ribed Hatch's chauffeur to bring about
that accident."

"If you can do that, and if we succeed in securing the villain, it will
be a corking piece of work. I think it will prove the sensation of the
hour."

"Listen," said Frank, "and I will tell you my plan."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FLAMES DO THEIR WORK.

Early that evening old Spooner returned, accompanied by an even more
disreputable-looking old man than himself.

Felipe heard them slowly and laboriously fumbling their way up the dark
stairs, recognized the sound of Spooner's cane, and flung open the door
of his room that the light of his oil lamp might aid them.

"Bless you, boy!" panted old Spooner. "These stairs are
dark--heathenishly dark."

"I see to-night you have with you a friend, senor,"' observed the
Mexican boy.

"Yes, poor fellow. I have seen him much on the streets. He stays with me
frequently. He is deaf and dumb."

"Two beggar cronies," muttered Felipe, in Spanish, as he closed the door
after they had vanished shufflingly into old Spooner's room. "Now I know
quite well how the old man lives, but it is a poor living he gets."

Once or twice Felipe fancied he detected faint, suspicious sounds in the
hall; but when he listened at the door he heard nothing more.

He did not see a number of shadowy figures which came up those unsteady
stairs in a marvelously silent manner and vanished into the room
occupied by old Spooner.

It was quite late when the listening boy fancied he heard a familiar
step on the stairs. In a twinkling he was close to the door. Two persons
were coming.

Then sounded a sharp, familiar knock, upon which Felipe flung open the
door, crying:

"Welcome, senors! I had begun to fear you would not come to see me this
night."

"Oh, we're here, me boy," chuckled Hagan, as he entered, with Alvarez
Lazaro at his heels. "It's suspicious our friend Lazaro became on
account of a queer thing. He's been shadowed by the police since
yesterday. Now you can't guess why he grew suspicious?"

"I cannot," confessed Jalisco, closing and locking the door.

"The coppers stopped watching him," laughed the Irishman. "Although he
tried to discover some one chasing him about, not a soul took the
trouble. When I met him all ready to come here, he told me the action of
the police worried him and made him suspicious."

"Had they continued to watch me," said Lazaro, "I could have given them
the slip and laughed; but when I could discover n