“In the meantime, Chick, we will get after Madison and find out with whom he is having covert relations,” Nick added. “You go to his law office, Chick, and see what you can learn.”
“Leave him to me, Nick, in case he is there.”
“I will go to his residence, to make doubly sure of finding him, and we then shall have the ground pretty well covered,” Nick declared, as all three hastened to the library. “You both may be governed by circumstances, of course, and we will compare notes between now and midnight—barring that we accomplish something much more to the purpose. That’s all. We will get a move on at once.”
CHAPTER VI.
A PIECE OF PLASTER.
It was after four o’clock when Patsy Garvan emerged into Madison Avenue to begin the work assigned him, starting from home somewhat in advance of Nick and Chick, and heading immediately for Forty-fourth Street.
“It’s no dead open-and-shut cinch where to find a blackbird as fly as Cora Cavendish at this hour of the day,” he said to himself. “She may be taking in a matinée, or the movies, or having a spin with some gink in a buzz car. I’ll tackle her apartments in the Nordeck, for a starter, and if I can learn nothing there, or from the office clerk—well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I sure have got to find her by some hook or crook.”
Ten minutes brought Patsy to his destination, an apartment house in Forty-fourth Street, patronized largely by women of the same social status as his quarry. He entered the office on the street floor, when, with a thrill of satisfaction, he beheld the very woman he was seeking.
“Gee, this is going some!” he mentally exclaimed. “There she is, now, and rigged for the street. I’ll buy a cigar, at least, as a blind for butting in here.”
Although in disguise and quite sure that the woman did not know him by sight, even, Patsy reasoned that any unusual incident might arouse her misgivings, if she really was engaged in the knavery Nick suspected.
Patsy sauntered to a cigar case near the clerk’s desk, therefore, and made his purchase without another glance at the woman.