“You should have known that I meant this morning.”
“So I would, mister, if you’d said this morning,” Conley replied, with a leer. “I never know more’n I’m paid for knowing.”
“See here, my man,” said Nick quite sternly. “If the master you serve carries the same cut of jib as yourself, it’s long odds that he——”
What more Nick would have said was abruptly withheld, however, for his quick ear heard the side door of the house opened, and then the fall of a man’s feet on the veranda, followed by the inquiry:
“What’s the trouble, Jerry?”
“None at all, sir,” replied Conley, turning with a grin to his questioner. “Not unless this gentleman is looking for trouble, which I reckon he isn’t.”
Nick had already turned to survey the first speaker, whom he rightly conjectured might be Mr. Amos Badger, despite that it was then an hour when a stock-broker should have been busy at the market.
He stood near the rail of the veranda, an erect, well-built man of forty, cleanly shaven, with dark hair and eyes, the latter lighting a rather attractive yet noticeably strong and determined face.
He was in slippers, and wore a house-jacket of figured woolen, while his neck was bandaged with several thicknesses of red flannel, as if he was afflicted with a sore throat or with a cold. This was further evinced by his hoarse voice when addressing Conley, yet his gaze all the while was fixed upon the detective.
Nick promptly took up the remark of the chauffeur, saying, with a quiet laugh: