“Yes; send one of the stable-boys for a doctor as quickly as he can go. Say that Orizaba is ill. Bring the doctor to my rooms as soon as he arrives. In the meantime, tell nobody of your discovery. I will go with my friend to my rooms at once. Go. Wait at the stable for the doctor, and then bring him to me at once.”
Then, as Rogers turned away, Danton called out:
“Oh, Felix. I am going to my rooms. My man tells me that Orizaba is there, and that he is ill! Will you come with me?”
With a murmured apology to Mercedes, Nick rejoined Danton, and together they entered the house and proceeded at once to Danton’s rooms.
Nick nodded his approval when Danton related the conversation that had taken place between him and his valet, but he made no comment. But when they entered and closed the door behind them, he said:
“It may prove a little bit harder for you in the end, to attempt to carry the impression now, that you were not at home early this morning, but it is decidedly better in view of my idea of what is to come. Your sister seemed to take the news that Orizaba is ill with very little concern.”
“Oh, she expected that we would both be out of the counting to-day. I usually am when I have been to a banquet. She thinks his illness is only the effects of his night out, and his presence in my room due to his not being able to find his own.”
“I see,” said the detective—but it was evident that he had other ideas concerning Mercedes’ reception of the news; however, he said nothing more on the subject, but at once busied himself in examining the room.
Orizaba’s position in the chair was precisely as Danton had described it.
A rapid, but careful, inspection of the back of his neck disclosed a small blue mark, not larger than the head of a pin, where the needle had entered the flesh. Around it there was no sign whatever of a wound, and there was not a thing that could be discovered externally, to indicate that an instrument of death had entered there.