“To the girl perhaps, but never to the rat,” said Lamont. “Margie knows a good deal, and would be a dangerous person for us to fight if she had the cleverness of some women. But she’s caged for some time, and Nora will see that she remains silent. But the papers? We must have something of the kind. If Mother Flintstone did not leave such, we must make them.”
“Now, that’s it.”
“The governor won’t knuckle down till he sees them, and then we’ll get all we want.”
For half a second Richmond smoked in silence, and then he threw away his cigar.
“We must make the papers!” he cried. “Your father, Perry Lamont, must give you free use of his purse strings. When I called on him and threatened to send you to the gallows unless he handed over ten thousand dollars he laughed in my face, and I came away with no cash at all. But I picked a check book from the desk, as you know, with one good check filled out. That’s helped us some.”
“Yes; but it’s a mere drop in the bucket. The governor must be confronted with certain papers proving that Mother Flintstone was his sister and my aunt. That will open the cash box, I guess!”
And young Lamont laughed.
“The infernal villains!” ejaculated Carter, as these details of infamy fell upon his ears; “if that isn’t a gallows pair then I never saw one in all my life. Claude Lamont can’t get his hands on the Lamont cash box, and that’s what worries him. One of those men killed Mother Flintstone; but which one?”
In another moment Claude and Richmond arose and left the room, and Bristol Clara said:
“That ends the exhibition for the present,” and the detective answered that he was satisfied.