Dangerous Ground Part 32

"One moment, Mr. Stanhope. Alan has employed detectives to search for Daisy, but none of them know what you know. Will _you_ find her for me?"

She held out her hands appealingly.

The detective looked at her in silence for a moment, then, striding forward, he took the outstretched hands in both his own, and gazing down into her face said, gently:

"I will serve you to the extent of my power, dear lady. I will find the little one, if I can."

Mr. Follingsbee had pa.s.sed his hour of waiting in the most comfortable manner possible, fast asleep in a big lounging-chair. Being aroused, he departed with Stanhope, manifesting no curiosity concerning the outcome of the detective's visit.

While their footsteps yet lingered on the outer threshold, Winnie French came flying down the stairway.

"Come quick!" she cried to Leslie. "Archibald is worse; he is dying!"

"I will serve you to the extent of my power," Richard Stanhope had said, holding Leslie Warburton's hands in his, and looking straight into her appealing eyes. "I will find the little one, if I can."

Nevertheless he went straight to the Agency, and, standing before his Chief, said:

"I am ready to begin work for Mr. Parks, sir. I shall quit the Agency to-day. Give Vernet my compliments, and tell him I wish him success. It may be a matter of days, weeks, or months, but you will not see me here again until I can tell you _who killed Arthur Pearson_."

CHAPTER XXIV.

VERNET ON THE TRAIL.

The discovery made by Van Vernet, on the day of his visit to the Warburton mansion, aroused him to wonderful activity, and made him more than ever eager to ferret out the hiding-place of Papa Francoise, who, he felt a.s.sured, could throw much light upon the mystery surrounding the midnight murder.

He set a constant watch upon the deserted Francoise house, and kept the dwelling of the Warburtons under surveillance, while he, in person, gravitated between these two points of interest, during the time when he was not employed in collecting items of information concerning the Warburton family. Little by little he gathered his bits of family history, and was now familiar with many facts concerning the invalid master of the house and his second marriage, and the travelled and aristocratic brother, who, so rumor said, was proud as a crown-prince, and blameless as Sir Galahad.

"These immaculate fellows are not to my taste," muttered Van Vernet, on the morning following the day when Stanhope held his last interview with Leslie, as he took his station at a convenient point of observation, prepared to pa.s.s the forenoon in watching the Warburton mansion.

His first glance toward the ma.s.sive street-door caused him to start and mutter an imprecation. The bell was m.u.f.fled, and the door-plate hidden beneath heavy folds of c.r.a.pe.

Archibald Warburton was dead. The hand that stole his little one had struck his death-blow, as surely as if by a dagger thrust. His feeble frame, unable to endure those long days of suspense, had given his soul back to its origin, his body back to nature.

Within was a household doubly stricken; without, a two-fold danger menaced.

"So," muttered Van Vernet, as he gazed upon this insignia of death; "so my patron is dead; that stately, haughty aristocrat has lost all interest in his wife's secrets. Well, so have I--but I have transferred my interest to his brother, Alan Warburton. Death caused by shock following loss of his little daughter, no doubt. That tall, straight seigneur looked like a man able to outlive a shock, too."

He was not at all ruffled by the sudden taking-off of the man he supposed to be his patron. He had not made a single step toward the clearing-up of the mystery surrounding the goings and comings of Mrs.

Archibald Warburton. His discovery of Stanhope at the masked ball, and his machinations consequent upon that discovery, together with the fiasco of the Raid and all its after-results, had made it impossible that he could interest himself in what he considered "merely a bit of domestic intrigue."

He was not sorry that Archibald Warburton was dead, and he resolved to profit by that death.

Since the discovery of Alan Warburton's picture, Van Vernet's mind had been drifting toward dangerous conclusions.

Suppose this wealthy aristocrat and the Sailor a.s.sa.s.sin should prove the same, what would follow? Might he not naturally conclude that a secret existed between Alan Warburton and the Francoises, and, if so, what was the nature of that secret? Why was Alan Warburton, if it were he, absent from his house on a night of festivity, a night when he should have been making merry with his brother's guests?

If he were in league with those outlaws of the slums, it was not for plunder; surely the Warburtons were rich enough. What, then, was the secret which that stately mansion concealed?

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," quoted Vernet, grimly.

"That Sailor a.s.sa.s.sin first--the Warburton skeleton first. They are almost under my hand, and once I grasp them, my clutch is upon the Warburton millions, too."

The morning was yet early, there was quiet in the street and Van Vernet, wearing for convenience sake the uniform of a policeman, paced slowly down toward the house of mourning. As he neared the street-corner, two women, beggars evidently, came hurrying around the corner straight toward him.

At sight of his uniform the larger and elder of the two, a stout woman with a vicious face, a sharp eye, and head closely m.u.f.fled in a ragged shawl, started slightly. Then with a furtive glance and a fawning obeisance, she hurried her companion past him, and down the street.

This companion, a younger woman, her face covered with bruises and red with dissipation, walked with a painful limp, and the hesitating air of the blind, her eyes tightly shut and the lids quivering.

"Playing blind," muttered Vernet, as they hastened past him. "If I were the regular officer here, I'd have them out of this; as it is--"

He gave a shrug of indifference and glanced back over his shoulder.

The two women had halted before the Warburton mansion, and the elder one was looking up at the c.r.a.pe-adorned door.

Then she glanced backward toward the officer, who seemed busy contemplating the antics of a pair of restive horses that were coming down the street. Seeing him thus employed, she darted down the bas.e.m.e.nt-stairs, dragging her stumbling companion after her.

Suddenly losing his interest in the prancing horses, Van Vernet turned and hastily approached the mansion, screened from the view of the two women by the ma.s.sive stone steps.

Even a beggar, of the ordinary type, respects the house of mourning. And as he drew near them, Vernet mentally a.s.sured himself that these were no ordinary mendicants.

They were standing close to the bas.e.m.e.nt-entrance. And as he stealthily approached, he saw that the elder woman put into the hand of the servant, who had opened the door, a folded paper which she took reluctantly, glanced down at, and with a sullen nod put into the pocket of her ap.r.o.n. Then, without a word to the two beggars, she closed and locked the door, while they, seeming not in the least disconcerted, turned and moved leisurely up the bas.e.m.e.nt-stairs.

They would have pa.s.sed Vernet hurriedly, but he put out his hand and said:

"Look here, my good souls, don't you know that this is no place for beggars? You can't be very old in the business or you'd never trouble a house where you see _that_ on the door." And pointing to the badge of mourning, he concluded his oration: "Be off, now, and thank fortune that I'm a good-natured fellow."

The woman muttered something after the usual mendicant fas.h.i.+on, and hastened away down the street.

At the same moment the prancing horses, held to a walk by the firm hand of their stout driver, came opposite the mansion, and a face m.u.f.fled in folds of c.r.a.pe looked out from the carriage.

But Van Vernet had now no eyes for the horses, the carriage, or its occupant.

Noting, with a hasty glance, the direction taken by the two women, he sprang down the bas.e.m.e.nt-steps and rang the bell.

The servant who had opened to the women, again appeared at the door.

"What do _you_ want?" she asked, crossly; for being an honest servant she had no fear of the blue coat and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons of the law.

The bogus policeman touched his hat and greeted her with an affable smile.

"I beg your pardon," he said; "I thought you might be annoyed by those beggars. I can remove them if you enter a complaint. I saw that they gave you some kind of a paper; a begging letter, probably. Just give it to me, and I will see that they don't intrude again upon people who are in trouble enough."

He extended his hand for the letter; but the servant drew back, and answered hastily: