The financier had presented a startling appearance, and was obviously in a dazed condition. He had not recognized any one, and had had to be carried to his room. Doctor Vanderpool had been summoned at once, but had not yet arrived.
The taxi was still standing at the curb and the driver was inside, having been detained by Baldwin’s secretary.
Patsy gained admittance by using Nick’s name, and soon obtained an interview of a few moments with the distracted secretary, Frank Craven.
“Thank Heaven you’re here!” the latter exclaimed. “I’ve telephoned to Mr. Carter. This is terrible, Garvan, terrible! Mr. Baldwin doesn’t recognize me. He’s in a state of collapse and doesn’t seem to have a spark of intelligence. He’s whimpering like a baby up there. I made the driver wait so that Mr. Carter could see him. He says that two men, who answered the description of Grantley and that precious assistant of his, helped Mr. Baldwin into the cab.”
“Yes, I saw that,” Patsy interrupted. “But where did they leave it?”
“At Lenox Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth, according to the chauffeur. See what you can get out of the man. He’s downstairs with the servants. Heaven only knows what those fiends have done, Garvan, and they must be found, if the whole world has to be turned upside down to do it! Do what you can—everything you can. I must go back to poor Mr. Baldwin.”
With that Craven turned around and sprang up the stairs.
Patsy hunted up a telephone and called his chief’s number. Chick answered, after being called to the instrument by the detective’s butler.
Garvan explained the situation in a few words, and his fellow assistant promised to speed up to Grantley’s house at once, and try to intercept Hoff and the nurse if they had not already vanished.
It was also arranged that Ida Jones, Nick’s pretty woman assistant, should accompany Chick in the car as far as One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, where she would drop off, in order to search for the trail there.