“Only because I was curious about this wonderful old house. He was proud of its mysteries and unexpected twists and turns. He and I were good friends, and he knew he could depend on my keeping a silent tongue about anything he might show me. Take that lesson to yourself.”
“Of course,” returned Chick, in rather a hurt tone. “You never knew me to talk about anything you told me, did you?”
The chief reached over and took his assistant’s hand. He had not meant to injure his feelings.
“Look through the hole and take note of everything you see. There are chinks all about the big picture in front of us—in the frame, that is—and we ought to hear easily.”
Nick was right in this. They could see and hear to perfection.
The dining room of the Milmarsh mansion was an immense, lofty room—more a hall than a room indeed. It was hung with pictures of dead-and-gone Milmarshes, in the manner of a baronial hall in Europe, and was richly lined with tapestries, while frescoes and other ornamentation seemed never-ending.
From the center of the ceiling hung a gorgeous chandelier, which had been fitted with electric lights when that style of illumination came in. But there were old-fashioned sconces for wax candles still on the gilt arms, with the curious crystal pendants which went with the candles, as well as pipes and tips for gas.
At a table in the middle of the room, on which remained the white cloth for dinner, sat three men. They were Louden Powers, Andrew Lampton, and the young man whom Lampton had declared to be Howard Milmarsh.
The last-named was speaking, in a thick voice that made Nick think of that night, years ago, when Howard Milmarsh had rushed from the Old Pike Inn, believing himself the murderer of his distant cousin, Richard Jarvis. The voice seemed to be absolutely the same.
“I don’t like this Paradise City business, Lampton,” he was saying, in an angry tone.