Desisting from the absent but fierce stare with which he was transfixing the clerk, he drew Varney hurriedly aside. "All bluff!" he stated positively. "Is it likely, after _his_ day's work, that he'd be lolling around the lobby waiting for us to call? He's _moved_! But depend on it, he's got more work to do, and he _hasn't left town_!" "If that's so, where do you recommend looking?" Peter made a large gesture. "That's a horse of another color. I told you he had a faculty for disappearing into a hole and pulling the hole in after him. If anybody besides Ryan knows where he is, I should say that it might be Miss Carstairs. She seems to be his only friend on our side of the fence, since I tipped Hare off." Varney all but jumped. "I'll ask her!" he offered almost precipitately. "The very thing!" "It is quite possible," continued Peter, tensely thoughtful, "that the old rascal has sneaked to her since the luncheon, to try to pump something out of her about our movements--even within the bounds of possibility that he is with her at this moment--" "A great suggestion!" said Varney cordially. "You certainly have a head on you, Peter. Of course, on the other hand, it is quite possible that he _has_ skipped--made a bee-line for Newspaper Row. In that case, I'll see if she--Miss Carstairs, you know--if she knows his address in New York, and I'll hunt him up to-night." Peter, glancing at his watch, discovered that he was already fifteen minutes late for his committee meeting. "For this afternoon, then," he said, unwillingly, "you can have him, if you can find him. After to-day, though, he belongs to me. Wherever he is now, he'll certainly be back on the job to-morrow. Well--I'll leave you, then. Er--Larry. It's just as well not to be prowling around after dark by yourself, you know. I'll be back at the yacht early and we'll have dinner together before your train. Say six-thirty, eh?" "I'll be there." Peter hurried off for Hare's house with a mingled sense of unjustly baffled vengeance and vague uneasiness. Varney, drawing a long breath of relief, headed for the telegraph office, whence he dispatched the following telegram to Mr. Carstairs: "Plan permanently abandoned. Arrive in New York by train 9.20 to-night. Expect me ten minutes later." That done, he started rapidly down Remsen Street with a steadily mounting spirit. CHAPTER XX VARNEY, HAVING EMBARKED UPON A CRIME, FINDS OUT THAT THERE IS A PRICE TO PAY There was a fine old hedge of box bordering the Carstairs lawn, old rosebushes inside it and many flowering shrubs. Splendid oaks curtained the big white house on either side, shading the expanse of close-clipped turf. At the left, a fountain-sprayer now whirled a mist of water over the trim grass, and far to the rear a man in rubber boots was hosing off a phaeton before a carriage house. On the back porch, an elderly cook was peeling potatoes and gently crooning some old ballad of Erin.