CHAPTER 2A NOVEL TIMEKEEPER
It was about four o’clock in the morning when Nick and the New York chief of police sat down together in the latter’s house to discuss the events of the night. What had happened in the meantime the reader will hear in Nick’s own words.
He had rapidly described the events with which the reader is familiar and had come to the scene in the hall.
“I went directly to No. 349,” Nick proceeded, “and there I found evidence which convinced me that Helstone’s gang had made the house its headquarters. I got no information from the people in the house. They only knew that a ‘club’ of some kind had hired one of the upper apartments. Of course it was empty. The gang had taken the alarm. But I saw the work of Helstone’s carpenter.
“You remember that when the central office
