“What makes you think the man in the hospital is T. Burton Potter?” he inquired, at last.
“Well, I was told by Louden Powers that he lived in that house, and that he had been accepted by some of Milmarsh’s intimate friends as Milmarsh, and that he had been injured at last night’s fire.”
“You know I was at that fire?” asked Nick quietly.
“Naturally. Everybody knows that.”
“How does everybody know it?”
“Haven’t you seen the evening papers?”
“No. I saw the morning papers, and my name did not appear in them. I requested that it should not. Also, I asked that Howard Milmarsh’s name be kept out of the account of the fire.”
“Well, here is an evening paper,” returned Lampton, handing him one. “It is evident that the news leaked. I don’t mind saying, however, that Louden Powers and I were both at that fire, and that we saw you come down the ladder with that old man. Somebody else—the gentleman over there, whom you tell me is your assistant—carried him down the lower part of the ladder. Then you slid down by yourself.”
Nick glanced down the column of print detailing the incidents of the fire, and saw that his own name and Howard Milmarsh’s were both mentioned. He had little doubt that the “leak” had been contrived by Louden Powers and Andrew Lampton. But he did not say so. It was his custom to let the other party play his hand out before he showed his own, if it could be done.