A CHANCE CLEW.
No jungle in the heart of the African desert, no wilds of the Far West,
no desert region of the ice-bound North, no corner of the whole wide
world, in fact, contains beasts more to be dreaded, more crafty, cruel,
and terrible, than those to be found within the precincts of a great
city, in the haunts of the underworld, in the lairs and labyrinths of
vice and crime.
Close upon four o’clock that afternoon, or about three hours after Nick
Carter and his assistants left the Mantell residence, two women met by
chance in a certain disreputable section of the East Side, and nearly in
front of an inferior hotel restaurant and barroom run by one Barney
Magrath.
There was no mistaking their type and character. Their flashy attire,
their painted cheeks, the swagger atmosphere with which they met and
entered into conversation, told the story in broad-faced type and
double-leaded lines.
One was a slender, thin-featured woman with red hair, crafty gray eyes,
and a sinister expression.
The other was a more striking woman. She had a fine figure, the better
clad of the two, a woman in the twenties, with regular features, dark
hair and complexion, a firm mouth and chin. Hers was a decidedly strong
and quite handsome face, lighted with eyes that had a habitual searching
and defiant expression.
The first words that passed between them, uttered by the woman with red
hair, fell upon the ears of a man who was about emerging from the near
barroom, and who instantly passed back of the swinging doors and
lingered to listen.
“Oh, I say!” exclaimed the woman. “You’re just the skirt I want to see.
I’ve been looking for you, Sadie.”
The brows of the listening man knit slightly. He appeared of a type that
frequented that locality, a rather sinister-looking fellow with a black
mustache.
No observer would have suspected him of being a detective--to say
nothing of being the most noted detective of his day.
“The woman herself--Sadie Badger,” was the thought that flashed through
his mind. “The other jade is Mollie Damon, a running mate of Slugger
Sloan, a holdup man.”
Nick had obtained a momentary glimpse of both women when they halted on
the sidewalk, and he had instantly recognized both notorious crooks.
“Looking for me, Moll?” Sadie Badger questioned, sharply eyeing her.
“That’s what, Sadie.”
“What do you want? Are you on the borrow?”
“Nix! Not much! I’ve got coin to burn.”
“What’s up, then?”
“There’s a gent who wants to meet you. He wanted me to find you.”
“Meet me, eh?” Sadie’s eyes took on a sinister squint. “Why does he want
to meet me?”
“He’ll tell you,” Moll Damon returned. “I’m not wise. That is, only wise
to--whisper!”
She leaned nearer to her companion and spoke with lowered voice, but her
sharp aspirates reached the ears of the listening detective.
“It’s about the trick that was turned last night.”
Sadie Badger gazed at her without a change of countenance.
“What trick is that?” she demanded. “Come across plainly. I don’t get
you.”
“You don’t, eh?” Moll frowned. “Tell that to the marines.”
“Tell it to whom you like,” Sadie retorted. “It’s all one to me.”
“Well, whether you get me, Sadie, or not, the gent wants to meet you,”
Moll insisted. “What do you say?”
Sadie Badger gazed at the curbing for several seconds, evidently sizing
up the significance of what she had heard, and the consequences involved
in whatever course she might shape.
“Who is the gent, Moll?” she then asked abruptly.
“You don’t know him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Goulard.”
“I never heard of him.”
“That cuts no ice,” Moll declared. “He’s all right. You’d better see
him. If you’ll go with me----”
“I guess not! Not if the court knows itself,” Sadie Badger interrupted,
with scornful significance. “Safety first, Moll. When I meet strange
gents, I meet them where I’m dead sure of having the best of it.”
“I’ll send him to you, then,” Moll Damon quickly suggested.
Sadie hesitated again for a moment, then said curtly:
“You may do that, Moll, if you like.”
“Where to?”
“I’m heading for home. You know where I hang out. Send him there and
I’ll see him.”
“I’ll do it,” Moll quickly nodded. “He’ll show up within an hour.”
“All right! I’ll be there.”
The women parted with as little ceremony as they had met.
“Goulard, eh?” thought Nick, having heard every word that passed between
the couple. “Goulard, eh? If he shows up before I do, Miss Sadie Badger,
he’ll go some. This is too good an opportunity to lose.”
The conversation between the two women had transpired in a very few
minutes. The significance of it, in view of what Nick had learned and
suspected, convinced him not only that he was on the right track, but
also that the work he had laid out for himself and his two assistants
before leaving the Mantell residence, the nature of which will appear,
was likely to prove successful.
No one had noticed him in the barroom doorway, and Nick presently
slipped out and started in pursuit of Sadie Badger.
“She is not acquainted with Goulard, and probably does not know him by
sight,” he rightly reasoned from what he had overheard. “If I have
sized up the evidence correctly, then, I probably can worm out of her
precisely what took place in the Manhattanville house, and possibly
learn what became of Padillo and his war prize. I’ll wager I have it
near enough to pull wool over the woman’s eyes and loosen her tongue.
I’ll take the chance, at all events, regardless of the consequences.”
Nick had no difficulty in overtaking Sadie Badger nor in trailing her to
her destination.
It proved to be the end dwelling of a long wooden block in the upper
East Side. The end house in which she dwelt was within fifty yards of
the swirling waters of East River. The intervening space was occupied
with a motley aggregation of old buildings devoted to divers uses. They
extended even to the walled bank of the restless river, a large sign on
the farthest one bearing the single word: “Lime.”
“Not a savory section, by Jove,” thought Nick, after watching the woman
enter the house. “I’ll allow reasonable time for Goulard to have been
seen and sent here, and then I’ll tackle the woman and--well, the proof
of a pudding is its eating.”
Nick waited less than ten minutes, however, apprehending that Goulard
might possibly arrive before he could hoodwink Sadie Badger, and he then
approached the house and rang the doorbell.
“I shall hear the rascal ring, of course, if he shows up before I have
got in my work,” he said to himself while waiting on the steps. “I’ll
arrest both of them in that case and land them where they belong.”
Nick had waited only about a minute when the door was opened by the
woman herself, divested of her street garments, and wearing a loose
woolen house jacket. She gazed sharply at him, and Nick at once said
inquiringly:
“Miss Badger?”
“Yes, I am Miss Badger,” said Sadie, nodding a bit coldly.
“I am the man Moll Damon told you about--Gaston Goulard.”
“You arrive here very soon after my talk with her,” said Sadie
suspiciously. “How did she see you so quickly?”
“She did not see me,” said Nick, ready with an explanation. “She
telephoned.”
“Ah! Come in, Mr. Goulard.”
Nick entered and followed her into a small rear parlor, divided from
that in front by a curtained doorway. Through the broad portière,
however, Nick could see that the front room was unoccupied. Listening
intently, moreover, he could hear not a sound indicating that other
persons were in the house.
Upon taking the chair to which the woman invited him, nevertheless, Nick
inquired:
“Do I find you alone here? As you may infer, Miss Badger, my business
with you is of a private nature.”
The woman sat down at the opposite side of a small center table, near
which Nick had seated himself. She did not reply for a moment. Resting
both elbows on the table and gazing across it at him, she then said,
with seeming indifference:
“Yes, I am alone here. Contrary to what you say, however, I have not the
slightest idea, Mr. Goulard, why you want to meet me.”
“Why, then, did you consent to see me?” asked Nick pointedly.
“Curiosity,” asserted Sadie tersely. “I wondered what you wanted and
what you were like.”
“You had no other reason?”
“None whatever. You are a total stranger to me, Mr. Goulard.”
“Very true,” Nick admitted, and he was glad to do so. “Let’s become
friends, then, instead of total strangers. It will be to your
advantage.”
“Why to my advantage?” questioned Sadie, with brows drooping.
“Because of what occurred last night.”
“Occurred where?”
“In a house in Manhattanville,” said Nick. “Don’t you know? Didn’t Moll
Damon give you a hint?”
Sadie scowled impatiently, banging her palms on the top of the table.
“See here, Mr. Goulard, I’m not dealing in hints,” she cried, with some
asperity. “If you’ve got anything of importance to say to me, hand it
out straight from the shoulder. I’m no riddle guesser. What do you
mean?”
Nick saw plainly that the woman was suspicious and inclined to evade
him. He was equally sure, on the other hand, that fear alone had
impelled her to yield to Moll Damon, which convinced him that she not
only knew all about the murders of the previous night, but also was more
or less involved in them.
Nick now took her at her word, therefore, and replied, a bit curtly:
“I mean the fight in the house mentioned, a fight in which one of your
friends was killed.”
“One of my friends? I guess not!” declared Sadie, still with affected
ignorance.
“You’ve got another guess, Miss Badger,” Nick said, more forcibly. “You
may as well guess right, too, and hand me straight goods. I’ve not come
here to be bluffed, and a bluff won’t get you anything. You know what I
mean and the man I mean. Batty Lang is his name.”
“Batty Lang killed, eh?”
“You know he was killed,” insisted Nick, with an affected display of
impatience. “I know, too, that he was a friend of yours and of your
brother, Ben Badger; also that he was one of the gang of which you two
are the big fingers.”
“Is that so?” questioned Sadie tentatively, frowning more darkly.
“Yes, that’s so,” Nick went on, with increasing vehemence. “And that’s
not all. I know that Lang and some of your gang got wise to a job I was
going to pull off in that house, and that some of you got in there to
queer it and get the best of me.”
“We did, eh?”
“Yes. You did it all right, too, as far as that goes, but you’re not
going to get fat from it,” Nick forcibly informed her. “I’ve got that
finely fixed, you can bet on it, or I wouldn’t be here. It’s safety
first for mine, always.”
As may be inferred from all this, Nick was banking on the correctness of
his suspicions and deductions, aiming to so impress Sadie Badger that
she would enter into a discussion with him and ultimately expose all she
knew about the crimes.
Only a detective of Nick Carter’s confidence, one having absolute faith
in his own discernment and deductions, would have ventured such a
subterfuge as this. It seemed likely, nevertheless, to prove as
profitable as he had anticipated.
For Sadie Badger now straightened up in her chair and replied, smiling a
bit scornfully:
“You seem to be a wise gazabo, Mr. Goulard.”
“I know what I’m talking about, all right,” Nick informed her.
“You sure are some wise gink,” nodded Sadie sarcastically. “If you know
all this and have got things as finely fixed as you say, why have you
come here to spiel with me about it? You really think that our gang put
up a job on you, do you?”
“I don’t think,” snapped Nick; “I know you did.”
“And we’re not going to get fat from it, eh?”
“No, you’re not--barring you come to terms with me.”
“What terms do you mean, Mr. Goulard?”
“I want a fair share of the plunder.”
“What plunder is that?” asked Sadie coldly.
“Oh, cut that out,” Nick again protested, plainly seeing that he was
gradually gaining his point. “You, or some of your gang, have got that
Mexican in your clutches, along with the stuff he had in his suit case.
Don’t hand me any denial. I know all about it. You got him out through
the back door of the house, and Batty Lang was shot while trying to
prevent me and my friends from following him, after he had stabbed my
pal, Connie Taggart. You got away with Padillo and the stuff he brought
from Mexico. I know all about it--and I’m going to have a fair share of
it.”
Sadie Badger’s darker frowns showed how deeply she was impressed. She no
longer responded angrily, however, but with the earnestness and covert
cunning of a woman bent upon learning just what her visitor had up his
sleeve. She drew nearer the table, bending over it and saying:
“You do seem to know, Goulard, what you are talking about. Admitting
that you do--what do you mean by having things finely fixed?”
“In case anything happens to me while here,” Nick informed her, with
unmistakable significance.
“Oh, that’s what you mean, eh?”
“That’s what I mean, all right.”
“But suppose you don’t get what you’re after?” questioned Sadie,
narrowly eying him.
“You’ll get yours, then, and the rest of your gang,” Nick declared.
“Take my word for that.”
“Explain. I don’t quite get you.”
“That’s done with few words,” Nick went on. “You’ve got this Mexican on
your hands. You’ve got to put him away in order to safely keep that
plunder. You can’t let him go. He’d have the guns after you within an
hour.”
“We might compromise with him,” said Sadie, further convincing Nick that
he was shooting straight at the mark.
“That’s not like you, nor any of your gang,” Nick returned.
“As well compromise with him, Goulard, as with you,” Sadie pointedly
asserted.
“Not by a long chalk.”
“Why not?”
“Because you know I’ll keep my trap closed,” said Nick. “You couldn’t
feel sure of him.”
“Yes, we could,” said Sadie, with an expressive nod. “He wouldn’t dare
to squeal. It was he who killed Connie Taggart, and we know it. You’ve
overlooked that, Goulard, haven’t you?”
The woman laughed derisively.
Nick silenced her laugh, however, by retorting pointedly:
“No, nothing of the kind. You’ve got nothing on Padillo for stabbing
Taggart. He did it in self-defense to protect his property. He had a
legal right to do that.”
“Hang it, that’s too true for a joke,” frowned Sadie, biting her lips.
“You see,” Nick added; “you’ll do much better to put the Mexican away
and compromise with me.”
“Mebbe so, Goulard, after all,” admitted the woman reluctantly.
“Besides, there is another reason why you should do so.”
“What is that?”
“I am the man who made the job possible,” Nick forcibly argued. “If it
hadn’t been for Taggart and me, your gang would never have laid hands on
the stuff.”
“That’s true, Goulard, I admit,” nodded Sadie.
“Do you think, then, now that Taggart’s lamp has been put out, that I’m
going to be buncoed out of my share of the stuff?” Nick demanded. “Not
much! Your gang has got to come across with part of it, or I’ll give the
dicks a tip that will make trouble for you. I can do it, Sadie, all
right. I can do it and make a safe get-away for my part of the job.
That’s what I’ll do, too, unless----”
“Something prevents! Get him, pals! Don’t give him a look in!”
Nick turned quickly.
The first face he beheld, of several, was that of--Gaston Goulard.