MURDER IN HELL’S KITCHEN

Old Mother Flintstone, well known in the neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, was dead.

All people have to die, and the old woman had to follow the written law of all mankind; but what was queer, her death was a subject for police investigation.

She had not lived the best of lives, this old hag, toothless and decrepit in her hovel, where her couch was rags and the walls grimy and almost black: she had been a fence and what not, and there were stories about her that made people even in that delectable quarter of Gotham shake their heads over them.

She had died in the night.

Death had come to the hovel in the wee sma’ hours of the darkness, when the great city was supposed to sleep the sleep of the innocent and righteous: but somehow or other there was a suspicion that a human hand had helped Mother Flintstone out of the world.

She lived alone, but now and then she was visited by a boy — a waif of the streets, little, but shrewd and wiry.

Mulberry Billy, as the boy was called, had a story to tell, and it was his narrative which had set the police agog.

The boy had gone to Mother Flintstone’s just before day, crawling into the old place, where he knew there was always a bed for him, and had found the old lady lying on her face on the floor.

She was dead.

Billy tried to lift the body and bear it to the couch nearby, but the lot of bones slid from his hands.

Then he saw the distorted face, the wide, staring eyes and the clenched hands.

Then he saw that his old benefactress was past all human aid, and he stood stock still and thought how kind she had been to him.

But this was not all Billy saw.

He was attracted to the right by a noise in the direction of the only window in the room, and there he saw the outlines of a face.

It was not a rough face, as one would expect to see in that locality; it was not the face of a hardened ruffian, seamed with sin and desperate.

It was a finely cut face, handsome, like those Billy sometimes saw on Fifth Avenue or Broadway.

It had good eyes and white skin, a broad forehead and well chiselled lips.

The mustache did not entirely hide the latter, but it did not let the boy get a good look at them.

If the face at the window had been wicked looking or desperate the boy would not have been astonished, for he would have thought that the desperate murderer had come back to see if his victim had yet been discovered.

Mother Flintstone was reputed rich; she was said to have accumulated by her calling a good deal of wealth, which she had concealed somewhere, but where even Billy, her one little confidant, did not know.

The boy looked at the face till it seemed to be photographed on his mind.

He would know it among a thousand faces, he thought

It should not escape him, and he would give a certain person a full description of it.

In a moment, as it were, the face vanished.

Billy turned again to the dead, but looked now and then toward the window.

He saw that the old woman had been killed, for the rent in her throat told where the dagger had found her life and put an end to her varied career.

As yet the murder was his secret and the murderer’s.

Mulberry Billy remained in the little room some time, or until he had composed his nerves.

One does not discover a terrible crime every day, not even in New York.

He wanted to think the matter over a little; he wanted to decide just what to do.

“I’ll see the Captain; that’s best,’’ he said aloud, though addressing himself.”Captain Sam once befriended me, and he’s the man to take charge of this matter and avenge Mother Flintstone.”

With this the street arab slipped from the house and went out upon the street again.

In a few minutes he ran up a flight of steps near Broadway and knocked at a door.

Footsteps crossed the room beyond and the door was opened.

“You, boy? Come in.”

Billy entered, looking at the person who had opened the door, and who now stood in the middle of the room looking at him with a smile on his leathery face.

“What’s happened, boy?” the man asked.

“They’ve got Mother Flintstone at last, sir.”

“Who have?”

“That’s for you to find out, Captain Search.”

“You don’t mean that the old lady’s dead, Billy?”

“Don’t I?”

“Where?”

“In the crib.”

“Do you know who saw her last?”

“Yes, sir; the man who did it.”

Old Search smiled at the answer and took a seat at the table.

“Give me the story,” he said.

Billy did so.

He omitted nothing, but he dwelt a long time on the face at the window.

Old Search seemed to think that face an important matter, and he made the boy describe it half a dozen times.

Presently he rose and put on an overcoat, for *the night was cold, and perhaps he wanted to protect his face with the ample collar.

The pair left the room together, and Billy piloted the detective to the scene of the crime.

“You can go now,” said Old Search, when he had taken a survey of the apartment. “I will need you tomorrow, Billy. Don’t go far. You can take my lounge if you want a snooze till then.”

The urchin went away, leaving Old Search in the hovel where Mother Flintstone lay.

He went over the old place with his keen eyes and eager hands.

If he found anything that let some light upon the mystery he did not divulge the secret, and just as day was breaking over the spires of Gotham he came out of the place and walked away.

A few minutes later the police knew of the crime, and a sergeant took possession of the old woman’s abode.

Hell’s Kitchen had a new sensation, and its inhabitants stood about in groups and discussed it.

The sensation was too late for the morning papers, but it would do for the afternoon journals; and as Mother Flintstone was a noted character, half a dozen reporters came to the scene with ready pencils and reportorial noses.

The papers in the afternoon told all there was to tell.

They dished up the past life of the old woman and colored it to suit themselves.

Some had her a woman once respected and wealthy, the wayward daughter of a money king: others said she was related to royalty; none put her down as plain Mother Flintstone — that, you know, would never do.

The wasted body was removed to the Morgue and the surgeons brought their skill to bear upon the case.

All agreed that the old creature had been foully killed by a dagger, and the Coroner’s jury added “by some person unknown,” and then turned the matter over to the police.

The following night Old Search, alone in his little room, heard a rap on his door, and he opened it to look into the face of a young woman.

He held the door open and the girl — she was no more than this in years — glided into the room.

“Lock the door, please,” she said, with an appealing look at the old ferret.

Old Search did so and turned to her.

She had taken a chair, and in the light he saw how frightened she was and how she trembled.

“You haven’t any clew yet?” was her first question.

“Clew to what, miss?”

“Why, to the murderer of Mother Flintstone.”

“Oh. you’re interested in that, are you?”

“I am.”

“What is your name, miss?”

“Yes, I thought you’d want to know that and it’s no more than right that I should tell you. You may call me Margie Marne.”

“But that’s not your name.”

The girl smiled.

“Perhaps not; don’t, for heaven’s sake, rob me of the only secret I have — my true identity.”

“I will not, miss. You shall keep your name. That secret can belong to you as long as you want it, or until you see best to disclose it.”

“The time may come when I can speak,” was the reply. “But you haven’t answered my question yet.”

“About the clew? It is a queer case.”

“And a dark one?”

“Yes.”

“No reward has been offered?”

“Not a dollar.”

“But you want to find out who killed Mother Flintstone, and why.”

“I do, and I will find out.”

“Thank God!” cried Margie Marne, rising from her chair and seizing Old Search’s hands. “That’s the best thing I ever heard a man say.”

“What was the old lady to you, miss?”

“Don’t ask me. Only find the hand that slew her.”

“That’s my mission, miss, as I’ve already told you.”

“I’ll reward you,” and she seemed to smile. “I don’t look like a person of wealth, but I can reward the man who solves this mystery of the tenements. I’m not as poor as I look, not a female Lazarus by any means.”

“You—don’t look it, either.”

The girl would have replied if footsteps had not approached the detective’s door, and he crossed the room.

Billy, the street Arab, bounded in the moment the door was opened.

“I’ve located him!” he cried the moment he caught sight of Old Search. “I can show you the face I saw at the window last night. Come! Let the gal stay.—We don’t want her. No girls in the case for Mulberry Billy is my motto,” and the boy darted toward the door again.

THE MILLIONAIRE’S GUEST

In another part of the city about the same time that witnessed the final events of our first chapter was being enacted a scene which is destined to have an important bearing on Old Search’s last case of mystery.

This time it was not in the heart of that tough locality called Hell’s Kitchen, but in the haunts of the better classes, indeed, in what might be called the abode of wealth.

Perry Lamont was a multi-millionaire.

He was a man of past fifty, but with very few gray hairs and a florid complexion.

He was not engaged in any business, having retired from the Street some years prior to the opening of our story, and now was resting at his ease.

Surrounded with wealth of every description, this man was an envied person and a man to be congratulated on the easy life he could lead in his luxurious mansion.

Blessed with wife and children, the latter grown to manhood and womanhood, he passed his days in luxury, his only fad being fast horses, with which his stables were filled.

Perry Lamont sat in the splendid library of his home and smoked a prime cigar.

He was alone.

His wife and daughter had gone to the opera and his son was at the club.

Therefore Lamont had the whole house to himself, for it was the servants’ night off and he had resolved to take his ease.

Suddenly the clear tones of the bells reverberated through the mansion, but the millionaire did not rise. He did not want any visitors, and he was not in the humor to be disturbed.

Again the bell rang, a little sharper than before, and he laid down the cigar.

“Confound it all, why can’t a fellow get a little rest?” he growled, crossing the room toward the hall. “It’s a pity some people haven’t the slightest notion about propriety, but must come when a man wants to throw off the cares of the world and enjoy himself.”

For the third time the bell jangled, and the next moment Lamont reached the door.

He opened it with a growl on his lips, but all at once a man pushed past him into the hall.

“Good evening,” said the stranger, who was tall and rather good-looking from what the millionaire could see of his face, for he kept his collar up. “Don’t think I’m an intruder. Of course, I came here on business, and that overleaps every other consideration, you know.”

“Business? This way, then,” and Lamont led the way to the library, where he waved his caller to a chair.

“You have a son, I believe?” said the visitor.

“I have. I guess that’s no disgrace,” smiled Perry Lamont.

“He’s at the club just now?”

“That’s his pleasure, I suppose.”

“Certainly.”

“He’s your only son?”

“He is.”

“And you look to him to keep up the honor of the house of Lamont?”

“He’ll do that, never fear, Claude will.”

“That is, he will if the law will let him.”

The nabob started.

“Have a care, sir!” he cried, coloring. “This is my house, and a man’s house is his castle.”

“That’s old, but good,” grinned the caller. “I’ve often wondered where that saying originated, but never had time to look it up.”

Lamont looked at the man amazed, for he never saw such coolness in all his life.

“You’ve got a daughter, too,” continued the stranger.

“What’s that to you?”

“Not much, perhaps, but a good deal to you.”

“There you’re right; but you shall not make sport of my child. My affection for her is too sacred for that.”

“She’s pretty and good. I know her.”

“You?” almost roared the millionaire, falling back in his chair and staring at the other. “This is carrying the joke too far.”

“Just as you think; but let’s go back to Claude.”

“No; I won’t have another thing to do with you. You remember you are not an invited guest-”

“That’s right — not an invited guest, but I don’t quit this house till I care to go.”

“By Jove-”

“Come, come; keep your temper.”

“You won’t let me,” said Lamont, with a faint smile.

“Well, this boy of yours is a little wild. He’s the lion of the club, but he don’t always keep within the bounds of the law.”

“How?”

“I don’t mean to insinuate anything, only to remind you that he is just now harvesting his crop of wild oats.

“Like all boys do.”

“But the yield is larger on some grounds than on others.

“You don’t mean-”

“That your hopeful is reaping a gorgeous crop, eh? That’s it precisely.”

“But he knows when to stop.”

“The Sheriff will do that.”

Lamont started forward, and for the first time his face became really pale.

“That’s an insult.”

“I thought you would consider it such.”

“It is infamous!”

“You’re good at words.”

“Come, this interview is at an end.”

“Not yet. What will you give to save your son?”

“To save him? He’s committed no crime yet —”

“Will you give ten thousand?”

“Not a dollar! If Claude has committed some little indiscretion like young men will-”

“He’s done more than that. It would be charity to designate it by the name you have just mentioned, but the authorities would call it something else.”

“Where is Claude?”

“At the club, just where you said he was.”

“Then-”

“I’ll take ten thousand and save the boy.”

“From what?”

“The gallows!”

Perry Lamont seemed to reel in his chair, and it was with difficulty that he kept his seat.”

“It’s a lie!” he cried.

“Just as you like. It’s all true, however.”

“It’s false, I say, as false as perdition! My boy wouldn’t stoop to crime.”

“No; he’s an angel. And all he wants is a pair of wings which would just fix him out.”

Lamont reddened and then turned pale again.

“I announce this interview terminated,” he said, but his voice was agitated and his gaze wandered to the door across the room.

“You can write out the check for the amount I have mentioned if you have any regard for the honor of your house.”

“Not a dollar!”

“Then take the consequences,” and the man rose and coolly buttoned his coat.

“You’re mad,” said the millionaire.

“Perhaps. I’m money-mad, but I want to save you and yours. I don’t want to heap disgrace upon your wife and daughter. I don’t want to disgrace you and see your boy mount the scaffold. I don’t want to do anything of the kind, and I won’t if you pay me for the secret.”

Perhaps something told Perry Lamont that he was dealing with a desperate man, who, after all, might have the secret he spoke of, but it was such a terrible thing to think of that it chilled his blood,

“I’m a man of business. I want the check or your boy is exposed.”

“What is the crime?” asked Lamont.

“What did I say? They hang for murder only.”

“My God!”

“They will certainly lay hands on Claude if you don’t buy my silence.”

“In Satan’s name, who are you?”

“The man who knows!”

In the drawer before the millionaire lay a self-cocking revolver, and this flashed through his mind as he resolved upon desperate action.

“All right,” he said, as nonchalantly as possible, and in a second he had opened the drawer.

The man nearby stood in such a position that he could not look into the place, and he did not see Lamont’s hand close about the black ivory stock of the weapon.

Suddenly the millionaire’s hand leaped from the drawer and the revolver flashed in the stranger’s face.

“I won’t be blackmailed,” hissed Lamont. “I’m as merciless as a tiger when roused, and I count your life as nothing as compared to the welfare of my family. What is the lie you have made up for to-night’s work? What is the infamous story you have planned about my son? Tell me or I will kill you where you stand, and the world will lose your infamy in this house.’”

The man on the carpet seemed to increase an inch in stature as he looked down into the tensely-drawn face of the man of many fortunes.

“You’d do that, would you?” he coolly asked.

“As I live I will!”

“You’re a fool, Perry Lamont.”

“Why so?”

“You might slay me here, but the net would be played out or drawn in all the same. You don’t suppose I would place myself in your power the sole custodian of this secret which, if let out, will send your son to the gallows? I’m no fool.”

The tightly clutched weapon seemed about to fall from Lamont’s hand.

“The secret is unloosed the moment I die at your hands,” continued the cool head. “Come, treat me white, and I’ll treat you the same. I want ten thousand for what I know. It saves your boy and rescues your house from disgrace.”

A singular cry welled from the millionaire’s throat, the revolver slipped to the floor and he sank back in the chair in a dead faint.

The stranger leaned forward and opened the drawer, and seeing something there he transferred it to an inner pocket.

BACK TO THE RED SPOT

When Old Search and Mulherry Billy reached the street at the foot of Old Search’s stairs the boy pointed toward a cab just driving away.

“He must be in that,” said Billy. “I saw him talking to a man from the cab window just now-”

“The man whose face you saw at the window of Mother Flintstone’s den, Billy?”

“The same bloke.”

The detective looked after the cab as it rounded a corner and then turned again to the boy.

“But the man who was spoken to from the cab?” queried the old ferret.

“He’s gone, too.”

In another instant there stepped from a doorway a few steps distant a man at whom the boy pointed excitedly.

“That’s him. Captain!” he exclaimed as the man thus singled out coolly lit a cigar.

Old Search eyed him for a moment and then looked away.

The fellow walked off and the boy of the street watched him with much curiosity.

“Could you keep him in sight for me, Billy?” asked the detective.

“Just as if I’d lose him on purpose!”

Billy hurried away and watched the smoker with all the keenness he could bring to bear upon the matter.

Let us follow the little spy.

For some time the boy was led a merry chase, for the man at first seemed to suspect that he was watched, but at last he appeared to think that he had baffled the young ferret, for he became bold and sauntered along at his ease.

Billy saw him walk up the steps of a noted club house, and then stepped back to wait for his reappearance.

For this purpose the boy stationed himself in a doorway near at hand.

An hour passed, and while many came out of the club the particular one did not, and the street Arab grew a little impatient.

“Seems to me he’s going to roost there,” said Billy to himself. “I’m booked for this doorway all night if he does, for I intend to keep my agreement with Captain Sam — to watch that man till doomsday.”

All at once there sounded above the boy footsteps on the stairs, and as he looked round he was pounced upon eagle-like by a hand that seemed to sink into his bones.

“Ouch!” cried the boy, as he drew back.

“Not a chirp, you young imp,” hissed a voice, as he was pulled up over the stairs.

Billy of Mulherry street was dragged up the stairs and down a long corridor, after which he was pulled into a room by his tormentor.

He heard the door locked behind him, and then the gas was turned on.

He was jammed into a chair, after which he got a look at the man who had caught him.

It was not the man he had watched, but quite another person, and Billy wondered why he had caught him.

“Spying, weren’t you?” said the man, coolly.

“Who are you?” demanded Billy. “And don’t you know you’ve no right to treat me this way?”

“I haven’t, eh? Just wait till I’m through with you before you crow that way.”

Then the man came forward and bent over Billy, who shrank into the depths of the chair.

“Who sent after me?” he demanded.

“No one.”

“No falsehood. He did, didn’t he?”

’ Whom do you mean ?”

“You know.”

““You must explain.”

“Just as if you don’t know anything, you little rat. To be plain, the man you were talking to to-night told you to dog my steps. I know that much.”

“Then that keeps me from explainin’,” smiled Billy, “whereat the man’s face grew dark.

“No insolence! Little chicks get their necks wrung the same as old ones.”

Billy leaped from the chair and sprang forward, but ■ he was arrested by the hand of the fellow and held fast.

“Tell me the truth. He sent you after me?”

For once in his life at least Mulberry Billy was terrified.

“Yes,” he said.

“Captain Search they call him, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Ferret!”

The boy said nothing.

“Why am I to be watched?”

“I don’t know.”

“What has happened lately?”

“Don’t you know? Don’t you ever read the papers?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then you must know that they’ve killed Mother Flintstone.”

“Who’s she?”

“My best friend, If she didn’t have all the frills of society,” said Billy.

“Where did she live?”

“In Hell’s Kitchen.”

“That’s a nice name!”

“It fits the place.”

“What was Mother Flintstone?”

“She fenced sometimes.”

“Oho!” and the exclamation was followed by a prolonged whistle. “I see,” and the man, dropping Billy suddenly, took several turns about the room.

“Could you show me where she lived, boy?” he suddenly asked, coming back to the boy.

“I could — —”

“And you will? That’s good! Mother Flintstone, eh? Was that her right name?”

“Never heard any other for the old woman.”

The countenance of the stranger seemed to soften and he told the boy to guide him.

They left the house together, the boy in advance, and Billy piloted the man into Mulberry Bend and straight to Hell’s Kitchen.

“It’s a tough place, I see,” was all the comment the stranger made as they entered the locality.

“No place tougher, but I’ve called it home for a long time.”

Into the little old room — the place of sin and crime — Billy led the man and a light was struck.

“Where did she keep her valuables?’’ asked the man.

“I don’t know.”

“But she had papers, hadn’t she?”

“I can’t say; but If she had the police must have found them.”

“They searched the den, eh?”

“They looked it over.”

“Did Captain Search do it, too?”

“Yes.”

“What did he find?”

The boy shook his head.

“You’re not the custodian of his secrets, I see.”

“I’m not.”

“Let me see what I can find.”

The man began to go through the place, watched by the boy with all eyes.

He was a good-looking fellow, only his beard seemed a little too black and glossy to be natural, and the boy had an idea that it had never grown on his face.

All at once the man turned and looked at Billy.

At the same time he put out one hand, and it fell upon a dusty shelf on one side of the room.

“Turn your back a moment, boy,” he commanded.

Billy did so, and while he looked away he was certain that the stranger did something.

When again he looked around the man was standing at his ease and his face was as calm as ever.

“Look yonder,” suddenly cried the boy, pointing at the window. “There it is again.”

The stranger turned in an instant, and then looked at the street Arab.

“I see nothing at the window,” he said.

“It’s gone now. That’s the second time I saw it there.”

“A face, was it, boy?”

“Yes: the face of the man who killed Mother Flintstone!”

“Then it’s not far off,” and with this the stranger ran out of the place and Billy heard him in the narrow court beyond.

“In the name of Satan, who is he?” ejaculated the boy, while he waited for the man’s return.

His question was followed by a sharp report, and in a second the boy was outside.

He smelt powder the moment he opened the door, and then a human figure fell at his feet.

Billy sprang back with a cry and heard a half-suppressed oath and flying footsteps.

“Say, boy,” said a voice, as the little fellow stooped over a prostrate man on the bricks.

“Did you see him?”

“Only a glimpse.”

“Well, he’s got me — just as I expected. But he didn’t get the documents.”

“What documents?”

“Mother Flintstone’s. They’re here,” and the speaker laid one hand on his left breast.

He tried to rise, but sank again to the stones, and Billy could only look on white faced and breathless.

“You want a doctor and the police,” he said at last.

“Neither one,” growled the man through set teeth. “I don’t want them, I say. I’m not dead yet, though they gave me a close call tonight. Help me up. There, you see I can stand all right. I feel better already. I’m worth ten dead men, and in an hour I’ll be worth fifty. Come, let us get out of this.”

Billy was not loth to go, and they glided from the scene and struck the street in a few seconds.

“Great Caesar!” cried the boy, falling back from the man the moment he got a glimpse of him in the lamplight. “Be you the devil or Tom Walker—”

The man stopped the boy by throwing his hand to his face.

The black beard was gone and the skin was smooth, and this was what had called forth the street urchin’s exclamation.

THE FACE OF A SPY

Under the ground at last Mother Flintstone passed from the minds of many.

The hovel she had occupied in Hell’s Kitchen got other tenants and the crime was forgotten.

Not by everybody, however, for in the mind of more than one person the old woman whose life no one seemed to know beyond a few years was of some importance.

Old Search was on the trail, and he was destined to find it one of the strangest if not the most exciting of his varied career.

It was the night after his last adventure — the one on the street with Billy of Mulherry Street — when the boy failed to point out the man he had seen, that he stood in another part of the city.

The famous ferret was quite alone, and his gaze was riveted upon a man who stood in front of a swell cafe lighting a cigar.

This person was well dressed and looked as if he belonged to uppertendom.

His features were regular, though they showed some signs of fashionable dissipation, and he carried a cane with an elaborate gold head.

In short, this person was Claude Lamont, the son of the millionaire, who had lately received the man who wanted ten thousand dollars to keep a secret.

Lamont was a favorite at the club because he spent his father’s money freely, and at times gave swell suppers, which were the talk of the town.

Young Lamont appeared to be waiting for some one, and presently that individual came out of the cafe.

He looked a good deal like Claude, only he seemed to be several years his junior, and when the two met they walked away together.

Old Search followed.

The men were talking earnestly, and at last Old Search heard Lamont say:

“You didn’t make it with the governor, eh?”

“No; confound it all. He fainted just when I thought I had landed the fish, and I came away with an empty hook.”

“That’s bad.”

“Couldn’t have been worse.”

“Shall I try again?”

“No; we must take another tack,” and then Claude laughed.

This was all the old detective heard, and the pair walked a little faster.

After a while Old Search let them go and turned his attention to another part of the town.

This time he pushed his way into an upper room in one of the most disreputable localities and confronted a man who nearly leaped from a chair at sight of him.

“Never mind. Don’t get excited, Jack,” smiled the ferret. “I’m not after you this time.”

The fellow, who was thirty past, with a slim face covered with a beard of a week’s growth, seemed pleased, but at the same time he snarled like a wild beast.

“I’ve got work for you,” said the ferret.

“Not for me, no sir! I won’t do any man’s work—not even yours,” he growled.

“Come, Jack. It won’t get you into trouble.”

“I won’t, either!” and the speaker settled back into his chair and looked ugly.

“You remember Mother Flintstone?”

“Yes; and I know she’s dead.”

“And buried.”

“I hope so; but I don’t care what they’ve done with her. I am out of the business.”

“You know Claude Lamont?”

“The money king’s son? Of course I do, and I know nothing very good of him, either.”

“Well, Jack, I want you to get on with him.”

“I say no.”

The voice was determined, but this fact did not check the old detective.

“Listen to me, Jack.”

“Not if you want to make a sleuth out of me.”

“I don’t — in a sense.”

“But you want me to get in with this young lion and get the worst of the bargain.”

Old Search thought a moment.

Wasn’t there some other way of bringing this man to time?

He had befriended him once, had saved him from a term up the river, and now he needed him-

Jack Redmond was a good, all-round crook, but, at the same time, he knew how to spy and do anything that required wits and cunning.

Suddenly he turned again to the man and said:

“You know Margie?”

At this Redmond started and seemed to shiver.

“Where is she?” he eagerly inquired.

“Where she can be found at any time.”

“Do you know?”

“Will you help me?”

Redmond sprang up and confronted the detective with a quick look.

“Does she think of me yet?”

“I can’t say that.”

“Will you help me with Margie?”

“So far as I can.”

“Then I’m yours!”

For a moment the ferret watched the man and held out his hand; but the crook refused it.

“No; I’m yours. You’ve bought me,” he said. “Now, what am I to do?”

For some time the old detective talked, and was not interrupted.

When he went away he seemed to smile to himself, and half an hour later he was back in his own rooms.

One hour later Claude Lamont was met in the club annex by a man, who held out his hand.

Lamont looked searchingly at this person and shook his head.

“You have the best of me,” said he.

“What, don’t you know me?” cried the other, as if surprised. “I’m Belmont.”

“The devil you are!”

“That’s who I am, and I’m not surprised that you did not recognize me.”

“I thought you were dead — in fact, three years ago I read about your death at sea.”

“So did thousands,” laughed the so-called Belmont, who was Jack Redmond, the crook. “I thought at one time I was on the brink of eternity. We had nine tough weeks on a tropical island, but were saved by a liner.”

This seemed to satisfy Lamont, for he fell to talking to Redmond, and the two adjourned to the wine room and opened several bottles.

It was midnight before they parted, and then Redmond slunk away.

He had broken the ice.

“To-morrow,” said he, “I will go a little further, and before the week’s out I’ll have my clutches on this man for Old Search. He doesn’t suspect, and I’ve completely hoodwinked him.”

Jack went back to his little den, but did not lock the door.

Ten minutes later he heard footsteps on the stair, and, thinking that Old Search was coming back, he watched the door with some curiosity.

When the door opened he got pale, for instead of the detective another man stood before him.

“Spy and informer, your time has come!” cried this person, who seemed as wiry as a tiger as he crossed the room.

Jack Redmond started from his chair, but a revolver was thrust into his face, and he fell back.

“Silence! Not a word! That was a cool game you played to-night,” continued the other.

“What game?” stammered the crook.

“You know, and it’s going to cost you your treacherous life.”

“No.”

“Yes, I say — your life!”

Jack looked into the muzzle of the weapon and wondered if he could cross the space between them and seize the man before he could press the trigger.

“You told a plausible tale, and he believed you. You passed yourself off as Belmont, who lies in fifty fathoms of water, and he took it all for gospel. You’ve got to die.”

The crook said nothing,

“Sit down,” commanded the stranger. Involuntarily Jack sat down and awaited the fellow’s next movement.

“What have you to say before you die? Any word to send to any person?”

“You don’t mean to take my life?”“I do. It isn’t worth the snuffing of a candle just now. All the money in the world could not save you.”

Suddenly Jack was pounced upon by the human wolf and crushed deeper into the chair.

A pair of demon hands seemed to meet behind his wind-pipe, and he tried, but vainly, to rise.

His eyes bulged from his head, his tongue protruded and he emitted a groan.

Three minutes later the demon rose and looked down at the dark face in the chair. Then he went through the crook’s pockets and found nothing of value even to him.

Behind Jack was a wall tolerably white, and the murderer went toward it.

He took a pencil from his pocket and wrote in scrawling characters across the surface a few words that seemed to please him.

“That’s it. He’ll see it,” he hissed. “And he’ll know that it is a death trail if he persists.”

In another moment the little den was tenanted by no one but the silent man in the chair.

The gas burned over his head, sickly like and blue, and the room seemed filled with a noxious odor.

It burned on till the first streaks of morning revealed the city, and pedestrians reappeared on the sidewalks. No one came.

Several hours passed and the streets swarmed again with their eager thousands.

Then the door was opened and Old Search came in.

He stood stock still at sight of the dead man — his spy — in the chair, and then he happened to glance at the wall.

In another second he was there, and his bulging eyes had read:

“The spy first, the master next! There is no escape for him!”

THE KNOCK-OUT DROPS

The Man of Many Trails read the inscription on the wall more than once before he turned away.

It meant him.

There was not the least doubt of this, and for some time Old Search stood rooted to the spot, as it were and looked at what appeared to be a record of doom.

At last he went over to the dead man in the chair, and. lifting the body, he knew what had terminated Jack Redmond’s career.

The hands of some fiend had strangled him, and Old Search seemed to inspect the marks on the throat for the time that had elapsed since the tragedy.

Slowly and with deliberation the old ferret quitted the scene of crime and went down the steps.

At the bottom he nearly ran against a woman with a black shawl pulled over her head in such a manner as to conceal her features.

She tried to escape the detective, but the old man’s hand shot out and drew her toward him.

With the other hand he removed the shawl and looked into a wan face seamed with want and dissipation.

“You know Jack?”’ he said.

“Heavens! Jack! Yes.”

“Will you go up and see him?”

She fell back, but the hand stayed her.

“He did it, then?” she cried.

•“You saw some one, then?”

“Yes; but for heaven’s sake don’t mix me up in anything like murder.”

Old Search watched the nervous twitching of the woman’s lips and waited for her to calm herself.

“When was he here?” he asked.

“Last night.”

“What was he like?”

“He was rather tall, and had a step as stealthy as a tiger’s.”

“You saw him come?”

“Yes.”

“And go?”

“I did.”

“How long was the man up stairs?”

’“Not over twenty minutes.”

“Did you suspect a crime?”

“I did; but I hadn’t the nerve to go up after he went away. I only guessed his mission.”

Old Search at last released the creature, who had in the meantime called herself Gutter Nan for identification, and went away.

“It’s the second crime,” was all the remark he made to himself.

The detective sent word to Police Headquarters, and as the crime, like the murder of Mother Flatstone, came too late for the morning papers, the afternoon journals got it.

No one knew among the reporters that Jack Redmond had been Old Search’s spy.

None was told who was meant by “the master” in the sentence on the .wall; they only guessed at that, and some queer guesses they made, too.

Old Search found Margie Marne that same day, and the girl’s first question was about his trail.

“I’ve got a strange letter here,” said the girl, handing the detective a note she had just received.

Old Search drew it from the envelope and read as follows:

“Miss Marne:

“If you want to hear of something to your advantage please come to the Trocadero to-day at two and enter the first stall on the right. Come alone, for this is business of importance, and greatly concerns you.

“Business.”

After reading the message the detective looked up and found the eyes of the girl riveted upon his face.

“Well?” he asked.

“Shall I go?”

“Yes”

“I’ll do anything you tell me to,” was the reply, and a faint smile flitted across the girl’s face,

“Have you fears, Margie?”

“Yes. I fear all the time ever since the death of Mother Flintstone.”

“Who, think you, is ‘Business’?

“An enemy.”

“Then, why go to the Trocadero?”

“Because you say so.”

Old Search promised the girl that he would not be far off at the hour mentioned in the letter, and Margie agreed to be on hand.

He did not see fit to tell her about Jack Redmond’s death, as it might unnerve her, and, bidding her good-by, he left the house.

It was near two that afternoon when a man, who would not have been taken for Old Search, entered the Trocadero on the Bowery, and seating himself at a table called for a drink.

The place was not very well filled at the time, and while he sipped his wine the detective looked around the place.

Presently he saw a man enter and go straight to the stall designated in the letter to Margie, and the door was closed behind him.

Now Old Search began to wait for the girl, and ten minutes later she came in.

Glancing up and down the place as if looking for him Old Search saw her enter the same stall and heard a slight ejaculation when she found it occupied.

Just then the detective moved his seat to a table nearer the stall and indulged again.

After drinking the third glass a strange feeling of drowsiness seemed to take possession of him, and he tried to shake it off.

In vain, however, did he battle against the feeling, it only grew stronger, till at last he became aware that he was sinking into unconsciousness.

His last recollection was of trying to rise and then sinking down upon the chair, while everything became black about him.

When the ferret came to a singular feeling racked his head and he felt dizzy.

With some effort he managed to stagger to his feet and then he went to the suspected stall. «

The door now stood slightly ajar, and he pushed it open, but the place was empty.

Where was Margie, and what had taken place in that secluded spot where perhaps more than one crime had been committed?

After looking at the table and taking in the whole stall the ferret shut the door and started toward the walk.

He knew the fame of the Trocadero.

More than once a trail had led him across its precincts, and on several occasions he had picked up important clews under its roof.

But now he himself was the victim of trickery, the dupe of crime, for he doubted not that the drinks had been drugged by some infamous hand and for a purpose.

Behind the bar stood the man who had carried the drinks to him, a little man with one of the worst of faces, and the detective thought he looked at him with wonderment as if surprised that he (Old Search) had escaped death.

Fixing his eyes upon this man he leaned over the bar and said:

“What became of the girl?”

The little wretch only grinned and turned away to wait on a new customer.

But he was not to get rid of the champion detective so easily, for the hand of Old Search darted over the counter and fastened on him like the talons of a vulture.

In Old Search’s grip the man was a babe, and as the hand seemed to sink to his bones he emitted a whimper that sounded like a whine and looked blankly into the detective’s face.

“I-I never saw the girl,” he cried.

“No lies, sir. I want the truth. Who told you to drug me?”

“No one. I — I drug nobody. I’m honest.”

“So Is Satan,” hissed the detective, and just then the little wretch appealed to the owner of the establishment for protection.

“No interference, Number Six,” said the ferret with a look at the broad-shouldered owner of the Trocadero, and the man thus designated winced.

“Tell the gentleman the truth, Caddy,” he said to the little man; but that person was still stubborn.

“Caddy” hoped to be released without being forced to tell the truth, but the ferret had no idea of doing this.

He actually pulled Caddy over the counter, to the amusement of the few people in the place at the time. and, putting his ear close to the barkeeper’s, he said:

“The truth or Sing Sing. Take your choice;”

This seemed to have a wonderful effect at once.

Old Search escorted Caddy down the sawdusted aisle and pushed him into the first stall.

“Where did they go?” he asked.

Caddy was very meek now, and his voice trembled as he spoke.

“They went out the back entrance,” he said.

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

“How was the girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she seem to go willingly with the man?”

“I don’t think she did.”

“Was there a cab in the alley out there?”

“Yes.”

For a moment Old Search looked daggers at the little scoundrel, his indignation fast rising, but he kept his temper as he said:

“You were that man’s agent. You fixed my drinks at his suggestion or command.”

“He paid me for it-”

“But how did he designate me?”

“He told me to fix the gentleman at a certain table — that’s all I know.”

“Look here! You’ve played a cool hand for a great villain, and if anything happens to the girl I’ll hold you, in part, responsible. Who was the man?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know,” cried Old Search, and again his hand fell upon Caddy’s shoulder. “You didn’t do all this for a total stranger. They don’t do such things in the Trocadero. You know that man! Now who was he?”

The little man could not avoid the sharp eyes of the best ferret in New York, and he felt the hand on his shoulder grow more vise-like as the question was put.

“Tell me. That or Sing Sing!” said Old Search.

“He’s a rich bloke’s son,” answered Caddy.

“That’s not enough. Who is he? You know!”

“They call him Claude Lamont.”

AN INCORRUPTIBLE FERRET

“Ha, ha,” laughed Old Search to himself. “So Mr. Lamont is playing a nice little hand. We’ll see about it,” and then he turned his attention again to the man he had in tow.

“He told you to dose me, did he?”

Caddy nodded.

“Did he say why?”

“No.”

“But he was anxious to have me drugged?”

“He seemed so.”

“Now, don’t you know where he took the girl?”

The little barkeeper of the Trocadero shook his head in a solemn manner, and Old Search felt that he was in earnest.

“He hasn’t been back since?” he asked.

“No.”

The detective went to the back entrance of the place and saw where a cab had stood.

Beyond doubt this was the vehicle in which Margie Marne had disappeared with Claude Lamont, and after looking the ground over without finding an additional clue, Old Search went back.

It might be hard to track the cab, as there were hundreds in the city, and under the influence of Claude’s money the drivers would not like to betray a good customer.

Old Search put this and that together, and in a short time he might have been seen on the front steps of the Lamont mansion.

It was his first visit to the place, and he did not disguise himself in the least.

It was not a very fashionable hour for a call, but his ring caused the door to open and he was ushered in by a wondering maid,

“Is Mr. Lamont in?” asked the old ferret.

“Yes, sir, but he is indisposed.”

Sick or well the ferret had come to see the millionaire, and he was not to be cheated out of his game.

Handing the servant his card he waited in the hall, and presently she came back asking him to step into the library.

This the detective did, and in a few moments he stood face to face with Lamont.

He had seen the nabob on several occasions, but he seemed to have greatly aged in a short time and his face looked haggard and pale.

Lamont looked up at his visitor and tried to place him, but failed.

“I don’t know you,” said he, glancing down at the detective’s card, which he held in his hand.

Old Search, who had taken a chair opposite the man, said in his peculiar tones:

“I am a detective. I have come here on a matter of business which may concern you.”

“I am at a loss to know how.”

“In the first place, sir. are we alone?”

“Entirely so.”

The detective, in spite of this assurance, lowered his voice.

“Whatever became of your sister, Mr. Lamont?”

There was a quick start, and the face of the millionaire got white.

“I never had a sister.” said he, with an effort.

“Make sure of that. Whatever became of her, I ask’’”

Lamont looked around the room like a wild beast seeking a loophole of escape, but seeing none he came back to the ferret.

“Pardon me for trying to deceive you,” said he. “That is the black spot on our family history. I had. a sister once. But she is dead now.”

“Her name was-”

“Hester.”

“And you say she is dead?”

“She is.”

“When did her death take place?”

“Some twenty years ago.”

A faint smile came to the old detective’s face, and for half a second he looked searchingly into Lamont’s.

“Why try to deceive me?” he said. “You know that this sister died within the last few days.”

“What’s that?” and the millionaire almost started from his chair, while his hands clutched the sides of it like a madman.

“She died by violence,” coolly continued the detective.

She was murdered — not for her money, for she hadn’t much. But she was killed all the same.”

“I can’t believe that,” cried Lamont.

“Nevertheless it is true. Mother Flintstone was your sister, Mr. Lamont.”

“That old hag ? Impossible!”

“It is the truth, and, what is more, you knew it.” ’

“It is false!”

“Shall I prove it?” asked the detective, not in the least abating his coolness. “Shall I prove beyond cavil to you that Mother Flintstone was your sister?”

“Who are you, man or devil?” exclaimed the money king. “And what can buy your silence?”

“I have told you who I am, and nothing on earth can buy my silence.”

“You don’t want to disgrace my family?”

“I am serving justice just now, no matter who is disgraced.”

“It will kill my wife and daughter.”

“Even that event will not take me from my trail.”

“You have no heart.”

“Neither had the man who killed that old woman.””

“Who did it. Tell me that!”

“I am not quite prepared to answer, but in time I will be. I am here to tell you that the death of your ostracized sister shall be avenged no matter whose neck the rope stretches.”

“You don’t mean to insinuate that I had a hand in the crime?”

“I make no charges. I merely called to ask if she was not your sister.”

“I’ve answered that question.”

“And you let her go to the potter’s field.”

“I did, and I would do it again under the circumstances.”

“Don’t talk to me about my having no heart, Mr. Lamont.”

“I couldn’t think of acknowledging her and having the body in my house.”

“That’s all.”

Old Search rose and was watched by the man with a look like that of a tiger.

Perry Lamont seemed to bite his lips through and his eyes emitted sparks of rage.

As the old detective stepped toward the door it opened and a tall and distinguished-looking young lady entered the room.

“My daughter,” said the millionaire, with a wave of his hand toward the young lady, but she did not seem to hear the words.

Already she had turned upon Old Search and her hands were clenched till the nails seemed to cut the fair flesh of the palms.

“You want to disgrace us all:” she cried, as she appeared to increase an inch in stature. “You are one of those blackmailers with whom honest and wealthy people must be bothered. You want to make us trouble. But you shall not! Father shall not pay you one dollar to keep the false secret you think you have discovered. Attempt to carry out your plans and your life will not be worth the snuffing of a candle.”

Old Search was astounded at these words, and he could not take his eyes from the flushed face of the girl who was, really beautiful and vixenish.

“Be calm, miss,” said he. “I don’t intend to disgrace your family name. The truth never hurt anybody. I am a detective on the trail, and if that trail leads to your house, why, you should not find fault, for the dogs of justice seldom miss the scent.”

“But you just said that the old creature murdered in her hovel a few nights ago was my father’s sister.”

“Ask him,” and Old Search waved his hand toward the motionless man in the chair.

“Father has not been himself for some time, and to-night is not accountable for the admissions he may have made.”

Old Search looked again at Perry Lamont, whose gaze had wandered to his daughter, and his hands, clasped before, had fallen apart.

At that moment he did look like a man half demented. But the detective soon returned to the tall girl.

“You shan’t ruin us,” she cried. “You shall not unite our name with that of Mother Flintstone, whose life, I am told, was anything but honest. It will be worth your life to do this.”

The look which accompanied these words told that they were meant for a terrible threat, and the tightly shut hands of the speaker were proof that she was a fitting sister for Claude Lamont.

“We will meet again, perhaps,” said the ferret. “I am going to run the guilty down. That is my present mission.”

At this moment Perry Lamont raised his head and looked at the old sleuth.

“I’m not to be trifled with,” said he. “I can make it hot for the man who brings us down to Mother Flintstone’s level.”

“Well, you may proceed to do your worst,” was the cool answer. “You may be ‘disgraced,’ as you say, by the relationship, but this affair may not stop there.”

With this parting shot the detective put out his hand to open the door, but the white fingers of the daughter closed about his wrist.

“Beware,” she almost hissed. “I don’t know who took the old hag’s life, but you must not connect her with our family.”

The detective shook the grip off and looked again at Perry Lamont.

His head had dropped upon his breast, and his face was deathly white.

“He’s gone into one of his strange spells,” said the girl. “You see that he is almost an imbecile. At times he seems his old self, but in reality he is but a human wreck. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to quit this ‘trail,’ as you call it.”

Ten thousand dollars!

Old Search was silent and the girl took it as a sign of hesitation.

“I’ll write out the check now,” she went on. “It shall be paid any way you want it.”

The old ferret shook his head.

“You won’t, eh?” cried Miss Lamont.

“I’m simply Sam Search, and he has never been in the market, miss,” was the response.

In an instant the girl’s countenance changed again from expectancy to wrath.

She opened the door and pointed into the hall.

“Take what comes!” she hissed, and with this Old Search walked out.

THE CARD CLEW

Jack Redmond’s death promised to give the police of New York another job, but no one suspected that he was Old Search’s spy.

The woman who had seen the strange man go up to Redmond’s room had given her information to the detective alone, and Old Search kept it to himself!

He did not doubt that the crook had been put out of the way because he was on the right trail in the matter of spying, and as he (Old Search) had set Jack to keep track of Claude Lamont, he resolved to turn his own attention to that young man.

Then, the disappearance of Margie from the Trocadero, whither she had gone to meet a person discovered to be the millionaire’s son, was an additional incentive for the ferret, and he went from Lamont’s mansion to a certain part of the city where he expected to find the heir.

Through it all he did not lose sight of the fact that he was Mother Flintstone’s avenger.

That he kept in mind all the time, and with all his foresight he went back to the original trail.

It was some time after the exciting interview we have just recorded as taking place in the palatial home of the retired money king that the figure of Old Search might have been seen to enter one of the fashionable club rooms of the city.

No one would have known him without an introduction, and no one did.

Attired like a person well to do, with sleek garments and a glossy beard over his smooth face, the old ferret sat down in the smoking room.

The room was most brilliantly lit up and expensively furnished, but the detective who had trailed men in every walk of life was not astonished.

He drew a cigar from his pocket and puffed leisurely away, all the time taking a good survey of the place.

A number of rich young men lounged about the room, filling the plush chairs, while on the floor above could be heard the noise of the billiard balls.

Presently a young man. entered the smoking room and took a seat nearly opposite the detective.

It was Claude Lamont.

Perry Lamont’s son showed signs of high living, for his face was florid and his nerves a little unstrung.

He was faultlessly attired, for he had the best tailor money could procure, and Old Search watched him furtively while he appeared to enjoy his Havana.

Claude Lamont seemed to have a good deal of time on his hands, and so did Old Search.

All at once a messenger boy entered the smoking room and looked around.

Spying Claude he hastened to him and handed him a letter

“Ha!” thought the watchful ferret. “He is not forgotten to-night, and now we’ll see if it is an important message.”

Claude tipped the boy and opened the letter.

He started a little as his eye fell upon the page and quickly glanced up as if to see if he were watched.

Then he settled down to a quiet perusal of the message, during which time Old Search got a good look at the workings of his countenance.

“Hang it all. It comes just when I don’t want to be bothered with the matter,” growled Claude, as he rammed the message hurriedly into his pocket and then went toward the cloak room.

Old Search watched him through the open door and saw the letter drop from his pocket as he put on his overcoat.

Lamont walked out without noticing his loss, and the moment he vanished the letter was in the detective’s hands.

In another second Old Search vanished, too, and as he came out upon the steps in front of the club he spied Lamont flitting round the nearest corner.

“Let him go. The quarry will not be missed just yet,” smiled the ferret, and then he went into a near cafe and in one of the private stalls opened the letter — —

“Didn’t want this matter to come up just now,” he laughed, as he glanced down the page. “Well, I should think not.”

It did not take the man of many trails long to master the lost missive, and when he finished he read what follows:

“Mr. Claude Lamont:

“I send you this for the last time. I will not be put off another day, and you must take the consequences, if you have the hardihood to do it. You know what I know, and if you do not come down I will unseal my lips. You fly high, like a bird with golden plumage, but I’ll clip your feathers and bring you to prison if you don’t pay attention to this letter. When my lips are unsealed there’ll be the biggest sensation New York has ever had, and you know it. Don’t put me off another day. You know what this means. I’m master of the field, and I can wreck your every hope and blight - your fashionable life.

“Imogene.”

Twice did the old detective read this over, and every word seemed to engrave itself upon his mind.

Quietly he folded the letter and smiled.

Who was “Imogene?”

Looking for her would be like hunting for a needle in the gutters of Gotham.

That she was a desperate woman the letter told him, and he did not. wonder that it paled Claude Lamont’s cheeks.

Perhaps if he had followed the young man he might have been guided by him to Imogene’s home, but he had to be content for the present with the letter.

Old Search, with the letter reposing in an inner pocket, came out of the cafe and for a moment stood under the lights that revealed the sidewalk.

“I’ll find the boy now,” he said. “Billy may have discovered something since I last saw him.”

Ten minutes later he entered a little room on Mulberry street and roused a boy who was sleeping on a rude couch.

It was not far from Mother Flintstone’s late hovel, and Billy looked astonished to see Old Search in the den.

“Been dreamin’ about you, Captain Search,” cried the boy, as he rubbed his eyes.

“Well, I’ll listen to the dream, Billy.”

“No, it wasn’t any good, but all the same I saw your face in it. You know the man who dragged me from Mother Flintstone’s?”

“Yes.”

“I ran afoul of him to-night.”

“Where, Billy?”

“Back in the old place, but this time he didn’t get to handle me.”

“No?”

“See here. He lost this in the house. It fell from his pocket when he pulled his handkerchief out,” and Billy handed the detective a card.

“Did you follow him after he left the old house?” he asked the boy.

“No. I just let him go, for I wanted to see what was on this card, for you, Captain.”

“Thanks, Billy.”

The name on the card stood out in bold relief to Old Search’s gaze, and he saw that one he might have seen before.

“You don’t know this Carter Richmond, do you, Billy?” he asked, looking down at the boy on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t.”

“Carter Richmond is a well-known man in certain quarters, but of late he hasn’t shown up often.”

“Is he crooked, Captain?”

“Yes, in a manner. How did he look to-night, Billy?”

“He wore a brown beard and was well dressed.”

“Did he limp a little?”

“Bless me if he didn’t, but I wouldn’t have thought of that if you hadn’t mentioned it.”

Old Search seemed satisfied.

“What did he seem to want in Mother Flintstone’s old quarters?”

“I hardly know. He sounded several of the walls, as if looking for a secret door, but he didn’t appear to find one.”

“Anything else?”

“He went over the floor like a fox, with his nose close to the boards.”

“Was that all?”

“No, he even sounded the ceiling.”

“Quite particular,” smiled the ferret.

“Wasn’t he, though? I never saw anything just like that. He didn’t let an inch of space escape him.”

“Did he seem excited?”

“Not a bit of it. He was as cool as a cucumber, and not for a minute did he get off his base. He seemed disappointed, though, that’s all—as if he expected to find some hidden wealth and didn’t, you see.”

“Maybe he overlooked it, Billy.”

“I don’t think there was any to overlook,” said the boy. “But, really, there’s no telling what that man was hunting, but he wasn’t there for any good you can bet your neck, Captain.”

“I’ll agree with you on that score, boy,” and Old Search put the card in his pocket. “Carter Richmond never goes out after small game. That’s his record.”

“Do you think he had anything to do with the murder of Mother Flintstone?” eagerly questioned the boy.

“Time will tell,” was the detective’s reply. “Do you think he had, Billy?”

“I do, I do,” cried the boy. “Bless me if I can get the idea out o’ my head. That man either killed Mother Flintstone or he knows who did.”

To this the detective made no reply, and he told the boy to go back to bed.

“Have you struck any clew yet, Captain?” asked Billy.

“A little one. There, go to bed and let me go to work again.”

“I will, but keep an eye on the man I saw tonight in Mother Flintstone’s house. He needs watchin’ day and night. Good night, Captain.”

Five minutes later the famous sleuth was far from Billy’s uncouth abode, and in an entirely different part of the great city.

He stopped at last, and looked up at a tall building that seemed to cleave the darkened sky far overhead.

The brief inspection seemed to satisfy the ferret, for he entered the main hallway and began to climb the un-carpeted stair.

He reached the third floor before he encountered any one, and there he was suddenly brought to a halt by a voice that rang down the ghostly corridor.

“Another step on your life” I have you at my mercy and I never fail to bring down my man. Stand where you are, for another step means a bullet in your brain!”

THE BIRD IN THE DEATH-TRAP

Leaving Old Search, the Shadow, in the net of doom let us go back a little in our story of crime and see how fared one of our other characters.

The readers will recollect Margie Marne’s visit to the Trocadero in answer to the mysterious note which had reached her, and how the detective discovered that the person whom she encountered vanished with her into the alley back of the cafe while Old Search himself was coolly and cleverly drugged by Caddy.

If the old ferret could have tracked the cab he would have seen it stop in front of a frame building not far from the East River.

He would have seen the door open and a man step out.

This person looked cautiously around, as if he feared he had been followed, but seeing that no one was on his track, he reached into the dark depths of the vehicle and brought out a limp form.

It was the form of the young girl, and he hastily carried her into the house.

Margie looked unconscious, as, indeed, she was. For she made no move of any kind, and once in the old house the man laid his burden on a sofa.

Then he went outside and spoke to the man on the box of the cab and the vehicle rattled away.

All this did not occupy much time, and had been accomplished as neatly as ever a dastardly job was.

Soon afterward there was a slight movement on the part of the girl on the sofa, and Margie looked up.

She seemed to have an Indistinct recollection of what had taken place, for she rose with difficulty and tottered across the darkened apartment.

“This is not home.” she exclaimed. “Neither is it the cafe where I met the stranger. What has happened and how came I to this house? I will not remain here. I must get out of this trap, for trap it must surely be.”

She found the door, but could not open it, and then, as a full sense of the horror overtook her, she fell to the floor.

The next second the door opened softly, and a man looked into the room.

His face, which was rather handsome, was full of devilish triumph, and for half a second he gloated over the body on the carpet.

“Caught,” he said. “Caught like a fly in the spider’s web. You didn’t give us much trouble, girl. We expected a little more than we met. But it’s all right. Now the coast will soon be clear. I’ll just turn you over to Nora.”

He went away with the last word on his lips, and five minutes later a woman entered the room.

She looked like a typical jaileress, for she was tall, raw boned and dark faced.

She smiled when she saw Margie.

“Another one!” she grinned. “This one won’t give me much trouble. Why, she’s but a girl. And such hands, too. I wonder where he netted her?”

She went to work restoring Margie to consciousness, and in a short time succeeded.

At. sight of her the young girl put. forth her hands in pleading gesture, but when the light fell full upon the woman’s face she shuddered and turned away.

“That’s right. I’m no beauty,” said the woman. “I’m no princess like the one in the fairy tale. They call me Nora, if you want to get acquainted with me. Call me Nora, nothing more.”

“But you’ve got another name?”

“Guess not: Nora’s good enough for me.”

“Then Nora, where am I?”

““’In my house.”

“Who brought me here?”

“There, don’t ask too many questions,” smiled the dark jaileress. “You are liable to get some lies if you do.”

“What, are you in the plot, too?”

“I know my business,” evasively answered the woman. “You don’t think I live here for nothing, little one?”

Margie felt hope almost desert her soul.

“But you don’t intend to keep me here,” she cried,

“You have no right to do that.”

“I obey orders, never asking any questions.”

“Then it is a plot against me. I remember the visit to the cafe. It was a decoy letter, after all. I went; I fell into the snare and here I am — lost!”

“Don’t take such a black view of matters and things,” was the reply. “Maybe they aren’t quite as dark as you paint them.”

“They are dark enough,” said the despairing girl. “You shall not keep me here.”

“Very well. Then go.”

Margie bounded across the room and caught the doorknob wildly.

“Why don’t you open the door?” coolly asked Nora.

“Heavens, I cannot!”

“That’s the easiest way to find out. No, you can’t get out till I say so.”

Margie looked at the woman and then once more at the window between her and the street.

“I’ll call for help,” she exclaimed.

“All right, miss.”

In a moment the poor girl was at the window, but when she drew back the curtain she saw inner shutters of iron.

Truly she was in durance.

“Why am I here? Surely you will tell me that? What have I done to deserve this fate?”

“Wait and see. You want some sleep, don’t you?”

“In this terrible house? No!”

“But you must take a little rest. Come.”

Nora gripped Margie’s wrist and led her from the

She escorted her upstairs and into a smaller apartment on the floor, where she pointed toward a bed.

“Not a particle of sleep till you tell me why I am treated thus,” cried the distracted girl.

“Then you’ll remain a long while awake,” was the quick answer. “I’ll tell you nothing.”

Margie grew desperate.

She darted forward and clutched the woman’s sleeve and looking into her face saw it grow white.

“Tell me!” cried Margie. “I am the victim of some awful plot. Is it because I am the detective’s friend?”

“The detective?” echoed Nora. “What detective?”

“Captain Search.”

The name had a magical effect on the woman, for she shrank as far away as Margie’s hand would let her, and for half a minute gazed into the girl’s face.

“Where is he?” she cried.

“On the trail.”

“On what trail?”

“On the trail of the hand that stilled Mother Flintstone’s life.”

“My God! Can this be true, girl?”

“It is true, and because I am Old Search’s friend I am here. You know him.”

Nora did not speak, but her lips parted in a gasp and she looked away.

“You don’t want that man to implicate you in the plot, do you?” asked Margie.

No answer.

“You don’t want to hang with the balance?”

“I won’t; the rope that hangs me isn’t made. The hemp has never grown for that purpose.”

“Then let me out of here.”

“To tell on me — to go to Old Search with the story of where you’ve been?”

“I’ll shield you, Nora.”

Margie thought she was making headway with her jaileress, but the next moment dispelled her hopes.

“Not for the world, girl,” said Nora. “I can’t afford to do that. It would doom me.”

“But this man will find out. He intends to discover the hand that took the old woman’s life. The murderer never escapes Old Search. He is doomed from the moment the trail is found.”

“I know him.”

“Then you don’t want to be dragged into his net. I am more than Margie Marne. I have another name, as I verily believe, and the man who brought me here knows that.”

“I cannot say.”

“It is the foulest plot ever hatched in this or any other city. Look here. Mother Flintstone lived alone in squalor and apparent poverty. One night she is killed — stabbed in the neck. Why was the life of the old woman taken? Who was the man who came back to the window, back to the scene of his crime to be discovered by little Billy, the street rat? What was Mother Flintstone to that man?”

“Was he the murderer?” asked Nora.

“If not, why did he come there? As I live, I believe that man has Mother Flintstone’s blood on his hands.”

“I don’t know,” she said, dropping her voice almost to a whisper. “But go to sleep, girl. I can’t let you out”

In another moment Margie was alone, for the woman had broken from her grasp, and the girl heard her footsteps on the stairs beyond the room.

“I see. This woman is merely the tool of the plotters,” thought Old Search’s fair friend. “She serves them, while she fears Captain Search. Nora knows the old detective, but she stands by the man who brought me to this place.”

The girl did not dream of going to bed.

She went to the window, and found it shuttered like the one in the lower room.

The old house was a prison, which seemed as solid as the Bastille, and at last Margie came away from the window.

An hour passed.

She heard footsteps come up the stairs and stop at the door

It was Nora coming back to see if she was asleep, and in a few seconds the steps receded.

At last she threw herself upon the bed, and, wearied out, fell into a dreamless slumber.

Suddenly, however, she opened her eyes, and then bounded from the couch.

Smoke which seemed to pour into the room over the door almost suffocated her.

She shrieked for help, she beat the door with her hands; she was here, there, everywhere.

But no help came, and as the walls of the little room grew hot Margie Marne fell senseless and hopeless to the carpet.

OLD SEARCH AND HIS QUARRY

It looked like a diabolical plot to make way with the girl who had interested herself in the death of Mother Flintstone.

Margie cried again for help, but none seemed to come..

She heard the roar of flames just beyond the door, and knew that it was locked.

Seconds seemed hours to the doomed maiden, and she felt her strength leave her.

Suddenly there was a crash, and some one broke into the room.

Margie tried to rise, but her powers could not stand the strain, and she fell back once more.

She felt some one lift her from the bed and carry her from the room.

She heard voices as in a dream, she felt smoke and flame in her face, and then a rush of cold air.

Was she saved ?

Had she been carried from the jaws of death and would she be able to tell the story of her escape?

She did not know.

When she came to again she saw a woman standing over her, and a gentle hand was laid upon her brow.

“It was a narrow escape, child,” said the nurse, as Margie looked up with a query in her eyes.

“Tell me,” said the girl.

“All I know is that a fireman saved you in the nick of time. He carried you from the house, which was entirely consumed. It was a brave act, and will get him a medal.”

“But the woman?”

“They saw no one but you in the house. Was there another?”

“Yes; Nora.”

The nurse shook her head.

“The other one may have left the house in time,” she remarked.

“She was my jaileress.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that you were in that house against your will?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“And you don’t know who Nora is?”

” I do not.”

Later in the day Margie, now fully recovered from the shock, was able to sit up, and an officer came to see her.

“The man I want to see is Captain Search, the detective. I will talk to him,” said the girl, and they telephoned for Old Search.

In a short time the answer came back that the veteran detective could not be found, and Margie adhered to her declaration that she would talk to no one but him.

Meantime Old Search, whom we left in the corridor of the tall building with a revolver at his head, had had an adventure of his own.

Eager to discover something about the man who had lost a card in Mother Flintstone’s den, he had made his way to the building, only to reach the third floor, where he was met by a man who covered him and told him that another step would seal his doom.

The old ferret had not bargained for an adventure of this kind, and the threat took him unawares.

He could see the well-built figure of the speaker, though it was not too well revealed, but the man’s face seemed to be half concealed by a mask.

He stood but a few feet from the detective, and Old Search noticed that the hand which held the weapon did not quiver.

There was a desperate man behind the six-shooter.

“What do you want?” suddenly demanded the stranger.

“I want to see you.”

“Well, I’m here.”

“Carter Richmond, we have not met for some time.”

The stranger laughed.

“Carter Richmond, eh? You don’t take me for that worthy, do you?”

“You are that man and no one else,” was the reply. “I am here to tell you this in spite of the menace of the revolver.”

“Well, what do you want with Carter Richmond?”

Old Search waved his hand toward a door near the man, and continued:

“You live in this building. We cannot talk in this hall.”

“That’s right. Come this way, sir.”

For the first time the weapon was lowered, and the man called Richmond by the old ferret opened the door.

His action revealed a room scantily furnished, but Old Search stepped forward.

The moment he crossed the threshold the door was shut, and the other turned a key in the lock.

“Now, sir, what is it?” he demanded.

The detective turned and looked him in the face.

He saw that that face was now revealed, and that it was covered by just the sort of beard that Billy had described.

“You have been to Hell’s Kitchen.” said the old detective, as coolly as if he addressed a man in the chief’s private room, instead of where he was

“That’s news to me,” laughed the listener, as his face seemed to lose color. ’“What business would I have in that delectable locality?”

“Never mind that. You went there.”

“Who says so?”

“The person who saw you.”

“You?”

“The person who saw you,” repeated the ferret with emphasis, as he watched the man like a hawk.

“Well, what of it?”

“You sounded the walls.”

“In Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Yes, in Mother Flintstone’s den.”

“Why, she’s dead.”

“That’s true. You went to her house and sounded the walls. You examined the floor and looked closely at the ceiling.”

The fellow seemed to grow desperate.

“What if I did?” he growled.

“You lost something there.”

The man started.

“Don’t you know that a man bent on evil always leaves a clue behind?”

“That’s an old story, but they don’t always do that. In the first place, you have nothing to prove that I went to Mother Flintstone’s den. I defy you.”

One of Old Search’s hand vanished into a pocket, and came out with a small card between thumb and finger.

“You left this there,” said he, coolly displaying the bit of pasteboard.

The other fastened his eyes upon the card for a moment. and then glared at Old Search.

“Supposing all this is true.” he said; “what are you going to make out of it?”

“You went there after something the old woman is supposed to have concealed in the den. That is why you searched the walls, Carter Richmond. Did you do it for your friend, or was it all done on your own hook?”

“For my friend?”

“Yes, for the friend you serve — the money king’s heir.”

At this there was a sudden start, and Carter Richmond looked toward the door.

“You are taking desperate chances in order to keep up your reputation as a detective,” he said at last. “I never thought you would resort to this. I know you. I know that you are Old Search, the metropolitan ferret, but with all your shrewdness you can’t hoodwink me.”

With this the speaker moved toward the door and laid his hand upon the knob.

Before Old Search could cross the room he saw the door flung open, and the man sprang out into the hall.

The portal was slammed in Old Search’s face, and a key turned in the lock.

All this was the work of a second, and he heard the feet of the other on the stairs without:

As for himself he was a prisoner in the room.

The gas burning overhead revealed the place to him, and he went back and stood for a little while at the table.

He felt that Carter Richmond was already on the street below and out of sight.

“I must follow that villain,” said Old Search, and again he was at the door.

All his strength could not move the portal, and then he threw himself against it, but still it would not yield..

Other doors had fallen before his assaults, but this one seemed built of adamant, and he drew back out of breath, but by no means discouraged.

He knew he was in the third story of a building, and that the room looked out upon a narrow alleyway between two houses. This he could see from the window, and he saw. too, that he could not reach the fire escape from where he was without great risk.

But it was not his intention to remain in the room any longer than he could help it.

He raised the sash and measured the distance to the fire escape, upon which he would be safe.

Old Search studied the situation a short time, and then dexterously leaped for the escape.

His hands caught the irons, and he drew himself upon the platform.

There he stopped a little while for breath and looked around.

No one seemed to have witnessed his feat, and he congratulated himself in silence that so far he had succeeded almost beyond his expectations.

In another minute he was going down the iron rungs of the ladder with the escaping villain in his hand.

By that time Carter Richmond was far away, but the old detective hoped still to overhaul him.

He gained the street , none the worse for his startling adventure, but of course the quarry was gone.

A few yards distant on a corner with the lamplight falling upon his figure stood a policeman, and Old Search went toward him.

The copper had seen a man pass a short time before, and told Old Search so.

“He went that way a little fast,” said the policeman, pointing down the street, and as Old Search started off a carriage came round the corner.

The light for a moment fell upon it, and the old detective caught sight of a man’s face at the window.

He knew it at once — the face of Claude Lamont!

STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS

Just what the millionaire’s son was doing in that part of the city at that hour Old Search could not conceive, but that his mission was not of the most honest kind he did not doubt.

The carriage was out of sight in a few moments, and the detective was alone with the patrolman.

Seeing that it was not worth while trying to find Carter Richmond in that locality, the old ferret made his way to his own little quarters near Broadway.

The moment he opened the door he was surprised to see Billy, the street waif, spring from a couch in one corner of the room and bound toward him.

“I’ve got him located now!” cried the boy,

“You’ve got who located, Billy?”

“The man who gave me the slip the other night on the street.”

“Where is he?”

Billy told the ferret that if he would follow him he would show him the man in question, and the sleuth obeyed.

“Look at the gentleman over there at the table in the corner,” said the boy, when he had taken Old Search to a little theatre and from a secluded spot in the gallery pointed to a man at a table on the ground floor.

“That’s Claude Lamont. This is luck, Billy! When did you see him come here?”

“Half an hour ago.”

“Well, I’ll take care of him now.”

Old Search sat down and watched the man below.

The. place was a free-and-easy, and the resort of a good many shady people, but on that particular night it did not seem to enjoy its usual custom.

The detective could easily believe that Claude Lamont could have been driven to the free-and-easy after he saw his face in the cab, and now he intended to keep the young fellow in sight.

For an hour Old Search kept his post, when Claude suddenly rose and looked at his watch.

In another moment he spoke to a man near the table and that person nodded.

Old Search left his seat and kept an eye on the nabob’s son.

Claude coolly lit a cigar at the counter and moved toward the street.

On the sidewalk he looked both ways and then started off.

Old Search was at his heels.

Lamont walked several squares and then turned up the steps of a well-to-do house.

The detective drew back.

Soon after the door had been shut a light appeared in the front window.

Almost at the same time the door of the adjoining house opened slightly and a face peeped out.

“Heavens! Bristol Clara!” cried the detective the moment he spied this face. “Things are playing into my hands better than I deserve. I wonder if she will serve me now.”

The door had barely shut ere Old Search was there and his ring caused it to open again.

There was a slight cry from the woman in the hall, and the detective pushed in and faced her.

“You?” cried the woman, falling back. “You said you would never bother me again.”

“That’s true, Clara, but this is for the last time. Who is your neighbor?”

“Ha! don’t you know?”

“If I did I wouldn’t ask you, would I?”

” Perhaps not. You want to find out something about them?”

“There are two, eh?”

“Yes; one just came home.”

“Which one, woman?”

“The one with the dust.”

“The other is the featherless bird, is he?”

“Yes, but he’s the coolest one, I’m thinking.”

“You don’t live here for nothing, Clara. This is a sort of double house.”

“That’s just what it is.”

“Then, you know how to see what is going on in the side over there. I want to see, too.”

The woman moved across the room and was followed by the old ferret.

“What’s the case now? Tell me that first,” said Bristol Clara, stopping suddenly and turning upon the detective.

“Murder.”

The woman started.

“Is it that bad?” she exclaimed. “Who was the victim — man or woman?”

“One of your sex.”

“Old or young?”

“An old woman — a ‘fence,’ Clara.”

“Not — —”

Bristol Clara stopped and looked away.

“I guess you’ve heard about the crime,” said the ferret. “I am on the trail of the murderer of Mother Flintstone.”

“I thought so. Well, the secret may be in that house beyond this partition. Those men have talked about that very crime. I’ve heard them.”

The woman led the detective upstairs and opened a small door in one of the walls.

A dark apartment was disclosed, and she entered, followed by the man at her heels.

“We are now in the other house,” said Clara, laying her hand on Old Search’s arm, which she found in the dark. “Here is a stairway which I accidentally discovered last summer, and which I have used on several occasions.”’

“It leads down to the room where I saw the light, doesn’t it?”

“Not exactly. There is a hole in the ceiling. I made it with a knife. You see, I didn’t know how soon I would be wanting to find out something about my neighbors, and so I haven’t been idle.”

“You’re worth your weight in gold, Clara.”

In a little while Old Search found himself in another dark place, and Clara pointed to a ray of light that seemed to come up from some place under their feet, and the detective drew closer.

“Put your eye down to it,” said the woman.

This Old Search did, and soon became accustomed to the scene beneath him.

He was looking into a large and expensively furnished room.

Pictures in large gilt frames were arranged on the walls, and thick Brussels covered the floor.

The chandeliers were of expensive make, and everything betokened great wealth.

The room was inhabited at the time by a man who reclined in an arm-chair under the main light.

Old Search knew him at once.

It was Claude Lamont.

The ferret had a good chance to study the young man’s features, and he could note how eager he seemed to greet some one.

He was not kept long in suspense when the door leading to the main hall opened and some one entered.

“Carter Richmond — my old friend Carter,” smiled Old Search, as he watched the other one. “He gave me the slip in the tall building, and now greets his old chum, Claude.”

“You’re a little behind,” said Claude, looking at his. “You must have had an adventure.”

“That’s just what I’ve had,” laughed the other, taking a cigar from the open box on the table at Lamont’s elbow. “Say I didn’t play it on the shrewdest old ferret in the city, will you?”

“On a detective? What, have you had a bout with one of those people?”

“Haven’t I? I left him in durance, and it will be some time before he gets out, I’m thinking.”

“Come, tell the whole story. I’ve had a little adventure myself,” exclaimed Lamont. “You don’t mean to say that you’ve had a little episode with our friend, the Captain?”

“With no one else.”

“Why didn’t you silence him?”

“I hardly know. But we’ll fix him later on.”

“Did he know you?”

“Yes.”

“What gave you away?”

“One of my old cards. I lost it in the den.”

“Oh, you’ve been back there, eh?”

“Yes. I went back to give the old place another inspection. I sounded the walls and inspected the floor but I couldn’t find the papers.”

“Then they don’t exist.”

“I’m beginning to think that way myself. But the old hag certainly knew the truth, and don’t you think she made out just such papers intending to leave them some day to the girl or to the street rat?”

“To the girl perhaps, but never to the rat,” said Lamont. “Margie knows a good deal, and would be a dangerous person for us to fight if she had the cleverness of some women. But she’s caged for some time, and Nora will see that she remains silent. But the papers? We must have something of the kind. If Mother Flintstone did not leave such, we must make them.”

“Now, that’s it.”

“The governor won’t knuckle down till he sees them, and then we’ll get all we want.”

For half a second Richmond smoked in silence, and then he threw his cigar in a spittoon.

“We must make the papers!” he cried. “Your father, Perry Lamont, must give you free use of his purse-strings. When I called on him and threatened to send you to the gallows unless he handed over ten thousand dollars he laughed in my face, and I came away with no cash at all. But I picked a check-book from the desk, as you know, with one good check filled out. That’s helped us some.”

“Yes; but it’s a mere drop in the bucket. The governor must be confronted with certain papers proving that Mother Flintstone was his sister and my aunt. That will open the cash-box, Carter,” and young Lamont laughed.

“The infernal villains!” ejaculated Old Search, as these details of infamy fell upon his ears; “if that isn’t a gallows pair then I never saw one in all my life. Claude Lamont can’t get his hands on the Lamont cash-box, and that’s what worries him. One of those men killed Mother Flintstone; but which one?”

In another moment Claude and Carter arose and left the room, and Bristol Clara said:

“That ends the exhibition for the present,” and the old ferret answered that he was satisfied.

A TERRIBLE COMPACT

Perry Lamont, the millionaire, stood underneath the brilliant chandelier in his luxurious library, apparently waiting for some one.

He looked anxiously toward the door, and when it opened his eyes glittered.

The person who entered the room was his son.

For half a second father and son stood face to face, and then the former waved the other to a chair.

Claude, looking a little worse for a night out, complied, and waited for his father to speak.

“Who is this man Richmond?” asked Lamont, senior.

The young man started.

“He is your friend, I believe?”

“He is, and he is a nice gentleman,” said Claude.

“I judge so,” and a smile came to the father’s lips.

“What has happened? You speak sarcastically this morning.”

“Do I? Well, I want you to give up this ‘nice gentleman.’”

Claude looked away, but in a moment his gaze came back to his father’s face.

“This man is a rascal,” spoke up the millionaire.

“That’s a pretty bold charge against a friend of mine,”

“Bold or not, it’s true,”

“Who is the accuser?”

“Never mind that.”

“I demand to know. Mr. Richmond has a right to face his accuser, and he will do so.”

“But you haven’t denied the charge for your friend.”

“I do it now.”

“Then he is a nice gentleman still, is he?”

“He is, sir.”

Claude flushed.

“I am the accuser,” and the face of the millionaire grew white. “I call him a rascal.”

“Upon what grounds?”

“He tried to blackmail me.”

“Mr. Richmond?”

“Yes, sir. That man came here but a few days ago and wanted to rob me of ten thousand dollars.”

“Impossible!” cried Claude, feigning astonishment.

“It is true, and what is more, he hinted that you had committed a great crime.”

“Come, come; you must have been dreaming.”

“I was as wide awake then as I am now.” And Lamont senior smiled knowingly. “You must drop this black bird.”

“I am of age and have the right to choose my friends,” was the answer.

“Then keep him and yourself in the future.”

The young man gazed at his father in wide-open astonishment.

“You certainly don’t mean that,” he said.

“I do. He is your friend, you say. Keep him and yourself. I guess that’s plain.”

Claude Lamont rose and crossed the room.

“You don’t know what you do,” he cried.

“I know what I do. It is either lose this friend, as you call him, or lose your fortune.”

“He never tried to blackmail you.”

“He did!” thundered the nabob. “In this very room he wanted to sell the so-called secret for ten thousand dollars. I drove him away. I wouldn’t have anything to do with the scoundrel. But it seems you do. You are with him night and day, and you are old enough to know that you can’t play with pitch and not become defiled.”

Claude smiled derisively at this, and for a moment was silent.

“Look here,” he suddenly said; “I can’t give this man up. He knows too much.”

“What’s that?” cried Lamont senior. “Do you admit that you are in his power?”

“I didn’t say so. I only remarked that I can’t throw him to one side. He knows too much.”

“Against whom?”

“Against the house.”

“It cannot be.”

“I’m afraid it’s true. This man is my friend, and I have been keeping near him for a purpose, and that purpose the salvation of the good name of Lamont.”

A strange and eager light seemed to come into the millionaire’s eyes, and for half a second he did not continue.

“Sit down,” he said. “Tell me what this man knows.”

Claude went back to the chair.

“He knows a good deal more than we can afford to let him tell,” he said. “I don’t say that Richmond will tell the secret on the street or anything of that kind, but we can’t afford to let him have the opportunity.”

“In God’s name, what is the secret?”

“Of course he never told me, but I only guess at it from hints he has dropped while in his cups. It’s a terrible thing, if it’s true — a fearful secret, father.”

“Out with it. I am strong, you see, and can listen to any recital you make.”

Claude crossed the room, and looked cautiously into the hall.

No one was there.

Coming back, he resumed his seat in the chair and looked at the white-faced man opposite.

“Whatever became of Aunt Hester?” he asked.

The expression that came into Perry Lamont’s face was most startling.

Every vestige of color left it, and it became as white as a marble statue.

“Who ever told you that I had a sister Hester?” he asked.

“Never mind that. I only asked the question.”

“Is this some of your friend’s work?”

“That is a part of his secret. He says he has certain papers that will startle the world, that he has in his possession a certain confession or a family history written out by an old woman who called herself-”

Young Lamont paused, for his father was gasping like a man fighting for his breath.

“Go on. Tell me all. What did this woman call herself?” he cried.

“Mother Flintstone,” coolly said the son. “She lived in Hell’s Kitchen, and was murdered a few nights ago.”

“Yes, yes. I saw something of that in the newspapers.”

“Well, from what I have heard Richmond say in a dark way when in his cups he can prove that Mother Flintstone, the old fence, was your sister.”

“Great heavens!” cried Perry Lamont. “Has he got the documents left by this woman?”

“I fear he has.”

“But he didn’t offer them to me.”

“I can’t say as to that.”

“He only offered to keep the knowledge of your doings from the world for ten thousand dollars.”

“But he has the papers now. I am confident of that.”

“Will he sell them?” eagerly asked the millionaire.

“He might.”

“For how much?”

“You must negotiate with him.”

“Look here, Claude, my boy. Can’t you get possession of those papers?”

“How?”

“Any way. I don’t care how you get them.”

“You wouldn’t want me to rob my friend?”

“I say I don’t care how you get them.”

“But he would still possess the secret.”

“We’d take care of him after the documents had been found. How did he get them? Was he familiar with Mother Flintstone?”

“I don’t know.”

“The merciless villain! He holds the peace of our house in his hands. This man is the quintessence of rascality. Talk about your polished blackmailers. He stands at the head of the procession. I’ll hand him over to the police at once.”

“Try it, and the whole thing will come out.”

Lamont senior gasped again.

“Where does Richmond board?”

“He changes his place often. I don’t believe he sleeps two nights in the same place.”

“Like the Sultan. But, look here, my boy. You don’t want the good name of our house destroyed?”

“One of the last things I want to see,” said the young rake.

“Then help me destroy this man. Help me to get those papers and silence him.”

“It is true, then?”

“It is true.”

“Mother Flintstone was your sister?”

“Yes, yes. She was Hester, the sister who contracted a poor marriage years ago and finally drifted into crime.”

’Claude Lamont seemed struck with a thunderbolt, and for some time he sat in the presence of his father dazed and speechless.

“I had hoped the truth would never come out,” continued the millionaire. “I accidentally discovered a year ago who Mother Flintstone was, but I said nothing. I would have given her thousands to have thrown herself from the Bridge or to have left the city, but I dared not approach her. And so she left a confession behind; she has left the secret to a scoundrel like this Carter Richmond. Why, this man has more names than one.”

“A good many people have nowadays,” answered Claude.

“Well, he must be silenced somehow.”

“With money?”

“Not if I can help it. I would like to know what sort of communication Mother Flintstone left.”

“It seems to me the best way to deal with the secret holder is to come to his terms,” suggested Claude.

“And be bled every now and then? I’ll defy him first!”

“Come, come. You can’t afford to do that. Think of our station in society. Sister is on the eve of marriage, and mother’s health is not what it used to be. We must come to his terms to save the house of La-mont.”

The millionaire began to pace the floor like a wild

“What will you take to strangle the scoundrel, Claude?” he suddenly exclaimed, halting before his son. “You have every opportunity. Name your price.

“My God! You don’t really mean that?” cried the young man.

“I do, every word of it. What will you take to silence this man forever?”

“Two hundred thousand cash in hand.”

“Done!” exclaimed the millionaire. “That’s a bargain!”

DARK HEIRESS AGAIN

It was a cool compact.

Perry Lamont made answer to his son with all the cleverness of a practised villain, and Claude accepted it in the same manner.

“I want this man silenced,” continued the millionaire. “He must not possess this secret.”

“Just as you say,” said Claude, picking up a cigar and coolly lighting it.

“He must not, I say. You’ve agreed to finish him, and when you’ve done so the money is yours.”

“Couldn’t you give me a little check now?” asked the son.

Perry Lamont took a checkbook from the desk and opened it as he looked at his son.

“How much?”

“Say five thousand. I may need the money in the venture, you know.”

Without more ado the nabob drew up a check for five thousand dollars, and passed it across the table.

“This business must not lag,” said he. “While that man lives he is dangerous.”

Five minutes later the young man stood on a corner in another part of the city.

He was smoking complacently and apparently waiting for some one, for he watched the door of a well-known resort.

Presently the door opened and Carter Richmond came out.

Claude joined him at once, and the pair walked away together.

In a little while they seated themselves at a table in *a room not far from the corner, and Claude threw the check upon the table.

“Jehu! did you make it?” cried Richmond.

“I did.”

“How?”

The young scamp smiled.

“It’s blood money,” he said.

“Blood money?” exclaimed Richmond. “In heaven’s name, whose blood does it mean?”

“Yours!”

“Come, what joke is this?”

“It is no joke. I never joke on serious matters like this.”

The eyes of the two men met.

“This check is signed by your father, and yet you tell me that it is blood money.”

“That’s precisely what it is. He’s hired me to kill you.”

Carter Richmond broke into a laugh and leaned back in his chair.

“You don’t look like it, boy,” he cried. “Well, if I’m to be killed, why don’t you do it now?”

Claude reached forward and picked up the check.

“I’m to have a cool two hundred thousand for the job,” said he. “Just think of it, Carter. You’re an important person.”

“Hang me if I ain’t. Why does the old man want me out of the way?”

“You hold the secret, and he believes you have the papers left by Mother Flintstone.”

“You gave him that gaff, did you?”

“Yes, in great shape.”

“I hardly thought you’d do it. But since you have I suppose you’re to furnish proofs that I’ve been killed.”’

“Of course.”

“You are not expected to furnish the corpse, I hope?””

“No; not quite that. But he’s to have some sort of proofs, and then we’ll get the two hundred thousand.”

For an hour these men kept their heads together and talked in low tones.

They discussed first one plan and then another, and when they at last adjourned and stepped out upon the street they seemed satisfied about something.

Not far from the place of meeting a hand was laid upon Claude Lamont’s arm, and he looked into the face of a tall woman.

“You?” he cried, for he was alone, having separated from Richmond a few moments previous.

“Yes? Why not?”

“I thought I left you in the nest with Margie.”

“So you did, but there isn’t any nest now.”

“No nest? What’s happened?”

“The old place is in ashes.”

Lamont uttered a startled cry, and looked at the woman, who did not speak.

“You .weren’t to hurt the girl, you know,” said he.

“That’s true, but I couldn’t help it.”

“But tell me. Come in here. No one will listen to us. Now, what has taken place?”

Nora took a long breath and began.

“The girl got almost unruly. I got her up to bed, but she faced me and threatened.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have paid any attention to her words.””

“I couldn’t help it. She mentioned a name that drove every vestige of color from my face.”

“An old enemy’s name, eh?”

“Yes; she spoke of a detective whom I fear with all my soul. She spoke of Captain Search.”

“And made you chicken-hearted, eh? Pshaw, woman!”

“I couldn’t help it, I say. It filled me with fear, and I broke away.”

“Well?”

“By and by the room became still, and I found that she was asleep at last.”

“That’s good.”

“In the room below I upset the lamp.”

“The devil you did, woman! You must have been badly frightened.”

“I was. In an instant it seemed the fire was everywhere. I saw it mount the stairs and dart toward the girl’s room. Fear almost paralyzed me. I tried to get up stairs, but failed. The fire was everywhere. It filled the whole house, it seemed. I could no more stop its progress than I could stop the river yonder. I fled for my life.”

“And left Margie to perish in the flames?”

“God help me, I did.”

Lamont leaned back and looked at the woman, whose face was deathly white.

“Did she perish?” he asked at last.

“She must have died in the old house. I did not stay to look after her. Fear lent speed to my limbs, and I ran like a deer. Not for the world would I have gone back.”

“You’ve killed the girl!” hissed Claude Lamont. “You’ve made a murderess out of yourself.”

Nora did not speak, but looked into the young man’s face and exposed anew the whiteness of her own.

“I suppose you haven’t been there since?” he said.

“What, go back to that spot? Never!”

Claude Lamont drained the glass at his elbow and seemed to take a long breath.

“What makes you fear this man, Old Search? What did he ever do that gives you the chills?”

“That’s my secret,” cried the woman, half defiantly.

“What makes him your enemy, and, pray, what did you do that his name terrifies you?”

She did not answer him.

“Look here!” suddenly said Claude. “If you’ve killed the girl by your faint heart I’ll hold you responsible.

“Just as you please,” was the reply.

Nora seemed to be getting her old nerve back, for she spoke with spirit, and her cheeks flushed for the first time.

“You never got such orders from me, he went on.

“I know it. I dropped the lamp-”

“Come; no excuses,” interrupted the young man. I shall hold you responsible — guilty of murder.”

“Just as if you never did anything that has a shady side,” hissed the woman. “You’re a nice man to talk thus. What have you done that makes an angel out of you, I should like to know?” “No accusations, woman.”

“Very well. Will you hand me over to the police? Will you tell the inspector that I am the last person who saw the girl alive? I guess not’”

“Don’t dare me.”

“What if I tell them that Margie was Mother Flintstone’s grand-daughter — —”

“She wasn’t!” flashed Claude Lamont.

“You take it up in a jiffy.” grinned Nora. “If she wasn’t why did you resent my words so soon?”

For half a second Lamont watched the dark face before him, and then he said:

“We’ll call it quits. After all, perhaps you couldn’t have helped it. The lamp fell from your hand, did it?”

“I told you once.”

“And you couldn’t stop the flames?”

“I couldn’t. I’d give my eyes if that girl was alive to-day. I did not do it intentionally. My evil genius must have been on the watch.”

“We’ll say so, at any rate, Nora.”

It was the first time he had spoken her name during the interview, and his voice was considerably softened.

“The department may have reached the fire in time to save the girl,” he went on.

“No, no; she perished. The whole house was in flames by the time I got away. I’m going now.”

“Still afraid of the old sleuth’s shadow?”

“Never mind the detective. I’m going, I say.”

“Do you mean that you’re going away?”

“Yes — to put ten thousand miles between me and that infernal crime of mine.”

Lamont drew forth his pocket-book and began to count out some bills.

“Put up your money. It’s blood money!” cried Nora. “I wouldn’t touch a note of your father’s wealth. I don’t want money. I’ve got all I shall need.”

“Then you’re going but a short distance’.’”

“Yes; not far.”

The last word seemed to come from between clenched teeth, and a desperate look settled on the woman’s face.

“Then here’s to you, Nora, and good luck go with you.” and Lamont held out his hand.

She pushed it away, with a look of disdain.

“It’s like your money. There’s blood on it, too!” she exclaimed. “Some day you’ll wish you had never had anything to do with this game of crime. Goodby.”

She sprang up, gave him another look and vanished.

“She’s mad, but it’s all right. She will try the river,” he laughed.

FOUND IN THE TIDE

After the scene Old Search had witnessed through Bristol Clara’s assistance he made his way to another part of the city and entered a little house, where he was confronted by Billy, the street rat.

The detective wanted to ascertain if the boy had picked up anything new, and his first words startled him.

“They didn’t burn her up, did they, Cap’n?”

“Didn’t burn who up, Billy?”

“Margie, you know.”

The detective as yet had heard nothing of the fire at which Margie Marne nearly lost her life, and he lost no time questioning Billy.

The boy had heard of the fire through a fireman, and had gone direct to the hospital, where he had held an interview with the girl herself.

“I’ll see her, too,” said Old Search. “This is important, Billy, and Margie must be seen.”

Imagine the astonishment of the girl when she saw Old Search walking up the aisle toward her.

A smile of pleasure overspread her face, and she held out her hand.

“This is indeed a great pleasure,” cried Margie. “We’ve been sending after you, and just when we give you up here you come. I’ve been within the shadow of death.”

“So Billy told me.”

“I wonder if Nora, my jaileress, escaped?”

“We will find that out by and by. Tell me the whole story, Margie, and then we will see what can be done.”

The girl proceeded, and gave the old detective the entire story of her adventures while in the hands of Claude Lamont and under Nora’s care, and Old Search listened attentively.

“I think I can locate your jaileress.” said he, at the end of Margie’s narrative.

“Do so. She didn’t treat me badly, only she was true to her master. She started at the mention of your name, though.”

“Did she?” smiled Old Search.

“It drove every vestige of color from her face.”

“She’s met me somewhere, then,” said the ferret. “I want to see Nora.”

Half an hour later the detective reached the scene of the fire, and looked upon the ruins of Margie’s prison.

The house had been entirely destroyed, and some of the neighbors seemed glad that it was so. ,

“.None of us liked the tall, dark-faced woman, with the little red scar over her left eye,” said a woman who lived near the place, and whom Old Search addressed.

““What did you call her?”

“Oh. we never called on her at all. She was very exclusive.”

“Had no visitors, eh?”

“Yes, sometimes. A man would drop in, generally after dark, and stay about half an hour.”

“You saw him, did you?”

“I couldn’t help it, you see, from where I live.”

“What was he like?”

“He was younger than the woman. He was always well dressed. like a swell nabob, and carried himself like a sport.”

“Claude again.” thought, Old Search. “You never saw the woman go out?”

His. last question was addressed to the neighbor.

“Not often. She remained at home, and seemed to attend to her own business.”

“You’re sure about the scar, are you?”

“Bless you, yes. I saw it more than once, when we happened to meet in the little grocery on the corner yonder. It was a real red scar.”

Old Search handed the woman a piece of money, which she did not refuse, and went away.

He went direct to Police Headquarters and to the famous rogues’ gallery.

There he began to look through the large albums containing the faces of criminals and suspects, and for nearly an hour he turned the thick leaves industriously.

At last he stopped and leaned over the page.

His eyes seemed to become fastened upon a certain face, that of a woman, angular and dark.

Turning to the proper entry he read a description of the woman whose photographed face was before him, and he seemed to smile when he noted that she had a brilliant red scar over the left eye.

“This must be our old friend,” said the detective. “This is Mag Maginnis, the shoplifter, whom I sent up the river five years ago. I didn’t see the scar then. She got it since, and the photograph is the second one she’s had the honor of having in this collection. So Mag started at mention of my name my Margie. No wonder. I filled her with terror when I caught her in the dry goods district in the very act of plundering a counter. We’ll see.”

He shut the album and walked away.

Old Search never let a trail get cold, and therefore he proceeded to a part of the city where he hoped to strike Mag’s trail.

“The Lord deliver us! Here’s Captain Search!” cried a woman’s shrill voice, as the detective opened a door and confronted a female at a table.

The woman had seen better days, for an air of refinement still lingered about the place, the appointments of which were poor.

She sat bolt upright, looking into the face she had instantly recognized, and the ferret stood for a moment at the door.

“You don’t want me, I hope?” asked the woman.

“Not at all, Sybil.”

“That’s good, but I couldn’t see how you would, seeing that I’ve been good for three years.”

“I know that, and you’re to have all the credit, too.”

“Thank you, Captain Search. But if you had come a little sooner you might have seen an old friend,” and the woman laughed.

“What old friend was here, Sybil?”

“It was Mag. You remember her?”

In spite of his coolness the detective started.

“Yes,” continued the woman called Sybil, “Mag was ! here, and bade me goodby- She’s going off. What’s happened, Captain Search? Mag wouldn’t explain.”

“Where did she go, Sybil?” asked the ferret, paying no attention to the woman’s query.

“She did not tell me: But I never saw Mag in just the way she was. She said she was tired of life, tired of pulling other people’s chestnuts out of the fire, and now and then she acted like a person on the verge of insanity. She may have gone to the river, for once or twice she mentioned it in despairing tones.”

“How long has she been gone?” eagerly questioned the old detective.

” Barely twenty minutes.”

“I’ll see you later, Sybil,” cried Old Search, turning to the door. “I must find Mag, if possible.”

“She’s Nora now, you know.”

“Yes, yes.”

“She dropped ‘Mag’ months ago, or soon after she came down the river.”

“But she’s Mag yet,” smiled Old Search, and in another second the woman was left alone, wondering why he wanted to see Nora so badly.

There were many chances against Old Search finding the woman he sought, but he did not despair.

The piers of New York are many and long.

From them thousands have leaped to their death, or been thrown into the waters after dark by those whose hands are red with crime.

More than once the old sharp’s trail had taken him to the docks, and there he had picked up more than one clew.

Every dock in the city was known to Old Search.

While among them he was at home, and knew where they began and ended.

The bare thought that this old criminal had gone to the river in a fit of remorse, for he doubted not that she thought Maggie had perished in the fire, urged him on.

Of course if Nora intended to commit suicide she had had ample time to carry out her plans, but still there was a chance that she had changed her mind-

Old Search reached the river at a spot nearest the house he had just left.

He could see nothing of the hunted woman, and no crowd such as gathers on the piers when the body of a suicide has been discovered greeted him.

The detective walked along the river front for some distance with his senses on the alert.

All at once he caught sight of something floating in the water, and he stopped suddenly and leaned forward.

It did not take him long to see that the object was the body of a woman, and Old Search called a policeman who stood a short distance away.

“That’s, the same woman!” cried the patrolman the moment he caught sight of the body.

“What woman?” asked Old Search.

“Why, sir, the woman who came down here three hours ago and asked me some fool questions about the river.”

“Well?”

“I didn’t notice which way she went. But that’s her.”

Old Search and the policeman managed to bring the body against the logs of the pier, and the detective clambered down and hauled it up.

The burden was a heavy one, but the ferret’s hand did not lose its grip, and in time the body lay on the wharf, which it drenched.

The old detective looked into the long face, and his gaze alighted upon a little scar over the left eye.

“This is Nora — Margie’s jaileress, but she’s Mag Maginnis, the old offender. She’s not to blame entirely for this. The hand of her master drove her to suicide, and he shall pay for it!”

Old Search seemed to speak the last words through clenched teeth, and his voice told that he meant every word he said.

The policeman in the meantime called the patrol, and Old Search had extracted from the woman’s bosom a little flat package like a memorandum, which he hastily transferred to his own pocket.

“That’s the end of one poor storm-tossed soul,” muttered the detective as he walked away. “I found Mag sooner than I expected, but we’ve not heard the last of her.”

Half a block from the river front the detective nearly ran against a man who came out of a house with a reputation none of the best and walked off.

The walk and the well-known shoulders as revealed by the man caused a light of recognition to leap up into Old Search’s eyes, and his gaze followed the fellow some distance.

“What brought you to the scene of Nora’s death, Claude Lamont?” mentally queried the man of clews. “Did you have to hound the poor creature to the last terrible act of her life?”

OLD SEARCH’S FAIR FOE

Old Search followed the young man until he lost him beyond the doors of a well-known cafe, and then he turned away.

Nora, alias Mag Maginnis, had ended her life in the cold waters of the dock, and the old ferret believed that Claude Lamont was morally responsible.

“Now for another visit to the lion’s den,” said the old detective, as he made his way to another part of the city and rang the bell attached to the millionaire’s mansion.

It was not the hour for a social call, but he found the money king at home.

He had not forgotten his former visit, when he was faced by the daughter and warned not to carry his hunt too far.

Old Search still saw the fine figure of the girl before him and her flashing eyes, but she had not deterred him.

He was shown at once to the library, and Perry Lamont turned his chair so as to face the old detective.

“What is it, sir?” he asked.

Before Old Search could reply the door opened and the daughter. Opal, came in.

Opal Lamont was handsome, *with a fine figure and a bright face; but her eyes seemed full of fire, and unnatural fire at that.

Spying the detective she advanced haughtily and faced him.

“Are you going to hold an interview with this man ?” she asked her father.

“I presume he is here to see me.”

“I’ll remain,” answered Opal, and the next moment she dropped into a chair and turned her face to the ferret.

Her manner was positive, if not insulting, and the old detective swallowed it mutely.

Perry Lamont seemed rejoiced to have his daughter beside him.

It made him look triumphantly at Old Search, and for a moment a smile of victory appeared at his mouth.

“Now, sir, we’ll proceed,” he said. “Your mission here you can make known and we will listen.”

Old Search did not hesitate.

“You remember that I am on the trail of the person who killed Mother Flintstone?”

“I remember.”

“You remember, too, begging the young lady’s pardon, that the old lady was your near kin.”

These words were like a spark to a magazine, and the next moment Opal broke forth.

“It’s the same old blackmailing scheme, father. You shall not listen to it.”

“Calm yourself, Miss Lamont — — -”

“I am calm enough now. You shall not introduce such subjects in this house. We do not recognize the old hag who was killed, perhaps righteously, in the place called Hell’s Kitchen. You must talk about another matter if you want to remain here.”

Perry Lamont looked crushed and almost helpless In his chair.

He glanced at his daughter, and then toward the door leading into the hall.

“Where’s Claude?” he asked.

“He is not in just now,” answered Opal.

“No, sir,” put in the detective. “Your son just now is not in; but I could enlighten you as to his whereabouts.”

“You’ve been playing spy, have you?”

“I’ve been following the trail of one who has been your brother’s friend, miss.”

Opal Lamont colored and for half a second remained silent.

“It is blackmail all the same,” she resumed at last. “In the first place, whatever that old woman is to us we don’t intend to be bled.”

“I believe you once offered me ten thousand dollars not to pursue this trail, miss.”

“I did it for his sake,” and she nodded toward her father. “I don’t want his nerves shattered.”

Old Search glanced at Perry Lamont and pitied the abject old figure in the chair.

“They looked alike,” was all he said, with a glance at Miss Opal.

The daughter curled her lip and looked away.

“Never mind,” she said. “My day will come. Mr. Detective.”

Old Search turned once more to the millionaire and said:

“I’ll state my business. I am here to ask you about that contract.”

Lamont started.

“What contract?” he asked.

“The one you made with your son.”

There was a cry and a sudden start, and the millionaire nearly fell from his chair.

“I made no contract!” he cried.

“None whatever?”

“None!”

“That’s blackmail, pure and simple,” flashed Opal Lamont. “You cannot, succeed.”

She rose and crossed the room.

Perry Lamont seemed to grovel in his chair.

“You deny the contract, do you?” queried the old detective.

“I do.”

“He never lies!” exclaimed the girl.

’’And never forgets, eh?”

” Never!”

“Then his mind is greatly at fault this minute. Let me ask another question.”

“Not another one! He has been questioned enough. Don’t you see you have excited him?”

“Not so much but that he can answer intelligently. Perry Lamont. your sister did not die heirless.”

“My God!”

“She left some of her blood behind. She did not pass out of the world at the hand of the assassin without leaving behind someone who has a right to her name!”

The look of the millionaire became a stare, and his hand shook as he laid it upon the desk before him,

“Come’” cried Opal. “Must we really buy your silence?”

“It is not in the market, miss, as I have once told you. I want to reach the solution of this terrible crime. I shall not turn from the trail till I am at the end of it. Mother Flintstone’s blood calls for revenge, and —”

Opal, who stood beside her father, leaned over him and whispered in his ear.

The old man’s face brightened.

“Not another word till I come back,” continued the girl to her parent, and with this she left the room.

Two minutes later her steps were heard at the door across the room and once more she stood before Old Search.

In that short time she had gowned herself for the street and, stepping to one side, she touched a button.

“We are going out,” said she, looking at the detective. “I have just ordered the carriage.”

The detective looked amazed.

Going out with that girl?

The turn of affairs actually amused him. “I want you to accompany me to a certain place,” continued Opal Lamont. “We shall not be there long; but you must go with me.”

The old detective consented, and in a few moments they entered the carriage which had come to the front door.

Opal had drawn a spotted veil over her face and had fallen back into the depths of the vehicle saying nothing, although addressed by the ferret.

The coachman seemed to know where to go.

Old Search had not heard the girl give him any orders, but he turned corner after corner, as if his destination was plain to him.

For at least ten minutes the vehicle bounced over the stones, and then it halted in front of a two-story brick house in the lower part of Gotham.

Old Search looked out, and took in the contour of the house, and Opal opened the door of the cab.

“We’re here,” she said, speaking for the first time since leaving home, and in a moment she dismounted, to be followed by the nonplussed detective.

The millionaire’s daughter led the way up the steps, and with a key opened the front door.

As she threw it back she motioned to the detective to enter, and Old Search soon stood in a fireless parlor darkened by heavy curtains at the windows.

“I’ll see you in a moment,” said Opal, rushing toward the door, and the ferret of New York heard the sound of leather and silk on the stairs.

“This is a queer adventure,” thought the detective. “This must be one of the many houses Perry Lamont owns. The young woman is a cool-headed thing and seems to have the nerves her father has lost. Why has she brought me to this place? What new mystery is this? Ah, here she comes!”

There were footsteps in the hall, and the detective watched the door.

But the sounds did not seem to come all the way down the flight; they appeared to stop midway, and the ferret glanced up at the open transom.

The sight he saw there riveted him to the spot.

Leaning over the banisters was Opal Lamont, but how changed.

Her face was as white as a sheet, and her lips were welded like pieces of steel.

The hat had been discarded, and her long hair fell in uncombed masses over her shoulder.

The girl looked like an avenging spirit, and the old detective thought he had never seen a face just like hers.

The whole thing appeared more visionary than real; it seemed some hideous dream in which he was to be the victim, but that it was terrible reality the ferret soon discovered.

The lips sprang apart suddenly, and Old Search heard the voice of the creature on the stairs.

“I hardly expected to trap you so easily,” she said, in sharp, triumphant tones. “You fell into the snare like a tenderfoot. Did you think I was about to reveal something to you? Your time has come! I hold death in my hand, and I haven’t practiced at the pistol galleries for nothing.”

Old Search saw the revolver which Opal Lamont thrust forward; he tried to spring to the door, but some unseen agency seemed to root him to the carpet. Then came a flash, leaping tigerlike through the transom, as it seemed — then darkness.

THE BACK TRAIL

All this time the carriage which had carried Opal and Old Search to the house had waited for the girl just round the nearest corner.

When Opal emerged from the place no excitement was noticed about her.

She walked as gaily as if she had not sent a man to his doom, and when she stepped into the carriage there was a smile on her lips.

She knew what she had done, and the secret was hers.

The vehicle went straight to the Lamont mansion, and the girl dismissed it at the door.

She entered the house and passed directly to her room on one of the upper floors, where she changed her gown; then she descended to the library, where she had left her father.

She found him in the same position at the desk as if he had not stirred since her departure.

He met her eye the moment she entered the room, and she came forward, saying nothing.

“I’m glad to see you back, Opal. Did you get rid of that man?”

“Yes.”

“You did not let him blackmail you?”

“I did not.”

“You did not—”

Perry Lamont stopped as if he was on dangerous ground, but Opal could not avoid his gaze.

Her eyes seemed to betray her.

“You surely did not—” began the millionaire again, but stopped as before.

“Never mind where he is,” put in Opal. “I’m quite sure Captain Search will not give us any more trouble.

“That’s good. I’m glad to hear you say that, and your manner convinces me that it is so. I trust he didn’t give you any trouble, child?”

“None in the least. There, don’t bother about that man. He’s out of the way; won’t trouble you anymore.”

Opal arose and swept from the room, the eyes of the nabob following her with mute questioning.

He heard her on the floor above, and closed his eyes as he leaned back in the chair.

Did he suspect the truth?

Did the rich man dream that his child had handled a revolver within the last hour, and that she had aimed at a man’s breast?

If he thought of such things he made no sign.

It was some hours after these events that the door of the library was opened and Claude, his son, came in.

Lamont was now fast asleep, and the young sport watched him for ten minutes.

Stealing over to the desk, Claude opened a drawer near his father’s hand and extracted a large envelope therefrom.

As he was transferring it to his pocket Opal looked into the room, and then came forward.

“Don’t awaken him,” she said. “I want to see you, Claude. Come across the hall.”

“Mother— —”

“Mother won’t hear us, for she is lying down overhead. Come with me. I didn’t know you were in the house.”

“I just came in.”

“Good.”

The pair left the library and crossed the hall to the darkened parlor, where Opal turned suddenly on her brother.

“Have you done it yet?” she asked.

Claude started in spite of himself.

“Done what?”

“You know. I happened to overhear you and father. Have you finished him?”

“I don’t understand you?”

“Oh, yes; you do. You know about the two hundred thousand. You were to get the confession, besides silencing him.”

“I’ve done nothing yet, I understand now,” said Claude, with a faint smile.

“When will you?”

“Just as soon as I get a chance.”

“Don’t you think you’re putting it off too long?”

“I don’t know. I’m doing my best.”

“But while he lives and keeps the confession written in Hell’s Kitchen it will be against us.”

“Yes.”

“You’re his chum. You know where he nests, and you are the proper person to silence this man with the terrible secret. You’re not afraid of the law, are you?”

Again Claude Lamont started and looked down into the flushed face of his sister.

“No; I’m not afraid of that, but you see I can’t strike till I have a fair target.”

“I know that.”

“There is that bothersome detective,” suggested Claude.

“Never mind him,” laughed Opal; “he’s silenced.”

“Since when?”

“Don’t ask me too many questions. He’s silenced, I say.”

“I guess not. I’ve seen him lately.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“I’ve got later news than that!” cried the young girl. “I’m right from the seat of war, so to speak.”

Claude wanted to ask further questions, but she stopped him by laying her hand on his shoulder.

“That man was an enemy of us all,” she said. “He was dangerous, Claude.”

“Positively so,” was the reply.

“He was a living menace to our future happiness; he was as dangerous as this man Carter Richmond, your friend, and his confession. I shuddered whenever I thought of Captain Search, who would not let me buy him off.”

“He was incorruptible, was he?” laughed Claude.

“Yes, but he’s fixed now.”

“With whose money, Opal? Father’s?”

“With something that silences better than gold,” was the startling answer. “I would never face him the second time with a bribe. I know what’s what.”

“See here. You’ve got me on nettles. What’s become of this man? I demand to know?”

Opal thought a moment, and then turned her head away.

“When have you been to the Cedar street house?” she asked, without looking at him.

“Not in six months.”

“Here’s the key. Go and look inside.”

“Pshaw! there’s nothing there for me.”

“You don’t know what’s there, since you confess that you haven’t crossed its threshold in six months.”

“If you tell me the secret I won’t have to make the trip.”

“Go and find it,” and Opal pushed her brother away. “I want to make sure of a certain thing.”

“I see. You’ve been to the Cedar street house.”

Opal gave him a knowing look, and again pushed him toward the door.

“I’ll go, hang me if I don’t!” he exclaimed. “I say, sis, if you’ve intrusted a secret to that house it ought to be safe, for it hasn’t been tenanted for half a year, into which part of it shall I look?”

“In the first room to the right.”

“The old-fashioned parlor, eh?”

“Yes, there, there!” cried the millionaire’s child. “God forgive me, Claude, I couldn’t help it. I had him in the snare.”

Five minutes later Claude Lamont stood on the sidewalk in front of his home.

“In creation’s name, what does sis mean?” he asked himself. “What has she been doing in that old house? Something desperate, I’ll bet my head.”

He walked to the first corner, where he took a passing car and rode down town.

A few minutes later he left it, and proceeded to Cedar street.

The millionaire owned half a dozen houses there, but the one designated by Opal was the best of all.

With the key supplied by his sister, the city sport let himself into the house and shut the door carefully behind him.

Then he made his way to the first room on the right of the hall and opened its portal.

It was quite dark, all the curtains down — Lamont “kept his untenanted houses already furnished — and Claude had to strike a match.

“Jehu! what did sis mean, anyhow?” he exclaimed, as the light flickered up. “No one here.”

He held the lucifer above his head and took a survey of the parlor.

Everything seemed in place, and he looked everywhere as he moved about the room.

He noticed that the transom over the hall door was wide open, but he thought nothing of this.

The faintest odor of burnt powder assailed his nostrils and he stood in the middle of the room a few seconds and sniffed the air.

“The girl’s mad?” he suddenly cried. “What is the fool’s errand she wanted me to attend to, I’d like to know? There’s nothing in this room, and yet she wanted me to look nowhere else but in this chamber. There’s the smell of powder here. What does it mean? She was here, she admitted. She can shoot like a professional. I’ve seen her at it in the gallery. I’ll have to go back and laugh at her foolery.”

Claude quitted the room, and, to make sure there was nothing out of the way in the house, went all over it.

“Sis is out of her head,” he again exclaimed, when he had inspected the last room. “She may have thought she trapped the detective, but she did nothing of the”kind.”

When he left the Cedar street house it was to go straight home.

He peeped into the library, but his father was no longer there.

“You?” cried a person who came out of the shadows of the bookcases, and Claude Lamont stood in the presence of Opal.

Her look was a question, but her lips framed one.

“You’ve been there?” she cried.

“You sent me down town, didn’t you?”

“I did. Well?”

“I always obey you, don’t I, sis?”

“You do, Claude. You are my best friend. But tell me — you looked into the room on the right?”

“Yes.”

“And — — ?”

“It was empty!” “Empty? My God!” and Opal, the millionaire’s daughter, staggered back and dropped into her father’s chair.

THE OLD FERRET’S LITTLE GAME

“Empty? That house?” again cried Opal, from the depths of the chair. “I cannot believe it.”

“It is true. I just came from the place,” answered Claude. “What did you do there, sis?”

“I shot him.”

“Not the detective?”

“Yes; Captain Search. I lured him to the place. He was here again, playing his hand. I could not stand it. He was in our way. I wanted him removed. Father was helpless, and the desperate scheme came into my head. I lured him to the Cedar street house and leaned over the banister, shooting him through the transom while he stood in the parlor.”

“And left him there?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Well, he wasn’t there when I looked into the room.”

Opal Lamont looked wildly round the library.

“What could have become of him?” she asked.

Claude shook his head.

“Think you he could not have been dead?”

“I thought you went into the parlor afterward?”

“I did. I bent over him,”

“And he appeared at the end of the trail?”

“He did.”

“It’s a mystery to me.”

“Why didn’t you look all over the house?”

“That just what I did.”

Opal sat silent for a moment longer, and then she sprang up with a sharp cry.

“If he lives he will try to get even. We must silence this man. It must be done at once.”

“Granted. You were a fool to decoy him to the old house.”

“I knew of no other place,” was the reply. “I took the first plan that entered my head. I never dreamed of failure.”

“There, don’t think I’m finding fault, sis. You did the best you could; I’m sure of that. The only wonder is that you didn’t make a sure shot after what you’ve done at the galleries.”

Half an hour after the interview with his sister Claude Lamont occupied the arm-chair in the room in which he once showed himself to Old Search and Bristol Clara, the latter his near neighbor.

This time he was alone.

Presently he was startled by a rap on the front door, as if some one outside had no use for a bell, and in a moment he had opened it.

He found a well-dressed, dark-faced stranger on the step — a man with a brownish beard and clear blue eyes.

Claude did not know just what to do with the man, but as he held the door open the fellow entered and faced him in the hall.

“Come this way if you have business with me,” said the city sport, and he escorted his caller to the room he had just left.

The man took a chair and laid his hat on his knees.

“To whom am I indebted for this call?” asked Claude.

“Call me Hugh Larkins,” answered the stranger, in a squeakish voice that made a sound almost like a file.

“I don’t know you, Mr. Larkins.”

“Perhaps not. You don’t remember me. You have forgotten all about the old place on the Bowery that flourished five or six years ago. You don’t recall the barkeeper and the sometimes pianist?”

A smile flitted across Claude’s face.

“Are you that person?” he asked.

“I’m Hugh Larkins. Sometimes they called me ’Rosy* Larkins, you remember.”

“I never recall nicknames.”

“Mr. Lamont, you’ve got good quarters here.”

Claude started a little at mention of his name.

“You see, I know you. Why, you haven’t changed a great deal. You’ve got a few more years on you, and you’ve grown a little stouter — good living, I guess. The ‘Daisy Chain’ isn’t running now, I believe. I dropped into the old place this morning, but the piano stopped four years ago and the hole is a poor bucket-shop at present.”

“I don’t know.” said Claude.

“Well, Mr. Lamont, let’s to business. I’m a little hard up — somewhat desperate, to make use of a homely phrase.”

“And you think I’m a nabob when it comes to cash, eh?”

“I know you’re not Lazarus. I’ve got to have a little chink to keep the proverbial wolf from the door, and — —”

“My dear sir, you’ve struck the wrong place,” broke in Claude. “I can’t accommodate you.”

Larkins fell back in his chair and seemed at his wits’ end.

“That’s bad,” he suddenly squeaked. “It nearly puts me into the river — a desperate man’s last resort, you see.’’

“I can’t help that,” said Claude, coldly. “Every man can do as he pleases with his anatomy, and if you see fit to immerse yours, why, I can’t object.” “You can’t help ‘Rosy’ Larkins, who used to play for you at the ‘Daisy Chain?’ You can’t give the old ’un a lift?”

“It wouldn’t stop with you,” was the reply. “It wouldn’t, stop with you, Rosy.”

“I’m but the advance guard, eh’.’”

“That’s it.”

“Rosy” Larkins appeared to get upon his feet with difficulty. He looked down at Claude Lamont and seemed to study him a minute.

“Then I’ll have to sell it,” said he.

In spite of himself the millionaire’s son lost a little color.

“You’ll have to sell what?” he asked.

“What I know!”

“See here, that’s an old game,” cried Claude, “It’s a rascal’s last resort. You can’t blackmail me.”

“But I can sell what I know — to the police.

“You don’t know anything.”

“Do you dare me?”

” Yes.”

“All right.”

Larkins crossed the room, but stopped at the door, the knob of which he held in his hand.

“You wasn’t in the old place that night? Oh, no. You wasn’t in Hell’s Kitchen a few nights since? You never go to such a disreputable place? Certainly not. The son of Perry Lamont never goes to such places. Why, of course he doesn’t. Hell’s Kitchen? Why, there’s where Mother Flintstone lived — and died, I believe.”

Claude said nothing.

He looked as if his tongue had become riveted to his palate; his eyes seemed to bulge from his head, and his hand dropped from the table at his right.

“Of course you don’t go to Hell’s Kitchen, because you say you don’t,” grinned “Rosy” Larkins in the same squeaky tones.

“What are you driving at?” at last Claude made out to say.

“At just what I’ve said. I’m pretty plain. My voice isn’t as sweet as the notes of the oriole, but you understand my words all the same.”

“You certainly don’t mean to say that you’ve got a secret about my going to Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Now you’ve hit it. You wasn’t there the night Mother Flintstone was helped out of this world?”

“I was not.”

“But I know better.”

“You do?”

“Yes; you were there, and ‘Rosy’ Larkins holds the secret so far all alone.”

Claude leaned forward and fastened his gaze upon the face before him.

“Don’t you think silence is worth a thousand dollars?” queried his caller.

“Your silence?”

“Mine! That’s not a large sum with you who has his hands upon the purse-strings of a millionaire. You don’t want the police to drag you forward as being connected with the mystery of Hell’s Kitchen? I don’t want to see one of my old patrons in such a fix.”

“Did you see me there?” asked Claude, a little nervously.

“I’ve got convincing proof.”

“But I haven’t got the money, Larkins. You will have to come again.”

“I won’t,” and the squeak seemed to get the snarl of a wild beast:

Claude looked at the table and then back at the man.

Larkins was twirling his hat on one of his hands, and his face was still immobile.

“What if I can’t raise that amount, and, then, what does a man of your present standing want with a thousand dollars?”

“What does a porcupine want with his quills?” flashed the young sport’s visitor. “He uses them, that’s what. I can use a thousand dollars.”

Lamont thought of his own account in bank.

It would not do to give that man a check for the amount, for identification might be followed with unpleasant recollections..

Suddenly he thought of the five thousand he had lately received from Lamont senior.

A part of it was still in his pocket.

Biting his lips Claude produced the roll of bills and slowly counted out the required amount.

“There, don’t come again,” he said, looking up at Larkins, whose hand reached out for the money. “But, hold on. What assurance have I that you won’t sell me out yet?”_

“My word.”

“If it’s no better than your face I’m afraid it’s not worth a great deal.”

’That’s all right. I’m no seraph. Neither was Mother Flintstone who died that night — you know how,” and with this shaft “Rosy” Larkins opened the door.

As he stepped into the hall his face was for a moment. turned from Claude, and that moment the young man whipped a revolver from the table drawer.

As he started up there was a musical click, but the next instant the bare hand of Larkins covered him.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said. “The secret wouldn’t die with me, Mr. Lamont.”

•The levelled weapon dropped and Claude went back again.

“Aha, goodbye. Thanks for the chink. It saves’Rosy’ Larkins from the river,” and the man with the squeaky voice was gone.

He went from the scene of the interview almost straight to Mulherry street; he entered Police Headquarters and made his way to the superintendent’s private office, where he handed the roll of money to a young man.

“Lock it up,” said he. “We’ll talk about it later. I’m rather tired of this beard,” and Old Search immediately stood revealed.

IN MOTHER FLINTSTONE’S DEN AGAIN

The day following these exciting events Carter Richmond might have been bending over a manuscript in a small room some distance from Claude Lamont’s apartments.

He had been diligently at work upon the document for some hours, now and then refreshing himself from a bottle on the table.

The chirography was not his own.

It looked for all the world like the writing of an old person taken with the palsy, and the man at work smiled every now and then as he looked at his job.

“It’s good for the two hundred thousand,” said he, half aloud. “That was a cute bargain Claude made with the old nabob. I am to vanish, of course; but I’ll see that I don’t lose any of my share. I am to be killed off, and this paper is to fall into Lamont’s hands, to be consigned of course to the flames. He’ll probably consider it cheap at two hundred thousand, but I’ll take care that Claude doesn’t really carry out the bargain.”

The day had deepened into night, and still Carter Richmond worked.

He did not stop till the nearest clock struck eight, and then he finished his self-imposed task.

Once more, like a good accountant, he glanced over his pages.and stuffed them into an old envelope prepared for the occasion.

“That settles it,” he remarked. “Now for the proof of my demise, ha ha!”

He thrust the whole into his pocket and buttoned his coat over it.

After this he turned the gas low and filled the room with shadows, then pulled his soft hat over his forehead and left the house.

He did not know that he was seen to quit the place.

He was not aware of the fact that during the last part of his work a pair of fox-like eyes were watching: him through a rent in the curtain, thanks to a broken slat in the shutter.

The owner of these eyes was on his trail.

It was a boy, shrewd and wiry, and he kept Carter Richmond in sight, no matter how many turns he made.

Mulherry Billy had not played spy upon this man for nothing.

While he could not see the writing, he felt that it was for no good, and thus he slipped after the man as he crossed one street after another, taking himself into a strange part of New York.

Carter Richmond visited a well-known cheap cafe on the Bowery and had a plain supper, after which, once more buttoning his coat to his chin, he sauntered out under the lights.

Billy was still his ferret.

The boy tracked the man to the house occupied at. times by Claude Lamont.

He saw him mount the steps, but could not see beyond the door.

Carter Richmond entered the library and turned on the light

There he looked around the room, but did not see any one.

Claude was not at home.

Richmond would have started if he could have seen the woman who all the time was closely watching him.

Bristol Clara, Old Search’s friend, was on the alert, and, having seen him come in, was looking at him through the secret crack.

All at once Carter Richmond started up.

“What a fool I am,” he said. “Why didn’t I think of it before? I forgot to look under the hearth — the very place an old woman like her would hide precious papers.

He threw a hasty glance toward the door and was about to quit the house when he heard a step.

In another moment Claude Lamont stood before him.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” said Richmond.

“And I’ve been unavoidably detained. Couldn’t get here sooner. Well, have you got the papers?”

Richmond produced his work and threw the bundle upon the table.

Claude pounced upon it and ran over the documents.

“This is good. I didn’t know it was in you,” he cried, looking up at Richmond.

“I’ve been trained in more schools than one,” was the answer, and Claude looked away.

“Does it suit?” asked Richmond.

“Perfectly.”

“Will it deceive the governor?”

“Of course it will. Now you must vanish.”

“Yes, I’m to ‘die’ to his satisfaction. I believe you can’t draw any more money till I’m out of the way and the ‘confession’ in your father’s hands.”

“That’s the bargain.”

“Well, I thought of that and dashed off this.”

Another bit of paper fell on the table and Claude read:

“Fatal Accident

“Last night at ten o’clock a man was seen to fall on the street near the Brussel Block, on Broadway. His companion, apparently frightened by his fall, hastened away, leaving his friend on the pavement. It was discovered that the stricken man was a well-known character named Carter Richmond, who of late has been subject to attacks of vertigo. The unfortunate man was conveyed from the spot by others who happened to know him, and taken to the rooms of a friend, where he died. Richmond once did time, but of late has not done anything that called for his arrest, though he was known as a shady character, liable to embark on some scheme that promised to add to his wealth, no matter how questionable the transaction.”

“That’s good!” exclaimed Claude Lamont. “You’re dead — as dead as a doornail, and please have the kindness to keep this in view. I don’t think you could have done better. Now, what newspaper?”

“I’ve made the proper arrangements. You can take it to the Item. It will cost one hundred to get it inserted, but that’s all right. It’s dirt cheap.”

Claude placed the writing in his pocket and smiled.

“It will hoodwink the old man nicely. He won’t want other ‘proof.’”

“I thought not.”

“I’ll see to that. Now I’ll attend to the matter. I understand that the item is to appear in but the one paper, and in only one copy at that,”

“That’s it. Too promiscuous publishing might spoil our plans.”

The two men rose and left the house.

On the outside the same little figure saw them and again became Old Search’s spy.

This time Billy tracked Claude Lamont and saw him enter the office of a morning newspaper with a limited circulation.

He saw him in earnest conversation with a certain attache of the office, and some money changed hands.

After this Claude Lamont, as Billy found out, seemed quite at his ease, for he followed him to a large cafe, where he ate heartily like a man pleased with what he had done.

Meantime Carter Richmond had gone to another part of the city.

Once more he entered the locality known in the annals of the police as Hell’s Kitchen, and slipped into the room once occupied by Mother Flintstone.

The people who had moved into the place were already gone, a few hours sufficing, and he was alone in the old shell.

This time he did not have Billy at his heels, and he took matters coolly.

Instead of sounding walls and ceiling, as he had done on a former visit, he went straight to the old bricks on the hearth, and commenced lifting them one by one.

To accomplish his purpose the more readily he got down on his knees and worked like a beaver.

Each brick was carefully replaced, and he had gone over half the space when he was interrupted.

A door opened and shut behind him, and Carter Richmond started to his feet.

A man stood before him.

“There, don’t draw,” said the person at the door. “It would do you no good, Carter Richmond. Don’t let me disturb you. Go back to your work.”

Richmond did not stir.

“Go back to your work, I say. I’ll wait till you find it.”

“Find what?”

“You know. Your quest.”

The ex-convict smiled grimly.

“I was only seeing if the old woman placed anything under the bricks,” said he.

“Something valuable, eh?”

“Perhaps,”

“Not money, was it. Carter?”

“Perhaps not.”

“You’re a cool one. I thought your trip up the river reformed you. Don’t you remember how the newspapers exploited your return, and said you were quit of crime? It was a great fake, wasn’t it?”

The speaker smiled, but Carter Richmond did not.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“That’s another matter. Don’t let me disturb you. You haven’t taken up more than half the bricks. Go through the rest.”

“I don’t care to. You’re playing spy, and, by heavens! that’s dangerous work.”

“You mean that the man who watches you may live to regret it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, call me spy, then. Don’t you think you’re playing a pretty bold hand just now. Carter?”

“I?”

“You. You are into it so deep that you don’t want to miss a good thing. There’s nothing buried under those bricks; there never was. Mother Flintstone hid it elsewhere.”

“That’s false. She hid it in this house, and unless you-”

“Come, Carter, don’t show your teeth like a tiger. It will do you no good. You can’t find the confession, but the other one will do just as well?”

“What other one?”

It was evident that the question had no sooner left Richmond’s lips than he regretted the utterance.

“You know; therefore I need not specify. I hope the work was well done.”

“Devil! you’ve got to fight for your life.” and the next instant Carter Richmond darted forward like a mad beast, and leaping clear of the floor flung himself upon the stranger.

That person braced himself for the ordeal, and warded off the initial blow with the dexterity of a practised pugilist.

Carter found himself foiled, but he did not give up.

Again he darted at his enemy, and the pair came together in a deadly grapple.

Back and forth over the floor they writhed like wrestlers before an audience; now Carter obtaining a little advantage, now the other getting the best of it.

At last Richmond found himself held against the wall by a grip of iron.

He panted in his adversary’s power.

“But one man ever held me thus before this,” he cried.

“Who was he?”

“Captain Sam Search, and, by heavens! you must be that same man!”

There was no reply.

MULBERRY BILLY’S “FIND”

Margie Mathe came out of the hospital shortly after her terrible experience in the house guarded by Nora.

Her escape had bordered on the miraculous, and the girl was glad to get back to the humble home she occupied.

Her first thought was of the woman who had been her jaileress, and she wondered if Nora herself had escaped the flames.

Having a fair acquaintance with Billy the street arab, she sought out the boy, and fortunately found him.

Billy had heard of Nora’s suicide, and he at once posted Margie.

“By the way,” said the little fellow, “I’ve made a find.”

“You? What have you discovered, Billy?”

“Something that I am going to show to Captain Search just as soon as I find him.”

“It may amount to nothing.”

“But you don’t know where I found it,” cried the boy.

“Tell me.”

Billy came closer, and dropped his voice to a whisper as he laid his hand upon the girl’s arm.

“I found it in Mother Flintstone’s den,” said he. “Look here, Margie.”

He produced a flat package, which looked like it had been stored away for years, but the moment the girl’s eyes alighted on it she uttered a little scream.

“It’s the will, Billy!” she exclaimed.

“What had Mother Flintstone to will away, I’d like ter know?” said the boy.

“More than you think. Let me see the packet.”

Billy laid it on the table, and watched Margie closely.

The girl seemed to be afraid to touch the package, but at last she picked it up.

Opening the envelope, which looked nearly ready to fall to pieces, she drew forth a paper and opened it.

The first line startled her.

“What is it?” asked the boy.

Margie said nothing, but her eyes dilated.

“It’s a will, you said, Margie?”

“It’s more than that, Billy. It’s the true story of Mother Flintstone’s life.”

“Then it is important, sure enough.”

Margie read on, her face changing color, and at last she reached the end of the page.

“Mother Flintstone left behind her an important document,” she remarked.

“That’s what the dark-faced man was looking for when he sounded the walls.”

“No doubt of that.”

“P’raps that’s why they killed her.”

“They, Billy? Do you think more than one hand was at work that night?”

“I do, Miss Margie,” cried the boy, confidently. “There are two hands in this mystery. Captain Search will trip them up in time, see if he don’t.”

“Yes, Billy, there is more than a will,” and Margie held the package up before the street boy. “As I’ve told you, it is also the story of Mother Flintstone’s life. Where did you find it, boy?”

“Under the hearth.”

“The place was not examined by the dark-faced man?”

“Exactly! He looked every place else. I found it there safe from him and the rats. Keep it, Margie. No, hide it from that man. He’ll have it or your life if he knows you have it.”

Margie placed the packet in her bosom, and looked gratefully at the street boy.

“I’ll see that you’re paid for this find,” said she.

“I don’t want a penny. I only want ter get ahead of Carter Richmond and his chum, Claude Lamont, the young sport. They’re into the biggest game of their lives, but we’ll balk ’em all the same, Margie.”

The girl expressed the hope that it would turn out thus, and in a short time she was in another part of the city.

She wanted to avoid the man into whose hands she had fallen at the Trocadero.

She was now confident that this personage was Claude Lamont himself, and she had seen enough of his villainy.

Margie Marne carried the precious package home, where she hid it carefully, believing that no human eye could find it, and was satisfied.

Night was coming on, and she quitted her humble lodgings, with her hood pulled over her face so as to hide it.

She had a visit to make, and soon she reached the rooms occupied by Old Search.

Her raps were not answered, and she looked disappointed.

When she again reached the street the lamps had been lit, and the girl looked all about her.

Thinking of the package she started home, but on a corner not far from Old Search’s rooms a hand fell upon her arm.

Margie started, and uttered a little cry.

She looked around at the same time and into the face of a man, who leered at her with a half-vicious look.

“Don’t fly so fast, my bird,” laughed the fellow. “I don’t intend to soil your plumage. You’re Miss Margie Marne, aren’t you?”

“What if I am?”

“Then you’re the very person I want to see.”

“But I don’t want to see any one.”

“I suppose not. That’s the way with some girls. I’m Caddy.”

“Who’s Caddy?” demanded Margie.

“I’m the ‘mixer’ at the Trocadero.”

The mention of that name sent a chill through the girl’s nerves, and she fell back.

“Don’t mention that horrid place!” she exclaimed.

“I know you had a rather unpleasant experience there, but, you see, it wasn’t my fault. I can tell you something that may give you a chance to get even.”

“Speak quick, if you can. What is it?”

“Let’s drop in here,” and the little man pointed toward a decent looking restaurant.

Eager to learn something more about the man who had decoyed her to the Trocadero, Margie went with the fellow, and he guided her to a little table in the darkest corner of the place.

“Why don’t you bleed him?” were the first words when they had seated themselves.

“Is that your suggestion? Do you want to make a blackmailer out of me?” exclaimed the girl.

“No; it wouldn’t be blackmail in this case,” explained Caddy. “It would simply be getting pay for the indignity.”

“I’ll get even with him some other way,” said Margie. “You know him, do you?”

“Why, of course. Ha, ha, nobody comes to the Trocadero whom I don’t catch onto. Beat Caddy out of the game, if you can! You don’t want to make him pay the fiddler, then?”

“Not in the manner you’ve suggested.”

“You’re a fool!” cried the little man. “See here, I’ll help you all I can. I’ll go halves with you, and you won’t have to take any risk. He’ll milk.”

“But I’m not in that business.”

Caddy at once changed color.

His round face became positively hideous.

He leaned across the table like a thoroughbred villain and his teeth seemed to snap together.

“If you don’t bleed him you’ll get into the net again,” he suddenly cried.

“Which means, I suppose, that you’ll help get me there.”

“I didn’t say I would, but I won’t help keep you out.”

Margie flushed.

“You miserable wretch, keep your distance!” she exclaimed, and would have left the table but for the clutch of the little man’s hand.

“When you can’t cajole you threaten. It won’t pay, sir.”

**“I’ll** see that it does pay!” laughed the mixer of the Trocadero, unabashed. “I know my business. Sit down.”

Margie was thrust back into her chair, and the fellow leered at her again.

“If you don’t want to milk the young sport himself, bleed the old man. He’s a bird with golden plumage.”

“What’s his name?”

“Gad, don’t you know? It’s Perry Lamont. Lives on one of the avenues and has mints of wealth at his command. He’s a pigeon worth plucking, girl.”

“No, let others do that.”

“Where did you get your scruples, I’d like to know?” sneered Caddy. “You’re one in ten thousand. Why, you can feather your nest in fine shape—”

Margie broke loose from the fellow’s grasp and fell back.

He rose at the same time and came round the table.

“Don’t touch me, serpent!” cried the girl. “You can’t use me in any of your schemes. I try to be honest.”

“You do, eh? Oh, you’ll get over it in time. Get a few more years on you and you’ll be as tough—”

“Here, what’s that? That’s an honest girl, sir,” put in a man eating quietly at another table. “Don’t touch her, you little sinner, or I’ll break your neck.”

The speaker rose and came forward, gazed at by Caddy with feelings of fear, while Margie thanked him mutely for his interference.

“I don’t know you, miss, but I’ve seen this man,” continued the stranger, who was tall and broad shouldered. “I guess it’s not the first time for him. Get out.”

He pushed Caddy down the aisle with his large hand, and the little drink mixer went without much urging.

“I’ll see you later!” he flashed at Margie.

“No threats!” cried the other man. “Get out, I say, and the sooner the better.”

Then the tall man turned to Margie and said:

“Pardon me, but I thought I heard him call you Margie. It cannot be Miss Margie Marne whom I address?”

“That’s my full name, sir,” said the girl, dropping her eyes.

“My name is McDonald, Jerry McDonald. I own a little business property in this city. The man who just left is a little rascal. I suppose he decoyed you hither?”

Margie told the story of her coming to the place, and McDonald said:

“He’s revengeful, and you will do well to look after him. If you ever need my assistance in any way don’t hesitate to command it,” and he handed the girl his card.

In another moment the still astonished girl was alone.

THE COST OF A SECRET

Carter Richmond found himself suddenly free from his antagonist in Mother Flintstone’s den.

The battle ended sooner than he thought, for his enemy gave a lurch which disengaged them, and when Carter recovered he was the sole occupant of the place.

“Who was he?” the astonished man asked himself.

The reply came from his imagination, and he sprang to the door and looked out.

No one there.

“I accused him of being Captain Search, the detective, but he did not reply,” he went on. “Years ago I was in the Captain’s hands and the grip to-night seemed the same. But I may have been mistaken. I mustn’t forget that years have passed since Old Search caught me red-handed. I cannot believe that my foe to-night was the ferret.”

Carter did not resume his inspection of the old hearth, for he turned away after replacing the last brick and slipped into the street.

He was to vanish now.

That was his bargain with Claude Lamont, and he knew that the fictitious account of his death was even then in the hands of the printers.

He turned up later in another part of the city.

He crossed the Bridge and vanished in Brooklyn.

Chuckling to himself, he thought of how he had played it on Perry Lamont.

In a small room he threw himself upon a couch to snatch a little sleep.

He was to be pronounced dead by the newspaper to Perry Lamont.

That was a part of the conspiracy.

Claude, the blackmailer of his own father, was to attend to that part of the work and he j Carter> was to get some of the blood money.

Thinking how easily the game moved onward to success, he fell asleep, nor waked till the next morning.

Then he set about disguising himself most thoroughly.

He changed his eye-brows, he darkened his hair and he gave his upper lip a sweeping mustache.

After his work no one would have called him Carter Richmond.

Meantime, over in the larger city. Perry Lamont, entering the library earlier than usual, as if he expected to hear some news, found Claude there.

Father and son looked at one another for a second, and Claude pointed at a newspaper on the desk.

The millionaire picked it up and his eager eyes discerned a pencil mark at a certain paragraph.

He devoured the falsehood eagerly and almost out of breath.

The young sport watched him like a cat.

“Thank heaven!” cried Perry Lamont, as he shot a glance at. Claude and dropped into his chair.

“It suits you, I see.”

“Suits me?” was the reply. “You know it does.”

A momentary silence followed between father and son, and then the elder Lamont said:

“Did you have any trouble?”

“Not much.”

“Did he suspect you?”

“Yes. he did that; but I had to go on, you know.”

“I know. He died for sure?”

It was a singular question, as if the speaker half-suspected the truth, and Claude’s heart seemed to find a lodgment, in his throat.

“What does the paper say?” cried Claude, a little irritated. “It records the death of the notorious Carter Richmond, doesn’t it?”

” It does,”

“That’s sufficient, I think. Do you want to see the — body?”

“My God, no!”

“Nor the burial certificate? They’ll probably hold a post-mortem, but we’re safe all the same. It’s all right, I assure you. There’s no danger, but it took work.”

“I’m proud of you, Claude. Now, what about the papers?”

“I’ve got them, too.”

“Here?”

“Yes,”’and Claude dived one hand into an inner pocket and drew forth a package, at sight of which Lamont’s eyes seemed to bulge from his head.

“There they are,” he resumed, throwing the packet upon the table.

The millionaire snatched at it and opened the package.

He found the documents forged by Carter Richmond, and opened the first one.

“Heavens! what have we escaped?” he ejaculated. “It was a very narrow escape. Did you read these papers, Claude?”

“No, never thought of that. I don’t care to know what the old hag was.”

“Great Caesar! these papers would have destroyed us,” and Perry Lamont looked white. “She had it in her power to break me up, and I don’t see why she didn’t exercise it. Why, they’re worth a million almost.”

“Then, please to add another hundred thousand to my pay,” smiled the young sport.

“I’ll be hanged if.I don’t!”

For some time Perry Lamont went over the papers in silence and did not look up again till he had reached the end of the last sheet.

Claude smiled inwardly all the time.

He knew that Carter had done his work well.

“Now, here they go,” said Lamont senior, at last, as he moved toward the grate where a fire burned.

’Claude saw his father hold the documents over the fire a few moments and then drop them into it.

As they caught fire the door opened and Opal came in.

Her face was white and she was agitated.

Perry Lamont pointed in silence at the hearth and looked toward his daughter.

Opal sprang to the fire and bent forward.

“Did you get it?” she asked, looking at her brother.

Claude said nothing.

“Did you have any trouble?”

“Some.”

“You paid him well for that service, didn’t you? she inquired of her father.

“We had an understanding.”

“That’s good. It saved us. We are no longer in the toils of the secret keeper. Now no one can say that Mother Flintstone was our near kin.”

The tall, regal-looking girl seemed almost beside herself with joy.

She would have embraced Claude had not his coldness repulsed her, and in a few moments she withdrew.

“I’ll take it now,” said Claude, addressing his parent.

“Oh, yes. You’ll place it to your account, I suppose?”

“Of course.”

Perry Lamont filled out a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and pushed it across the desk to his son.

Claude looked at it a moment, and then transferred it to his pocket.

It was the cost of a secret; it was also blood money, and the time was near at hand when that deed was to return to plague the doers.

“Safe at last!” exclaimed Perry Lamont, when he found himself alone. “It’s in the fire and he’s out of the way. I would like to know if Claude really had much trouble. The paper said it was vertigo, but we know better. Claude is sure the post-mortem will not reveal anything. They won’t catch Claude!”

He chuckled to himself and looked at the darkened ashes of the false confession in the grate.

By and by he returned to the desk and sat down, his head falling on his breast like that of a weary man, and in a short time he was fast asleep.

The house grew still. Outside Claude Lamont was hurrying down town, while Opal, in the parlor almost for the first time since her bout with Old Search, thrummed the piano.

Some distance from the Lamont mansion Old Search, the detective, was watching the actions of a man who mixed drinks behind a bar.

It was Caddy, the mixer of the Trocadero, and the detective, well disguised, seemed to take more than a passing interest in his movements.

By and by Caddy put on his coat and walked out, with Old Search at his heels.

All at once the hand of the old ferret fell upon Caddy’s shoulder, and the little man stopped at once.

His face grew white when he looked up and saw the keen eyes that seemed to read his inmost thoughts.

“Don’t do it again,” said the sleuth.

“What have I done?”

“Don’t threaten Miss Marne again.”

“But I—I — didn’t.”

“You did. Please don’t try it any more. That’s all.”

Caddy did not catch his breath till Old Search was out of sight, and even then he seemed to breathe hard.

“Won’t I?” he hissed. “Just let me get another chance at the girl, and I’ll make her think she isn’t anybody in particular. She refused to play her part of the game I’ve made up, but I’ll bring her round in spite of the two men, that I will.”

But for all his braggadocio Caddy was ill at ease, for instead of going on he retraced his steps to the Trocadero, took a “bracer,” and remained indoors.

Old Search proceeded on his way, and at last pulled up in front of Bristol Clara’s house.

The woman opened the door even before he knocked and led him into the parlor.

“Carter Richmond is dead,” she exclaimed, a smile coming to her lips. “Not quite dead, but I heard the arrangements made. It’s a cool scheme, isn’t it? Who are they going to cheat out of two hundred thousand dollars?”

“Perry Lamont, the millionaire,” was the answer. “They’re all birds of the same feather, even the girl. I had a narrow escape from her, but a miss is just as good as a mile. She may know ere this that I don’t lie dead in the parlor of the old mansion on Cedar street. I want a place at the peep-hole to-night, Clara.”

“It’s at your service.”

“I won’t need it after to-night.”

“Are you going to close in on them?”

The old detective nodded.

“Which one did it?” eagerly asked the girl.

“Never mind, Clara. I won’t make any mistake.”

“Of course not. You never do,” proudly answered the tenant of the house.

Old Search had set his time, but he could not prophesy what the coming hours were to bring forth.

BETWEEN THE WALLS OF DOOM

Shrewd as the old detective was, he was destined to meet one who was his equal in dexterity and cunning before the hour set for closing in on his quarry came around.

When he quitted Bristol Clara’s abode he proceeded to his own quarters, where he desired, for the time, to be alone.

The secrets of the trail he kept to himself.

If he knew the hand which struck Mother Flintstone down he did not reveal it by word or deed, and, like the experienced tracker, he was silent.

Several hours later Old Search left the rooms and reappeared on the street

He was within a block of his place when a boy approached him.

He extended a letter, which the detective at once took.

“Who sent this, boy?” he asked, as he glanced at the superscription.

“The leddy, sir.”

“But who was the lady?”

“Look inside. I guess that tells; ha, ha!” and the messenger whisked around the nearest corner and .disappeared.

Already the hands of Old Search had broken the seal of the missive thus strangely delivered, and in a moment he had read:

“Could you spare me five minutes of your valuable time, Captain Search? I can make some dark places clear to you. I can enlighten you about some important things. Come secretly, for it is ticklish business.

will be there. Come to No. -Hester street. Don’t

knock; just open the door and come to the first room on the left of the hall. “Sara P — — .”

Old Search read the letter twice before he looked up.

He did not know “Sara P — — .”

He had never heard of such a person, and he racked his brain in vain to think who she might be.

He did not know what “dark places” she referred to.

She might mean some old trail which he had run down, or she might have reference to Mother Flintstone’s taking off.

The old detective was puzzled.

However, he decided to see if there was anything in the affair, to go to the designated number and meet this woman-informer face to face.

As no time was set by the strange writer, he took it for granted that she was to be found in the house at any hour, and in a few minutes he was on his way.

Old Search was always ready to investigate anything that promised to assist him on a trail.

More than once he had picked up some startling clues from anonymous letters, and he thought that perhaps “Sara P-” might know something of importance.

Hester street is not the finest street in Gotham. Neither is it a high-toned thoroughfare. There is a mixture of poverty and wealth on Hester street, but society there in spots is not of the highest order.

Old Search entered the street with some misgivings, but not afraid.

He walked leisurely up the street, looking for the number, and wondering what sort of looking woman his correspondent was.

He found the house at last — a plain, two-story affair, with shutters in front and signs of age about the structure.

No one appeared at the door to greet him, but he did not expect any one.

He walked up the steps and turned the knob.

The door opened easily, and he was in the hall.

“The first door to the left,” he mentally said, and then he advanced toward it

In another second he had pushed this portal open and stood in a darkened room.

He saw no one.

Perhaps “Sara P-” was in another part of the

house and had not heard him enter.

Suddenly, however, he was undeceived, and in a flash he knew he had entered another trap.

The floor gave way beneath his feet, as if his weight had suddenly broken it in.

The entire floor seemed to fall.

Old Search made an effort to recover his equilibrium, but the fates were against him.

He fell down — down — and struck on his feet to pitch forward in Stygian darkness.

At the same time a strange noise overhead told him that the floor had resumed its original position, and then for a few moments all was still.

The trapped ferret had to smile to himself in spite of his surroundings.

He could not help laughing at his situation, however dark and hopeless it seemed to be; he had been cleverly caught, and the bait had secured the prize.

It did not. take him long to recover from the fall, which had not injured him; only jarred him up a little.

He went forward and found a wall ahead.

He followed the wall around, and came back to the same spot, as he could tell by a little stone under his feet.

The dungeon apparently had no outlet; it was like a sealed-up prison of the olden time.

Old Search put up his hands, but could not touch the floor overhead.

Of course he could not tell how far he had fallen, but he knew that the trap was directly above him.

Had “Sara P-” sprung the trap?

Had she lured him to this place to destroy him, and thus get even for some of his detective work?

He did not doubt it.

Old Search, in the underground prison, said nothing while he went around the walls.

He heard no noises in the house overhead, and no one seemed to walk the floors there.

At last the ferret struck a match on the stone wall.

It revealed the dimensions of the dungeon, and he surveyed it with eager curiosity.

It was a dungeon sure enough.

He saw the stone walls and the manner in which the stones were put together.

There was no escape.

Holding the little light above his head the old sleuth saw the underpinning of the floor.

He also found the strong iron hinges upon which the great trap had worked at crime’s bidding.

He was like a trapped fox.

Hemmed in by walls of stone, with an impregnable ceiling overhead, where could there be an avenue of escape ?

All at once, at the last flashings of the lucifer, the detective saw some words on the wall.

It reminded him of the words on the wall of the room where Jack, his spy, had been strangled.

Had the same hand written them there?

He threw the match to the ground, struck another and sprang eagerly forward.

He held the little light against the wall and read as follows:

“I am doomed to perish here. There is no escape from this hole of death. I was decoyed here like a rabbit, and I die for my folly. Let the next unfortunate person know that I, Lewis Newell, was the victim of Opal Lamont’s cunning. The woman is a tigress.”Farewell.

“Lewis Newell.”

For a full half minute Old Search seemed to hold his breath.

He read the writing again and again, and at last threw the stump of the match at his feet.

Doomed to die!

Another had been before him, and that person ascribed his end to Opal Lamont.

Was this accusation true?

The old detective recalled his adventure in the house on. Cedar street and how narrowly he had escaped death at the hands of this same girl.

Perhaps this house belonged to the millionaire, like that one.

Once more in darkness, Old Search had time to study the situation.

His curiosity got the better of him, and again he looked at the writing on the wall.

It looked plainer than ever now.

Who was Lewis Newell, the former victim?

He had never heard of such a person, but he did not doubt the truth of the inscription.

Suddenly the detective heard a sound that seemed to come from above.

As he turned his face upward the floor seemed to lift, and his eyes were blinded by an intense glare.

It was as if an electric globe had suddenly been uncovered in his face, and the light was so strong that he fell back, batting his eyes like an owl.

The glare vanished as suddenly as it came into being, but when he looked again he caught sight of a little ball burning in one corner of the trap.

It sent out a singular odor, not unpleasant, but enervating, and the old ferret’s system seemed to yield to its influence from the first.

“The accursed thing is the death agent which may have killed Newell!” he cried, as he sprang forward and set his foot on the burning ball.

At that moment an explosion occurred, the interior of the dungeon seemed to collapse and Old Search became unconscious.

Perhaps the end had come.

When the detective came out of the darkness of doom, as it were, he was lying on his face.

In a moment he staggered up and put out his hands.

They touched a wall as hard and cold as the one they had touched last.

Where was he and in what, sort of trap?

Slowly the adventures of “the last few hours came back to his excited brain.

He recalled the note, the visit to the house on Hester street, the fall through the trap-door and the burning ball.

These thoughts came fast and thick: they seemed to contend for supremacy in his brain and he breathed hard.

“I must get out,” was his cry. “Woman or tigress, she shall not keep Sam Search in this vile place!”

But getting out was the puzzle.

He circumnavigated his prison like a captive in the dungeons of Venice.

He sounded every foot of space, stood on his tiptoes in a vain effort to reach the ceiling, felt the walls again and again and at last gave up.

For once at least the famous detective seemed at the end of life.

THE LAST CLEW

Meanwhile, Margie Marne was having an adventure of her own, to which we will now recur.

In another part of the city, and about the same hour that witnessed the strange explosion in the dungeon where Old Search was confined, the girl sat in her little room.

She was quite alone, but all the time she was watched by a pair of eyes that did not lose sight of her.

These eyes glittered in the head of a man on the floor above, and he was enabled to watch the girl through a hole deftly cut in the floor.

All unconscious of the espionage, the girl looked over a few papers which she had taken from their hiding place in one corner of the room, where they would baffle the lynx eyes of a keen man, and now and then a smile came to her face.

All at once she heard footsteps approach her door, and for the first time in an hour she looked up.

A rap sounded, but Margie hesitated.

Should she open the door and admit her visitor?

Perhaps it was Old Search, whom she wanted to see just then, but a sudden fear took possession of her.

At last, however, Margie rose, and hiding the papers in her bosom, crossed the room.

Her hand was on the latch, but for all this she still hesitated.

In another moment, as if beating down her last suspicion, Margie opened the door.

A man stood before her.

It was not the person who had offered to protect her from Caddy’s advances, nor was it Caddy himself.

As she held the door open the stranger advanced into the apartment and turned suddenly upon Margie.

Her breath went fast, and she gazed at the man with half-stifled feelings.

“Miss Marne?” he asked in a peculiar voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“Alone, I see.”

“I am quite alone, but I cannot imagine to whom I owe the present call.”

“Sit down, girl.”

There was something commanding in the tones, which had suddenly changed, but Margie did not stir.

“I want to talk with you,” continued the man. “And I prefer to have you seated.”

Margie glanced at the door and then toward the window, the eyes of her caller following her, and for half a second her heart seemed in her throat.

“I want those papers,” and the fellow, whose face was covered with a heavy brown beard, held out his hand.

“What papers?” demanded the girl.

“The ones you have just been looking over.”

No wonder Margie started.

“Come, don’t mince matters with me. I won’t have it. Are they in your bosom, girl?”

Margie fell back, but the man advanced.

“I am here for them,” he went on. “You can’t cheat me out of them. Come, hand them over.”

“Tut—”

“Not a word unless you intend to comply with my demand! You know where the papers are. You got them in Mother Flintstone’s den.”

“My God —”

“I hit the nail on the head, did I?” brutally laughed the man. “I thought my arrow wouldn’t go far wide of the mark. Here, I’ll despoil you of the papers by force if you don’t tamely submit.”

Margie was nearly against the wall now, and she looked at the man like a startled fawn.

She now felt, aye, knew that the beard was but a mask, and she asked herself whom she faced.

Claude Lamont or Carter Richmond?

She could retreat no further, and remembering her adventure in the house which had succumbed to the fire-fiend, she nearly fainted.

Already the powerful hands of the unknown almost touched her bosom; she could feel his hot wine-laden breath on her cheek and she expected any minute to be hurled across the room and robbed.

She made one last effort, but the movement was intercepted, and she stood in his grasp!

He held her at arms’ length and glared at her after the manner of a wild beast.

The poor girl was a child in the iron grip of the man, and all at once he drew her toward him and began to look for the documents.

“Don’t! For heaven’s sake, have some respect for my sex!” gasped Margie. “You can have them.”

“I can, eh? Well, hand them over.”

Margie, with trembling fingers, did so, and at sight of the papers he uttered a gleeful cry.

The next moment he released her, and she sank into the nearest chair.

She saw him step back a pace and open the papers, over which he eagerly ran his eye.

“Is this all you had, girl?” he suddenly demanded.

“Yes.”

“It’s a lie!”

Margie’s face colored.

“I want the others.”

“I have no others.”

“These are but letters from a lover. Where are the papers that once belonged to the old hag?”

“That is not for me to tell.”

“You defy me, eh?”

“I defy no one.”

“I’ll choke you to death but what I get the truth. I’ll have the right papers or your life!”

“You must take my life, then.”

The girl had strangely recovered her self-possession.

She could look at him now without flinching, and the terrible hand dreaded a few moments before had no terrors for her now.

Suddenly the man threw the letters upon the table and looked fiercely at the girl.

She withstood his look like a heroine.

“Be quick about it!” he cried.

“I have no other papers,” calmly said Margie.

He laughed derisively and then glanced toward the floor.

“I’ll fix you,” he exclaimed. “You’ve been in our road long enough, and the only sure way to get rid of you is to leave you here a fit subject for the morgue.”

The moment he came toward her Margie sprang up.

She was strong again, and suddenly catching up a poker which stood near the chair, she placed herself in an attitude of defiance.

“You advance at your peril,” she said, in determined tones. “I shall defend myself to the last extremity.”

“Against me? Why, girl, you don’t know what you are saying.”

“You shall find out if you advance, I say.”

He laughed again, and came forward.

In an instant the heavy rod was lifted above the girl’s head, and the next second she brought it down with all her might.

It was a blow such as a giantess might have delivered, for the man’s lifted arms went down, and he received the full weight of the poker upon his head.

He gave a gasp and sank to the floor like one killed outright, and Margie, with the novel weapon still clutched in her hands, looked at him, while a deathly pallor overspread her face.

Had she killed him?

For a short time she stood there, barely realizing that the whole thing was not a dream, and then she bent over the man.

As she touched the beard it came off and fell to the floor beside the face.

Margie uttered a scream.

She had seen that face before — seen it in company with Claude Lamont, and she knew that the man was his associate in evil and one of the chief men in the plot against Mother Flintstone and herself.

She sprang up suddenly and ran from the room, shutting the door behind her.

Down on the street she saw no one, though she looked everywhere for a policeman.

Moments were flitting away, and she suddenly thought of Old Search.

She knew where the old man lodged, and she would tell him of her adventure.

In a moment she was on her way, but she was doomed to disappointment; the old ferret’s door was locked and she could not elicit a response.

Baffled, Margie turned back again.

She had taken up nearly twenty minutes on the streets, and when she reached the vicinity of her humble home she thought of the man left on the floor.

She glided upstairs cautiously, just as if the dead could hear her, but at the door she stopped and listened.

All was still beyond it.

Margie put on a bold front, and opened the portal.

The first look seemed to root her to the spot.

The room was untenanted.

No one lay on the floor, and the little place, with this exception, seemed just as she left it.

The man, her victim, was gone.

“Thank heaven! his blood is not on my hands, rascal though he was!” exclaimed Margie Marne, as she leaped across the threshold and shut the door behind her.

If she had returned a little sooner she might have caught sight of her would-be robber.

She might have seen a man come out of the house, with his hat drawn over his brows and the brown beard awry.

This individual hurried away, nor looked he back, as if he thought he was not safe from molestation, and his gait told how eager he was to get out of the neighborhood.

A few minutes later he turned up in a certain house in another part of the city, and dropped into a chair as the tenant of the room demanded to know if he had been in a prize fight.

“Not quite, but I struck an Amazon,” was the reply, and he of the brown beard tried to smile.

“Tell me; did you encounter Margie?”

“No one else. What made you guess her?”

“Her name popped into my head somehow or other. Guess I must have been thinking of her when you came in. What did she hit you with?”

“With a crowbar, from the way my head feels; but never mind. It’s a long lane, you know.”

Claude Lamont smiled.

“You do pretty well for a ‘dead man’,” and then both men burst into a laugh.

“I’ll wring her neck for it yet!” suddenly cried Carter Richmond. “I’ll have the blood of that girl for her blow!”

THE CAPTIVE’S PERIL

“You’d better not try it.”

“Why not?” snarled Richmond.

“She may be dangerous.”

“That chit? Pshaw!”

“Just try it. See here. You don’t want to be too gay just now. Don’t you know you’re a dead man?”

“So I am.”

“Well, be a little careful. What if the old ferret gets on to our game?”

“The old ferret, as you call him, mustn’t do that.”

“Of course not, but we must see that he cannot.”

Ten minutes longer the two men, watched by Bristol Clara, the tenant of the next house, remained in the room, and then Richmond bade Claude good-night.

The moment the millionaire’s son found himself alone he struck the table with his fist.

“Why didn’t I really kill that man?” he exclaimed. “He is bound to be my evil genius, after all, I can’t see my way clear to ultimate success with him in the way. He’ll blackmail me, and what can I do? If he were really dead—”

He did not finish the sentence, but broke it off suddenly, and arose, throwing his cigar away.

“I’ll go home,” he said.

A few minutes later he was met at the door of his own home by his sister Opal, whose face told him that she had something of importance to say.

“Father is gone,” said the girl, with a gasp, and would have fallen if Claude had not caught her around the waist.

“Gone?” echoed the young sport.

“It is true. You can see for yourself.”

Opal led the way to the library, and mutely pointed at her father’s chair.

“When did you miss him?” asked Claude.

“An hour ago.”

“Did he leave any message behind?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

Opal handed her brother a crumpled note, and the young man leaned toward the light to read its contents.

“My God! you don’t believe that?” he exclaimed, turning upon his sister.

“I don’t know what to believe,” was the answer.

“What have you done?”

“Nothing. I’ve been waiting for you. I sent to the club, but the message came back that you had not been there.”

“Something must be done. Certainly father did not mean this. He has not gone to the police.”

“I—don’t—know.”

“I’ll see. He may have gone to the river in a fit of madness. He would not tell all he knows about Mother Flintstone.”

“I should think he would not.”

Claude seized his hat and rushed from the house.

For a little while his brain seemed to swim, and the lights blinded him.

He did not ask what Opal would do now that she was again the sole occupant of the house.

He did not seem to care.

Perry Lamont was a runaway, with a great secret at his tongue’s end and millions at stake.

For some time the old nabob had been subject to strange spells of mania, and the worst was to be feared.

It was this that urged Claude Lamont on and on.

He could not wait till he got downtown, and minutes seemed hours to him.

He thought of a thousand things.

He wondered what had become of Old Search, and more than once he looked back, as if he expected to see the old ferret on his trail.

At a fashionable saloon he stopped long enough to gulp down something for his nerves, and then he hastened on again.

Suddenly he stopped, and then dropped into the shadow of a large building.

A man was crossing the street — coming toward him.

His heart took a great leap into his throat, for it was the very man he was hunting for — his father.

Claude stood in the shadows and watched him like a hawk.

He could not take his eyes off the old man, and as he neared him he debated in his mind what to do.

As the millionaire stepped upon the sidewalk within a few feet of him the son darted forward and clutched him by the arm.

“Father!” he cried.

With a powerful effort Perry Lamont shook the grip loose and looked into Claude’s face.

“My God! he’s mad!” ejaculated the young man.

“It is Claude. Don’t you know me?” pleaded the son.

“Let me go. I’ve been looking after my sister — little Sis, you know.”

“Heavens! he means Mother Flintstone!” thought Claude.

“I can’t find her. What’s become of Sis?”

“I’ll find her for you.”

“What; you show me where she is?” cried the old man.

“Yes, yes. Come with me.”

In an instant Lamont’s mind changed, and he became as docile as a lamb.

As Claude was near the house he occupied when not at home he guided his father thither and let him inside.

Conducting him to the library, where he had just had an interview with Carter Richmond, he seated his parent and took a chair himself.

“Is she here?” asked Lamont.

“Yes; you’ll see her presently.”

“But I can’t wait. I want to see Sis now. I haven’t seen her for years, and I want to tell her about the money I have kept for her so long.”

“What money?”

“I’ve kept it for Sis. It belongs to her — the thousands which were left to her. you know.”

“What if Sis isn’t in need of money?” queried Claude.

“Then I’ll throw it into the fire! No one shall have it but her. I will see to that. Who are you?”

Claude smiled grimly.

His father had not recognized him.

“Come, you don’t want Sis to have the money.” he cried, and before the son could prevent, the other was on his feet, his eyes glaring like the orbs of a wolf.

“I’ll have your blood if you don’t tell me!” shrieked the mad millionaire.

“I’m your son.”

“No, you’re not! My son? It’s a lie!”

Claude saw his danger, and the madman advancing upon him made him throw out his hand in self-defence.

“My son is at home!” cried Lamont senior. “You are not he. I won’t believe it!”

“But, father-”

The sentence was not finished, for all at once Perry Lamont sprang at his son, and grabbing him by the shoulders, threw him against the wall.

There was a startled cry on the other side of it from the woman whose eyes seemed glued to the paper there.

“I’ll kill you like a dog if you don’t tell me where Sis is. I went to her den — they called her Mother Flintstone, you know — but she wasn’t there. Where is she?”

“Let me loose first.”

“And let you run off? Not much; ha! ha!” and the maniac laughed. “I won’t do anything of the kind.”

“But I can’t show you where Sis is unless you do that. I won’t run away, father.”

“It is false. You can’t fool me. I will hold you here till you tell the truth.”

“Well, Sis is asleep in the room yonder.”

“Is that true?”

Claude Lamont wanted to gain time. If he could get rid of his father’s maddened hands he might effect his escape, for just now he was in danger.

Perry Lamont glanced toward the door, and seemed disposed to believe his desperate son.

But suddenly he appeared to change his mind, for again his eyes shot forth sparks of fire.

“Call her out here,” he said.

Claude’s heart seemed to sink within him.

He knew he could not call back the dead.

He wished for the door to open and admit some one; he would have rejoiced then, with his father’s fingers buried in his throat, to have seen Old Search.

“I’ll give you one second, or to Hades you go!” suddenly cried Perry Lamont.

Claude’s blood seemed to run cold.

One second to live!

What had become of Carter Richmond?

“Why didn’t that worthy turn up to save him in the nick of time?

Why had he guided his father to that house and not home, where he would have Opal for an ally”

Fate was against him.

“Quick! quick!” exclaimed the madman. “Tell me where Sis is or I will tear your throat here!”

Claude made one last effort.

He summoned all his strength and dashed forward.

His father’s feet tripped on the carpet, and, falling, he dragged him down.

Father and son fell in a heap on the carpet, and for half a second seemed stunned by the tumble.

Claude was the first to recover. ,’

He raised himself and tore himself loose from the maniacal fingers.

As he did so his father sprang up with the roar of a baffled tiger, and launched himself forward.

It left Claude little time for reflection or action.

He saw danger ahead, and his hands were bare of any weapon.

But suddenly he snatched up a glass paper-weight from the desk, and launched it straight at his father’s face.

An arrow never went straighter to the mark than did the paper-weight.

It struck the millionaire fairly in the face, and he went down like a stricken ox.

On the carpet he gave a convulsive gasp and moved one arm; that was all.

“He invited it,” said Claude. “He forced it upon himself. They can’t blame me for this thing.”

Five minutes later he stood on the street, with the house darkened behind him and the glare of the lamps in his eyes.

He looked like Cain; the brand was on his brow.

THE BROKEN CHAIN

We left Old Search in durance in the dungeon where the strange explosion had taken place.

Truly the old ferret was in direst straits, and he could not forget the writing on the wall.

He did not know who “Lewis Newell” was, and he did not stop to inquire.

The sentence said that Opal Lamont, the fair daughter of the millionaire, was responsible for the prisoner’s fate, and this set the detective to thinking.

Perhaps the house to which he had been decoyed belonged to Perry Lamont, like another house he knew of.

He recalled his visit to the nabob’s mansion, where he had confronted Opal, and he recalled as well her demeanor.

That she had hot, revengeful blood he well knew.

Her beauty was tigerish.

But first of all the old ferret wanted to get out of the. dark place, and he resolved that it should not hold him long.

How to get out was the question, but for all this he set about it with all his wits at work. ’

The singular odors arising from the bomb had not overcome him longer than a few minutes, and now the dungeon seemed fairly free of them.

Once more he went around the walls and sounded them again.

He stooped where he had seen the flash of light as the bomb burst, and found that the wall had yielded.

A stone was loosened, “and this gave .the old man hope.

Beyond the wall must lie liberty.

With an energy born of despair Old Search toiled until he had made a hole underneath the wall large enough to admit his body, and he did not hesitate to squeeze through it.

Beyond the wall sure enough lay freedom, for he felt’ the cool night air on his cheeks and found himself in a cramped back-yard.

Out of durance at last, Old Search breathed a prayer of thankfulness and filled up the hole.

He stood for some little time in the yard, and then cleared the fence which stood between him and the street.

Half an hour later he might have been seen to enter ’Bristol Clara’s house,

The woman, uttered a cry as she saw him, and pulled him forward.

“Thank heaven!” she cried; “but why didn’t you come sooner?”

“I couldn’t. Circumstances prevented,” said Old Search, with a grim smile, which Bristol Clara did not understand.

“What’s happened, girl?”

“Murder!”

“Where?”

“There!”

The woman pointed across the room toward the .next house and looked at Old Search.

“Who committed it?” he asked. .

“Claude Lamont.”

“Then they’re even,” was the old ferret’s answer.

Clara did not reply, but led the ferret to the peephole, and bade him look.

The room beyond the partition was dimly lighted, but he could see its appointments and single tenant.

A man was stretched on the floor, silent and still.

“That’s the victim,” said the woman at his side.

“Who is he?”

“Perry Lamont.”

“And you say Claude did it? His son?”

“His son. I saw the whole affair.”

“Tell me all about it, Clara.”

Bristol Clara did so, and the ferret listened without once interrupting the woman.

“I must see the man yonder,” said Old Search.

“That’s easy. The house is tenanted only by the dead. You can easily get inside..”

It did not take Old Search long to reach the room where Perry Lamont lay.

He raised the man’s head and saw the dark spot made by the murderous paper-weight; then he lowered it again to the floor.

He searched the room thoroughly, and found more than one thing which told him that it had been one of Claude Lamont’s nests.

At last he rejoined Clara in the other house.

“Now for the round-up,” said he.

The woman looked at him, but did not speak.

“You once asked me who killed Mother Flintstone,” said Old Search.

“Yes.”

“I know.”

“Of course you do. You find out all these things. I never doubted that you would reach the end of this trail.”

“Well, woman, I can tell you now.”

Bristol Clara leaned forward, and Old Search whispered a word into her ear.

“My God! you don’t mean that?” cried the woman, as she recoiled, with very little color in her face.

“Every word of it.”

“It cannot be.”

“It is true.”

“Then go and do your duty,” said she. “Don’t let the guilty escape, Captain Search.”

“I don’t intend to. I’ll see you later, Clara. Only keep a watch over the man in yonder. The murderer may come back. Perhaps it was self-defence, but he isn’t remorseful. It is murder all the same.”

Old Search made his way from the house and to another part of the city.

He had found in the desk a bit of paper, with a scrawled address thereon.

It was a certain number in Brooklyn, and inside the hour the old detective was across the river.

It did not take him very long to reach the house, which he found darkened and silent, but his ring brought footsteps downstairs and to the door.

As the portal opened Old Search caught sight of an old man’s face, and he addressed him.

“I desire to see Mr. Holden, your roomer.”

“He’s sound asleep, sir.”

“I must see him all the same. Which room does he occupy?”

The sleuth pushed forward, with one hand on the old man’s arm, and the old fellow seemed to suspect the truth.

“Don’t disturb my wife. She’s sick”upstairs. You shall see Mr. Holden. I hope he isn’t a fugitive from justice, sir?”

There was no answer by the detective, for the old man opened a door and motioned Sam Search across another threshold.

As Old Search entered the room a human figure sprang from a bed and stood on the carpet before him.

“Carter, how are you?” said the detective.

The reply he got was a snort like a sound from a restive tiger, and Carter Richmond, brought to bay, threw a swift glance toward the door.

“What’s wanting?” he demanded.

“I want you.”

“What for?”

“For conspiracy.”

The man before Old Search seemed to catch his breath.

It was not so bad after all.

In fact, a grim smile appeared at the corners of his mouth and his look softened.

“Who are you?” he next asked,

“Come, you know me, Carter,” smiled the ferret. “I’m not disguised.”

“Well, here I am.”

The half-dressed man stepped forward, but the moment Old Search advanced a step he picked up a chair and with the fury of a maniac threw it above his head.

The old landlord behind the detective uttered a terrified cry and retreated, and as he held the only light there was, the room was wrapped in darkness.

Old Search struck a match, and at the same time thrust forward his revolver.

But the match revealed nothing.

Carter Richmond was gone!

For half a minute Old Search stood like a person in a dream, but a sudden cry from the old man roused him.

“He’s crept under the bed, sir,” was the cry.

With a light laugh Old Search sprang forward and caught hold of the foot he found.

The next moment a bullet whizzed past his head and then he dragged the rascal forth.

Lying on the floor handcuffed, Carter Richmond looked up into Old Search’s face and grinned.

“For conspiracy, eh?” he said. “That’s news to me.”

“It’s better for that than murder.” was the answer, and then Old Search took his prisoner away.

“Now for the other birds,” said the ferret as he turned from the station house.

He proceeded up town and, late as it was, rang the bell of the Lamont mansion.

For some time no one answered him, and then he heard footsteps inside.

“It’s Opal herself,” thought Old Search, as he waited for the door to open.

Yes, it was the handsome daughter of the dead millionaire, and she maintained her composure as she looked into the old detective’s face.

“It’s a late call, miss,” said Old Search, as he stepped inside. “But it is a case of necessity. I’ve found your father.”

“Indeed?”

How terribly cool this girl was.

“Yes; he’s been found and will be home shortly.”

“That’s clever of you. I did not know you were looking for him. He went off. a little unexpectedly, you see — —”

“I understand. He is dead — —”

“Father dead?”

It was a real start now, but in a moment Opal regained her composure.

“Miss Lamont, did you ever know a man named Lewis Newell?”

She fell back and seemed to gasp for breath.

“Lewis Newell?” she echoed, trying to become calm again. “I don’t know that I ever knew such a man.”

“You did not decoy him to a dungeon?. You did not coolly let him perish there? I’ve read his last words on the wall, miss. I know that that is not your only crime!”

“It is false!”

She looked defiant and her eyes flashed.

“There’s another, miss,” continued Old Search.

“You dare not say that again.”

“I say it again. There’s another crime. It is the greatest one of all.”

“What is it, pray?”

“The murder of Mother Flintstone!”

OLD SEARCH WINS

Opal Lamont seemed to grow into a statue before the ferret.

She did not move a muscle, but her face grew white, and the detective thought she would sink to the floor.

But suddenly she started up and calmly invited Old Search into the parlor.

The sleuth accepted and watched her like a hawk, for had not she once faced him with a revolver, and was not this the woman named by “Lewis Newell” on the wall of the,dungeon?

Opal Lamont seemed calm now.

She faced the man of many trails and even smiled.

“The murder of -Mother Flintstone?” she said, recalling the ferret’s words in the hall. “You accuse me of that, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see your proofs, please.”

Old Search dived one hand into his bosom and drew forth a little packet, upon which the eyes of Opal Lamont were riveted from the first.

He had never shown this to any one.

No one knew that he found it in an obscure corner of Mother Flintstone’s den the night he went thither with Mulberry Billy, the street waif, and the old woman’s “chum,”

Opal leaned forward and watched the hands of the detective open the packet.

She never took her eyes from the “find,” and when the last bit of covering had been taken off she appeared , to grow white.

One half of a ring lay in Old Search’s hand, and he glanced from it to the immobile face of the millionaire’s daughter.

“You found that in the house, I suppose?” asked Opal.

“Yes; in the darkest corner, not far from the spot where you struck the blow.”

“Is that all?”

“Not quite.”

“You need not go on. .Look at me, Captain Search. It was for the honor of this house. She was wicked.”

“She was your father’s sister!”

“She made a bad match. She was disowned, or, rather, she disinherited herself.”

“But that was no excuse for the crime.”‘“’

“She might have paraded the relationship before the world,” cried Opal. “She was positively dangerous. She was a perpetual menace. It was dreadful.”

“You took it upon yourself to put her out of the way. You went to the house—”

“To silence her tongue!” broke in Opal Lamont. “Murder was not in my mind at first. But she taunted me; she laughed at me when I offered to make her rich. She even threatened to appear in public and boast of the kinship. That was more than I could stand.” “You struck her then.”

“I did. I broke the ring with the blow. I did not miss it till I came home. The other half strangely clung to my finger till I reached this house. I thought I had lost the rest on the street.” “You nearly involved others in that crime.” “How’s that?”

“Your brother was for a time suspected of the murder, and then his chum, Carter Richmond.”

“Did it deceive you?”

“For a time. I traced out the ownership of the ring. I did it with the utmost secrecy. But a short time ago I half believed that one of them was the guilty person, but I am undeceived now.”

A haughty smile came to the girl’s lips.

She made an impatient gesture and then said:

“Let us dismiss these things. We can come back to them, you know. You said awhile ago that father was dead.”

“He is.”

“Where is he?”

“In one of the many houses he owned.”

“I thought he would take his life in his madness. He would have given his wealth for the keeping of the secret of the kinship. How did he do it?”

For a moment Old Search was silent.

“It was not suicide,” said he, looking at Opal. “It was the greater crime—murder!”

She started like one electrified.

“Another murder? I want to see him avenged, even if I have hands that are red! I want you to take the trail of his slayer. You will do this, Captain Search? You won’t refuse to become the servant of your human quarry?”

“It is no mystery,” was the reply. “The murder of your father is not a puzzle!”

“Then you know——”

“I know, for I have a living witness.”

Opal was silent; but her deep eyes seemed to pierce the detective through and through.

“I’m calm now. Name him.”

At this moment the front door opened and someone came in.

“It is Claude, my brother,” said the girl, scarcely above a whisper. “Wait a minute. He may go upstairs.”

Old Search looked toward the door and seemed to smile.

“Call him in here. His coming will answer the question you have just put.”

Opal sprang across the carpet and opened the door, revealing the figure of Claude in the main hall.

“This way, Claude,” said she. “A gentleman wants to see you.”

It was a lightning glance that passed from the hallway to the man in the parlor.

Claude Lamont knew the detective at once.

He hesitated, but Opal clutched his sleeve and pulled him forward by main force.

“You know this man. It is the trailer,” she said.

A dark scowl came to the young man’s face.

“I know him!” he almost hissed.

The next instant the daughter turned again to Old Search and exclaimed:

“Now, go on. You said you knew who killed father. Name the murderer.”

The hand of the old ferret was raised as his figure straightened, and in a second it covered the young man before him.

“There’s the man!” was all he said.

Though he spoke in low tones the words seemed to ring throughout the handsome parlor.

Claude Lamont grew white and Opal fell back.

Suddenly, however, she started forward and paused in front of her speechless brother.

“Is it true?” she cried.

There was no answer.

“You must speak! You must tell the truth. My hands are red and yours seem to be! You have heard this merciless trailer. He says you are a parricide! Is it true? Before heaven answer me, Claude Lamont!”

The lips of the young sport moved, but no words issued forth.

He seemed to have been struck with palsy.

“You heard me, murderer!” cried Opal, flinging herself upon her brother. “You must not stand there like a log and say nothing. You shall tell the truth. You did it.”

Claude flung her off and she nearly toppled against the mahogany table.

“I did it, and under the same circumstances I would do it again!” he exclaimed. “He was coming at me like a wild beast, and I had to fight or perish.”

“Swear this!” cried the girl.

Claude raised one hand above his head.

“Where did you find him?”

“On the street.”

“But you did not bring him home?”

“I did not. I took him to one of our houses-”

“And killed him there? Murderer!”

That instant, with the fury of a madman, Claude turned upon his sister and covered her white face with his quivering hand.

“Murderer, eh? What are you? Don’t you know that the curse of blood has been upon this house for years? The curse of blood and money! Nearly a century ago one of your ancestors murdered his bride, and ever since the stain has been upon the house. It has skipped a few generations, but it is with us now. Richmond and I have kept your red secret. We know who killed Mother Flintstone. Does the detective know?”

“He knows,” calmly answered Opal.

“And does he know that the girl called Margie Marne is the grandchild of Mother Flintstone?”

Old Search nodded.

“That’s all.”

Claude Lamont turned and stalked coolly from the room.

At the door he stopped and looked back.

“I’ll be on hand when wanted,” he said. “It was self-defense. I had to take the old man’s life.”

Old Search and Opal heard him on the stairs, and in a few moments they heard a door shut overhead.

Long before morning a policeman stood guard over the dead millionaire’s mansion.

The night passed slowly.

New York was getting ready to awake to the solution of another murder mystery and another crime.

Old Search was making the last move in the office of the chief of police, who had listened to the story of his last trail.

Carter Richmond lay in the station house cell fast asleep, just as if he had never been concerned in the plot to rob Perry Lamont, the millionaire, with the aid of his scapegrace son.

The morning broke.

Old Search went to the Lamont mansion.

Upon parting the night before Opal had pledged her honor that she would greet him when he came again.

He entered the house, speaking first to the guardian at the door, who assured him that all was well, and then he entered the parlor.

He rang the silver call bell on the table, and a servant entered.

“Your mistress?” said he.

“She is up stairs.”

Something in the servant’s tones attracted the old detective, and he bounded up the steps.

Into the girl’s boudoir he burst, to stop just beyond the threshold.

One glance was enough — one look at the form lying on the couch satisfied Old Search, and he did not remove the black-handled dagger from the blood-flecked bosom.

Claude was found fast asleep and was taken away, but the murderess was left alone.

The trail was ended.

Opal, the murderer of Mother Flintstone, was past reach of judge or jury, and the court acquitted Claude, for Bristol Clara, the only living witness, had to testify in his favor.

Carter Richmond was tried for conspiracy, and, as the law had long wanted to get another hold on him, he was sent “up the river” for a long term, which proved his last, for he died in Sing Sing.

The outcome of the detective’s trail was a startling surprise to Gothamites and became the talk of the town.

Margie Marne received a goodly share of the Lamont wealth, and afterward married, while Mulberry Billy, who played no insignificant part in the Mother Flintstone affair, was placed beyond want by Margie, who had formed an attachment for the boy.

It afterward turned out that Lewis Newell was a man who once persecuted Opal with his attentions, and the girl, with the coolness of a Borgia, decoyed him to his doom and thus began her career of crime.

Old Search was highly complimented upon the result of his last trail, but he will never forget his adventure in the dungeon to which he had been decoyed by the daughter of the millionaire, nor the coolness with which she met the terrible charge he brought home to her under her own roof.