The black beard was gone and the skin was smooth, and this was what had called forth the street urchin’s exclamation.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FATE OF A SPY.
Under the ground at last Mother Flintstone passed from the minds of many. The hovel she had occupied in Hell’s Kitchen got other tenants and the crime was forgotten.
Not by everybody, however, for in the mind of more than one person the old woman whose life no one seemed to know beyond a few years was of some importance.
Carter was on the trail, and he was destined to find it one of the strangest if not the most exciting of his varied career. Nick had just learned that Brockey Gann had been sent to Sing Sing for a short term, and that Mrs. Lawrence and her daughter had gone abroad, never to return to this country.
It was the night after his last adventure—the one on the street with Billy, of Mulberry Street—when the boy failed to point out the man he had seen, that he stood in another part of the city.
The famous detective was quite alone, and his gaze was riveted upon a man who stood in front of a swell café lighting a cigar.
This person was well dressed and looked as if he belonged to uppertendom.
His features were regular, though they showed some signs of fashionable dissipation, and he carried a cane with an elaborate gold head.
In short, this person was Claude Lamont, the son of the millionaire, who had lately received the man who wanted ten thousand dollars to keep a secret.