“Help me lift him out.”
“Lord save him!” said the woman, crossing herself. “Is he dead, sir?”
“Far from it,” said Chick. “Dead men don’t moan. He’ll be all right when he can breathe freely. Now, sir, speak for yourself. How came you in this mess?”
The two detectives had placed him on the greensward outside of the bulkhead door, and Chick had quickly cut his bonds and removed the gag from his mouth.
The man choked and gasped convulsively for a moment, then explained with an effort that he was Pierre Toulon, employed as a waiter by Mr. Jean Lenaire, the French caterer; that he had stolen out a short time before to smoke a cigarette, and that he had been suddenly assaulted by three masked men, who had bound and gagged him, and then confined him under the bulkhead door.
Chick did not wait to look more deeply into the man’s story, but turned to Patsy and said hurriedly:
“Go tell the chief. You’ll find him on the second floor, probably in Clayton’s room. I will help Toulon into the house. Nick will question him later.”
Patsy hurried away without replying.
He found Nick, Mr. Langham, and two physicians in Clayton’s room. The latter had begun to revive from the effects of the drug. He already could talk intelligently, and in a vague way could recall and state what had occurred.
It appeared, Nick already had learned, that the same waiter who had called Vandyke from the room, or a man so closely resembling him that Clayton detected no difference, returned almost immediately after Vandyke departed, saying that he missed his cuff link and thought it might have dropped on the floor.