Nick Carter kept Louise Calhoun in sight, and when she left the store he followed.
She walked down Fourteenth Street to Eighth Avenue, and turned up that thoroughfare.
At the corner of Twenty-eighth Street the detective heard some one call him.
He turned, and saw that it was Tambourine Jack.
Crackers was with him.
“I want to tell you a hull lot, Mister Carter,” said Jack.
“I have no time to listen to you,” said the detective. “Do you see that woman ahead, in the long sealskin coat and the red hat?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I want you to follow her and come back and tell me where she stops,” commanded Nick. “She has looked back several times, and I am afraid she recognizes me.”
“I know the lady; we have met before,” said Jack. “She is a friend of Elmer Greer.”
The detective gave the little fellow money in case he should be obliged to take the cars.
“Hurry after her, and don’t lose her,” the detective said. “I will wait for you in that drug store on the corner.”
Tambourine Jack, after first turning Crackers over to Nick, hastened after Louise Calhoun.
He was absent until very late in the afternoon, and Nick Carter became impatient.
“Well?” the detective asked, when Jack returned.
“She led me a terrible chase,” said the little fellow.
“I don’t want to hear anything about that,” remarked Nick. “Where did you leave her?”
“At No.—Madison Avenue,” replied Tambourine.
Nick Carter was thunderstruck.
“Are you sure you took the correct number of the house?” he asked.
“I am certain.”
Louise Calhoun was visiting the home of Hilton Field.
“Jack,” said the detective, “I will meet you here at nine in the morning. You say you have something to tell me?”
This new turn of events puzzled Nick greatly. He returned to his home to plan out his campaign.
It was an old colored man who emerged from the detective’s house hardly three minutes after the latter had entered it.
The negro carried a pail half filled with newly slaked lime and a pair of whitewash brushes.
He crossed over to Sixth Avenue and there took a can to Fifty-ninth Street, where he got off and wended his way to Madison Avenue.
To the servant girl who answered the ring of the basement bell of Hilton Field’s residence, the negro said:
“I wish to see the young lady of the house.”
“Go away; we don’t want any whitewashing done,” exclaimed the queen of the kitchen.
“I don’t propose to do any,” answered the colored man. “I want to see Miss Mignon Field; she sent for me.”
“She is engaged.”
“It does not matter. You go and tell her to step downstairs for a minute.”
The domestic slammed the door in his face as she muttered:
“Sneak thief!”
It was soon reopened and Mignon stood in the doorway, and at her side was the servant.
“What can I do for you, my good man?” said Miss Field. “The girl told me you said I sent for you. There must be some mistake.”
“Send that minx away.”
“Mary, go into the kitchen,” commanded Mignon, much surprised at the negro’s request.
Darting an angry look at the “nagur,” the cook retired to her domain.
“You have a visitor,” said the colored man; “her name is Louise Calhoun; she used to be your younger sister’s music teacher.”
Miss Field was greatly astonished.
“Who are you? You are not what you seem,” said Mignon. “You do not talk like a negro.”
“Nick Carter!”
The beautiful girl clapped her hands for joy.
“You bring me news of father!” she exclaimed. “But why do you come here like a negro minstrel?”
The detective laughed.
“I will tell you at some other time,” he replied. “I want you to place me somewhere, that I may hear the conversation between you and this woman without being seen.”
“Why?”
The girl’s eyes opened to their fullest extent as she put the query.
“That also I will tell you another time,” the detective said. “I hope you did not tell her that you heard your father was still alive.”
“I did.”
Nick Carter’s jaw dropped; he feared Mignon had told her more.
“And did you,” he continued, “tell her the sort of person who brought you the intelligence?”
“No. But I was about to,” answered the girl. “I am forever thinking of that comical little chap.”
“I am glad you did not tell her that,” Nick said.
“She is a particular friend of ours,” remarked the girl, “and I have no secrets from her. Poor thing! she takes papa’s disappearance as hard as any of us. Father he thought a great deal of her.”
“Hum!”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, nothing,” replied Nick. “I was but clearing my throat. I must have swallowed some of the burnt cork when I blackened my face and hands.”
“Please satisfy a woman’s curiosity, and tell me why you wish to overhear our conversation?” the girl asked.
“Not now,” said the detective, “at another time I may. When you go back to the room talk as much as possible about your father.”
Mignon led the way upstairs, and ushered the officer into the back parlor, the doors dividing the parlors being closed.
Louise Calhoun was in the front parlor, and when Miss Field returned to her, she expressed surprise at the young lady’s long absence.
“One of the servants wished to see me,” was Mignon’s ready excuse.
Then, taking up the conversation where they had left off, she said:
“You think that if a larger amount of money was offered, my father would be returned? We have already offered a reward of ten thousand dollars, you know.”
“If he has been kidnaped, as the police think,” said Louise, “you may depend upon it that the villains who have him will ask more than that. How the poor dear gentleman must have suffered!”
The brazen creature applied a small handkerchief to her eyes and pretended to weep, while between her bogus sobs she whispered, loud enough for her companion to hear, however:
“Night after night I lie awake crying; oh, I hope they have not killed him.”
Pretty Mignon Field mingled her tears with the base counterfeits of her visitor.
After Louise had gone through her comedy part and the young girl had dried her eyes, the latter said: “How large a reward should I offer?”
“I would not publish a reward,” was the advice of the other.
“Then how are the rascals to know what we are willing to pay?”
“Put it in the hands of a detective.”
“The money?”
“No,” replied Louise; “although I would give him a few thousands to work on.”
“I have a detective.”
“You have?”
“That is—I mean to say,” replied Mignon, in some confusion, “I mean to hire one, or a dozen for that matter.”
“I know one that would suit you,” remarked the visitor.
Nick Carter’s name was on the banker’s daughter’s lips, but she did not mention it, and, indeed, its owner, on the other side of the parlor door, feared that in an unguarded moment she would.
“I have talked with nearly all the detective sergeants at headquarters,” said Mignon. “Does he belong to that squad?”
“Not he.” This was said with a slight show of indignation. “He is far above those fellows; there is not a first-class detective among them.”
Again did the name of Nick Carter tremble on the girl’s lips.
“He was formerly a secret service officer,” continued Louise, “but he retired long ago.”
“I don’t see why he could help to solve the mystery any better than any other detective.”
“I do,” said the visitor; “there is not a low character in the city that his long arm can’t reach, and I will guarantee, if you furnish him with a few thousand dollars to work on, he will return your father within forty-eight hours.”
“I would like to see this man,” said Mignon. “Will you bring him here?”
“No, I don’t think he would come,” replied Louise. “I talked with him about the case; he is a particular friend of mine”—she made a lamentable failure in an endeavor to call up a blush—“and he said to me that he felt certain he knew the gang that did it. I implored him to take a hand in the search for your poor dear father.”
“And he promised to do so?” interjected Miss Field.
“No,” answered Louise, “he said he had given up the business and did not care to do any more detective work. I pleaded with him and finally he said he would think the matter over.”
“But how am I to see him?”
“He visits me frequently,” replied the visitor. “He is to be at my house to-night. You might drive there. Here is my card.”
The address on the card was No.—West Twenty-seventh Street.
“You have not told me this wonderful man’s name.”
Louise hesitated for a moment, and then she said:
“It is Elmer Greer.”
The mention of the arch rascal’s name was not a surprise to Nick Carter.
He saw through the game from the start, and he was greatly amused at the woman’s tactics.
“Will you come?” Louise asked, rising to depart.
“I don’t know what to do,” replied Mignon. “I will first consult a gentleman friend of mine.”
Louise laughingly said:
“Ah, you, too, have your little romance!”
Had she known the gentleman friend that the banker’s daughter intended to consult, her mirth would not have been very exuberant.
“Bring him along, if you choose,” said she, kissing the girl and bidding her good-by.
It was the kiss of a Judas.
When she had gone Mignon returned to the detective.
“You have heard all; what shall I do?” Miss Field asked.
“Go.”
“Do you know this man, Elmer Greer, whom she so highly praises?”
“I am quite well acquainted with the gentleman,” replied Nick. “Indeed, I would like to know him better. I cannot describe how glad I am that I came here.”
“Is he a good detective?” inquired Mignon.
“He is not a detective.”
“Who or what is he, then?”
“He is the man who had your father carried off,” replied Nick Carter.
The girl screamed and the servants rushed in, but she ordered them out.
“And does this woman know he did it?” asked Mignon.
“Yes,” replied the detective, “and she had a very large hand in the affair herself, or I am greatly mistaken.”
“Heavenly powers! can such things be?” cried the banker’s daughter, “and the traitress dares pollute his grief-stricken home with her presence!”
“She is capable of doing anything—that is, anything that this Elmer Greer, who is really her husband, tells her to do.”
“And you would advise me to go to her house?”
“I most certainly would,” answered the detective.
“I don’t think I could bear the ordeal of standing face to face with the wretches and talking to them,” said Mignon. “Why, I looked upon that woman as a friend—nay, as more than a friend; I stepped across the social gulf that divides us and made her my companion and confidante. Oh, I cannot go!”
“Remember, it is for your father. That thought alone will give you both courage and strength.”
“But they may treat me as they did poor papa.”
“There is no danger.”
“But I fear there may be.”
“You need have no fear. I shall accompany you.”
“But they know you,” said the girl. “Even having you with me, I feel a dread. I can’t describe it, but a nameless fear seems to weigh me down since you told me who those persons were.”
“You will shake that off,” said the detective. “I will return in about an hour and a half.”
Nick Carter was punctual to his appointment, and he was so cleverly disguised that Mignon, although expecting him, did not recognize him.
He was got up as one of those angelic young men who are to be met with on the uptown streets and about hotel corridors and the clubs.
His light mustache was twisted up at the ends, and his plaid suit and overcoat would attract attention anywhere, and its owner be set down for an imitator of the English snob.
Entering the carriage which was in waiting, they were rapidly driven to the address given by Louise Calhoun.
Before they went into the house, Nick told his companion to agree to anything that might be proposed, and she promised to follow his instructions.
“Remember,” he whispered, as they went upstairs to the flat occupied by Louise Calhoun, “that what you are doing is for your father, and have courage.”
Louise was alone, her friend had not yet arrived—he was at that moment in the back room, puffing away at a cigarette.
Nick was introduced as Mr. Deming, and the hostess was most gracious to him.
“You are English, I should judge from your accent, Mr. Deming?” she said, and he answered in the affirmative.
She had been in England, traveled on the Continent, in fact, nearly all over the globe, and if she had not been born an American she would have liked to be English, and in such style she rattled on for some time.
“I think I hear Mr. Greer’s step on the stairs.”
Louise opened the door, crying:
“Why, here you are now! I ought to scold you for being so late!”
She presented her visitors to the newcomers, and Nick saw at a glance that the cunning fox was not suspicious of him.
“This is the young lady whose father has been kidnaped; oh, do something for her, Elmer, for my sake!” said Louise.
Greer seemed in doubt; he was taken so much by surprise, as it were.
He found his tongue, however, and retained control of it long enough to say: “It’s a bad business, a very bad business.”
“Indeed, that it is, and no mistake,” put in Mr. Deming.
“Oh, but for my sake”—Louise placed her hand lightly upon his shoulder—“you will break your resolution never to do any more detective work for just this once.”
Nick Carter would have given five dollars for an opportunity to laugh.
He winked at Mignon, and she, taking her cue, said:
“I will pay you handsomely for your time, whether you are successful or not. Have you any idea where the rascals have carried my father?”
“Yes, madam.”
“You will tell me?”
“I beg your pardon,” Elmer said, “that is my secret.”
“I will pay you for the secret, if its knowledge helps the police any—that is, providing you will not take the case yourself.”
“Oh, do take it, Elmer; both this young lady and her father have been very good to me,” said Louise.
Mignon was utterly disgusted with the shameless woman’s acting.
“Well, I suppose I must take it or you will torment the life out of me,” replied Greer.
“You must know, young lady,” the fellow continued, turning to the banker’s daughter, “that I shall require a good heap of money at the start. There is but one way to reach your father, and that is by bribing some member of the gang who carried him off.”
“Here is a check for two thousand dollars; will that be enough for the present?”
“I don’t like checks.”
“It is made payable to bearer.”
“I will cash it for you, Elmer Greer, with these.”
The false whiskers were plucked off, and Nick Carter, a pair of handcuffs in his hand, confronted the villain.
“A thousand furies!” yelled the rascal, springing into the other room and closing the door after him.
The detective drew his pistol and ran into the hall.
There was no one going downstairs; Greer must be in the rear room.
“Open the door.”
Nick Carter drove his foot through one of the panels.
Greer fired through the door at the detective.
The bullet went wide of its mark, but it found a lodging place in Mignon Field’s bosom.
With a cry of pain the wounded girl slipped off her chair to the floor.
The sight transformed Nick Carter into a madman.
He threw his whole weight against the door and tore it from its hinges.
The room was empty and the bird had flown.
The detective heard the front door close after him, and he rushed downstairs and into the street, but he could not see the fugitive.
“I will arrest this demon of a woman, at any rate.”
Another surprise awaited him.
Louise Calhoun had also disappeared, and he searched the house from top to bottom without finding a trace of her.
Nick was beside himself with rage.
He had the two birds caged, as he thought, and now what had he to show for his work?—nothing!
He returned to the room where the interview had taken place.
Pretty Mignon Field lay upon the floor bathed in her own blood.
The banker’s daughter’s presentiment that harm would befall her had proved true.