The detective had explained that he often found Chick’s quick observation of inestimable benefit, and Bentham had been only too willing for him to accompany them. “I confess the whole thing is such a puzzle to me that I cannot see how even you are to get to the bottom of it,” he remarked, as the car swept over the Manhattan Bridge. “Perhaps Mr. Chick will see into the problem. At all events, the more there are working on it, the better chance there seems to be of success.” Once in the library in Matthew Bentham’s house, with the door locked, and only Bentham, Carter, and Chick in the room, the detective proceeded to make a close examination of the window. There was only one window, and it overlooked a garden at the back of the house. Access to this garden could be obtained from the street through a narrow passageway at the side of the house, which was guarded by a high wooden gate, with a row of spikes on top. The gate had a spring lock, which could be opened from without only by a key. “The window has an electric burglar alarm, Carter,” observed Bentham, as Nick began to look it over. “There was no indication that it had been tampered with when I examined it this morning. The catch was properly secured, too. I can’t think the thief got in that way.” Nick Carter did not reply. Instead, he called to Chick, and throwing open the window, went through and dropped to the garden beneath. “Come down here, Chick, and look around,” he directed. The ground below the window had been newly sown with seed, and as yet was only sparsely covered with grass. Mr. Bentham intended to have a small patch of lawn there eventually. So soft was the soil that the footprints of sparrows who had been digging up the grass seed were plainly revealed. “No footprints, so far as I can see, chief,” remarked Chick. “If any one had been here, his heels would sink in a couple of inches.” “That’s true, Chick. I agree with you. But I guess we’ll make sure no one has been in the garden. Look all over it on that side, and I’ll do the same on the other.” In about ten minutes both of them were in the library again, with the window closed. “Now will you show me the place in which you hid the papers?” asked Nick Carter, in a businesslike way. “But, if you don’t wish my assistant to know, he will step outside the room.” “I don’t wish him to do so,” interrupted Bentham. “Why should I? This is a confidential affair, and certainly Mr. Chick is in my confidence when I know he has proved himself worthy of yours.” He pulled down the window shade, and added to his precaution by closing a solid, wooden shutter inside. Then he hung a velvet jacket he generally wore in the library on the handle of the door, so that it covered the keyhole. “I am not afraid of anybody eavesdropping,” he explained. “But I do not want you to feel that it is possible. We are quite sure nobody can peek in here now.”