The two criminals looked at Nick for a moment, and then laughed.
“I guess that you know who he is, Mr. Carter. You tried to arrest him that day the riots were going on in the street. He laughed about his narrow escape that day.”
“Well, what was his reason that day to try and have one of his own gang lynched?”
“He was sore on the fellow, as he thought that he was trying to spy on his business, and he saw a good chance to finish the fellow without its being traced to him, so he concluded that he would get him out of the way in that manner. He first sent a note to the woman, asking her to meet him, and addressed the letter to her in endearing terms, and then, before she had time to receive it, he sent word to the husband that his wife was receiving letters from different men. The husband, of course, found the letter, and accused his wife of being untrue to him, and he, in his jealous rage, shot her, which was exactly what Weeden wanted him to do. I tell you, of all the devilish men on earth, he is the very worst.”
CHAPTER LV.
THE MYSTERY SOLVED.
“How did you come to discover that the man Weeden was Benny the Bum?”
“I followed the tramp one night, and saw him steal into the shop. He went into the rear part of the shop and took off the false beard that he wore, also the wig of matted hair that hung over his shoulders. He kept saying to himself: ‘I am the king of murderers! I am the king! I love to see their ghastly faces as they look up at me.’
“Then he went over into the corner and set down the long staff or walking stick that he carried, and unscrewed the ferrule, and out dropped a small tube of compressed air.
“He went to a closet and took out another one and inserted it into the end of his staff.”
Later in the day, Nick and several of the men from headquarters went out to the place where Jack Weeden and his gang held forth. They surrounded the shop, and Nick opened the door to enter, when swish! something whizzed past his side and embedded itself in the woodwork of the door.