It seemed likely that the doctor had had at least one accomplice in his flight, for the purpose of aiding him in his arrangements. But not necessarily so. If he had received such assistance, it was quite possible that one of the six young physicians, who had formerly been associated with him in his unlawful experiments, had lent the helping hand. Nick had kept track of them for some time, and now he determined to look them up again. It was significant, however, that Grantley had, apparently, made no provision for the escape of Doctor Siebold, his assistant, who had been in Sing Sing with him. In the flight which had followed their ghastly crime against the blind financier, Siebold had shown the white feather, and it was easy to believe that the stern, implacable Grantley had no further use for his erstwhile associate. There was no reason to doubt that the escaped convict had gone directly to the theater after leaving the hotel. But why had he gone to the latter at all, and, what had become of him after he had broken up Helga Lund’s play? There was no reasonable doubt that Grantley had disguised himself pretty effectually for his flight from Ossining to New York, and yet the night clerk’s description was that of Grantley himself. It followed, therefore, that the fugitive had already shed his disguise somewhere in the big city. But why not have gone directly from that stopping, place, wherever it was, to the theater? Nick gave it up as unimportant. The hotel episode did not seem to have served any desirable purpose, from Grantley’s standpoint, unless on the theory that it was simply meant to confuse the detectives. However that might be, it would be much more worth while to know what the surgeon’s movements had been after his dastardly attack on the actress. Had he gone to another hotel, in disguise or otherwise? Had he returned to his former house in the Bronx, which had been closed up since his removal to Sing Sing? Had he left town, or--well, done any one of a number of things? There was room only for shrewd guesswork, for the most part. An exhaustive search of the hotels failed to reveal his presence at any of them that night or later. The closed house in the Bronx was inspected, with a similar result. That was about as far as the detective got along that line. Nick had a feeling that the fellow was still in New York. He had once tried to slip away in an unusually clever fashion, and had come to grief. It was fair to assume, therefore, that he would not make a second attempt, especially in view of the fact that the metropolis offers countless hiding places and countless multitudes to shield a fugitive. If he was still in the city, though, he was almost unquestionably in disguise; and he could be counted on to see that that disguise was an exceptionally good one. Certainly, the prospect was not an encouraging one. The proverbial needle in a haystack would have been easy to find in comparison.