If darker crimes than robbery were meditated, the intended victim was conducted to the gloomy and vault-like regions under the saloon.
A long, low bar ran along the left-hand wall; off to the right were half a dozen tables; in the rear were four or five small rooms partitioned off.
When Gillman entered the dive it was half filled with a roaring complement of sailormen, every one in the lot considerably more than “half seas over.”
The air was thick with tobacco smoke, heavy with the fumes of cheap beer, and resounding with sea songs—every song pitched in a different key and sung in a different language.
Nick Carter had established his case and was ready to arrest his man.
What he wanted, however, was to make a clean haul of the entire gang, and to this end he had shadowed Gillman.
He was now certain that Boucicault’s was the rendezvous of the swindlers, and he followed Gillman through the fog of smoke, and saw him vanish into one of the rear rooms.
The time had come when the detective thought it would be as well to bring matters to an issue with the assayer’s clerk, to find out what he could from him, and then turn him over to the police for safe-keeping.
Advancing to the door of the room entered by Gillman, Nick tried the knob.
The door was locked, and he applied his knuckles to the panel.