Godard sat silent for several moments, weighing in his own mind the desperate possibility suggested. He could not believe that he was suspected of the crime for which the detectives and the police were searching the country after Moses Flood and Harry Royal, yet the words of his niece had alarmed him, and opened his eyes to the bare possibility of a frightful peril.
Presently he roused himself, and stared across at the girl.
“What would you do about it?” he sullenly asked.
“Just what I have said,” replied Belle bluntly.
“Try to turn him down?”
“Yes.”
“If I was sure that he had any designs against me——”
“Faugh!” interrupted the girl. “There are facts you shouldn’t lose sight of, Nate. In the beginning he was on this case in Gilsey’s employ. Do you imagine Gilsey has let him drop it? Not by a long chalk.”
“Well, what of that?”
“This is it,” cried Belle, who was rather a clever logician. “Is Carter making any attempt to round up Flood or that fool of a Royal? Not one, my word for it. He’s letting the central office screws scurry their legs off on that scent. None of that for Nick Carter, mind you. What’s the natural conclusion, eh? Merely this—Carter doesn’t suspect Flood, despite the evidence. Yet if he is still on the case, he must suspect somebody, and that somebody may be—the right man!”