It was not until this was removed that recognition came, and when it did, Griswold started back in amazement. “Simpson!” he cried. “What on earth are you doing here?” The man tried to speak, but seemed unable to articulate. Probably his throat and tongue were too dry from disuse, and very likely the tongue and lips were swollen as well. Griswold saw the difficulty, and did not repeat his question just then. Instead, he proceeded rapidly to cut the cords which bound Simpson to the wall, and also to sever the bonds about the ankles. The body sagged to one side from weakness, and when the millionaire turned it over to get at the wrists, he found them encircled by handcuffs, instead of ropes. “Great Scott!” he muttered. “This is certainly a strange state of affairs.” It looked as if Simpson had been caught by Cray—or perhaps by Cray and Nick Carter together—and that subsequently the detective had been set upon by others. That would account for Cray’s condition, and it might be that Nick had been carried off. Had the prisoner been locked in the garage, however, before that attack had taken place? If not, it seemed hard to explain, unless the mysterious assailants had not been accomplices of his at all, but had worked independently. The newspaper proprietor propped Simpson up again, none too gently. “I can’t get these handcuffs off,” he said. “Speak, man, as soon as you can, and tell me what happened? Where’s the money?” John Simpson looked about him as if he did not quite understand. As a matter of fact, his experiences had left his faculties more or less benumbed for the time being. Griswold had to repeat his question in a more peremptory tone. “The money is gone,” Simpson managed to say at last, after several futile efforts and much moistening of the lips. “I—I had it here.” “Go on, go on!” Griswold urged, bending eagerly, with clenched hands. “I had come in the car to carry it away to—to a new hiding place I had found,” the absconding treasurer explained with difficulty. “It was all in the car—two suit cases full of it—when a couple of fellows pounced on me.” “Two, eh?” “Yes, one was rather tall and very broad and powerful——” “Cray!” put in Griswold. “Yes, he told me that after I was handcuffed,” Simpson agreed, “and he said the other man was Nick Carter.” “So Carter was here? I wonder what’s happened to him? When did the others butt in, Simpson, and who were they?” The handcuffed man looked up at him in bewilderment. “I don’t know anything about any others,” he declared, with evident sincerity. “But there must have been others. Cray was found outside here this morning, with his head nearly mashed in. Didn’t you hear anything after they shut you up. You didn’t go to sleep right away, did you, after that sort of thing? Did you have any accomplice?”