It is a favorite way of overawing visitors, and chauffeurs in various sorts of livery go with the cars, both being always at the command of the renter.
It would not, therefore, have aroused suspicion if Grantley had furnished a livery of his own choice for his temporary chauffeur.
The first step was to ascertain the make of Doctor Lightfoot’s car. Another make might have been used, of course, but it was not likely, since the easiest way to duplicate the machine would have been to chose another having the same lines and color.
“Mine is a Palgrave,” the physician informed Nick, in response to the latter’s question.
“Humph! That made it easy for Grantley,” remarked the detective; “but it won’t be so easy for us. The Palgrave is the favorite car for renting by the week or month, and there are numerous places where that particular machine might have been obtained. We’ll have to go the rounds.”
Nick and his assistants set to work at once, with the help of the telephone directory, which listed the various agencies for automobiles. There were nearly twenty of them, but that meant comparatively little delay, with several investigators at work.
A little over an hour after the search began, Chick “struck oil.”
Grantley, disguised as Doctor Lightfoot, had engaged a Palgrave town car of the latest model at an agency on “Automobile Row,” as that section of Broadway near Fifty-ninth Street is sometimes called.
The machine had been engaged for a week—not under Lightfoot’s name, however—and Grantley had furnished the suit of livery. The car had been used by its transient possessor for the first time the night before, had returned to the garage about eleven o’clock, and had not since been sent for.
The chauffeur was there, and, at Nick’s request, the manager sent for him.