“I certainly do. We’ll put something over on these ruffians, Patsy, that will have failed to enter their heads. We’ll get them, all right, take it from me.” “What do you mean? Explain.” “Pull up here and listen,” said Chick, tossing away his cigar. CHAPTER VII. CHICK CARTER’S CUNNING. Miss Janet Payson was seriously startled about ten o’clock the following morning, when a somewhat insistent knock sounded on the door of her apartments in the Shelby House. The same was true of her companion, who had entered about half an hour before, after leaving his touring car in a neighboring street, in charge of a chauffeur and another man, as if their mission was one that required at least a moderate degree of caution. Janet Payson’s companion was the man with a Vandyke beard—but he had removed it and slipped it into his pocket since entering. The removal of the disguise did not improve him. It had served to hide a thin-lipped, sinister mouth, a bulldog jaw and chin, and the hard lines of a desperate and determined face. That he was all that his face denoted, moreover, appeared in the celerity with which he whipped out a revolver from his hip pocket the instant the knock interrupted the subdued conversation with the woman. At the same time he muttered quickly: “What’s that? Who the devil can that be?” Janet Payson turned pale, or as pale as the tinge of rouge in her cheeks permitted, and she laid her finger on her lips, then pointed to the adjoining bedroom. “Keep quiet, Jeff,” she whispered. “I’ll find out.” The man, Jefferson Murdock by name, seized his hat and tiptoed into the bedroom and set the door ajar. Then he waited and listened, revolver in hand. The knock sounded again on the hall door. “Presently,” cried the woman. “Who’s there?” She tore open the collar of her waist while speaking, receiving no reply, then stepped to the door and opened it. “I had not finished dressing,” she said impatiently, hastening to rehook the collar. “What do you want?” Chick Carter was the person who had knocked, and none would have recognized him. Though fairly well clad and somewhat flashily, he had the sinister aspect of an East Side tough, or a man capable of any covert knavery. Chick removed his hat and smiled, nevertheless, replying as politely as one would have expected: “I want to talk with you for half a minute, or mebbe longer, Miss Payson, if you’re alone here.” “Talk with me?” said Janet, with brows knitting. “What about, and who are you?” “My name is Kennedy, Jim Kennedy, and I live in Philadelphia,” said Chick, dropping his voice suggestively. “I happened to be on the train last night when——” “Wait! Stop a moment,” Janet curtly interrupted, drawing back. “Step inside. I don’t care to be seen talking with you. Close the door.”