“I then decided to bolt. I thought he might light on me next. That’s why I’m stewed and so hot around the collar,” Deland went on, with bitter ferocity. “But this job----” “The job must be wound up at once,” snapped Deland, again interrupting. “We must have that promised coin before Carter can get in his work. Won’t settle, eh? By heavens, I’ll soon see whether he’ll settle. He’ll settle, all right, or he’ll hear something drop.” “But----” “There aren’t any buts to it,” Deland fiercely insisted. “This trick must be turned and turned at once. Did you leave him at home?” “Yes, of course.” “I’ll get after him, then, and bring him down to cases. You move lively, too, and get next to Flynn. Tell him where I have gone and that I may need help. Send Plugger out there with Daggett and Tobey. Tell them to nose round till they find out what’s doing. Come on at once. There’s no time to lose.” Patsy Garvan heard the viciously determined rascal push back his chair from the table with a violence that upset one of the glasses and broke it. The tinkling of the falling glass easily reached his ears, and in another moment he heard the couple hurriedly leaving the room. “Gee! he’s off with blood in his eye, all right,” thought Patsy. “He must have been talking about Jack Madison, though it’s no dead-sure thing. I’ll follow him and find out. Plugger Flynn, eh? So he was in the job, along with Jim Daggett and Buck Tobey, three fine East Side blacklegs. Thundering guns! I’m on the hind seat of the wagon, but I don’t believe they can shake me.” The last arose in his mind when, emerging from the private dining room, he discovered that Deland and Cora Cavendish already were passing into the street, in which the daylight of the October afternoon was merging into dusk. Seeing that neither of the suspects was looking back, however, Patsy darted after them and quickly reached the street. Deland was springing into a taxicab, and in another moment he was riding rapidly away, so rapidly that pursuit was out of the question. Cora Cavendish paused briefly on the curbing to watch the swiftly departing car, and then she turned abruptly and hurried away. “Hang it! I’ve lost him temporarily, at least, do what I might,” Patsy muttered. “There’s nothing to it, now. I have only one string to my bow. I will follow the woman.” CHAPTER VII. A BLOW FROM BEHIND. Nick Carter did not hurry to arrive at the suburban residence of Mr. John Madison. He hardly expected, in fact, to find him at home before early evening; but he wanted to see him when he did arrive. It was close upon six o’clock when Nick entered a gate leading into the extensive side grounds, and dusk then had deepened into darkness. Only a single light was to be seen in the imposing wooden dwelling, and that shone out faintly through the glass walls of a large conservatory attached to the house. It came from a window beyond the projecting hothouse.