“Have any of the guests left the hotel this morning? I mean, left altogether?” “No. All of them will stay with us for several days, at least, so I expect. They are here to enjoy the quietude and beauty of the place. They are not transients, such as you find in city hotels.” “None of them have given notice to leave, have they?” continued Nick, disregarding the encomium on the hotel and its surroundings. “I don’t think so. Are there any, Mallory?” asked Savage, turning to his partner. “I haven’t heard of any. I’ll ask the clerk, if you like. The phone is right here,” replied Mallory, laying a hand upon his desk telephone. “That is not necessary,” declared the detective. “I have already asked him. I came through the office to this room, and I picked up what information I could on the way.” “You’re a pretty good picker, too, I should say,” remarked Mallory, with a grin. “You seem to know about all we have found out.” “If any of the guests say they are going to leave, I wish you’d let me know at once,” requested Nick, as he got up from his chair. “I’ll go and send a telegram to New York. Then I should like to look at Mrs. van Dietrich’s rooms. They haven’t been disturbed, I hope.” “No. I gave orders that no one should go into them after the maid had looked at the trunks. Mrs. Joyce has her own keys, and she has fastened all the doors as they were before, except that she had to knock out one of the keys that had been left in the bedroom door, so that she could put in her own.” “That’s good. I’ll send a message by telephone to the telegraph office at Dorset, from one of the booths in the lobby. I’ll be right back.” The detective telephoned the message, as he had said, directed to his assistant Chick, in Madison Avenue, New York. He told Chick to come down to the Hotel Amsterdam at once, and to bring the bloodhound, Captain--which had done so much effective police work for them at various times--with him. Nick Carter knew perfectly well that Mallory, or Savage, had taken the receiver off the hook in their office, and were listening to him over the wire. That did not disturb him. He had rather expected it, and his object in telegraphing from the booth, instead of from their office, as he might have done, was to satisfy himself that they would descend to the meanness of “listening in” to a private message. He strolled back to their office when he had dispatched his telegram, and when the door was opened, stood on the threshold with a smile as he told them he was ready to go to the room of the vanished Mrs. van Dietrich. “One moment,” he added, as they were about to come forth. “I should like to say something to you with the door closed.” He stepped into the office, closing the door behind him, and said, in an earnest whisper: “Let me impress one thing upon you, gentlemen. I understand that you are anxious to keep any knowledge of this strange disappearance from your patrons, and also that you would not like it in the newspapers?”