Chapter V: Angel Face

Chick Carter was the first of the three detectives to leave home on the work assigned him. Carefully disguised, Chick boarded a subway train and arrived shortly before three o’clock in the neighborhood of the Waldmere residence.

Nick had made it a point to learn before leaving that morning that none of the servants were in the habit of going out before three on the afternoon and evening allowed them.

Chick easily found a concealment from which he could watch both the side and rear door of the house, from one of which he knew that Minerva Grand would depart, if she availed herself of the privilege afforded. Though inclined to agree with Nick, in that the latter’s suspicions were correct, it seemed almost incredible to Chick that a girl of Minerva’s appearance and bearing could willingly have a hand in any kind of crime.

“She’s the most innocent-looking wisp of a girl I ever did see,” he said to himself while surveying the doors and windows of the stately residence. “She may have been lured into the job, or forced into it by some means. It would be very like Stuart Floyd to take advantage of her artlessness, knowing that she would be about the last to invite suspicion. This afternoon and evening ought to settle it, at all events.”

There was no sign of Minerva Grand, however, at any of the windows. The house appeared to have relapsed into its customary state of dignity and repose. Nor in any direction, moreover, could Chick discover any other person watching it, and he rightly inferred that the crooks felt tolerably sure that the truth was not even suspected.

His vigil proved to be longer than he anticipated. The minutes lengthened into hours. Six o’clock came, but no sign of the suspected girl, though Mrs. Waldmere’s maid had left the house soon after four.

“It may be, by Jove, that she left before I arrived here,” thought Chick, a bit impatient. “I’d better find out positively. I might telephone to Mrs. Waldmere from the next house, or--ah, there comes a light on the top floor. It may be in the girl’s room.”

The sun had set and dusk was deepening to darkness. The light that had caught Chick’s eye caused him to linger and watch. A moment later he saw Minerva draw down the curtain, and he knew he had not waited vainly.

“She may have been waiting for evening,” he said to himself. “She would know, at least, that there is less risk than in daylight. Or she may have an appointment for the evening, as Nick suspects.”

Chick then had not long to wait.

The light in the upper room suddenly vanished. Presently the side door of the house was opened, and in the stream of light from the hall the dainty figure of the girl appeared for a moment, only to be lost briefly in the gloom of the vestibule after she closed the door.

Chick then saw her trip lightly down the steps and out to the street, clad in a trim jacket and a hat that only partly hid her abundance of yellow hair.

After turning the first corner, however, stealthily followed by the detective, Minerva stopped short and took a voluminous veil from her pocket, which she carefully tied over her hat and hair, then drew it down until it completely hid her girlish face.

“That does settle it,” thought Chick, constantly watching her. “She’s off on some evil mission. Nick sized her up correctly, all right. She evidently has no fear of being followed, which will make it all the easier for me. By Jove, this seems like chasing a fairy. She can’t weigh more than ninety pounds.”

Minerva had started off again, with the detective after her.

Ten minutes brought her to a subway station, where she took a downtown train.

Alighting at Forty-second Street, she walked briskly away and soon brought up opposite a restaurant and concert hall having a somewhat unenviable reputation. There she paused in a doorway to gaze over at the lighted windows.

“She’s looking for some one, or waiting for some one to show up,” thought Chick, after briefly watching her. “I may get a line on the party before her, by Jove, in case he already has arrived. She cannot see from over there.”

Minerva still was lingering in the doorway.

Leaving the corner on which he had paused to watch her, Chick sauntered into the place and bought a drink at the bar.

Beyond the barroom, through a broad entrance adorned with potted palms, was a large concert hall filled with numerous tables and with curtained booths flanking the side walls.

Patrons of the place were seated at many of the tables, eating, drinking, and smoking. A score of waiters were hurrying to and fro. In the rear of the hall an orchestra was playing popular airs. The noise and stir were incessant.

Gazing into the broad mirror back of the bar, Chick suddenly made a discovery--a woman seated alone in one of the nearest booths.

The curtains were partly drawn, and Chick would not have discovered her save for the angle afforded by the mirror.

“By gracious! there’s the connecting link,” he said to himself. “This does settle it. Vera Vantoon, eh? That jade who figured with Stuart Floyd in the looting of the loan company. She was hand and glove with Floyd at that time, and it’s long odds that their intimacy has not ended. This is the person for whom Minerva Grand is looking. She’s the connecting link, all right. By Jove, I must contrive to overhear what passes between them.”

Chick was quick to take advantage of the girl’s delay in entering the place, which he rightly inferred was due to diffidence and inexperience.

Stepping back of the palms near the entrance to the concert hall, Chick beckoned to one of the waiters then at the bar. He was a slender chap in a starched cap and a long white apron, who appeared bright enough to grasp a situation without having it hammered into him.

“I am a detective, one of Nick Carter’s staff,” Chick quietly informed him. “There is a woman in the third booth on this side of the hall. Have you noticed her?”

“Yes, sir,” nodded the waiter. “I serve at the tables nearest that booth.”

“Do you know her?”

“Only by sight. She comes in here quite often.”

“Can you get me a cap and apron like yours?”

“Yes, by asking the manager.”

“Where is he?”

“The tall man near the end of the bar.”

“What is his name?”

“Scoville.”

“Call him over here.”

The waiter obeyed, returning with the manager, to whom Chick quickly explained the situation and stated what he wanted. The mere mention of Nick Carter’s name was sufficient to insure Scoville’s coöperation.

“Why, sure thing,” he said, after listening. “I would only bite off my own nose by refusing. Slip around the end of the bar, Mr. Carter, and into my private room. I’ll fit you out in half a minute and be glad to accommodate you in this matter.”

Chick did as directed, gliding around into the manager’s office, unseen by any in the concert hall.

Half a minute later, wearing a cap and apron, he emerged and mingled with the waiters, selecting that side of the room on which was the booth in which Vera Vantoon was seated.

The entire episode had transpired in less than five minutes, yet Chick had hardly arrived near the booth mentioned, when he saw Minerva Grand entering the concert hall with her veil partly raised.

At he same moment, too, he saw Vera Vantoon thrust her hand between the curtains of the booth and beckon to the approaching girl.

Minerva passed him without so much as a glance and hurriedly entered the booth.

Chick edged nearer to it, remaining as stiff and staid as a wooden Indian within three feet of the drawn curtains, there then being no persons at the near tables for him to serve.

Chick was near enough to hear the first words that came through the curtains of the booth, and most of what followed when the voices of the two women were lowered.

“Hello, Angel Face!” Vera Vantoon exclaimed, clasping both hands of the girl. “Heavens, but you were a long time getting here.”

“Getting here!” echoed Minerva, evidently in nervous excitement. “The getting here cuts no ice. I could have got here long ago. It’s where I’m likely to get after leaving here. That’s what troubles me. I didn’t think you would serve me such a trick, Vera. On my word, I didn’t.”

Vera Vantoon laughed a bit coarsely in cold and mirthless fashion.

“So you are wise to it, now, are you?” she replied.

“How can I help being wise to it? I’ll never forgive you, Vera, never!”

“Don’t be foolish, Angel Face,” returned the woman, still clasping the girl’s hands. “I’ve done you the favor of your life. Think what you’re to gain.”

“A prison cell, mebbe.”

“Rats! Nothing of that kind, Angel Face, take my word for it.”

“Your word ain’t much good. You didn’t tell me the truth.”

“About what?”

“Why you wanted that list of boxes, and why I was to keep you posted as to what the master and mistress were doing. I know all about it now. You were planning to rob them.”

“H’m, just so,” thought Chick, listening intently. “It’s as Nick suspected. This simpleton has been lured blindly into the crime by a designing woman. It was child’s play for Vera Vantoon.”

The woman laughed again and slipped her arm around the girl’s waist.

“What of it?” she replied, with voice lowered. “Don’t be frightened at that. Think what you’re to gain by it. Do you want to be a servant and slave the whole of your life? This little job will put you in right as long as you live.”

“But I’m scared out of my wits, Vera.”

“Nonsense!”

“I’m afraid we’ll be caught.”

“Rats! How are you to be caught? Who would suspect you, Angel Face? Only a clairvoyant would ever guess that you had a hand in it.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Tell me all about it,” said Vera, who evidently had a powerful influence over the girl. “That’s why I wanted you to meet me here to-night. Tell me the whole business, all that took place to-day in the house. I’ll see that nothing happens to you, Angel Face.”

“You’ll have all you can do, you jade, to look out for yourself,” thought Chick, a bit grimly.

Yielding to the woman’s persuasive tongue, Minerva then proceeded to state all that had transpired that morning in the Waldmere residence, in so far as she knew and had been able to determine what it signified.

Vera Vantoon listened with knit brows and drawn lips, slipping in a question now and then, but for most part quietly absorbing all that the misguided girl imparted.

“Humph!” she grunted contemptuously, after the girl had finished. “So Nick Carter is on the case, is he?”

“That is the name of the man who questioned me,” nodded Minerva.

“Well, we expected it,” sneered Vera. “He’ll get fat on this case.”

“I’m afraid of him, Vera.”

“You needn’t be,” said the woman. “He’ll never question you again. We’ll look out for that. You’ll never see him again, Angel Face, take my word for it.”

“That sounds as if a job had been put up on Nick,” Chick said to himself. “If they get by with it, now that I’ve got this she-devil under my eyes, they will go some, all right.”

It had become obvious to Chick that the girl had been a tool in the hands of this woman, and that he would learn nothing more by playing the eavesdropper then and there, Vera Vantoon confiding nothing to her companion, who evidently was entirely ignorant of the identity of the latter’s confederates.

“They will separate after leaving here,” he said to himself. “The girl will probably go straight home. There would be nothing for me in remaining on her track. I’ll drop her and get after the woman.”

Gliding noiselessly away from the position he had occupied. Chick returned to the manager’s office and resumed his discarded garments.

He then sauntered out to the bar again, from which he continued to watch the booth, lest his own doings might have been observed by some spy in league with the woman, who then would be warned of her danger.

A furtive scrutiny for a few minutes convinced Chick, however, that Vera Vantoon had come alone to keep the appointment, and he then returned to the street to await her departure.

Five minutes later both women came out and proceeded together as far as the nearest corner, where they conversed briefly before separating.

Minerva Grand drew down her veil and hurried away in the direction of a subway station.

“Bound home,” thought Chick. “Now for the woman.”

Vera Vantoon did not take a conveyance.

Glancing sharply around, she drew her cloak about her and walked rapidly away, heading for Second Avenue and then toward one of the lowest sections of the East Side.

Ten minutes brought her into a narrow street, in one of the worst and most congested precincts of the city, in so far as the buildings were concerned.

They were old and of the lowest type, crowded in nondescript fashion into the foul territory they occupied, with a labyrinth of black alleys running hither and thither among them, and forming a maze through which crooks familiar with the surroundings could easily elude a pursuer, even though nearly as well acquainted with the miserable quarters.

“By Jove, she’s heading for the lair of her confederates,” thought Chick, after stealthily following her into the narrow street. “It may not be dead easy to trail her.”

This became doubly apparent in a very few moments. There were but few persons in the dismal street, which made it more difficult for Chick to closely follow her.

Her dark figure, too, could be seen only at intervals, when she passed one of the blurs of light that relieved only feebly the prevailing gloom.

Suddenly, nevertheless, Chick saw her turn aside--and then he lost sight of her.

He waited with strained eyes for half a minute, but could not discover her.

“By Jove, I mustn’t let her give me the slip,” he muttered. “Better arrest her than stand for that.”

He darted on with the last, quickly reaching the spot where he last had seen her.

The woman had vanished as if the earth had swallowed her.

Chick gazed sharply around and discovered the black entrance of an alley between two gloomy buildings.

“Hang it, she could not have gone in there,” he said to himself, irritated by the threatening mishap. “She did not go as far as that, as well as I could tell. It may be all off, by thunder, unless I can trace her. I wish, now, that I had arrested both her and that yellow-haired girl. It now looks bad, for fair.”

Chick was looking in vain all the while for the vanished woman.

It did not appear that she could have entered either of the buildings near which he last had seen her. Both were shrouded in darkness.

The only refuge to which she could have resorted appeared to be the alley mentioned, and Chick felt reasonably sure that she had not gone as far as that.

He now turned in that direction, nevertheless, and crept into the gloomy hole. It was so dark he scarce could see his hand before his face. He reached into his pocket to get his searchlight.

As he did so, he stumbled against something lying on the ground.

He stooped and felt of it with his hand, suppressing a cry of surprise.

He had stumbled against--the body of a man!