“Now,” said the detective, “I want to be back in that room when the doctors return, and I want you within reach in case I should need help. What do you say to that?”
“All right. I am dying for a scrap, anyway.”
The two men descended to the lower flat, and Nick was placed in the shape in which he had been left.
The gag was in his mouth, and the ropes were on his wrists and ankles, but they were fixed so that they could be cast aside at any moment.
Nick’s companion secreted himself in a huge wardrobe in the room.
In ten minutes the door was unlocked from the outside, and two men entered, only one of whom the detective knew.
One was the man who had attacked Nick and the other was the man who had thrown the poisonous ball at Chick in the cellar of the chophouse.
“It worked like a charm,” the latter was saying. “The spy keeled over in a second, and you ought to see the stuff we got out of his clothes.”
“Money?”
“Yes, money and disguises and letters of introduction. He’ll make an excellent subject for the dissecting table in a day or two.”