“Seventy-five thousand dollars cash.”
“I’ll keep that,” said Nick, putting it in his pocket.
“But it is her telegram.”
“It is in answer to a message she sent for me,” explained the detective. “Now, what is there strange about her disappearance?”
“There is our house detective. He’ll tell you. I’ll call him.”
“Don’t let him know who I am,” whispered Nick, as the hotel detective came forward, in answer to the clerk’s beck.
“This gentleman is a friend of Miss Templin, the young lady who has been absent so mysteriously,” explained the clerk to the local detective. “Please tell him what you know of the circumstances surrounding the affair.”
Nick and the “local” walked over to a seat near the entrance to the restaurant and sat down together.
“You see,” began the local, “the first suspicious thing about the affair that attracted my notice happened yesterday.”
“What was that?”