CHAPTER XXIV.STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS.
Just what the millionaire’s son was doing in that part of the city at that hour Carter could not conceive, but that his mission was not of the most honest kind he did not doubt.
The carriage was out of sight in a few moments, and the detective was alone with the patrolman.
Seeing that it was not worth while trying to find Richmond in that locality, the detective made his way to his own quarters near Broadway.
The moment he opened the door he was surprised to see Billy, the street waif, spring from a couch in one corner of the room and bound toward him.
“I’ve got him located now!” cried the boy.
“You’ve got who located, Billy?”
“The man who gave me the slip the other night on the street.”
“Where is he?”
Billy told the detective that if he would follow him he would show him the man in question, and Nick obeyed.
“Look at the gentleman over there at the table in the corner,” said the boy, when he had taken Carter to a little theater and from a secluded spot in the gallery pointed to a man at a table on the ground floor.
“That’s Claude Lamont. This is luck, Billy! When did you see him come here?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“Well, I’ll take care of him now.”
The detective sat down and watched the man below.
The place was a free-and-easy, and the resort of a good many shady people, but on that particular night it did not seem to enjoy its usual custom.
The detective could easily believe that Claude Lamont could have been driven to the free-and-easy after he saw his face in the cab, and now he intended to keep the young fellow in sight.
For an hour Carter kept his post, when Claude suddenly arose and looked at his watch.
In another moment he spoke to a man near the table and that person nodded.
Nick left his seat and kept an eye on the nabob’s son.
Claude coolly lit a cigar at the counter and moved toward the street.
On the sidewalk he looked both ways and then started off.
Carter was at his heels.
Lamont walked several squares and then turned up the steps of a well-to-do house.
The detective drew back.
Soon after the door had been shut a light appeared in the front window.
Almost at the same time the door of the adjoining house opened slightly and a face peeped out.
“Heavens! Bristol Clara!” cried the detective the moment he spied this face. “Things are playing into my hands better than I deserve. I wonder if she will serve me now.”
The door had barely shut ere Carter was there and his ring caused it to open again.
There was a slight cry from the woman in the hall, and the detective pushed in and faced her.
“You?” cried the woman, falling back. “You said you would never bother me again.”
“That’s true, Clara, but this is for the last time. Who is your neighbor?”
“Ha! don’t you know?”
“If I did I wouldn’t ask you, would I?”
“Perhaps not. You want to find out something about them?”
“There are two, eh?”
“Yes; one just came home.”
“Which one, woman?”
“The one with the dust.”
“The other is the featherless bird, is he?”
“Yes, but he’s the coolest one, I’m thinking.”
“You don’t live here for nothing, Clara. This is a sort of double house.”
“That’s just what it is.”
“Then, you know how to see what is going on in the side over there. I want to see, too.”
The woman moved across the room and was followed by the detective.
“What’s the case now? Tell me that first,” said Bristol Clara, stopping suddenly and turning upon the detective.
“Murder.”
The woman started.
“Is it that bad?” she exclaimed. “Who was the victim—man or woman?”
“One of your sex.”
“Old or young?”
“An old woman—a ‘fence,’ Clara.”
“Not——”
Bristol Clara stopped and looked away.
“I guess you’ve heard about the crime,” said the detective. “I am on the trail of the murderer of Mother Flintstone.”
“I thought so. Well, the secret may be in that house beyond this partition. Those men have talked about that very crime. I’ve heard them.”
The woman led the detective upstairs and opened a small door in one of the walls.
A dark apartment was disclosed, and she entered, followed by the man at her heels.
“We are now in the other house,” said Clara, laying her hand on the detective’s arm, which she found in the dark. “Here is a stairway which I accidentally discovered last summer, and which I have used on several occasions.”
“It leads down to the room where I saw the light, doesn’t it?”
“Not exactly. There is a hole in the ceiling. I made it with a knife. You see, I didn’t know how soon I would be wanting to find out something about my neighbors, so I haven’t been idle.”
“You’re worth your weight in gold, Clara.”
In a little while Carter found himself in another dark place, and Clara pointed to a ray of light that seemed to come up from some place under their feet, and the detective drew closer.
“Put your eye down to it,” said the woman.
This Nick did, and soon became accustomed to the scene beneath him.
He was looking into a large and expensively furnished room.
Pictures in large gilt frames were arranged on the walls, and thick Brussels carpet covered the floor.
The chandeliers were of expensive make, and everything betokened great wealth.
The room was inhabited at the time by a man who reclined in an armchair under the main light.
Carter knew him at once.
It was Claude Lamont.
The detective had a good chance to study the young man’s features, and he could note how eager he seemed to greet some one. He was not kept long in suspense when the door leading to the main hall opened and some one entered.
“George Richmond—my old friend,” smiled Nick, as he watched the other one. “He gave me the slip in the tall building, and now greets his old chum, Claude.”
“You’re a little behind,” said Claude, looking at his friend. “You must have had an adventure.”
“That’s just what I’ve had,” laughed the other, taking a cigar from the open box on the table at Lamont’s elbow. “Say I didn’t play it on the shrewdest old ferret in the city, will you?”
“On a detective? What, have you had a bout with one of those people?”
“Haven’t I? I left him in durance, and it will be some time before he gets out, I’m thinking.”
“Come, tell the whole story. I’ve had a little adventure myself,” exclaimed Lamont. “You don’t mean to say that you’ve had a little episode with our friend Carter?”
“With no one else.”
“Why didn’t you silence him?”
“I hardly know. But we’ll fix him later on.”
“Did he know you?”
“Yes.”
“What gave you away?”
“One of my old cards. I lost it in the den.”
“Oh, you’ve been back there, eh?”
“Yes. I went back to give the old place another inspection. I sounded the walls and inspected the floor, but I couldn’t find the papers.”
“Then they don’t exist.”
“I’m beginning to think that way myself. But the old hag certainly knew the truth, and don’t you think she made out just such papers intending to leave them some day to the girl or to the street rat?”
“To the girl perhaps, but never to the rat,” said Lamont. “Margie knows a good deal, and would be a dangerous person for us to fight if she had the cleverness of some women. But she’s caged for some time, and Nora will see that she remains silent. But the papers? We must have something of the kind. If Mother Flintstone did not leave such, we must make them.”
“Now, that’s it.”
“The governor won’t knuckle down till he sees them, and then we’ll get all we want.”
For half a second Richmond smoked in silence, and then he threw away his cigar.
“We must make the papers!” he cried. “Your father, Perry Lamont, must give you free use of his purse strings. When I called on him and threatened to send you to the gallows unless he handed over ten thousand dollars he laughed in my face, and I came away with no cash at all. But I picked a check bookfrom the desk, as you know, with one good check filled out. That’s helped us some.”
“Yes; but it’s a mere drop in the bucket. The governor must be confronted with certain papers proving that Mother Flintstone was his sister and my aunt. That will open the cash box, I guess!”
And young Lamont laughed.
“The infernal villains!” ejaculated Carter, as these details of infamy fell upon his ears; “if that isn’t a gallows pair then I never saw one in all my life. Claude Lamont can’t get his hands on the Lamont cash box, and that’s what worries him. One of those men killed Mother Flintstone; but which one?”
In another moment Claude and Richmond arose and left the room, and Bristol Clara said:
“That ends the exhibition for the present,” and the detective answered that he was satisfied.