The head of the great steel firm—whom so many thousands envied for his wealth, and presumably his happiness—sank back in his deep chair, and let the tears trickle slowly down his worn cheeks. The widower felt as if his heart had been broken for the second time.
Meanwhile, the son dashed down the wide staircase and hurried into the waiting machine.
The traveling bags were already stowed away in the back of the car, and Simpkins stood at the side of it, overcoat and hat on, to go with his employer.
“I shan’t want you, Simpkins,” said Howard calmly. “To-morrow morning go in and see my father. He will make arrangements with you. I shall be away for a week—perhaps much longer. I am going to New York. Drive on, Gustave!” he added, to his chauffeur. “Take the road straight into New York and stop at the Hotel Supremacy. You know where that is.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Gustave briefly, as he threw on the power.
The road Gustave took did not lead past the Old Pike Inn. Howard Milmarsh had remembered that when he gave the direction. He did not want to run right into the arms of the law, and he did not forget that he had seen Nick Carter watching him from the porch of the popular resort.
It was not the habit of Carter to take up any ordinary murder case, even when it came immediately under his notice. But Howard Milmarsh had a feeling that the great detective would surely concern himself in this one, for he had long been a friend of Howard’s father.
While Howard Milmarsh skimmed along at thirty miles an hour and more in the direction of New York, Nick was hurrying up to the Milmarsh mansion in the large, gray car that he generally used for his country excursions, and which had brought him to the Old Pike Inn that evening.
“Mr. Nick Carter would like to see you, sir,” announced a wooden-visaged servant in livery to the millionaire, not more than twenty minutes after the departure of his son. “He will not detain you long, he told me to say.”