“Ask him.”
Carter waved his hand toward the motionless man in the chair.
“Father has not been himself for some time, and to-night is not accountable for the admissions he may have made.”
Carter looked again at Perry Lamont, whose gaze had wandered to his daughter, and his hands, clasped before, had fallen apart.
At that moment he did look like a man half demented, but the detective soon returned to the tall girl.
“You shan’t ruin us,” she cried. “You shall not unite our name with that of Mother Flintstone, whose life, I am told, was anything but honest. It will be worth your life to do this.”
The look which accompanied these words told him that they were meant for a terrible threat, and the tightly shut hands of the speaker were proof that she was a fitting sister for Claude Lamont.
“We will meet again, perhaps,” said the detective. “I am going to run the guilty down. That is my present mission.”
At this moment Perry Lamont raised his head and looked at the detective.
“I’m not to be trifled with,” said he. “I can make it hot for the man who brings us down to Mother Flintstone’s level.”