The sound was a curious, muffled groan, and in a moment it was repeated.

“Good heavens!” the thought flashed through Griswold’s mind. “What if Carter has been injured, too, and locked in here?”

For perhaps half a minute the newspaper proprietor hesitated, as any man might have done under the circumstances, then he called out in a guarded tone:

“Is that you, Carter?”

There was no answer in words, but he heard another groan—or, rather, a prolonged and incoherent sound, which suggested a tongueless man’s efforts at speech.

“He’s probably injured or gagged,” Griswold concluded. “I mustn’t waste any time.”

He pressed against the sliding door some distance below the lock, and found that it gave quite a little. That discovery encouraged him, and, running around the garage, he approached the pile of lumber, and snatched up one of the boards.

It was twenty feet or more in length, and about six or eight inches in width.

Returning as rapidly as he could, he pressed the door with his hand, and inserted one end of the board in the opening thus made, after which he began to pry at the door. The length of the board made it unwieldy and inclined to bend, but Griswold soon remedied that by pushing in several feet of the board, and then deliberately breaking it off.

He thereupon threw the larger piece aside, and, using the smaller, which was now wedged in the door, he drew it out for some distance, and then repeated his prying operations.

This new weapon was much more convenient and less inclined to bend. In fact, it proved to be unexpectedly sturdy, and, after repeated attempts, into which he threw all his strength, the millionaire presently succeeded in breaking the lock.

The door was then quickly pushed back, and Griswold peered into the interior of the garage. The place was comparatively dark at first, in comparison with the bright sunlight outside, but a further shove at the door let in more light, and revealed a figure propped up against the lower wall. There was a gag in its mouth, its hands were evidently tied behind its back, its ankles were bound, and a closer scrutiny revealed that, in addition, it was tied to the wall in some way so that it could not budge from its place.

Almost immediately Griswold saw that it was not Nick Carter—or, rather, the man whom he supposed to be Nick Carter. As he strode forward, however, with an exclamation of pity, he did not recognize the unfortunate, the lower part of whose face was obscured by the handkerchief which was used as a gag.

It was not until this was removed that recognition came, and when it did, Griswold started back in amazement.

“Simpson!” he cried. “What on earth are you doing here?”

The man tried to speak, but seemed unable to articulate. Probably his throat and tongue were too dry from disuse, and very likely the tongue and lips were swollen as well.

Griswold saw the difficulty, and did not repeat his question just then. Instead, he proceeded rapidly to cut the cords which bound Simpson to the wall, and also to sever the bonds about the ankles.

The body sagged to one side from weakness, and when the millionaire turned it over to get at the wrists, he found them encircled by handcuffs, instead of ropes.

“Great Scott!” he muttered. “This is certainly a strange state of affairs.”

It looked as if Simpson had been caught by Cray—or perhaps by Cray and Nick Carter together—and that subsequently the detective had been set upon by others. That would account for Cray’s condition, and it might be that Nick had been carried off. Had the prisoner been locked in the garage, however, before that attack had taken place? If not, it seemed hard to explain, unless the mysterious assailants had not been accomplices of his at all, but had worked independently.

The newspaper proprietor propped Simpson up again, none too gently.

“I can’t get these handcuffs off,” he said. “Speak, man, as soon as you can, and tell me what happened? Where’s the money?”

John Simpson looked about him as if he did not quite understand. As a matter of fact, his experiences had left his faculties more or less benumbed for the time being.

Griswold had to repeat his question in a more peremptory tone.

“The money is gone,” Simpson managed to say at last, after several futile efforts and much moistening of the lips. “I—I had it here.”

“Go on, go on!” Griswold urged, bending eagerly, with clenched hands.

“I had come in the car to carry it away to—to a new hiding place I had found,” the absconding treasurer explained with difficulty. “It was all in the car—two suit cases full of it—when a couple of fellows pounced on me.”

“Two, eh?”

“Yes, one was rather tall and very broad and powerful——”

“Cray!” put in Griswold.

“Yes, he told me that after I was handcuffed,” Simpson agreed, “and he said the other man was Nick Carter.”

“So Carter was here? I wonder what’s happened to him? When did the others butt in, Simpson, and who were they?”

The handcuffed man looked up at him in bewilderment.

“I don’t know anything about any others,” he declared, with evident sincerity.

“But there must have been others. Cray was found outside here this morning, with his head nearly mashed in. Didn’t you hear anything after they shut you up. You didn’t go to sleep right away, did you, after that sort of thing? Did you have any accomplice?”

The treasurer shook his head in a dazed sort of way. “Nobody else had any hand in what I did, Mr. Griswold,” he said. “As for falling asleep, I guess you wouldn’t have done that very quickly if you had been in my place. I did doze off after daylight, but that was all.”

There could be no doubt that he was telling the truth. “Probably you were in a deep, exhausted sleep when they found Cray,” he said. “The yard seems to have been full of people then.”

“I did hear a dog barking,” Simpson admitted finally. “It partially aroused me, but I dropped off again. Maybe that was the time.”

“Then you haven’t the slightest idea of what happened after you were locked up here?” persisted Griswold.

“Why, I guess I could explain that,” the thief replied slowly, as if he were just beginning to realize what it all meant. “It must have been Nick Carter who——”

“Who did what?”

“Who put the other fellow out of business.”