Doctor Lord was plainly disappointed at the news, but seemed to have nothing better to suggest.
“It’s pretty early,” he admitted.
Mrs. Simpson finished dressing, and she and the young physician breakfasted together, after which he returned to Cray’s side, while his hostess busied herself with some of her morning duties.
Lord was a practical, unimaginative young man, and therefore, although he was greatly interested in the case from a professional standpoint, he did not waste much time in speculation regarding it. That was for the local authorities to do. He would not have been human, however, had he not pricked up his ears when his patient, after showing various signs of returning life, began to move uneasily, and to mutter.
The doctor was able to make out two names, which were repeated over and over again.
The names were “Gordon” and “Nick Carter.”
“Nick Carter!” muttered the listener. “That’s queer! That must be the well-known New York detective. What the dickens has this fellow got to do with him, though, unless he has done something wrong, and Carter is after him?”
Then he remembered the rumors that were flying all about in the neighborhood—rumors which hinted that there was something queer about John Simpson’s unexplained absence.
“This is getting interesting!” Doctor Lord told himself meditatively.
“Nick Carter!” Cray muttered again, and this time he added: “The eyes—the greenish eyes!”