“Andrew,” said Nick, at random.
“I never heard of him. Did you, Jim?”
Conroy shook his head again, then finished his glass of ale and arose from the table.
“Sing out, Dugan, when breakfast is ready,” he requested, a bit gruffly. “I’m going to wash up.”
“Hold on, Jim,” put in Morley. “Wait till I get outside of this. I’ll go with you. So long, sir.”
The last was addressed to Nick, who responded with a nod, and the two men swaggered from the barroom and disappeared in a narrow, dimly lighted hall adjoining it.
Nick listened indifferently to their receding steps. There had been nothing in the conduct of either that seemed to warrant distrust, nor in the looks of either, aside from their rough attire and somewhat dissipated faces.
The same was true of Dugan also, and of his decidedly rustic and inferior road house.
Nick lingered briefly, apparently to sip his drink, therefore, and incidentally he tipped back in his chair until it touched the window casing. As he did so, glancing[Pg 23] out, he made another discovery which most detectives would have overlooked.
Beyond a corner of one of the outbuildings, and brought into view by his change of position, he observed an old dwelling and a near building of moderate size some fifty yards upstream and on the opposite bank of the river. A sign on the building caught the detective’s eye.