Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist Part 23

"We must practice those signals. I will not ask you to visit me across the river. I have the privilege of receiving company at the rooms of a friend of mine in this city. If we could meet there some time to-morrow morning, you might bring one or two of your friends with you and we will practice the signals together."

"All right, it is not a bad idea."

"Then I will take a walk in Washington Parade ground to-morrow at about eleven o'clock, and you shall meet me and I will lead you to my friend's room, and then and there we will complete all our arrangements. Yes, yes, I will save my brother and earn the money to start him out on an honest course."

"Your affection for your brother appears to be very great."

"It is. I idolize him."

"Then at eleven o'clock to-morrow we are to meet by chance."

"Yes."

Our hero and the siren separated. She said she was to meet her brother who was to accompany her to her home. The siren pa.s.sed out ahead of our hero after a merry good-night. When Oscar came forth he had wrought a change. He stepped down to the curb and glanced. He saw a little chalk mark. It would have looked to an ordinary observer like a mere accidental sc.r.a.pe of chalk. To Oscar it spoke volumes, and he knew that his faithful strategist had succeeded in falling to a trail; and he knew that he would soon be on the trail like a sleuthhound following its prey. The detective started forward. At the first street corner he drew a little mask lantern and flashed its light around quickly and deftly, and there again under its glare he beheld a tiny chalk mark.

"Right," he muttered as he read his sign and moved on; and so he proceeded until he arrived at a certain corner, when he came to a halt; and a few moments later a messenger boy came up close to him and said in a low tone:

"She met her man."

"Well?"

"They went in that house across the street."

"Great Scott!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Oscar, "are you sure, Cad?"

"Yes."

"The woman and how many men?"

"One man only."

"And that man?"

"Was Girard."

"Sis, you can call up our aids and have them ready."

"We can snake them into the house."

"It's lucky; yes, it's lucky, Cad, and yet, it's risky."

"Why?"

"Credo may be in with them."

"But he knows you hold his life as it were in your hands, and----"

"Well?"

"He knows if you have trailed these fellows down so close that there is no show for him and he will be on your side."

"By ginger! you are right, so here goes. We are down on these people for fair now."

"We are, Oscar."

Cad Metti, the strange, weird girl, who could flit from place to place like a shadow, who could change her appearances as readily as a change actress on the stage, glided away, and our hero, who also, as our readers will recall, had worked a change, boldly went to the house which Cad had indicated as the place where the woman and Girard had entered.

He stepped into the dark hall of the house, and then quickly worked a second change; then he stepped to the street. The house was one well known to the police; its character, we will say, was established as the headquarters for the lowest sort of rogues. The owner pretended to keep a respectable hotel. He had rooms to let, and on the first floor he ran a barroom, and although the building itself was an old tumble-down affair the barroom was quite expensively fitted up.

Oscar staggered into the house, and as good luck would have it only the proprietor of the place was present at the moment and he was acting as bartender. Oscar staggered up to the bar, his eyes rolling in his head, but as they rolled, under their seemingly drunken glare shot forth a keen, observant glance.

As stated, he staggered up to the bar and fell over on to his elbows, demanding a drink.

"Where's your pile?" came the answer from the proprietor, a fellow named Credo, who was a good-looking octoroon.

Oscar displayed a big roll of bills.

"All right; what will you have?"

"Whisky."

The man placed a bottle and gla.s.ses on the bar when the detective reached over, caught the man's eye, and said in a very low but sharp, decisive tone:

"Mart, on your life, look to business now."

The man started, his swarthy face a.s.sumed a ghastly hue, and there came a look of terror to his eyes.

"You know me?"

"It's Dunne."

"Yes."

"What's your pull to-night?"

"You have visitors in your house."

The man trembled.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, and mark me, I know it all; yes, all. There is nothing for you in it only through me. Mark well my words: I can trust you; if not, it's bad for you."

"What is it you're after?"

"I am close down on this whole business."

"What business?"

"You want it straight?"