“I called to the supposed Clayton, therefore, and we went up to Margate’s suite, in company with my junior assistant, Patsy Garvan,” continued Nick. “We found the supposed Margate unconscious on his bed, clad in the same suit in which I had seen him, as I have said, only ten minutes before. Who on earth would have suspected, despite the extraordinary resemblance and all that previously had occurred, that such a lightninglike change of character could be accomplished; that the man on the bed was Clayton, and the man at my elbow was the crook himself? It would have seemed incredible, utterly impossible. That is why I did not give it a thought.”
“How was it accomplished, Mr. Carter?”
“I since have learned, of course,” said Nick. “Margate received the warning signal the moment he entered his suite. He instantly telephoned down to the hotel office and requested Clayton to come up there immediately on important business.”
“He did so?”
“Certainly. Clayton had no occasion to suspect Margate, whom he knew only as Doctor Guelpa. He complied, of course, and Margate invited him to his suite. Then, passing back of him, he threw one arm around his head and over his mouth, at the same time injecting into his neck a quantity of the same swiftly acting drug with which he had overcome Patsy Garvan earlier in the evening.”
“Clayton has told me about that.”
“It was done in a couple of minutes,” Nick went on. “Margate then stripped Clayton of his outside garments, exchanging them for his own, and placed his senseless form on the bed.”
“But what motive had he?” questioned Langham. “Why did he not flee at once after receiving the warning?”
Nick laughed a bit derisively.
“You don’t know this rascal, Mr. Langham,” he replied. “I now know more about him than I then did. He turned that trick only because he was short of funds. He then went down to the hotel office, a human counterfeit of Clayton, with the intention of stealing the money from the hotel vault.”