CHAPTER XXXVIII.
JUSTICE’S ROUND-UP.
Opal Lamont seemed to grow into a statue before the detective.
She did not move a muscle, but her face grew white, and the detective thought she would sink to the floor.
But suddenly she started up and calmly invited Carter into the parlor.
The detective accepted and watched her like a hawk, for had not she once faced him with a revolver, and was not this the woman named by “Lewis Newell” on the wall of the dungeon?
Opal Lamont seemed calm now.
She faced the man of many trails and even smiled.
“The murder of Mother Flintstone?” she said, recalling the detective’s words in the hall. “You accuse me of that, do you?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see your proofs, please.”
Carter dived one hand into his bosom and drew forth a little packet, upon which the eyes of Opal Lamont were riveted from the first.
He had never shown this to any one.
No one knew that he found it in an obscure corner of Mother Flintstone’s den the night he went thither with Mulberry Billy, the street waif, and the old woman’s “chum.”
Opal leaned forward and watched the hands of the detective open the packet.
She never took her eyes from the “find,” and when the last bit of covering had been taken off she appeared to grow white.
One-half of a ring lay in Carter’s hand, and he glanced from it to the immobile face of the millionaire’s daughter.
“You found that in the house, I suppose?” asked Opal.
“Yes; in the darkest corner, not far from the spot where you struck the blow.”
“Is that all?”
“Not quite.”
“You need not go on. Look at me, Mr. Carter. It was for the honor of this house. She was wicked.”
“She was your father’s sister!”
“She made a bad match. She was disowned, or, rather, she disinherited herself.”
“But that was no excuse for the crime.”
“She might have paraded the relationship before the world,” cried Opal. “She was positively dangerous. She was a perpetual menace. It was dreadful.”
“You took it upon yourself to put her out of the way. You went to the house——”
“To silence her tongue!” broke in Opal Lamont. “Murder was not in my mind at first. But she taunted me; she laughed at me when I offered to make her rich. She even threatened to appear in public and boast of the kinship. That was more than I could stand.”
“You struck her then?”
“I did. I broke the ring with the blow. I did not miss it till I came home. The other half strangely clung to my finger till I reached this house. I thought I had lost the rest on the street.”
“You nearly involved others in that crime.”
“How’s that?”
“Your brother was for a time suspected of the murder, and then his chum, George Richmond.”
“Did it deceive you?”
“For a time. I traced out the ownership of the ring. I did it with the utmost secrecy. But a short time ago I half believed that one of them was the guilty person, but I am undeceived now.”
A haughty smile came to the girl’s lips.
She made an impatient gesture and then said:
“Let us dismiss these things. We can come back to them, you know. You said a while ago that father was dead.”
“He is.”
“Where is he?”
“In one of the many houses he owned.”
“I thought he would take his life in his madness. He would have given his wealth for the keeping of the secret of the kinship. How did he do it?”
For a moment Carter was silent.
“It was not suicide,” said he, looking at Opal. “It was the greater crime—murder!”
She started like one electrified.
“Another murder? I want to see him avenged, even if I have hands that are red! I want you to take the trail of his slayer. You will do this, Mr. Carter? You won’t refuse to become the servant of your human quarry?”
“It is no mystery,” was the reply. “The murder of your father is not a puzzle!”
“Then you know——”
“I know, for I have a living witness.”
Opal was silent; but her deep eyes seemed to pierce the detective through and through.
“I’m calm now. Name him.”
At this moment the front door opened and some one came in.
“It is Claude, my brother,” said the girl, scarcely above a whisper. “Wait a minute. He may go upstairs.”
Carter looked toward the door and seemed to smile.
“Call him in here. His coming will answer the question you have just put.”
Opal sprang across the carpet and opened the door, revealing the figure of Claude in the main hall.
“This way, Claude,” said she. “A gentleman wants to see you.”
It was a lightning glance that passed from the hallway to the man in the parlor.
Claude Lamont knew the detective at once.
He hesitated, but Opal clutched his sleeve and pulled him forward by main force.
“You know this man. It is the trailer,” she said.
A dark scowl came to the young man’s face.
“I know him!” he almost hissed.
The next instant the daughter turned again to Carter and exclaimed:
“Now, go on. You said you knew who killed father. Name the murderer.”
The hand of the detective was raised as his figure straightened, and in a second it covered the young man before him.
“There’s the man!” was all he said.
Though he spoke in low tones the words seemed to ring throughout the handsome parlor.
Claude Lamont grew white and Opal fell back.
Suddenly, however, she started forward and paused in front of her speechless brother.
“Is it true?” she cried.
There was no answer.
“You must speak! You must tell the truth. My hands are red and yours seem to be! You have heard this merciless trailer. He says you are a parricide! Is it true? Before Heaven, answer me, Claude Lamont!”
The lips of the young sport moved, but no words issued forth.
He seemed to have been struck with palsy.
“You heard me, murderer!” cried Opal, flinging herself upon her brother. “You must not stand there like a log and say nothing. You shall tell the truth. You did it.”
Claude flung her off and she nearly toppled against the mahogany table.
“I did it, and under the circumstances I would do it again!” he exclaimed. “He was coming at me like a wild beast, and I had to fight or perish.”
“Swear this!” cried the girl.
Claude raised one hand above his head.
“Where did you find him?”
“On the street.”
“But you did not bring him home?”
“I did not. I took him to one of our houses——”
“And killed him there? Murderer!”
That instant, with the fury of a madman, Claude turned upon his sister and covered her white face with his quivering hand.
“Murderer, eh? What are you? Don’t you know that the curse of blood has been upon this house for years? The curse of blood and money! Nearly a century ago one of your ancestors murdered his bride, and ever since the stain has been upon the house. It has skipped a few generations, but it is with us now. Richmond and I have kept your red secret. We know who killed Mother Flintstone. Does the detective know?”
“He knows,” calmly answered Opal.
“And does he know that the girl called Margie Marne is the grandchild of Mother Flintstone?”
Nick nodded.
“That’s all.”
Claude Lamont turned and stalked coolly from the room.
At the door he stopped and looked back.
“I’ll be on hand when wanted,” he said. “It was self-defense. I had to take the old man’s life.”
Carter and Opal heard him on the stairs, and in a few moments they heard a door shut overhead.
Long before morning a policeman stood guard over the dead millionaire’s mansion.
The night passed slowly.
New York was getting ready to awake to the solution of another murder mystery and another crime.
The detective was making the last move in the office of the chief of police, who had listened to the story of his last trail.
George Richmond lay in the station-house cell fast asleep, just as if he had never been concerned in the plot to rob Perry Lamont, the millionaire, with the aid of his scapegrace son.
The morning broke.
Carter went to the Lamont mansion.
Upon parting the night before Opal had pledged her honor that she would greet him when he came again.
He entered the house, speaking first to the guardian at the door, who assured him that all was well, and then he entered the parlor.
He rang the silver call bell on the table, and a servant entered.
“Your mistress?” said he.
“She is upstairs.”
Something in the servant’s tones attracted the detective, and he bounded up the steps.
Into the girl’s boudoir he burst, to stop just beyond the threshold.
One glance was enough—one look at the form lying on the couch satisfied the detective, and he did not remove the black-handled dagger from the blood-flecked bosom.
Claude was found fast asleep and was taken away, but the murderess was left alone.
The trail was ended.
Opal, the murderer of Mother Flintstone, was past reach of judge or jury, and the court acquitted Claude, for Bristol Clara, the only living witness, had to testify in his favor.
George Richmond was tried for conspiracy, and, as the law had long wanted to get another hold on him, he was sent “up the river” for a long term, which proved his last, for he died in Sing Sing.
The outcome of the detective’s trail was a startling surprise to Gothamites and became the talk of the town.
Margie Marne received a goodly share of the Lamont wealth, and afterward married, while Mulberry Billy, who played no insignificant part in the Mother Flintstone affair, was placed beyond want by Margie, who had formed an attachment for the boy.
It afterward turned out that Lewis Newell was a man who once persecuted Opal with his attentions, and the girl, with the coolness of a Borgia, decoyed him to his doom and thus began her career of crime.
Carter was highly complimented upon the result of his last trail, but he will never forget his adventure in the dungeon to which he had been decoyed by the daughter of the millionaire, nor the coolness with which she met the terrible charge he brought home to her under her own roof.
THE END.
The title of the next volume of The New Magnet Library, No. 836, is “The Heart of the Underworld,” by Nicholas Carter. The story leads you through dark and devious ways of crime, through a labyrinth of mystery and apparent defeat, out upon the broad highway of justice—where crime is punished and wrongs are righted. The great detective is the guide through this maze, and those who follow him in his perilous adventures will find themselves thrilled from start to finish.