Though discovered before having completed their work, the burglars had succeeded in getting away with nearly two hundred thousand dollars in cash, bonds, and negotiable securities; but not until one of their number had been seriously wounded with the revolver of a citizen who had heard and pursued them, as was evidenced by a trail of blood, to the motor car in which they escaped with their plunder. None of it had since been recovered. Negotiations with the crooks had been undertaken by the bank officials through the newspapers, with a view to recovering part of the stolen funds, and a liberal reward had also been offered for information leading to the discovery and arrest of the thieves. All of these endeavors, however, had proved entirely futile. The trail of the crooks had, in fact, been hopelessly lost. Nor was there any clew to their identity, aside from the opinion expressed by Nick Carter on the day following the crime, when he had been called upon to inspect the work of the burglars, despite the fact that he had declined to take the case in conjunction with the police and detectives already employed on it. Nick’s views had been mentioned to Inspector Mallory, and this had occasioned his visit that morning, and the discussion then in progress in the business office of the detective’s Madison Avenue residence, then occupied only by the three persons mentioned. Inspector Mallory took the card tendered by Chick Carter with the remarks above noted. It had been taken by Chick from a large cabinet of drawers containing the Bertillon signaletic cards of thousands of other crooks, and it contained two photographs and the criminal record of the man then under discussion. The face that met the inspector’s gaze was not a prepossessing one. It was that of a man of fifty--a hard and sinister face, with a low brow and narrow eyes, a hooked nose, like the beak of a bird of prey, a square jaw, and thin lips, drawn downward at the corners--a more evil and cruel face than one often viewed. “He looks like a bad egg, indeed, Chick,” said Inspector Mallory, grimly inspecting the two photographs. “His looks flatter him,” Chick replied. “He’s the worst in the business.” “His record corroborates you,” said the inspector, while he read the criminal career noted on the card. “He appears to have been extraordinarily lucky, however, in eluding arrest and doing time.” “Lucky is right,” Nick put in. “He has been peculiarly fortunate in that respect, Mallory, but very unlucky in others.” “How so, Nick?” “I happen to know something about the inside history of the rascal,” Nick explained. “I got it from one of his old pals, Darby Moore, who died in Matteawan less than a year ago.” “I knew him,” Inspector Mallory said.