“Yes. She cabled me that Tompkins was leaving three months ago.�
“And what has become of Tompkins? Old servants are always interesting.�
“He has returned to his home somewhere in England.�
“Have you never heard from him since he left you? I should think that such an old servant would like you to know something about what had become of him.�
“Oh, yes, he has written to me, Mr. Carter.�
CHAPTER IX.
THE MATTER OF A CIGAR.
Nick Carter sat silent for a long time after that, and Lynne seemed quite content that he should do so.
The detective was thinking over the facts of the case as he was arranging them in sequence in his own mind, and he could see but one conclusion at which to arrive as an explanation of the mystery; if the reader has already guessed at that conclusion, so much the better, for it is not the purpose here to mystify—only to arrive at facts just as the detective arrived at them.
First, then, the known fondness between J. Cephas Lynne and his daughter Edythe.
The papers had had it, and all the world understood it, that ever since the death of the mother of Edythe Lynne the daughter had been the apple of the father’s eye.