It was five o’clock when Chick and Patsy entered Pemberton Square.
It was about half an hour before that when Nick Carter was lodged in his place of confinement.
“You wait here, Patsy,” said Chick, at the corner on which Nick engaged Grady’s runabout a few mornings before. “There is no need of both of us going into the chief’s office. I’ll return inside of five minutes.”
“Go ahead.”
Chick hastened down the basement stairs and into the chief’s office—only to encounter Sandy Hyde just entering from the opposite corridor.
“Where’s the chief?” Chick cried bruskly.
Hyde didn’t know Chick from a side of sole leather, but, knowing at least that he was not Nick Carter, he answered quite promptly:
“The chief is in his office.”
“I must see him.”
“What name?”