The "Dock Rats" of New York Part 73

"That we can't tell, but Vance will be here to-night; and if you men do not spoil the game we can fix things all right."

"Is that what that fellow told you?"

"I know what I am talking about."

"Vance is to be here to-night?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's time he was here."

The answer caused a laugh.

Rigby saw that the men were not satisfied, and he sought to change the subject. He said:

"So old Pearce is dead?"

"He is."

"Where's the girl?"

"That's more than we'll tell you."

"I always thought Renie's good looks would bring trouble to someone sooner or later," said Rigby.

"You don't think any of the gang had anything to do with bringing harm to the old man?"

There came a general denial of any such suspicion.

The men, however, appeared to be quite restive as to the ident.i.ty of the man whom they had found prowling around.

Rigby went inside to report what he had heard to the detective, and upon opening the door he uttered an exclamation of astonishment.

"Well, this gets me," he muttered.

The room was vacant--the man had left.

"Where can he be?" muttered Rigby and he commenced a search, but the man was nowhere to be found.

A curse fell from his lips.

"Have I been fooled, after all?" he muttered. "I'll be shot if it don't look so."

The tavern-keeper continued his search, but it proved fruit less; the man was nowhere to be found.

"I daren't go and tell the boys about this," he muttered: "but it looks as though I had bees fooled."

The real fact was the tavern-keeper had been fooled.

Vance was not the man to depend upon hearsay. He had followed after Rigby, and had overheard every word that had pa.s.sed between the man and his friends.

The detective a was fully convinced, from what he over-heard, that the smugglers were innocent of old Tom Pearce's death; indeed, he had so believed from the first; but it was one of his methods to make sure, and when once really convinced he knew as stated, where to look for the real a.s.sa.s.sin, and he folded his tent, like the Arab, and as silently stole away.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Upon the day following the scenes described in our preceding chapter, a strange interview was in progress in a magnificent apartment in a house situated in one of the most fas.h.i.+onable quarters of New York.

A beautiful young lady, richly attired, had been sitting alone in the elegant apartment described when a man of dark complexion entered the room, and, with silent step and a pleased smile upon his dark face, he advanced toward the girl.

Just a moment preceding the entrance of the dark-faced man, the girl had indulged in a brief soliloquy. She murmured:

"Well-well, my mind is made up. I have fooled that villain!

He thinks I love him. He thinks I have been dazzled and bewildered by the possession of all these fine clothes and the wearing of these costly jewels; but he is mistaken. I hate him--I abhor him! He is an a.s.sa.s.sin! He thinks I do not know it; but I saw him strike down that good old man, Tom Pearce, and I have but hired him on with a promise of my love, only that I might hold him until an opportunity offers to hand him over to justice."

A moment the girl was thoughtful and silent, but speedily she resumed her soliloquy, salving:

"I wonder what could have become of Vance! He lives--he has been successful, I saw in a paper yesterday. Why does he not come to me? Well, well! as he does not come to me, I will go to him. It is time that I unmasked before this scoundrel, who thinks he has won me by the tragedy through which he temporarily obtained possession of me. But we shall see! I am 'Renie, the Wild Girl of the Sh.o.r.e,' as Vance once called rue, and I will prove myself more than a match for this deep, designing scoundrel."

The girl had just uttered the words above quoted when the door opened, and the man entered the room.

As stated, he advanced with a pleased smile upon his face.

"Renie, darling," he said. "I have pleasant news for you."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, my dear. To-day we sail for my beautiful home in Cuba where you will be the belle of society, and where we shall be married."

"We sail for Cuba to-day?"

"Yes, to-day."

"I thought you did not intend to go until the season was more advanced?"

"I have decided to go to-day; business calls me there."

"And you sail to-day?"

"Yes."

"I cannot go with you."

"You cannot go with me?"

"No."