Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 396 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ea ee SC not tell it as clearly as he might have done. Still, Hardy understood the drift of it. **So you followed a party that looked like an old man, but whom you had reason to sup- pose was disguised, and you found him in- dulging in a fracas with what seemed to be three women. Singular sort of a story, this. He rage, ae though he wanted to make you believe that he was your friend and he told you there was not a woman in the lot. Very well. Can’t you guess who the man might be; or have you any idea who the three are? Speak quick. If you’ve nothing to suggest, I want to follow it up the best I can.” ‘‘There was something familiar about his voice,” answered Blaine, in a bewildered |. sortof way. ‘“ Of course there can’t be any- thing in that, because I left him at the hotel; but do you know if I hadn’t known better | might have believed, from the voice only, that it was General Rawle in masquerade.” ‘Three women, eh?” put in Hardy, reflec- tively. **You didn’t see their faces I suppose. Do you know I have an idea. What was that the other night about General Rawle’s double? Don’t it strike you that we’ve got a trace of him again? And how about the three men that were engaged in carrying him off? Per- haps they were in disguise then, and have broken out in a new place to-night. I can’t make much out of it yet, but, by heavens, I’m going to know what it all means before I get through. Come along. There’s a wide- awake man on this beat, and he may have an idea or two. You and I can talk as we go along.” “Then you think this an a clew?” ‘*Clew! Heavens, yes. e have dozens of clews—this is another—but the misfortune is that none of them lead to anything. The ___ rascals seem to be omnipresent and perfectly ‘reckless. They must have wings and fly away whenever they have finished a job. You are certain that the old man could not have been the general himself?” ‘Positively. But I am sure that we are on the trail of a crime that somehow blends in with the murder at the hotel.” ‘*Most likely. I wish I coul how and why that injured man le a - aa find out the hotel so secretly. It looks suspicious, to say the /— . Teast.” ~~ **Tt is certain that he had nothing to do ; < - with poor Regina’s death,” the major sug- gested. _. “Nothing is certain. In spite of all that we have heard, we are still groping in the dark. We may stay there to the end, or we ‘may come suddenly into full sunlight. Let us hope, and do our best.” — _ They talked as they hurried along; and * a just then Captain Hardy found his energetic . officer. ae He had evidently tried to stop some one. His club was in his hand, and Hardy’s prac- __ ticed eyes saw that there had been a struggle. -. Beyond this there was little to be learned, for the man lay with the top of his head -_ erushed in. _ Preston Blaine grew sick as he realized what his own fate might have been, while the captain uttered an execration of horror and rage. The murdering villains. It is all the work of the same hands. [ll swing them yet, or I'll die myself in the effort.” ei ) CHAPTER XXI. PROTEUS GETS LEFT. ___ OiirrorD MELTON in a few words had ' described his position very well. He was a -- young man who managed to get rid of his own superfluous cash very easily, and as ~. much more as he could wring out of his - father. He was not an idiot either. In a great many respects he was shrewd enough; but he had drifted into the falsest of false __ -ways, and, as Madam Velvet had so plainly Tea told him, was on the very verge of ruin. ----« He knew all that when he gave the matter : iy a serious thought; but there was a fascina- tion about the worthless, wicked life that 4° » & *%, “4 ¥ pa bound him to it, ___-—s*#Besides, there was the madam herself. ‘It was hard for him to define his feeling or) toward her. He knew that she was much his elder; he believed that she was a wicked to woman; he did not think that she cared for Im; yet if she gave him the chance he turn- m3 ed to her from his other companions, from . <a S aay oo, a > ——— ~ a —— The Piper Detective. his cards and his wine. She could have twisted him around her finger, and he knew it. He had made her a distinct promise; and he meant to keep it. : Without the least effort to discover her reasons for what she had said and done he went straight to his rooms. It was the earliest he had entered them for an age; and his slumbers that night were both long and deep. Concerning the money he had won he thought but little, and when he arose in the morning he remembered very well that he had made a promise of some sort in connection with it, the particulars of which were not altogether distinct. As he had gone to bed sober he awoke with an appetite, and ‘rather astonished him- self with the breakfast that he put away. After that he hesitated as to what he should do. It was so much before his usual time that he was all abroad. And then it seemed to him that if*~he wish- ed to keep his promise of the night before it wouldn’t do to go off to any of his ordinary stamping-grounds. There was temptation there; and he knew his own weakness as well as did the sharpers that played on it. ‘*It seems to me,” he said to himself, pull- ing thoughtfully at his mustache, ‘‘ that the madam didn’t make that request for noth- ing. She could hardly have helped me to the winning, but who Knows what her in- tentions are? I’m a double-dyed fool to be thinking about her, but by Jove she’s the moet fascinating woman I ever knew. [ll finish up on the square with her if it takes me to purgatory. If she should take the notion to fill the vole of good angeland mis- sionary she sha’n’t be disappointed about my meeting her half-way.” He half regretted his good resolution in less than an hour after it was made. There was a rap at his door and when he opened it there was Van Tyler, one of his worthless young acquaintances. ‘* Here's to you, old man,” said the visitor half forcing his way in. ‘* Everybody has heard of your good luck last night, and they’re laying in wait by the score down-town. If they knew where you hung up of mornings they’d have been down on you here; but you've kept that dark, and I didn’t give them a pointer. I teil you, you ought to take that into consideration when I get down to business, for I believe I could have made acouple hundred peddling out the information; and that’s about the size of the friendly loan I thought of striking you for. Eh! You willing to help a fellow out of a beastly bad hole?” The question was asked lightly enough, but Melton recognized the real anxiety that lay behind it. Tyler was a bad enough sort, yet Clifford had a friendly feeling for him for his jovial ways, and did not care to keep him in sus- pense. He answered seriously enough: ‘* See here, Tyler, I haven’t made an inde- pendent fortune, and my little pile wouldn't go very far if I tried to make a divvy of that size with all my speaking friends. I've no doubt you bolted up here with the idea that it would be first come, first served. You're not very far wrong. In the first place, I’ve got a side-partner that I have to take an ac- count of stock with. Until that’s done, I can't pay out a cent of my earnings last night. But if you are in a hole, and two hundred will help you out, I think I had, pretty nearly that much of my own when I began work, and you shall have it. What are you going to do?” Tyler looked suspiciously about him, and then lowered his voice, so that it would be impossible for an invisible eavesdropper to hear him, as he answered: “Tm going to bolt. If I meant to stay here I'd have more sense than to compromise on two hundred, when I had the chance of roping you into short cards, and strikin you for all you’re worth. But I don't inten to stand on ceremony in going; I mean to go at once.” - : ‘“What’s up? No serious trouble, T hope. I'd hate to see you mixed upin anything that would get the bloodhounds of the law on your track,” Van Tyler gave a snort of disgust. ‘‘Bloodhounds of the law be hanged! If \ aé ia ha - f ’ that was all I’d stay and fight it out. They’re the kind that are blind and have acold in their heads. No, sir. There’s another sort of bloodhound on my track that’s a great deal worse. He means business, and when he hits he hits to keep, He’s got it in for me, and the sooner I get out of his reach the better. Unfortunately ’ve no money, and he knows it; so he’s playing me like a cat does a mouse. I tell you I’m no coward, but if I don’t jump the ranch I'll be a dead man before a week.” Clifford looked at his o7s-a-vis in surprise. He could not believe that he was telling the truth. ‘Tt strikes me, if I knew the man and his intentions, I wouldn’t wait for him to begin. I'd strike first, Where are the police?” ‘Oh! what’s that you’re giving me? I’m a likely looking duck to hollow for the cops. He would rather that 1 would. In that case he'd have me sure. No, sir; [’m going to bolt, and if you’ll let me have a starter I’ll give you a point or two that'll make youa heap wiser. Come now, like a good fellow —yes or no?” ‘But who is the man? It may be that he’s not half as desperate as he looks.” ‘“Now you have me, Call him Conyng- ham if youlike. That’s not his real name, and that is where he has the inside track. If I knew what his name was on change the bulge would be just the other way. But you can’t fight a shadow, and there’s somewhere a man with a shot-cun that makes the shad- ow, and, as I said before, he’s got it in for me. Now, what are you going to do about it? Of course I can raise some money; but not enough. I’m going to put a good many yards between us when | do start, and I don’t want to be starved out the first month.” Tyler was in earnest and so was Clifford Meiton. ‘* See here, Van, I’m not sure but what it’s all a beat, that you will laugh at me for to my face after you’ve taken in all that you ean grab. I don’t know anything about Conyngham or any of your other associates, but I’m willing to help you to get rid of the whole batch of them. Here’s a hundred and seventy-five. I can’t touch the partnership money urtil it is divided, but you can take all I have of my own. You see, I rather fancy you, anyhow, and I want to get rid of the whole business as quick as possible. To everybody else I can say, no, with a stern face.”’ “ e pre thanks, and let me tell you, though it is not likely that you will—” He ceased speaking, and looked up with a quick, rat-like glance at the door. Some one was outside and tapping with no very gentle knuckles. ‘Then he turned to Melton, speak- ing even lower than before. ‘*Of course, everything I said is in confi- dence. A man must talk sometimes or burst. I don’t want this fellow outside to see me, Can’t you hide mesomewhere? Somehow he sounds deuced familiar.” ‘‘There’s the closet. That’s the regular thing in such cases. You can take to it until he is gone.” ‘‘A thousand more thanks. I’ve got my reasons. Help me out and I won't forget ou.” : He stuffed the money in his pocket and vanished, while Melton unlocked the door, saying as he did so: ‘*Come in, old man. I may as well take them as they come—and you're the first on the list.” Nevertheless he gave a gesture of disgust as his eyes fell upon the man who entered. ‘‘ Hello, Uncle Johnny, what are you after? you're a month ahead of your time. Come around the last of the month and I'll be ready for you. If you won’t renew I'll pay you. I’ve got the money coming in then as I told you when I made the loan, and though I need it badly enough for other things, 1 won’t go back on what I said.” ~“ Uncle Johnny ” was just as much a rela- - tive as a pawnbroker or a note-shaver usually is. fle was a gray haired, old-looking man, with bent shoulders, feeble step and a wrinkled face. He entered quietly and without the least hesitation, in spite of the ungracious nature of his reception. If Melton could have seen his eyes, he would have noted that they took a keen, comprehensive survey of the room, which fortunately, perhaps, gave no sign of another visitor. JOO ——— wt eom —_ (E — 7 b re com - ¥, ye. « «J ‘. &