CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FATE OF A SPY.
Under the ground at last Mother Flintstone passed from the minds of many. The hovel she had occupied in Hell’s Kitchen got other tenants and the crime was forgotten.
Not by everybody, however, for in the mind of more than one person the old woman whose life no one seemed to know beyond a few years was of some importance.
Carter was on the trail, and he was destined to find it one of the strangest if not the most exciting of his varied career. Nick had just learned that Brockey Gann had been sent to Sing Sing for a short term, and that Mrs. Lawrence and her daughter had gone abroad, never to return to this country.
It was the night after his last adventure—the one on the street with Billy, of Mulberry Street—when the boy failed to point out the man he had seen, that he stood in another part of the city.
The famous detective was quite alone, and his gaze was riveted upon a man who stood in front of a swell café lighting a cigar.
This person was well dressed and looked as if he belonged to uppertendom.
His features were regular, though they showed some signs of fashionable dissipation, and he carried a cane with an elaborate gold head.
In short, this person was Claude Lamont, the son of the millionaire, who had lately received the man who wanted ten thousand dollars to keep a secret.
Lamont was a favorite at the club because he spent his father’s money freely, and at times gave swell suppers, which were the talk of the town.
Young Lamont appeared to be waiting for some one, and presently that individual came out of the café. He looked a good deal like Claude, only he seemed to be several years his junior, and when the two met they walked away together.
Carter followed.
The men were talking earnestly, and at last Carter heard Lamont say:
“You didn’t make it with the governor, eh?”
“No; confound it all. He fainted just when I thought I had landed the fish, and I came away with an empty hook.”
“That’s bad.”
“Couldn’t have been worse.”
“Shall I try again?”
“No, we must take another tack,” and then Claude laughed.
This was all the detective heard, and the pair walked a little faster.
After a while Carter let them go and turned his attention to another part of the town.
This time he pushed his way into an upper room in one of the most disreputable localities and confronted a man who nearly leaped from a chair at sight of him.
“Never mind. Don’t get excited, Jack,” smiled the detective. “I’m not after you this time.”
The fellow, who was past thirty, with a slim face covered with a beard of a week’s growth, seemed pleased, but at the same time he snarled like a wild beast.
“I’ve got work for you,” said the detective.
“Not for me, no, sir! I won’t do any man’s work—not even yours,” he growled.
“Come, Jack. It won’t get you into trouble.”
“I won’t, there!”
The speaker settled back into his chair and looked ugly.
“You remember Mother Flintstone?”
“Yes, and I know she’s dead.”
“And buried.”
“I hope so, but I don’t care what they’ve done with her. I am out of the business.”
“You know Claude Lamont?”
“The money king’s son? Of course I do, and I know nothing very good of him, either.”
“Well, Jack, I want you to get on with him.”
“I say no.”
The voice was determined, but this fact did not check the detective.
“Listen to me, Jack.”
“Not if you want to make a sleuth out of me.”
“I don’t—in a sense.”
“But you want me to get in with this young lion and get the worst of the bargain.”
Carter thought a moment.
Was there not some other way of bringing this man to time?
Nick had befriended him once, had saved him from a term up the river; and now he needed him.
Jack Redmond was a clever, all-around crook, and, at the same time, he knew how to spy and do anything that required wits and cunning.
Suddenly Nick turned again to the man and said:
“You know Margie?”
At this Redmond started and seemed to shiver.
“Where is she?” he eagerly inquired.
“Where she can be found at any time.”
“Do you know?”
“Will you help me?”
Redmond sprang up and confronted the detective with a quick look.
“Does she think of me yet?”
“I can’t say that.”
“Will you help me with Margie?”
“So far as I can.”
“Then I’m yours!”
For a moment the detective watched the man and held out his hand; but the crook refused it.
“No, I’m yours. You’ve bought me,” he said. “Now, what am I to do?”
For some time the detective talked, and was not interrupted.
When he went away he seemed to smile to himself, and half an hour later he was back in his own rooms.
One hour later Claude Lamont was met in the club annex by a man, who held out his hand.
Lamont looked searchingly at this person and shook his head.
“You have the best of me,” said he.
“What, don’t you know me?” cried the other, as if surprised. “I’m Belmont.”
“The devil you are!”
“That’s who I am, and I’m not surprised that you did not recognize me.”
“I thought you were dead—in fact, three years ago I read about your death at sea.”
“So did thousands,” laughed the so-called Belmont, who was Jack Redmond, the crook. “I thought at one time I was on the brink of eternity. We had nine tough weeks on a tropical island, but were saved by a liner.”
This seemed to satisfy Lamont, for he fell to talking to Redmond, and the two adjourned to the wine-room and opened several bottles.
It was midnight before they parted, and then Redmond slunk away.
He had broken the ice.
“To-morrow,” said he, “I will go a little further, and before the week’s out I’ll have my clutches on this man for Carter. He doesn’t suspect, and I’ve completely hoodwinked him.”
Jack went back to his little den, but did not lock the door.
Ten minutes later he heard footsteps on the stair, and, thinking that Carter was coming back, he watched the door with some curiosity.
When the door opened he got pale, for instead of the detective another man stood before him.
“Spy and informer, your time has come!” cried this person, who seemed as wiry as a tiger as he crossed the room.
Jack Redmond started from his chair, but a revolver was thrust into his face, and he fell back.
“Silence! Not a word! That was a cool game you played to-night,” continued the other.
“What game?” stammered the crook.
“You know, and it’s going to cost you your treacherous life.”
“No.”
“Yes, I say—your life!”
Jack looked into the muzzle of the weapon and wondered if he could cross the space between them and seize the man before he could press the trigger.
“You told a plausible tale, and he believed you. You passed yourself off as Belmont, who lies in fifty fathoms of water, and he took it all for gospel. You’ve got to die.”
The crook said nothing.
“Sit down,” commanded the stranger.
Involuntarily Jack sat down and awaited the fellow’s next movement.
“What have you to say before you die? Any word to send to any person?”
“You don’t mean to take my life?”
“I do. It isn’t worth the snuffing of a candle just now. All the money in the world could not save you.”
Suddenly Jack was pounced upon by the human wolf and crushed deeper into the chair.
A pair of demon hands seemed to meet behind his windpipe, and he tried, but vainly, to rise.
His eyes bulged from his head, his tongue protruded and he emitted a groan.
Three minutes later the demon arose and looked down at the dark face in the chair.
Then he went through the crook’s pockets and found nothing of value even to him.
Behind Jack was a wall tolerably white, and the murderer went toward it. He took a pencil from his pocket and wrote in scrawling characters across the surface a few words that seemed to please him.
“That’s it. He’ll see it,” he hissed. “And he’ll know that it is a death trail if he persists.”
In another moment the little den was tenanted by no one but the silent man in the chair.
The gas burned over his head, sicklylike and blue, and the room seemed filled with a noxious odor.
It burned on till the first streaks of morning revealed the city, and pedestrians reappeared on the sidewalks.
No one came.
Several hours passed and the streets swarmed again with their eager thousands.
Then the door was opened and Carter came in.
He stood stock-still at sight of the dead man—his spy—in the chair, and then he happened to glance at the wall.
In another second he was there, and his bulging eyes had read:
“The spy first, the master next! There is no escape for him!”