Nick drew up a little in his chair, working one of his revolvers into a position in his hip pocket, enabling him to instantly draw it, if necessary.
“I noticed when coming here, Mr. Ardley, that you have a telephone in your house,” said he.
“Aye, I have,” Ardley admitted, with a nod of his huge head. “What o’ that?”
“Well, I happen to know,” Nick bluntly asserted, “that Pierre Toulon telephoned to you from New York City at one o’clock last night.”
Ardley’s red eyes took on a narrow squint. He reached out and rested his brawny hand on a long wooden lever, which appeared to govern the wheel over which ran the belt on which Nick had found him at work. At the same time he asked, more sullenly:
“How’d you find that out?”
“I have methods of my own for obtaining information,” said Nick.
“You’re a detective, eh?”
“Yes.”
“I reckoned so.”