For an hour the two men were in close confab. What they were talking about may be revealed later. For the present, it is enough to say that the man told his unexpected guest to call him Louden Powers, and that henceforth T. Burton Potter must remember his own name was—something else.
It would have surprised both the gentlemen in that back room if they had known that they had for all that time been under the eye of one who never did a thing, no matter how strange it might appear, save with a set purpose—Nick Carter, the world-renowned detective.
Yet it was true. Nick had “broken in,” as he had told Patsy Garvan he might. He had not had much trouble, for T. Burton Potter had forgotten to lock the door after letting himself in.
The detective had come in that way, about the time Louden Powers was absorbed in the business of keeping Potter under his pistol while he parleyed with him in the library.
If Powers had not been so much taken up with his prisoner, he might have been more careful. In that case, he might have looked into the dining room, to make sure neither of his two servants—who slept at the top of the house—were spying on him. That would have meant that Nick must have dodged.
As it was, there was nothing of the kind, and he merely stood behind a big chair and looked over the top of it until the conference between the two persons in the back room came to an end.
“You will sleep in this house till we get things going,” were the closing words of Louden Powers. “I live here entirely alone, except for my two maidservants and a man who drives my car and does heavy work about the house. The maids and the man are all Scandinavians, and they can’t speak English. They say they can’t, at least, but I watch them, anyhow. Now, let’s go up to bed. I’ll show you your room.”
Nick stayed in the dining room until the house was quite quiet, and he figured Louden Powers and his man were both asleep.
Then he went down to the back door to let himself out, with a satisfied smile on his face.
As he reached the front gate of the little garden in front of the house, Patsy came rushing up to him out of the darkness, panting from a hard run.