Uttering a gasp of horror, she forced her way farther into the little place.
Nick Carter was between her and the object she tried to see, and he was busy.
On a wooden bench, with a perforated seat, which ran around three sides of the summerhouse, lay a man, unconscious apparently. He was bound hand and foot, and the ropes about his body had been run through the perforations of the seat, as well as around the whole bench itself.
Whoever had done the work had used cruel ingenuity to make sure the prisoner should not break loose.
“It is not Marcos!” suddenly exclaimed Claudia.
Nick Carter first of all pulled from the mouth of the captive a handkerchief that had been tightly fastened about his lips. As he did so, a wedge of cloth dropped from between the teeth.
“Is it murder?” asked Chick, trying to look over his chief’s shoulder.
“Looks like it,” was Nick Carter’s curt reply.
It did indeed look like it, for the victim’s lips were blue, his face livid, and his eyes had closed.
The detective cut the bonds with two or three slashes of his pocketknife, and Claudia Solado heaved a deep-drawn sigh.