“I had a talk with him.”
“Describe him to me?”
Patsy gave an elaborate description of the man that had figured before him both as George Vernon and Harold Stanton.
As Patsy talked, Nick, closely watching Mr. Mountain, saw him show signs of increasing excitement, until he finally burst out:
“Why, he is describing the very man who called on me yesterday.”
“Then,” said Nick, with a smile, “the Brown Robin is both a man and a woman.”
“I do not understand you,” said Mr. Mountain.
“Probably not,” said Nick. “I am not far enough in the case to understand it myself. We are already engaged on one case of blackmail in which the Brown Robin figures as a woman. Now you give us one in which it figures as a man.
“The Brown Robin has given a good deal of trouble in Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia without being detected.
“It has just begun operations in New York. I imagine your case is the first one of its operations, and the other we have the second.