The girl would have replied if footsteps had not approached the detective’s door, and he crossed the room.
Billy, the street Arab, bounded in the moment the door was opened.
“I’ve located him!” he cried the moment he caught sight of Carter. “I can show you the face I saw at the window last night. Come! Let the gal stay. We don’t want her. No gals in the case for Mulberry Billy is my motto,” and the boy darted toward the door again.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MILLIONAIRE’S GUEST.
In another part of the city about the same time that witnessed these events a scene was being enacted which is destined to have an important bearing on Carter’s present case of mystery.
This time it was not in the heart of that tough locality called Hell’s Kitchen, but in the haunts of the better classes, indeed, in what might be called the abode of wealth.
Perry Lamont was a multimillionaire. He was a man of past fifty, but with very few gray hairs and a florid complexion. He was not engaged in any business, having retired from the “Street” some years prior to the opening of our story, and now was resting at his ease.
Surrounded with wealth of every description, this man was an envied person and a man to be congratulated on the easy life he could lead in his luxurious mansion.
Blessed with wife and children, the latter grown to manhood and womanhood, he passed his days in luxury, his only fad being fast horses, with which his stables were filled.
Perry Lamont sat in the splendid library of his home and smoked a prime cigar. He was alone. His wife and daughter had gone to the opera and his son was playing billiards at the club.