Grantley, disguised as Doctor Lightfoot, had engaged a Palgrave town car of the latest model at an agency on “Automobile Row,” as that section of Broadway near Fifty-ninth Street is sometimes called.
The machine had been engaged for a week—not under Lightfoot’s name, however—and Grantley had furnished the suit of livery. The car had been used by its transient possessor for the first time the night before, had returned to the garage about eleven o’clock, and had not since been sent for.
The chauffeur was there, and, at Nick’s request, the manager sent for him.
The detective was about to learn something of Grantley’s movements; but was it to be much, or little?
He feared that the latter would prove to be the case.
CHAPTER XXX.
A SHREWD GUESS.
The detective had revealed his identity, and the chauffeur was quite willing to tell all he knew.
He had driven his temporary employer and the woman in nurse’s garb to the Yellow Anchor line pier, near the Battery. Grantley—or Thomas Worthington, as he had called himself in this connection—had volunteered the information that his companion was his niece, who had been sent for suddenly to take care of some one who was to sail on the Laurentian at five o’clock in the morning.
Both of the occupants of the car had alighted at the pier, and the man had told the chauffeur not to wait, the explanation being that he might be detained on board for some time.
The pier was a long one, and the chauffeur could not, of course, say whether the pair had actually gone on board the vessel or not. He had obeyed orders and driven away at once.