“I shall have to prove it isn’t. That’s the task they have set for me, and it will not be an easy one.”
CHAPTER XXII.
ANOTHER SCHEME.
The weeks went slowly by, and the patient in the private room at the Universal Hospital remained in the bewildered condition in which he had been since the night of the fire. He improved physically, but his mind was still a blank.
“Have you seen this, chief?” asked Chick one morning, as, after breakfast, he opened the morning paper, which Carter had been too busy to look at yet. “Another scheme to open up a beautiful section in Muddyford or Eden-in-the-Swamp. It’s an advertisement, and it reads like a romance. Listen!”
He read the principal display lines in a full-page advertisement, as follows:
“‘The new Paradise City! Artistic Homes for Everybody, which are paid for the same as rent. A bower in the midst of nature’s loveliness.’ And so on. Get on to that old gag, chief, ‘Paid for the same as rent?’ That’s a lulu.”
“Advertisements of that kind are always in the papers,” remarked Nick carelessly. “Some of those real-estate developments are all right, too. Others are not, of course.”
“I don’t know anything about this one,” went on his assistant. “But I couldn’t help noticing it, because it’s the same one we’ve been getting booklets about. Here’s one that was in the mail box yesterday. It was just shoved through the slit by hand. That’s what makes it look fishy. As if they were afraid to use the mails, in case of government inquiries.”