“Well, that does interfere, Miss Clayton, as you say,” he replied, eying her a bit sharply, yet failing to detect any sign of duplicity, so artful was the jade. “If you cannot go with me to-day, however, possibly to-morrow you——” “Stop a moment!” exclaimed Vic, as if struck with a second thought. “I was going only with Amos and his wife, merely for a run of an hour or two, and——Hark! that should be they!” The toot of an automobile-horn had sounded from the street below, and Vic sprang up while speaking, and ran to look from the window. “Yes, they are at the curb,” she added, with manifest satisfaction. “Amos is coming up here. Now, if he has no definite plans, Mr. Carter, I see no reason why we cannot prevail upon you to——” She was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Amos Badger. He bolted into the room like a man in a hurry, his face flushed, his eyes bright, his voice resonant when impulsively inquiring: “All ready, Vic?” Then he checked himself and exclaimed quickly, as if unexpectedly beholding Nick in the room: “Why, hello, Carter! You here? Glad to see you again.” “The pleasure is mutual, Mr. Badger,” replied Nick, rising to accept the other’s proffered hand. “Thanks,” nodded Badger. “Have you got a line on those infernal crooks yet?” “No, not as yet.” “Sorry to hear it.” “But I’m hoping to do so.” “I join you in the hope, Carter,” declared Badger; then he laughingly added: “You’ll observe that I’m out of those red flannel bandages.” “Yes, so I see.” “A nasty thing, a cold in the early summer.” “So it is,” assented Nick. “I congratulate you upon being rid of it.” He had eyed the man intently while they were speaking, and he saw what he had not seen, heard what he had not heard, when they met at his place in Brookline; for Badger now knew that he was suspected; knew what desperate work must be done that afternoon, and he had dropped those little artifices with which he had aimed to blind Nick during their previous meeting. In his clear and cutting voice, in every subtle, sinister inflection, in the glowing glint of his dark eyes, in the poise of his supple, muscular figure—in one and all of these Nick now saw or heard again the man of the hold-up—as plainly as when he saw the knave standing with leveled weapons in that sunlit suburban road. Yet the face of the detective did not change by so much as a shadow, and Vic Clayton now interposed, with a fine display of solicitude: “We can do Mr. Carter a service, Amos, if you have no plans for the afternoon.” “How?” demanded Badger, turning quickly to her. “He wishes to visit the place where Claudia and I were held up and robbed, and he came here to ask me to go with him. Now, if you have no particular trip you wish to make to-day——” “None whatever!” cried Badger, quickly interrupting. “We are out for an airing only, and I’d as soon go that way as any. The road to Canton—can you locate the precise place, Vic?” “Surely.”