Presently Trent arrived at a point nearly back of the garage, and he then discovered the woman seated on the veranda. He at once leaped over the wall and darted behind the garage, from which nearer point he gazed out at her. “The game is opening, all right,” thought Chick, who was some fifty yards from the garage, that being on the opposite side of the grounds. “But who the deuce is the fellow? He appears to know the woman by sight, at least, yet fears for some reason to approach her. By Jove, he may be one of the crooks who assaulted Dillon and got away with the portfolio. He may have seen Irma Valaska in the touring car that evening, and in other respects a stranger to her.” This was confirmed almost within a moment, and it gave Chick a further hint at what may be in the wind. Larry Trent stepped out from a rear corner of the garage and whistled to the woman. Irma Valaska looked up quickly and saw him. She dropped her paper, gazing curiously at him, and Trent beckoned for her to join him. The woman hesitated only for a moment. She seemed to anticipate why she was wanted. She threw aside the newspaper, then hurried down the veranda stairs and out over the driveway. Chick Carter then saw plainly that they met like strangers. For about five minutes they stood talking with intense earnestness, Trent doing most of it and frequently pointing and gesticulating emphatically, and all the while Irma Valaska listened with a steadily deepening frown. Suddenly they parted, and the woman ran back to the house. Trent darted to the wall and hurried through the back street. Chick Carter came to a quick decision--that he would follow the man. What little he had seen convinced him that Trent was back of, or at least directing, whatever business was to be done that morning. Chick crept from his concealment, therefore, and within half a minute was on the track of the man. If he had waited about three minutes, he would have seen Irma Valaska rush out to the garage again, from which she quickly sped away alone in an electric runabout. She had been warned in accord with the instructions of Andy Margate, and she was away at top speed to confer with Captain Casper Dillon. Upon stopping in front of this house, however, she became habitually crafty and discreet. Instead of ringing the doorbell, she stole in over the side path leading to the rear door and by the partly open French window, at which she arrived just in time to hear the conclusion of Nick Carter’s interview with Dillon, with the result already depicted. Hardly a minute later, Tom Carney approached the house, bent upon warning Dillon, as Trent already had warned Irma Valaska. Carney saw the runabout in front of the house. He became discreet, also, and crept into the yard and nearly to the French window.