“I wish you luck meantime.”
Nick laughed and shook his head, saying with considerable dryness:
“I depend less upon luck, Weston, than upon labor and head-work. If I can make nothing out of this case with my brains, I have no faith that luck will do it for me. As I said before, Weston, I’ll see you within a day or two.”
The listening ear had left the panel of the door.
The catlike tread had pattered quickly through the passage and out of the enclosure, and again the corridor doors stood open.
There had been no intruder during the brief interview, and a look of evil exultation had risen in the eyes of Mr. Sandy Hyde.
As Amos Badger had declared to his confederates one recent morning, it was, indeed, dead lucky that they had—this anchor to the windward.
For it was this miscreant who had warned Badger of Nick Carter’s arrival in Boston, and of his acceptance of this case.
It was this miscreant who had informed Badger of Nick’s intended visit the same morning, and who had made possible the hold-up which to Nick had appeared so like a coincidence.
It was this miscreant, too, whose treachery now bid fair to cost Nick Carter his life, yet whom the latter, with all his keenness, was far from suspecting.