Maynard started back in terror. What was that woman doing there, in the room with his murdered chum? Why should she desire to see the detective come to harm? Maynard actually pinched himself to see if he was not dreaming. But what he heard was a reality, fast enough. Had this woman whose voice he heard taken any part in the murder? While the young man puzzled over the matter, another voice reached his ears: “Yes, Nick will trouble us no more,” it said. “He went up against the wrong bunch this time.” This voice was as familiar to Maynard as the other, only it was a man’s voice. He could not figure it out. Why should these people be here, and why was the room open at all? Had Nick Carter come to harm? With this thought prominent in his mind, Maynard moved toward the doorway. In the half light of the room he stumbled over a rocker and fell heavily to the floor. Before he could get on his feet again he heard quick steps rushing into the room, saw a blaze of light from the doorway; saw, also, two faces that he knew, rage and apprehension showing upon them. Then he called out, saw an uplifted arm, heard a wrathful voice, and a blow descended. When the officers came to 43 in the early morning, they found the door to 44 open. Entering, they found Maynard lying on the floor with a frightful wound in his head and a stab in the region of the heart. Room 43 gave many evidences of having been searched thoroughly. Even the carpet had been loosened in places. The body of Townsend, however, had been in no wise disturbed. Maynard was conveyed to his hotel, and the dead man taken to the residence of his parents. “If Maynard lives,” the doctor said, “it will be a wonder. He was left for dead.” The clue to the murderer which he had stumbled on was of no avail at that time, for what he knew might never aid in the detection of the criminals. The wound on the head, the doctor said, was liable to produce a lapse of memory which would go further back than the night on which it was received. In the meantime, Nick Carter was satisfied that Maynard had gone to his rooms from the hotel, and would remain there until the next day. As he walked down the street with the self-styled reporter, the detective listened between steps for a sound he hoped to hear not far away. No such sound came to his ears. Presently he found himself in Houston Street. The house occupied by the African fortune teller with whom Maynard and Townsend had made an appointment was not far away. Nick knew the place well, for, as much out of curiosity as anything, he had called upon the woman when she had first attracted the attention of the town, and had made a close scrutiny of her apartments, which were on the first floor of an old residence not far from the East River. There was a red light over the door, but the building seemed still and the window shades were closely drawn. The young man stopped directly in front of the house. “This is the place,” he said.