“I don’t want to know anything about it,” he said. “I merely repeat my former advice, which is to get out of the country.” Nick waited in vain for the sailor to go on. What words were on his tongue when so suddenly checked? He made general denial. Who, then, had murdered Alvin Maynard? Where were the diamonds? Nick was listening to the voice of one of the men who had stolen the gems, yet he was no nearer a solution of the murder mystery than before. He believed what the man said regarding the murder. He had not even known of it until informed by the merchant. Even now he seemed to doubt the truth of the statement. “I’ll land him in the Tombs when he leaves here,” thought Nick, “and we’ll see about the murder later. It is possible that, after all, he knows where the diamonds are, and yet, men of his character don’t usually hang about for a little money when in the possession of half a million in diamonds.” But Nick’s plans were defeated by something which happened on the floor above. He heard a quick blow, a fall, and then the groans of a man in agony. As he was about to spring up the stairs and through the door at the top, the sound of another voice came to his ears: “How was that for a knockout?” It was the coarse voice of a bully. “Very well done,” replied the merchant. “Put him in the shaft with his mate.” “Croak him?” asked the other. “No; fix him up so that he won’t know his own name when he is able to be about again,” was the reply. CHAPTER VI. DEATH COMES TOO SOON. “So that he won’t know his own name when he is able to be about again!” Nick knew very well what that meant. The sailor was to be beaten, and imprisoned, and drugged, and frightened, until he became crazed; and then turned out into the world again. Even if some faint glimmerings of what had taken place should come to him, no one would credit the statement of a half-crazed sailor, who, as would be believed, came by his infirmity on the high seas and had forgotten! “It is devilish!” muttered the detective. “I wonder how I am going to get at the fellow before they quite kill his intelligence?” Locked in the unconscious brain of the sailor was the story of the taking of the diamonds, if not the story of the murder of Alvin Maynard. If he could only communicate with Patsy, sitting there in the saloon with the other party to the robbery! If Patsy only knew, then the whole thing would be easy. The fact that the diamond merchant had been implicated in the robbery could not aid the detective at that time. He had no proof except the words of the sailor he had heard while listening on the stairs. But all in good time the necessary evidence would be found, he was certain of that. Nick might now do one of two things.