His eyes were on her, and he beckoned. When she went over to him, he said, in a cool voice, without any symptom of disturbance:
“The corridor seems to be clear. We can do nothing more here. Let us go.”
Drawing her hand through his arm with the courtly ease that came naturally to him, the detective stalked down the side hallway in which the encounter had taken place, until they were in the main corridor.
“I think I will go home now, if you will have somebody call a taxicab for me,” she said. “I wish I could thank you, as I ought. But—but, you see, I do not even know your name.”
“My name is Carter—Nicholas Carter.”
“Carter!” she repeated. “I shall not forget that name.”
He took a cardcase from his pocket and from it drew a card, on which was his address, as well as his name.
It did not strike him as peculiar that she did not seem to have heard of him—or, if she had, did not connect him with the detective of international renown.
He knew that such a girl as this, who, presumably, lived a sheltered life, in a home where police matters were very much detached from her existence, was quite likely never to have heard of Nick Carter. It pleased him just as well to think that she never had.
“My services are small enough,” he answered, with a smile. “Should you desire them at any time, I shall always be pleased to aid you. I cannot help thinking there may be a sequel to this adventure of to-night. If there is, I should like to be in it.”