He turned quickly on the woman, who ran behind the bar. Without further interference he led his prisoner from the house. CHAPTER IV. A STARTLING REVELATION. After turning Skip Brodie over to the authorities at police headquarters, Nick Carter began in earnest running down Elmer Greer. He had all along felt satisfied that the abduction of the banker had never been planned by Brodie and his rough companions. There was a master hand that pulled the strings, while the puppets danced. Nick Carter felt certain that he had found the leader in the person of Elmer Greer. For two days Nick haunted gambling saloons, theaters, sporting resorts and other places where Elmer was likely to be found, without success. The detective was cleverly disguised as a fop, and his best friend would not have recognized in the dude the celebrated Nick Carter. On the evening of the second day, the detective was sauntering across the park at Union Square when a gentleman, walking hurriedly, his eyes bent on the ground, collided with him. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the offending party. “Don’t mention it.” Carter walked on, but only for a few feet, then he turned. “Shall I arrest him now?” he thought. “No, I will follow and see where he goes; he can’t escape me.” The man who had accidentally knocked against the supposed fop was Elmer Greer. The rascal walked very rapidly, but his pursuer never lost sight of him. Greer entered a house in West Twenty-fourth Street--the same from which Mr. Hilton Field had been carried. It was bitter cold and the detective more than once wished that he had arrested his man before he entered the house. “I’m in for it,” thought the watcher, “if he doesn’t come out again to-night. He will hardly stay in, though; were it a gambling house he might stay until morning.” The detective kept up a cheerful conversation with himself for about an hour, when Greer again appeared. Now he was accompanied by a boyish-looking young man. Nick drew into the shadow of a doorway and allowed the pair to pass. Greer and his friend turned up Broadway and entered one of the leading hotels. The detective was at their heels, and witnessed a meeting between them and a man he knew to be a Wall Street broker. The latter went to the clerk’s desk and engaged a room. While the porter was showing the guests to the apartment, Nick Carter went to the desk and glanced at the blotter. The party had engaged room eighty-five. “Is room eighty-four engaged?” he asked of the clerk. “Yes.” “Eighty-six?” “You can have that.” “Does it adjoin eighty-five?” asked the officer. The clerk answered in the affirmative, wondering the while at the question. Nick took the room and was immediately shown to it. He was in luck. A door connected his apartment with that occupied by Elmer Greer and his friends. The door was locked, but the keyhole afforded him a good chance of listening.