The detective entered and Doctor Devoll arose to meet him, bowing and placing a chair.
“Take a seat, Mr. Blaisdell,” he said blandly. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I was busy with the telephone.”
“Don’t mention it,” Nick replied. “I shall not take much of your valuable time.”
He sat down while speaking, and his trained eyes quickly took in most of the details of the spacious, handsomely furnished room. Two windows overlooked the rear grounds. Each was entirely covered with an interior, painted wire screen, which precluded observation from outside, but through which one within could see plainly. There were roller shades and shutters, also, that would insure privacy after the lamps were lighted.
The detective saw at once that he was in a rear room in the main building. He could see the broad sweep of the rear lawn, the back street in the near distance, a gravel path leading out to it through the park, evidently from a near rear door. He no sooner was seated, moreover, than he saw something else—which would have been seen and appreciated by only one detective in a million.
The broad, flat desk was between him and one of the windows, the light from which struck the top of the desk at an angle, causing a slight glare on its smooth leather surface. Two spots that broke this glare, however, apart from some books and papers nearer the chair from which the physician had arisen, instantly caught the detective’s eye.
There was no mistaking the shape of them, nor what had caused them. They were the broad outlines of a man’s hands, outspread while he leaned over the desk, and the moisture from which still lingered on the smooth leather.
“By Jove, I’ve hit a pair of liars!” thought Nick instantly, though his strong, clean-cut face did not change by so much as a shadow. “That fellow in livery was leaning over the desk, with both hands spread on it, directly opposite the chair from which this doctor arose. The dampness from them has not yet dried from the leather, nor would it have been imparted to it unless the hands were there for several moments. That’s an unusual and remarkably confidential attitude for a servant. The telephone is in one corner and ten feet from the desk. I’ll wager, by Jove! that the doctor was not using it, and that something else occasioned the delay, possibly a conference concerning me and my mission. Both lied about the telephone, as sure as I’m a foot high, but for what reason?”
Obviously, of course, these shrewd deductions were mere impressions that flashed very swiftly through the detective’s mind, rather than a process of deliberate reasoning. Naturally, too, they instantly gave rise to new and somewhat startling suspicions, which, with characteristic self-control, Carter was careful to conceal.
Doctor Devoll had pattered around his desk, in the meantime, and was taking the chair from which he had arisen.