The cabs pursued their way up Broadway until Forty-second Street was reached, when they turned, the leading cab going up that street to Fifth Avenue.
As the one containing the young woman turned the corner into that avenue it halted. A young man stepped out from the shadow and entered the cab.
Patsy’s cab was at a discreet distance behind it, yet Patsy thought that the young man was the same one with whom, earlier in the evening, on Broadway, he had seen the young woman when she made the change in her hair.
The cab now went on up Fifth Avenue, and at a slower pace than it had previously been going.
Thus Sixty-eighth Street was reached, and, when near the corner, the cab drew alongside the curbstone, the two occupants alighting and proceeding on foot.
Patsy was out in a moment. As the two disappeared around the corner, he ran at full speed; Chick, a little distance behind him, also following rapidly on foot.
When Patsy reached the corner the pair were nowhere to be seen. For the moment the young detective was at a loss to know what to do.
Thinking that if they had entered any one of the houses it must have been one very close to the avenue, and that, if so, they would have hardly had time to pass through the door, and were under the concealment of a vestibule, he ran down the street hastily in the hopes that he might discover them.
Just as Chick reached the corner, two figures leaped out at Patsy.
They were the pair he had been following.
The young man went at Patsy rather viciously, crying, as he did so:
“What are you following us for?”
Though the attack was unexpected, Patsy was not unprepared, and, squaring himself, warded off the blow the young man had aimed at him.
It was apparent to Patsy in a moment that the young man was no novice at the game of the fists.
Indeed, he was an adept in the art of boxing and, for a moment or two, Patsy was kept quite busy in defending himself.
In the meantime, the young woman was a silent and inactive witness.
After the first few moments of surprise had passed, and, as he thought, he had obtained the measure of the young man, Patsy changed his tactics from defending himself to going at the other one fiercely.
He soon demonstrated his superiority, and was fast overcoming the young man, when, to Patsy’s intense astonishment, the young woman danced up at him in approved pugilistic fashion and landed a stinging blow in his face.
The young detective was astonished at the force behind the blow. Though he was busy with the young man, he did not fail to observe that the young woman, lady, and daughter of wealth as she seemed to be, was, nevertheless, a good deal of a boxer.
“Hello!” said Patsy to himself. “I have heard of these women athletes among the swells, but this is the first one I ever saw.”
In the meantime, the young woman was dancing up,letting out a blow, dancing away again to come back with another blow.
Some of these blows landed on Patsy’s shoulder and chest, blows which the young fellow cared nothing for. But some of them came too close to his eyes and mouth to be comfortable.
Patsy hardly knew how to deal with this assailant. While boxing with the young man, he had warded off a number of the blows of the young woman, and, though opportunity was given him, he had returned none, nor had he even attempted to.
He could not bring himself to fight a woman, however annoying and irritating she might be.
In the meantime, Chick had stolen down on the other side of the street, and, perceiving the curious fight in which Patsy was engaged, was doubled up with laughter.
His quick eye had shown him that Patsy was in no need of help so far as the young man was concerned, and he believed that, as energetic as the young woman might be, Patsy could find a way to evade her.
As a matter of fact, he wanted to be free to follow the young woman were the two to escape Patsy.
This curious fight went on in that quiet street for some little time, little or no noise being made, since the combatants did not speak.
At length Patsy, having become tired of the game, devoted himself wholly to the young man without regard to the young woman. Finally, he got in a blow on the young man that sent him down to the pavement.
Turning to the young woman as she came up to him, he caught her by the wrists, and, holding her fast, said:
“It’s about time you stopped this.”
The young woman struggled to release herself, and found that she was as a mere child in the grasp of the athletic and trained young detective.
It seemed as if she was more angry in finding herself so helpless in his grasp than she had been before. She said:
“Release me. I command you. I’ll have you punished.”
Patsy merely laughed in her face, and, having shown her how helpless she was, threw off her hands, saying:
“You can fight very well, my lady, so long as nobody fights back. Now don’t try any more of it again, if you please.”
The woman’s anger was too great for her to speak. Suddenly she turned on the young man, who was still lying as he fell, and hissed out:
“Get up, you coward! Do you leave me to be so insulted here?”
But the young man made no reply, and Patsy said:
“I must have hit him too hard.”
Disregarding the young woman, he went to the young man and bent over him. He was unconscious. After trying to lift him to his feet, Patsy said to the young woman:
“I cracked him harder than I thought, or else his head hit the pavement when he fell. I’ll take him to the drug store around the corner.”
The young woman, forgetting her anger, went hurriedly to the young man. Bending over him, she first felt his pulse and then his heart.
“You have killed him!”
But the next moment she peered eagerly into the eyes of the young man and exclaimed:
“No. He’s coming to.”
She rubbed his forehead and chafed his hands.
“Who is he?” asked Patsy.
“My brother,” she replied, sharply.
After a while the young man was sufficiently restored to stand on his feet when helped up by Patsy.
“You’ve done damage enough,” said the young woman, “and you can now go away.”
“I’ll help you home with him,” said Patsy.
“No, I don’t want you to do that.”
She stood up and looked Patsy straight in the eyes and said:
“You shall not see me go home to-night. If you don’t go away, I shall stay here, or else go somewhere where you can’t find me. I know you. You are one of Nick Carter’s people. Go away. You can do nothing to-night, and you can’t find out anything about me.”
Casting a glance about, Patsy was satisfied that he saw Chick on the other side of the street. Indeed, he had been conscious during the time that he was defending himself from the assault of this athletic brother and sister that Chick had come down on the other side.
Believing that they did not know that Chick was ready to follow, he thought it best to end the affair by walking off.
“All right, if you say so,” said Patsy. “Only, you might have said so from the first, and not kept jabbing me in the face.”
He turned and sauntered up the street. Reaching the corner, he turned backward and saw that the young man and woman were watching him.
He turned the corner and went out of sight.
No sooner was he gone than the pair hurriedly ran down the street to about the middle of the block, and as hastily climbed the steps of a rather imposing mansion, disappearing behind the doors.
If the pair thought they had done so undiscovered,they were greatly mistaken, for Chick from his place had seen them and had carefully noted the house they had entered.
Cautiously and stealthily, Chick crept down the street, and, reaching the house, climbed the steps sufficiently to see the number. Then perceiving that there was a doorplate on the door, he went up to the top step, and, with a lighted match, found the name. It was merely that of Rainforth.
The end had been gained. The young woman had been tracked to her home.
He went back to Fifth Avenue, and, turning the corner, came on Patsy awaiting him there.
As soon as he saw the young detective he began to laugh.
“You’ve struck a new kind of a boxer, Patsy,” he said.
“That’s right,” said Patsy. “And she can hit, too. Hanged if I don’t think she can hit harder than the young fellow she calls her brother.”
“Her brother?” asked Chick.
“That’s what she said he was.”
“Wasn’t it a stall?”
“They went into the same house together.”
“Perhaps so,” said Chick. “As a rule, however, brothers don’t usually run around at this hour of the night with a sister.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Patsy. “Anyhow, they’re the queerest brother and sister that I ever ran up against. Say, Chick, is it the fashion for women to box?”
“I hear it is,” said Chick.
“Well,” said Patsy, “that little one is no fool at the game. And she has got the pluck of a professional.”
“I got the name on the plate of the house they went into. It is Rainforth.”
“Then you got the house they went into?” asked Patsy.
“Yes, and the number,” replied Chick. “Now we have got to find out something about the people who live in that house.”
“Small chance of finding anything to-night, or rather this morning,” said Patsy. “That’s a job for to-morrow.”
Patsy had hardly spoken these words when a policeman turned the corner, and, seeing the two young men there, stopped, casting suspicious glances at them.
“What are you loafing there for?” he asked.
Instead of replying, Chick said:
“Officer, is Sixty-eighth Street your beat?”
“Yes; and what of it?”
“Do you know all the families that live on Sixty-eighth Street?”
“Most of them.”
“Do you know a family by the name of Rainforth?”
“Yes; I know there is such a family there. But what is that to you?”
“We are two of Nick Carter’s people,” said Chick.
He made that fact plain to the officer, who quickly changed his manner, and, from being suspicious, became confidential.
“Yes, I know that family Rainforth,” he said. “Rainforth is Colonel Rainforth, a rich man, living on his money. A widower, and pretty old.”
“Who lives in the house with him?”
“A son and a daughter.”
The officer began to laugh and finally said:
“They are a queer pair, that son and daughter. They travel around together late at night. I don’t know howmany times I have seen them go into the house at two or three o’clock in the morning.”
“Coming home from parties and receptions and balls, I presume,” said Chick.
“Mebbe; but I don’t like that. It looks to me as if they had been roaming. Say, the daughter is a thoroughbred. She does almost anything a man does. She rides, and there isn’t any horse too bad for her. She rows a boat, she works in a gymnasium, and I know for sure that she’s taken boxing lessons. They say she’s awful good with her fists.”
“Is she straight?” asked Chick.
“Ain’t heard anybody say she wasn’t. She’s just queer; that’s all.”
This was all the officer could tell them, and, after a few more words, he strolled away.
The two young men stood a while longer conversing, and were themselves about to move away, when young Mr. Sanborn came tripping hurriedly along the pavement.
Chick stopped him, saying:
“Mr. Sanborn, will you stop a moment?”
The young man stopped, and, perceiving who it was who had addressed him, called them by name and laughed:
“A little too late for much conversation, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps it is,” said Chick; “but we want to have a little information which we think you can give, and we don’t want to be asked why we want it.”
“Oh,” said young Sanborn, “if it is a matter of business, I’ll give it if I can, and I won’t ask why.”
“Will you tell us if you know a family of the name of Rainforth?”
“I know of a family of that name living down here in Sixty-eighth Street.”
“Colonel Rainforth, a widower, with one son and a daughter?” asked Chick.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me anything about the daughter?”
“I know her quite well,” said young Sanborn; “have known her a good many years, and have never known anything against her.”
“Isn’t she rather queer?” asked Chick.
“Oh, I don’t know but that she is in some of the things she does. She goes in for things that most of the young women do not. She rides, fences, drives tandems and four-in-hands, shoots, is gymnastic, and boxes—in fact, she goes in for all sorts of out-door sports. In that way, she is one of the new women.”
“She and her brother are great chums?” asked Chick.
“There’s no doubt of that,” said young Sanborn. “They’re very chummy. Travel together a good deal.”
Young Sanborn suddenly turned sharply on Chick, looking at him very intently, and then said:
“Oh, I say, here! Why, yes, I forgot.”
He stopped a moment to think, and then said:
“I see that you have got onto a little thing that escaped my memory. A year ago or more Julia Rainforth made a dead set for Ellison. She was so sweet on him that she followed him up constantly, put herself in his way to such an extent that people talked about it. But it’s all over, and has been since the time the engagement of my cousin and Ellison was announced.”
“You are sure of that?” asked Chick.
“There’s no doubt about it at all,” replied Sanborn, positively.
Chick had no further questions to ask, and, a few moments later, young Sanborn went his way.
Turning to Patsy, Chick said:
“Well, Patsy, we’ve got something to report to the chief at last.”
Then, they, too, walked away in the direction of their homes.
The next morning Nick Carter listened with surprise and deep interest to the tale which his two efficient aids had to tell him.
“When we parted last night,” he said, “there hardly seemed to be an opening anywhere in this case. The only one was that which Patsy had suggested as to Lannigan. Now, after a night’s work, there seems to be so many that they are conflicting.”
“Yes,” said Chick, “it seemed very straight when Patsy suggested that we could get to the woman who had written those letters by following up Lannigan. Well, we have found the woman who wrote the letters, but have learned nothing to show that she was connected with Lannigan, while the woman who is connected with Lannigan does not seem to have had anything to do with the letters, although if the string is right, she did have to do with Ellison.”
“That’s why I say that our openings conflict,” said Nick.
“Well, boys,” continued Nick, “it is for you to follow up what you have begun. You must follow up the Lannigan end to-day. That will take you to Philadelphia, for Lannigan went over there this morning. I know that. Find out, while there, about Ellison’s associations in Philadelphia, and whom he visited in that place.”
“You have no doubt, then,” asked Chick, “that the Englishman the girl Alice talked of was Ellison?”
“I have no doubt,” said Nick, “for the reason that, while you were busy in one direction last night, I waspushing inquiries in another, and I learned that Ellison did charter a yacht last summer, and that he did spend a good deal of time in Philadelphia, off and on.”
He got up from his chair, and, pacing up and down a little while, at length said:
“I don’t quite know how to size up young Sanborn. For a man who is well acquainted with Ellison as he pretends to be, he is singularly ignorant of the man, or else he refuses to tell all that he knows. In his talk yesterday he dropped the name of a man as one of those with whom Ellison spent much of his time, and that man I am very well acquainted with.
“While this young man made no pretentions to intimate friendship with Ellison, yet he knew enough about him to know that his life was not quite as correct as Sanborn would have us believe.
“It is from him that I learned about the yacht, the Philadelphia trips, and that Ellison was involved in two or three scrapes that did not become public. I take it young Sanborn is no longer important to us.”
“The girl Alice,” said Chick, “said that he, if he is the young Englishman, was very attentive to Mrs. Ladew. She told the truth there, because Miss Rainforth admitted to me that Ellison had been in a foolish flirtation with her.”
“It’s all over,” cried Patsy. “That settles it.”
“Settles what?” asked Chick.
“Why, that the young Englishman is Ellison.”
“Quite right, Patsy,” said Nick.
Nick thought a moment or two, and then said:
“Philadelphia is the place where you must look for a day or two. Keep your eyes open for traces of Ellison’s valet, and for the man who came to see Ellison, and in whose cape coat Ellison went away. Patsy saw them both, and that is an advantage.
“I will follow up the Rainforth matter here, but that, in my judgment, is where Ida will have to do most of the work. You can’t get away any too quickly.”
“I suppose,” said Chick, “what we’ve got to work on there is how Lannigan came to get a line on the wedding presents at Sanborn’s.”
“Of course,” said Nick, “there is a connection there with Ellison, somehow. Whether with Ellison’s knowledge or not is a question, but on working in Philadelphia on the line of Ellison’s doings, and on the line of how Lannigan was steered to the wedding, you may find out much that is valuable for us to know in tracing the mystery of Ellison’s disappearance.”
The two young detectives went away to prepare for their trip to Philadelphia.
As soon as they were gone, Nick summoned Ida.
She was not long in coming, and, when she did arrive, Nick said to her:
“Ida, I have got something for you to do which, I think, is about as difficult as anything you have undertaken.”
He told her the experiences of Chick and Patsy with the young Rainforth woman, and the discovery that she was the writer of the two anonymous letters.
“That young woman puzzles me,” said Nick. “I know something about her. Her father is an old army officer, very rich, who long since retired. The young girl, with her brother, was brought up at army posts in the West, in the wild Indian fighting times, and learned many things there that are not usually a part of a fashionable young lady’s education.
“She learned how to ride vicious horses and how to use firearms. She is an expert shot with both rifle and revolver. Besides, she can wield the sword as well as a soldier.
“Where she learned the accomplishment of boxing that she made a display of with Patsy, I don’t know. Probably after she returned to the East, and as a consequence of having already certain manly attainments.
“She is good at many of that sort of thing—lawn tennis, golf and yachting.
“All these things, although they have made her much talked about, have not given her the reputation of being fast. But it a queer story that Patsy tells of her, and it is borne out in Chick’s interview with her.
“The fact which concerns us is, that she knew about the attempt or intention to rob the Sanborn house, and that she knows more about Ellison’s private life than his associates do.”
“I should think,” said Ida, “from what you say, that she was involved with Ellison herself, and that the knowledge she obtained came through that connection.”
“It may be so,” said Nick, “but I am inclined to believe that all there was of that connection was a desire on her part to capture Ellison for herself.”
Ida laughed and said:
“Our sex is a queer thing. This Miss Rainforth seems to be a very bold, energetic and courageous young woman. If you are right, and she has been scorned by Ellison, there is no knowledge to what lengths she will go.”
“Well,” said Nick, “it is for you to get into relations with her, and find out what you can. It is a difficult thing. How will you go about it?”
“That does not seem to me to be as important,” replied Ida, “as to know how to deal with her when I do get to her.”
“Getting to her is no small matter, Ida,” said Nick. “Miss Rainforth is a fashionable young lady. Usually, her movements are wholly within fashionable circles ofthe most exclusive kind. Her escapade of last night is not usual, and you cannot count on getting to her by finding her outside of her own circles.”
“Leave it to me,” replied Ida, “to get to her. The thing in my mind is, as I said before, how to deal with her when I do get to her.”
“Well,” asked Nick, “have you any theory?”
“From what has been told me,” replied Ida, “I don’t think that gentle methods, or wheedling, or coaxing, will accomplish anything. Unless she has no sort of regard for her private character, I think we will have to try to frighten her.”
“Well,” said Nick, “we will have to leave that to you, and you must be governed by your judgment of her when you reach her.”
After some further talk, Ida left Nick, still undetermined as to the methods she would use in getting to the singular young lady.
As she was thinking on the street, her steps were led almost involuntarily to Sixty-eighth Street. Standing for a moment on the corner of that street and Fifth Avenue, she suddenly made up her mind, and, walking rapidly down the street, went to the Rainforth house and rang the bell.
When the door was opened, Ida said to the servant:
“Is Miss Julia Rainforth in?”
“What name am I to present?” asked the servant.
“My name will mean nothing to Miss Rainforth,” said Ida. “Tell her a lady would like to see her on a matter of much importance.”
The servant ushered Ida into a small reception-room on one side of the hall, and disappeared.
He was back again in a few moments with a message that Miss Rainforth desired to know the business of the person who had called.
“Inform Miss Rainforth,” said Ida, “that the business I have come about is that which Miss Rainforth will not care to have known to her servants.”
The servant went off, and was back again in a few moments, bringing with him some paper, a pencil and an envelope.
“Miss Rainforth,” he said, “orders me to say that, if the business cannot be stated to a servant, it can be written on this paper.”
Ida was about to return the paper with the word that a personal interview alone would do, when a thought struck her.
She took the paper and pencil and hastily wrote on it:
“Ellison. Mysterious disappearance. Elsie Sanborn. Mrs. Ladew.”
“Ellison. Mysterious disappearance. Elsie Sanborn. Mrs. Ladew.”
As she wrote this last name, some one passed through the hall of whom Ida caught but a glimpse through the openings of the portières.
Yet that glimpse suggested to her the man who came to see Ellison on the day of his wedding, as described by Patsy.
Not that she believed that it was the man, but the fancied resemblance suggested an idea.
She added hastily to what she had already written on the paper the following:
“The mysterious stranger who called on Ellison on the day of his wedding.”
“The mysterious stranger who called on Ellison on the day of his wedding.”
She folded the paper, inclosing it in the envelope, sealed it, and gave it to the servant.
In a very short time the servant was back again to say that Miss Rainforth would see the caller in her own apartment.
The servant led Ida up the stairs to the second floor and into a room in the front of the house, furnished most luxuriously as a sitting-room.
A young woman, rather under-sized, but well proportioned, and with some claims to beauty, stood in the center of this room.
Ida regarded the young woman intently. She saw that, though the features of the young lady were somewhat hard, and the expression of her face not wholly agreeable, yet she was one who would be attractive to the other sex. Her eyes were dark, and there was in them a rather steely gleam as she turned them keenly on Ida.
“I don’t know you,” was her salutation.
Looking about the room, Ida saw there were two doors therein, both open. Without replying to the abrupt and ungracious greeting of the young lady, Ida went to the one which seemed to lead into an inner apartment, and, closing it, shot the bolt she found on it.
“You are impertinent,” said Miss Rainforth.
Nor to this remark did Ida reply, but went to the door leading to the hall, closed that, and turned the key in the lock.
“What do you mean to do?” asked Miss Rainforth, so much astonished that she had not as yet interfered.
“I mean,” said Ida, “that we shall not be interrupted during our interview.”
Ida now went to a chair in that part of the room which brought her back to the light, and forced Miss Rainforth to stand, or sit, as she chose, with that light full on her face.
“You do not ask me to sit down, Miss Rainforth,” said Ida. “So I shall take a seat uninvited. But, before I do, I wish to say that I know that you are an expert in shooting. I would have you know that I am also. You can take your revolvers, if you choose to do so, for I shall sit with mine in my lap ready to check any use of yours on your part.”
With that Ida took her revolvers from her pocket, and, sitting down, laid them upon her lap.
“Well,” said Miss Rainforth, with a long breath, “of all the impudent things I have ever met, you are the most impudent.”
“Oh, no,” replied Ida, “I am merely a determined person who will not be denied in the matter I have come about.”
“Leave the room,” said Miss Rainforth, suddenly losing her temper.
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Ida.
Miss Rainforth made a motion as if she would run to the door, but Ida sternly commanded her to stop.
Apparently unused to such a tone, Miss Rainforth stopped, turning more in surprise and astonishment than in submission.
“Miss Rainforth,” said Ida, “you will please to return to your seat.”
The young lady continued to stare at her visitor, and Ida went on:
“It is useless for you to call any one, for that will only result in your ruin and disgrace. As I told you, you have met with a person even more determined than yourself. You must submit.”
“Who are you?” the young lady blurted forth.
“My name is of no consequence,” said Ida. “It isenough for you to know that I am one of Nick Carter’s people. I have something to learn from you which you must tell.”
“‘Must! Must! Must!’”repeated the young lady, now nearly beside herself with anger. “In all my life, I have never permitted any one to say ‘must’ to me. How dare you, when my father never dared to say it to me?”
“Simply because,” said Ida, very quietly, “I am determined that you shall tell me what you know about Mr. Ellison.”
The manner of Ida, so calm, determined and selfpossessed, made an evident impression upon the young lady.
She came across the room, standing almost directly in front of Ida, and calmly studied the face of her visitor, as if it were new to her experience.
“I know that you are supposed to be a bold and courageous young lady,” said Ida. “I know it is commonly reported that you are not unaccustomed to scenes of danger. You are in no danger here, except such as may result from your refusal to tell me what justice demands you should tell. Now, please sit down and let us get this matter over.”
The mood of the young lady changed, and she laughed aloud, sarcastically rather than otherwise, saying, when she had had her laugh out:
“Well, this is a new experience. Really, it is entertaining. I think I shall enjoy it.”
She went back to a chair, and sat down.
“Now, Miss One-of-Nick-Carter’s-People, what is your business with me?”
“Miss Rainforth, you notified my chief that a robbery was to be attempted at Mr. Sanborn’s house yesterday. Subsequently, and almost immediately after the singular disappearance of Mr. Ellison, you wrote another letterto Mr. Carter, telling him a woman was at the bottom of that disappearance. Later in the evening, you made your appearance, in disguise, in places in the Tenderloin, under circumstances which, if known publicly, would ruin the most respectable young lady.”
Miss Rainforth sprang to her feet, this time genuinely alarmed.
“How do you know that?” she exclaimed. “What do you know? How much do you know?”
Ida saw that she had made a point much stronger than she knew.
Evidently, the young lady had been engaged in something the night previous, had been somewhere, and had been involved in something, the concealment of which was far more important to her than of her entrance to the all-night restaurant at midnight.
Ida was quick to use the advantage she had gained, though she recognized that she was on dangerous ground, and was ignorant of what had so excited the young woman.
“You know little of Nick Carter and his perfect system,” she replied, “if you do not know that he is aware of the movements of any one who is of concern to him.”
Miss Rainforth fell back in her chair, muttering, rather to herself than to Ida:
“I had heard so. I had been warned. But I did not believe it.”
Then she turned to Ida.
“Talk plainly,” she said. “What is it you want to say? What is it you want of me?”
Ida stood up, deliberately replaced the revolvers in her pocket, and as calmly sat down again.
She felt that she had already won her victory; if she managed the rest of the interview with skill that thereckless, courageous and masterful young woman was already cowed.
In the meantime, Miss Rainforth, settling back in her chair, was regarding her visitor with apprehensive intentness.
“Mr. Carter,” said Ida, “has neither wish nor disposition to do anything to your injury. You are of no consequence to him, as important as you doubtless regard yourself, except as you bear a relation to the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Ellison, and have knowledge of events leading up to that disappearance.”
“I am sure,” replied Miss Rainforth, with a sneer, “I’m obliged to the consideration of Mr. Carter.”
Ida gave no heed to the sneer, but went on:
“In the first place, I want to know how you came to have knowledge of the intended robbery of the wedding presents.”
“Really?” sneered Miss Rainforth.
Ida saw that the young lady was recovering from the panic into which she had been thrown, and was regaining possession of herself. She made an attempt to frighten the young lady again.
“I presume, Miss Rainforth,” she said, “that you are intelligent enough to understand that you are at present in the position of one who is in relations with a notorious thief and burglar, one Lannigan?”
The young lady started violently.
“Lannigan!” she repeated.
“Lannigan made the attempt to enter the house of Mr. Sanborn yesterday morning,” said Ida. “Indeed, he did enter it, and was recognized by Mr. Carter. He was driven off at that time and, though his gang made two other efforts later, they also were defeated.”
“They did make the attempt?” said Miss Rainforth. “I thought they had not done so.”
Ida made a bold play.
“Oh, they kept their part of the bargain,” she said.
It was a false play, for the young woman looked at Ida with a puzzled face.
Ida instantly saw it, and hastened to regain her ground.
“You do not answer my question,” she said. “How did you come to know of this intended robbery?”
“You are looking for Mr. Ellison,” said Miss Rainforth. “Of what use is that knowledge to you in such a search?”
“It is a step in the beginning,” replied Ida. “Understand, Miss Rainforth, you are related to this search, and to the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Ellison, either remotely or intimately, and evasion on your part will only involve you in trouble—in all the shame and disgrace that publicity of the matter, which will soon be a sensation, will involve.”
The young woman winced, an anxious expression appearing on her face, and Ida knew that the string upon which she must pull was the one of the young lady’s fear of notoriety.
“I must insist upon an answer to that question,” she said. “There are many ways of conducting our business. As a rule, we work in secret, but there are times when we are forced to take the public in our confidence, and make a part of our search through the newspapers. We have no desire to do that at any time, but it begins to look as if we would have to do so in this case, and you can see the position you would be in—you, a young lady of fashion, placed before the public as an associate of thieves and the frequenter of fast places at midnight.”
The young woman leaped to her feet with the remark:
“You would not dare do such a thing.”
Ida laughed, scornfully.
“Dare?” she repeated. “We spend our lives in daring.”
“The men of my family would kill you, if you did such a thing.”
Ida laughed again.
“Half the thieves and half the fast people, whether rich or poor, are always threatening that. We are used to it.”
The young woman began to walk rapidly up and down the room, and then stopped suddenly in front of Ida. She said:
“It was by an accident.”
“You mean,” said Ida, “that you obtained the knowledge of the intended robbery by accident?”
“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth.
“Under what circumstances?” asked Ida.
“I cannot tell you that,” replied the young woman. “It is too much of a confession.”
Ida took a new tack.
“Miss Rainforth,” she said. “I have already said there is no desire on the part of Mr. Carter to do you injury. You are in a peculiar position, and a dangerous one for you. You are liable to that kind of notoriety in an extraordinary case which, to one like you, will be ruin. Your course in self-protection is not in striving to conceal your part in it from us, but, rather, to ask our assistance and our help in keeping your name out of an unpleasant matter.”
The young woman undertook to say something, but Ida went on:
“Wait and hear me out,” she said. “The fact that you won’t speak or will not give the information you evidently are possessed of, and which it is necessary for us to know, will have no effect in preventing us from goingon to the end. If we do not find out by one means, we will by another. We never fail.”
These words seemed to impress the young lady, and she stood for a moment silent, with her head bent. Then she said:
“I went to see Mr. Ellison at his apartments the night before the wedding. He was not in when I first entered. Afterward, two men were shown into the room, and I, not desiring to be seen, hid myself from them and heard their conversation while they waited.
“I soon learned that their business was to force Mr. Ellison to help them enter Mr. Sanborn’s house the following day. I also heard that they had learned from Mr. Ellison, a little time previous, the value and kind of the presents that were to be displayed at the reception.
“And I also learned that it was the intention of these men to rob the house at the time of the reception, and that that was the reason for forcing Mr. Ellison to help them to enter.”
“Do you mean,” said Ida, not a little surprised, “that Mr. Ellison was a party to that robbery?”
“I mean nothing of the kind,” said the young lady. “I am sure he was not.”
“Yet it was from him that they obtained knowledge of these presents?” persisted Ida.
“That, I am sure,” responded the young lady, “was only a matter of accident, as he had been associating with those people, and talked about them.”
“Mr. Ellison an associate of thieves?” asked Ida.
“I am sure he did not know them as thieves,” said Miss Rainforth, “but as gamblers.”
“Gamblers?” inquired Ida.
“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth. “Gambling is Mr. Ellison’s weakness. It has brought him into great troublein the past, and I should not be surprised if his present trouble could be traced to it.”
“Explain yourself,” said Ida, believing that she was now on the line of a new discovery.
“Mr. Ellison’s weakness is a love of gambling, and, though his New York friends know little or nothing of that side of him, yet he used to go to Philadelphia frequently to play. There he gambled most heavily, with a certain poker set in that city, of whom this Lannigan was one. He is very heavily in debt to some of that party.”
“Were you present when Mr. Ellison come in and saw these men?”
“Yes.”
“Did you overhear their conversation?”
“Yes; I could not help it, situated as I was.”
“Was Mr. Ellison made aware of the intention to rob the Sanborn house?”
“No.”
“What reason did they give for desiring to enter the house?”
“Merely the wish to be present.”
“Did they give no reason for it?”
“No.”
“Did Mr. Ellison refuse their request?”
“Very promptly.”
“And what then?”
“They attempted to force him to consent by threatening that, if he did not, they would inform Mr. Sanborn of his gambling habit and his gambling debts.”
“What did Mr. Ellison do?”
“Mr. Ellison is a brave man. He told them that he would not be forced by anybody; that, if they wanted to do that, they could do so, but he would not consent to their being present at the wedding reception; and thatthey were presuming in attempting to lift a gambling acquaintance into a social relation.”
“Then what did the men do?”
“They went away, threatening.”
“Do you think Mr. Ellison had a suspicion of their intentions?”
“I don’t know.”
“Now, Miss Rainforth, what was your purpose in going to Mr. Ellison’s apartments at such a strange hour?”
Miss Rainforth turned a startled look on Ida, took a turn or two up and down the room, and came back. She said:
“I was not alone. My brother was nearby. He knew of my going there.”
“Even so,” said Ida, “it was a remarkable thing for a young woman to go to a young man’s apartment on the night before his wedding at nearly the midnight hour.”
The young woman blazed up into a passion.
“I went there in a last attempt to prevent his marriage.”
“To prevent his marriage?” repeated Ida.
“Yes,” replied Miss Rainforth. “By all rights, he was bound to me, and it was I whom he should have married.”
“Do you mean to say that you were engaged?”
“Yes; if promise is an engagement.”
The young woman paused a moment and then said, passionately:
“It was that wretch, that Ladew woman, who interfered. But he never loved her.”
“Miss Rainforth,” said Ida, “I fear you have been laboring under a strange delusion. You evidently do not know that, almost from the moment of his arrival inNew York, Mr. Ellison was a suitor for the hand of Miss Sanborn.”
“It is not so,” said Miss Rainforth. “He was entangled by her family, pursued and hunted by Elsie Sanborn herself.”
“In your last letter to Mr. Carter,” said Ida, “you hinted that a woman was at the bottom of the disappearance of Mr. Ellison.”
“I’m sure of it,” said Miss Rainforth, “and it is the Ladew woman. She was at the reception and she was in the house when he went away.”
“And you were, too,” said Ida.
“I was, and it was from the Ladew woman that I found out that he had run away. If she wasn’t at the bottom of it, how did she know of it when nobody else did?”
Ida now made up her mind that she had gotten at the bottom of Miss Rainforth’s connection with the matter.
She was certain that Miss Rainforth was in love with Ellison and had herself hoped to be Mrs. Ellison; that, possibly, there had been tender passages between herself and Ellison which had been interrupted by Ellison’s intrigue with Mrs. Ladew, and, escaping from that, he had not returned to Miss Rainforth, but had devoted himself to Miss Sanborn; and that, in her jealousy and disappointment, Miss Rainforth had first tried to break up the marriage and, secondly, punish Mrs. Ladew by directing Nick Carter’s suspicions to her.
Ida’s substantial gain had been knowledge of Ellison’s relations to a gang of sharpers in Philadelphia, of whom Lannigan undoubtedly was one. And she believed that nothing more of value was to be obtained from the young woman.
“You have been wise,” said Ida, “in being plain withme. We shall be able to protect your name and reputation. And that we will do.”
She rose from her seat, and, as she did so, Miss Rainforth said:
“What I did last night that brought suspicion on me was to try and find where Mr. Ellison was taken.”
“Taken?” repeated Ida.
“Yes, taken,” continued Miss Rainforth. “I am satisfied that Mr. Ellison was lured from the house to be seized and carried off.”
However startling this idea was, Ida found, on pursuing it, that the young lady, Miss Rainforth, had nothing better than her suspicion to base it on.
Therefore, Ida went away, but not until Miss Rainforth had promised that, if anything additional came to her knowledge, she would send word of it to Nick Carter.
But Ida thought that, as a person of concern in the case, Miss Rainforth had now ceased to be important.
While Ida had been having her forceful interview with Miss Rainforth, Chick and Patsy had journeyed to Philadelphia.
On their way thither, on the train, they had become aware that the woman, Mrs. Ladew, was also a fellow passenger.
She was alone, having no attendant.
Chick had said to Patsy:
“I don’t know what value there will be in following Mrs. Ladew. What she probably will do will be to go directly to her home. However, I think one of us ought to follow her to see if she has any communication with the parties we are after.”
Patsy had said that he would undertake that work and they made arrangements for meeting after he had finished the shadow.
But, as the train drew into the Broad Street station, Patsy, looking out of the window, caught the glimpse of a man trying to board the train before it had fairly stopped. It seemed to him that the man was Lannigan.
Quickly warning Chick, they both of them ran back to the car in which Mrs. Ladew was seated and were in time to see Lannigan hastily pass through the car, stopping only long enough to whisper something in the ear of Mrs. Ladew and hurriedly pass on.
He went by both Chick and Patsy so closely that their clothes touched, but he did not recognize either and was soon out of sight.
Chick and Patsy kept Mrs. Ladew under close observation and saw from her manner that she had evidently been prepared for something by a warning from Lannigan.
As the train stopped and Mrs. Ladew descended, they followed her along the stone platform until the iron gates were reached, where were gathered the friends of the arriving passengers.
Keeping close enough to Mrs. Ladew to watch all that occurred to her, they saw a gentleman step out from the throng, as she passed through the gate, and, kissing her warmly, ask:
“Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“Very pleasant, indeed,” replied Mrs. Ladew. “But, Tom, I am surprised and delighted at your meeting me. I did not suppose you would give up so much of your morning to me.”
“Oh,” responded the gentleman called Tom, “I was not so busy this morning, and I am glad to get you back.”
He laughed a little and added:
“You see, I did not know but that Ellison would marry you instead of Miss Sanborn.”
“Oh, Tom,” replied Mrs. Ladew, “There has been an awful, awful happening. Ellison disappeared right after the ceremony and the reception guests were dismissed because of it.”
By this time the crowd had grown so great about the two that Chick and Patsy could hear no more that passed between the husband and wife.
But they followed to the street and saw the pair enter a handsome private carriage.
“There’s no use in following them,” said Chick, “for that is Mr. Ladew with her and they will go straight home.”
“And she’ll have no chance to talk to any of the people we are after.”
“No,” replied Chick.
They turned to move away and, in doing so, saw Lannigan watching the carriage drive off, a little way apart.
“S—sh,” warned Chick. “There’s Lannigan. He evidently warned Mrs. Ladew that her husband was waiting for her. We must follow him.”
“I’m glad of it,” said Patsy. “I was thinking one of us ought to have kept a peeper on him.”
Drawing back under the cover of a pillar, they watched to see what direction Lannigan would take.
It seemed as if he were waiting for some one, for he did not move until nearly all of those who had been attracted by the incoming train had moved away.
But others were gathered to meet another train and so neither Lannigan nor the two young detectives were conspicuous.
A moment or two later, a man hurried up and spoke to Lannigan. Lannigan greeted the man warmly and taking his arm, led him aside, talking very earnestly to him.
Whatever was said by the chief was not received pleasantly by the other, but, in the end, they walked away together, followed by Chick and Patsy.
They passed out to Filbert Street, where they stood for some little time in further conversation, when the man who had met Lannigan left him with the remark:
“I suppose it couldn’t be helped, but better luck next time.”
The man went in one direction and Lannigan in another.
The direction of the latter led him to the front of the City Hall, at the bottom step of which he stopped, andthen, as if thinking better of his intention to enter the hall, turned and went up the street.
If he was aware that he was being followed by the two young men, he gave no indication of it in his manner, but walked along steadily without looking behind him.
He went on until a drinking saloon was reached which was, as Chick knew, a favorite resort for sporting men.
He entered this as if familiar to the place and the two, Chick and Patsy, undisguised as they were, entered also.
Lannigan, on entering, stood still a moment or two, looking over the room. Seeing two persons standing on one side, he went to them and entered into conversation with them.
They were too far away for Chick and Patsy, who had gone to the bar, to hear.
But, a moment later, the three came to the bar, also, and standing near Chick and Patsy, ordered drinks.
The two young detectives overheard Lannigan say, as if it were the conclusion of his previous conversation:
“They will be over with him to-night and the thing ought to be fixed now. I will go with you right away.”
They took their drinks and went out of the place without noticing Chick or Patsy.
As they went out, Chick said:
“Follow them, Patsy, and leave a trace behind you. I will stop long enough to change a bit and will pick you up so that you can change.”
Patsy started off and Chick, finding a convenient place, changed his appearance in so short a time that he had little difficulty in soon coming up with Patsy.
In fact, the slow progress of the three and their frequent stoppages for drinks on the way, helped him greatly.
Indeed, after Chick had come up with Patsy, theystayed so long in one saloon that Patsy was enabled to slip away, make a change in his own appearance, and join Chick.
After this, their way was more rapid and led to the outskirts of the town until a house, standing almost alone in its square, was reached.
Into this house the three entered.
“Well, we’re here,” said Patsy, “and what now?”
“I’m hanged if I know,” said Chick. “I should like to know what this house is and what goes on in there.”
“It looks all right,” said Patsy, “and is a regular Philadelphia house with its red brick, and white trimmings.”
“Who’s coming on to-night?” asked Chick.
“And what ought to be fixed right away?” added Patsy.
“Well, it isn’t the stuff that’s coming on,” said Chick, “for there was nothing doing for Lannigan and his lads when we got in.”
“No,” replied Patsy. “I don’t suppose there’s anything else for us to do but to hold and keep Lannigan under watch.”
“We can hardly undertake to enter that house,” said Chick; “but we’re on to it, and, perhaps, we can find something out about it afterward.”
This conversation had taken place in a doorway on the other side of the street in which they were hiding.
In a moment or two their appearances were wholly changed and they were ready when Lannigan and the two who had entered with him came out with a fourth and went up the street.
The two detectives followed, of course.
“I say, Chick,” said Patsy, “did you see how Lannigan came out of that house and how he looked to see if anybody was about?”
“Yes, I saw that,” said Chick. “He was suspicious.”
“Of being followed?”
“Not of us, probably, but of anybody seeing where they go.”
The way of the four was now back in the direction of the more thickly settled part of the city.
Finally they reached a corner house, the lower part of which was a drinking place.
The house was a peculiar structure, entrance to the upper story being gained by a high stoop from the outside. Back of it was another building, separated from it by narrow iron bridges on every one of the four floors.
This rear building was not as wide as the one in front, so that there was a space of a few feet between that building and the cross street.
This space was concealed by a high board fence, which, to the two young detectives, looked more like the side of a house than a fence.
There were large double doors in this fence. But they were closed.
The fourth man stopped the three on the corner and seemed to direct attention of the three to these double doors.
Lannigan walked up several steps and looked at the doors more closely. Then he went back to the three, saying something.
A little later, the four entered the drinking saloon.
The two detectives stood still in their place of concealment, wondering what all this meant.
“Chick,” said Patsy, “this is the place that Lannigan said he would go to with the others.”
“We must go in and see what it’s like,” said Chick.
Certain that they had not been observed, they stepped out on the sidewalk and inspected the house more closely.
A man came up and stood near them. The two detectives, looking at him closely, satisfied themselves thathe had no purpose in this, but was merely lounging there.
“Live about here?” asked Patsy, of the man.
“Yes, all my life,” replied the man.
“That’s a queer place over there,” said Patsy, pointing to the saloon they had under watch.
“Fly-cops?” asked the man, in return.
Chick turned sharply on the man and then laughed.
“What makes you ask that question? Do we look like fly-cops?”
“No,” said the man, “I don’t know that you do. But that might be the very reason why you are.”
The man laughed a little bit, and added:
“I was a cop myself, for a while, but I got broke for letting a prisoner get away from me. It wasn’t my fault and I had only been on the force a month. But they broke me all the same, and I hadn’t pull enough to fix it up.”
“But what made you ask us if we were fly-cops?” asked Patsy.
“Oh, it was only because you asked about that house. There’s hardly been a time since that house was built that the fly-cops haven’t been hanging about it. That was fifteen years ago.”
“Tough place?” asked Patsy.
“Well,” replied the man, doubtfully, “it’s always been under sort of suspicions. It was built, and is owned now, by a man they call Stumpy Herrick. He’s got a sort of a club foot. That’s why they call him Stumpy.
“They say he used to be a maker of the queer and that he built this house out of a big rake off in shoving a lot of it.”
“Does he keep that saloon?” asked Chick.
“Oh, no,” replied the man. “He doesn’t do anything now but take care of his property and collect his rents.He owns not a little around here. No, the first man that kept the place was Fillingham. He rented it from Stumpy, and the next thing they knew the Secret Service men made a raid on the place and found a whole plant for printing notes in that rear building.
“Fillingham was sent up, you know. Then the house was kept by another man by the name of Locke. Everything was quiet for a year or two and then the fly-cops made a raid on the place and they found that it was a fence, and Locke doing more business in taking in swag in that rear building than in the saloon.
“They sent him up, and the saloon changed hands again.
“Things was quiet for two or three years and then there was another raid of the place. A man was taken out of that rear house that was in hiding there for having killed somebody downtown. I forget now who. Then it was shown that it was a great loafing place for crooks. And the business ran down and that man had to give up the place.
“By this time the place got a bad reputation and it was empty for several years.
“Now this man has taken it and, for anything that anybody knows, it’s all right. But I don’t like the crowd that hangs around here.”
“What’s the man’s name that keeps it now,” asked Chick.
“His name is Dempsey,” said the man. “My brother was telling me yesterday that, some years ago, he used to keep a game downtown which was a crooked one. But I don’t know about that.”
“The house has had a curious history,” said Chick. “I’m going in to look at it. Will you go over and have a drink?”
“I don’t care if I do,” said the man.
The three crossed and entered the saloon.
It was an ordinary drinking place, not well kept, and the floor was covered with sawdust. In the rear of the room were several tables, one of which was near a door.
At this table were seated the four men Chick and Patsy had followed, and another, who, from the fact that he was in his shirt sleeves, seemed to be the proprietor of the place.
Lannigan and the man in his shirt sleeves were in close conversation.
“That man in his shirt sleeves,” said the man, who had entered with Chick and Patsy, “is Dempsey. The man he is talking with is a rounder downtown—a swell gambler. I don’t know what his name is.”
While the three stood at the bar drinking, Lannigan and Dempsey arose from their seats and, leaving the others at the table, passed through the door near them, the door being closed after them.
Some minutes passed and then the other two men also passed through the door, this time leaving it partly ajar.
Chick and Patsy exchanged glances and, by moving about the room, managed to get to the rear of it without attracting attention.
Standing at the other end of the bar, they ordered more drinks, and as they were served, several entered from the street and claimed the attention of the barkeeper.
Chick seized the opportunity to open that door and saw that it opened into a little courtyard on which the rear building was and that the lower floor of that rear building seemed to be a private stable.
He saw also that there was a winding iron staircase from the courtyard to the balcony or bridge, connecting with the house in front, so that access to the rear building could be obtained from that courtyard.
He came back and said to Patsy:
“Patsy, I think we ought to make a break for that rear building. That’s where Lannigan and his party have gone.”
The man with them overheard the remark and said, warningly:
“Easy goes in this place.”
Neither Chick nor Patsy understood his meaning, but were satisfied that the man knew more of the place than he had been willing to tell them, though he did not seem to be a friend of the house.
Disregarding his warning, whatever it was, they passed through the door.
They had hardly gotten into the courtyard when they saw Dempsey and Lannigan with the others behind them, appear on the little bridge above them.
At the same moment, the large doors of the lower floor of the rear house were thrown open and a man appeared before the two detectives, who said:
“What in creation are you doing here?”
“Only looking around,” said Patsy.
“Well, look around somewhere else,” said the man.
“What is it, Tom?” asked Dempsey from the bridge.
“Oh,” said Chick, “he’s growling about our coming out here.”
“Well,” said Dempsey, “what are you doing there?”
“Nothing,” replied Chick. “We went out of the wrong door and are going back.”
Followed by Patsy, he returned to the saloon.
Once inside, Chick whispered to Patsy:
“Did you know that man in the stable?”
“No,” replied Patsy.
“It’s Tom Driscoll, an old New York crook. He hasn’t been long out of Sing Sing.”