JOE PHENIX’S GHASTLY FIND

That it was past midnight, the roan who stood nearly knee-deep in the thick, slowly-moving current of the sewer well knew.

He held in one hand a bull’s-eye lantern which he had just extinguished, and now he was listening to sounds that seemed to be borne to his ears by a breeze which stole through the disgusting darkness.

Joe Phenix knew the sewers of New York by heart.

He knew how to enter and how to quit them at all hours.

Much of his life was passed underground, and after the valuables that fell into his hands amid the darkness of the subterranean ways of Gotham.

Leaning against the wet wall of the fetid place, and inhaling the foul air that came to his lungs, Joe Phenix, sewer rat, listened.

He knew where he was.

Underneath one of the traveled streets of the great city he stood knee-deep, as we have said, in the murky fluid, that seemed to cling to his legs as it passed.

When the sewers were dry he had rats to fight, and sometimes he saw the creatures swimming about in search of food.

More than once they had attacked him, but he had escaped with a few bites.

He had seen thousands of them in the sewers of New York — had looked at them in the gleam of his bull’s-eye lantern, and had kicked them out of his way.

But how there was water in the sewer and he saw no rats at all.

Joe Phenix was a man of thirty-five.

He had seen a good deal of the world such as was bounded by the limits of New York, but beyond that but little of St.

He lived, or rather had a nest, in Doyer Street.

He had a backroom in Bottle Alley, and thither he would carry what he found in the sewers.

On this occasion Joe had been in the sewers some time.

It had been a poor night, for nothing had come to his net and he was not in the best of humor.

The black eyes of the little sewer rat twinkled when he heard the voices, for he was near a manhole, and In a flash he had “doused the glim,” and stood waiting in the darkness.

Waiting for what?

If Joe had been asked he would have said that he hardly knew.

He had waited many times for something to fall into his net, for now and then fleeing criminals had dropped rich prizes down to him and he had made money by the drop.

Joe hugged the wall of the sewer and tried to catch the words about the manhole.

All at once a match was struck at the opening and this sent the sewer rat forward.

Joe was all eyes now,

“Put it out; there’s water in the old hole,” said a voice.

In another instant the light went out, and all was as dark as before.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes. Wait a moment; it’s caught on my button. There, it’s loose now. Let it go!”

In a moment, “splash,” and some of the disturbed water was dashed into Joe Phenix’s face.

He drew back against the stones again, but made no noise.

“Shut it up now. We’re all right.”

“Caramba! I hope so. Now, come. I’m as dry as a fish.”

The manhole was closed, and the listening man in the sewer heard receding footsteps.

Something had been dropped into the sewer and he wondered what it was.

He did not uncover the light of the bull’s-eye for a few seconds, and then he sent the light over the black water.

At first it revealed nothing, and then it fell upon something lying beneath the manhole — something enveloped in a long bag, puckered at one end.

It was a grotesque-looking object to the sewer rat, and for a few moments he eyed it from his place against the wall.

“The d—l!” said Joe, with a start. “It must be dead whatever it is, and I’ve seen more than one body in the sewers.”

He pushed forward and stopped over the object.

Then he saw what a terribly human shape it had.

It lay at his feet, and the light of his little lantern fell full upon it.

Joe Phenix, for all his courage, had his weak points, and one of these was the touching of a dead body.

More than once he had found babies in the sewers, their little faces half devoured by rats; but this time he had discovered what could not be a child.

It was too large for that.

He listened for some time as he bent over the sack, now and then trying to move it with his foot, but he only disturbed the ripples of the thick tide.

“The waters not so deep at the turn,” said he, and suddenly catching hold of the find, he began to drag it down the sewer like a fisherman drags his net ashore.

Every now and then he stopped and looked back over his shoulder, as if to see whether the ghastly thing was following him, and each time he looked he shuddered.

He reached a turn In the underground river and stopped.

The tide was barely ankle deep there.

Now Joe made his light fast to his belt and began to untie the sack.

It was hard work for it had been tied for keeps, but he made headway at last.

When the last knot was opened he paused and looked up to catch his breath.

Something seemed to tell him not to look in the bag.

Pshaw! why not?

What was in there could not harm him, for he was strong and had the advantage of it.

He would look if the thing in the sack was headless.

The sewer rat pulled the top of the sack open and bent nearer.

He directed the beams of his bull’s-eye lantern into it and saw the top of a head.

“I thought so! Some dark work,” thought Joe. “Mebbe there’s been murder done. Who knows?”

He reached in and caught hold of a shoulder.

The next moment he had pulled the thing inside the sack partly out.

There was a white face with a pair of staring eyes.

Joe dropped bag and ail and fell back with a cry.

It was too ghastly for him after all.

“Why, he’s dead — as dead as a nail!” laughed Joe. “So what’s the use!” and returning to the sack, he gave it another tug and the dead man came half way out.

Then with teeth gritted Joe, the sewer rat, held the light very close to the face, he saw it was the face of a man about fifty.

It was a handsome face, despite its present ghastliness; but the features were contorted as if great pain had attended death, and the hands were tightly clinched.

Joe noticed that the hands were small and well cared for.

The few garments that clung to the body — pantaloons, shirt and waistcoat, were good and almost new.

Surely this man belonged in life to the higher walks of society.

Joe did not know him.

He did not move in high society himself, and men like the dead one never came into Bottle Alley to see him.

There was an impassable gulf between Joe Phenix and men of this stamp.

Joe took pains now to look the dead man over carefully and to note many little things which before had escaped his eyes.

He turned the pockets wrong side out, but they did not reward him.

There were no rings on the fingers, though he saw traces of one at least.

He found a mark around the dead man’s neck — a dark line as if a cord had been tightly drawn there.

This might account for the distortion in the face.

The right hand was very tightly clinched, Joe fell to opening it, a task which seemed greater than he bargained for; but at last it opened, something white dropped out.

It floated away on the water, but the sewer rat pounced upon it and rescued it before it bad time to disappear.

It was a torn card.

At first he thought of throwing it back into the water, but on second thought he held to it and thrust it into his pocket.

“I’ll look at it next,” said he, and then he went back to the body again.

“This ought to go to the morgue,” he went on. “I don’t want to be mixed up in the affair if I can help it. The next thing they’ll be suspectin’ me, and I’ve, been doing pretty well In the sewers of late. Let me see.”

He leaned against the wall and scratched his head while be collected his thoughts.

He did not care to be connected with a midnight mystery of the metropolis, for his name and his mode of life might get him into trouble, especially since he had once been arrested for appropriating to his own use some property found in the sewer.

“Hang it all, I’ll let it stay where it is,” cried Joe at last, “No, I won’t, for that wouldn’t be just right. I’ll tell my old friend, the captain, and let him do the rest. The captain’s all right and he won’t give me away.”

Joe carried the body to a spot which was almost dry and comparatively free from the invasion of rats, after which he skurried down the sewer, and at last drew himself up into the street through a convenient outlet.

“Now for the captain!” cried he. “I guess I’ll find him at home, for I saw by the newspaper the other day that he’s got back from London where he unraveled the mystery of that missing lady. He’ll be surprised to see me and to listen to my story!”

Joe bolted off and was soon knocking at a little door near Broadway.

He was asked to “come In” by someone inside, and he entered at once.

“Hello, captain,” cried Joe with a grin, as his gaze fell upon the mas already eying him from a chair near a table. “It’s me, Joe, the Sewer Rat, and I’ve something to talk about — a new mystery for you, cap,” and Joe took the other chair as he finished.

OLD SEARCH AND THE NEW MYSTERY

“A new mystery, eh, Joe?” smiled the veteran sleuth. “I would call it a new one at any rate, seeing that none of the police know it yet.”

“Then, indeed, it must be fresh; but you’ve been down in the sewers again.”

“Just came from there,” and the well-known sewer rat crossed his legs, showing the grime of the pipes. “There’s where I left the mystery.”

“Underground?”

“Yes,” and Joe proceeded to tell the story of his startling adventure in the big sewer.

Old Search listened with rapt attention.

He did not let a single word escape him, and when the man paused he said quietly:

“Are you sure the rats won’t destroy it, Joe?”

“I think they won’t. I never saw many where I left the find. Will you go and look at it?”

“At once, Joe,” and Old Search rose and picked up his hat.

He was interested, was this man of many clews; he seemed to see that the sewer rat had brought him the beginning of another dark mystery of the great city.

In a moment the two were on the street and Joe was guiding the detective to the spot.

They dropped into the sewer and Joe lit his bull’s-eye.

“This way,” he said. “It isn’t far from here and we’ll he there In a minute.”

They passed down the disgusting place, and Joe stopped suddenly and threw the light of his glim on the ground.

“Why, it’s gone!” he cried.

Old Search leaned forward with a look.

“Gone, Joe?”

“Gone! Here’s where I left it, right here. Don’t you see where something has lain?”

Old Search saw this very plainly.

“Let’s look for it,” cried the sewer rat. “It may have been dragged off by someone. Not by the rats, of course. This way, cap.”

They looked through the sewer by the light of the roustabout’s lantern, and Joe at last leaned against the wall disappointed.

“It’s almighty strange,” said he, looking into Old Search’s face. “Never saw anything like this; someone’s stolen the corpse.”

The detective himself looked nonplused.

“We’ll have to give it up,” continued Joe. “Maybe it will come out by and by. Someone will turn up missing, you know, and then I will know from the description of the missing person whether I saw him dead in the sewer to-night.””

This seemed to be the only proper thing to do, and the pair went back.

“Mebbe they came back after the body,” said Joe.

“The parties who lowered it into the sewer?”

“Yes, mebbe you can do something with the torn card I gave you, cap. That’s a strange name on it. 1 Rafael.’ Never saw a name like it to my recollection. And the part of that other word ‘caibo.’ What can it mean, anyway?”

Old Search shook his head, and a little while later both were on the street again.

It was near daylight now.

Old Search and Joe separated, and while one sneaked back to his quarters in Bottle Alley, the other returned quietly to his den near Broadway.

“It’s very strange,” thought the detective. “Why should they come back after the body, and whither did they take it? To the river? Time may tell, and in the end it may not be so much of a mystery after all.”

Morning came.

Joe, sleeping on his bard cot in the dismal den he occupied, might have been dreaming of his encounter with the sacked corpse in the sewer.

If so his dreams were not disturbed, and daylight streamed into his room without awakening him.

The newspapers came as usual to Old Search.

He picked up one and went over it hastily.

He read first the city news, and then turned to the general intelligence.

Police news always interested this man of trails.

All at once he stopped, and his face became a study.

In headlines he read that a startling disappearance had taken place, and then he read as follows:

“Prominent Man Missing — A Fifth-Avenge Millionaire Disappears — Suspicions of Foul Play!

“Three days ago Mr. Paul Dartmoor, of No. — Fifth Avenue, left home, saying that he had a little business, over in Jersey, and that he would be back by evening. His first night’s absence was not accounted strange by bis household, but the second one alarmed them somewhat, and now that he is still missing it is feared that he has met with foul play. His niece, Miss Jettie Golden, has lodged information with the police, and the authorities are busy; with the matter.

“Mr. Dartmoor is one of the most prominent of the residents in his section of the city — a gentleman of vast wealth, much of which was acquired some years ago in South American speculation, and a man of personal magnetism and many attainments. Those who know him say that he appeared”to have no enemies, and that his business affairs are in the best condition. He is a man of about fifty, well built, with grayish hair, mustache and imperial. For years he has been a familiar figure in Wall Street, where he still keeps an office, which he visits regularly once a day, but he has not been seen there for three days.”

What lent such a spell to this paragraph for Old Search was the brief description of the missing man.

It tallied exactly with that given him by Joe Phenix of the man found in the sewer.

Old Search read it again, and seemed to fasten every word in his mind.

He had heard of Paul Dartmoor, but had never seen the man.

He knew that he was a millionaire, and that he was also a widower, occupying the great house on the avenue almost alone; but he had never had anything to do with him.

It was later In the day.

The long shadows were falling over New York, and the lights would soon be lighted.

Old Search had just entered his room, when he heard a footstep behind him.

He looked over his shoulder and saw Joe Phenix.

The face of the Sewer Rat was nearly bloodless, and his hands shook when be followed the detective into the place.

“I’ve found that dead man!” gasped Joe. “I never had such a shock in all my life.”

“Well, Joe, walk over yonder and steady your nerves. You will find wine on the shelf, but it may not be your kind of tipple.”

Joe shook his head.

“I don’t touch the stuff,” said he. “Haven’t done so, you see, for ten years. But what a shock it was!”

“Was it in the sewer?”

“Heavens, no! I would be glad to say so if it was. It wasn’t under ground this time, but right on Broadway.”

“But it couldn’t have been the same man, Joe, after the condition in which you found him early this morning.”

“Well, it was the same man! There was the same figure, the same mustache and imperial. Why, I staggered onto him unsuspectingly and the sight nearly knocked me down. It was at Broadway and Wall, the very last place I expected to see him. Lordy, I’m scared yet.”

“Did you follow him?”

“No, I was too flustered for that. It was a wonder. I had strength enough to get away from the spot. You see he was coming down Wall and I — well, I had stopped a moment on the corner and we came together. I sometimes wonder if I saw anything last night — if it all wasn’t a horrid dream of the sewers.”

“But the card, Joe? That’s something tangible.”

“Yes. What have you made out of that?”

“Nothing yet. But have you seen the newspapers?’”No.”

Old Search hunted among the papers on his table and at last found the paragraph concerning the disappearance of Paul Dartmoor, the millionaire.

Joe read like a man in a maze.

“That’s a description of the man I found in the sewer as well as of him I ran against on the street?” said Joe.

“Maybe the one in the sewer wasn’t quite dead.”

“As dead as a smelt!” cried Joe. “I know a dead man when I see one.”

“Old Search smiled and looked away for a moment.

“Let’s go down to Wall Street,” said he.

Joe seemed to draw back.

“I’m going back to the alley,” said he. “Haven’t got a particle of spirit left in me now. Can’t you go down alone, captain? I’ll turn up to-morrow.”

“Just as you please, Joe.”

Twenty minutes later Captain Search stood among the money dens of Wall Street.

All were closed for the day, but here and there were lights in some.

He knew where Dartmoor’s office was and he sauntered in that direction.

It was a small room in a well-occupied building, honeycombed with such offices, and as he reached the steps he drew back to let a man out.

This man, as he saw him in the gaslight, was a handsome person of forty or thereabouts, with a dark face and a somewhat foreign air.

He was well dressed, and Old Search saw that on one of his hands were several rings of much brilliancy.

He passed the old ferret and went away, Old Search consulted the directory on the wall and found out where Dartmoor’s office was.

In another minute he was at the door, as he was about to knock, for he saw that a light shone i in the room beyond, the door suddenly opened and a young i girl came out.

She gave a sharp cry the moment she saw the detective, j “I beg pardon, miss,” said Old Search. “I hope I have ! given you no fright!”

“You did; that was unavoidable, but never mind it,” was the reply. “I have come to his office in hopes of finding a clew to this continued mystery. You have heard, of course? He has been missing three days and I am all unnerved.”

“Then you are Miss Golden?”

“l am his niece. I don’t know who you are, but you look honest, and I say here that there has been foul play. Paul Dartmoor has”fallen into some infamous trap. I would almost stake my life that murder has been committed. If you will walk in, I will give you my reasons for thinking thus,” and she held the door open while she looked at the old detective who, with a bow, walked into the office of the millionaire.

Miss Jettie locked the door behind him.

THE MISSING MAN TURNS UP

Miss Jettie Golden was a striking brunette of nineteen.

She was the missing man’s niece, and was looked upon as being his only heir, since he was childless and was not supposed to have any other living relatives.

She waved the detective to a chair, while she took the one so often occupied by the millionaire, and began her story.

In truth, the fair girl did not have much to tell.

She knew nothing beyond her uncle’s disappearance.

She could not say what business matters could have taken him across the river, for be never made her his confidante, but all the same, she was sure ill had befallen him.

“If alive and detained somewhere, he would have communicated with me,” said the girl, with positiveness. “It was not his way to keep me in suspense. He always wrote either to me or to the clerks in the office here; but not a line have we had from him.

“The newspapers, as you may have seen, state that he was a man who possessed no enemies.

“This, I fear, is not altogether the facts in the case.

“About three weeks ago he was called on by a man first and then by a woman.

“I heard some loud words in the library where he always met his callers, but I concluded that the pair who called within two hours of one another were beggars.

“He gave away a good deal to such people, but of late he had been so annoyed that he had decided to cut them off.

“I am not the only relative, though I may be for anything I know to the contrary.

“He had one brother, a man who years ago left home and wandered off, seeking his fortune in other countries.

“I have heard my uncle speak of this brother, and once he told me that he had pretty positive evidence that he had died somewhere in Australia.

“I believe he was a sheep raiser there.

“They looked a great deal alike, my uncle and the prodigal brother.

“I can show you their pictures taken when both, were young, and the resemblance is really remarkable.”

“But, coming up to the present, Miss Golden,” said Old Search. “You say that he always communicated with you when away for any length of time?”

“He never failed to do that.”

“But this time you have heard nothing?”

“Not a word.”

“This leads you to believe that he has met with an accident?’

“Yes. I could not rest another moment at home, and so I stole down here for the purpose of searching the office to see if I could not throw some light upon this mystery.”

Old Search thought of Joe Phenix’s find in the sewer, but he did not mention it.

“What was the man like who called, and had high words with him?’

“I did not see much of him, but got a glimpse as he left the house. He was a short man with somewhat gray hair and a quick, nervous gait. He looked a little like a foreigner, at least I thought so at the time; but it was nearly dark when he left the house, and I did not see him very well.”

“And the woman?”

“Oh, she was young and well dressed — a strange person I thought to be begging.”

“Was she pretty?”

“Very pretty, with the blackest eyes — she turned them on me when I encountered her in the” hall — I ever saw. She preceded the man, and somehow or other I connected their visits, though that may have been wrong, you know.”

Old Search nodded.

As yet Jettie Golden had no idea whom she was addressing.

She was supposed to know but little about detectives, and, of course, was not aware that even then she was placing the Dartmoor mystery into the hands of the keenest of the keen.

Half an hour later Old Search stood on the street again. Miss Golden had gone borne still in the dark as to whom she had talked with; but she may have partially guessed the riddle from what Old Search said on parting with her.

“I will do all I can to unravel this mystery,” he said. “I want to say, miss, that I am enlisted — in fact, very much interested — in the matter, and am at your service.”

“Thank you, sir. I trust all will come out well without the aid of the police; but I could not rest till I had lodged information with them.”

“That was all right, miss, but you have friends outside the police who will be glad to help you.”

Thus he parted with the young girl and wended his way to the morgue.

Old Search was well known there.

More than once on the cold slabs of the city’s dead-house he had found the beginning and the end of some mystery.

There he had discovered the dead victim of the knife or the cord, and from the gloomy building he had walked with more than one clew which he had followed to the tripping of the guilty.

On this occasion he entered the morgue with much eagerness.

It was barely possible that the body stolen from the sewer had found its way to the morgue.

He made the proper inquiry.

The officer on duty beckoned the old detective into the dead room and pointed to one of the occupied slabs.

“There is the latest acquisition to our ghastly museum,” said the officer. “The corpse was picked up in the East River this afternoon by the river patrol and found its way here. You see how the rats have gnawed its face — rats or fish, I can’t say which, but there remain the ends of what was once an imperial.”

Old Search did not lose his composure when he leaned forward and looked at the horrible sight.

He believed that he had found Paul Dartmoor.

Then he turned to the clothes.

They were not such garments as a rich, well-dressed man would wear.

They were shabby and uncouth, and showed signs of haring been worn a long time.

“What was found on the body — any money, watches or rings?”

“Nothing but a torn card.”

“Let me see that.”

The officer produced two bits of pasteboard, which the old detective took and examined closely.

All at once he took from his own pocket another piece of cardboard and put all together on the official’s desk. They fitted exactly.

In the light of the gas jet he read:

“Rafael Maxdaxo, Maracaibo.”

He looked up at the man who was watching him closely. “Has anyone been to see the body here?”’

“Several have seen it.”

“Well?”

“No one has recognized it positively, but one gentlemen said that but for the garments he would say that it might be Mr. Dartmoor, of Fifth Avenue, who has been missing some days, as you may know.”

“But for the clothes? Are there any marks on the body?”

“Yes, sir; here is the description.”

Old Search went over the description in the books of the morgue.

“One of the newspapers speaks of a scar on the left arm of the missing man half way between wrist and elbow. There is such a scar on this body, I see.”

“Yes, but you see the face has been destroyed.”

“I see” — with a glance at the body on the slab.

“What do you think?”

“That the body yonder is the corpse of the missing millionaire!”

The official started.

He looked surprised.

“I think you should communicate with some of the family or with someone who intimately knew the missing man.”

“It shall be done.”

It was done at once, and Paul Dartmoor’s clerk came straight to the morgue.

This man set all doubts at rest.

He positively identified the body, and when Joe Phenix was induced to enter the uncanny place he came back to Old Search and told him positively that it was the same body he had seen in the sewer.

“But the man I encountered at Broadway and Wall?” cried the sewer rat with a perceptible shudder, “Then the man on the street was a ghost.”

Old Search smiled.

“There was such a resemblance that I actually fell back with a cry. The living one had the mustache and the imperial. It was simply marvelous. I don’t know what to think about it, but the body in the morgue must be the one I saw dropped into the sewer through the manhole; but then I don’t think it wore the garments that clothed it when it was found in the river.”

“Maybe not, Joe. It looks puzzling, don’t it?”

It was not long before the whole city had been told in startling English that the body of Paul Dartmoor, the millionaire, had been found in the river, and Jettie had the corpse taken home.

A rigid examination set all doubts at rest and demonstrated that the man had been murdered, strangled by some unknown hand, and then, so the newspapers had it, “thrown to the fishes, which were expected to do the rest.”

The finding of the body In the sewer by Sewer Rat Joe was a secret which no one knew but Joe and Old Search.

At the detective’s suggestion they resolved to share it with no one, and Joe, with visions of future reward in his mind, went about his calling, but vowed he would never enter another sewer without a shudder.

Miss Jettie, who was supposed to be Dartmoor’s sole heir, offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the discovery of the stranglers, and this put all the ferrets on the trail.

But another sensation soon followed the first one.

When the dead man’s will was opened it was discovered that, doubting the death of his brother, he had made provision for him in case he returned within five years after the testator’s death.

Bynum Dartmoor was to have one half of the estate on his turning up and establishing his identity.

Just three days after the funeral a man presented himself at the door of the millionaire’s mansion, and sent in a card to Miss Jettie Golden.

The fair girl uttered a strange cry when she glanced at it, and a feeling of faintness almost overcame her.

Upon the card was rather roughly written the name of:

“Bynum Dartmoor.”

Jettie Golden sunk into a chair with a hysteric gasp.

A BUSINESS BEAUTY

About the time of the stranger’s startling visit at the house of the murdered millionaire, another scene, somewhat exciting in its nature, was taking place in another part of the city.

A man who seemed pretty far gone with drink was trying to persuade an elegantly dressed woman that it was not his duty to accompany her somewhere in a cab which stood at the edge of the sidewalk.

The man was a rather well-dressed fellow, passably good-looking; but the leer of the drunkard was in his eye, and his language was frequently interlarded with oaths.

“I tell you, Vina, I needn’t go at all,” he said, drawing back, though the woman’s hand held on to him.

“But you must — I say you shall!”

“Oh, let up. I’ll see you presently — say within an hour — if that’ll suit you.”

“But this is no place for you, Sam.”

“Best place I can find just now.”

“You’re pretty far gone already, and another drink will carry you over the falls.”

“I’ll risk it.”

And he drew back again; but she followed and looked him sternly in the face.

In another moment she had laid hold of his collar and was dragging him by main force toward the cab.

The little group of men and boys that had been attracted to the spot applauded her.

“You’ll tear my collar!” yelled the man.

“That I will,” was the reply. “If you don’t come quietly I’ll tumble you headlong into the cab.”

“Think she can do it, eh?” appealed the fellow to the crowd.

“Guess she kin, cubby,” vociferated a newsboy. “She’s got the muscle, and if you could see what’s in her eyes — Whopee! there you go.”

The man had been dragged to the cab, and as the door was already open, the main strength of the woman was sufficient to push her companion inside, and she sprang in after him, to the mingled cheers of men and boys.

In another moment the cab was rattling over the stones of New York.

As the horses started, the woman loosened her grip and leaned toward her prisoner with flashing eyes.

“You made a pretty spectacle of yourself, you did!” she flashed.

“You helped me, Vina,” he grinned.

“You might have refrained from the glass, but you hadn’t the manhood.”

“Manhood, eh? Had to steady my nerves, you see. Think of what I’ve passed through.”

“You hadn’t the nerve of a sick kitten. I thought better of you, Sam.”

“It was enough to unnerve an iron man.”

“Oh, it wasn’t much.”

“You didn’t help do it, you see. Just think of it — the uncanny hour and the handling of —”

“There! that’ll do,” broke in the woman. “We can dispense with the rest.”

“Where’s the doctor?”

“Never mind him.”

“But where is he? I’ve been waiting for a little loose change, and if it don’t come soon, why, I’ll —”

“What will you do?”

She was eying him like a hawk, and just then the ecab turned a corner, lurching the man almost into the woman’s lap.

“Come, you coward; say what you’ll do if you have the courage. I am waiting, don’t you see?”

In another second the cab slowed up, and all at once the woman threw herself forward, shouting to the driver;

“Go on! You have your orders.”

“Yes, madam, but —”

“Never mind. Don’t stop for anything. You’ll be paid well.”

“It’s not that. I’ve lost a wheel-tap.”

The beauty bit her lips in rage.

“What’s he lost?’ queried the man, but she hastily pushed him back into his seat.

“It’s only a square farther on, you know. You mustn’t stop now.”

“But the tap, madam.”

“Hang the tap!”

“When are we going to tap it?” leered the man, catching but faintly the last words.

She gave him a glance of supreme disgust.

By this time the driver had alighted and was looking at the maimed wheel.

“It’s clear gone,” he said, glancing up at the glass door and seeing the woman’s face there.

“Can’t you make it another square?”

“Impossible; wheel nearly off now.”

“But I can’t alight here.”

“And I can’t make the rest of the way.”

She turned to the man as if to note his condition.

His face was visible in the light that streamed from the nearest street lamp.

“I can walk,” said he.

“You won’t give me any trouble, will you, Sam?”

“I’ll be as docile as a giraffe.”

“Or as quiet as a flea, eh?’ she smiled.

“Just try me, Vina; you don’t know Sam Coppers.”

She opened the cab door with some hesitation.

He followed her out, but the moment he struck the pavement, she seized his arm.

“Come. We’ll be home in a second,” she said.

He looked back down the street and it was a look full of longing for freedom.

The woman pulled him away, but first threw some coin to the man who was still looking at his wheel, and Sam was unceremoniously taken from the spot.

“Don’t be a fool, Sam. You’ve played that role enough for to-night.”

“I had to get my nerve back somehow.”

“Oh, shoot the nerve.”

“Fact, Vina,” he stopped and made ready to argue the question then and there. “You don’t know what it cost me. You see, in the first place, it was a dark and ticklish job; just think of it. We had to lug it first to the —”

She slapped her hand over his mouth and gave him a mad look.

By dint of coaxing and threatening she at last got him to the steps of a well-to-do house, the door of which she opened with a latchkey, and the following moment she pushed him inside, bounding in after him.

She seemed to breathe free again when she had closed the door.

In a handsome parlor alongside the hall the still inebriated man sunk into an elegant chair with a weary sigh.

She drew off and eyed him with a look of triumph.

“You’re fixed here better than Mother Mastodon is in her palatial palace,” smirked the man, as he looked up at the contemplative woman.

“Don’t mention her here, if you please.”

“Eh? Doesn’t speak of our guardian angel in this house? What’s the matter with Mother Mastodon, Vina?”

“Never mind that.”

“She’s a daisy, eh? A little large, but a fine heifer, all the same.”

Vina lost color.

“What will be Mother Mastodon’s share of the swag?”

“I don’t know,” snapped the woman.

“Oh, you needn’t be so eternal crisp about it. She’ll have to have something, and a good end of the swag, I’m thinking. She could give the whole thing away, you see —

Vina bounded forward with the fierce agility of a tigress and pounced upon the man, whom she seized by the shoulders and crushed deeper into the depths of the chair,

“If you can’t show a little sense, I’ll strangle you right here!” she cried.

“Not by catching me by the shoulders. That’s not the way the other one —”

She broke his sentence with a shake, and then drew back.

“Silence! When you sober up you’ll think belter of your folly and will come back to reason.”

“Don’t know. Mebbe so. I’m willing to bet ten to one that I’m not drunk.”

She bit her bloodless lips again and turned away.

“But Mother Mastodon, Vina! The dear old woman will have to have her share of the spoils. And there’s the girl — my girl, you know, little Milly Owlet.”

“You don’t want to say that. You know what you are to do, and that as soon as possible.”

“Yes, I know what I am-expected to do, but there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

“But not in this case.”

“You don’t know. Well, if I fail I can fall back upon Milly Owlet,” and he leaned back in the chair and tried to whistle the bar of a popular topical song of the day, but the attempt was a sorry failure.

“When am I to meet her for the first time?” he asked, stopping suddenly.

“Within three days, if you behave yourself.”

“That’ll take nerve again.”

“It’ll take more good common sense.”

“Think so, old girl? I’ll show plenty of both.”

“See that you do.”

Sam Coppers reached out and opened a draw in the table near at hand.

“I’ll try one of the Demon Doctor’s cigars,” said he, with a leer at the woman.

There was no reply, and with another glance Vina stole from the parlor, leaving him to the full enjoyment of the Havana.

“I ought to rebel, but see where I am,” he said to himself. “I have made a fool of myself and i am in the clutches of these people — the dark ’doctor and this Queen of Spades. Say, Sam Coppers, why didn’t you stay out of it all? Fool! you’re a coward in addition, and if you don’t listen to Mother Mastodon —”

“There!” cried a voice, and a curtain at one side of the room parted and Vina reappeared. “I forbid you to speak that woman’s name in this house.”

“Oh, you do, eh? By Jove! I’d like to know if your feathers aren’t just as black as hers? If she’s a crow, aren’t you a raven? Ha, ha! that’s pretty well said,” and he laughed, while the handsome woman scowled.

“He’ll do one of two things,” she hissed; “obey me or feel somebody’s fingers!”

THE THUG ON BOARD THE SUNSET

The vessels that ply between New York and Maracaibo, fin turacoa, have for their resting-place Pier 30, East River.

The office is at No. — Wall Street, but the pier is the best place to get hold of certain information, such as Old Search was after.

Not long after the old ferret’s visit to the morgue, where he was sure he had found the body of Paul Dartmoor, the murdered millionaire, a plainly-dressed, man entered the ship office at the pier, and began to make inquiries in a quiet tone of voice.

There was nothing about him to excite suspicion, and when he was referred to a vessel then lying at the pier he bowed and turned away.

This man was Old Search.

The Maracaibo vessel was a trim little craft which had been built for a trader, though it was fitted to carry a few passengers as well.

Night was falling over the river, and the old detective went” on board.

The captain of the Sunset — this was the name of the boat — accosted him the moment he reached the deck, and politely asked him what he would have.

“When did you come in?” asked Old Search.

“We have been here five days.”

“I have been looking for a friend who lives in Maracaibo, and I would like to know if he was among your passengers this time.”

“Really,” returned the captain, rubbing his hands, while he looked Old Search over from head to foot, “I am sure I cannot say. We carried but six passengers, and you can have all the information I may possess concerning them.”

“That is good. My friend bears the name of Rafael Mandano.”

The captain shook his head.

“We carried no such passenger,” said he. “I am very sorry, sir; but I recall no such name on my list.”

“He was to come. But, come to think of it, he may have changed his name in that eccentric country; he was given over to eccentricities, you see.”

“I have a memorandum of my passengers here,” and the seaman pulled a little hook from his pocket.

“Here they are: ‘Ignacio Sodart,’ half French, I take it; ‘Burke Storms,’ a merchant, doing business in Venezuela; ‘Mr. Frank Goddart,’ an invalid, coming back after a vain search for health in the tropics —”

“What was Ignacio like?” asked the ferret.

“As I recall him, he was a well-built man, with a dark face and keen black eyes. He was constantly in his cabin, coming on deck only when we set sail and when we came in sight of New York. He had a mustache and an imperial, and was, on the whole, a good-looking man, with some odd ways, for which, perhaps, he was not altogether to blame.”’

“That seems to answer the description. I thank you; but one word: Was this passenger apparently rich?”

“He seemed to have plenty, so far as I could see, but he didn’t throw it to the dogs.”

“No?”

“There was something marvelous about him. My steward first called my attention to it.”

“What was that?”

“His aptitude with the string.”

“The string?”

“That’s what Pablo called it, but in reality it was more his hands than the cord.”

“Oh, he was a lassoer, then? I am aware that in Venezuela they are famous for lassoing wild cattle, and —”

“I thought at the time that he may have learned the art in that way, but it was cord, not a rope, he used.”

“How did he use it?”

“He could twist it round your neck with the utmost ease. One night he stole up behind poor Pablo below, and threw the little cord so deftly that he frightened the steward out of a month’s growth.”

“A thug of the tropics, eh?”

“Yes; it makes me shudder to think of it. Why, old sea dog as I am, I would not have slept a single night through if Pablo had told me about this man the first day out.”

“But he didn’t?”

“No; he kept his knowledge to himself till we were about to enter the harbor here. It was provoking, wasn’t it?”

The disguised detective smiled.

Yes, it was provoking.

“But here’s Pablo now,” as a little man with a Spanish cast of countenance came aft.

The steward came on and stopped before the old ferret.

“This gentleman seems interested in your old friend, the strangler; that’s what we call him.”

The little steward shuddered.

“C’aramba! I know him. Why, you can seethe mark on my neck yet if you look close, senor.”

Old Search pretended to look, but said nothing.

“He could throw the cord, eh, Pablo?”

“That he could! I have seen him practicing time and again, but after he gave me the cord, just to show me what he could do, I gave him a wide berth.”

“Of course, Pablo. You didn’t care to be choked?”

“Holy Diox! no!”

“I can’t say that this passenger was my friend, Mandano,” the ferret said, looking at the captain.”

“Perhaps not.”

“What was that name, senor?” quickly asked Pablo.

“Rafael Mandano.”

“The little card!” cried the steward.

“What card?” asked the captain. “You never mentioned one to me, Pablo.”

Pablo disappeared below, but soon reappeared with something in his hand.

It was a common card, poorly printed, but it bore the name of “Rafael Mandano.”

The stolid face of the old detective did not betray him.

“Where did you find this, Pablo?”

“In the thug’s cabin,” was the reply. “I went down to clean it up after he left the boat, and it lay on the floor.”

“And you were going to keep it?”

“To remember the man with the cord!” grinned the little man, showing his teeth.

Old Search went back.

He knew that Rafael Mandano had landed in New York from Maracaibo, and that the card he had obtained from Pablo bore the same name as the one which had been brought to light through Joe Phenix, the sewer rat.

He had to deal with the cruel strangler.

There was no doubt of this.

Half an hour later he was back in his little chamber.

As he reached the door a man sprang out from among the shadows of the corridor, and ran toward him.

It was Joe Phenix.

“I’ve been waiting for you!” exclaimed the rat of the sewers. “I have been skulking here for an hour. But you’ve come. Did you see him?”

“See who, Joe?”

“The man who just left the building? He was loafing over yonder in the dark by the door.”

“I saw no one.”

“But I did, and I never moved. I was afraid to stir, and here I stood with my heart in my throat all the time. It was worse than standing knee-deep in the grime and slime of the sewers.”

Joe seemed to shiver as he talked.

“He was over yonder, do you say? What was he doing?”

“Watching your door.”

“My door, Joe?”

“Yes, he was, and with the keenest eyes I ever saw in a human head.”

“But he got tired of it, eh?”

“I suppose so. At least he went off and I caught my breath at last.”

“How long has he been gone!”

“Not five minutes. He may come back. Let’s go in and wait for him.”

Joe Phenix almost pulled the old detective toward the door, but Old Search stopped him.

“What was this man like? You must have seen something of him.”

“Not much, captain. You see, the light wasn’t very strong here, and all the time I watched him I was thanking my stars that it was so dim.”

“Was he tall?”

“Not very.”

“Old?”

“I could not see, but I caught sight of his eyes once as he passed door No. 57. You see how the light falls yonder?”

“Yes. Waiting for me, think you, Joe?’

“I would bet my hand on it, anyhow.”

Old Search looked toward the spot where the man had been, and then moved over to it.

Just then footsteps were heard coming up from the street.

Joe Phenix clutched the ferret’s sleeve.

“Heavens, he’s coming back!” he gasped.

Old Search took a step toward the head of the stairs and stopped.

There he waited for the newcomer.

“It’s a woman!” cried Phenix.

Sure enough a female figure had risen above the last step and came toward the detective’s office.

“It is Miss Golden!” said Old Search.

In another moment his hand had fallen softly upon the girl’s arm, and she was looking into his face with a slight shudder.

Old Search had told her, while not giving her positive assurance that he was a detective, that if she ever wanted help or had anything to state concerning the death of the millionaire, to communicate with him at his room.

She had come in person.

“So I have found you!” cried the millionaire’s heir. “I am very glad. But this man?’

And she looked at Joe.

“A friend who can be trusted, miss.”

The girl seemed to breathe freer.

“Something very strange has happened,” she said. “My uncle Bynum has come back.”

“The missing brother?”

“Yes. I was thunderstruck. He came upon me unexpectedly. It was very startling; but somehow or other I doubt his identity. I have come to you for advice. He wears a mustache and an imperial —”

“Great God! the man I saw at Broadway and Wall,” interrupted Joe Phenlx,

OLD SEARCH AND COFFERS

Jettie then proceeded and detailed the visit of “Bynum Dartmoor” to her home.

The story he told her of his wanderings and of his recollections of his brother was very plausible.

He said be did not know of the millionaire’s death till after the burial, and that he had called at the first opportunity.

Still, for all this, the girl doubted his identity.

She could not believe that the missing brother had come back; and that he should come just at this time was very surprising.

“I want you to help me,” she said to Old Search. “I want to find out positively if this man is correct. If he is I shall not object to his having his share of the estate; but if he is an impostor I shall not surrender without a battle.”

The beautiful girl was determined to stand by her rights, and it was quite clear that she regarded the man as an impostor.

Old Search readily gave his promise.

“She’s got snap!” exclaimed Joe Phenix when Jettie had departed. “I like the girl’s grit, and if she don’t make it hot for this man, if he’s a rascal, it won’t be her fault.”

“You are right, Joe. However, the girl may be mistaken, and after all the missing man may have turned up.”

Meantime, a well-dressed, good-looking man of about fifty sat in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue Hotel quietly smoking.

He was the person who had presented himself at Paul Dartmoor’s house as the millionaire’s brother.

He was entirely at his ease.

No one seemed to know the man, though many looked twice at him, and seemed to wonder if he was not some person of considerable importance.

He was still there when Old Search strolled into the lobby.

Bynum Dartmoor had told Jettie that he was stopping for the present at the Fifth Avenue, and there he was found by the detective shortly after Jettie’s visit.

Dartmoor did not notice the ferret.

Old Search seemed to find his man at once and he studied him from a convenient corner.

All at once Dartmoor rose and walked out.

He stopped underneath the lights and looked across at the park.

In another moment he had walked over and seated himself on one of the benches.

The air was cool but pleasant, and the man took another cigar from his pocket.

Old Search withdrew to a good point of observation and continued his espionage.

It was evident that she man had gone to the park for a purpose, for as he took a seat he consulted his watch and j seemed pleased.

By and by there came toward him from the pavement another man.

This was a personage with a dark face, a quick, nervous ; gait, and keen eyes of raven blackness.

He was seen by the detective before he joined Dartmoor.

“That is the Sunset’s passenger,” thought Old Search. “That is the thug from Maracaibo.”

The ferret now fell to watching the two men who were seated on the bench together.

They had greeted one another with a great deal of familiarity.

The smaller one of the two was Ignacio, the late passenger of the Sunset.

If Old Search had not been compelled to keep some yards away, owing to the nearest bench being occupied by park loafers, he might have overheard the following:

“Well, I suppose you have seen the inside of the nest by this time?”

This was said by the dark-faced man.

“I was there to-day,”

“Saw the girl, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Very fair,”

“How did she receive you?”

“With a start, of course,”

“No doubt of that. Wasn’t looking for you, eh?’

“No.”

“But she surrendered with good grace, eh?”

“Not very. The girl is a little suspicious.”

“Like a good many women, I thought she would be: but you convinced her?”

“I handed her all the proofs I had.”

“Well?’

“They seemed to satisfy her. I told her that I wouldn’t push matters, but that when the time came I would claim the share the will gives me.”

The dark man smiled.

“When do you think we had best bring Sam to the front?’ he asked.

“The girl’s got a lover already.”

Ignacio grinned.

“What if she has a dozen?” he cried. “We don’t care for that, you know.”

“Of course not; but —”

“Did she tell you that she has a lover?”

“I got the information out of her without her seeming to impart it.”

“He played a quiet but effective hand. That’s good.”

“Is the house a fine one inside?” queried Ignacio.

“It is furnished as a millionaire would naturally furnish his mansion. I didn’t know he was quite so tasty. He didn’t use to he that way.”

“But you hadn’t seen him for years, you see,”

Dartmoor shock his head.

The dark little man rose to go.

“Which way?” asked Dartmoor.

“Oh, I shall go back. You will come and see us whenever you can.”

“Yes, when I can, without exciting suspicion.”

“We’ll be at home all the time, or some of us will. You mustn’t let this girl beat you.”

“I’m not here for that,” laughed Dartmoor, “There’s too much at stake.”

“I should say so.”

With this, Ignacio walked away, leaving Dartmoor to go back to the hotel, or enjoy another cigar in the park, just as he thought best, and in another moment Old Search was walking after the little man.

Ignacio led him a long chase, but at last he pulled up in front of a small house near the East River, and entered it with a night-key.

It was in a poor quarter of the city, and not one wholly respectable.

Right across the street was a house similar in construction, and alongside the door hung a sign of “Famished Rooms.”

Old Search crossed the street.

In response to his ring, a slatternly woman opened the door and awaited his pleasure.

She was a tall, pock-marked woman with keen eyes and money-making mien.

“You rent rooms, do you?” inquired the old detective.

“We do, and good rooms, too.”

“Have you a front one?”

“We have; but it is up-stairs.

Old Search concluded that he would like to look at it, and was shown to the chamber.

It suited him very well, and he said he would take it at once.

“Do you require references?” he asked.

“We won’t from you; you look respectable,” was the reply.

Old Search gave her the name of Orson Pratt, saying that he was a man of some means and that he was engaged in business on the Bowery.

When the woman retired Old Search seated himself at the window and began to watch the house to which he had tracked Ignacio.

“I can put Joe on guard here after to-night,” thought he. “The sewer rat is faithful and shrewd, and will serve me well.”

The hours grew longer as the man sat there with his keen eyes fastened upon the house opposite.

It seemed as quiet as a tomb, and the thug of the Sunset did not emerge from it.

At last the door opened.

The person who came out was taller than Ignacio, and much younger.

He stood on the steps a minute, looking carefully up and down the street.

Old Search saw that he was well dressed; indeed, so well that he might have passed as a dandy.

His mustache was curled and waxed, his boots well blacked and his hands encased in gloves.

When he started off, Old Search left his post and hurried below.

In a moment he was on the street, and then the chase began.

The tracked man was shadowed to a little saloon, where he took a seat at a table and began to imbibe like a confirmed victim of intemperance.

From another part of the same room Old Search regarded the man like a hawk.

Suddenly, to the detective’s astonishment, the man, without the slightest provocation, kicked the table over, threw a five-dollar bill upon the counter and, without waiting for change, staggered forward and left the place.

Old Search came up with him on the sidewalk and was spied at once.

“Just my sort!” exclaimed the fellow with a laugh, as he ran one arm through that of the old detective and began to drag him away by main force.

“Don’t know me, eh? I’m Sam Coppers. I’m the slickest duck in the puddle — the man what has it in his power to play all the trumps in the deck at once and win the stakes. Come right along. You look like a decent old bloke, my friend. You want a little fun, don’t you? No harm done. I’m Coppers — the man who knows more about some things than it’s safe to tell; but never mind. Come with me.”

Old Search was very willing to go, but all at once a hand fell upon Sam Coppers’ arm and he was pulled loose from his new-found acquaintance.

“Come with me!” said a stern voice, and the ferret looked into the face of the speaker, a fine-looking woman, whose eyes fairly blazed with rage.

“This is Vina — Queen Vina,” said Sam, with a drunken leer. “Don’t know her, eh? She’s a boss girl, but takes an interest in me, for without me she can’t —”

The next moment Vina had tom the two men apart and was hustling Coppers from the spot.

BETWEEN SATAN AND THE SEA

This scene was quite amusing to the old detective.

It was the first look he had had at Vina — Queen Vina, as Sam Coppers called her.

He at once thought of the woman who had called to see Paul Dartmoor, the murdered millionaire, and wished at that moment that Jettie had been there to identify her.

Of course Old Search did not object to Vina taking Sam away.

He drew off and watched the pair.

Sam was not so very drunk, for he went with the woman without much resistance, and presently by turning a corner both were lost to view.

“Did you know that man?” asked Vina, looking sternly at her companion.

“Didn’t have to,” simpered Sam.

“You ought to be careful whom you pick up on the street.”

“Jes’ so, Vina. He might have been a jailbird.”

“Or a detective.”

Sam started and almost broke from the woman’s grasp, “Not that bad! Wait, I’ll go back and shadow him.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” was the retort; “you’re going with me just now.”

Old Search had turned and followed the pair.

He wanted to see whither Vina would take Sam.

Half an hour later, Coppers, to all appearances quite himself, came out of a certain house in Hester Street and made his way to Mulberry near the Bend.

There he dodged Into an alley and, after running up a flight of rickety steps, pulled up at a door which he opened without ceremony.

He startled a massive woman with a large, homely face and gigantic hands.

The appointments of the room were not very good nor extremely clean.

She smiled when he entered.

This was Mother Mastodon — a woman supposed to be a “fence,” and a person who had a good many secrets, such as they were.

We have seen how Vina forbade Sam to mention Mother Mastodon in her presence, and how she had flushed when the name was spoken.

Coppers at first leaned against the wall, but afterward crossed the room and took a broken cane-bottom chair near the table.

Mother Mastodon might have been fifty, but it was really difficult to tell her age, she was so strangely made up facially and so gigantic In proportions.

“How’s Vina?” asked the giantess,

“Coming on,” and Sam crossed his legs as he looked at the woman.

“Doesn’t like me, eh?”

“Looks that way.”

“Won’t have you speak of Mother Mastodon in her presence?”

“How do you know that?’

“Never mind, Sam. There are some things I know very well.”

“And that is one of them, I suppose?”

The woman nodded.

“You’re going to marry Milly, Sam?”

The man did not speak.

“You heard me, didn’t you — you’re going to marry Milly Owlet, aren’t you?”

“I want to.”

“You must.”

“What if she won’t let me?’

“Who — Vina?”

Sam nodded.

“She says no, does she?’ and the face of Mother Mastodon became pale.”That’s her veto, is it?”

“Guess it is.”

“Here, you must marry Milly. I say so.”

Mother Mastodon seemed to have great power over Coppers.

“If you say so,” the man stammered, “why, it’s settled, I suppose, but I don’t see how I’m to do it after the programme they’ve fixed up between them.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m to get a rich wife — a girl who will have nearly a clean million in her own right.”

“Tell me.”

The big, ungainly figure of Mother Mastodon was pitched forward till the red face nearly touched Sam, and e seemed to shrink from the threatened contact.

“It’s the millionaire’s girl — the man who was found in the morgue a few days ago.”

“Oh, Paul Darmoor?”

“Yes.”

“And they say that you’re to marry the heir?’

“That’s the programme.”

“Well, how goes the courtship?’

“I haven’t even seen her yet.”

“No?”

“It’s a naked fact, mother.”

“When does the courtship begin, then?”

“Didn’t know there was to be any. It was to be a marriage without any of the preliminaries.”

“Oho! They’re going to rob Milly of a husband. That’s their game, is it?”

“It looks that way.”

“It’s simply infamous. You’d sooner have Milly, wouldn’t you, Sam?’

“She’s a fine girl.”

“But there’s the million, eh?’

“That’s a consideration nowadays.”

“What, think you, would happen if you refused downright to marry Miss Dartmoor.”

“Her name is Golden.”

“Never mind; it’s immaterial as to that. What would happen?’

Sam seemed to reflect a moment.

“I guess I’d better not refuse,” he said at last.

“You’re afraid to disobey, then?”

“I don’t want to incur their enmity.”

“Oh, you fear the other one the man with the silken fingers and the keen eyes.”

“Fact is, I don’t like Rafael.”

“Very well. You will marry Milly.”

Mother Mastodon spoke as one determined.

Her eyes seemed to look Coppers through.

“You might do it to-morrow.”

“What, marry Milly then?’

“Yes. It can ail be done secretly, and after that they could have no hold on you, and if the worst came, you could come out boldly and tell the truth — defy them, you see.”

“That might be dangerous.”

“You refuse, do you?’

“Hang it all, I don’t know what to do.”

Mother Mastodon leaned back, and for half a minute looked steadily at the man before her.

Sam was between two fires.

Which way he turned he was likely to be burned.

“Mother Mastodon, what makes Vina dislike you?’ he finally asked.

The old woman started a little.

“She really hates me, does she?’

“Like the d—l hates holy water.”

“Well, she has cause to hate me. She ought to hate Mother Mastodon. This woman, Sam, is a cool head and as desperate a creature as ever wore the mark.”

“What mark?”

“Never mind that! And the doctor: does he hate me, too?”

“I never heard him say.”

“And you never will. He knows when to hold his tongue. He’s another cool head, and can he depended on to keep his secrets. But about this murdered millionaire? What are the detectives doing with the case?”

“I ain’t in the swim when it comes to that,” said Sam, with a grin. “They don’t see fit to come to me and tell me just what they’re doing.”

“And you don’t care to go to them.”

“Why should I? What could Sam Coppers tell them?”

Mother Mastodon turned her head away and seemed to regard something on the wall.

But, really, all the time she was watching Sam out of the comer of one eye, and she saw the slight change of countenance.

“Would you tell if you knew? Would you give the detectives any information if you possessed it?”

“I don’t like them. I never could like a man who hunts his fellow-men down, and after all, often hangs the innocent.”

“How often?” broke in the big woman. “How many innocents have you heard of who stretched hemp in place of the red-handed? Can you count them on your fingers, Sam?’

Sam didn’t know.

He was sure, though, that innocent men had been wrongfully convicted, that some prisons were full of them, but just then he couldn’t specify.

“See here,” said Mother Mastodon, “your only hope of salvation is to marry Milly Owlet to-morrow. I’ll have the girl here, say, at ten o’clock.”

“In this room?”

“I’ll see to the preliminaries, and I’ll have the parson right on the ground. The girl is willing, and —”

“It’s terribly sudden,” interrupted Sam. “I didn’t think of such a thing when I called.”

“Mebbe not, but sleep over it. Go home and think over the matter. If you consult your own interests you will come here to-morrow and marry the girl. If you don’t it’s the end of Sam Coppers.”

Coppers rose and went to the door.

Stopping there, he looked at the giantess who had ceased to advise him.

“Good-night, Sam,” said Mother Mastodon.

“Good-night.”

He stopped on the stairs and pressed his hands to his burning temples.

“My God! say God!” he exclaimed. “What a terrible alternative. I am between the d—l and the deep sea, and one is about as dangerous as the other.”

He passed down at last and stood on the sidewalk.

“Why not go to the detectives? No, never! I’ll die first and with all I know! It’s a million and a rich wife, or a poor, sweet girl and death — death! and such a death at that.”

He bolted down the street, nor stopped until he entered a room poorly furnished, and threw himself upon a bed.

It was a night of agony for Coppers.

The poor wretch did not know what to do; destruction seemed to stand on either hand.

HEIR OR IMPOSTOR — WHICH?

On Search carried out his idea of putting Joe Phenix on guard opposite the house to which he bad tracked the man known to him as Ignacio, or the Thug of the Sunset.

Joe at first demurred to the assignment, but at last consented, and the next day the housekeeper of the place where Old Search had secured rooms was told by him that he had turned his place over to a friend, and mollified her by paying a month’s rent in advance.

Joe watched the house all day, seeing the little man come out and re-enter near dusk.

If the man in the other house was really Ignacio of the Sunset he seemed to know that secrecy stood him in need, for when Joe undertook to shadow him on the street be eluded his pursuer and Joe was vanquished.

“This ain’t half as good as hunting the sewers,” ejaculated Phenix, somewhat disgusted. “I believe I’ll throw up the job and let the captain get another watch. It isn’t my forte, anyhow. I can find things in the sewers, but when it comes to watching people who live secretly in strange houses — that won’t do.”

But Joe concluded that he would “try it another night” and then if nothing came his way he would throw up the job and quit.

As for Old Search, he was not idle.

Doubly interested in the mysterious murder of the millionaire, he was at work.

It had become generally known that Bynum Dartmoor had come back, and just in time to enjoy some of bis brother’s enormous wealth.

No one seemed to question his identity, no one save Jettie Golden and her lover, a young man who felt sure that foul play was still afoot.

The girl was inclined to give Dartmoorthe cold shoulder, and might have done so if Old Search had not counseled otherwise.

“It is very strange,” thought the girl. “He seems to know exactly where my uncle kept nis valuable papers. He comes to the house and goes as straight to them as if he had been shown where they were. I can’t account for it, only on the ground that he has been here secretly, or that he has been posted.”

It was the morning after Sam Coppers’ interview with Mother Mastodon, and Bynum Dartmoor presented himself at the millionaire’s mansion.

He was scrupulously dressed, and his mustache and imperial were neatly waxed.

He bowed low to Jettie, who admitted him, and passed at once to the library.

“You will pardon me for not inquiring sooner — but what are the authorities doing in regard to the death of my brother, Paul?’ be asked.

“I cannot tell you. They have been here, of course, but did not care to tell me anything.”

“That is like them. That is their business.”

“Certainly,”

“Has a reward been offered by — by the family?’

“Not yet.”

“It should be done and at once. These sleuths should be stimulated by every honorable means. I will attend to that important matter to-day.”

He opened the dead man’s desk and drew forth papers and writing materials.

Jettie watched him closely while he wrote.

“I have drawn up an offer of reward, to be paid by us conjointly, if you don’t object, Miss Jettie,” said he, turning to her. “I have offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the|apprebension of the murderer, or murderers, of my brother, Paul Dartmoor.”

Jettie started, but said quickly:

“It has my full approval. In fact, you may double the amount if you think best.”

“That will do for the present. I will see that the offer falls into the hands of the right parties. It will stimulate action and will command the services of the best detectives in the city. I want to see the murderer captured.”

He folded the paper and put it away.

“I believe my brother had a little leather case about six inches long. Did you ever see it?”

“But once;” the girl lost color. “I saw it one night when I came suddenly into the room to bid him goodnight”

“Oh, he never exhibited it, then?”

“Never, and he seemed disturbed that I saw it at the time.”

“And you never saw it afterward?”

“Never since that night.”

“Of course, then, you have no idea where he kept it?”

“I have not.”

Bynum Dartmoor looked around the room with his searching eyes.

“I remember that the little case contained some papers of value to the family name,” he went on.

“It may be in the room somewhere,” and he began to look for it.

Miss Jettie saw that he seemed to know where everything was kept, and his steps were stealthy and almost noiseless.

“What is in here?” he said, stopping at one side of the room and tapping a little draw set in the wall.

Jettie shook her head.

“I cannot say.”

“Would you mind my looking?”

She made no reply, and he began to take keys from his pocket, since the bunch he had carried from the desk would not open the drawer.

Some little time elapsed before the drawer yielded, and when it did, Dartmoor seemed to recoil.

“It is there,” thought the girl. “Ha has found it.”

Sure enough the man took from the drawer a little black pocketbook, which he clutched eagerly.

He went back to the desk, and the eager girl moved forward.

“You have found it, I see,” said she, in alow whisper.

“This is it. I thought it might be somewhere in this room.”

He looked it over carefully, but did not seem to make any effort to open it.

“It seems to contain papers,” continued Jettie.

“Yes. I’ll look at it at my leisure and at my hotel.”

“I can’t permit that. It wouldn’t do, you know.”

He fell back and looked at her, with his face suddenly getting a dark color.

“Why not? Am I not entitled to one half of what he left?”

“You are, if you are Bynum Dartmoor.”

It was out.

The words which had bubbled to the girl’s lips had escaped without effort on her part, and she was looking at him with a face as white as snow.

“What do you mean, girl?” he cried. “If I am Dartmoor? That’s almost an accusation that I am not!”

“I did not say so.”

“Not quite, not quite,” was the reply. “But take eare. I am Bynum Dartmoor or I am nobody. Remember that!”

He was still bolding to the black poeketbook, but all at once it crept toward his pocket.

“I say I can’t permit that,” cried Jettie. “What interests you must also interest me. Leave the pocketbook here and examine it in my presence.”

He arose and looked at Jettie, seeming to measure her from head to foot.

“I’ll take it with me and will bring it back to-morrow.”

“No. It remains here!”

She caught his wrist and held on grimly.

If white, the girl was calm.

He laughed at her and drew hack, showiug his teeth in a half snarl.

“If the pocketbook is carried off I shall report the theft to the police.”

“You will, eh? You will treat me as a common robber, will you?”

“I will report to the police,” was the determined reply. “I intend to stand by my rights while this house shelters me.”

Bynum Dartmoor was at the door with the pocketbook in his hand.

His mien was that of a mad tiger and Jettie feared the man.

“To-morrow. That won’t be long and you can wait,” said he. “I will be here at ten.”

He had opened the door, and just then Jettie Golden sprang forward.

She was caught by the shoulder and pushed back, the hand of Dartmoor seeming to burn her like red-hot iron.

When she recovered the door had been shut and the man was gone.

For a moment the millionaire’s niece stood in the deserted hallway not knowing what to do.

The man had carried off the packet containing, as she believed, some secret of great import and she was powerless to interfere.

“He must give it up. I will go to my friend as before. He told me to treat this man kindly, and I have tried to do so, but he is a villain — an impostor of the deepest dye!”

Jettie ran up-stairs and hastily dressed herself for the street, with the intention of seeking Old Search at once.

Her heart beat fast, but her nerves were strong.

She knew where Dartmoor lived, but she did not know whether he would go direct from her house to the Fifth Avenue or not.

Once on the street she took a car and was carried downtown.

It was pretty late when she reached the vicinity of the old detective’s office.

She had been there before and knew where to find it.

But all at once her wrist was seized by a hand that appeared to sink the fingers to the bone, and turning, she looked into the white face of a woman.

“Heavens!” cried Jettie, falling hack the length of the woman’s arm. “I have seen you before.”

“You have, miss,” was the answer. “And where, pray?”

“At my home — at the home of the late Paul Dartmoor.”

The eyes before her got a madder gleam, and another flash and the grip grew harder.

“It is false! It is false, I say! You never saw me there.”

Bat Jettie knew better; she had seen that very face in her uncle’s house, and had heard the same voice in the library in loud tones.

“You were going into that building, were you?” asked the Unknown.

“What if I were?”

“You will come with me, girl.”

“Not now.”

“Oh, yes, with me. You can come back in a few moments. I want to talk to you. There’s a carriage round the corner. This way, if you please.”

Jettie saw that she was a captive in the cold grip of the strange woman.

She was beautiful, fascinating, and Jettie was pulled away.

Half a minute later her captor stopped with her in front of a closed cab near the gutter, and the next instant the door was opened and she was pushed In.

All this seemed a dream to the terrified girl.

IN THE SERPENT’S COILS

“What does this mean?” demanded Jettie, as the cab rattled away.

“Silence,” said a voice at her ear as a hand closed oh her wrist. “You will know in time, but you will do well just now to keep still.”

From the sound of the voice she could well believe this.

It seemed to send a chill through all her nerves, and she sunk back among the cushions of the cab and held her tongue.

After awhile the vehicle seemed to draw up near the sidewalk and then it stopped.

The strange woman leaned toward the window and looked out.

The inspection seemed to satisfy her, and she opened the door.

“Come; we are here,” she said to her captive, and the next moment she had dragged Jettie out and was harrying her toward a brick house in front of them.

The millionaire’s niece was ushered into this place, and the door was locked behind them.

Jettie had no idea where she was, but she believed that Bhe had been seized to prevent her having & conversation with the man who had offered to befriend her whenever she needed help.

Time would tell.

She was escorted to a room and left there.

This room was a small parlor luxuriously furnished, and a dim light revealed it fairly well.

Jettie took an armchair facing a marble mantel, and wondered when she was to see her captor again.

Some minutes passed without bringing her back.

At last, however, the door opened and the woman stood before her arrayed in a long, scarlet robe, which fell to the floor in folds and which gave her an imposing appearance. Jettie Golden started at sight of her.

“How do you like the place?’ asked the woman, with a smile, as she swept forward and took another chair.

“It is a nice room,” was the reply.

“As nice as yours which he furnished with the money he tilehed because he could?”

“What mean you?”

“Oh, it was all right, I suppose. You see, they call it speculation here; but all the same it is legalized robbery.”

Jettie disdained to answer.

“You asked why I Interfered with your proposed call,” the Unknown went on. “I will tell you. You are to become a bride.”

The fair girl started and uttered a cry.

“It is true, and you cannot get around it. I will furnish the groom, and it is a match which must he made.”

“But you forget —”

“I remember everything,” was the quick reply, accompanied by a wave of the gloved hand. “You are to he married, and in this room.”

“Impossible.”

“With us everything is possible. You will not quit this house until you are a wife.”

“Wife of whom?”

“The bride of Mr. Samuel Coppers.”

“I never beard of him.”

“Perhaps not, but that shall not interfere with the wedding.”

Jettie looked at the woman to see if there was not a little pity in the depths of the dark eyes that regarded her, but there was none.

They were not only merciless but cruel.

“He will be on hand to-morrow and the ceremony will then be performed. There is no need of courtship in this matter. The marriage will take place with wituesses and will be legal.”

The young girl looked away ant! paled.

It was a desperate situation and she felt it keenly.

She had fallen into the hands of some designing league — she could think of nothing else — and it had conspired to blight her life and to get possession of her inheritance.

For a moment silence fell between the two, when the Unknown rose and left the room.

Jettie was alone again and the house was as quiet as the tomb.

Might she not escape?

She remembered that she had not heard the woman lock and bolt the door and she was there in an instant.

But it would not open.

Jettie felt faint as she tugged at the portal, and fell back at last with a despairing groan.

She was truly a prisoner in that unknown house.

When she went back to the chair she sunk into its depths and waited.

Surely the woman would come back.

They would not let her remain there all night.

Perhaps she had gone for the man to whom she was to be married against her will.

Samuel Coppers!

She had never heard of him.

Of course he must be a villain after the heart of the Unknown, else he would not consent to become a party to a crime like the one about to be committed.

Jettie heard a clock in another part of the house strike the half hour, and then the full hour.

The woman had not come back.

At last a lock seemed to click, but not in the door that led into the main hall, and when it opened the millionaire’s niece saw a tall girl in the doorway.

She looked at Jettie and seemed to smile.

“This way. I will show you to your room,” said the tall creature and Jettie went forward.

They passed into the hall and up a broad staircase together.

“Thisis to be your room,” said the strange girl, opening the door of a little chamber and ushering Jettie inside.

In an instant the captive girl caught her companion’s arm and loosed her in the eye.

“Where am I?” she demanded.

“I cannot tell you.”

“Into whose hands have I fallen?”

The tall one shook her head.

“Don’t you know that this is crime?”

“I cannot say.”

“I was captured on the street and brought against my will to this place. I was carried off in regular brigand style, and am here against my will, and they say —”

“She stopped, for the tall girl bad broken from her grasp and was at the door ready to go out.

“You will throw some light upon this crime, won’t you?” cried Jettie, rushing toward her with imploring mien. “Hear me with a heart of pity and with a woman’s mercy. You can’t be in league with these people in whose power I am helpless.”

The girl listened, but resolutely shook her head again.

“You must give me 6ome information. Are you one of them? Do you do the bidding of a woman who seizes one of her own sex with the merciless powers of the eagle and —”

The pleading girl was interrupted by the sudden spring forward of the one before her.

“Did she catch you herself?” she asked, halting in front of Jettie.

“Yes — yes; caught me on the street and hustled me into a carriage and brought me to this house.”

“She’s capable of doing that. Who are you?”

“I am Jettie Golden.”

“I seem to have heard of you.”

“I am the niece of the late Paul Dartmoor, who was murdered, as you may have heard.”

The tall girl uttered a light cry of amazemeut.

“His niece? Ah, I remember now. Jettie Golden!”

“Yes, yes.”

“Why have you been carried to this house? Do you know?”

“I only know what the woman told me.”

“Well, what was that?”

“I am to become the wife of an unknown man to-morrow.”

“Against your will?”

“Of course.”

“Who is the man?”

“She called him Samuel Coppers.”

“Coppers? That wretch? My God!”

“You know him, then?”

“A slimy serpent of the dangerous kind.”

“Save me, then. Surely you will not let them carry out their diabolical scheme.”

“I wish I could save you, I do, indeed.”

“But you can — you must,” and Jettie caught hold of the tall girl’s wrist, and seemed to sink her eager fingers to the bone. “Prevent them from carrying out their infamous plan, and I will enrich you for life.”

“You can do that if all reports are true,” and the strange girl looked down into Jettie’s face. “You have all the wealth you want, and more than you will ever spend.”

“That is true, but if they succeed I will be as poor as the poorest.”

“That may be true also,” was the reply.

“Then you will save me?”

“I dare not.”

Jettie uttered a groan of real despair, but the next moment she returned to the charge.

“You will be in the crime if you refuse to help me. I will not become the wife of Sam Coppers to-morrow. I shall die first!”

“Really, girl?”

“As surely as I face you now I will. Who is the woman who keeps me here?”

“They call her Queen Vina.”

“But who is she?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Does she live alone here?”

“Almost. I am with her sometimes.”

“To do her bidding; to steel your heart against the helpless of your sex, and to see that the innocent fall into the hands of the she-vultures of New York.”

“Don’t! don’t! I am not that far gone, I trust.”

“Save me, then, and prove that you are not. See that I find an avenue to liberty before day and I will see that you are rewarded.”

“You have had my reply,” was the answer. “I have told you that I dare not. I am oath bound,” and with these words the tall girl rushed from the room, leaving Jettie Golden in the middle of it, white-faced and terror-stricken.

“She Wanted to help me but she feared to,” she muttered. “The girls has a heart, after all but it is in the coils of the destroying serpent.”

MOTHER MASTADON’S NOTE

But for Jettie Golden’s capture by Queen Tina, Old Search might have become the possessor of some important information, but, as it was, he lost what he should have known.

He was not aware that the girl was so near his den that night, nor that while in the very act of seeking him to impart the story of Bynum Dartmoor’s coolness, she had fallen into the hands of the same woman who had pulled Sam Coppers away from him in front of the saloon.

Old Search was in his room at the time when Jettie was so near, but she passed from the vicinity with the hand of Vina at her wrist.

Half an hour after the abduction on the sidewalk the door of the old detective’s den was struck by timid knuckles, and the king of trails opened it.

A little girl of fourteen, not very well dressed, stood in the light.

She smiled and entered while Old Search held the door open.

“I am Nixy-Nixy. who does chores sometimes for Mother Mastodon,” said the child.

“For Mother Mastodon, eh? Well, Nixy, what is it?”

In reply the girl took from the pocket of her dress a bit of folded paper which she handed to the old ferret.

Old Search drew toward the light and read as follows:

“If you can spare the time and think I mean what I say, come to me when you read this. I have something which I think perhaps you ought to know right away.

“Mother M.”

“I will go at once, Nixy,” said Old Search, “If you get there ahead of me, tell Mother Mastodon so.”

The girl left, and the detective read the note once more. As he did so he held the paper between his face and the light, and to his astonishment other words not seen before appeared thereon.

“The little chit can read, and I will say further that I have very important news for you, and the time has come for you to know about some people. Don’t fail to come, no matter what you may have in hand when you get this. I won’t be here long to tell what I know.”

There was no signature to this secret writing, and Old Search knew that what Mother Mastodon had to impart must be of the utmost importance, for on several occasions previously she had given him a good clew.

He bustled off immediately, and in due time pulled up in front of Mother Mastodon’s door.

The hour was pretty late, of course, but what of that? She was waiting for him.

As he opened the door, which he had never found locked when he was expected, he saw Mother Mastodon seated in her favorite chair.

She greeted him with a smile.

“In the first place I want to invite you to a wedding which is to take place in this room at ten to-morrow,” she said.

“A wedding, Mother Mastodon?”

“Yes, Sam and Milly.”

Old Search looked nonplused, and then thought of his late companion on the sidewalk.

“When did you turn matchmaker?” he inquired.

“Not very long ago, you may be sure; but to-morrow sees two hearts with but a single thought, two souls –”

“You’ve got the cart slightly before the horse, but nevermind,” smilingly broke in the old detective. “It amounts to the same thing, Mother Mastodon. So Sam is to marry Milly? I have seen him lately.”

“You?”

“Yes; he was growing very familiar when he was taken off by a woman who seems to have a wonderful control over him.”

“Was it Vina?’

And the eyes of the giantess flashed.

“It must have been Vina. You know her, do you?”

“I know the whole lot of them. My wedding — I call it mine, for I gave Sam his orders awhile ago — will break up another, and a very nice scheme, too.”

“How’s that?”

“Sam’s between the d—l and the deep sea. They’ve set up a match for him. They want to get a husband for one of the richest young women in the city and have picked on Sam.”

“Indeed!”

“It is as true as it is diabolical.”

“Who is the rich bride?”

“Miss Jettie Golden.”

Old Search did not start.

Accustomed to take things quietly, he looked at Mother Mastodon and waited for her to proceed.

“Sam is cogitating the matter now,” she went on. “He fears to disobey them, but I have issued my orders and it’s Milly Owlet or ruin.”

“What would you do if Sam should refuse the poor bride?”

“Do? I’d crush him like that!” and she thrust out her great hand and shut it as if crushing an egg-shell.

“No wonder the man is in a stew.”

“Yes. He marries Milly or is crushed. But that’s not all I want to tell you.”

“Go on.”

“The little doctor has come back to New York.”

“The little doctor?”

“Yes, I don’t know what you call him now, but he can be called Rafael Mandano.”

“Oh, yes, the thug the Sunset carried.”

“Thugs,” echoed Mother Mastodon, as she chuckled. “That’s a very good name for him. Thugs strangle people, don’t they?”

“That’s their business.”

“I thought so.”

“Does the little doctor kill folks with the cord?”

“I haven’t said so; but, if you knew Rafael Mandano you would keep beyond reach of his dark fingers.”

“Perhaps. He had fun coming hither on the trader. He used his hands and a cord, but all in fun, you see.”

“No doubt of that, for he didn’t care to kill on board the vessel, where he might be picked up.”

“Yes.”

“But here in a great city like New York — here, where there are millions of people and thousands of hiding places — he can kill with impunity. I want you to look out for this man and also for his woman.”

“His woman — Mother Mastodon?”

“Vina — ‘Queen Yina,’ they call her. It goes a little-against the grain for me to say this, for one ought to-bave feelings for their own sex; but look out for her, too. They’re two birds of a feather, and the feathers are black.”

“You’ve seen Rafael, have you?”

“Not since he eame back the last time,”

“Was Vina here when he came?’

“Oh,yes; catch her going down to Maracaibo and living in the land of the serpent! Not she. She likes to live like a lady in a city like this.”

“It suits her best, no doubt.”

“What a heart and hand she has! The one plans, the other executes, I know her. I have known her from childhood.”

“I was not aware of that.”

“But all love between us has been lost. I know what they say I am. I know that my little den is liable to be invaded by the police at any hour and turned topsy-turvy. They’ve found some things here, and I’ve paid well for the privilege of being a law-breaker; but, bad as I am, I am not so bad as — as Vina!”

“But the match Vina has made for Coppers?” said Old Search, coming back to a subject in which he seemed to think there was something important. “What is there in It for her?”

“Money! The wealth of a dead man — the shekels of one who was found in the East River with a fish-eaten face. There were various theories, I know, but the one that prevailed most — the one that sent a thrill over one half of New York — is that he was strangled before he went to the fishes.”

“That is true,” said Old Search. “Paul Dartmoor was strangled.”

“I believe it; and you are trying to sift the mystery to the bottom?’’

“I am trying to.”

“And you will succeed! I know you, Old Search. You never fail, I don’t care how much your rivals cry you down. But look out for the dark hands and the silken tread! I haven’t intimated who killed Paul Dartmoor. I don’t like millionaires very much — never did. I like Mother Mastodon’s nest better than all the fine houses on the avenues, for here one can sleep at night without fear of robbery, even though the cops open the door now and then and go through you” — and the big woman grinned.

“I read the newspapers,” she went on. “I have to, to beep track of the world. I know that Bynum Dartmoor has come hack. Wasn’t it curious that he came back when he did?”

“Rather singular.”

“I should say so. Bynum Dartmoor! I used to know the man. He’s been gone a long time. Had a scar across his thumb, which he got by trying to saw two boards at once when a boy. It must be there yet, for the saw went to the bone. Have you seen him?”

“Yes.”

“They say he is like Paul.”

“The counterpart of his dead brother.”

“But coming back just now, with Rafael and Queen Vina in the city! It’s queer,” and Mother Mastodon brushed back a stray lock of grayish hair, “It’s your mystery, not mine, Old Search. But won’t you come to the wedding to-morrow?”

“Sam may decide not to be on hand.”

“Sam is no fool. It will save him if he comes. If he fails he is lost.”

“Who is Milly?’

“Millie Owlet? She’s the best girl in Pell Street. You know what Pell Street is; but there’s an occasional angel there, all the same. Milly makes cigars, but she’s good. I knew her mother, and I know what I can do with Sam if I can get him to marry Milly. She likes him. Won’t you drop in upon Sam as you go back and see what he’s concluded to do.”

Old Search promised, and Mother Mastodon told him where Coppers was to be found.

“He’s good at heart, Sam is, but he’s in the coils. He has been selected by the gang to be the husband of Jettie Golden, and that means one-half of Paul Dartmoor’s millions for the scheme. Beyond that I’ll let you look for yourself.”

Old Search found himself upon the street again, and in another moment he was going back.

Turning into a short street he entered a doorway and ran up-stairs.

At the door of Sam Coppers’ room he stopped and turned the knob.

The portal swung open and the old detective uttered a strange cry.

The sight revealed by the light that streamed from the lamp on a round table was enough to cause him to spring into the room.

OLD SEARCH’S SIGHT TRAIL

Coppers lay on the floor at the foot of his couch.

The light showed Old Search this and in another moment he was stooping over the body of the man.

He shook Sam, but there was no responsive movement.

Was he dead?

Old Search looked a little closer and saw that the eyes were wildly set and the hands clinched.

Coppers would not appear in the wedding suit the next day, for he was dead!

Someone had come upon the man and deliberately killed him, unless, finding himself between two fires, he had taken his own life to get out of the dilemma.

But had Coppers done this?

Old Search began to look for a clew.

Sam was not the sole occupant of the house which contained numerous rooms that held roomers of many conditions.

But Coppers’ room was the only one to the right of the door on that particular landing, and he had no very near neighbors.

The detective discovered that nothing had been taken so far as he could see.

The dead man’s money still remained in his pocket, and his rings still encircled his fingers.

Old Search picked up the light, and held it very close to the dead man’s face.

What was that he saw underneath the chin?

It was the semblance of a discolored mark, but it seemed to fade while he looked, and before he replaced the lamp on the table it had vanished altogether.

He had seen a mark like it once before.

It was on the throat of Paul Dartmoor, and it looked to him like the dread sign of the strangler’s cord.

Old Search went over the room again.

There are some crimes where there are no clews, and these are mysteries dark enough; but, as a rule, not too dark for the perfect man-hunter whose life is devoted to his work.

By and by Old Search left the house.

He went out at the risk of being suspected of being a night thief, but this did not worry him.

He made his way to the house where Joe Phenix was on guard.

He went up to the room and, having a duplicate key, inserted it in the lock and opened the door.

Joe, lying on a cot at the window so as to be at his post at all times, sprang up and smiled at sight of Old Search.

“Didn’t look for you to-night any more, cap,” said the sewer rat.

“But I’m here, all the same, Joe. What’s new?”

“If you had come an hour ago you’d have seen the little man go in.”

Old Search glanced at the house across the street.

“Got home about an hour ago, did he?”

“Yes.”

“Was he alone?”

“He was alone.”

“Duly sober?”

“Looked that way.”

“What else?”

“He had a lady caller about eight.”

“You saw her?”

“Of course; that’s what I’m here for, eh?”

“Yes. What was she like?”

“Seemed to be good looking, as she was well dressed, and did not remain over half an hour.”

“Did she quit the house alone?”

“She did.”

“And took a carrriage?”

” No, she walked away.”

Old Search said nothing about the death of Coppers, but continued to throw occasional looks at the brick house across the street.

“How do you like your job, Joe?” he asked at length.

“It’s kind o’ tedious, cap.”

“Not as lively as sewer picking?’

“By no means.”

“But you don’t run against dead men here?”

“That’s about all the difference.”

“It’ll change by and by. But look over there. Isn’t the door open a mite?’

“It is as sure as shooting!” cried Joe. “Can’t you see someone just inside the hall putting on gloves?”

Old Search thought he could, and while he looked the door opened more and a man came forth.

It was a neat and trim figure that halted on the step a moment ere it started off, and Old Search, springing back, bade Joe good-night and quitted the room.

On the street he caught sight of the gliding figure and kept it in sight.

It was past midnight, and the street was almost entirely deserted.

Stopping for a moment against a building, the detective drew a pair of filmy rubbers from his pocket and put them on.

This deadened the sound of his footsteps, and he continued his espionage.

The tracked man seemed determined to lead his tracker a long chase, but all at once he pulled up in Doyers Street, and then vanished.

“He’s getting close to Joe’s home,” thought the ferret. “What can he want down here?”

Dodging into Bottle Alley, every foot of which was well known to the rat of the sewers, Old Search waited for the man to come back.

It was a wait of an hour, and then a figure came creeping along the dirty place with the noiseless tread of a cat.

It was the same sleek little figure he had seen come out of the watched house.

Where had the man been, and what had brought him at that uncanny hour to Bottle Alley?

All at ones he stopped.

He seemed to have forgotten something.

The next moment he turned back again.

Old Search ventured after him this time.

He dodged down a cellar way, and the detective waited for him to come up.

While he looked he saw the glimmer of a match in the underground place, and then the outlines of a man there.

The man was stooping over a couch, upon which seemed to lie the pale, emaciated figure of a man.

The person was emaciated enough to be a poor starvling, and he looked up at his visitor with glassy eyes.

Suddenly the match went out.

“He’s coming back now,” said the old ferret to himself.

Sure enough there followed the sound of the opening and shutting of a door, and as Old Search hugged the wall of the building he heard someone come up.

He did not follow the little figure this time.

On the contrary he went down the steps and stopped at the door at the bottom.

It was not locked, but the room beyond was as dark as Egypt.

Old Search pushed the door open a trifle and stood halfway inside.

For a second no noise was heard, and then his ears were greeted by the long-drawn sigh of someone whom he could not see.

“Is that you, Rafael!” asked a voice.

Old Search remained silent.

“I’m pretty near the end of the line, Rafael,” continued the same voice. “You know how near I am and yet you continue to torture me. Come here — for the last time, Rafael.”

Old Search slipped across the dingy, foul-smelling place to where he thought the speaker was.

“Are you here, Rafael!”

The detective did not speak, fearing to trust his voice there, but made a movement which told the man on the cot that he was by his side.

“You said you wouldn’t come back, but I knew you would, Rafael. I can’t die with the secret, yet I fear to reveal it, even to you. You’ll use it for evil, though you have promised me that you would not. It’s better than the cord, but you learned that trick when I told you something better was to be had.”

No reply.

“Strick a match. You can’t find it without a light.”

Old Search seemed to hold his breath.

To strike a light would be to reveal his identity and thus lose someone’s secret.

It was the strangest adventure of his exciting life, and he was confronted by a dilemma such as he had never before encountered.

“Where is the match? I’m too feeble, don’t you see, Rafael? You must have one about you. Get it alight, quick! You can’t see where the button is without it.”

“I’ll find it,” said the detective, in a whisper, and disguising his voice.

“But the match. I want to see you once more — to look into your eyes, Rafael. It will be recalling bygone days, when we were boys on the sun-kissed island in the tropic sea. Who thought we would ever come together in this city — one of us dying with a terrible disease, the other, agile and strong, with his hands at the strings of a money bag? But where’s your match?’

The old detective was sorely tempted to strike a light.

“You won’t give me light, eh? What makes you act that way, Rafael? You had a match afire awhile ago, and now that you’ve come back you stand in the dark. Why is it? No light, no secret! I swear it by the soul of the Virgin.”

“Keep the secret. It was the last match I had.”

The man on the bed seemed to take a long breath.

“Why — didn’t — you — say — so?’ he gasped.”Then, listen. Cross the room to the south. Stop at the wall, Reach out your left hand and touch the place where the walls meet, or the corner. Now, with the left hand make a circle on the wall before you till your hand is directly over your head. You will find a button there if you have measured correctly. It is there.”

Old Search’s heart seemed to stand in his throat.

“That which you find is better than all your fingers and your cords, Rafael. Are you satisfied now?’

“Yes.”

“Now let me die in peace.”

Old Search crossed the room; he found the wall and the corner; his left hand described the circle on the wall in the dark; his finger touched something — a button.

He pressed this, a door opened, and the next moment something small, cold and slimy coiled about his wrist!

THE SPOTTED REPTILE AND THE GLOVED ONE

The old detective fell back with a shudder.

He believed that he had been decoyed to his death and that a serpent from the tropics bad coiled round his wrist. The man on the couch in the dark was silent now.

Was he dead?

Old Search grasped the cold, slimy thing at his wrist and held on like grim death.

He squeezed tighter and tighter and felt that he was ] crushing the life out of something.

At last he desisted, for the thing ceased to writhe and he longed to see what he had caught.

He went across the room still holding the supposed snake and trying to penetrate the darkness where lay the man he had not seen, but whose voice he had heard.

He made a slight noise to attract the man’s attention, but there was no response.

Surely death had come within the last few minutes.

Old Search leaned over the couch, and while he did so he tore the serpent from his arm and flung it upon the unseen one.

Still there was no answer.

Then the old detective struck a light.

On the couch, silent and still, lay a man whose face was much emaciated and whose eyes had the stare of the dead.

Death had struck him in the dark, and perhaps while the snake was coiling about the ferret’s wrist.

Suddenly Old Search’s eyes fell upon the little reptile.

It lay limp on the dead man’s bosom, and its green eyes had ceased to scintillate.

It was a snake not more than ten inches long, and peculiar in its markings.

It had all the resemblance to a tiny fer-de-lance, which is one of the deadliest reptiles of the tropics, and with which, during one of his celebrated trails that had extended to South America, the old sleuth had had to deal.

He had throttled the reptile before it could bite him, and thus had dexterously saved his own life.

Old Search gazed down at snake and man a moment, and then with another match crossed the room again and held it near the little door in the wall.

There he saw a tiny glass cage with one side broken, showing that the reptile had been thus confined, but that it had in all probability made its escape.

Perhaps after all his death had not been expected by the dead man, but that, believing him someone else, he had intended to give him some mode of killing people other than the cord of the thug.

The dead man had called him “Rafael.”

This was the name of the man who had come in on the Sunset, the Maracaibo trader, and the same name which he had seen on the pieced card found on the body of the person discovered by Joe Phenix in the sewer.

Old Search ransacked the room.

He ran his hand underneath the bedclothes of the dead man, and withdrew them empty.

Nothing seemed to reward him.

He opened the man’s shirt in search of marks, and, beyond a little tattoo, found nothing on the dark bosom.

Who was he?

Whoever he was, he knew Rafael, and they must have been on good terms.

The man of many trails was in the act of quitting the place when footsteps came down the steps outside.

He was in the dark again, and it was lucky it was so.

Old Search fell back behind a heap of dirty garments that hung in one comer of the den and waited.

He heard the door open.

Someone came in in the dark, and the detective held his breath.

Had Rafael come back?

For half a minute there was no sound after the shutting of the door, then he heard a slight noise and the striking of a lucifer.

The light revealed standing in the middle of the room a man who looked disguised, for he wore a beard that had a whitish streak in it, showing that an imperial had been partially concealed for a purpose.

This man looked all around by the aid of his match, and the moment his eyes fell upon the cot and its silent tenant, he went forward and bent over it.

“Confound it, he’s dead!” he muttered audibly. “This wretch cheated the gallows and everything else by dying in this old trap. Rafael gave me to understand he was here, but I didn’t more than half believe it; but here he is, sure enough. This is all that is left of Carlo, and — What’s this?”

He had spied the snake on the bed and fell back with a start, his eyes seeming to break from his bead.

“It’s the spotted moccasin,” he went on, coming back again and holding another match over the dead serpent. “It’s the little killer of the bushes. He had one in store; I heard that long ago, and this must be the one. And it’s killed him. It bit him, perhaps, while he was playing with the pet. They’re treacherous, these things are, and as deadly as a drop of prussic acid.”

After awhile he ventured to take hold of the snake and hold it up in the light.

Old Search saw that the man’s hand was gloved, and that he was a person of refinement.

He had the blackest and keenest eyes the detective had ever seen, and he was well dressed — too well for a frequent visitor to a den like that.

“It killed him,” he went on. “The snake bit him and finished him in this room. I wonder if Rafael knows it. He might have come here after he left me, though he said nothing about such a visit. Dead! Carlo is out of the way, and the secret died with him. He kept it to the end; but there’s no telling what might have happened if the little moccasin had spared him. Thank Heaven for these little fangs, and for his playing with the deadly pet. I wonder where he kept it?”

He had found a lamp, which he had lighted, and crossed the room with it in one hand.

Of course he found the hole in the wall, for Old Search had left it open.

“Here is where he kept it. This is the snake’s cage. Why, the glass is broken, as if the reptile got out and found him on the couch. It’s strange all around, and doubtless will never be solved. But what need we care, anyhow? He’s dead, and there’s but three of us in the secret now. What’s in the hole besides the cage? Anything?”

He thrust the gloved hand inside, but soon withdrew it.

The concealed detective saw that he grasped a roll of papers securely tied.

“It was a good place to keep these,” he murmured, coming back to the middle of the room. “No one would be apt to fool round a place that harbored death in the shape of a moccasin. He knew what he was doing, Carlo did, and these papers he was saving for — me.”

He went over to a rickety table at one side of the room and took a stool there.

Old Search saw him untie the roll and open it.

Several dirty papers fell apart, and be began to look at them.

“It is what I thought it was,” he suddenly exclaimed.

“There’s no richer find than this. They’re all here, and he has finished the narrative. Now, Rafael, go back on me if you dare. Now, woman, play a hand of your own, if you wish, but see how quickly I will tramp it with the cards of death. This has armed me. This has put me in a place to play the game out after my own manner. I am the kingpin of the drama now.”

He thrust the papers into his bosom and stood erect.

“I wonder if Carlo left any riches? No, of course not.

“I see what he has left behind — a dingy room, a lot of old garments, and a dead serpent, which finished him ere his rigid hands throttled is. I’ll go. Good-night, old boy. You’ve armed me. Dead, you do me a great service, and I will go back to the game now, and become the richest man of the hand.”

Old Search might have stepped forth and stopped this man with the false beard and the dark gloves.

He saw what he had missed by not searching the place where the snake had been, but the coming of the strange one had not given him time.

He heard the door close behind him, and then footsteps on the cellar stairs.

In another moment Old Search was after the man, but not until he had snatched the dead serpent from the couch and let it drop into one of his pockets.

He reached the sidewalk in time to catch sight of the figure he had seen in the den and to see that it was flitting along underneath the lamps of Gotham.

Used to tracking people, Old Search with his usual caution hurried off and did not let the man quit his sight for a moment.

Once the tracked one stepped into the month of an alley, but he emerged almost immediately, and the old detective saw that a transformation had taken place.

The dark beard bad vanished and the man looked like another person.

On, on went Old Search and his prey.

The city grew wider and the pedestrians fewer.

Park after park was passed, and at last the tracked one crossed Fifth Avenue and entered the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

“I thought so,” said the detective to himself. “I have been looking for this, and the next moment he saw the man walk to the elevator, which in a moment whisked him out of sight for the night.

It was Bynum Dartmoor, the brother of the murdered man and the person who had come back in time to get a fortune from the estate of the millionaire.

Tracked from the den down-town, the twin brother had ensconced himself in the fashionable hotel, and after awhile Old Search went back with a latent gleam in his dark eyes.

It was something to the old sleuth.

He may have picked up another link, but if he had he did not betray it to anyone, but soon afterward entered his own room and closed the door softly behind him.

Old Search went to bed to catch a little sleep and to cogitate over the startling events of the last few hours.

Sam Coppers was dead, for he had found him in this state in his room, therefore there would be no wedding the coming day and Milly would not become a bride in Mother Mastodon’s chambers.

The old detective smiled at this thought, grim as it was, but when morning came and he sprang up to discover that he had overslept himself, he went at once to the door.

Someone had knocked, and when he looked there was Nixy, Mother Mastodon’s little messenger, rubbing her eyes as if but half awake.

MOTHER MASTODON IS PLUNDERED

The face of little Nixy was white and her eyes had a hard, cold stare.

“What is it, child?”

“Mother Mastodon! Come, come,” and she fell forward to be caught by Old Search and carried tenderly to a chair.

Believing that something had happened the old woman, he brought Nixy round as soon as possible, but the child either could not or would not impart any information, so the detective left her in the room, telling her to “keep house” till he returned, and the next moment he was on the street.

It did not take him long to reach the number where the giantess lived, and in a little while he was at the door.

It was locked, but when he reached it, it was opened and he looked into the face of Mother Mastodon herself.

That was better than he had looked for, for he had believed that sudden death had come to the woman.

Mother Mastodon locked the door the moment the detective crossed the threshold, and said:

“I’ve been looking for it and it came last night.”

“What has happened!”

“I’ve been robbed!”

“Robbed?” echoed Old Search, looking round the room. “I can’t see that anything has been taken.”

“Of course you can’t, but I’ve been plundered all the same.”

“Of valuables?’

“Yes, of a paper or two worth more than anything else I had in the house.”

“No money taken, then?”

“I don’t keep my money in this room,” said the big woman. “Therefore the hand that plundered last night could not find It.”

“You were asleep, of course?’

“Yes.”

“You heard nothing?’

“I heard something; but I seemed under a spell of some kind; was but half awake, yet could not get my eyes fully open. It was very strange, as if I was in the grip of some drug and powerless.

“I never go to sleep till after twelve, and then sometimes I awake thinking over certain things. The plunderer came between three and four.”

“How do you know this. Mother Mastodon?’

“I heard the clock strike three, and got up and got a drink. I also heard it strike four, and got up again, for I was feeling all torn up. Then I saw my door partly open, and I always locks it.”

“Then is when you discovered the robbery, eh?”

“Yes. It flashed through my brain in an instant, and I went to where I kept the papers; but the red pocketbook was gone.”

“Did you rouse Nixy then?”

“Not right away. I was completely overcome, and fainted, as if that was the proper thing to do under the circumstances.

“I did not come round and feel right for some time, and then I roused the child and sent her to you.”

Old Search waited for Mother Mastodon to go on, and when she did so her voice had changed.

“It’s all in the infamous game. Don’t I know it?” she almost hissed.

“You see, this is to be Sam’s wedding-day, and they want to break the hold I have on Sam.”

The detective thought of Coppers even then lying dead in his little room; but he let the old woman talk on a moment longer.

“You suspect someone, then?”

“I know who robbed me.”

“Oh, you do, eh? Then it won’t be hard to catch the thief and get the treasure back.’’

“I can’t do that. I mean I can’t expose this dark bit of work, though I have been deliberately robbed.”

“But- — ?’

“Wait! Sam’s wedding will even up this thing. I mean it will balk the hand that plundered me.”

“But what if there should be no wedding to-day?” asked the old ferret.

“But there must.”

“Something might turn up to prevent it.”

“How can anything turn up? You saw Sam last night on your way home?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what had he decided to do? I told him that I would not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“Sam will not refuse to wed Milly,”

“That’s good. I thought he would not. The man dare not!” and Mother Mastodon brought one of her clinched hands down upon the table, and shook it severely.

“Coppers won’t be here to-day,” continued the detective.

“Ay, but he will. All the powers on earth can’t keep him from the altar.”

“But you forget death.”

The woman seemed to gasp.

“You don’t mean—-”

She stopped and leaned toward Old Search with her eyes almost starting from her head.

“It is true. Coppers is dead.”

“My God! taken off last night!”

“I found him dead in his room.”

Mother Mastodon sprang up and crossed the room to a little old-fashioned dresser that stood against the wall.

Old Search saw her unlock a drawer and take out a bit of paper which she unfolded.

In it lay a lock of yellow hair.

She came back holding it out with a half-demoniac laugh and with her snaky eyes glittering like twin diamonds.

“That’s Sam’s hair,” she said. “It was cut from his head when he was a boy long, long ago.”

“You knew him as a boy, then?”

“Why shouldn’t I ’’ — and the woman’s voice seemed to tremble —”why shouldn’t I, pray?’

She sat down before the detective and gazed at the lock tilt her eyes grew moist.

Not for several minutes did she lift her head, and then her eves seemed to swim in tears.

“They knew that Sam was to marry Milly to-day. They found that out and so they killed him. That’s another job for you, Captain Search, and when you have found the hand that did it, come to Mother Mastodon for your reward.”

“But I have not said that Sam was killed —”

“There was no need of your saying it – no need at all. I know they fixed him. He had made up his mind to marry Milly, for he loved the girl, and didn’t care to fasten himself to the prize on the avenue just because they had marked out that sort of game.”

“Sam might not have decided for Milly.”

“Oh, but he would have done so after what I told him!” exclaimed Mother Mastodon. “Oh, I knew Coppers — knew him from a boy.”

Old Search watched the woman’s face, and saw that her grief was not assumed.

What relationship existed between Coppers and this strange creature?

“Where is he?” she asked at last.

“Doubtless where I left him — in his room.”

“Then the police don’t know it yet?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Could you manage to let me have him here? No, I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be the right place to bring Coppers anyhow. Let them find him. That’s better — ‘Man found dead in his room.’ Any marks on him, Captain Search?”

“A slight discoloration underneath the chin.”

“The cord — the accursed cord!” cried Mother Mastodon, and she was towering above the detective, her huge bulk looking more mastodonic than ever in the light that stole through the dirty panes.

“What do you know about the cord?’

“More than you think,” was the reply. “You saw that about the throat of Paul Dartmoor, found in the river, but, as you have told me, first seen by Phenix to the sewer. The discoloration was there, too, wasn’t it?’

“It was there.”

“I thought so. It has been seen on more than one neck. It is as fata! as the sting of the deadly snake of the far-off tropics, or the silent stiletto which the people in ‘Little Italy’ use so well.”

“But what do you know about it?”

Mother Mastodon seemed to recoil.

“Wait awhile. Your trail will lead to that cord. You will find the stranglers, if they don’t find you first; but I have warned you before, you know.”

Old Search nodded.

“So Sam was killed last night, and I was robbed! Do you see any connection between the two acts?’

“One might be found, Mother Mastodon.”

“You are the man to find it. Let the police find Sam, but you must see that he is decently buried. Here,” and the speaker pulled from her bosom a roll of bills as thick as her ample wrist. “What will it cost? Well, no matter what. Take what you need from that,” and the roll fell upon the table in front of the astonished detective.

“If that isn’t enough I can give you more.”

Old Search took several large bills from the roll and pushed the remainder toward the amazon.

“This most stop!” cried the old woman, her eyes biasing again. “I say it must stop. You must find the clew.”

The detective smiled.

“Perhaps you have found it,” she went on. “I don’t know what you have done, but you are shrewd and cautious. There are none better than you. Remember that Paul Dartmoor, millionaire, was found in the sewers of New York, that Joe Phenix saw the body thrust down the manhole, that one of the men was called Rafael, and that Bynum Dartmoor has come back to claim his share of the estate.”

“I forget nothing, Mother Mastodon.”

“Then go out and track them down.”

“And bury Coppers, too?”

“Of course. Don’t let them cut him up if you can help it.”

“I’m afraid—-”

“Afraid you can’t stop that ghastly business? Well, if you can’t, let it go. If you can, cut from Coppers’ head a lock of hair to be placed with this one, so that his mother can look at the two locks and recall her boy as he was years ago.”

“His mother?”

“Yes — but go! Out yonder lies the trail. Take it and follow it to the end. But remember that the thugs are in New York, and that they must find out that you are after them. The Hand never fails. For it to find a marked throat is — death, death, death!”

JETTIE’S HOME-COMIMG

Let us for a moment go back to Jettie Golden.

The fair girl who had fallen into the hands of Queen Vina lust when she was about to knock at the old detective’s door, found herself, as the reader knows, in a strange house, locked in and under guard.

There she was informed that she was to become a bride against her will; and, furthermore, was told that she would not see her future husband until the very hour set for the ceremony.

The sudden flight of the tall maid to whom she had appealed for aid left Jettie alone to the little room to which she had been led for the night.

The niece of the murdered millionaire did not know what to do, but being strong of nerve she resolved not to despair until the last moment.

The maid might relent, for she had expressed horror at the thought that she — Jettie — was to be compelled to marry Sam Coppers.

The maid evidently knew the man.

It was a long night for Jettie Golden.

She did not know in what particular part of the city she was imprisoned, and she had not been able to take much notice of the course of the cab which had conveyed her to the house.

Little sleep visited her eyes, and she lay awake listening for sounds that did not come.

Toward day she fell asleep and even then her slumbers were a series of restless tossings.

Jettie looked out of the window and saw that she was in the front room of a well-to-do house, but beyond that nothing.

The neighborhood looked respectable and this was all she saw.

All at once footsteps came up the stairs and she turned to the door.

It was opened slowly and the face of Vina looked in upon her.

Jettie uttered a startling cry at sight of it, and the next moment she had clutched the woman’s sleeve.

The two women looked at one another with different emotions, but the millionaire’s niece hung on and dragged Vina into the chamber, after which she shut the door.

“What is it, girl?” demanded Vina.

“I want to go out of this house. As I told you last night, you have no right to keep me shut up here.”

“No right! The right that might makes!” was the impudent reply, the face of the speaker stern and white. “I will show you, girl, that I have authority of which you know nothing, and, as I have informed you, I believe this is the dawn of your wedding day,”

“It shall not be so.”

“We will see,” laughed Vina. “You may flutter your pretty wings against the bars of the cage, but the cage will bold you all the same.”

“It is infamous –”

“From your standpoint, no doubt; but from ours, ah! that is quite another thing.”

Jettie saw no mercy in the race that confronted her, none in the dark eyes that flashed their cruel gaze upon her, and the long, slender hands, which were white and soft, looked positively dangerous.

This was a woman to be feared, and Jettie Golden felt this from the bottom of her heart.

“He will be here by noon,” continued Vina. “The man, whose wife you are to become, will arrive on time. Nothing can change the programme, so you might as well prepare for the inevitable.”

Jettie fell back, and from the door of the room looked at the cool woman in the middle of the chamber.

“That is right. Quit the room, if you want to, but remember the cage still holds the bird. You can no more leave this place without help than you can stem the sea tides. Submit, girl!”

“Never! This, first!”

And, to Vina’s surprise, Jettie flashed from her bosom a dagger, which she suddenly raised above her head and held it firmly clutched by the handle, whilst her eyes showed how determined she was.

“Pish!” cried the watchful woman. “You won’t resort to that, girl.”

“You can try me and see.”

Perhaps Vina thought it wise to let Jettie leave the room, which she did, passing out into the hall and downstairs, where she attacked the front door, which did not yield.

From the top of the staircase Queen Vina looked down upon the frantic girl and smiled.

Jettie, after a trial at the door, recoiled and looked up at the creature overhead.

“I am as strong as she,” suddenly thought the imprisoned girl. “I can best her in a struggle, especially since I am rendered desperate by the treatment I have received. It is liberty or death.”

She sprang up the stairs with the fierce agility of a pantheress.

Queen Vina watched her a second and then drew back. “The girl is mad!” flashed through her mind. “This young chit has had her brain turned, and –”

She broke her own sentence, for Jettie was almost upon her.

In another instant the millionaire’s niece bounded up the last steps, and was upon the landing.

She went at Vina with all the power she had.

In vain did the former throw out her hands to ward off the attack; she was forced against the wall, and the white hands of Jettie Golden held her there.

If it was a thrilling situation for Vina, who believed that her fair prisoner was mad, and in the desperation of her despair, she called out:

“Mabelle! Mabelle! help! help!”

Mabelle must be the tall maid who had refused to listen to Jettie’s appeals, though moved by them, and Jettie waited for a response to the frantic calls.

Would Mabelle come and throw herself into the scale, or would she remain aloof and let victory decide in favor of the wronged?

Again and again Vina repeated her cry, but Jettie persisted in holding her against the wall, and felt her strength increasing as the seconds waned.

Vina struggled desperately as she saw she had to keep up with the frenzied girl.

“Mabelle, come, come! She is killing me!”

But Mabelle did not come.

No feet came up the steps and the tall figure of the maid did not throw itself into the melee.

At last Vina exhausted her strength.

Jettie let her sink to the floor, where she lay white and motionless, and drawing back almost out of breath she looked down at her work.

“What if I have killed her?” thought the girl. “What if I have taken a woman’s life?”

She stooped and felt Queen Vina’s pulse.

It beat right enough and this encouraged her.

“Oh, she’ll come round all right, but I must not be here,” said the girl to herself. “I must find the keys and quit this trap.”

The keys were in Vina’s bosom and in a moment they were held fay the millionaire’s heir.

She looked again at Vina as she fell back.

Down the flight she went and paused at the front door.

It was all that stood between her and freedom.

Quickly unlocking the door she was about to throw it open when a portal flew wide, not three yards away, and on the threshold appeared Mabelle, the maid.

“Where is she?’ asked Mabelle, with a hurried look upstairs,

“I left her on the floor up there — not dead. Mabelle, only choked into unconsciousness.”

“It may be death,” and Mabelle came toward Jettie with flashing eyes.

“You can go up and see,” said Jettie.

“If you have killed her it will be my death warrant,” resumed the tall girl, “If you have offered her any violence she will turn on me, and that woman is dangerous.”

“Then why didn’t you come when she summoned you to her assistance?’

“For the first time In my life I heard her and disobeyed.”

“Then come with me,” and Jettie caught the girl’s arm. “Your heart beat for me last night, yet you dared not interfere.”

“If I could only go?” and Mabelle drew back, but cast a frightened glance up the steps. “If I dared follow you from this house and break the oath, I might be happy, but, ah, that is it — the oath, the oath!”

“What oath?’

“You cannot know, girl; you must never hear of it.”

“Then,” cried Jettie, “remain here and face your mistress. Stay where you are and reap the reward of your folly.”

“I dare not do that either.”

“I am going; the rest remains with you so far as it concerns yourself.”

Jettie threw wide the door and rushed out.

She heard a strange cry behind her and knew that Mabelle had swooned.

But this did not stop her nor lessen her rapid gait.

It was flight from a trap to safety.

Around the first corner stood a cab, perhaps the one which had carried Vina through the early morning to the strange house, and the fair fugitive sprang toward it.

The man half asleep on the box gave her a look of astonishment, which increased when he saw her throw open the door and leap into the vehicle.

In quick words she directed to be driven home, and the driver made her repeat the command.

“Now he off with you,” said Jettie, “It will be money in your pocket to serve me rather than your late mistress,” and the door closed and the cab started.

Never was a ride so long as that one to the millionaire’s hunted heir.

As soon as the wheels touched the gutter in front of her house she sprang out, and throwing the driver a bill which she had twisted whilst riding home, she bounded up the steps and entered the mansion.

“My God!” cried a woman’s voice in the hall as Jettie entered the house. “I have set the police on the trail.”

“On my trail? Where is Hubert?”

“Somewhere helping them. He was here six times last night and is nearly distracted.”

Jettie waited to hear no more, but staggered into the parlor, and sunk upon the sofa there completely exhausted.

Her nerves had held out till then, and when Florence bounded to her assistance she bent over a breathless, limpid body and drew back with a shudder, believing that her mistress was dead.

It was a terrible home-coming for the beautiful girl, and the real secret of it was as yet all her own.

VULTURE AND VULTURE

About the time of Jettie Golden’s startling return to the mansion of the dead millionaire, a man who was shrewd-looking occupied an elegant apartment in one of the best wings of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

He had had his breakfast, early as the hour was, and was looking over some documents which he had spread out on the table in front of him, while at his elbow rested a half-smoked Havana, the smoke of which tilled the room with the odors of first-class tobacco.

This man was known at the hotel as Bynum Dartmoor, and it was no secret that he was the twin brother of the murdered Croesus, and had come in for his share of the estate.

He was quite alone, for he had risen early and it was not the customary hour for callers.

But a caller was near at hand, and whilst Dartmoor Smoked and read, that caller was approaching the door.

He had not waited to send up a card by one of the obsequious waiters, but had brushed past all, saying that he knew Mr. Dartmoor well, and had the entree into his presence at all hours.

This latter assertion was tested the moment he opened the door and heard Dartmoor say, “Hello, doctor,” and the “doctor” walked forward with his black eyes riveted upon what lay before the guest.

The doctor was a smallish man with a mustache and an imperial, above which glittered the blackest pair of eyes a human being ever owned.

With a rapid sweep of his hand Dartmoor drew the papers toward him, gathered them up and dropped them into a drawer in the stand as complacently as he could, then turned to the little man, whom he waved to a chair.

The doctor advanced, took the chair and ran his eyes over the scene before him.

“You’re an early riser,” said he, looking at Dartmoor.

“Not very. You have heard the clock strike six, perhaps.”

“That’s early — earlier than we used to get up, you know, on the old plantation,”

Dartmoor started a little.

“I have come for a little accommodation; not much, but still a neat sum. I must have it now; can’t wait till the terms of the agreement are fully carried out, you see.”

The brow of the listener darkened.

“How much?’ he asked half mechanically.

“Say two thousand.”

“Heavens, man, I haven’t that amount by me.”

“Do you have to have it in your pocket to let me have it! They know you below. They will cash any check you may hand me,”

“But. doctor —”

“Look here, captain. You’re in clover now, and the thing is settled. More than this, no one disputes your right to what you have raked in —”

“You put it in a peculiar manner, seems to me.”

“Maybe I do, but nevertheless I put it so you can understand it. I speak several languages, sir, and when I address you I want to be understood in plain English.”

“But. you see, doctor, I don’t care to send a check like that down to the office.”

“Ob, you don’t, eh? You never eared to send an order to kill to —”

In an instant Dartmoor’s face lost every vestige of color, and he was leaning toward his caller, who was eying him with the orbs of a panther.

For half a second the two men looked at one another in this manner, then the band of Dartmoor stole toward the drawer, seeing which, the doctor, whose face was of a sallow hue, fell back with a malicious grin.

“Come, you needn’t pull a gun on me,” said he. “I know what I want, and I am prepared to take it away with me. They will gladly cash a check for Dartmoor down-stairs and no questions will be asked. Isn’t that true!”

“Perhaps; but you must remember —”

“I never forget anything.”

“Nothing whatever, doctor!”

“Nothing at all.”

With the coolest temper imaginable, Dr. Rafael — it was he — rose and began to pace the room, all the time watching Dartmoor out of the corners of his eyes.

Slowly Dartmoor pulled open the drawer in the table and one of his hands was slipped therein.

It clutched the papers he had swept from the table, and the next moment he had pulled one of them out.

All the tame be was looking at Rafael with the keenness of a sleuth.

“Maybe you will recollect this,” said he, spreading the discolored sheet upon the table.

It was a document with many creases and showed signs of great age.

The little doctor stopped his pacing at sight of the document and came forward.

His beady eyes seemed ready to break from his head, and a quick spasm of terror swept over his frame.

The document had a startling effect upon him and Dartmoor saw it.

“Where did you come across that!” the little man gasped.

“Where it was to be found, of course.”

Their eyes met.

“You robbed the dying, did you?” cried Rafael.

“I did not.”

“He never told you where it was.”

“Well, it is here, isn’t it?”

“I see it is.”

“I have all the rest. You see how I am armed. Now how much do you want this morning?”

Rafael drew off and a shudder again crept over his yellow flesh.

“It was two thousand, I believe?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I won’t give it.”

Something like a sudden twitching of a pair of lips was visible beneath the mustache that hid Rafael’s mouth, and he looked again at Dartmoor.

“You robbed him, anyhow, no matter whether he was alive or dead at the time.”

“Have it your own way.”

“Let me see the old document.”

Dartmoor’s hand fell upon it and lay there like a paper weight, while he looked defiance at the little man who seemed to froth at the mouth.

“You won’t let me see it, will you? Not so much as one look?”

“Not this morning, doctor.”

Rafael walked to the door.

“Never mind,” said he with a hiss. “You know what I can do.”

“And you know what I have the power to do,” was the reply, and Dartmoor’s hand touched the old paper significantly. “We should not fall out at this stage of the game, but it all lies with you, doctor. I say it is in your hands, and if you hide your time you shall have this paper, but if you show your teeth and threaten me it shall fall into other hands.”

“Good-morning, then.”

The door opened and shut, and Dartmoor, with a smile of triumph on his face, was alone.

On the broad steps just beyond the door the little man — the thug of the Sunset — paused and glared at the portal.

He looked more like a thug than ever, his little eyes dancing like those of an angry snake and his hands ready as it seemed to go back and throw the cord.

“Curse him! how did he come to find it?” he asked himself. “I wonder where Carlo had it hid, and why he gave it up to that man. I shall see about this. I asked him for an accommodation, but he had the power to refuse — the courage to say no.”

Rafael went out upon the street, and glanced up at a certain window ere he turned away.

Perhaps he saw there the eyes of Dartmoor.

Perhaps among the folds of the curtains he caught sight of the man who had baffled him, but whether he did or not, he did not look long, but walked away.

It did not take long for Rafael to reach a certain place in another part of the city.

He ran down a short flight of stone steps almost covered with dirt, and in another instant he had thrown open a door and bounded into a darkened room full of foul odors.

“Carlo, are you here?” he called.

Receiving no answer, he sprang across the room, struck a match along the wall, and held it in a position to see the interior of the apartment.

On a couch before him lay stretched a poor, emaciated figure, the hands gripping the bed-clothes as if in the last agonies of death, and the eyes staring at dark vacancy overhead.

“Dead, is he? Well, he must have killed him for the secret. Carlo, you wouldn’t tell me where the papers were, but you let him get them. If he killed you he served you right, but in the name of common sense, where did you keep the secret? When I drugged you and searched your person and the bed I couldn’t find them; but you gave them to him.”

Rafael lit the lamp and ran round the room with it. Suddenly be paused in front of the hole in the wall, and all seemed revealed.

“I see, the treasure place was in this wall, and there’s the glass cage in which he kept the serpent. He used to tell me that it was guarded by a terrible sentry. I see all now. That man killed him first and then destroyed the snake. What became of it? Did he carry it off? The glass of the cage is broken, and the snake, dead or alive, ought to be somewhere on the premises.”

He searched the room in vain for the spotted serpent, and then looked into the hole in the wall.

“Yes, here is where he found the documents!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t I find them? Heavens! what a hold I would have had on the captain, and, in fact, on all of them! Where’s my share? Must I fight for it after all that has happened? If so, then let it be war to the knife. I am still Rafael of the Cord — I haven’t forgotten my cunning nor lost a particle of my nerve.”

He went back to the dead man and held the light close to his face.

“There’s no marks on Carlo’s throat,” he murmured. “Maybe after all the disease finished him, but whether it did or not, Captain Belteshazzer robbed the hole in the wall.”

In another moment Doctor Rafael darted from the cellar and was soon passing underneath the lights of New York with his hands clinched and eyes on fire.

THE TORN CONFESSION

It was not long after Jettie Golden’s return home that Old Search was summoned to the home on the avenue.

He was received by the fair girl whose face still bore traces of her thrilling experience, and while she talked the detective listened with rapt attention.

Hers was a narrative that startled even Old Search.

Jettie omitted nothing, and when she was through the ferret imparted to her the death of Coppers, but said nothing about his own adventures in the cellar where he had nearly been bitten by the deadly spotted moccasin.

Beyond the hand of Queen Vina, who had captured the girl, he saw another power which he connected with the one into whose net Jettie had fallen.

“You need fear no forced wedding now,” finished the old ferret in assuring tones. “As I have told you, Coppers is out of the way now, and some hand has baffled the gang.”

Jettie breathed freer.

“But who killed Sam Coppers?” she asked eagerly.

“That is to be unraveled,” was the reply.

“And you will do it?”

In response the ferret nodded his head and his gaze seemed to wander to the window.

“Do you think that the hand which killed Coppers took also the life of my uncle?”

“It is possible, miss.”

“And this man whom you say came to the city on board the Sunset — a thug you call him?”

“Let the future answer as to him,”

“I leave everything to you,” said the girl. “I will give you all the information 1 can. But you know now that Bynum Dartmoor carried off the little pocketbook against my will, and that he has not returned it as he promised to.”

“But he may have been here during your absence.”

“I never thought to ask Florence that.”

“It might be best to do so.”

Florence was called and stated that Dartmoor had called, and knowing that he was one of the recognized heirs to the millionaire’s wealth she had let him in, and he had gone straight to the library where he had remained fully half an hour.

At this the eyes of Old Search and Jettie met.

“You did not happen in the library while he was here, Florence?” asked Jettie.

“No, I went once to the door thinking he was gone, but it was locked, and a slight noise told me that he was still there.”

“Could he have restored the pocketbook?” cried Jettie, springing up and hastening to the spot where it had been found.

She opened the little niche in the wall and drew back with a cry.

“See! it is here!” she exclaimed, holding up to the detective’s gaze the identical pocketbook which Dartmoor had carried off. “This is it, and it seems as well filled as when he took it.”

She came back to the table with it and laid it before the detective.

“He may have brought it back intact. Open it, miss.” Jettie did so and tumbled the contents of the pocket-book out upon the cloth.

There was no money in any of the compartments, nothing but a lot of folded papers, some which showed great age, whilst others were comparatively of late date.

“What are they, anyhow?” asked Jettie curiously, as she leaned over the ferret’s shoulder.

“For the most part receipted bills, and now and then a memorandum which he did not destroy.”

“What is this one?” and Jettie picked up a bit of yellow paper which had been torn in two.

Old Search leaned forward and held it to the light.

“This tear is of recent date,” said he. “See how fresh the edge looks here.”

“I see that.”

“Bynum Dartmoor may have torn it in looking over the contents of the pocketbook, but where is the companion piece?”

They looked through the papers, but did not find it. Suddenly Old Search looked up into Jettie’s face.

“Could your uncle Paul sneak any language but his own?” he queried.

“He could speak Spanish.”

“And read it?”

“There are at least a dozen Spanish romances in the bookcase yonder.”

“This is written in some foreign language, and from what I know of Spanish, picked up once on a trail to South America, this must be written in that tongue.”

“Can you make it out?”

After awhile Old Search shook his head and was forced to lay the torn paper to one side.

“Do you think it is important enough to have it translated?’ asked Jettie.

“The smallest things are important in a matter of this kind,” responded the ferret.

“Florence is half Spanish.”

“I thought so from her intensely black eyes.”

“She was born on one of the West India islands, but left it when quite young. Shall I ring for her?”

“You might?”

Florence was accordingly rung for, and in a moment stood in the middle of the room waiting for orders.

She w as a tall, lissome girl, with very black eyes that sparkled continually, and, while she waited, she looked a little nervous when her gaze fell upon the papers on the desk.

Old Search looked at Florence.

“You can read Spanish, Miss Jettie tells me?”

“I can — a little.”

“And write it, too?”

“Not very well.”

The detective picked up the torn paper.

“You know enough of the tongue to read Spanish writing when it is plainly written, don’t you?”

Florence bowed.

“Then come here, Florence, and see what is left on this bit of paper.”

The maid approached and sat down at the end of the dead man’s writing table.

Old Search placed the paper in her hands, and then pretended to arrange the others while she attacked it.

All at once Florence uttered a little cry, and the detective looked up.

“Well?” said he.

The face of the maid was quite white.

“Yes; what does it say, Florence?” cried Jettie, bending forward with eagerness in her eyes,

“It’s a strange bit of writing, but you see the tear spoils the sense.”

“Of course.”

“The sentences are cut in half, and that makes it difficult to read all.”

“Well-nigh impossible.”

Florence looked again at the paper and then laid it upon the table.

“I would rather not tell you what I have made out.”

“Why, Florence?” exclaimed Jettie. “You must know that this gentleman is Captain Search, the detective, and that his mission is the ferreting out of the hand that killed Uncle Paul.”

“A detective?’ and Florence fell back, and, colorless again, looked at Old Search, whose face was as imperturbable as that of a Sphinx.

“Detectives are not bad people, Florence. It is the guilty who fear them, not the innocent.”

The girl gasped.

“Yes, yes, I know that; but I have heard so much —”

“A great deal that is wrong no doubt,” broke in Jettie before the maid could finish her sentence.

Florence’s gaze wandered again to the writing.

“Very well” said Old Search, quietly, as he picked up the paper. “I can get it read elsewhere.”

Jettie turned to the maid a face that boded her no good. “Don’t you want the guilty punished, Florence?” she asked.

“I do, I do, Miss Jettie!”

“Translate what you have read, then.”

’’It is something terrible, and I would never have thought that your uncle left such words upon record.”

“It has not been proved that he left them,” was the reply. “Who has said that the writing is this?”

“No one, that is true: but the words there — ah! Miss Jettie, they seem to constitute a terrible confession.”

“Indeed? That is just what we are after now,” smiled Old Search. “Please go on, Miss Florence.”

Florence evidently saw that it was vain to deceive those in whose presence she was, and slowly picked up the torn paper.

“I will read the sentences as far as they go,” said she. “You will know where one breaks off, and where another may be continued from the left-hand side of the paper.”

“Yes, Florence.”

“Here it is.”

And Florence read:

“My Spanish wife — buried at midnight — trouble me — fooled the doctors completely — no marks — Captain Belte — . Thank Heaven, safe — time to come!”

It is needless to say that both Old Search and Jettie listened breathlessly to Florence’s translation of the lines on the torn paper.

“That is all,” said the maid at last.

Old Search nodded.

“You call it a confession, do you?” he asked.

“Don’t it look like one?”

There was no reply.

“But,” cried Jettie, “there is no name signed to the document. It mentions a Spanish wife. My uncle —”

“Don’t you remember what he once told us about the tropics, Miss Jettie?” interrupted Florence. “And one morning I found on this very desk a picture of a pretty woman with eyes dark and snappy, and a face of foreign cast.”

Old Search looked at Jettie, who waved her hand toward the door, and Florence, understanding the signal, withdrew.

“The girl may have given us another clew,” said the detective. “We will look into Paul Dartmoor’s past. If there was a Spanish wife, much may be explained.”

“But the divided name?’

“Oh,” smiled the ferret, “I would call that Captain Belteshazzer.”

“It smacks of a crime long ago — a murder in the tropics,” said the fair girl.

OLD SEARCH HOUSES A TIGER

The death of Sam Coppers did not occasion the excitement which followed the finding of Paul Dartmoor’s corpse in the river.

Coppers was a person of less importance, and his life had been passed somewhat obscurely, therefore the body was taken to the morgue with few to look at it and none to claim it.

The examination into the cause of death was made so hurriedly that the marks on the throat, seen by the keen eye of Old Search, were not noticed, and in a short time the corpse was ready for interment in the Potters’ Field.

But at this juncture the detective stepped forward and saw that the unfortunate man was decently buried with the money supplied by Mother Mastodon, and, instead of a grave among the nameless riff-raff of the city, Coppers slept alone, and among those at least well-to-do in life.

Having carried out his promises to the Amazon, Old Search went back to the trail.

Joe Phenix, who had been left to watch the house to which Rafael had on several occasions been tracked, reported that the little man had not visited it for some time, and that it seemed shut up so far as the little doctor being one of its tenants.

Was it possible that Rafael had left the place altogether? — that Vina no longer visited him there, and that Bynum Dartmoor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel no more sought the house in disguise?

Old Search resolved to look into the place in person, and that evening, while the shades of another night were dropping around the city, he appeared on the steps before the house looking as unlike himself as possible.

He was met in the hallway by a small woman, very slim waisted and cool headed.

She was inclined to be snappish at first, but the moment, she understood that she might be getting into trouble by harboring someone wanted by the authorities, she thawed out and led the ferret into the parlor.

“You see, I am very cautious,” said the woman, whose name was Mrs. Snyder. “I take roomers without asking questions — in fact, one can’t do business any other way in this part of town; and when they go away without much ceremony, as the last one has done, why, you must know that it is very annoying.”

“So your little boarder went away, did he?”

“Yes, sir; last night. Met me in the hall and generously handed me another week’s room rent. He told me that he gave up the room, and that was all.”

“He won’t come back, then?’

“Not that I know of.”

“Who was he, madam?’

“Really, sir, that is more than I can tell you. I only know that he called himself Dr. Christy when he took the room.”

“Dr. Christy, eh?”

“Yes.”

“You have his card?”

“Bless you, no. He didn’t even give me one; perhaps he didn’t think it necessary.’

“Did he presume to practice?”

“Not at all.”

“He was merely Dr. Christy?’

“That was all he was to me.”

“When did he come?”

Mrs. Snyder counted up a moment and named the date.

“Was he always in at nights?’

“Not all night.”

“Oh, he was out much of the time?”

“A deal of it, I can tell you. I used to hear him come in at all hours; but the room was his while he kept it paid for, and it wasn’t any of my concern how long he remained out.”

“But his callers? A doctor ought to have some, anyhow.”

“He had two.”

“No more?”

“None that I ever saw.”

“What were they like?’

“One was a man who came twice, I believe — a man with a full beard which had a strange streak of gray down the middle. He never remained long.”

“And the other?”

“Was a woman whose face I saw but once, and then for half a second. She might have been thirty-five, was dark-featured, like some of the foreign women we see on the streets; but she was very pretty, had real dark eyes, and a little hand which was gloved when I noticed it.”

“They went right up to Dr. Christy’s, did they?”

“Oh, yes; they had no business with me, of course. Who was he, and what do you want with him?”

“With the doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps not much. He isn’t a very bad offender — one of those light law-breakers who must be watched, you see.”

“So as not to lose sight of them?”

“That’s it exactly, madam. Have you rented the room yet?”

“I have not.”

“May I see it?’

“With pleasure.”

Old Search was conducted up the stairs and to the room lately occupied by Dr. Rafael.

“You see he kept it clean, for he dressed neatly, and left the apartment as good as he found it,” said Mrs. Snyder, who had accompanied the detective to the room.

Old Search’s eyes were taking in everything in the place, and he moved hither and thither, questioning the woman about the habits of her roomer.

“He must have been cold of nights,” said the ferret; “I see he has made a fire in the grate.”

“So he has; but where did he get the coal? He never asked me for any.”

The detective was down on his knees at the grate, and he suddenly looked at Mrs. Snyder, who regarded him with a woman’s curiosity.

“You need not remain here, madam. I will be downstairs presently,” said Old Search.

The landlady withdrew, and the detective heard her feet on the stairs.

He found that the grate was partially filled with bits of burned paper, and his fingers raked them out.

Some of the bits were black ashes, and all were terribly charred, and much of the litter fell to pieces the moment the detective’s hand touched it.

But with his old-time perseverance Old Search gathered up the whole lot and transported it to the table, where he sat down.

The gas-jet burning overhead afforded a good supply of light, and adjusting his glasses the old ferret went to work.

Mrs. Snyder might have smiled if she could have seen him thus engaged, but she did not reappear on the scene, and the detective was left entirely to himself.

By and by from the debris of the charred paper the fingers of the prince of sleuths fished a piece of a cardboard which bore the letters “aibo,” and at this his eyes seemed to get a new light.

He was still on the trail of Rafael Mandano of Maracaibo, and the bit of card confirmed him in his opinion.

Old Search took from his Inner pocket another piece of cardboard and laid it beside the one fished from the charred remains of the little doctor’s fire.

The latter bit was one of the two found on the person of Paul Dartmoor after death, and the same letters appeared on both bits.

Old Search went back to the charred things again, and in another moment was as busy as ever.

It was evident that Rafael had burned some letters, all of which were written in Spanish from what Old Search could make out, but none of the pieces undestroyed bore any connected sentences.

One piece, however, seemed to reward the toiler, for he rose and held it very close to the jet.

It was a single word and the fire had scorched it.

“Belteshazzer!”

Old Search looked again to be sure there was no mistake, and when he had made it out surely, be slipped the find into his pocket.

Nothing more seemed to reward the persistent tracker, and he moved toward the door, but first he returned the remains of Rafael’s burning to the grate.

He threw another look round the round and was about to retire when he discovered that one corner of the carpet near the foot of the couch was curiously turned up.

He crossed the room again and knelt in that corner.

In another instant he had turned the carpet back and was moving his hand underneath it as far as he could.

His finger just touched something which he pulled out with another effort and held in his hand a clean card which bore the name of “Bynum Dartmoor, Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

A smile passed over the placid face of the old ferret, and he felt under the carpet again, but with no result.

Nothing else was there.

With the card in his pocket Old Search went out.

He stood in the hallway below a moment waiting for Mrs. Snyder to make her appearance, but she did not come.

In the room adjoining the corridor he heard confused voices and thought that he recognized the landlady’s.

Old Search leaned toward the closed door and held his breath.

“I thought you had given up the room for good,” said a woman’s voice.

“I told you so, but I will probably want it another day or so. I’ve paid for it, haven’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll go up.”

“Not just yet. Wait till I put it in order.”

“Fudge, woman! I left it in order when I gave it np — as clean as it was when I took possession. I’ll go up and occupy it to-night, anyhow.”

The door knob turned and the detective drew back.

“Just let me go up to the room a moment,” pleaded Mrs. Snyder, who believed that the ferret was still there. “I won’t detain you half a minute.”

But the door was jerked open that instant, and the detective looked into the yellowish face of Rafael Mandano, the thug of the trader — a face with two fiery eyes and sharp, aquiline features.

The man from Maracaibo halted the moment he caught sight of Old Search; but all at once with a cry of “I thought so, woman,” he flew at the old shadow like a panther, and before Old Search could lift a hand he was pinned against the wall with ten dark fingers at his throat!

THE SPY’S LUCK

The attack was as sudden as the fall of a thunderbolt. Old Search was thrown back against the wall, while the terrified woman looked on out of breath, and not knowing what to make out of the affair.

Dr. Rafael had fingers deadly in their clutch, and the detective discovered this the moment they found his throat.

It was life or death while he was pinned against the wall, and the eyes that glittered in the little man’s head told him that he was facing a veritable human tiger.

Not a word was spoken by Rafael of Maracaibo.

He seemed intent on choking his enemy to death, and he might have been successful if Mrs. Snyder, recovering somewhat, had not opened the door and called “police” at the top of her lungs.

The interference of the police was one of the things not desired by the dark-faced man at that time, and dropping his hands as suddenly as he had raised them, he turned and fled before Old Search was fairly aware that he had given up the struggle.

“So that is your roomer, madam,” said the ferret, turning to Mrs. Snyder, who was congratulating the old sleuth over his escape.

“That’s Doctor Christy.”

“Is that the way he treats his patients, think you?”

“I don’t know, sir. It was terrible, wasn’t it? Why, your throat has red marks on it.”

“That’s all right. Doctor Christy knows how to make them. He didn’t care to meet the police, it seems.”

“I noticed that. He was gone the moment I called for help.”

Old Search thanked the little woman for her assistance and a minute afterward left the house.

As for the man who had attacked him he was already out of sight.

Doctor Rafael, disappointed, as his countenance showed, was far away when Old Search went out, and in a narrow street he stopped and coolly rearranged his tie, which had been put out of place by his fight with the prince of trackers.

“I didn’t care to meet the police and that’s why I let up on him,” said he to himself, as he moved on again. “I had the grip on him and was getting in my work when the woman bawled for the cops, and of course that let me out. Better luck next time. That man was up in my room, and that’s why the woman wanted to go up before I could occupy it. I suspected something of the kind, and the moment I saw him in the hall I went at him like a tiger. That’s my style, ha, ha! I see what has to be done. I must put that shadow out of the way.”

He walked away still talking to himself, and in a few minutes turned up in a handsomely-furnished parlor where he took his cigar-ease from his pocket and selected a Cubano.

He began to smoke leisurely, sending smoke-wreaths toward the ceiling, all the time furtively watching the door.

At last it opened, and a beautiful woman entered.

It was Queen Visa.

Dr. Rafael looked up and greeted her with a smile that lingered a second at his dark lips.

“So you are keeping house?” said the woman, advancing and taking a chair near him.

“I have been enjoying myself, as you see. That is as much as one can do nowadays while he waits for the sharing of the spoils.”

Vina seemed to start a little.

“Where have you been?’ she suddenly asked,”your cuff is torn and there’s a lot of blood on it.”

Rafael looked down and smiled.

“It isn’t my blood, that’s certain,” he said.

“Whose, then?”

“The blood of the beagle who crossed my path.”

“What! you haven’t met someone?”

“It didn’t last long, and I allowed myself to be frightened off by a cry of ‘police.’”

“But what was it all about? You must be careful now.”

“I couldn’t help it. When you find a sleuth on your trail the best thing you can do is to strike at once and get rid of him, eh?”

“Of course, but –”

“Oh, I know what you would say, but never mind that.”

“You met a detective, did you?”

“I should say so. You see, there’s no cut about my wrist. I must have scratched him with my nails.”

“Was it a personal encounter?”

“I had him against the wall, and was getting in my work — you know how-, Vina — when the half dead creature who has been my landlady ran out and yelled ‘police’ at t he top of her voice. That broke my grip, and I had to leave him for another time.”

“Did you know the man? But how could you?”

“I know the man,” significantly answered Rafael. “There is but one like him — you have told me this yourself — and I recognized him the moment I set eyes on him.”

“It must have been Old Search.”

“It was no one else, woman,” was the reply, and Rafael leaned forward and looked into Queen Vina’s pale face. “You know why he is on the trail? He was in my boarding-house — the one I abandoned last night.”

“You must have gone back for something.”

“I did.”

“And found him there?”

“Ran across him in the lower hall after his visit to my room.”

“Of course he found nothing there?”

“He must be very keen-eyed if he did.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. But I have something to mention now.”

“I trust it’s of importance,” said Rafael.

“It is. Coppers is dead.”

There was no start by the little thug, but his eyes seemed to move toward the window, and for a second he made no reply.

“Then there will be no wedding as we intended,” was all he said.

“There cannot be with Coppers for groom. But why can’t you take Sam’s place?”

Rafael laughed.

“You don’t mean that,” he said.

“I mean nothing else. The girl is pretty. She will try to get out of it, but she will be in our power, and all earth can’t break our clutch.”

“But you see there’s such a difference in our ages —”

“Pshaw!” and Vina fell hack in the cushioned chair and smiled. “What does that matter? It isn’t quite May and December, and, then, with the girl your wife you can have a fall hand in the treasure bag of the dead millionaire.”

“And this cool head of the trail will know just where to look for me, eh?”

“He needn’t be living to know.”

“Now you talk, woman!” cried Rafael. “Now you are your old self again. I might pose as Jettie’s husband, but there is the new heir. You forget Captain Belteshazzer,”

“I forget nothing,” was the reply. “He Is toasting his feet on a golden grate, and won’t care who marries the girl so long as It is all ‘in the family’!”

“Very well. It’s a nice scheme, but first get the detective out of the way.”

“I agree to that.”

“It is like this, you see: We are not going to have clear sailing till this ferret is out of the game. He is cool headed and persistent. He is as strong as a lion and as cunning as a fox. Oh, I have heard a great deal about him during the last few days. He has been to see Mother Mastodon, and you may know what that means.”

Vina lost some color.

“The old woman sent for him,” continued Dr. Rafael.

“She did?”

“She sent Nixy, the little thin-faced child, and Old Search obeyed. Then, he has been to the pier and has had an interview with the captain of the Sunset. You see what he is doing, picking up link after link—-”

“Heavens! if that is the case you must kill that man.” Rafael regarded the woman a moment and then resumed.

“You are very plain,” said he; “I don’t know but that you are right.”

“Of course I’m right. You must admit it.”

“I do, but let me proceed.”

“Go on.”

“This man has been on the trail ever since the body of Paul Dartmoor came to light in the river. He is one of those men who can pick up clews where none are visible to other people, and who sees in trifles events of great importance.”

“The very man we want to kill!”

“Hush!” — and Rafael sprang up and glided across the room to the window, the curtain of which he flung back.

“What is it?” whispered Vina, stepping to his side.

“A spy, mayhap.”

“Out there?”

“On the sidewalk. There! don’t you hear someone moving away? I didn’t know you lived in a neighborhood like this.”

The woman moved toward the hall door and jerked it open, but in the hall she was stopped by Rafael, whose hand encircled her wrist.

“Let me go after him,” he said.

In another moment he had opened the front door and, like a serpent, had glided to the steps.

The front of the house was well cast in shadow, but the light of the nearest lamps fell upon the curb, and lay along the sidewalk stretching eastward.

The keen eyes of Rafael, the Thug, saw nothing.

If he had heard a spy, that person was not now in sight.

The man from Maracaibo stood like a statue on the front steps until he caught sight of a figure that slipped from behind one of the trees and moved away.

“That’s he!” ejaculated Rafael.

With the agility of an acrobat he drew off his shoes and bounded from the steps.

A dark cord, suddenly jerked from his bosom, dangled from his hand, and he bounded after the intended victim without noise.

But all at once the man ahead stepped from the sidewalk into the street.

Rafael also stopped and let a grated curse slip from his lips.

The spy had unconsciously baffled him.

It would not do to attack him in the street where the light fell; it would never do to spring forward and strangle him where the deed might have several witnesses, and with another oath he was forced to see the man reach the opposite pavement.

There he stopped and turned his face toward Vina’s house.

Rafael leaned forward to catch sight of it in the lamplight.

“I know him,” said he. “That is the man who occupies the house across from Mrs. Snyder’s. He must be Old Search’s spy.”

It was, indeed, our old friend Joe Phenix, and he did not know what a narrow escape from the thug’s cord he had had.

THE OLD FERRET’S NEW LINK

Bynum Dartmoor conducted himself at the Fifth Avenue like a lord.

He was looked upon as the brother of the late millionaire, and all who had known Paul said how much the brother resembled him.

Dartmoor, after his last interview with Dr. Rafael — an interview by which he had saved two thousand dollars — seemed to grow more and more independent, and spent money lavishly.

He did not conceal his story from anyone.

It got into the newspapers, as a matter of course, and thousands read the narrative.

It sounded like a romance — how Dartmoor had spent years among the tropics, and how, arriving in New York, not knowing exactly where his brother lived, he had learned of his death, and that he was heir to at least half a million.

Of course Old Search perused this interesting story and laid the paper down with a smile.

He was seated in his den, and it was shortly after his combat with Rafael in the hall of Mrs. Snyder’s house.

The old detective took up a cigar and began to smoke, which he invariably did when he wanted to cogitate deeply.

“There’s the torn hit of paper which Florence translated for Miss Jettie and me!” he suddenly exclaimed, “it seemed to be a confession, and spoke of a Spanish wife who had been buried at midnight. Why not go back to it a moment?’

He went over to a drawer which he unlocked, and took out a bundle of documents which he laid upon the table.

In another moment he would have been in the midst of them, when a quick knock sounded on the door and Joe Phenix was admitted.

Joe had sought the detective after his spying adventure before Vina’s house, and in a moment he was in a chair.

“I’ve found the little man whom I’ve been watching from across the street,” said Joe.

“That’s good.”

“I happened to catch sight of him on the street, and I tracked him to a certain house where, as I could see by a broken slat in the shutter, he made himself at home.”

“Oh, it was in another house, Joe?”

“Yes, sir, he was soon joined by a woman, the one who must have visited him at Mrs. Snyder’s, for she was like that party.”

Joe then proceeded and detailed the conversation between Rafael and Vina, or as much of it as he had caught, Old Search listening attentively to the close,

“The moment I discovered that in some manner my presence outside was known I made myself scarce and pulled away from the place. I crossed the street, and may have made a narrow escape for all 1 know. But I’m here, right side up, and you’re getting the benefit of my experience,”

“Much obliged, Joe. You needn’t go back to the house opposite Mrs. Snyder’s any more. I don’t think the little man will come back there,”

“I was of the impression that he has given up his room.”

“He has.”

“Then I can go back to the sewers.”

“You are like a duck out of water when you are out of them, eh, Joe!”

“It seems so; I’ve been at that work so long.”

“Go back to them,” said Old Search, with a smile. “And if you find anything worth reporting, don’t hesitate to fetch the news to me,”

“I trust I won’t find any more murdered men In the wretched places,” said he. “That last one gave me a shock that will last me for life.”

Old Search was alone again.

Through Joe he had learned that he was to be put out of the way, perhaps by the slender fingers or the black cord of the amiable Dr. Rafael.

It was not a pleasant thought, to say the least, and it was also one that remained with him sometime.

He now returned to the papers be had taken from the drawer.

These were documents which Jettie Golden had placed in his hands, partly for safe keeping and partly to let him look them over to see if they would throw any light upon the mystery of the sewer.

Old Search cut the string and began to go through them.

They were, for the most part, letters which Paul Dartmoor thought worthy of preservation, and. all, as he discovered, were written in English but two.

These were long letters traced in Spanish, and the chirography was so delicate that be did not hesitate to pronounce it a woman’s.-Perhaps Old Search wished for Florence, but he did not mention the maid’s name.

“I’ll settle this question in a short time,” said he, rising and putting the two letters into his pocket.

He replaced the other papers in the drawer and went out.

Three squares from the den he turned up in a little room, where an old man sat rocking himself in a chair, with his thin face turned away from the light.

Near him sat a young girl sewing at a piece of dark goods, her face bent over the fabric, and the needle flying like thoughts in and out of it.

“Ah, Samuel, I’ve been thinking of you!” exclaimed the old man the moment the detective entered the room.

The girl looked up and smiled, but quickly dropped back to her work.

Old Search drew a chair up to the old man’s and took the letters from his pocket.

“Something for me, Samuel?”

“Something for you to read,” was the reply, and Old Search placed one of the letters in the man’s lap.

“I want you to translate it as cleverly as you can.”

“It’s Spanish, I see.”

“Yes. and it seems to be from a woman.”

“It is: that’s pretty certain. Look here, Mora; what beautiful writing!” and he held the letter in the light, so that the girl with the needle could get a glimpse of the even chirography, which never varied from the top of the page to the bottom.

Then the old man, who was Pedro Odona, a Spaniard, born in Madrid, but for years a resident of New York, fell to reading the letter.

Old Search leaned back and waited.

They had been friends for years.

Pedro always called the old detective Samuel, and they were always on the most familiar terms.

There was no place to which the great ferret delighted more to go than to Odona’s, partly because Pedro was so communicative, and because Mora, his daughter, had such pretty eyes and could carol like a bird.

Old Pedro leaned over the letter some five minutes before he raised his head.

“It’s not my business to inquire where you got these letters,” said he. “This one is but the plea of a cast-off wife to be taken back by her husband.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Old Search. “She wants to get into his good graces again!”

“Yes, the letter is dated at Havana, and is a passionate appeal to him.”

Mora put down her work and prepared to quit the room.

“You needn’t go, girl,” said Pedro. “There is nothing I in the letter which you should not hear. The language is i the very best, though passionate, and you may want to listen.”

The girl settled back in her chair, while Pedro picked up the remaining letter, he looked at the date first.

“There’s the lapse of a year between these letters,” said he. “She was not taken back.”

“No?”

“The other letter was an appeal, this one is a threat. It threatens the husband with all sorts of vengeance, and the writer swears to slay him if it takes years and costs her her life. It is couched in language terribly abusive; it is the threat of a demoness, which I cannot read in my child’s presence.”

At this point Mora left the room, and Pedro leaned toward the detective with the second letter in his hand.

“Listen to this,” said he.

“I have found where you are! You have given me the slip, but it won’t be for always. Think not that the hand of Vina, your wife, will not find you; dream not of security, no matter how long a time elapses till I discover you — in clover, perhaps, with another woman on your bosom. Mine is the vengeance that never sleeps. I have sworn by all that is sacred that you shall feel the hand of your Spanish wife.

“The midnight burial, over which you have, no doubt, gloated a thousand times, was a farce, I am still alive, and you shall discover it to your sorrow. The knife may not effect what I seek, but there are other ways, some of which are not known to you, despite your cunning; but there are ways, all the same. The child is dead. The little thing was taken away so as not to grow up and hear of its parent’s perfidy.

“Live in security till I come. It may be years, but I will see you before the blow falls. You will not be your old self when I come. I may find you in a palace, or you may dwell in a hovel, but no matter, the blow will fall all the same. I will write no more. When you next hear i from me it will be face to face, and you shall then know that mine is a vengeance that never sleeps. Adios, fiend incarnate. Live till the day of retribution dawns.”

“That’s hatred for you, eh, Samuel?” said Pedro, looking up when he had finished the letter.

“It is weighted with it,” smiled the detective. “But what is that at the foot of the letter? It looks like a sen-| tence in another hand, and written after the letter had ! been received.”

“You are right. The recipient of this letter has made a memorandum here. It is dated but a year ago, and it tells us that the husband had thus far escaped the vengeance hunter, and that he is ready to beat her at her own game when she calls.”

“Fearless, was he?”

“It would seem so. But she may come yet.”

Old Search took the letters and put them away.

“Now look at this bit of writing,” said he, placing another slip of paper in Pedro’s lap.

“Oh, that is nothing very important. Merely a business note.”

“Yes, but compare it with the memorandum at the foot of the letter of hate.”

“That’s easy. Both were written by the same person — the business note and the memorandum.”

“That will do, Pedro.”

The eyes of the old Spaniard followed Old Search as he rose and walked toward the door.

“I trust I have done you some good,” he said.

“You have, Pedro. You may hear from it before long.”

“’Good-night, Samuel.”

“Good-nighty Pedro.”

Nothing in Old Search’s mien told that he had made an important discovery.

Nor told that he had picked up another clew in the maze of crime; but he had.

The translation of the letters found among Paul Dartmoor’s effects was that clew.

He knew something which he had suspected before. Queen Vina had been Paul Dartmoor’s wife.

This was the new link in the chain.

A SEALED SECRET

The reader will readily recall the fact that Mother Mastodon had reported to Old Search that she had been robbed.

The Amazon had been plundered, and that in a very mysterious manner.

Mother Mastodon, so cordially hated by Queen Vina, was a woman who, on numerous occasions, had had her house searched by the police, and more than once they had found something that paid them for their trouble.

She was known as a “fence” of much native shrewdness and with the faculty for keeping a secret, no matter what turned up.

No one knew anything about her past, and, in fact, very few cared to pry into it.

She had appeared in her present quarters without warning and had fallen into the good graces of the criminal class, many of whom were ready to testify that Mother Mastodon was as “straight” as the straightest when it came to secret-keeping and the like.

It was the next day after the robbery and the Amazon sat alone in her little room, the door of which stood slightly ajar.

The day was closing, for the long shadows of evening were stealing over the city.

Nixy might have been playing with children of her own age on the street, but it was likely that she was not far away.

There came to the door a man who stopped the moment he saw that it stood ajar.

He was a well-built man with a darkish beard with a streak of gray underneath the lips, and his eyes had an eager look.

He looked into the room and caught sight of Mother Mastodon, and at the same time the old woman saw him in the hall.

She did not move nor invite him in, but he opened the door and entered.

From the first the eyes of Mother Mastodon looked at him curiously.

This was her habit.

No one came to her who was not watched from the moment of their entering the house.

She had eyes that seemed to have the power of looking through one, and she used her penetrating powers to their fullest extent.

“Shut the door; that’s business,” said the Amazon.

The man did so and then came forward.

“Well, you’ve become a veritable mastodon, Sara,” said he.

The Amazon started so violently that she threatened to collapse in the chair and her face flushed.

“Sara!” she cried. “Who calls me by that name?”

“I do,” and the visitor smiled; “you weren’t so large when we were acquainted some years ago.”

“Push your hair back.”

The man did so.

“I thought so!” and Mother Mastodon broke into a smile that did not enhance her looks. “You are the captain.”

“Not quite so loud, please. Who are your neighbors?”

“On that side my neighbor is a little old woman who has been bed-ridden for six months, and the man in the other room is deaf.”

“That suits you, eh?”

“Yes; just the sort of neighbors I want.

“Don’t tell me where you’ve been so long, for it would take up some time and we can’t spare the whole night to narrative,” said the giantess. “You have come here to see me, captain.”

“That I have. You have seen your girl —”

“Hush, or, by my life. I’ll throw you out of the window to the sidewalk below! My girl? No, my child no longer.”

“But —”

“Silence, I tell you!” thundered the woman. “Mention any living creature but that one. I am Mother Mastodon, but, had as I am in the eyes of the police, I am too good to be called her mother. I won’t consent to it.”

“Well, I can’t transact my business with you very well without bringing her in.”

“Ob, you can’t?”

“I cannot. She comes into my talk naturally, and I must refer to her or go away without transacting my business with you.”

“Go on, then.”

The caller took a long breath.

“I want you to take possession of some papers for me,” said he. “You will do that, won’t you?”

“They mightn’t be very safe here.”

“Who would rob you?”

“Who? Why, I was plundered last night.”

“Actually robbed?”

“Yes.”

“Impossible! I know that you are sometimes disturbed by the police, but as to being robbed —”

“Never mind that. I know whose hand did it and I intend to get even, blood or no blood.”

“But these papers” — he took a little package from his pocket. “I don’t care to keep them about me just now, and I know of no other place than your house.”

“There are the safe and trust companies.”

“Where there is all the publicity in the world! I don’t want anything of the sort. I want you to keep these till called for.”

He placed the packet in the Amazon’s lap and fell back looking into her face.

“Are they very valuable?” asked Mother Mastodon.

“They are.”

“They look old.”

“They are old.”

Mother Mastodon balanced the packet on her fingers.

“I’ve got a poor bank here,” she smiled. “It has no time lock nor anything of that kind.”

“But carry the papers on your person — that will be bank enough for me.”

“Oh, I can do that.”

“That will do. You see, they are wrapped in oiled silk, though you can see that they are somewhat aged. There’s money in this for you, Sara.”

“I don’t care for that; I’ve made enough for the future despite the police and the detectives. I’m not the woman I used to be, for trouble has come to me. It’s here,” and she laid her hand on her heart. “This will stop suddenly, and some day they’ll find me in my chair dead. Then what will Nixy do?”

“I’ll take care of her if you’ll guard the papers,” was the response. “I’m well fixed now.”

“I hear you are.”

“Who told you?”

“Why, the newspapers; they’ve been full of it. You came back in the nick of time, and your lines have fallen upon golden ground. It was a windfall.”

“Yes, you may call it that.”

“How do you like to be called Dartmoor, captain?”

“I’m getting used to it ’’ — with a smile.”Like it better every day.”

“Calls for money on every hand, I suppose?”

“Not yet; but they increase.”

“Be liberal. Think how easy it came and let it go without growling.”

Mother Mastodon was looking down at the packet he had given her.

This man was Dartmoor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and he had entrusted her with a secret which he was afraid to carry himself.

“You’re not going away, eh?’ asked the woman.

“Not at all. I only want those papers put into safe hands, and if something should happen to me — and that, something you understand, Sara, is nothing short of death — you are to open the packet.”

“Mercy on me — open it, captain?”

“Yes, but I am to be dead first.”

“You don’t expect —”

“There’s no telling. Life’s so very uncertain.”

“That’s a fact; there was Coppers —”

Mother Mastodon caught herself and almost dropped the packet upon the floor.

“I’ll accept of the responsibility and do the best I can by you,” she went on. “I’ll carry the package in my bosom night and day, and it will be safe.”

“That’s what I thought when I conceived the idea of bringing it to you.”

“They won’t get it like they got the other batch of documents.”

“Of course not. Keep the secret from her, Sara.”

“Certainly. I’d sooner throttle her than let her touch the packet.

“That’s right. Now, do you want any money?”

“Not a dollar, captain.”

“Then, when the time comes you shall be rewarded. I won’t forget you.”

“Don’t let that bother you: but one word, captain.”

“Well?’

“Did she have a hand in it?”

He gave her a long look of surprise, but said nothing.

“Don’t you know what I mean? The body was found in the river, you know — picked up by the harbor patrol and carried to the morgue. Now, what I asked was: Did she have a hand in it?”

“How should I know?”

“Oh, you’re cunning. I see. You are reaping the harvest of murder. That’s a pretty hard word, eh? You are Bynum Dartmoor, half millionaire. Don’t tell me anything if you don’t want to. But if I discover that she had a hand in it, what a chance I will have to get even!”

“Don’t make a fool of yourself in your old age,” laughed Dartmoor, now at the door with his hand on the latch,

“Keep the documents secure and trust to me and the future.”

“But if you should die?”

“Open them and do what you think best under the circumstances; that’s all.”

He was gone.

Mother Mastodon looked at the closet door and seemed to take a long breath.

Then she felt the presence of the hidden packet and ’ smiled to herself.

“If he dies I am to break the seal. That’s like him. I knew him when he wasn’t the man he is now, and when there was no golden game on the tapis. Bynum Dartmoor, eh? After all to me he is the Captain Beltesbazzer he used to be.”

When the footsteps died away Mother Mastodon managed to transport her bulk across the room, and raising a window, poked her head out to see several childish figures in the street below.

“Nixy! Nixy, you little seraph!” she called, and a little girl ran into the house.

“I’ll see Old Search before I close my eyes,” muttered Mother Mastodon, while the child came up the stairs.

THE BEATEN THUG

There was one thought which of late had taken possession of Rafael Mandano’s mind, and Vina was responsible for it.

He might become the husband of Jettie Golden.

Coppers was out of the way — killed, as the old detective had discovered, in his little apartment — and he (Rafael) might step In and reap the rich reward of such an alliance.

The more he thought of it the firmer became his desire to do this.

But there was one thing against it, and that was the secret which Captain Beltesbazzer or Dartmoor held.

These papers which he had showed when he called for the two thousand dollars blood money had a restraining influence on Rafael, and were the impediments to such a union.

If he could only get possession of those documents — if he could feel them in his own hands he could defy Dartmoor and bring him round in an amazing manner.

The little thug thought over this subject carefully and for a long time.

He must get possession of the damaging documents which Dartmoor held before he could make the first move in the new game.

Of course he did not know Jettie Golden, the millionaire’s heiress; but that was nothing.

The man who could ply his hands so well need not fear anything, nor lose heart any time in the game.

When Dartmoor returned to the hotel from his visit to Mother Mastodon, in whose keeping he had left the sealed papers, he went directly to his room.

He found lying on the table a letter, which he at once picked up and broke the seal.

It purported to come from Queen Vina, asking him to call the moment he received the note, as she had news of the utmost importance to impart.

Dartmoor glanced at his watch and thrust the letter into his pocket.

Then he went out, locking the door behind him, and taking the first car down-town.

He was not gone an hour ere a figure stole up the broad steps of the stairs and paused at his door.

It was a little figure full of pepper, as was shown by the agility it displayed, and in a little while the door had yielded and the man stood in Dartmoor’s room.

Then the light fell upon the black eyes of Rafael, the thug, and he went to work at once.

The apartment occupied by Dartmoor was well and luxuriously furnished; no expense had been spared by Paul Dartmoor’s heir, and he had everything that wealth could buy.

But he had either taken the documents with him or had so deftly concealed them that the keen eyes of Rafael failed to locate them.

The thug looked everywhere.

He turned over books and looked behind the costly pictures that adorned the walls, but they were not to be found.

This search continued for thirty minutes, and never bad a room been so ransacked as that one.

Yet he replaced everything as neatly as he found it, and when he drew off at last and looked discomfited around him, he let slip a mad curse.

He had found nothing.

Rafael sat down and brooded over his failure.

What had become of the documents?

Had Dartmoor or Captain Beltesbazzer carried them away on his person, or had he entrusted them to some steel safe?

It was a mystery.

“While he has those papers he has the power to refuse me a dollar and I dare not squeal,” said Rafael. “Why didn’t Carlo tell me where they were before he died? That would have saved me all this trouble; but, no, he had to keep them till Captain Beltesbazzer came and despoiled him alive or dead, 1 don’t know which.”

Rafael looked once more.

This time he turned up the ends of the handsome carpet that covered the floor, but without success.

“If I thought he had them on his person,” said he under his breath, “I’d wait till he came back and try my hands on him.”

His eyes fairly blazed and his breath seemed to depart in gasps.

The tiger of his nature was becoming aroused.

Why not wait for him?

He might not be gone long, and he would not expect to find anyone in his room.

Rafael resolved to wait.

So he sat down again and picked up a newspaper.

An hour passed and he heard no one at the door.

It was his intention to spring up the moment he heard Dartmoor’s key in the lock and conceal himself in a certain part of the room.

“Curse it all! he don’t intend to come back at all tonight,” he suddenly growled.

He tossed the paper to one side and rose.

That moment someone approached the door on the outside and inserted the key.

Rafael fell back and dropped behind a bit of curtain in one corner of the room.

The door opened and Dartmoor came in.

The man walked to the table and took a chair there.

He opened a drawer, and, taking out writing materials, began to write, all the time watched by the tiger in ambush.

Rafael’s hand parted the curtains at last, and he stepped forth with the noiselessness of a jungle cat.

He held in his bands something that looked like a black cord, for it dangled from his slender fingers and seemed to have a horrid suggestiveness of murder.

Bynum Dartmoor did not see the slipping shadow, for it was behind him and he was not done with the letter before him.

Nearer and nearer came Rafael.

If Dartmoor had looked up he might have seen the doom impending, and there might have been time for him to counteract the death noose.

All at once the hands of Rafael flew forward and the black cord passed before Dartmoor’s face, dropping below the chin where it was suddenly drawn back.

The man at the table started up with a cry.

The chair spun round and nearly toppled over, but Rafael steadied it with his foot.

“Villain!” cried Dartmoor, as the cord tightened. “I thought you would — try — your — accursed hand — on — me!”

He was pushed down into the chair again, and from its depths he turned his head and looked up into the blazing eyes above him.

Not a cry could he make now.

He was In the power of the strangler, and he knew that the hand that wielded the cord was not merciful.

“Where is it — the packet you showed me some time ago?” demanded Rafael.

A look was all the reply he got.

“You have been holding that paper over my head long enough. I’ll take it, captain.”

Dartmoor made a motion which asked him to loosen the cord, so as to let him speak, but Rafael refused.

“It is on your person,” said he. “You have it somewhere in your bosom. Pull it out and lay it on the table.” Dartmoor feebly shook his head.

“You haven’t, eh? Then, where in the name of thunder is it?” was Rafael’s ejaculation. “I’ve ransacked the room and it isn’t there.”

A faint smile came to Dartmoor’s lips.

“You don’t intend that I shall see it,” the thug went on. “We’ve been old campaigners together, captain; but you sha’n’t hold such a club over my head. Where are the papers, I say?”

Dartmoor’s face was getting black, for the thug gave the cord a pull as he finished, and the man in the chair was seen to quiver.

“You know me,” hissed Rafael. “You know Rafael of the tropics. You helped to make me what I am; I am your pupil; but you must not shut up your purse-strings when I want a little money and hold over me a club which you stole from a dying man.”

“I didn’t,” Dartmoor managed to gasp.

“Never mind, you got it somehow. Carlo wouldn’t give it to me; but it fell into your hands. Where are the papers?”

“I haven’t got them.”

“Come! no lies, captain.”

“As I live, Rafael, they are not in this room.”

“Not here. By the living and the dead?”

“Yes.”

“Then, where are they? You have secreted them, but they are where you can lay hands on them at a moment’s notice.”

There was no reply to this.

“Are they in the safes of this hotel?”

No reply.

“If they are you will go down and get them for me. I’ll go with you and see that you play fair. I’ll loosen the cord a little, and if they are in this house I’ll take it off entirely.”

“They are not here.”

“Oh, Vina holds them, then?’

“Vina is not their guardian,” and there the lips of Dartmoor came together with resolution, and his eyes got a determined gleam.

Rafael felt that he was losing time playing with that man. Moments were slipping away, and Dartmoor might be playing for the advantage time would give him.

“Come! I can’t wait. It is the secret or the cord!”

It was a terrible alternative.

“You won’t, eh?” cried Rafael. “I’ll find them myself, but you won’t be here to play against me.”

Dartmoor’s head fell back with a suddenness that startled even the man with the cord, and the next moment, with almost superhuman powers, he leaped up and turned on his murderer.

It was a spring which took the other completely by surprise.

Rafael almost dropped the death cord, and Dartmoor, throwing up his hands, clutched it with the desperation of despair.

In another moment the would-be victim stood in the middle of the room, with the black cord in his hands.

Rafael, the thug, eyed him from beyond the table, his face almost colorless and his eyes on fire.

He hardly looked human in the midst of his passion, and he glared at Dartmoor with all the fury of a baffled tiger.

“You will never know what became of the papers,” said Dartmoor. “This was intended murder, Captain Rafael. From this moment our paths diverge.”

“Say you so?” he hissed, as his hands touched the latch. “You shall again hear from Rafael of the tropics!”

And with this he flung wide the door and vanished.

THE EMERALD LINK

Old Search received the message which Mother Mastodon dispatched to him by Nixy.

Of course he answered it.

An hour later he might have been seen to emerge from the Amazon’s room and go down-stairs.

It was quite late now, but the old ferret bent his steps toward a certain part of the city where he vanished.

Joe Phenix was routed out of a sound slumber, and looked up, rubbing his eyes, to see before him the prince of spotters.

“Come with me, Joe.”

“With you, captain?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve just come back from a jaunt through the underground Broadway of New York, and I’m tired.”

“What success, Joe?”

“Not much.”

“No dead millionaires this time?”

“No.”

“Did you visit the scene of your ghastly find?”

“I was there, and I want to show you, captain!”

Phenix bounded out of bed and crossed the room to where his clothes hung.

One hand was sent into the depths of a pocket, and when it came up something in it was seen to glitter.

He laid it in Old Search’s palm and looked into his face. “Where did you come across this, Joe?”

“On the very spot where I found Paul Dartmoor.”

“Buried in the mud?”

“No, it lay against the sewer wall, and when my bull’s-eye fell upon it, it seemed to laugh in my face.”

Old Search was turning over and over in his hand a ring which had a fine set of emerald.

It was a woman’s ring, and that is what made it puzzling to the old detective.

“Don’t you see how it sends out its rays as you move it about?” said Joe.

The old ferret nodded.

“It’s a lady’s ring.”

Another nod.

“Have you tried to sell it, Joe?”

“No; I thought I’d let you get a peep at it first.”

At this moment the set seemed to fall off, but the deft fingers of Old Search captured it before it could reach the floor.

Where the emerald had been was a little hole, in the bottom of which seemed to lie a white, volatile powder.

Without a word the detective held the ring out to let the sewer rat see the powder.

“It looks like one of those emergencies,” said Joe.

“One of which —”

“An emergency, you know — one of those rings that contain a dose of death, to be taken when things look dark for its owner.”

The shadow smiled.

In another moment Old Search had shaken the contents of the line upon a bit of brown paper, and then he looked into the little receptacle.

It was not empty even then.

In this wonderful ring lay imbedded something that seemed to possess the point of a needle, and the old sleuth looked at it with coolness as he turned the circlet to one side and another.

“What’s in there, cap?” asked the sewer rat,

“It looks like a needle, Joe.”

“Don’t fool with it, then.”

“Why not?”

“It may be a deadly needle.”

Old Search was shrewd enough; he had dealt with such secret agencies before, and he now leaned forward with the bauble in his hand, looking at it in the light that fell from Sewer Joe’s jet.

“It doesn’t look like an American ring,” said Joe.

“It is foreign make,” was the reply.

“I think so.”

“I know an old ring maker. He’s retired from business now, but what he doesn’t know about rings one needn’t care to find out.”

“That’s your man, cap.”

The emerald was replaced and the detective wrapped the white powder in a bit of paper which he afterward placed in his pocket.

“Do you want me to go with you now?” asked Joe.

“Not just now. You can go back to bed and continue your nap, thanks to the ring, Joe.”

In another moment the old detective was on the street again, and was pushing through the shadows of the almost deserted thoroughfare toward the house of Pedro, the Spaniard.

It was an unseemly hour to call on the old man, but Old Search knew no hours when on the trail.

His rap was responded to by Pedro in person, and half a minute later the old man held the ring in his hand.

“It’s one of the Caprazzia rings!” he suddenly cried.

“The Caprazzia rings?” echoed the ferret.

“Yes. I made six of them in Madrid.”

“You made them?”

“Yes.”

“They are as deadly as was the poison of the Borgias,” he went on.

“How do they work!”

“You see, the wearer of the ring presses the emerald against a human body, and the little needle, darting through the white powder, like the tongue of a snake, finds an outlet alongside the gem and penetrates the victim. That means death.”

“Sadden death?”

“No, He may live an hour, and may get home, if the blow has been delivered on the street or at a ball.”

“I never knew you made such things,”

“It is the one regret of ray life. I hope to be forgiven; and I have tried to overcome the wrong by getting possession of the six rings, but I have failed to do it.”

“Did you ever recover any?”

“Oh, yes, four of them. I knew, of course, to whom I sold them — I was sharp enough for that — but two of the buyers eluded me. One was found dead in the streets of Madrid, and I got the ring back; another came to me with his ring and resold it, as he feared the police; the third died a natural death in Madrid, but he sent for me before the end came and gave me hack the ring; and the fourth one lost his at a ball, and a girl who found it brought it to my shop. But the other two have baffled me.”

“Of course,” said Old Search — “of course you could not tell to whom you sold this particular ring?”

“Ah, there is where you may be mistaken!” smiled the old Spaniard. “Ring-makers have, their private marks, and — let me see!”

He bent over the ring, and the ferret seemed to hold his breath.

“It is here!” suddenly exclaimed Pedro. “This is the third ring made.”

“You know that, then?”

“Oh, yes; here is my private mark!”

“But the purchaser?’’

“Was a woman.”

“I thought it was a woman’s ring.”

“It was. I made it to order — put in it a little change, according to her notion.”

“Was she a Spaniard?”

“Yes.”

“She got the ring of you in Madrid?”

“From me in the little shop in the crooked street where Mora was born.”

“You recall her well, do you, Pedro?”

“Very well. One would not be apt to forget her easily. She had such dark eyes and such a handsome face, which, reminded me of the sleek visage of a tigress.”

“Her name?”

“Then she was ’ the Countess Yaldeno ’ — the ’ countess,’ ha, ha! I never heard of her estates, though.”

“You mean that she was no countess at all, Pedro?’

“Of course she was not. I guess all Madrid knew that.”

“She paid you for the ring?”

“Oh, paid well for it! and it was the only one of the six that troubled me from the first. She was pretty, vengeful and all that, and I wanted the ring back almost as soon as I saw it in her hand.

“What ever became of her?”

“Oh, she vanished six months afterward?’

“Left Madrid, eh?”

“Yes. I wanted to see her robbed of the ring; indeed, I tried to get a well-known bravo to do the job for me; but he was afraid, and so my ‘countess’ and ring went off together. May I ask where the ring was found, Samuel?”

“It was picked up in a sewer.”

“Then she is here — in New York?”

“It may be so.”

Pedro reflected a moment.

“If this ring was lost in a sewer it may be hard to trace its owner — eh, captain?”

“A little difficult, Pedro.”

“My ‘countess’ in New York? I wonder if she remembers Pedro, the jeweler of Madrid?”

“How could she forget you?” smiled the detective; “did your ‘countess’ always wear gloves?”

“Nearly always.”

“You have seen her hand?”

“I saw it when I measured for the ring,” was the reply. “Then I noticed that she had a deformed hand.”

“How deformed, Pedro?”

“The tip of the little finger of the left hand was missing — just the tip, Samuel.”

Old Search’s gaze seemed to wander across the room and to rest on a cheap Spanish print that hung on the wall.

“Are you going to look for my ‘countess,’ Samuel?” asked Pedro.

“Perhaps.”

“And I am not to have the ring?”

“It shall be yours in the end, Pedro. Let me have it awhile longer.”’

“Certainly. It really belongs to her, though found in the sewers. Take it, Samuel. I will rejoice when I can lay it beside its mates. One more is at large.”

Old Search went away, leaving Pedro musing in his little room; but early the next morning the king of shadowers stepped up to a door and rang.

In another moment he stood face to face with Queen Vina, and in the hall he held out his band with the-emerald ring in it.

The woman recoiled with a wild cry.

OLD SEARCH AND THE VIPER

The woman in the game was not looking for the man who stood before her.

She might have expected to open the door to Bynum Dartmoor, alias Captain Belteshazzer, or to Rafael of Maracaibo; but Old Search was the last man whom she thought of confronting in her hall.

No wonder she fell back with a cry with her gaze alternating between the detective’s face and the ring which lay in his palm.

She stood white-faced under the light and showed Old Search that his visit had unnerved her.

The old sleuth said nothing.

He waited for the woman to speak first.

“Will you walk into the parlor?” said she, moving toward a door on her right.

Old Search followed her.

This woman whom he had come to see should not escape him.

With the ring still in his hand, he walked into the room whose shutters were drawn, and there he saw Vina turn on the light, flooding the apartment with a soft glow which did not relieve the whiteness of her face.

“I have called to tell you where your ring was found,” said he at last as Vina maintained a sullen silence.

“My ring? Do you call that bauble mine?”

“Do you repudiate the ownership, madam?”

Her teeth seemed to be hard set.

“Can you prove that it was ever mine?”

“Must I prove it?”

She looked away, but her gaze came back to the circlet. “Let me see it!”

But the detective withdrew his hand and she did not get to grasp the ring.

“No,” continued Old Search. “I have It in my power to prove that the ring was made for you — made in Spain and by a jeweler upon whom I can lay hands within tea minutes.”

“Heavens, I thought —”

Vina checked herself.

“Never mind. You will not let me see it?”

“Not now, madam — not now, countess.”

She started as if stung by a viper at the sound of the title, and tried to remain calm.

But the effort was a failure.

Underneath the searching gaze of the king of spotters the cool-headed woman was breaking down.

“You can have your ring upon one condition,” said he.

“I don’t want it upon any terms.”

“Ah, you don’t? You would sooner see it lying on the witness stand, would you?”

“Will you take it there? I know who you are. I have been looking for you, and ever since I pulled Sam Coppers from you some days ago I have felt myself in your blasting shadow.”

“Indeed? That was a forcible separation, madam.”

The woman smiled faintly.

“I had to take him away, for I knew you the moment I set eyes on you that day.”

“Well, Coppers will give you no more trouble. Coppers has gone to join the great majority.”

“It is true, but you have said that upon one condition the ring in your hand may come back to me?”

“Yes.”

“You may name it.”

“I will exchange it for the story of the past.”

“What story?”

“Come, madam, do not try to deceive me. Much is known. I have the secret left with Mother Mastodon.”

“With my —”

Vina stopped and turned her face away.

“Madam, when you plundered Mother Mastodon the other night you —”

“I rob her?” cried Queen Vina, falling back.

“No one else did it. Mother Mastodon knows who plundered her. She found on the floor at the door a glove.”

“My glove, does she say?”

“The old lady knew it the moment she saw it,”

Vina was silent for a moment.

“I will not take the ring hack on your conditions.”

“You will maintain an eternal silence?”

“Yes. I never break my oaths.”

“Oh, you don’t, eh? You never tell what you do for the League of the Cord, and in this instance you prefer to say nothing.”

“You are merciless, man. With all your skill you can be beaten, I am not powerless. You can keep the ring.” “And the papers which I got at Mother Mastodon’s?”

“Yes, whatever they were.”

“You don’t know who left them there?’

“I do not.”

“You do not know what they may contain? They may be the story of a life, and Captain Beltesbazzer may have penned some of them.”

“You mean Dartmoor.”

“Captain Belteshazzer, as his name really is. He won that title years ago, and about the time when he fell in with you, the dashing wife of Paul Dartmoor.”

Vina uttered a quick, sharp cry.

She rose and came toward the detective.

“Where are those documents? Have you got them on your person?”

“They are ready to tell their tale.”

For a moment the woman towered in front of the old ferret, and then she fell back to the table and took a seat there.

“Let the captain tell all he pleases. I will not.”

Old Search still toyed with the ring, and all at once, with the leap of the tigress, Queen Vina darted forward and snatched it from his grasp.

It was the work of a second, and she stood before him with the shining bauble in her grasp and a smile of devilish triumph on her face.

“I can outwit, the best of man-hunters!” she exclaimed. “You see, Captain Search, with all your skill I can beat you. I make my own terms now. The ring is back in my possession. He took it the night we parted in Havana. He would not listen to my appeals to be taken back, and I told him that I would get even.”

“You wrote him two letters.”

“More than two, and he laughed at all.”

“In one you swore that time would avenge you.”

“It has done so.”

She held out the ring in a mocking manner, and her eyes glistened like beads as she looked over it into the detective’s face.

Surely this woman thought the victory was hers.

“You know what I can do now — cheat all your trail-dogs,” she went on.

“You may think so, madam.”

“I have the ring. All I have to do Is to hold it against my wrist and press it. The needle does the rest.”

“It may fail.”

“What, that needle fail?” laughed Vina. “I never heard of one failing yet.”

“But the poison may have lost its powers. You know the ring was found in the sewer.”

“Ha! where he was found.”

“You forget that he was picked up in the river by the river patrol.”

Vina looked nonplused.

“Well, never mind. I hold in my hand the death of the old slayers. I press the ring against my wrist, the needle enters my blood and death follows.”

A terrible expression overspread the speaker’s face.

Her eyes became like the orbs of a serpent and flashed their baleful light upon the detective as cool as ever.

“Mother Mastodon has disowned you,” said he.

“Long ago I cursed her and tore her image from my heart.”

“She clung to Coppers to the last.”

The woman was seen to take a long breath.

“Why was that?”

“Ah! that has been one of Mother Mastodon’s secrets till now,” was the reply.

“She would have baffled us by making Coppers marry a cigar girl.”

“Milly Owlet?’

“I never heard her name.”

“But you have the ring, madam,” said Old Search, “I am going to the end of this trail which began in the sewer. It may end at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

“Or in another street not quite so fashionable, eh?”

“Perhaps. You have seen the dark hand of the little doctor in the game — in fact, you have to some extent directed it. Your husband, Paul Dartmoor — for you are the Spanish wife — your husband, I say, felt the cord or the bands of the thug.”

“That is your opinion, is it? Well, you seldom fail to run the guilty down. But success to you, Captain Search. Here’s to the ending of the great, sewer trail.”

The woman, with her lips knit firmly together, thrust the emerald set against her white wrist and looked triumphantly at the man before her.

In another instant her eyes, with a puzzled expression, fell to the ring and she seemed to shiver.

What had happened?

“You don’t recoil after the manner of those who find in their blood the poison of those rings?’ observed the old sleuth.

“I see! I see! You have removed the needle;” and with this she flung the circlet across the room and it struck the wall to sink to the carpet where it glistened for awhile on a flower.

“They tell me truly when they say that you never fail,” she almost hissed, looking up at the ferret. “You have taken from me the last friend I ever had — this deadly ring.”

“If I can rob the little doctor as easily, it will be a double victory.”

“If you rob him of anything you will do well. Rafael, the man from the tropics, cannot be robbed. That man is a prince of demons, and his hands are hands of death. After all, what will your triumph be?’

Old Search took one step toward the woman in the middle of the room.

“It will avenge the death of Paul Dartmoor, the millionaire of the avenue — it will clear up the midnight mystery of the sewers.”

THE LAST THROW OF THE CORD

Standing near a certain building, with his gaze riveted upon a curtained window and sheltered by a wall, was to be seen a man with a complexion almost as dark as a Mexican’s.

By and by his eyes got a quick gleam and he fell back, crossing to a bench in a park near at hand.

“He’s at home. Why not?” said this man to himself. “I know I failed before — that he with the strength of a lion and the quickness of a cat beat me out of my victory; but he’s there.”

He looked up at the window again and then took something from his bosom.

It was a little black cord and he wrapped it round and round his finger with demoniac glee.

Rafael of Maracaibo, reposing on the bench in the park, did not see the man watching him from another bench.

He did not see that a pair of eyes, as keen if not quite as black as his own, saw every movement of his dark fingers, nor how often the thug’s cord went round his fingers.

“It’s worth trying. I can make it my last play with the cord in this city. I can throw it round his neck and then I can walk from the hotel and vanish.

“I won’t stop to kill the woman. No, let her remain. Old Search will give her all the trouble she cares to meet. Old Search! I thought I had him once, when I held him against the wall and had my fingers at his throat.

“There! he’s at the window again. Won’t he come down and let me dog him somewhere? No, he intends to remain in the hotel, as if he would sooner I came up to his room to repeat the game he beat me at once before.”

Dr. Rafael continued to watch the window from his bench and the man on the other bench kept all his movements in sight.

At last Rafael put up the cord and got up.

With his face turned toward the hotel he crossed the avenue and went toward it.

No one appeared to take the slightest notice of him.

He had the agile movements of the thug and the noiseless tread of a cat.

He boldly dodged into the stately hotel and vanished from the gaze of the man who had followed him.

In the reception-office he glanced at the broad staircase and then went toward the elevator.

Rafael was always well dressed.

There was about him the care of a gentleman, though the close observer would have regarded him with suspicion.

He seemed to change his mind, for he did not take the elevator but came back to the staircase.

He looked up once more and then bounded nimbly up the steps.

In a moment he was on the landing above.

This man knew which way to go.

He had wasted a little time in deciding whether to take the elevator and another man had profited by it.

He reached the door of Dartmoor’s room.

Rafael’s face was tensely drawn.

There was murder in the sloe-black eyes.

This man had come back with death in his heart and murder in his look.

He leaned forward and listened at the door.

Everything was quiet inside.

He put forth his hand and knocked, his white knuckles striking the door gently and sending forth a light, hollow sound.

He then drew back, with one hand rammed into his coat pocket as if it clutched something there.

There was no footstep in the room beyond, but the door opened.

In another instant a hand reached out into the hall and fell upon Rafael’s collar.

The thug drew back, but the grip tightened and he was dragged across the threshold and the door closed.

It was the work of a second, but it was too quick for the catlike man from the tropics.

The shutting of the door grated upon Dr. Rafael’s ears like the shutting of the gates of doom.

The hand still held his collar, and he looked across the sumptuously-furnished apartment.

At a table stood Bynum Dartmoor, alias Captain Belteshazzer, the man he had come to kill, while he was held by the hand of the man he feared — Old Search of Gotham.

Rafael drew back, but no farther than the detective’s arm.

Dartmoor looked at him with a faint smile and saw Old Search haul his captive, by main force, across the carpet until he had him near the table, when be plumped him into a chair there.

The two men — Dartmoor and Rafael — were face to face.

“You know this man, captain?” said the detective, looking at Dartmoor as he w aved his band toward the thug.

“I know him.”

“They call him Rafael Mandano, don’t they?”

“He has had more than one name during his life.”

“Just so. He had another name on board the Sunset during her last trip from Maracaibo. His cards contain the name of Mandano, but, as you say, he has had more than one cognomen.”

Rafael bit his lips half through.

“You will find the cord in his right-hand pocket,” continued Dartmoor, addressing Old Search.

In another instant the little hand of Rafael leaped from big pocket, and the cord of the thug dangled in mid-air.

“This is it; but ask that man why I carry it.” And he covered Dartmoor. “Ask Captain Belteshazzer, called now Dartmoor.”

“Oh, the detective knows,” said Dartmoor with a glance. “This man will have the game out with all of us, Rafael. You are the thug who corned me in this very room not long ago.

“I’ve can’t escape the hand of this man-hunter.”

“You shall not, anyway,” was the cry. “That man is no more Bynum Dartmoor than am I the man who was killed. It was a league. It was a bold play tor money — a game for wealth in which he has been rolling.”

Old Search was disposed to let Rafael proceed, but Dartmoor was not.

“Tell your story in court,” said Bynum, or Captain Beltesbazzer. “Mother Mastodon would not keep her pledge with me. I left the documents with her, but she sent for that man yonder, and he read them. She betrayed me,”

“Don’t you know why, man?”

Dartmoor’s look was a puzzle.

“She got it into her head that you killed Sam Coppers, her son.”

“Coppers Mother Mastodon’s boy?”

“Wasn’t he? — her son who knew nothing of his parentage while he lived! She believed that you killed him.”

“It is false, though.”

The look that came into Rafael’s eyes at that moment was devilish in the extreme, and Dartmoor rightly interpreted it.”

“It was your work. You put that falsehood in her head.”

“Didn’t I have to get even somehow?” cried Rafael, and his hands played with the cord after the manner of the born thug.

Old Search knew that a sudden play of some kind was coming, for he saw the little man take in a full breath.

All at once Rafael bounded upon his feet, and went toward Captain Belteshazzer.

The other threw up his hands.

“One throw of the cord — only one!” cried Rafael. “It will pay this man back for all his treachery, it will even up more than one discrepancy, and will give Rafael of Maracaibo that vengeance which he should have taken months ago.”

But the hand of Old Search came between, and as it closed on the yellow tiger the cord was hurled at Dartmoor, and the accursed thing, like the bolas of the Patagonian, went round and round his throat with murderous force.

Dartmoor staggered to his feet as the cord tightened, and tried with all his might to tear the black thing loose.

Rafael, in the hands of Old Search, laughed with the glee of a demon at his futile efforts.

Tighter and tighter grew the cord of the thug, and at last Dartmoor fell back Into his chair, black in the face and dead.

“They never escape Rafael,” said the little man, with eyes that blazed with victory.

It is three weeks later, reader.

The newspapers have published accounts of Old Search’s great triumph, and all the city knows how he tracked own the murderers of Paul Dartmoor; how at the moment of his victory Rafael, the thug, threw round the neck of Captain Belteshazzer, the false heir, the black cord of the league; how Queen Vina, after a failure to kill herself by the ring, told that she was the cast-off and supposed dead Spanish wife of the late Paul Dartmoor, and how the conspiracy was formed to kill him (which they did); how Sam Coppers, Mother Mastodon’s son, was let into the conspiracy in order to marry Jettie Golden by force, and Anally bow she (Vina) had robbed Mother Mastodon of some papers which revealed that she, too, was the old fence’s child, born in Spain many years prior to the date of our story.

It was a startling story all round, Vina’s confession told how Dartmoor, decoyed from home, was strangled by the cord of the thugs; how the body was forced down into the sewer by Rafael and Coppers, and how it was afterward recovered by Captain Belteshazzer’s orders and taken to the river.

What did Justice do?

Led to her victims by the indefatigable Old Search, she legally strangled the thug of the Sunset; but Queen Vina escaped her hands by dying in prison, while Dartmoor met his doom, as we have seen, at the hand of the little doctor.

Jettie Golden, after her exciting experience with the thug league, became the bride of her old lover, while Mother Mastodon soon after was found dead in her little room — a case of heart failure — and Joe Phenix, rewarded by Jettie because he had given Old Search his main clew, went back to his strange calling.

Little Nixy did not suffer for kindness after Mother Mastodon’s death, for Old Search saw that she was eared for, and she is a promising child to-day.

It was a triumph that added greatly to the fame of the keenest of sleuths, and there hangs to-day in his den a black cord which, as the reader knows, has a dark history, for it was once wielded by the prince of stranglers — Captain Rafael, of Maracaibo.