CHAPTER XVII.
BACK TO THE RED SPOT.
When Carter and Mulberry Billy reached the street at the foot of Carter’s stairs the boy pointed toward a cab just driving away.
“He must be in that,” said Billy. “I saw him talking to a man from the cab window just now——”
“The man whose face you saw at the window of Mother Flintstone’s den, Billy?”
“The same bloke.”
The detective looked after the cab as it rounded a corner and then turned again to the boy.
“But the man who was spoken to from the cab?” queried the detective.
“He’s gone, too.”
In another instant there stepped from a doorway a few steps distant a man at whom the boy pointed excitedly.
“That’s him, Mr. Carter!” he exclaimed, as the man thus singled out coolly lit a cigar.
Carter eyed him for a moment and then looked away.
The fellow walked off and the boy of the street watched him with much curiosity.
“Could you keep him in sight for me, Billy?” asked the detective.
“Just as if I’d lose him on purpose!”
Billy hurried away and watched the smoker with all the keenness he could bring to bear upon the matter.
For some time the boy was led a merry chase, for the man at first seemed to suspect that he was watched, but at last he appeared to think that he had baffled the young shadower, for he became bold and sauntered along at his ease.
Billy saw him walk up the steps of a noted clubhouse, and then stepped back to wait for his reappearance.
For this purpose the boy stationed himself in a doorway near at hand.
An hour passed, and while many came out of the club this particular one did not, and the street Arab grew a little impatient.
“Seems to me he’s going ter roost there,” said Billy to himself. “I’m booked for this doorway all night if he does, for I intend to keep my agreement with Mr. Carter—to watch that man till doomsday.”
All at once there sounded above the boy footsteps on the stairs, and as he looked around he was pounced upon eaglelike by a hand that seemed to sink into his bones.
“Ouch!” cried the boy, as he drew back.
“Not a chirp, you young imp,” hissed a voice, as he was pulled up over the steps.
Billy, of Mulberry Street, was dragged up the stairs and down a long corridor, after which he was pulled into a room by his tormentor. He heard the door locked behind him, and then the gas was quickly turned on. Then he was jammed roughly into a chair, after which he got a look at the man who had caught him.
It was not the man he had watched, but quite another person, and Billy wondered why he had caught him.
“Spying, weren’t you?” said the man coolly.
“Who are you?” demanded Billy. “And don’t you know you’ve no right to treat me this way?”
“I haven’t, eh? Just wait till I’m through with you before you crow that way.”
Then the man came forward and bent over Billy, who shrank into the depths of the chair.
“Who sent you after me?” he demanded.
“No one.”
“No falsehood! He did, didn’t he?”
“Whom do you mean?”
“You know.”
“You must explain.”
“Just as if you didn’t know anything, you little gutter rat! To be plain, the man you were talking to to-night told you to dog my steps. I know that much.”
“Then that keeps me from explainin’,” smiled Billy, whereat the man’s face grew dark.
“No insolence! Little chicks get their necks wrung same as old ones.”
Billy leaped from the chair and sprang forward, but he was arrested by the hand of the fellow and held fast.
“Tell me the truth. He sent you after me?”
For once in his life at least Mulberry Billy was terrified.
“Yes,” he said.
“Nick Carter they call him, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Detective!”
The boy said nothing.
“Why am I to be watched?”
“I don’t know.”
“What has happened lately?”
“Don’t you know? Don’t you ever read the papers?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then you must know that they’ve killed Mother Flintstone.”
“Who’s she?”
“My best friend, even if she didn’t have all the frills of society,” said Billy, with a grin.
“Where did she live?”
“In Hell’s Kitchen.”
“That’s a nice name!”
“It fits the place.”
“What was Mother Flintstone?”
“She fenced some times.”
“Oho!” The exclamation was followed by a prolonged whistle. “I see.”
The man, dropping Billy suddenly, took several turns about the room.
“Could you show me where she lived, boy?” he suddenly asked, coming back to the boy.
“I could——”
“And you will? That’s good! Mother Flintstone, eh? Was that her right name?”
“Never heard any other for the old woman.”
The countenance of the stranger seemed to soften and he told the boy to guide him.
They left the house together, the boy in advance, and Billy piloted the man into Mulberry Bend and straight to Hell’s Kitchen.
“It’s a tough place, I see,” was all the comment the stranger made as they entered the locality.
“No place tougher, but I’ve called it home for a long time.”
Into the little old room—the place of sin and crime—Billy led the man and a light was struck.
“Where did she keep her valuables?” asked the man.
“I don’t know.”
“But she had papers, hadn’t she?”
“I can’t say; but if she had the perlice must have found them.”
“They searched the den, eh?”
“They looked it over.”
“Did Carter do it, too?”
“Yes.”
“What did he find?”
The boy shook his head.
“You’re not the custodian of his secrets, I see.”
“I’m not.”
“Let me see what I can find.”
The man began to go through the place, watched by the boy with all eyes. He was a good-looking fellow, only his beard seemed a little too black and glossy to be natural, and the boy had an idea that it had never grown on his face.
All at once the man turned and looked at Billy.
At the same time he put out one hand, and it fell upon a dusty shelf on one side of the room.
“Turn your back a moment, boy,” he commanded.
Billy did so, and while he looked away he was certain that the stranger did something.
When again he looked around the man was standing at his ease and his face was as calm as ever.
“Look yonder,” suddenly cried the boy, pointing at the window. “There it is again.”
The stranger turned in an instant, and then looked at the street Arab.
“I see nothing at the window,” he said.
“It’s gone now. That’s the second time I saw it there.”
“A face, was it, boy?”
“Yes; the face of the man who killed Mother Flintstone!”
“Then it’s not far off.”
With this the stranger ran out of the place, and Billy heard him in the narrow court beyond.
“In the name of Satan, who is he?” ejaculated the boy, while he waited for the man’s return.
His question was followed by a sharp report, and in a second the boy was outside.
He smelled powder the moment he opened the door, and then a human figure fell at his feet.
Billy sprang back with a cry and heard a half-suppressed oath and flying footsteps.
“Say, boy,” said a voice, as the little fellow stooped over a prostrate man on the bricks.
“Did you see him?”
“Only a glimpse.”
“Well, he’s got me—just as I expected. But he didn’t get the documents.”
“What documents?”
“Mother Flintstone’s. They’re here.”
The wounded speaker laid one hand on his left breast. He tried to rise, but sank again to the stones, and Billy could only look on, white-faced and breathless.
“You want a doctor and the perlice,” he said at last.
“Neither one,” growled the man through set teeth. “I don’t want them, I say. I’m not dead yet, though they gave me a close call to-night. Help me up. There, you see I can stand all right. I feel better already. I’m worth ten dead men, and in an hour I’ll be worth fifty. Come, let us get out of this.”
Billy was not loath to go, and they glided from the scene and struck the street in a few seconds.
“Great Cæsar!” cried the boy, falling back from the man the moment he got a glimpse of him in the lamplight. “Be you the devil or Tom Walker——”
The man stopped the boy by throwing his hand to his face.
The black beard was gone and the skin was smooth, and this was what had called forth the street urchin’s exclamation.