The day passed without incident. Toward dark Nick went out and had dinner in a Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant. After his refreshment he walked about, enjoying his cigar and the calm, soft night. He was standing on the marble walk of the little triangular square at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventh Street, listening to a colored quartet, the singing adjunct of an outdoor gospel meeting, when Peter Mannion passed him. Nick did not turn his head, and he was satisfied that the uncle was going on under the impression that he had not been observed. Where was he going?
Nick became a shadower, and when he saw the uncle disappear through the double doors of the Metropolitan Hotel, a look of disappointment crept into his face. All at once an idea, containing a queer suggestion, came to him. Egress from the rear of the hotel would take a person either on to John Marshall Avenue or C Street, and by either route there was a short and easy walk to the detective's quarters on E Street.
Hurrying around the corner, Nick saw no sign of his quarry on the avenue. He then hastened to C Street. Peter Mannion was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he had not had time to get there. The detective in the dark shade cast by the sidewalk trees waited for ten minutes, his observation covering both ways of departure from the hotel premises. Then he went to the hotel, entered the office, which held only the clerk and several colored attachés, and asked if a person, describing Peter Mannion, had been in that evening. The reply of the clerk was that the gentleman referred to had engaged a room for the night, and had then gone out.
"By the front way?"
"Yes."
"I may have been making a mountain out of a mole-hill," thought Nick, as he went out, "but I don't like the look of things. Peter has a card to play, and I will confess that he is a deeper man than I imagined."
Arrived at the stairway leading to his rooms, he scrutinized it carefully from top to bottom. No trap was there. In the corridor above his searching eye again came into play. All was as it should be. Before his own door he paused and listened. Silence within. Then with his pass-key he unlocked the door and threw it open, but did not enter. The lights inside were out, but the illumination from the street enabled him to see that everything appeared to be as he had left it. True, he could not see into the closet, but, stooping, he could see under the bed.
He was in this posture, when the door of a room on the opposite side of the corridor opened quickly; a man sprang out, and, with uplifted sand-bag, struck the detective a powerful blow on the head. Nick flattened out and did not move. Swiftly the body of the unconscious detective was dragged into his room, and the door closed and locked. Fifteen minutes later Nick opened his eyes, to find that he could neither move nor speak. His enemy had restored him to consciousness, but had taken the precaution to bind and gag him.
The room was now full of light, and Nick, with aching head but with clear sense, saw that he had fallen a victim to the wiles of Peter Mannion.
The uncle, seated in an easy chair, looked at the disgruntled man-hunter with an evil smile.