The query came with a startled gasp, as Hyde, naturally a nervous and cowardly cur, instinctively shrank from the expression now risen over Vic Clayton’s face.
For there was murder in her dilated eyes, in her deathly white features, in the vicious firmness of her drawn, gray lips.
“There is something more!” she hissed, with suppressed ferocity. “Have you been constantly watchful at headquarters?”
“Have I? That’s a fat question for you to ask me,” said Hyde. “You should know that I have.”
“So I do—so I do, Sandy, dear!” Vic hurriedly exclaimed, in assuasive tones. “But there is one thing more. Is Nick Carter alone in this case?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure of it—dead sure of it?” demanded Vic, with a voice and aspect that plainly betrayed the murderous design that inspired this precautionary question.
“Certainly I’m sure of it.”
“It will do us no good to down him, mind you, if others at work with him are to rise up out of his ashes and confound us with the same evidence that he may possess.”
“There are no others,” protested Hyde confidently. “If there were, Vic, I’d have told you.”