“I—­ er—­ suppose you could,” answered the lawyer, with some hesitation.  “But don’t you think you would be better off out of the State, or in Canada?”

“That’s what I say!” cried Pelter.  “Canada for mine.  I’ve been wanting to visit Montreal and Quebec.  Now is our chance.”

“All right, whatever you say,” answered Japson.  “Maybe we would be safer out of the country until this matter blew over.  Hang the luck!  It was too bad to have Rover get away from us as he did.  If we could have held him back a couple of days longer that land and maybe those stocks would have been ours.”

“He’s got some smart sons, that man,” observed Fog.  “I know, for I once ran up against them,” and he told about the biplane incident.

“They are altogether too smart,” growled Pelter.  “I’d like to wring their necks for ’em!”

“Well, we’ll turn the trick on ’em yet,” said Japson.  “Remember, the game isn’t ended until the last card is played.”

“That’s right,” thought Dick.  “And it won’t be long before I play the last card!”

“After this affair is a thing of the past, I am going after those business interests of the Rovers,” went on Jesse Pelter.  “They are pretty well tangled up—­ they got so while Rover was sick.  I think we can make something out of them yet.”

“Not if I know it,” murmured Dick, to himself.  “You are a first-class fellow to put in jail—­ you and the others, too!”

The talk in the apartment went on, covering the things Belright Fogg was to do while Pelter and Japson were in hiding in Canada.  The unscrupulous lawyer was to produce a power of attorney dated some days before, so that he might act in place of the brokers.  He was also to do his best to help the brokers prove an alibi when accused of the abduction of Anderson Rover.

“I’m getting dry,” remarked Japson, presently.  “Fogg, haven’t you got something to drink, and some cigars?”

“Sure I have,” answered the lawyer, and Dick heard him leave the apartment and go into a dining-room.

While Dick was listening at the door he also kept his ears open for the return of Dan Baxter.  Presently he heard the elevator come upstairs, and then there sounded a low whistle—­ a whistle Dick had heard many times while he was a cadet at Putnam Hall.

Eagerly the oldest Rover boy tiptoed his way down the corridor.  Baxter came forward to meet him, accompanied by two policemen, and the elevator man, who wanted to know what the trouble was.

“The two brokers are in that room,” whispered Dick, pointing to the door of the apartment.  “They are planning to skip out to Canada and leave their affairs in the hands of the lawyer who has rented this apartment.  He is almost as much of a rascal as any of them, for he is to take their power of attorney dated some days back, and is going to try to prove an alibi for them.  I heard ’em arrange the whole thing.”

“The rascals!” murmured Baxter.  “Glad you cornered ’em, Dick.”