"Suppose the gang here is deep enough, as you think, to plan a little rough-house, ostensibly for my benefit, but really to get you into it and thus wipe you out. Doesn't it occur to you that my fading away to New York at the critical moment would rather knock the bottom out of the scheme? Why, it's as clear as noonday! Higginson, learning somehow that I expected to fly off immediately after the lunch-party, first tries to break up the party, and failing that, he bribes Ferguson to break up the machinery. Thus he hopes to make it impossible for me to get away--me whom he needs in his business as the red rag for his little old mob." They had emerged from the woods and walked a block up Remsen Street before Peter replied. "By Jove! That does seem to explain everything! That's it! It's Higginson, not Smith, who has been pulling all these wires from the beginning. I suspected the man the first minute I ever clapped eyes on him. But where do you suppose he got his hint?" "Hammerton?" "Never. That boy is trustworthy, or I'll eat my hat." "Well, I think so too. Then he simply corrupted Ferguson and wormed the whole thing out of him. Pretty clever, the whole thing, wasn't it? How much Ferguson may really know, or suspect, I have no idea. Of course, there is only one thing to fear now, and that is scareheads in the New York papers to-morrow--attempted kidnapping foiled, and so on. It would break Uncle Elbert's heart if anything of that sort should come out--" "Don't you worry. It won't. I'll close his trap--tight." Once more Varney was slightly annoyed by Peter's presence. "If we find him," he began, as they came to the square, "you--" "We must try not to be brutal, Larry," warned Peter soberly. "I remind myself that he is an elderly man--" "If we find him," began Varney again, "you will please remember that he belongs to me. Higginson is strictly my pickings." Peter grunted, looking rather annoyed too. They crossed the square, two determined-looking men, and entered the Palace Hotel. Behind the desk a bored clerk sat paring his nails with a pair of office scissors. He looked up with a certain resentfulness. "Excuse my interruption," said Varney. "Is Mr. Higginson in?" The clerk's glance lowered tiredly. "Naw. Left town on the four-seven." "I don't believe it," said Peter instantly. There followed a silence. So stern were the gazes fastened upon the clerk that, looking hastily up at Peter's word, he promptly lost something of his lordly demeanor and became for the moment almost human. "Well, sir, he's left _us_. _Said_ he was takin' the four-seven." "Where did he go?" demanded Varney. "Don't know, sir, but I think to New York." "You must know where he checked his baggage to." "Didn't have any baggage, sir," protested the clerk. "Only his suit-case." "Did he leave no address for the forwarding of his mail?" "Naw, sir. He did not." "Of course not. Why on earth should he?" said Peter.