CHAPTER XVI.
THE MILLIONAIRE’S GUEST.
In another part of the city about the same time that witnessed these events a scene was being enacted which is destined to have an important bearing on Carter’s present case of mystery.
This time it was not in the heart of that tough locality called Hell’s Kitchen, but in the haunts of the better classes, indeed, in what might be called the abode of wealth.
Perry Lamont was a multimillionaire. He was a man of past fifty, but with very few gray hairs and a florid complexion. He was not engaged in any business, having retired from the “Street” some years prior to the opening of our story, and now was resting at his ease.
Surrounded with wealth of every description, this man was an envied person and a man to be congratulated on the easy life he could lead in his luxurious mansion.
Blessed with wife and children, the latter grown to manhood and womanhood, he passed his days in luxury, his only fad being fast horses, with which his stables were filled.
Perry Lamont sat in the splendid library of his home and smoked a prime cigar. He was alone. His wife and daughter had gone to the opera and his son was playing billiards at the club.
Therefore Lamont had the whole house to himself, for it was the servants’ night off, and he had resolved to take his ease.
Suddenly the clear tones of the bell reverberated through the mansion, but the millionaire did not rise. He did not want any visitors, and he was not at all in the humor to be disturbed.
Again the bell rang, a little sharper than before, and he laid down the cigar.
“Confound it all, why can’t a fellow get a little rest?” he growled, crossing the room toward the hall.
“It’s a pity some people haven’t the slightest notion about propriety, but must come when a man wants to throw off the cares of the world and enjoy himself.”
For the third time the bell jangled, and the next moment Lamont reached the door. He opened it with a growl on his lips, but all at once a man rudely pushed past him into the hall.
“Good evening,” said the stranger, who was tall and decidedly good looking from what the millionaire could see of his face, for he kept his collar up. “Don’t think I’m an intruder. Of course, I came here on business, and that overleaps every other consideration, you know.”
“Business? This way, then.”
Lamont led the way to the library, where he waved his caller to a chair.
“You have a son, I believe?” said the visitor.
“I have. I guess that’s no disgrace,” smiled Perry Lamont, who was inordinately proud of his son and heir.
“He’s at the club just now?”
“That’s his pleasure, I suppose.”
“Certainly. Is he your only son?”
“He is.”
“And you look to him to keep up the honor of the house of Lamont?”
“He’ll do that, never fear, Claude will.”
“That is, he will if the law will let him.”
The nabob started.
“Have a care, sir!” he cried, coloring. “This is my house, and a man’s house is his castle.”
“That’s old, but good,” grinned the unwelcome and uncivil caller. “I’ve often wondered where that saying originated, but never had time to look it up.”
Lamont looked at the man amazed, for he never saw such coolness in all his life.
“You’ve got a daughter, too,” continued the stranger.
“What’s that to you?”
“Not much, perhaps, but a good deal to you.”
“There you’re right; but you shall not make sport of my child. My affection for her is too sacred for that.”
“She’s pretty and good. I know her.”
“You?” almost roared the millionaire, falling back in his chair and staring at the other. “This is carrying a joke too far.”
“Just as you think; but let’s go back to Claude.”
“No, I won’t have another thing to do with you. You remember you are not an invited guest——”
“That’s right—not an invited guest, but I don’t quit this house till I care to go.”
“By Jove——”
“Come, come, keep your temper.”
“You won’t let me,” said Lamont, with a faint smile.
“Well, this boy of yours is a little wild. He’s the lion of the club, but he don’t always keep within the bounds of the law.”
“How?”
“I don’t mean to insinuate anything, only to remind you that he is just now harvesting his crop of wild oats.”
“Just as far too as many boys do.”
“But the yield is larger on some grounds than on others.”
“You don’t mean——”
“That your hopeful is reaping a gorgeous crop, eh? That’s it precisely.”
“But he knows when to stop.”
“The sheriff will do that.”
Lamont started forward, and for the first time his face became really pale.
“That’s an insult!”
“I thought you would consider it such.”
“It is infamous!”
“You’re good at words.”
“Come, this interview is at an end.”
“Not yet. What will you give to save your son?”
“To save him? He’s committed no crime yet——”
“Will you give ten thousand?”
“Not a dollar! If Claude has committed some little indiscretion such as young men will——”
“He’s done more than that. It would be charity to designate it by the name you have just mentioned, but the authorities would call it something else.”
“Where is Claude?”
“At the club, just where you said he was.”
“Then——”
“I’ll take ten thousand and save the boy.”
“From what?”
“The electric chair!”
Perry Lamont seemed to reel in his chair, and it was with difficulty that he kept his seat.
“It’s a lie!” he cried.
“Just as you like. It’s all true, however.”
“It’s false, I say, as false as perdition! My boy wouldn’t stoop to crime.”
“No; he’s an angel. And all he wants is a pair of wings which would just fix him out.”
Lamont reddened and then turned pale again.
“I announce this interview terminated,” he said, but his voice was agitated and his gaze wandered to the door across the room.
“You can write out the check for the amount I have mentioned if you have any regard for the honor of your house.”
“Not a dollar!”
“Then take the consequences!”
So threatening, the man arose and coolly buttoned his coat.
“You’re mad,” said the millionaire.
“Perhaps. I’m money mad, but I want to save you and yours. I don’t want to heap disgrace upon your wife and daughter. I don’t want to disgrace you and see your boy go to the chair. I don’t want to do anything of the kind, and I won’t if you pay me for the secret.”
Perhaps something told Perry Lamont that he was dealing with a desperate man, who, after all, might have the secret he spoke of, but it was such a terrible thing to think of that it chilled his blood.
“I’m a man of business. I want the check or your boy is exposed.”
“What is the crime?” asked Lamont.
“What did I say? They take life for murder only.”
“My son!—a murderer!”
“They will certainly lay hands on Claude if you don’t buy my silence.”
“In Satan’s name, who are you?”
“The man who knows!”
In the drawer before the millionaire lay a self-cocking revolver, and this flashed through his mind as he resolved upon desperate action.
“All right,” he said, as nonchalantly as possible, and in a second he had opened the drawer.
The man near by stood in such a position that he could not look into the place, and he did not see Lamont’s hand close about the black ivory stock of the weapon.
Suddenly the millionaire’s hand leaped from the drawer and the revolver flashed in the stranger’s face.
“I won’t be blackmailed,” hissed Lamont. “I’m as merciless as a tiger when aroused, and I count your life as nothing as compared to the welfare of my family. What is the lie you have made up for to-night’s work? What is the infamous story you have planned about my son? Tell me or I will kill you where you stand, and the world will lose your infamy in this house.”
The man on the carpet seemed to increase an inch in stature as he looked down into the tensely drawn face of the man of many fortunes.
“You’d do that, would you?”
“As I live I will!”
“You’re a fool, Perry Lamont.”
“Why so?”
“You might slay me here, but the net would be played out or drawn in all the same. You don’t suppose I would place myself in your power the sole custodian of this secret which, if let out, will send your son to the electric chair? I’m no fool.”
The tightly clutched weapon seemed about to fall from Lamont’s hand.
“The secret is unloosed the moment I die at your hands,” continued the cool stranger. “Come, treat me white, and I’ll treat you the same. I want ten thousand for what I know. It saves your boy and rescues your house from disgrace.”
A singular cry welled from the millionaire’s throat, the revolver slipped to the floor and he sank back in the chair in a dead faint.
The stranger leaned forward and opened the drawer, and seeing something there he transferred it to an inner pocket.