He sat gazing at Nick Carter at five o’clock that afternoon, with tears in his eyes and his hands gripping his knees--a portly, smoothly shaved man with gray hair and a remarkably attractive countenance, despite the shadow of sorrow that never left him. He was saying deliberately, with a voice rendered steady only by the strength of a superior will: “I agree with you, Nick, in that Lucy is not at fault. That would be very unlike her. She has been faithful, always cautious and careful, during the five years she has been in my service. No, I will not censure her.” “It really would be very unjust,” Nick said earnestly. “She did perfectly right in acting upon her impulse to aid a woman said to be in distress, and she cannot reasonably be blamed for not suspecting that she was the victim of a put-up job. Even with all of my experience, Mr. Madden, I did not at first suspect it.” “Do you now feel sure of it?” Mr. Madden gravely questioned. “Yes, absolutely,” said the detective. “The circumstances admit of no other interpretation. This whole business was cut and dried, carefully planned, and cleverly executed.” “You reason that----” “It may be told in a nutshell,” Nick interposed. “No such lad as Lucy Sloan described would have remained to watch the two children while she ran to aid a fainting woman. A well-bred boy, accustomed to obey his elders, might have done so, but not a lad of the streets. He, boylike, would have returned to learn how the woman fared and to see all that occurred.” “Sure!” put in Patsy expressively. “I know. I’ve been there.” “In view of what occurred, moreover, the almost immediate recovery of the woman shows that she was only feigning. That is confirmed, too, by her speedy disappearance. She had to make a quick get-away before the absence of Amy was discovered. She got a move on, I remember, the moment the nurse started to return to the children.” “You do not believe, then, that her name is Margaret Hanson?” “Not for a moment,” said Nick. “That was only a blind. She is a very cool and clever woman, Mr. Madden, and one of an equally clever gang by whom your daughter has been abducted. The circumstances admit of no other conclusion.” “My Lord, this is terrible!” Mr. Madden said, with a groan. “I do not think, however, that the child is in any immediate personal peril,” Nick quickly added. “She probably has been abducted with a view to bleeding you out of a large sum of money.” “I will pay any sum, Nick, to have her safely restored to me.” “No, no, don’t do that,” Nick protested. “Surely not at present. It may become necessary, of course, after we have exhausted all other resources, but not until then. You owe it to the community, as well as to yourself, to defer yielding to such knavery as long as you can consistently do so. In the meantime I will devote all of my energies to running down the crooks and finding the child.” “But they may kill her, or----”