“But, Mr. Carter, is that Mr. Gordon in the dining room? I mean, the man they say came walking up the road with somebody else? Or was it he who suddenly left the other?”
“I shall have to go into the dining room to see the man before I can answer that question.”
He directed Chick to stay in the drawing-room with Bessie and her father. It was a mission that Chick undertook with cheerfulness. Carter saw him leading Bessie and Roscoe Silvius to the drawing-room with Chesterfieldian politeness, and did not trouble any further about him.
Billings opened the door of the dining room with the key he had in his pocket, and Nick went in.
He saw just about what he expected. Louden Powers and Andrew Lampton each had a cigar going, and between them, still slumped down in his chair, as if he never had moved, was the individual who had been put forward as the real heir of the stupendous Milmarsh estate.
Nick went to this man and shook him until he looked up vacantly.
“Where is he?” demanded Nick.
“I don’t know. I was bringing him here, because you wanted him. But he wouldn’t come the whole distance, and it was no fault of mine. I guess he is somewhere about the grounds.”
“Why didn’t you search for him, instead of coming up to the house?”
“Because I believed he’d come here. It is what anybody would have believed. But as soon as I came up to the porch, some of these fellows of yours saw me and dragged me into this room.”