THE POLICE DOG ACTS STRANGELY.
“The fellow has lived in and around New York for fifteen years, at
least, for he has been in the employ of the paper that long,” Gordon
thought, continuing his analysis. “Probably he hasn’t had more than
two weeks’ vacation a year. If so, he hasn’t had much chance to
make friends elsewhere, or familiarize himself with the criminal
possibilities of any particular locality. Hold up, though, my boy!
The fellow may have been born in the East, and may have spent every
vacation there. Better settle that before you go much farther.”
Impelled by this, he promptly called up Griswold’s office, and, after a
little delay, Nick Carter’s magic name brought him directly into touch
with the newspaper proprietor.
“It occurred to me to ask you another question or two about our friend
S., Mr. Griswold,” Green Eye said apologetically. “What is he, a New
Englander? Do you happen to know?”
“No, no! He comes from the Middle West—somewhere in Ohio.”
“But perhaps he has been in the habit of spending his vacations in
Massachusetts?”
“I’ve already looked that up, Mr. Carter. The question occurred to me
when I first learned of his disappearance. Those who know him best,
though, in the office, tell me that he has either spent his little
vacations at home, in New Pelham, or back in Ohio.”
“Then, so far as you know, New England is strange country to him?”
“It would seem so.”
“Now, about that electric—you haven’t known of his owning one in the
past, have you?”
“Certainly not—he was paid only eighteen hundred a year.”
“I see. That’s all at present, thanks. Sorry to have troubled you.”
The clever scoundrel felt he was making headway.
“Now we can go ahead with a little more assurance,” he soliloquized,
after he had hung up the receiver. “If New England is unknown to the
fellow, or known only in a superficial way, it doesn’t seem reasonable
to suppose that he would think of hiding the yellow boys there.
Besides, he must have them where he can obtain access to them at
frequent intervals—for he would be almost certain to be arrested if he
presented a quantity of gold at any bank, either for deposit or to be
exchanged for paper. That’s his hoard, therefore, from which he must
draw.”
He grinned to himself.
“Tastes differ, of course,” he went on mentally, “but New England isn’t
the place I’d choose if I had eighty thousand to spend. I would want a
little more action than I could get there.
“Then what? Well, something tells me that the chap has headed back
in this direction. New York would attract that money as surely as
a magnet attracts iron filings. What’s more, Simpson is on his own
ground here. And the electric car? It’s a tempting theory, confoundedly
tempting! Why would a stay-at-home shrimp like Simpson think of hiding
his treasure if not somewhere on his own bit of land? That’s it, I’ll
wager! Not a bad idea, either, for, ordinarily, no one would think of
looking there for him or his loot. The police, for instance, would
spend a few years going over the rest of the world with a fine-tooth
comb before it would ever occur to them to look for the fugitive at
home.
“But apparently the wife is straight, and doesn’t know of her husband’s
fall from grace. He can’t show himself to her, but he might safely
pay visits to the place at night, thanks to the silence of his little
electric. By George! What if I’m right? What a cinch for your Uncle
Ernest! I’m almost tempted to go there at once, and see if I can locate
the good old stuff. But, no, that won’t do. I’ll keep on playing a
thinking game as long as I can, and leave the legwork to the worthy
Jack Cray.”
He threw a glance in the direction of Nick Carter’s safe.
“Besides,” he continued inwardly, “eighty thousand isn’t so much, after
all. If I find what I hope to in that safe, and play my cards right,
I ought to make several times eighty thousand, and I mustn’t let the
grass grow under my feet, for Carter may come home in a very few days.”
He got up, and was about to approach the safe, when there came a knock
at the door, and, in response to his somewhat surly invitation, Mrs.
Peters, the housekeeper, appeared on the threshold. She was dressed for
the street, and had a strap wrapped about the knuckles of one hand.
“I’m going to take my usual constitutional, sir,” she announced, “and
I thought, if you had no objection, that I would take Prince with me.
He’s been shut up in the kennel most of the time since you went away,
and what he really needs is a good run.”
Just then the detective’s famous police dog pushed past the
housekeeper’s skirts, and pattered into the study at the end of the
leash which Mrs. Peters held.
The animal started eagerly for his master, as if surprised to find him
there. Suddenly, however, he halted, the hair along his back raised in
a bristling line, and an unmistakable snarl escaped him.
“Good boy! Good old Prince!” Gordon said, in a wheedling tone, but
he had turned pale, and his eyes were very ugly. “Take him by all
means, Mrs. Peters. His confinement doesn’t seem to have improved his
temper—and I’m busy.”
But the housekeeper was staring from Prince to the man she believed to
be her employer.
“Well, I never expected to see anything like that!” she ejaculated
wonderingly. “Don’t you know your own master, Prince? What’s the matter
with you, anyway? You are not going mad, are you?”
Green Eye’s hand had mechanically sought the pocket in which the
automatic lay.
“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” he said, with assumed lightness. “The
heat has put him a bit out of temper, that’s all. Take him away, and
let him work off his grouch.”
Still looking very much bewildered, Mrs. Peters turned to go, but she
had to drag the dog from the room by main force, and the more she
pulled at the leash, the more he snarled.
When the door finally closed upon them, Gordon passed a trembling hand
across his forehead, and his fingers came away damp with sweat.
“Curse the brute!” he muttered savagely. “If he does that again, I’ll
have to put him out of the way.”
He had intended to tackle the safe, but now he changed his mind once
more. He was too much shaken by this last experience to attempt
anything of that sort at present, and, therefore, he determined to
take a walk and steady his nerves. In less than an hour he was back in
Nick’s study, though, and the door was locked.
He was about to try his luck with the detective’s safe.