“Yes, sir; I will do so.�
It was then that Nick sought the apartment, nine hundred and one, and if he had expressed his thoughts aloud, that expression might have been found in the following sentence:
“Henry Carroll will not return at all, for Henry Carroll and Carleton Lynne are one and the same.�
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MURDERER IS FOUND.
Several things had happened to affect the case by the time Nick Carter entered the apartment.
The small safe had been discovered on the roof and had been traced to apartment nine hundred and one; a woman who would not give her name, and who was thickly veiled from observation, had appeared there and had inquired for Mrs. Babbington, and when told that Madge was at the hospital had departed with the avowed intention of seeking her at the institution. One of the headquarters men had followed her; the coroner had “viewed� the case and had given permission for the removal of the bodies, and that very thing was happening when Nick arrived; information had been received that Madge had recovered consciousness, and her brief statement boiled down to one sentence was merely that a man whom she did not know had appeared suddenly in the parlor of her suite and had begun firing his revolver the instant he did appear; and she claimed to know no reason why he should have done so, and that she had had no idea of his presence until the actual shooting began.
No weapon had been found; nothing had been discovered to assist in the solution of the mystery, save the incident of the safe, concerning which Madge insisted that she knew nothing, but which seemed to bear out the original theory of the crimes.
Nick returned to the office floor of the building.
“I want two things,� he told the clerk with whom he had already talked.
“Well, sir?�