From police headquarters the detective went to the home of Alonzo Burton, the bank watchman.
Burton had his head bandaged, and was lying on a lounge in his little front parlor.
The air of the room was impregnated with a smell of arnica, and a buxom young woman was moving about the place, waiting upon the sufferer.
Burton told the ruse by which he had been lured out upon the sidewalk.
He could give only a general and indefinite description of the man in the frock coat and silk hat, and could give no description whatever of the man’s companion.
Like the other watchman, Burton had been knocked insensible very early in the game.
“They are old hands,” thought Nick, as he went away from the watchman’s house. “Too bad that I am twenty-four hours late in reaching the scene. It is a serious handicap.”
He was bound for the bank, now, and in approaching the bank building he came from the rear.
Halting at the alley, he looked in.
“Twenty or thirty paces,” he mused, recalling the statement made by Gardner.