“Is anything the matter?” demanded the detective.
“He’s gone!” replied one of the doctors, with a jerk. “The patient has left the hospital, and we are questioning Miss Sawyer, the day nurse, to find out how it happened.”
“Gone?” echoed Nick sharply. “Do you mean he ran away without anybody knowing he had done so?”
“No, no, Mr. Carter. Not so bad as that. Such a thing could not happen in a well-managed institution like the Universal Hospital. But he went for a stroll about the building, and on the lawn, and slipped out of the front door without anybody in the office on the main floor noticing him. That is the report.”
“Oh, that’s the report, is it?” observed Nick dryly.
CHAPTER XXXV.
GETTING A FOCUS.
“Do you mean that he was allowed to go walking about the hospital by himself, so that he could slip away unnoticed?”
It was Nick Carter asking the question, and he was seated in the room from which Howard Milmarsh had vanished, talking to the day nurse, Miss Sawyer, while the night nurse, Miss Jordan, listened.