“I’ll swear he did not come out of that house,” he said to himself. “There is no way of getting to a back entrance from the avenue. There may be an alley leading in from the side street. Either that, or he went through the first house around the corner. Later, by Jove, I may discover which. The game seems to have just broken cover.” Chick followed Guelpa back to the hotel and saw him enter his suite. Not content with that, wondering what he might be doing, he crept to the door and peered through the keyhole. The aperture, though limited, commanded a view of the parlor and the bedroom directly beyond it. Both were brightly lighted--and Chick saw enough to warrant all of the suspicions he had attributed to Nick. He saw the man within discarding his Guelpa disguise and transforming himself into a counterfeit of Chester Clayton. “Thundering guns!” he said to himself. “This does settle it. But what’s his next move?” Chick concealed himself to wait and see. Ten minutes later Guelpa stole down the side stairs and out of the house. He was just in time to catch a passing taxicab. Chick reached the side door just in time, moreover, to hear Guelpa shout his hurried directions to the chauffeur. “Great Scott!” he muttered, pausing. “To Nick’s residence! Why the dickens is he going there? By Jove, I have it! He has discovered that Nick suspects him and he now is out to get him. He reasons that he can fool the old war horse and get by as Clayton. “I may be wrong, but I’ll wager that he will get well fooled himself. It’s now a thousand to one that he went to some house near his office, probably the one back of it, in order to make arrangements for holding up the chief. By gracious, that’s good enough for me to take a chance on. I’ll hike back there and await developments. There would be nothing in nailing that rascal alone. If I am right, which seems more than probable, we can get the whole gang by this other course.” Chick knew, of course, assuming that his theory was correct, that some little time must elapse before Guelpa could return in company with Nick. He did not hurry his investigation, therefore. He returned to Fifth Avenue and had another look at Doctor Guelpa’s business quarters. They were in darkness, as before, with no sign of life within. “I’ll see what I can discover around the corner,” Chick said to himself. “The rat went out that way, I’ll wager.” His investigations in that direction took him much longer. He could find no way of getting to the rear of the house to which Nick was later brought. It had, as a matter of fact, been boarded up by the rascals. Chick then went back and picked the lock of Guelpa’s door, entering and seeking the rear exit. He then found that it led to the rear door of the other house. Chick arrived there just in time, moreover, to hear from the back area the arrival of Nick and Guelpa, both of whose voices he immediately recognized.