The surgeon’s manner was as irreproachable as ever, and Nick had to confess to himself once more that if Grantley was playing a part, it was a masterly one.
Thus a week of harrowing uncertainty passed.
At the end of it came the crash.
CHAPTER XVI.
“THIS IS TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE!”
There had been nothing at any time which Nick could properly seize upon as an excuse for action, much as he longed to end the terrible suspense.
Doctor Grantley had the whip hand throughout, and the isolation of the financier, alarming as it was under the circumstances, was nothing more than any surgeon might be expected to insist upon in such a case.
The only departure from that rule occurred on the fifth day, when J. Hackley Baldwin’s confidential secretary received a check, directing him to fill out a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, payable to Hiram A. Grantley, and send it to the latter’s house in the Bronx.
The secretary, who was necessarily in the secret, immediately telephoned to Nick. The detective responded at once and carefully examined the note. A microscopic comparison with various documents left no reasonable doubt that the message had actually been written and signed by the millionaire. Not only that, but the handwriting revealed no sign of tremulousness or any other indication that Baldwin had not been himself when he wrote it.
Forgery was plainly out of the question.
Nevertheless, both Nick and the secretary could not help feeling a profound disquiet. The affair struck them as decidedly irregular. It suggested an unseemly haste on Grantley’s part to collect the promised fee for the operation at a time when Baldwin was still in his power and no one on the outside was in possession of any real evidence that the conditions had been complied with—namely, that the operation had been a success.