safe, or I must surely have seen it. I made a thorough inspection.”
Chick’s brows knit closer under the mental concentration with which he strove to fathom the conflicting circumstances.
“That special-delivery letter certainly mentioned a substitute. It read, I remember distinctly: ‘We’ll have the substitute down fine in ample time and the other dead to rights.’
“H’m, that’s not so clear, in view of what has occurred and the fact that no substitute money package was found in the car. It certainly is worded a bit oddly. To have one dead to rights is a term usually applied to a situation, a gang, or a man; not to a parcel, package, or anything of that kind.
“By Jove, it may in this case have been a man. The substitute may have been a man in place of Cady. That would explain Cady’s disappearance from the car. A man made up to perfectly resemble Cady—that’s it, by gracious, as sure as I’m a foot high,” Chick decided. “That’s why Martin worded the letter in that way, that he’d have a substitute down fine, in ample time. A substitute to take Cady’s place in the express car—that’s what!”