Grantley and Siebold had obtained very little start—hardly more, if any, than they would if they had attempted to cash the check. That fact told heavily in the detectives’ favor, but, on the other hand, Nick realized that he was not dealing with ordinary criminals.
The very fact that Grantley had been satisfied with such an apparently unsatisfactory get-away, knowing that the driver of the taxi would doubtless tell all he knew as soon as he was questioned, indicated that the fugitives were either plain fools or else that they had something up their sleeves which gave them unusual confidence in their ability to escape the net.
Grantley was certainly not a fool, and Nick was prepared for some extraordinary matching of wits.
He left the mansion of the stricken millionaire and set to work at once.
CHAPTER XIX.
A GREAT STROKE OF LUCK.
Hard thinking and tireless following of trails could usually be counted on to explain the successes earned by Nick Carter and his assistants, but sometimes plain, “bull-headed luck,” as Patsy Garvan would probably have called it, proved to be the determining factor.
That was the case in this instance.
Nick’s other assistant, Jack Wise, the well-to-do young society man, had had nothing to do with the Grantley case at all. He had been doing a little “pussyfooting” in the Harlem section, in connection with a totally different investigation, and was about to enter the subway kiosk at Lenox Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street when he saw Doctor Grantley and Doctor Siebold alight from a taxi.
He knew them both by sight. They, however, were probably unaware of his existence, and even if they had known of him, they would have been unable to recognize him, owing to the fact that he was disguised.
Jack was thoroughly familiar with the circumstances connected with the millionaire’s headstrong acceptance of Grantley’s offer to operate, since he had heard it discussed several times by his chief and his fellow assistants.