Patsy had been gone but a few moments when a messenger boy arrived with a letter for Nick.
It was signed by Mrs. Ansel, and said that the place appointed for her in which to meet the Brown Robin was in Seventeenth Street at eleven o’clock, and it asked if Mr. Carter would meet the writer at a well-known department store in Sixth Avenue at 10 A. M., naming the entrance at which Mrs. Ansel would be waiting.
Nick carefully examined the letter and noted several things. The stationery was not the same as that which had been used for the former letters; the handwriting was not the same, and the letter was framed so skillfully that it was made to look like the letter of a woman asking an assignation with a man.
Nick called Edith and asked her to read the letter. As Edith was doing so he took some papers from his pocket, and from these selected a blank sheet and an envelope.
“Compare this blank paper and the paper on which this note is written,” said Nick.
“It is the same,” said Edith.
“Even the most cunning make their slips,” said Nick. “I found this blank paper on a table in the parlor of the Brown Robin in Lexington Avenue, as I did also a sheet of the other paper. Keep them, and the letter as well.
“I am off to meet this very cunning person and see what her little game is. I confess I can’t quite see through it.”
He went away, and promptly at ten appeared at the entrance of the department store named.
The Brown Robin was waiting, and, as he approached, Nick did not fail to observe a flash of triumph in the eyes of that person.