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                   *       *       *       *       *




                          NICK CARTER STORIES

                          New Magnet Library

       Price, Fifteen Cents      _Not a Dull Book in This List_


Nick Carter stands for an interesting detective story. The fact that
the books in this line are so uniformly good is entirely due to the
work of a specialist. The man who wrote these stories produced no
other type of fiction. His mind was concentrated upon the creation of
new plots and situations in which his hero emerged triumphantly from
all sorts of troubles and landed the criminal just where he should
be—behind the bars.

The author of these stories knew more about writing detective stories
than any other single person.

Following is a list of the best Nick Carter stories. They have been
selected with extreme care, and we unhesitatingly recommend each of
them as being fully as interesting as any detective story between cloth
covers which sells at ten times the price.

If you do not know Nick Carter, buy a copy of any of the New Magnet
Library books, and get acquainted. He will surprise and delight you.

                     _ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT_

  850—Wanted: A Clew                           By Nicholas Carter
  851—A Tangled Skein                          By Nicholas Carter
  852—The Bullion Mystery                      By Nicholas Carter
  853—The Man of Riddles                       By Nicholas Carter
  854—A Miscarriage of Justice                 By Nicholas Carter
  855—The Gloved Hand                          By Nicholas Carter
  856—Spoilers and the Spoils                  By Nicholas Carter
  857—The Deeper Game                          By Nicholas Carter
  858—Bolts from Blue Skies                    By Nicholas Carter
  859—Unseen Foes                              By Nicholas Carter
  860—Knaves in High Places                    By Nicholas Carter
  861—The Microbe of Crime                     By Nicholas Carter
  862—In the Tolls of Fear                     By Nicholas Carter
  863—A Heritage of Trouble                    By Nicholas Carter
  864—Called to Account                        By Nicholas Carter
  865—The Just and the Unjust                  By Nicholas Carter
  866—Instinct at Fault                        By Nicholas Carter
  867—A Rogue Worth Trapping                   By Nicholas Carter
  868—A Rope of Slender Threads                By Nicholas Carter
  869—The Last Call                            By Nicholas Carter
  870—The Spoils of Chance                     By Nicholas Carter
  871—A Struggle With Destiny                  By Nicholas Carter
  872—The Slave of Crime                       By Nicholas Carter
  873—The Crook’s Blind                        By Nicholas Carter
  874—A Rascal of Quality                      By Nicholas Carter
  875—With Shackles of Fire                    By Nicholas Carter
  876—The Man Who Changed Faces                By Nicholas Carter
  877—The Fixed Alibi                          By Nicholas Carter
  878—Out With the Tide                        By Nicholas Carter
  879—The Soul Destroyers                      By Nicholas Carter
  880—The Wages of Rascality                   By Nicholas Carter
  881—Birds of Prey                            By Nicholas Carter
  882—When Destruction Threatens               By Nicholas Carter
  883—The Keeper of Black Hounds               By Nicholas Carter
  884—The Door of Doubt                        By Nicholas Carter
  885—The Wolf Within                          By Nicholas Carter
  886—A Perilous Parole                        By Nicholas Carter
  887—The Trail of the Finger Prints           By Nicholas Carter
  888—Dodging the Law                          By Nicholas Carter
  889—A Crime in Paradise                      By Nicholas Carter
  890—On the Ragged Edge                       By Nicholas Carter
  891—The Red God of Tragedy                   By Nicholas Carter
  892—The Man Who Paid                         By Nicholas Carter
  893—The Blind Man’s Daughter                 By Nicholas Carter
  894—One Object in Life                       By Nicholas Carter
  895—As a Crook Sows                          By Nicholas Carter
  896—In Record Time                           By Nicholas Carter
  897—Held in Suspense                         By Nicholas Carter
  898—The $100,000 Kiss                        By Nicholas Carter
  899—Just One Slip                            By Nicholas Carter
  900—On a Million-dollar Trail                By Nicholas Carter
  901—A Weird Treasure                         By Nicholas Carter
  902—The Middle Link                          By Nicholas Carter
  903—To the Ends of the Earth                 By Nicholas Carter
  904—When Honors Pall                         By Nicholas Carter
  905—The Yellow Brand                         By Nicholas Carter
  906—A New Serpent in Eden                    By Nicholas Carter
  907—When Brave Men Tremble                   By Nicholas Carter
  908—A Test of Courage                        By Nicholas Carter
  909—Where Peril Beckons                      By Nicholas Carter
  910—The Gargoni Girdle                       By Nicholas Carter
  911—Rascals & Co                             By Nicholas Carter
  912—Too Late to Talk                         By Nicholas Carter
  913—Satan’s Apt Pupil                        By Nicholas Carter
  914—The Girl Prisoner                        By Nicholas Carter
  915—The Danger of Folly                      By Nicholas Carter
  916—One Shipwreck Too Many                   By Nicholas Carter
  917—Scourged by Fear                         By Nicholas Carter
  918—The Red Plague                           By Nicholas Carter
  919—Scoundrels Rampant                       By Nicholas Carter
  920—From Clew to Clew                        By Nicholas Carter
  921—When Rogues Conspire                     By Nicholas Carter
  922—Twelve in a Grave                        By Nicholas Carter
  923—The Great Opium Case                     By Nicholas Carter
  924—A Conspiracy of Rumors                   By Nicholas Carter
  925—A Klondike Claim                         By Nicholas Carter
  926—The Evil Formula                         By Nicholas Carter
  927—The Man of Many Faces                    By Nicholas Carter
  928—The Great Enigma                         By Nicholas Carter
  929—The Burden of Proof                      By Nicholas Carter
  930—The Stolen Brain                         By Nicholas Carter
  931—A Titled Counterfeiter                   By Nicholas Carter
  932—The Magic Necklace                       By Nicholas Carter
  933—’Round the World for a Quarter           By Nicholas Carter
  934—Over the Edge of the World               By Nicholas Carter
  935—In the Grip of Fate                      By Nicholas Carter
  936—The Case of Many Clews                   By Nicholas Carter
  937—The Sealed Door                          By Nicholas Carter
  938—Nick Carter and the Green Goods Men      By Nicholas Carter
  939—The Man Without a Will                   By Nicholas Carter
  940—Tracked Across the Atlantic              By Nicholas Carter
  941—A Clew From the Unknown                  By Nicholas Carter
  942—The Crime of a Countess                  By Nicholas Carter
  943—A Mixed Up Mess                          By Nicholas Carter
  944—The Great Money Order Swindle            By Nicholas Carter
  945—The Adder’s Brood                        By Nicholas Carter
  946—A Wall Street Haul                       By Nicholas Carter
  947—For a Pawned Crown                       By Nicholas Carter




                     THE MAN WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE

                                  OR,

                         FROM ROGUE TO CONVICT


                                  BY

                            NICHOLAS CARTER

     Author of the celebrated stories of Nick Carter’s adventures,
      which are published exclusively in the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY,
      conceded to be among the best detective tales ever written.


                            [Illustration]


                      STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
                              PUBLISHERS
                    79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York




                            Copyright, 1906
                           By STREET & SMITH

                     The Man Without a Conscience


               (Printed in the United States of America)

    All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
                languages, including the Scandinavian.




                     THE MAN WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE.




                              CHAPTER I.

                         AN INQUISITIVE CLERK.


“Bureau of Secret Investigation.”

Nick Carter glanced at the above sign over the door, an unpretentious
and somewhat faded reminder of better days, while he descended the
flight of stone steps leading into the basement offices of the Boston
police department.

The sunlight lay warm and bright in Pemberton Square at ten o’clock
that May morning, shedding over the magnificent new court-house a
golden glory consistent, no doubt, with the wise dispensation of
justice, yet in monstrous anomaly with some of the dreadful experiences
and grim episodes sometimes enacted within those splendid sunlit walls.

Nick turned to the right in the main corridor and entered the adjoining
office, quite a commodious room, in which the general business of this
secret service branch of the local police department was conducted.

The enclosure back of the chief clerk’s high desk, which also was
topped with a brass grating, happened to be vacant when Nick entered.
In one corner of the room, however, a subordinate clerk was busily
engaged in attempting to repair a slight leak in the faucet of the
ice-water vessel, and to this young man the famous New York detective
addressed himself.

“Has the chief been in this morning?” he asked.

The clerk bobbed up from his work as if startled, drying his hands with
his handkerchief, and stared sharply at Nick for several moments. But
he saw nothing familiar in the stranger’s grave, clean-cut features.

For all that this clerk knew, or surmised, Nick might have been an
ordinary or very humble citizen, who had quietly dropped in there for
want of something better to do.

“Chief Weston?” he returned inquiringly, still sharply scrutinizing
Nick.

“There is no other chief in this department, is there?” was Nick’s
reply, with a subtle tinge of irony.

“Well—no.”

“Chief Weston, yes,” bowed Nick. “Is he in his office?”

“I believe so.”

“Busy?”

“I reckon he is, just now.”

“Reckon, eh? Don’t you know?”

“Yes, sir, he’s busy,” the clerk now said, a bit curtly, flushing
slightly under the detective’s keen eye and quietly persistent
inquiries.

“He’s not too busy to see me, I think,” replied Nick, with dry
assurance. “Go in and tell him I’m here.”

“Who are you?”

“Never mind who I am.”

“I’ll take in your card.”

“No card,” said Nick tersely.

“Your name, then?”

“Nor any name.”

“But——”

“Merely tell the chief that his friend from New York is here.”

The expression in the eyes of the irritated clerk lost none of its
searching interest, yet they now took on a rather different light, as
if he had been suddenly hit with an idea. Yet he still frowned slightly
and said:

“If you object to having your name mentioned——”

“I do object, young man,” Nick now interrupted, with ominously quiet
determination. “Your chief may possibly have persons in his office
before whom I do not care to have my name announced. Now, you go to
him and deliver my message just as I gave it to you, neither more nor
less, or you’ll very suddenly hear something drop—providing you still
retain your senses.”

Now the clerk laughed, as if amused by the cool terms of the quiet
threat, and then he turned quickly and vanished into a short passageway
between the outer room and Chief Weston’s private office.

Nick gazed after him with a rather quizzical stare—a slender chap
of about twenty-five, with reddish hair, thin features, a sallow
complexion thickly dotted with freckles, and a countenance lighted by a
pair of narrow gray eyes, that greenish-gray sometimes seen in the eyes
of a cat.

“I wonder what use they have for him around here?” Nick said to
himself, while waiting. “If I were chief in this joint, it’s long odds
that that red-headed monkey would get his walking-ticket in short
order.”

The subject of these uncomplimentary cogitations returned in less than
a minute.

“You are to walk right in, sir—this way,” he glibly announced, with
much more deference.

At the same time he opened the way for Nick to pass into the enclosure,
and through the passage mentioned.

“Thank you,” said Nick, with half a growl.

“Don’t mention it,” grinned the clerk. “Straight ahead, sir. Chief
Weston is at his desk.”

Nick heard, meantime, the tramp of men through a corridor adjoining the
opposite side of the outer office, and he knew that Chief Weston had
immediately dismissed them, to receive him in private.

“So, so; the business is important,” he rightly conjectured.

The door closed behind Nick of itself, but the snap of the catch-lock
hung fire until after the hearty voice of the Boston chief of
detectives, as he arose and gripped Nick by the hand, had sounded
through the room.

“How are you, Nick?” he cried cordially. “I’m a thousand times more
than glad to see you, Carter, on my word.”

“Same to you, Weston,” laughed Nick. “Some time has passed since we
met.”

“Too long a time, eh?”

“That’s right, too.”

“Have a chair.”

Now the catch-lock snapped lightly.

A finger between the door and the jamb had been withdrawn.

A reddish head drew away from the panel, a pair of ears ceased their
strained attention, a light step retreated through the passage, and two
narrow gray eyes like those of a cat indicated that their owner had
now satisfied his inquisitive yearning, and learned the name of the
visitor who so peremptorily had issued his commands.

As Nick accepted a chair near that taken by Weston at his desk, he
carelessly jerked his thumb toward the door by which he had entered.

“Where’d you get him, Weston?” he asked dryly.

“Get whom?” queried the chief, with inquiring eyes.

“The clerk.”

“Hyde—the one who announced you?”

“The same.”

“Oh, he’s been at work on the books out there for about a year. He’s
only an assistant clerk.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Why did you ask?”

“For no reason.”

“Nonsense! You must have had some reason, Nick.”

“None of consequence,” smiled Nick. “I asked about him, in fact, only
because I had to fairly drive him in here when I declined to send in a
card or mention my name.”

Chief Weston threw back his head and laughed.

“That’s easily explained,” said he, still chuckling. “I growl at him
roundly at regular intervals, Nick, for annoying me with visitors whom
I neither know nor wish to see. I am getting him by degrees, however,
so that he requires the whole pedigree of a caller before announcing
him, which is about as bad a fault, I imagine. Sandy is all right,
though, in his own peculiar way.”

“Sandy, eh? That’s a nickname, I take it, because of his red hair?”

“No, not exactly. His name is Sanderson Hyde.”

“Ah, just so.”

“I took him in to oblige a journalist friend,” added Weston, smiling.
“It’s always well to stand ace-high with the press, you know.”

“That’s right, too,” nodded Nick, now willing to digress. “You sent for
me to come over here from New York, Weston. What do you want of me?”

“You got my wire?”

“Certainly.”

“Did Chick come with you?”

“No,” replied Nick, at this reference to his chief assistant. “I came
over alone.”

“Are you busy in New York just now?”

“I’m always busy, Weston.”

“Too busy to undertake a little work for me?”

“Where?”

“In and about Boston.”

“What’s the nature of it?”

“There is nothing in giving you all of the details, Nick, unless you
are in a position to accept an offer and help me out,” Chief Weston
gravely rejoined. “First of all, Nick, may I count on you?”

The brows of the celebrated New York detective knit a little closer
over his keen gray eyes. He drew up a bit in his chair, remarking
gravely:

“Your business is important, Weston, or you would not have sent for me.”

“Very important.”

“A serious matter?”

“Decidedly.”

“Have your own men tackled it?”

“Yes, the very best of them.”

“With no results?”

“None but absolute failure.”

“Are they now at work on the case?”

“Some of them.”

“And you wish me to take a hand in the work?”

“I certainly do.”

“If I consent to do so, Weston, I shall impose one condition,” said
Nick decidedly.

“I expect it.”

“You do?”

“Certainly,” nodded the chief. “Am I not familiar with your methods?
You will require me to order all of my men off the case and give it
entirely to you.”

“That’s the condition,” said Nick bluntly.

“I will accept it.”

“And leave the matter to me alone?”

“Precisely. In no way whatever shall you be interfered with.”

“Very good.”

“You will undertake the work for me?”

“I will hear of what it consists,” replied Nick, with his curiosity
stirred. “If it is all that your remarks imply—well, Weston, you may
then count on me to give it an argument.”

“Capital.”

“Now, cut loose and give me the facts of the case.”

Chief Weston opened a drawer of his desk and took out a batch of papers
and documents, among which was a neatly mounted photograph about five
inches square, such as may be taken with a small portable camera, or a
kodak.

While he placed the papers on his desk, he handed the photograph to
Nick Carter, saying impressively:

“First examine this, Nick, and tell me what you make of it.”




                              CHAPTER II.

                          MODERN HIGHWAYMEN.


While the Boston chief sat silently regarding him, Nick Carter studied
the photograph attentively for several moments.

“H’m!” he presently grunted. “The picture is quite plain. Two
automobiles appear to have met in a lonely woodland road.”

“Precisely.”

“Only part of one of them is visible in the picture,” continued Nick,
commenting upon the various details. “The picture was evidently taken
by an occupant of one of the cars.”

“Correct.”

“In the road near the other machine stands a very tall woman, closely
veiled, who is pointing a revolver, evidently at the occupants of the
other car.”

“Exactly.”

“They are not visible in the picture, however, except the extended
hand of one of them, obviously the hand of a woman. She is passing a
purse, two watches, and what appears to be several pieces of jewelry,
to a masked man, who is standing near the woman holding the leveled
revolver.”

“Those are the main features of the picture, Nick,” nodded Weston.
“Now, what do you make of it?”

Nick glanced up and replied:

“It looks to me like a hold-up.”

“That’s just what it was.”

“When and where?”

“Near the Brookline suburb, about a week ago.”

“Is this the case on which you wish to employ me?”

“One of them.”

“There are others?”

“Fifty, Nick, within the past two months.”

“Whew!” whistled Nick, with brows lifting. “I have read in the
newspapers that you have had numerous highway robberies about here, but
I did not imagine them to be so frequent as you state.”

“Because only a small part of them have been given publicity,” replied
Weston. “I have suppressed many, Nick, in the hope of thereby getting
some traceable clue to the crooks.”

“Yet you are all still in the dark?”

“Never more so, Nick,” was the grave rejoinder. “In the past two months
there have been, as I have stated, upward of fifty of these highway
robberies.”

“Early and often, eh?”

“Decidedly so. These hold-ups have been committed, moreover, with a
boldness and daring that invests them with a peculiarly mysterious
character. Whether they are the work of two or three professional
crooks, or that of a larger organized gang of them, is hard to say. At
all events, Nick, we have been absolutely unable to get any traceable
clue to the identity, haunts, or headquarters of the rascals.”

“Have two of these hold-ups ever been committed at precisely the same
time?”

“Not that have been reported.”

“If that had occurred,” explained Nick, “it would indicate that a
considerable gang is at work.”

“Two hold-ups in one evening is the nearest approach to it,” said
Weston.

“In the same locality?”

“Within a mile of one another.”

“Were the crooks in an automobile?”

“Yes, in both cases.”

“Then both jobs may have been done by the same persons.”

“I feel quite sure of that, Nick, for the same description of the
thieves and their automobile was given me by the victims of both
outrages.”

“Do these crooks always work from an automobile?”

“In the majority of the cases reported,” bowed Weston. “Yet at times
they have appeared on horseback, and on several occasions afoot. The
work, Nick, is that of two or more men and a woman, as nearly as I can
judge, and all of them are possessed of extraordinary nerve, boldness,
and sagacity. They have committed these crimes at all hours of the
day and night, frequently in quite public places, yet they have thus
far completely evaded detection and pursuit. They invariably do their
rascally job with a decisiveness and despatch that completely awe their
victims, who are usually so alarmed——”

“Stop a moment,” said Nick quite abruptly. “I’d like to ask you a few
questions, Weston.”

“Very well.”

“If I decide to look into this case, I shall then have some few
points already settled, and will need to waste no time in seeking the
information myself.”

“Exactly,” nodded the chief. “What do you wish to know?”

“First, about the crooks themselves,” said Nick. “What have you in the
way of descriptions of them?”

Chief Weston laughed.

“A variety, Nick, to fit any type of man except a humpback or one
dismembered,” he replied.

“The descriptions vary, eh?”

“I should say so.”

“Possibly the robbers use a different disguise for each job.”

“Very likely.”

“Or, as nearly always is the case,” said Nick, “the victims of the
robbers were so frightened or excited at the time that they retain only
vague and exaggerated impressions of their assailants.”

“Precisely.”

“To illustrate that,” added Nick, “I know of a case of a noted
prize-fighter, who was held up and robbed of his watch and money in
broad daylight, and within fifty yards of Central Park. He declared
that the thief was six feet tall, weighed one hundred and eighty
pounds, and was backed by two confederates, whom he could not quite
recall. We got the crook next day.”

“Yes?”

“He was under five feet, weighed one hundred and thirty pounds, and did
the job entirely alone.”

“Quite a difference!” exclaimed Weston, laughing heartily.

“Rather,” smiled Nick. “As a matter of fact, the prize-fighter was
so scared when he saw a revolver thrust under his nose that the crook
loomed as big as a house. Probably thinking that such a job would
not be attempted single-handed, he afterward got it into his head
that he saw the two confederates, and was so thoroughly convinced of
the imaginary fact that he really believed it. I could cite numerous
similar cases.”

“So could I, Nick.”

“Descriptions are not at all reliable, as you imply, yet they sometimes
help one a little.”

“That’s true.”

“In a general way, then, you think there are at least two men and one
woman in this gang?”

“The cases reported convince me of that,” bowed Weston. “That picture
shows the woman, moreover, though two men are mentioned in the majority
of robberies reported.”

“Are the men always masked?”

“No, not always. The woman is invariably veiled, however, and the
descriptions of the men indicate a frequent change of disguise.”

“That is to be expected,” said Nick. “Now, about the automobile used by
the knaves. Have any attempts been made to follow it or to trace it?”

“Repeated attempts, Nick, all of which have proved futile.”

“Has none of the victims been able to report its registered number?”

“We have had a dozen different numbers reported,” replied Chief Weston;
“but investigation showed that all of them were fictitious.”

“Yet the crooks might be located, chief, if the make of the automobile
were known,” suggested Nick. “That should have been easily learned by
some of these people.”

Chief Weston shook his head.

“That would be true, Nick, providing the scamps always used the same
machine,” said he. “Half a score of different automobiles have been
reported as having been used by these knaves at the time of the
numerous hold-ups.”

“H’m!” grunted Nick, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “Evidently,
then, these crooks have considerable money invested in their rascally
enterprise.”

“It certainly appears so.”

“How about the horses ridden by them?” Nick next inquired. “Can the
owner of none of them be discovered?”

“In the few cases in which persons have been held up by a horseman,”
replied Weston, “the highwayman has usually been alone. According to
the description given, moreover, he has as many horses as automobiles,
for he has appeared on grays, bays, blacks, and sorrels.”

Nick laughed at the glibness with which the last was said.

“It seems a bit odd to me, Weston, that none of your men have been able
to get on the track of these desperadoes,” he presently rejoined. “It
is not often that a gang of highwaymen can long escape detection and
arrest, when at work in and about a city like Boston.”

“They are not ordinary knaves, Nick,” emphatically declared Chief
Weston. “If they were, we should have landed them long ago.”

“Where do these robberies usually occur?”

“Generally in some lonely part of a suburban road, though several have
taken place in the evening, right in the heart of Brookline, Cambridge,
and Newton,” replied Weston. “It is evident that the crooks select
their victims from the more wealthy suburbs, presumably with a view to
obtaining the more plunder.”

“How do they usually proceed?”

“In various ways, Nick, according to my reports. At times they block
the road with their car and hold up the first automobile-party that
appears, which, of course, is obliged to stop. Having relieved the
travelers of their property, the crooks then forced them to turn their
machine about, under the muzzles of leveled revolvers, and depart at
full speed. If the frightened victims return in a few moments, as once
or twice has been the case, they reach the scene, only to find that the
knaves have fled.”

“Naturally,” said Nick smilingly.

“They have adopted, in fact, innumerable methods for holding up an
automobile-party,” added Weston, “and they invariably intimidate their
quarry and get away with the goods.”

“Of what does their plunder usually consist?” inquired Nick.

“Money and jewelry. They take all that their victims have, and the most
of them give up readily rather than take any chances of being shot in
cold blood.”

“Have you been able to locate any of the stolen property in the
pawn-shops?”

“Not a piece of it.”

“Judging from your reports, Weston, what is the value of the property
thus far secured by these highwaymen?”

“Thousands of dollars, Nick. Close upon fifty thousand, at least.”

“Have there been house burglaries about here of late?”

“Very few.”

“It looks, then, as if these knaves were confining themselves to this
road work.”

“I think so,” bowed Weston.

Nick glanced again at the photograph, which he still retained in his
hand.

“This was one of these hold-ups, was it?” said he.

“Yes.”

“It occurred in Brookline?”

“In a lonely road leading into Brookline,” replied Weston. “The victims
were Brookline people, and were robbed of some five hundred dollars’
worth of diamonds and jewelry, including what money they had with them.
The victims were two ladies, taking an afternoon ride in a Stanley
machine.”

“Did they have a chauffeur?”

“No.”

“How was that?”

“One of the women, Mrs. Badger, is an expert driver, and frequently
rides without a chauffeur.”

Nick glanced again at the photograph—little dreaming at that moment,
however, how important a clue he then held in his hand.




                             CHAPTER III.

                         NICK CARTER HELD UP.


Despite that he then attached no special significance to the
photograph, the fact that Nick Carter was of a peculiarly
impressionable nature, and that any unusual circumstance quickly
stirred his rare detective instinct, appeared in his next question and
the abruptness with which it was asked.

“How did it happen, Weston, that this picture of the scene was taken
during the robbery?”

“I’ll tell you,” replied the Boston chief.

“One moment,” interposed Nick. “First, tell me something about the
victims of the robbery.”

“The Mrs. Badger mentioned,” replied Weston, “is the wife of one Amos
G. Badger, a wealthy Boston stock-broker. He owns a fine old place
on one of the most desirable outskirts of Brookline, inherited from
his father some years ago, and the couple move in the most exclusive
circles of the local fashionable society. Badger’s place is on Laurel
Road, and covers several acres.”

“Go on,” nodded Nick; “I follow you.”

“Mrs. Badger’s companion that afternoon was her sister,” continued
Weston, “a woman locally famous under the name of Madame Victoria.”

“Famous for what?” inquired Nick.

“Well, she claims to be an astrologer, a spiritual medium, and a sort
of fortune-teller, I believe,” explained Chief Weston.

“H’m!”

“At all events, Nick, she does a tremendous business, and has a
magnificent suite in an office building on Tremont Street, directly
opposite the Common. No end of wealthy and fashionable people consult
her, either for advice in business or love-affairs—or to get messages
alleged to come from dead friends,” added Weston, laughing a bit
derisively.

“I don’t take any stock in that stuff,” said Nick bluntly.

“Nor do I, Nick,” was the reply. “Yet the woman is certainly a
character, and, if reports are true, has made very many remarkable
predictions, and displays a most mysterious faculty for communicating
with the unseen world.”

“Bosh!”

“Like you, Nick, I have no faith in any of that rot!” laughed Weston.
“Yet I know half a dozen brokers who consult her regularly as to the
course of the stock-market, as well as many other business men, all
of whom claim to derive great advantages thereby. Her rooms are always
occupied by some patron, either male or female, and her fees are very
high. So there may be a little more in it, Nick, than you imagine.”

Nick shook his head incredulously.

“Come back to Hecuba,” he growled. “You say that this woman is sister
to Badger’s wife?”

“Yes.”

“What is her right name?”

“Victoria Clayton.”

“A euphonious name, at least.”

“Badger’s wife was a Claudia Clayton, and at one time was on the
stage,” continued Weston. “She, too, is a remarkably clever and capable
woman, an accomplished linguist, a votary of physical culture, an
expert tennis and golf-player, and one of the best cross-country riders
among the cultured sporting set who lean to such pastimes. Both women,
in fact, are over the average, and out of the ordinary.”

“Did Badger marry his wife from the stage?”

“I think not, Nick. She had retired some time before. They have been
married about five years, I believe.”

“Come back to the picture,” said Nick. “It must have been taken just as
the hold-up occurred.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Were the crooks aware of it?”

“No, indeed.”

“How was the trick pulled off?” demanded Nick curiously. “It’s not
often that such a clever dodge is played upon professional crooks.”

“The woman who did it is clever, just as I tell you.”

“Tell me how it happened.”

“I will give you the facts as they were given to me.”

“By whom?”

“By Amos Badger and his wife,” replied Chief Weston. “He notified me
by telephone of the robbery, and called here with his wife the next
morning to report the details of the hold-up. Two days later, as soon
as it could be finished and mounted, Badger brought me the photograph.”

“What about the hold-up?”

“It was committed about a week ago, at three o’clock in the afternoon,”
said Weston. “Mrs. Badger and her sister, Madame Victoria, were
returning from Canton to Brookline. When in a lonely section of a road
that leads through a considerable belt of woods, they rounded a sharp
curve and came suddenly upon a large automobile standing at an angle
across the road. A man appeared to be fixing some break in the works,
and was crouching beside it, while a woman stood near-by in the road,
apparently watching him.”

“Were they the only occupants of that car?”

“Yes, as the picture indicates. They were, too, the only persons in
sight in either direction.”

“The machine appears to be a Winton.”

“That’s what it was, Nick, for Mrs. Badger noticed it.”

“Go on,” nodded Nick. “What more?”

“Naturally Mrs. Badger slowed down, nearly stopping, for the road was
almost completely blocked by the other car,” continued Weston. “Then
the veiled woman seen in the picture suddenly stepped forward, leveled
a revolver, and commanded Mrs. Badger not to start her auto without
permission.”

“H’m!” exclaimed Nick. “That was bold, indeed.”

“At the same moment the man, who was seen to be masked, sprang up and
approached the two startled women, and commanded them to hand over
their jewelry and money, and to be very lively about it.”

“Which they did?”

“Yes, Nick, for the women naturally were much alarmed. Both hastened
to obey, though Madame Victoria did, I believe, undertake to make some
argument or protest. She was cut short, however, with a threat that
quickly silenced her.”

“I see.”

“She had on the seat of the car, however, a small camera, which she
frequently carries, one of her fads being that of securing pretty
views, of which she has several large volumes. Looking down, she
observed it, and had the presence of mind to conceal it with her hand,
at the same time snapping it and luckily catching the picture you have
there. I told her it was a clever piece of work, Nick, yet it is much
to be regretted that the faces of the crooks were covered. Otherwise,
we should possess a clue well worth having.”

“I believe your story,” assented Nick.

“The crooks, having secured their plunder, ordered the women to drive
on, which they were very willing to do,” concluded Weston. “They were
too frightened to venture back in pursuit of the rascals, but hurried
home, to notify me by telephone.”

For some moments Nick had worn a decidedly thoughtful expression, as if
he already had some project in his mind. Before the chief had fairly
ceased speaking, moreover, Nick said bluntly:

“I’d like to talk with Mrs. Badger.”

“By telephone?” inquired Weston, wondering at the wish.

“No, personally.”

“You may easily do so by going out to Brookline.”

“I’ll go!” exclaimed Nick, abruptly rising. “I suppose I may keep this
photograph for a short time?”

“Certainly.”

“As regards my undertaking to round up the rascals guilty of these
robberies—well, I will give you my answer a little later,” Nick went
on to say, as he opened the door by which he had entered. “I have no
doubt, old friend, that it will be a favorable answer.”

“I hope so, Nick, I’m sure,” declared Weston, as he followed the former
into the outer office, where Nick briefly halted.

Sanderson Hyde, perched upon a stool in the enclosure, appeared busy
over his books, not so much as looking up at the intruders.

“Are you going out at once?” inquired Weston.

“Yes,” replied Nick, slipping the photograph into his pocket. “There
are a few questions I wish to ask Mrs. Amos Badger. If I can find a
public automobile, Weston, I think I will go out there in it. It’s the
quickest conveyance, and this is a fine morning for a ride.”

“You’ll find what you want at the corner below,” replied Weston. “The
machine is all right, and so is the man. Grady is his name. Mention
mine, Nick, and there’ll be no charges.”

“Oh, I’ll see that Grady gets his fee, all right,” laughed Nick, as he
turned to leave the office. “I’ll see you later, Weston, probably early
this afternoon.”

“Do so,” nodded the latter.

Then he turned to the busy clerk and added, a bit sharply:

“What did you say to that man, Hyde, when he came in here this morning?”

Young Sanderson Hyde looked up with raised brows.

“Nothing of consequence, chief,” he respectfully answered. “Only a few
words about sending in his card.”

“Do you know the man?”

“No, sir. I don’t recall ever having seen him.”

“Well, the next time you see him take a good look at him, for that man
is Nick Carter, the greatest detective that ever stood in leather.”

“The dickens!” gasped Hyde, with manifest astonishment. “You don’t mean
it, chief! Not Nick Carter himself?”

“I always say what I mean,” growled Weston. “Hereafter, show him into
my office without delay.”

The catlike eyes followed the burly figure of the speaker as he
returned through the passage, and presently the snap of the catch-lock
sounded through the office.

Then Mr. Hyde laid down his pen and came out of the enclosure. His
tread was more light and cautious than ordinary business should have
required. He glanced sharply into both of the adjoining corridors,
listened intently for a moment, then darted into a telephone-closet
near-by and tightly closed the door.

Nick Carter found Grady on the corner mentioned, a shrewd-looking
young Irishman, seated in an excellent runabout, reading the morning
newspaper.

“Do you know Laurel Road, Brookline, Mr. Grady?” asked Nick, halting
beside the machine.

“I know pretty near where it is, sir,” said Grady, alert for business.
“I can find it for you, all right.”

“Take me out there,” said Nick, mounting to the seat. “To the house of
Mr. Amos Badger.”

“The broker, sir,” nodded Grady. “I know the man, sir. I’ll land you
out there in thirty minutes, sir, or less, if you say the word.”

“I’m in no special hurry,” said Nick. “Keep down to the speed limit.”

He did not tell Grady his name, nor that he came from the police
headquarters. Neither did he enter into much conversation with the
man, for Nick was absorbed in thought about the disclosures made him,
and the various possibilities of the work he was invited to undertake.

Grady, on his part, was not quite as good as his word. He ran a mile or
two out of the direct course to Laurel Road, and then he had to round
the great Chestnut Hill reservoir in order to hit the right track.

There are numerous wooded roads on the outskirts of fashionable
Brookline, along which the attractive dwellings are much scattered, or
divided by extensive estates; and through one of these roads Grady was
sending his machine at a faster clip, to make up for lost time.

Suddenly, from out a little piece of woods some fifty yards away, a
drunken fellow came staggering into the road, much as if he had just
awakened from a nap in the shrubbery; and Nick Carter, being the first
to see him, said quickly to his driver:

“Look out for that chap, Grady.”

“I see him, sir,” nodded Grady.

“He has a load aboard.”

“I should say so.”

The intoxicated man now heard the automobile approaching him from
behind. He turned around, halting unsteadily in the middle of the road,
where he stood swaying and staring as if too fuddled to know which
side of the road to seek to avoid being run over.

Grady naturally slowed down when scarcely twenty feet from the fellow.

“Get out of the road!” he impatiently yelled. “Take one side or the
other, blast you!”

The auto had come to a dead stop.

The man in the road reeled a little to one side—and a little nearer.

Then, with movements as quick and decisive as a lightning stroke, he
sprang forward, whipped out a brace of revolvers, leveled them straight
at the heads of the two men in the auto, and sharply cried:

“Hands up! If you start that machine, driver, I’ll blow your head off!”

The voice was as firm and cold as ice, yet it had a ring as threatening
as when blades of steel cross in deadly combat.

Nick Carter fairly caught his breath.

“Held up, by thunder!” was his first thought.




                              CHAPTER IV.

                              THE ESCAPE.


How to get the best of the highwayman was Nick Carter’s second thought.

This did not look to be easy, yet Nick’s hand instinctively went toward
his hip pocket.

“Stop! Hands up!”

The reiterated command fairly cut the air with its threatening
intensity.

Grady’s hands were already reaching after clouds.

Nick Carter’s now followed suit, and went into the air.

In the voice, eyes, and attitude of the ruffian in the road, there
was that which convinced Nick that disobedience and defiance would
certainly invite a bullet.

He saw, moreover, that the aim of the scoundrel was true to the mark,
and that the finger on the trigger of the weapon covering his own
breast was already beginning to contract, during the moment that he
showed signs of giving fight.

“If one of you move before I command it,” said the highwayman, “I will
instantly open fire upon you. And I never miss my aim!”

The threat was as calmly made as if the speaker had merely inquired
the time of day, yet the voice did not for a moment lose its terribly
convincing ring.

Nick seized the opportunity to look him over, and he felt comparatively
sure that he was up against the same man that appeared in the Badger
photograph.

The fellow was roughly clad at this time, however, with a soft felt hat
drawn over his brows.

He was a well-built, athletic man, apparently somewhere in the forties;
yet he was as quick as a cat in his movements, and evidently was
endowed with supple muscles and nerves of steel.

The rascal was heavily bearded, yet this did not figure for much with
Nick Carter. He rightly judged that the man was carefully disguised,
yet the make-up was so cleverly prepared and adjusted that Nick,
despite his experience in such artifices, could not detect it.

What Nick chiefly noted, in fact, was that the eyes of the man had
in them the piercing gleam of deadly resolution, a fixed and vicious
determination to execute the desperate deed that he had undertaken.
There was no sign of intoxication now, which plainly had been assumed
only for the purpose of holding up the travelers.

Though not lacking in courage, Nick Carter had his share of wisdom and
discretion. He saw at a glance that he was entirely helpless for the
moment, at least, and he had no idea of deliberately inviting a bullet.

Such stirring episodes occur in a very few moments, and not thirty
seconds had passed since the hold-up, when the voice of the highwayman
again cut sharply upon the morning air.

“Chauffeur, you do what I command, or worse will be yours,” he cried
sternly. “Lower one of your hands and remove your employer’s watch.”

Grady hesitated for the bare fraction of a second.

Nick saw the hand clutching one of the weapons begin to contract.

“Obey him, Grady,” said he, with ominous curtness.

“Bedad, I don’t like——”

“One more second, and I’ll——”

“Obey him!” hissed Nick, with suppressed vehemence. “Obey him, you
idiot!”

Nick saw at a glance that that one more second would have ended with
Grady’s receiving an ounce of lead.

Grady had the true grit and pugnacious characteristics of an Irishman,
but he now dropped one hand and removed Nick’s watch and chain.

The highwayman came a step nearer, until he stood barely six feet away
in the dusty road.

“Toss them to the ground at my feet,” he commanded, with his evil eye
fixed upon the chauffeur.

“Do so, Grady,” said Nick.

Grady obeyed with an ugly scowl, and the watch and chain landed in the
dust at the ruffian’s feet.

“Now, your employer’s purse.”

“In the breast pocket of my vest, Grady.”

“Look lively.”

Grady dove into Nick’s vest and drew out his pocketbook.

Nick still sat with his hands in the air, but not for a moment did his
eyes leave those of the highwayman.

Though at first inclined to send Grady into his hip pocket after his
revolver, Nick realized that the Irishman might not be quick and
accurate in using it, and also that the crook was alert to their every
move. The hazard was too great to be taken, and Nick decided to submit
to the situation for the time being, and watch for an opportunity to
turn the tables on the rascal.

Grady drew out the pocketbook, which contained about a hundred dollars
and a few unimportant papers.

“Toss it into the road,” commanded the highwayman.

“Let it go, Grady,” said Nick.

“Your employer has more wisdom than you, Grady,” said the crook, with
a threatening sneer. “Obey at once, or I’ll let daylight into you.”

Grady tossed the pocketbook after the watch and chain.

“Now, up with your hands again!”

“Bedad, mister, some day the boot’ll be on the other leg,” snarled
Grady, as he obeyed.

“It’ll not be to-day, Grady, take my word for that,” retorted the
ruffian.

“The day will come, nevertheless,” Nick Carter now said, with ominous
quietude.

“Do you think so?”

“I certainly do.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“That is because you do not know who I am,” said Nick pointedly.

“I don’t care who you are.”

“You don’t, eh?”

“I certainly don’t.”

“You will change your mind later.”

The scene was a curious one, the two men in the runabout seated with
their hands high above their heads, while the man in the road stood as
coolly intimidating them as if not the slightest danger existed for
him, either from them or the sudden approach of some intruders upon the
scene.

Nick had begun the conversation with the scamp in the hope of catching
him napping for an instant, or that some person or another automobile
might appear; but neither of them seemed probable, for the woodland
road was deserted, and the highwayman did not for a second relax his
vigilance or lower his leveled weapons.

With Nick Carter’s last remark, however, the rascal’s eyes took on an
uglier gleam, and he evidently decided that he had better not defer
making his escape. That he was clever in so doing, and foresaw that his
victims might possibly be armed, appeared in the way he accomplished it.

With both men constantly under his eyes, he said sternly:

“The slightest move by either of you will cost him his life. I warn you
that I shall instantly fire, not caution you again; so keep that in
mind, and be wise.”

Then he slipped one of his revolvers into his coat pocket.

With the other weapon constantly covering his victims, with his gaze
never leaving them, he slowly crouched down and groped over the ground
till he had secured the plunder lying there, which he also dropped into
his pocket.

Then he rose erect again, and drew his other weapon.

Nick was mentally praying for an opportunity to get just one shot at
the knave when he resorted to flight.

The flight of the rascal, however, was as original and unexpected as
his every other move had been.

“Now, Grady,” said he, with threatening austerity, “you do just what I
tell you, neither more nor less.”

“Begorra! it looks as if I’d have to.”

“You bet you will!”

“What is it?”

“You start that machine of yours slowly, and turn it into the shrubbery
at that side of the road.”

“How am I going to start it with me hands in the air,” snarled Grady,
who had really seen Nick’s desire to delay matters.

The voice of the highwayman again took on that vicious ring which had
warned Nick not to oppose him then and there.

“Don’t you speak again, Grady, or this gun will drown the sound of
your voice,” he cried quickly. “You start that machine and turn it
into the shrubbery—and don’t forget, either of you, that I shall keep
you constantly covered. Start her up, Grady, and turn sharp out of the
road!”

With the ugliest kind of a scowl, Grady gripped the steering-bar and
slowly started the runabout, turning toward the shrubbery that lined
the road in that locality.

Just as the Irishman did so, however, there suddenly sounded from up
the road the warning toot of an automobile-horn.

“Steady!—not a move!” yelled the robber warningly. “If you drop your
hands, mister, I’ll fire!”

Nick could not then see the scoundrel, for he had darted back of the
runabout when Grady turned it from the road.

Glancing quickly in the direction from which the horn had sounded,
however, Nick now beheld a large touring-car come sweeping around a
sharp curve of the road, some thirty yards away.

It was driven by a man with a beard, who was the one occupant of the
car, and whose eyes and features were almost entirely masked with a
pair of huge dust-glasses.

Nick now thought he could see a favorable finish to this unexpected
hold-up, for the touring-car was approaching at a high rate of speed,
and the escape of the thief appeared next to impossible.

Yet the latter, while reiterating his threatening commands, only backed
a few paces toward the middle of the road.

The man in the approaching car evidently saw what was going on, and he
began to slow down.

The rear of the runabout was now toward the road, with the machine
half-hidden in the shrubbery.

“Stop her!” whispered Nick, not yet venturing to turn about on the
seat. “Stop her at once!”

He did not wish to go too far in from the road.

Grady felt that he was taking his life in his hand—yet he promptly
obeyed.

Instantly two sharp reports of a revolver rang out on the morning air.

The reports were followed by others, nearly as loud, occasioned by the
bursting of the two rear tires of the runabout.

The highwayman had sent a bullet through each rubber tire, obviously
bent upon partly disabling the runabout and thus preventing pursuit.

Then, just as the huge touring-car arrived upon the scene, the daring
rascal darted back through the veil of smoke from his weapons and
leaped aboard the car.

“Let her go!” he yelled commandingly.

The driver instantly gave her full speed, and the car swept on down the
road with the velocity of an express-train.

Already upon his feet in the runabout, Nick Carter whipped out his
revolver and fired twice at the occupants of the departing car. His aim
was ruined by Grady, however, who excitedly began backing the runabout
into the road, and Nick’s bullets went wide of their mark.

In ten seconds the touring-car was vanishing in a cloud of dust around
a distant curve of the road.

“Hold on!” roared Grady, thinking Nick was about to alight in the road.
“I’ll follow them divils, sir, tires or no tires!”

“Follow nothing!” growled Nick, thrusting his revolver back into his
pocket. “You might as well try to follow a streak of lightning.”

“Will you let that blackguard escape?”

“Let him escape!” exclaimed Nick derisively. “I should say, Grady, that
he has already escaped. You could not overtake him with this machine if
your life depended upon it.”

“Bedad, that’s right, sir,” Grady now admitted, more calmly. “Yet the
man in that car may try to do the rascal——”

“Bosh!” interrupted Nick, with a growl. “The driver of that car was the
robber’s confederate.”

“D’ye think so?”

“I know so, Grady,” declared Nick, now plainly seeing how the entire
job, which had taken less than five minutes, had been planned and
executed.

“I suspected as much when the man slowed down only enough to let the
crook aboard,” added Nick. “His approach was timed to a nicety. It’s
odds that he was watching the hold-up from beyond the curve of the
road, and that he knew just when the other wanted him to approach.”

“Bedad, sir, I reckon you’re right.”

“Oh, we have much the worse of it for the present, Grady, and have been
held up by two of the gang of crooks now at work in these parts,” added
Nick. “But I will yet break even with them, I give you my word for
that.”

“Me tires——”

“I will see that you are paid for them,” interrupted Nick, much to
Grady’s satisfaction. “Can you run the machine back to town as it is?”

“Sure, sir, I can.”

“Well, I don’t wish to return quite yet.”

“All right, sir.”

“Keep on, Grady, and take me to Badger’s house,” Nick bruskly
commanded. “Look lively, too! This does settle it, Grady, as far as I
am concerned.”

“What d’ye mean, sir?”

“I mean that I will land this gang of highway robbers, every man and
woman of them, or lose a leg in the attempt,” cried Nick, with Chief
Weston’s request then in his mind. “That’s what I mean, Grady. Let her
go lively, my man, and head straight for Amos Badger’s house.”




                              CHAPTER V.

                       THE HOUSE IN LAUREL ROAD.


The direction taken by Nick Carter and Grady to reach Laurel Road and
the house of Amos Badger was the same as that in which the highwayman
had fled with his confederate in the touring-car.

Nick felt some little chagrin over thus having been successfully held
up and robbed, yet this feeling was somewhat assuaged by the fact that
he had obtained a good look at the thief, and had a clear impression of
his general features.

Nick felt quite sure, despite the rascal’s disguise, that he could
identify him if they again met, or, at least, recognize his peculiarly
keen eyes and cutting voice.

Though it then gave him no surprise, the distance to Laurel Road from,
the scene of the hold-up was less than a quarter of a mile, and then
about the same distance to the place owned and occupied by Mr. Amos
Badger.

The surroundings were about as stated by Chief Weston.

The road ran through an extreme outskirt of the town, and was for the
most part shut in by woods, cleared only here and there for building.

There were but three dwellings on this secluded road, none of which
was within view of Badger’s place, which was less modern and much more
extensive than the others, as if it had been a family homestead for
several generations.

Nick surveyed the place with some interest as he approached it.

The house was a large, wooden mansion, standing fully fifty yards from
the road. It had a broad veranda in front and on one side, the latter
terminating with a porte-cochère at the side entrance of the house.

A gravel driveway between a double row of elms and beeches led in from
the road, passing the front and one side of the house, then leading out
to a large stable well to the rear of the dwelling.

In addition to these there were several wooden outbuildings, one of
which was a long carriage-house adjoining the stable.

The features mentioned, together with the broad estate covered with
garden plots and shade trees, with a background of woods in the near
distance, gave the entire place a rural aspect not often seen so near a
large and thickly settled town.

As the runabout sped up the long driveway, Nick saw a man cleaning
a large automobile just beyond the porte-cochère; but the vehicle
bore no resemblance to the one in which the crooks had fled, and the
circumstance did not then appeal to him with any special significance.

“Run round to the side entrance, Grady,” said he. “I’ll ask that
workman who’s at home.”

Grady nodded, and presently brought the runabout to a stop under the
porte-cochère.

Nick quickly sprang down and approached the man at work near-by.
Instead of making any inquiry concerning the inmates of the house,
however, Nick abruptly demanded:

“Have you seen an automobile pass along Laurel Road, my man?”

My man was one Jerry Conley, chauffeur, hostler, and all-round workman
out of doors for Mr. Amos Badger. He was a short, stocky man, of about
thirty years, with a head nearly as round as a bullet. His face was
smoothly shaven, and was lighted by a pair of as shifty, crafty eyes
as ever lighted a human countenance.

They came round with half a leer to meet those of the detective,
while the man arose from his work on the car. Wiping his hands on his
overalls, he indulged in a series of jerky nods, steadily eying Nick
all the while, then deliberately inquired:

“What’s that you say?”

“I asked if you had seen an automobile pass along Laurel Road,” replied
Nick, not half-liking the fellow’s looks.

“Aye, I have,” said Conley.

“Which way did it go?”

“Which one d’ye mean?”

“Which one?” echoed Nick, sharply eying the fellow. “I mean one that
may have passed within five or ten minutes.”

It was then less than ten minutes since the robbery.

“Oh, if that’s what you mean, mister, I haven’t seen any,” Conley now
vouchsafed, with a less steadfast scrutiny of Nick’s countenance.

“You haven’t, eh?”

“Not to-day.”

“Did you think I meant last week?”

“I didn’t think at all, mister,” said Conley, stooping to pick up a
bit of cotton waste from the ground. “I only heard what you asked, and
that was whether I’d seen an automobile pass along Laurel Road. I’ve
seen hundreds of ’em, mister, but none this morning.”

“You should have known that I meant this morning.”

“So I would, mister, if you’d said this morning,” Conley replied, with
a leer. “I never know more’n I’m paid for knowing.”

“See here, my man,” said Nick quite sternly. “If the master you serve
carries the same cut of jib as yourself, it’s long odds that he——”

What more Nick would have said was abruptly withheld, however, for his
quick ear heard the side door of the house opened, and then the fall of
a man’s feet on the veranda, followed by the inquiry:

“What’s the trouble, Jerry?”

“None at all, sir,” replied Conley, turning with a grin to his
questioner. “Not unless this gentleman is looking for trouble, which I
reckon he isn’t.”

Nick had already turned to survey the first speaker, whom he rightly
conjectured might be Mr. Amos Badger, despite that it was then an hour
when a stock-broker should have been busy at the market.

He stood near the rail of the veranda, an erect, well-built man of
forty, cleanly shaven, with dark hair and eyes, the latter lighting a
rather attractive yet noticeably strong and determined face.

He was in slippers, and wore a house-jacket of figured woolen, while
his neck was bandaged with several thicknesses of red flannel, as if
he was afflicted with a sore throat or with a cold. This was further
evinced by his hoarse voice when addressing Conley, yet his gaze all
the while was fixed upon the detective.

Nick promptly took up the remark of the chauffeur, saying, with a quiet
laugh:

“No, I’m not specially looking for trouble. I have had enough of it for
one day.”

“Enough of trouble?” inquired Badger, with an air of wonderment at
Nick’s meaning.

“Quite enough, sir, and at considerable expense. I’m out a valuable
watch and chain also what money I had on my person.”

“Not robbed?”

“That’s what,” nodded Nick. “Held up by the crooks who are doing such
rascally work in these parts. But there’ll come a day of reckoning,
sir, you may safely wager your whole fortune on that.”

There stole into Badger’s dark eyes, which were still fixed upon Nick’s
face, a momentary gleam of resentment.

“What sent you here so quickly after being robbed?” he asked, with
sinister inflection. “Did you expect to find the thieves in my house?”

“Oh, no, not at all.”

“Or did you come to condole with me over a like mishap, since misery
likes company? The headquarters of the police is, I should say, the
proper place for you to have hurriedly visited.”

“I have just come from there,” replied Nick, a bit dryly.

“Ah, that is different.”

“I merely asked that man if he had seen an automobile pass,” added
Nick, now approaching the veranda-steps. “As a matter of fact, sir, I
was on my way to this house when I was held up by the crooks. Is Mrs.
Badger at home this morning, or her husband?”

“Both are at home.”

“Ah, very good!” exclaimed Nick.

“I am Mr. Badger.”

“I would like a brief interview with you and your wife.”

“Regarding what?”

“The recent robbery of which your wife was a victim.”

“Are you a reporter?”

“I am a detective.”

“From Pemberton Square?”

“From New York,” replied Nick. “Yet I have just come from Chief
Weston’s office, in Boston, and at his request I shall undertake to run
down the gang of thieves who are at work in this section.”

Though a doubtful smile curled Badger’s thin, firm lips at this
confident announcement, he at once displayed more cordiality when Nick
stated his vocation.

“I hope that you may succeed, officer,” said he, with the same husky
voice. “Come into the house. From New York, did you say?”

“Yes,” replied Nick, entering. “You may wait for me, Grady.”

“All right, sir,” cried Grady, from his seat in the runabout.

“What name, officer?” inquired Badger.

“My name is Carter.”

“Not Nick Carter?”

“The same.”

Badger appeared surprised, Nick observed, and his eyes lighted. He
quickly extended his hand, saying heartily, in wheezy tones:

“Well, well, I’m glad to meet you, Detective Carter, and to hear that
you think of getting after these highwaymen. I know you by reputation,
sir, and I have no doubt that you will accomplish more than is being
done by Weston’s pack of mongrels. Forsooth, if you do not, you will
accomplish very little.”

The last was said with a covert sneer that fell unpleasantly on Nick’s
ears. He decided, however, that Badger was probably nettled by the
failure of the Boston detectives to recover the property of which his
wife had been robbed, and Nick thought no more of the matter at that
time.

As he followed the man into the attractively furnished library, from
the windows of which could be seen the stable and driveway, Nick
agreeably rejoined:

“I am told that not much progress is being made against these road
robbers?”

“None at all, Mr. Carter, that I can discover,” replied Badger, with a
scornful shrug of his shoulders. “Here is my wife, sir. Claudia, this
is Detective Carter, of New York, sent out here by Chief Weston to
inquire about the robbery. My wife, Mr. Carter.”

In the light of what Chief Weston had told him about her, Nick surveyed
the woman with more than cursory interest.

Though now but thirty, she still retained in face and figure most of
the beauty and freshness of youth. She was dark, like her husband,
and rather above medium height, with a figure at once noticeable for
its grace and suppleness. She had clean-cut features, a firm mouth
and chin, with a square jaw that plainly indicated more than ordinary
womanly strength.

She met Nick with a lively flash of her dark eyes, and said agreeably,
as they shook hands:

“I am pleased to see you, Detective Carter. I do hope you’ll excuse my
husband’s appearance, however, for he looks dreadfully with those red
flannels around his neck. A sore throat has confined him to the house
several days, and he insists that nothing but red flannel bandages will
cure——”

“Oh, never mind my looks, Claudia,” interrupted Badger petulantly. “Mr.
Carter can put up with my looks, I’m sure, and probably he has more
important business than that of discussing the curative virtues of red
flannel bandages.”

“No apology is necessary, Mrs. Badger, I assure you,” smiled Nick, as
he accepted a chair. “I did have a little business with you when I
started for here this morning, but I do not now regard it as important.”

“How is that?” inquired Badger, with a furtive gleam of distrust in his
watchful eyes.

“It has lost the element of importance,” laughed Nick. “I did intend
to question you closely as to the personal appearance of the rascals
by whom you were robbed, Mrs. Badger, but since I have now seen one of
them myself, I need make no inquiries. I have no doubt that the rascal
I encountered was the same by whom you were robbed.”

“You don’t mean that you, too, have been robbed?” exclaimed Claudia,
with countenance reflecting profound amazement.

“Exactly,” nodded Nick.

“When?”

“This morning.”

“On your way here?”

“Yes.”

“Well, well! What are these suburban roads coming to, Amos?” cried the
woman, quite aghast. “It soon will not be safe to venture even into
one’s front yard.”

“I believe you,” said Badger, with a wheezy growl. “I do hope, Mr.
Carter, that you’ll accomplish something. What do you intend doing
toward rounding up these scoundrels?”

Nick laughed and shook his head.

“That is a difficult question for me to answer at present,” said he.
“I must first discover some clue with which to start, some thread
that is strong enough to follow, and which possibly may lead to the
identification of the knaves and where they are located.”

“Have you any such clue at present?” inquired Mrs. Badger, with a smile
and glance well calculated to invite a frank rejoinder.

“Not the slightest.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Stay,” added Nick, as if with an afterthought. “I believe I have
something that may prove of advantage.”

“Good enough!” exclaimed Badger, with eyes dilating curiously. “Of what
does it consist, Mr. Carter?”

Nick was then reaching into his breast pocket, and did not observe the
speaker’s quickened interest, which had not been betrayed in his husky
voice.

“A photograph,” he replied, producing it. “The one taken by you, Mrs.
Badger, at the time you were robbed.”

“Oh, you are mistaken about that, Detective Carter,” Claudia quickly
exclaimed.

“Mistaken?”

“I took no photograph, sir.”

“Yet——”

“It was taken by my sister, Miss Clayton,” interrupted Mrs. Badger.
“Dear me, I couldn’t have done it for my life. I was so unnerved by
the terrible episode and sight of the robber’s revolver that I had no
power to see or do anything except what he commanded.”

“Yet one of them was a woman,” smiled Nick.

“I admit that, sir, but she had a revolver, and the mere sight of a
weapon has always terrified me,” explained Claudia, with a shudder.

“You were quite sure that she was a woman?” inquired Nick.

“Sure.”

“That it was not a man clad in woman’s apparel?”

“Oh, absolutely. Her voice would have convinced me of her sex.”

“A voice may be assumed.”

“Yet I am positive that I am right.”

“She was thickly veiled, I understand?”

“True.”

“Then you did not see her face?”

“I did not.”

“Her figure, as seen in the photograph, appears very tall—too tall for
a woman,” persisted Nick.

“Nevertheless, Detective Carter, I am positive that she was a woman,
and not a man in female apparel,” declared Mrs. Badger, with emphasis.
“Not only her garments and voice plainly prove it, but I also noticed
her hands. They were too slender, white, and well formed for the hands
of a man.”

Nick now laughed lightly, remarking, in bantering tones, not then
attributing any serious weight to his words:

“That last, Mrs. Badger, is capital. Yet I must observe that, for one
too terrified at the time to say or do anything but obey the commands
of that brace of crooks, you did note some quite delicate details.
Small hands, eh? Well, well, I think quite likely you are right.”

A wave of crimson had risen over Mrs. Badger’s face, while on that of
her husband a darker frown was settling.

“I only happened to notice the woman’s hands, Detective Carter,
merely because she held in one of them the revolver by which I was so
frightened, and from which I scarcely could take my eyes. Naturally,
then, I noticed the hand that held it.”

Nick vaguely wondered why she had gone to the trouble to make this
explanation, for there seemed to him to be no special occasion for it;
and before he could frame any reply, Badger huskily demanded, with
sinister curiosity:

“Why are you pressing such questions as these, Detective Carter? I
fail to see that they signify anything very important.”

“It signifies considerable to me, Mr. Badger, this question of sex,”
replied Nick, with a quiet laugh.

“Why so?”

“Because I shall be able to proceed much more intelligently, sooner or
later, if I know positively that this gang of crooks consists only of
men, one or more of whom is masquerading at times as a woman.”

“There is something in that,” admitted Badger.

“Female highwaymen are not common in these days,” added Nick
pointedly; “and I find it hard to credit the evidence presented in
this photograph, despite your wife’s very natural confidence in the
reliability of her own eyes.”

“I don’t much wonder at it,” Badger now laughed indifferently.

“It is not at all material who took the photograph,” Nick went on. “I
understand that Miss Clayton has an office in town. I think I will call
upon her this morning, in the hope that she may have seen something
worthy of note at the time of the robbery. Am I likely to find her at
this hour?”

“Yes, surely,” exclaimed Mrs. Badger, rising. “If you will wait just
one moment, Detective Carter, I will give you her business-card.”

“If you please.”

“You will then have no trouble in finding her rooms.”

Nick bowed, then arose and took his hat from the table.

Both Badger and his wife accompanied him to the door, the latter giving
him the card mentioned, and the former remarking, as Nick descended the
steps and entered the runabout:

“I hope you’ll inform me, Mr. Carter, if you get any reliable clue to
the identity of these rascals. If I can aid you in any way, moreover, I
beg that you will command me.”

“Thank you,” returned Nick, nodding for Grady to start the machine. “I
will bear it in mind, Mr. Badger.”

As he rode down the driveway he read the card which he still retained
in his hand, but the name of Miss Clayton did not appear upon it.

It was the card of—Madame Victoria.

It gave the street and number of her suite of rooms, and announced that
she was an astrologer, an impressionist, and a spiritualist medium.
It further stated that she could tell one’s fortune from the cradle
to the grave, that she could be profitably consulted for information
concerning dead friends, lost articles, missing relatives and heirs,
or for advice in business matters, love-affairs, and all things
pertaining to one’s personal welfare.

Nick read the card twice with considerable interest.

“Quite a round of accomplishments!” he grimly said to himself. “I
wonder why she doesn’t locate the property of which she was robbed. The
woman is evidently a charlatan, a pretender, who imposes upon credulous
and weak-minded fools to get their money.

“Madame Victoria, eh? Well, I will now give you a call, madame, and
possibly a call-down! I’ll wager I take means to fool and expose you!”

Such was the trend of Nick’s thoughts after reading Madame Victoria’s
card, to whose rooms he next proceeded.

Without the slightest faith in this woman’s alleged powers, however,
Nick was approaching one of the most strange and startling experiences
of his checkered career.




                              CHAPTER VI.

                           MADAME VICTORIA.


It was nearly noon when Nick Carter, after dismissing Grady, entered
the handsome granite building on Tremont Street in which the rooms of
Madame Victoria were located.

In so far as her pretentions to foretelling the future were concerned,
as well as her other alleged powers, Nick felt morally sure that the
woman was a fraud. Yet he decided to take no chances that she possibly
had seen him before, and would remember his face, and in the corridor
of the building he carefully adjusted a simple but effective disguise.

In so doing, he had a double object, however; that of first getting
an insight into Madame Victoria’s business and her alleged occult
endowments, merely to satisfy his own curiosity; and, second, that
of afterward being able to return and question her about the robbery
without her suspecting his first visit.

“I’ll have this much the best of her, at all events,” he said to
himself, while adjusting his disguise. “If she is as clever as she
claims to be, however, she should be able to see right through it. Yet
I wager that she does nothing of the kind.”

In the corridor of the second floor was a door bearing Madame
Victoria’s name in gilt letters, and Nick unceremoniously entered.

He found himself in an elaborately furnished waiting-room, with windows
overlooking the Boston Common. The carpet was velvet. The furniture was
upholstered with richly figured plush. There were fine lace draperies
at the windows, and the walls were hung with choice paintings, while
various ornaments of one kind or another added to the adornment of the
place.

Nick decided that Chief Weston was correct in stating that this woman
did a lucrative business.

From a chair near the window a young girl quickly arose, laying aside a
novel, and Nick inquired if Madame Victoria was in.

“Yes, sir, but she is engaged just now,” said the girl. “She will be at
liberty in a few minutes, however.”

“I’ll wait,” said Nick tersely.

“Take a chair, sir. If you will give me your card, sir, I will take
it to Madame Victoria as soon as her visitor leaves, and will learn
whether she will give you a sitting at this time. It is nearly her hour
for lunch.”

Nick did not discuss the matter. He gave the girl a card bearing a
fictitious name, with several of which he was always provided.

Presently a richly dressed, middle-aged woman emerged from an inner
room, drying her eyes with her handkerchief. She hurriedly departed,
however, after viewing her hat and hair in the mirror.

“She must have heard from some dead one,” thought Nick, with grim
derisiveness. “Either that, or some infernal calamity has been
predicted for her. I’m blessed if I’m not a good bit curious to know
what I shall get in there. Maybe I shall get it in the neck.”

He had not long to wait, for the servant presently announced that
Madame Victoria would receive him in the inner room.

Nick left his hat on the table, and entered.

At first sight the view within was startling.

The single window of the inner room was heavily curtained with black,
excluding every ray of daylight. Above a small square table in the
middle of the floor, however, there burned two electric lights
enveloped in green globes, the rays from which shed a weird and uncanny
light throughout the room.

On the walls were hung numerous astrological charts, a number of
horoscopes of celebrated men, more accurately cast after death than
before; and along with these were various devices and insignia, of the
meaning and object of which Nick was entirely ignorant.

On a stand near the table were several packs of playing-cards,
presumably for fortune-telling, if no other amusement.

In other respects the room was well furnished, with a book-case against
one wall, a couch opposite, and several small but expensive chairs.

What chiefly startled Nick, however, was less this curious appearance
of the room than that of its solitary inmate.

Madame Victoria was seated at the table, a woman under thirty, large of
figure, without being corpulent, an attractive, self-reliant face, and
an abundance of brownish-red hair done up in picturesque disorder. She
was clad in a long purple robe, figured with small silver stars, along
with a crescent moon here and there among them, the whole conveying
a vague suggestion of a midnight sky. The garment was voluminous,
entirely covering her waist and skirts.

From the large, loose sleeves, and in vivid contrast with the rich
dark-purple, protruded a pair of shapely bare arms and hands; yet both
these and the woman’s face, uplifted when Nick entered, were lent a
disagreeable, deathlike pallor by the green light of the room.

Her first glance was at Nick’s left hand, at a valuable carbuncle ring
on the third finger, and then her eyes rose up to his face while she
abruptly exclaimed, with a curious mingling of vivacity and surprise:

“Dear me! Oh, dear me, what a strange feeling, Mr. Sibley. I feel just
as if two men had entered this room.”

Nick was a bit startled.

Sibley was the name on the card he had sent in, and the woman’s
immediate remark, in the light of Nick’s disguise, was at least a
little peculiar.

“Two men, eh?” said Nick inquiringly. “Well, I am quite alone, madame,
I assure you.”

Madame Victoria struck her brow violently with her palm several times,
then shook her head, as if bent upon shaking out some of its ideas, and
finally cried, with obvious perplexity:

“Well, well, this is quite extraordinary. I never had such a strange
feeling. I am impressed exactly as if two men had entered the room.”

“Impressed?”

“Take a chair, sir,” smiled Madame Victoria quite graciously. “You must
understand, Mr. Sibley, that I am what I call an impressionist.”

“I hear and know the meaning of the word,” laughed Nick, with curiosity
still further piqued, “yet I cannot say that I fully understand.”

Madame Victoria shrugged her fine shoulders, and regarded him archly
from under her lifted brows.

“Ah, well, that is not to be wondered at, Mr. Sibley,” she replied
agreeably. “Very few people understand the true nature and source of
their own impressions, to say nothing of those of another.”

“That is quite true, madame,” assented Nick, bowing.

“In fact, sir, I cannot say that I understand even my own,” added the
woman, with a pretty display of frankness. “They are so vivid at times,
yet frequently seem so utterly improbable, that I often shrink from
expressing them. I should have felt so in this case, Mr. Sibley, and I
doubt if I should have said what I did, sir, had it not come from me
quite involuntarily, and before I could repress it. Of course, sir, I
see that you are entirely alone.”

“You interest me,” smiled Nick, bent upon leading her on. “May I ask of
what your present impressions consist?”

Madame Victoria drew forward in her chair, and rested her pretty arms
upon the table. Her face became grave again, and once more her eyes
briefly lingered upon the ring on Nick’s finger, yet in an absent way
that did not attract his attention.

After a few moments, during which she appeared to be yielding to some
outside influence, she looked up at him and said:

“There is something about you, sir, that I really cannot explain. I
cannot get rid of this impression of a double personality here. I will
try to fathom it, Mr. Sibley, if you will be patient.”

“Take your time, madame,” said Nick, smiling at her across the table.

Madame Victoria nodded and laughed, displaying her white teeth and
calling up a charming dimple in each velvety cheek.

“As you probably know, Mr. Sibley,” said she, “people come here for
various objects. Some call to have their horoscopes cast, others
to have a mediumistic sitting with me in the hope of receiving
communications from dead friends, while others call to consult me about
business and love-affairs, or to have their fortunes told by the cards.”

“So I imagined,” bowed Nick.

“But you came for nothing of the kind, that’s my impression,” exclaimed
Madame Victoria, with an abrupt exhibition of earnestness.

“It is quite correct.”

“You have no faith in any of those things.”

“That also is true.”

“Dear me, I am awfully perplexed,” laughed the woman, apparently with
vain efforts to straighten out something in her mind. “You seem to me
just like two men, which I, of course, know is absurd. Yet I cannot rid
myself of the effects of that impression. I shall try to do all that I
can for you, however, and will give you what comes to me.”

“If you please, madame,” said Nick, not a little impressed and puzzled
by her curious statements and apparently genuine endeavors.

Again Madame Victoria beat her brow with her palm, so violently that
Nick did not wonder that her hair was somewhat disordered.

As she suddenly fixed her eyes upon him, he noticed that they began
to dilate and glow with almost preternatural brilliancy, while she
abruptly exclaimed, as if under the impulse of another of her vivid
impressions:

“You have recently been in danger, Mr. Sibley, in great danger!”

“Is that your present impression?” inquired Nick.

“Yes, sir. It must be correct, too, or I could not feel it so strongly.”

“Go on, madame.”

“You are a man who encounters many dangers,” Madame Victoria continued,
now speaking much more rapidly and earnestly. “Your life is made up of
stirring adventures and frequent perils.”

“That is very true,” admitted Nick.

“I see you hunting—hunting—hunting!” cried the woman, with suppressed
vehemence. “I don’t know what it means, sir, but you seem to be
constantly hunting, searching after persons and things, and delving
into all kinds of complicated mysteries.”

“Well, well! that hits pretty near the mark,” laughed Nick.

“Oh, dear! and I see you all surrounded with a red atmosphere, as if
you were not a stranger to violent combats and the sight of blood.”

“I have seen my share of both.”

“Yes, yes, that is plain to me, very plain,” she rapidly went on. “You
are a busy man, and you—wait! I am now carried away from here. I feel
as if I were riding in a railway-train. I don’t quite interpret the
impression as yet, but I feel—oh, now I have it! You don’t belong here,
sir, not in this city. You are a stranger here.”

“Well, not exactly that,” replied Nick, more and more puzzled by the
accuracy with which she was hitting the mark.

“I don’t mean that you never were here, and are not familiar with this
city,” cried Madame Victoria quickly. “I mean only that your business
is not here, that your interests are in some distant place. Isn’t that
right?”

“Nearly so.”

“I knew it was.”

“How did you know it?”

“Because of my impression, that of being carried away in the cars,”
explained the woman. “I presumably get it from you, sir, for I am
susceptible to all of the conditions surrounding those who come here to
consult me.”

“That is quite mysterious.”

“So many think.”

“How do you explain it?”

“I don’t explain it. I know only that it is so.”

“Yet——”

“One moment, please!” exclaimed Madame Victoria, again leaning nearer.
“You have recently lost something, Mr. Sibley.”

Nick laughed.

“Can you direct me how to find it?” he asked.

“Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“I cannot tell what it is, yet—yet I feel that you miss something
usually carried on your person.”

“That is true.”

“No, I cannot direct you how to find it—at least, not at present. It
is not still, not located yet. It is moving—moving—moving. I see smoke
and hear guns. I feel the same impression as a moment ago—that you have
lately been in danger.”

Again she was speaking with that rapid, vehement earnestness as
before, as if every sensitive string of her delicate organism had
been suddenly struck, thrilling her with new and strangely correct
impressions.

Nick Carter sat watching her as a cat watches a mouse, but he could
detect no sign of simulation or treachery. Her voice, looks, actions,
and constantly changing moods all appeared to be perfectly genuine.

“I admit that I recently have been in danger,” said he, in reply to her
last remark.

Madame Victoria bowed over the table, again fixing her eyes upon him
with that strangely intensified stare.

“There are greater dangers before you,” she rapidly declared.

“Is that so?” inquired Nick, wondering what was now coming.

“Much greater dangers.”

“Of what kind?”

“Many kinds.”

“A general assortment, eh?”

“You regard them lightly, but I judge that to be like you.”

“Rather.”

“If you do so at this time, Mr. Sibley, you will do wrong.”

“Why so?”

“The perils threatening you cannot be wisely ignored. I am impressed
with a conviction that your life is imperiled by——Stop a moment!”

“Well?”

Again Madame Victoria beat her brow, shaking her head violently,
apparently striving to get a clear interpretation of her impressions.

“Ah, I have it!” she suddenly cried. “You are in Boston on
business—perilous business.”

“Well?” queried Nick, determined to tell her nothing.

“You came to me for advice?”

“Yes.”

“Then I advise you to drop it.”

“Drop what?”

“This perilous business.”

“Do you know of what it consists?”

“I do not get any impression of that,” replied Madame Victoria, with
curious nervous efforts to make her mind receptive to the information
desired, efforts that brought the perspiration to her neck and brow in
tiny drops.

“No, no. I do not get it—cannot get it,” she presently added, with a
gasp. “I have no idea of what it consists. Yet I advise you to drop it.”

“Because of the dangers it involves?”

“Yes.”

“They will not deter me,” said Nick, with a headshake. “I never run
from danger.”

“There is yet another reason.”

“For dropping the business?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“You will fail.”

“Fail in my undertaking?”

“That is my impression. Ah, I see you smile!” cried the woman, wiping
her damp cheeks and brow. “You do wrong to deride and ignore my
predictions. Ask others to whom I have given advice. I have never yet
erred in one of these predictions. Take my advice, Mr. Sibley, and
avoid the impending perils.”

Nick had smiled incredulously, and arose to go. He saw that the woman
had no more to tell him, nor had he any inclination to hear more in the
same line.

Having paid her fee in money obtained by cashing a check in order to
settle with Grady for the damage to his runabout, Nick bade Madame
Victoria good morning, and departed.

At the door of the inner room the woman tendered him her hand, which
he gravely accepted, noting at the same time that it was damp with
perspiration, yet as cold as a hand of clay.




                             CHAPTER VII.

                          THE DEEPER MYSTERY.


Nick Carter was puzzled.

His interview with Madame Victoria had, in a way, left him on the rocks.

He could not account for the knowledge which, in indirect and equivocal
terms, she had displayed. It plainly indicated that she had from some
source received information concerning him and his business designs,
as well as about the losses he had suffered in his encounter with the
highwayman.

Had this information really been derived through the occult powers of
which the woman claimed to be possessed?

Nick Carter was not ready to believe that it had, for he had but little
faith in the supernatural.

On the other hand, any natural explanation seemed equally difficult.

“My intended visit to her rooms was known to only three persons by whom
she could have been informed, and they were Badger and his wife, and
Grady,” Nick perplexedly reasoned. “I know positively that Grady did
not inform her. Assuming even that the Badgers did so by communicating
with her by telephone, they cannot possibly have guessed that I would
call upon her in disguise. My make-up, together with the fictitious
name I gave, certainly should have blinded her to my identity. Yet I do
not believe she could have guessed, merely by chance, all of the facts
that she imparted, and I’m blessed if I can quite fathom the mystery.”

The more Nick thought about it the more positive he became that there
existed some crooked work under the surface, and this made him even the
more determined to ferret out what it was.

“I’ll telegraph to Chick and Patsy to come here,” he abruptly decided,
as he returned to the Adams House, at which he had registered. “I shall
need them to assist me in locating these road robbers, whom I am now
fully resolved to run down. After sending a message to Chick I will
have another bout with the fortune-teller. I’m blessed if I’ll let her
throw me down in this fashion—not and keep me down!”

It was but a short walk to the hotel, and there Nick sent a telegram to
Chick Carter, his chief assistant, ordering him and Patsy, one of his
younger detectives, to come to Boston by the first train and join him
at the Adams House.

Nick knew that both would arrive late that evening, and before then
he hoped to have solved that portion of the mystery relating to the
Tremont Street fortune-teller.

After spending half an hour at lunch, Nick went up to his room and
examined his disguise, which he had not removed.

“It is perfect in every detail,” he mentally declared, while surveying
himself in the mirror. “She cannot possibly have detected the make-up,
and there must be some other explanation of her insinuations. I’ll take
it off and visit her this time in proper person.”

While removing the disguise, Nick noticed the carbuncle ring on his
finger, and he immediately took it off and slipped it into the pocket
of another suit he was then about putting on.

“I’ll have nothing about me that she may have seen this morning,” he
said to himself. “There’s a deal of crafty keenness in those bright
eyes of hers, and I’ll make sure that she discovers nothing to identify
me with her visitor by the name of Sibley. If she succeeds in doing
that, the witch, there will be something more than natural in it—or
some sort of rascally cunning at work under the surface. I’ll wager
that she will have no impression of two men entering her room this
time, nor that I was there this morning.”

Fashionably clad, with his strong, attractive face inviting
observation, Nick appeared for the second time at the rooms of Madame
Victoria, just about an hour after leaving them.

The girl in the waiting-room did not recognize him, and Nick took even
the precaution to vary his voice several degrees from that he had
previously used.

“Is Madame Victoria disengaged?” he inquired.

“She is, sir, just at present,” said the girl.

“My card,” said Nick tersely. “I would like a business interview with
her.”

“One moment, sir.”

The girl vanished into the inner room, then returned without the card.

“Madame will receive you, Mr. Carter,” she said, bowing.

Nick left his hat as before, and approached the inner room.

His recollections of it were not agreeable. The close atmosphere, the
green light, the walls hung with mystical insignia, the purple-robed
woman who had so baffled his usual keen reasoning, and the touch of
whose hand lingered with him as when a person has touched the hand of
a corpse—all had left upon him a disagreeable impression, as when one
has meddled with things pertaining to the black arts.

He found Madame Victoria seated at the table, as before, looking more
like a sorceress to him than ever, as he stepped gravely over the
threshold.

The woman looked up from the card between her thumb and fingers, and
Nick thought he detected a subtle light leap up from the depths of her
brilliant eyes. It vanished so quickly that he could not feel sure of
it, however, despite that he was now alert for the slightest betrayal
that might be of significance to him.

Madame Victoria was the first to speak.

“Take a chair, sir,” said she, smiling a bit oddly. “Your card informs
me that you are Detective Carter, of New York.”

“Yes, madame.”

“My maid said you desire a business interview with me.”

“If you please.”

“Business from my standpoint, or your own?” inquired Madame Victoria,
still smiling. “In other words, Detective Carter, does your visit
relate to your business or to mine?”

“The business is ours,” said Nick pointedly.

“Ah, sort of a mutual interest,” laughed the woman, with a captivating
glance at him.

“Precisely.”

“Then, since you have not called to consult me professionally,” said
the madame, “I shall feel free to drop my usual mental attitude, that
of holding myself susceptible to outward impressions, and receive
you more conventionally. About what do you wish to see me, Detective
Carter?”

Nick instinctively felt that he was already being headed off by the
woman, and he saw, with half an eye, if he had not seen it before, that
he was up against a remarkably shrewd and clever character, one who was
nearly his equal in diplomacy and cunning.

Nick briefly set aside the motive with which he had called, therefore,
and reverted to the business which primarily had sent him to Madame
Victoria’s rooms.

“I wish to ask you a few questions,” said he.

“About what?”

“About the recent robbery of yourself and Mrs. Badger, of Brookline.”

“Ah, indeed!”

“I am engaged by Chief Weston, of the local police department, to
investigate some of these highway robberies committed about here, and
to undertake the arrest of the culprits.”

“Dear me! I am delighted to hear it, Detective Carter, and I do hope
you’ll succeed,” exclaimed Madame Victoria, now displaying a very
vivacious interest.

“I hope so, too.”

“I have lost some valuable jewels, and so has Claudia—that’s Mrs.
Badger, sir—and I should be more than glad to recover them.”

“No doubt.”

“Or to aid you in hastening the arrest and conviction of the thieves,”
added the woman. “In what way can I assist you, Detective Carter?”

“By answering a few questions for me, madame——”

“Pardon!” she interposed.

“Well?”

“You may call me Miss Clayton when not consulting me professionally,
Detective Carter,” she explained, with a fascinating little laugh.
“Like persons in other fields of art, I practise under an assumed name.
If you ever meet my sister, Mrs. Badger, or her husband, they will
probably refer to me by my real name. So I take this occasion to tell
it to you. It is only here, or when discussing my professional work,
that I make use of my business name.”

Nick wondered if all this had been thrown at him to convey an
impression that she had not been informed of his call upon Badger and
his wife, and a gleam of new suspicion showed briefly in the eyes
of the great detective. Yet he said quietly, with a nod, that he
understood her.

“It matters little to me what name you use, providing you answer my
questions,” he added.

“I shall gladly do so, Detective Carter.”

“I have here a snap-shot photograph said to have been taken by you at
the time of the robbery.”

“Yes, that is true. I had my kodak with me, and it so happened that I
could——”

“I have been told by Chief Weston how you obtained the photograph,”
interposed Nick, wishing to expedite matters.

“Ah, I see.”

“What I chiefly wish to know is whether you got a good look at the
thieves, or were too frightened to notice them closely.”

“Oh, I was not greatly alarmed,” smiled Madame Victoria, with a shrug
of her fine shoulders. “I saw that the loss of our valuables was
inevitable, but I did not fear for my life.”

“Did you specially notice the woman who appears in this photograph?”

“I saw all that was to be seen of both miscreants, Detective Carter,”
the woman declared, with a nod of emphasis.

“Did you detect any peculiarity about the woman?”

“Only her unusual height.”

“She was taller than the man?”

“Yes, indeed; several inches taller.”

“Yet in the picture he appears to be nearly six feet.”

“I should judge that he was, as I now recall him.”

“A woman taller than that is very rare,” said Nick, “and one who should
be quite easily traced.”

“That is true, sir.”

“Do you feel quite sure that it was a woman?”

“Sure? Why, certainly!” exclaimed Madame Victoria, laughing.

“For what reasons?”

“Because, Detective Carter, I saw the point of her chin under her black
veil, and it was as smooth and white as my own.”

“Anything more?”

“Her hand and arm, too, what little I could see of the latter in the
sleeve of her automobile coat, were as fair and plump as my own.”

Nick glanced at the pretty hand and arm she held out, and decided that
there could be no mistaking them.

“My first impression, Detective Carter,” she quickly added, “was the
same as yours—that her height might warrant a suspicion that it was a
man in woman’s clothing. For that reason, sir, I particularly observed
her.”

“I am glad of that,” bowed Nick. “I called here chiefly to settle this
question of sex, and I have already asked Mrs. Badger about it.”

“Oh, indeed! Then you have seen her?”

“I called upon her in Brookline this morning.”

“Does what I say corroborate her statements?”

“Yes.”

Nick had mentioned the call only to see if Madame Victoria would say
that she had since heard from the Badgers, but she did nothing of the
kind, leaving Nick to believe that she had not. This served only to
increase his growing suspicions, when recalling what she had said that
morning; and he now gravely added, with his gaze indifferently fixed
upon her face:

“I think there is only one more question that I would like to have you
answer for me, Madame Victoria.”

“Only one?”

“That is all.”

“Ask it, Detective Carter.”

Nick’s voice fell a little lower, and became more impressive.

“I wish to know what you would have said to me, Madame Victoria, if I
had called to consult you professionally.”

The smile still lingered about the woman’s red lips, and her eyes met
his without flinching.

“I should have said, Detective Carter, what my first impression
impelled me to say, yet which I decided to repress.”

“What was that?”

“I should have told you that I felt, when you entered, as if I were
meeting a person who had recently called here.”

“Did you feel so?”

“I did.”

“How do you now feel about it?”

“I am now sure.”

“Of what?”

“That you were here this morning under the name of Sibley,” replied
Madame Victoria, now frowning slightly. “I cannot possibly imagine why
you came here in disguise and under an assumed name, Detective Carter,
yet I am convinced that you did so.”

“How did you acquire that knowledge?” Nick now demanded, ignoring her
quiet rebuke.

“I answered that question for Mr. Sibley,” was the reply, with a covert
sneer. “Hence there is no need for me to answer it for you.”

“You acquired it through your impressions?”

“Yes.”

“In no other way?”

“None.”

“Then, as Mr. Sibley said this morning, it is very mysterious,” Nick
dryly declared, rising to go.

“So many think, as I said this morning.”

“I will say, Madame Victoria, that I had no more malicious design in
coming here in disguise than that of proving the validity of some of
your claims to occult powers. I might add, too, that you have given me
one of the most curious problems of my life.”

“Indeed!”

“I shall, however, make it a point to—solve the problem.”

Madame Victoria laughed, and eyed him oddly from under her drooping
lids.

“If you do solve it, which involves learning how I get these
impressions, Detective Carter, you will do more than I can,” she said,
rising to bid him adieu.

“Then I certainly shall, Madame Victoria, do more than you can,” Nick
quietly declared, as he accepted her proffered hand.

“You think so, eh?”

“I do, madame! I have one very pronounced trait of character, which may
be of some interest to you.”

“What is that?”

“I never drop a mystery, Madame Victoria, until it has—ceased to be a
mystery!”

The last was said pleasantly enough, yet very emphatically, as Nick
bowed and withdrew from the room, with the smiling eyes of the woman
steadily meeting his till the door closed between the two.

Then there came over her one of those swift changes seen only when
suppressed passions, intensified by restraint, are abruptly given free
rein.

Her smile vanished like a flash, displaced by a frown that transfigured
her every feature and lent to her usually attractive face the
threatening and vengeful visage of a fury. With eyes gleaming, with
lips drawn, with breast heaving under the sudden swell of her pent
feelings, she shook both clenched hands after the departing detective,
while muttering fiercely through her white teeth:

“Yon will solve the problem, will you? You will tear away the veil of
mystery, will you? Not if I know it—not if I can prevent it, Mr. Nick
Carter!

“Beware what you do—what you attempt! Let the cost be what it may, my
prediction shall be fulfilled, and only failure shall be yours! Beware
lest you fail, for the inevitable price of failure will be—death!”

Then she turned and hurried across the room, with every movement of her
lithe and supple figure as quick and graceful as those of a leopard.
With a quick sweep of her arm, she threw aside the curtain of a door of
a small closet, into which she entered, to seize the receiver from a
telephone attached to the wall.

“Give me 22 ring 2, Brookline!” she commanded.

It was the number of the telephone in the house of Mr. Amos Badger.




                             CHAPTER VIII.

                          UNDER THE SURFACE.


As Nick Carter had rightly conjectured, when weighing the mystifying
knowledge displayed by Madame Victoria, there was something under the
surface.

What the something was, moreover, plainly appeared in what followed the
visit of Nick to the suburban house of Mr. Amos Badger.

The moment the detective departed, in company with Grady, there came
over both Badger and his wife a very decided change.

With an ugly gleam in his dark eyes, which were still following the
runabout as it sped down the long driveway, Badger ripped off the red
flannel bandages from around his neck, exclaiming vehemently:

“Whew! these infernal things have set me reeking at every pore! Thank
Heaven he remained no longer, or I should have run down into my boots.
There’s not a dry rag on me.”

His wife indulged in a laugh, a vicious little laugh, most unpleasant
to honest ears.

“Yet the ruse worked well, Amos,” she cried exultantly.

“Yes, apparently.”

“Apparently?”

“That’s what I said,” growled Badger, as the runabout passed out of
view.

“What do you mean?” demanded Claudia, with quickened apprehension.

“I mean that there never is any knowing what Nick Carter thinks and
suspects, however he may carry himself,” Badger petulantly replied.
“He is one thing on the surface, another under it. There is no telling
anything about him, and I’m infernally sorry that Weston has brought
him over here.”

“Bah!” cried his wife contemptuously. “He can accomplish no more than
the Boston detectives have done.”

“I’m not so sure of it.”

“We can fool him as we have fooled the others.”

“Yet he asked some deucedly ugly questions,” declared Badger, with a
doubtful shake of his head. “And I more than half-fear that he already
suspects our trick.”

“Suspects that you were only feigning illness?”

“Possibly.”

“Nonsense! He cannot have got wise to that, nor to anything else that
seriously affects us.”

Badger turned quickly away, and hailed the man in the driveway.

“Come in here, Jerry,” he commanded. “I want to speak to you.”

Conley dropped his work and hastened into the house, following Badger
and his wife into the library.

“What d’ye want, Amos?” he inquired, with a familiarity plainly
indicating that he was something more than a menial about the place.

“I want to I know just what Carter said to you,” replied Badger,
throwing himself into a chair.

“He only asked if I’d seen an auto go along the road below here.”

“Nothing more?”

“Not a thing.”

“I thought I heard him say something about me, Conley, and the cut of
my jib.”

“Oh, that was only because he couldn’t learn anything from me, and he
didn’t fancy the jolly I was giving him,” replied Conley, with a grin.
“Devil a thing did I tell him, Amos, and I was only keeping him on a
string till I was dead sure that you and Claudy were out of your auto
rigs and into the togs in which he found you.”

“Are you sure he didn’t get sight of the other machine?” demanded
Badger apprehensively.

“The one you used when you held him up?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Oh, I’m dead sure that he didn’t see that,” cried Conley confidently.
“I had that in the secret cover a good five minutes before he showed up
in the runabout.”

“And you were at work on the other when he arrived?”

“Yes, long before he arrived.”

“Pshaw! he couldn’t have seen the Peerless when he got here, Amos,”
supplemented Claudia decidedly. “We left that runabout behind us as if
it had been tied to a stake.”

“I know all that,” growled Badger; “but I want to feel sure that the
infernal detective got no line on us after he reached here. I’ll tell
you both, he’s a man to be feared, and we cannot be too careful in case
he undertakes to round us up.”

“Faugh!” snarled Conley, with a scowl rising about his crafty eyes. “If
he gets wise, and presses us too hard, there’s one thing we can do.”

“Put him out of the way?”

“Sure.”

“It will have to be done,” said Badger, with a nod. “Yet I don’t fancy
running my neck into a noose if it can be avoided.”

“It can be done without that,” said Conley, with grim significance.

“It strikes me,” put in Claudia, “that we ought to give Vic a tip that
Carter is coming to call upon her, also that he has been out here.”

“That’s right, too.”

“If he is as clever as you say he is, Amos, he must be handled with
gloves,” added the woman. “Vic ought to be warned of his visit, and of
what his business consists, so that she may be ready for him, and head
him off from any suspicion.”

“I can inform her by telephone.”

“It must be done.”

“There’s no great rush,” replied Badger. “Carter will not arrive there
for an hour.”

“You must tell her just what we have done, and why we did it.”

“Tell her that we held him up this morning?”

“Yes, certainly; also that we got away with his watch and money.”

“Why tell her all that?”

“So she may know just how to handle him,” declared Claudia, with knit
brows. “Vic is clever, all right, but she may queer us in some way when
pitted against Nick Carter’s cleverness, unless she knows just what his
game is, and what has happened out here.”

“I’ll go and talk with her at once,” said Badger, now rising.

“A good idea,” said Conley approvingly. “Let Vic alone to queer any
game that he may have.”

“Stop a moment, Amos,” cried his wife, with an afterthought.

“Well?”

“If Carter has formed any suspicion of us, as you appear to fear, he
may start in at once with some of his underhand work.”

“What do you mean?”

“He may not tell Vic who he is.”

“Possibly not.”

“And he may lead her into some self-betrayal, in case he questions her
closely while she is ignorant of his identity.”

“What the deuce can we do to prevent that?” demanded Badger, with a
frown.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Claudia, who plainly possessed many of the
crafty qualities of her sister.

“Well, out with it.”

“First, Amos, describe him to her so she cannot mistake him, and then——”

“Hold on a bit,” interrupted Conley, who was an interested listener.
“He may take it into his head to go there in disguise, since that’s a
clever trick of his.”

“That’s just what I was coming to, Jerry, if you had let me finish,”
snapped Mrs. Badger. “We can easily head off any disguise he may adopt.”

“How so?”

“Merely by telling Vic that he wears a red carbuncle ring on the third
finger of his left hand,” said Claudia. “He’ll not think it necessary
to remove that, Amos, even if he does put on a disguise.”

“By Jove! that’s so.”

“Go, now, and tell her the whole business.”

Badger hastened into the hall, where he was presently heard imparting
in cautious terms, yet which he evidently knew would be readily
understood, the information concerning Nick which had so puzzled him.

It was because of what she now was told over the wire that Madame
Victoria glanced first at Nick’s left hand when he entered her rooms,
and at once recognized him in the disguise of Sibley.

At the time of his second visit, moreover, when he presented his own
card, the fortune-teller at once noticed that he had removed the ring,
and that alone was enough to convince her that he was beginning to play
a double game, and that he must have formed some suspicions regarding
herself and the Badgers.

After Nick’s first departure she telephoned Badger that he had been
there, and the latter then held a second consultation with his wife and
Conley.

Being ignorant of Nick’s primary object in visiting Madame Victoria
in disguise, which was merely to test her peculiar powers, Badger’s
apprehensions naturally were increased.

“He’s wise to something, and already up to some game against us, or
he wouldn’t have gone there in disguise,” he gravely reasoned. “I’m
ruined, utterly ruined, unless we can continue this road work a few
weeks longer. I shall be swamped completely unless I can thus raise the
funds to tide me along until there’s a rise in the stock-market.”

“We’ll keep up the road-work, Amos, never you fear,” his wife curtly
declared, with an evil brightness in her expressive eyes. “It was I who
suggested it to you, and I have done my part to help you along with it.”

“That’s true enough.”

“And we’ll not quit it now, Amos, Carter or no Carter.”

“That we’ll not,” growled Conley, with a headshake. “There’s too much
good stuff in it for us to have it queered at this stage by this man
Carter. If it comes to the worst, Amos, a knife between his ribs will
put him out of our way.”

“That is more easily said than done.”

“Not if it comes to that kind of a play.”

“I don’t fear Weston and his second-rate detectives,” added Badger
moodily; “but this man Carter is superior to that entire bunch.”

“Bah!” cried Claudia. “You are needlessly alarmed. To begin with, Amos,
he cannot possibly have learned anything definite about us as quickly
as this.”

“Possibly not.”

“He could not have identified us as the couple who held him up and
robbed him this morning, and he certainly must think that was only a
chance job, not one planned by us the moment we heard he was coming out
here in a runabout.”

“No, he could not have guessed that,” admitted Badger.

“Furthermore,” argued his wife, “my face was entirely covered with my
dust-glasses and the false beard, and in my big auto coat it certainly
could not have been suspected that I was a woman who suddenly showed up
in the Peerless in which you escaped after robbing him.”

“Sure it couldn’t,” put in Conley. “I’d have sworn you were a man
myself.”

“Oh, I don’t think he has any idea of the truth about that,” replied
Badger.

“There is still another thing in our favor,” continued Claudia.

“What is that?”

“The alleged robbery of Vic and myself, Amos, and the photograph which
Vic took by which to convince Weston of the truth of our story.”

“That was one of the shrewdest moves ever made,” declared Conley,
laughing.

“Certainly it was, Jerry, and you may let Vic alone to think of such
schemes as that,” said Mrs. Badger, with an evil display of sisterly
pride.

“She’s a keen one, all right,” grinned Conley.

“The picture is as good as a positive proof that we were robbed,” added
Claudia; “and Weston never for a moment has doubted our story. The very
fact, if it were a fact, that we were robbed, moreover, plainly shows
that we cannot have been both the thieves and the victims, also. That
would be absurd, you see, and as long as Carter credits the photograph,
just so long we may be sure that he does not suspect us of being
crooks.”

“That is an ugly word to apply to us, Claudia,” growled Badger
disapprovingly.

“One might as well call things by their right names,” laughed his wife.
“I told you I was an adventuress, and a woman of nerve, Amos, when you
wanted to marry me, and you knew just what you bargained for.”

“I’m finding no fault on that score.”

“You’d better not,” was the pointed rejoinder. “I fancy the life I now
lead, this moving in good society, for it lays away over the stage, or
riding bareback in the circus-ring, to which Vic and I were bred in old
England.”

“What need to refer to those days?” muttered Badger, frowning darkly.

“Only that you may keep in mind the stuff I am made of,” replied his
wife, with a shrug of her shoulders. “When you told me you were in
hot water financially, Amos, it was I who suggested this scheme of
road robbery to tide you along. In becoming your assistant, along with
Jerry, here, my old life of adventure has served me well. I can ride
the most vicious horse, and no auto can go too fast for me, Amos; so
you couldn’t have a better helper, whether I wear skirts or trousers,
in holding up an auto-party.”

“That’s true enough.”

“As for the wickedness of it—well, most of the world is wicked in
one way or another,” laughed the woman. “We must contrive to get our
living, Amos, in some way; and this life of danger and adventure just
suits me, to say nothing of the profits derived. Just think!—last month
we cleaned up close to twenty thousand, providing those Gaylord jewels
bring as much as we expect.”

“Oh, there’s money enough in it, I’ll admit that,” nodded Badger.

“And with Vic to help us, with the aid of the friend she has so
completely under her thumb, we are sure to be informed of any move
contemplated by Weston or by Nick Carter. So your fears are groundless,
Amos, as I said in the beginning.”

“It’s dead lucky, I’ll admit, that we have that anchor to the
windward,” said Badger, with features now relaxing.

“So it is, Amos, and with him to inform us of—— Hark! there goes the
telephone-bell again. I’ll wager that Vic has something more to report.”

Claudia Badger was right in the last.

Madame Victoria now reported the second visit of Nick Carter, and all
that had passed between them; also explained Nick’s simple object in
first calling upon her in disguise, and stated that he came last only
to ask about the woman in the photograph.

“I have him well muddled, Amos,” was Madame Victoria’s last declaration
over the wire. “There is nothing to be feared from him at present.”

Badger’s dark countenance lighted while he listened, and he hastened to
report the communication to his wife and Conley.

“There! what did I tell you?” cried Claudia triumphantly. “I knew that
Vic would prove more than a match even for Nick Carter. Now, there is
just one thing to be done in order to avert suspicion from us.”

“What is that?”

“These road robberies must continue to occur,” declared the woman. “If
they suddenly end at this time, after Carter’s visit here, he very
possibly may infer that we are alarmed, providing he has any suspicion
at all concerning us. Another robbery committed this very night would
clinch matters in our favor.”

“That’s right, too,” said Conley, quickly seeing the point.

It was done, moreover, and one of the boldest yet committed, and
the reports of it filled the morning papers, along with no end of
editorials decrying the inferior work of the police in being unable to
prevent such depredations.

But the end was not yet, for that very day Chief Weston removed his own
men from the case, and placed it entirely in charge of Nick Carter.




                              CHAPTER IX.

                            BODY AND LIMBS.


“Chick, I’m hit with an idea!”

This exclamation came from Nick Carter about ten o’clock one morning,
two days after the highway robbery last reported, and the talk that
followed showed with what remarkable insight this great detective
arrived at the subtle deductions which contributed largely to his
success.

Chick and Patsy had arrived in Boston two days before, and both were
now present with Nick in his room at the Adams House.

Both had been fully informed of the facts thus far learned by him,
moreover, as well as of his interview with the Badgers, and his visits
to Madame Victoria.

When he uttered the above exclamation Nick was seated at one of the
windows of his room.

In one hand he held the photograph that figured so curiously in the
case, and which would have convinced any ordinary detective that Madame
Victoria and Mrs. Amos Badger had been robbed precisely as alleged, for
the camera, at least, would not have lied.

Yet this bit of convincing evidence was so out of the ordinary, as
well as the circumstances under which it had been obtained, that Nick
from the very first had been inclined to distrust the picture.

In his other hand he now held a large magnifying-glass, through which
he was carefully studying the photograph, holding it in the full glare
of the morning sunlight.

“What’s that, Nick?” inquired Chick, starting up from his chair and
dropping a morning paper reporting the last robbery. “Hit with an idea,
did you say?”

“Exactly.”

“What is it, Mr. Carter?” asked Patsy, at once displaying a lively
interest. “Have you discovered something lame in that picture?”

Nick laughed.

“That about hits the nail on the head, Patsy,” said he, with a glance
in the lad’s direction. “I think I begin to see a ray of light in the
darkness.”

“What have you discovered?” asked Chick.

And both he and Patsy came to lean over the back of Nick’s chair.

Nick held the large glass and the photograph so that all three could
plainly view the magnified picture.

“I’ll explain what I find, and I wonder that I have not noticed it
before,” said he quite earnestly. “It relates to this tall woman who
appears in the picture.”

“Gee! but she is a tall one,” remarked Patsy, with a laugh. “She’s tall
enough to fit in a dime museum.”

“That’s right, Patsy,” assented Nick, smiling.

“What’s peculiar about it, Nick?”

“As you probably know, Chick, there is a general uniformity in the
proportions of the human body—a regular length of arms and limbs when
compared with the trunk. In all normal subjects the proportions are
nearly the same.”

“Sure,” nodded Chick. “A man’s reach, from the tips of his extended
arms and fingers, is usually the same as his height.”

“Correct.”

“But what has that to do with the picture, Mr. Carter?” asked Patsy.

“It has to do with this woman,” Nick rejoined, drawing out his pencil
to be used for a pointer. “I want you to notice her extended arm and
hand, the one in which she held the leveled revolver.”

“That’s plain enough, sir.”

“It’s good fortune that it is, Patsy,” nodded Nick. “It also is plain,
now that I study it closely, that the arm is a little out of proportion
with her exceeding height.”

“By Jove! it does appear so!” exclaimed Chick, bending nearer to view
the pictured figure.

“Notice the distance from her shoulder to her hand, then the distance
from her shoulder to her hip, which is plainly outlined by this curve
of her long auto coat. Her hip is here, Chick, where I have the point
of my pencil.”

“Exactly.”

“Notice, now, that her extended hand, if it were to be dropped to her
side, would reach only to this point, measuring the same distance, a
point only a trifle below her hip.”

“That’s clear,” cried Chick. “Yet the camera may——”

“The camera never lies,” interposed Nick.

“Then the woman must be out of proportion,” declared Chick.

“Not necessarily.”

“But her arm should be longer than it appears there,” Chick insisted.
“I’m well-proportioned, I’ll swear to that, and my hand, when lowered,
reaches half-way down my thigh.”

“Which is about right, Chick.”

“Yet you say the woman is not out of proportion——”

“I said not necessarily,” interposed Nick. “If she was as tall as she
appears in the picture, however, I’ll admit that her arm would be too
short for her body.”

“Oho, I see!” exclaimed Patsy, starting up. “You think, Mr. Carter,
that she is not as tall as the picture indicates.”

“That’s exactly it, Patsy,” nodded Nick.

“How do you make it out?” asked Chick.

“Notice this fold of her skirt, where the skirt shows below the edge of
her auto coat?”

“Well, what of it?”

“Plainly enough, Chick, the fold does not hang quite naturally,” Nick
went on to explain, still pointing with his pencil. “It appears drawn
a little to one side and back of her, with the edge of the skirt
carefully arranged to touch the ground, precisely as if to conceal
something beneath it.”

“Something on which she was standing!” exclaimed Chick, quickly seeing
the point.

“That’s just it,” declared Nick impressively. “No skirt ever hung quite
like that, if it hung naturally.”

“Surely not.”

“Notice also the distance from her hip to the edge of the skirt, where
her feet should be,” added Nick. “Her limbs would be as much above the
regular proportions as her arm is below them.”

“I see what you mean.”

“In a nutshell, Chick, such an anomaly could not be,” continued Nick
decisively. “A person with abnormally long legs and disproportionately
short arms is out of the question.”

“And in your opinion——”

“In my opinion, Chick, the woman was standing on something, possibly a
rock, with her skirts lengthened to conceal it. Obviously the whole was
done to give her the appearance of being very tall.”

“And with what object?”

“With a design to thus blind the police to the real looks of the woman
operating with this gang of crooks.”

“You think they aimed to send the police searching after some very tall
woman?”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll wager you are right.”

“Furthermore,” added Nick, “these discoveries conclusively prove that
the picture was deliberately taken, with the several persons calmly
posing to make it effective, and that the two women said to have been
held up and robbed were not robbed at all.”

“And the design of the photograph?”

“It was taken purposely to be offered as evidence to corroborate the
story told to the police.”

“With a view to averting suspicion and throwing them off the right
track,” added Chick.

“Precisely.”

“By thunder, that was a crafty scheme!” declared Patsy, rather pleased
with the originality of it.

“Yes, it was crafty enough,” assented Nick. “But the rascals overleaped
their mount, Patsy, in not anticipating the deductions I have
mentioned. All this sheds a new and very bright light upon the case,”
the speaker added, as he tossed the photograph upon the table.

“I should say so,” nodded Chick, resuming his chair and lighting a
cigar. “It indicates that those two women, who claim to have been
robbed, may be in league with this gang of thieves.”

“Even more than that, Chick.”

“What more, Nick?”

“It suggests that Badger himself may be one of the gang, if not the
chief figure in it, and that their headquarters may be at that isolated
suburban place of his.”

“By Jove, that may be so!”

“Let’s look a little deeper, Chick, and see how far some of the
other facts sustain this theory. I was held up when on my way out
there Tuesday morning,” continued Nick. “That may have been merely a
coincidence, the scamps possibly having been laying in wait for some
victim, though there still remains a chance of something even more than
that under the surface.”

“Decidedly so,” replied Chick. “Such things don’t often happen by
chance.”

“We’ll investigate that a little later.”

“Sure.”

“After the hold-up, Chick, I hastened to Badger’s house, arriving there
within ten minutes after the robbery,” Nick went on.

“Then it must have occurred pretty near his place.”

“Within half a mile.”

“That, too, is significant.”

“In a measure,” assented Nick. “I found his chauffeur cleaning a
Stanley machine in the driveway, where I could not help observing him.
Ordinarily such a job would be done in the stable or garage, and I am
now inclined to think that it was done outside only intentionally to
make me believe, in case of any distrust, that Badger uses a Stanley
machine, and not such a car as that in which I saw the thieves escape.”

“Do you know how many machines he owns?”

“I do not, Chick. In fact, I know very little about him or his place.”

“We’ll make it a point to learn.”

“I did not fancy the looks nor air of his chauffeur,” continued Nick.
“He appeared to avoid my questions, and I now suspect that may have
been done to give Badger time to get out of his rig as a highwayman and
into the house suit and red flannel bandages in which he received me.”

“You think that whole business was designed only to blind you, in case
you had any suspicions?”

“That certainly would have been the design, Chick, providing that we
are justified in suspecting him at all.”

“There are too many of these significant little circumstances, Nick,
for us to doubt that we are hitting somewhere near the mark,” Chick
shrewdly reasoned.

“That’s the way I now regard them,” said Nick. “After my talk with
Badger, in which I stated I should call upon Madame Victoria, he may
have telephoned the fact to the fortune-teller. I noticed that he had a
telephone in the hall.”

“That would explain her knowledge of you, Nick,” said Chick. “But bear
in mind that you were in disguise when you first called upon her.”

“I remember that, Chick.”

“How can she have known you?”

“Badger may have been alarmed by my visit,” argued Nick, “and he
possibly suspected that I might adopt some disguise. Very likely he
mentioned some distinctive feature about my person, one which I would
not ordinarily remove, by which Madame Victoria may have identified me.”

“That may have been the case,” admitted Chick.

“The knowledge she displayed certainly points to some such move on
Badger’s part, and adds to our grounds for suspicion,” continued
Nick. “She had me well marked in some way, there is no denying that.
Furthermore, the fact that she warned me to drop the perilous business
I was about to undertake, predicting that I should meet only with
failure, points plainly to a possibility that they were taking that
method to influence me to drop the case.”

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Patsy. “That now looks dead open and shut, Mr.
Carter.”

“It certainly is significant.”

“I’ll bet you landed right in the midst of this gang of road thieves.
In that case, Nick, the rest of our work should be easy,” Chick quickly
remarked. “It should be child’s play for us to round them up.”

Nick thoughtfully shook his head.

“I’m not so sure of that, Chick,” said he. “We as yet have no tangible
evidence against them, and nothing less will serve us in a court of
law,” replied Nick.

“That’s true.”

“Our theory is built chiefly upon trivial circumstances, all of
which are significant enough, I’ll admit, and sufficiently numerous
to warrant considerable suspicion. But we must secure more positive
evidence before we can take any decisive action against these suspects.”

“I guess that is right, Nick.”

“We ought to get the evidence easily enough, if we really have located
the crooks,” declared Patsy.

Nick Carter laughed again, with a glance at the eager eyes of the
youthful detective.

“That one word, really, is quite important, Patsy,” said he. “It is
barely possible that we are mistaken, at least in part, if not entirely
so. Circumstantial evidence is never wholly trustworthy.”

“I’ll bet you are right, sir, for all that,” insisted Patsy, with
abiding faith in Nick’s shrewdness.

“I shall first make sure that I am,” said Nick, “by taking some step to
confirm my theory. As for securing the evidence with which to convict
these rascals, Patsy, that may not be done as easily as you think. If
they become wary, fearing that we suspect them, they not only may drop
the business entirely for a time, but may also cover their past tracks
so cleverly as to conceal the evidence that we require.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, sir.”

“It’s too true for a joke, Nick, and we cannot be too careful and
crafty at the outset,” Chick gravely put in, now taking the measure of
the case quite as clearly as Nick himself. “What do you intend doing?”

“Personally, Chick, I am going down to State Street this morning,
and see what I can learn about Badger. Then I am going up to police
headquarters and return these documents to Chief Weston. He loaned
them to me that I might learn what lines of investigation his men have
followed.”

“Do they appear to have accomplished anything?”

“Nothing more than to note in detail the facts of the various
robberies,” smiled Nick. “Not one of them has hit upon a rational clue.”

“Is there anything you want us to do while you are thus engaged?”

“Yes. I want you and Patsy to go out to Brookline and see what you can
discover at Badger’s place,” replied Nick. “I don’t want you to be seen
about there, however.”

“H’m! Let us alone to be discreet.”

“His estate is backed by quite an extensive woodland, through which you
can easily approach after locating the place.”

“That will be an advantage.”

“Take what time you require,” added Nick, “and learn how many men
are employed in and about the house and stable. Also learn how many
automobiles and horses he keeps. Several of these hold-ups have been
committed by horsemen, and I wish to learn what Badger owns in both
lines.”

“Automobiles and horses?”

“Exactly.”

“We’ll ferret out the whole business, Mr. Carter, trust us for that,”
cried Patsy, impatient to be at work.

“Meantime,” said Nick, rising, “I’ll employ myself as stated. It is
now half-past ten. You may require three or four hours to learn what I
would like to know, so we will plan to meet here again about an hour or
two before dinner, say at four o’clock.”

“That will give us ample time,” declared Chick. “We’ll be here at four
sharp.”

“You’ll find me here,” said Nick, with no thought that anything would
occur to prevent him.

The three left the house together, parting at the Washington Street
door, both Chick and Patsy heading for the subway to take a Brookline
trolley car. Neither so much as dreamed, however, that many an anxious
hour would pass before they again saw Nick’s familiar face or heard his
genial voice.




                              CHAPTER X.

                        THE ANCHOR TO WINDWARD.


As he had stated to his assistants before leaving the Adams House that
morning, Nick Carter hastened down to State Street to see what he could
learn about Amos Badger.

With his wide acquaintance and friendly relations with the bankers and
brokers, both in New York and Boston, it was an easy matter for Nick to
ascertain, without disclosing his motives, the facts which he aimed to
discover.

He learned from perfectly reliable sources that Badger, who had no
partner in business, was heavily long of stocks in the market, a
market that had been steadily declining for months; also, that his
loan-account on this class of collateral had been repeatedly subjected
to calls for additional margins, which were known to have been met only
with considerable difficulty and delay.

In a nutshell, Nick easily discovered that Badger had for months been
in financial hot water, yet had succeeded in tiding himself along up to
date.

Nick now thought he could guess by what desperate means this man was
raising the funds required to meet his increasing obligations from day
to day.

Incidentally, however, Nick learned other facts for which he was not
specially seeking, yet which further confirmed the theory he had so
shrewdly formed.

These facts related to Badger’s wife and her sister, the Tremont Street
fortune-teller, and were imparted to Nick a bit maliciously by a broker
who had suffered in one way or another through Madame Victoria, and who
was informed of the history of the two women.

Briefly stated, as it was given to Nick, both were born in England,
the daughters of a second-rate actor and manager of various itinerant
amusement enterprises, in none of which he had achieved any great
success.

The two girls had some little talent in one way or another, however,
and both had spent their earlier years in the show business, filling
such positions as the various enterprises of their father, since dead,
required.

Now as an alleged gipsy fortune-teller, now as a palmist, at other
times an astrologer, or some like attraction under a different name,
but always as a sideshow to some other amusement, the younger of the
two had acquired that experience which, after the marriage of her
sister and her coming to America, had enabled her to establish in
Boston the business now conducted under the name of Madame Victoria.

The elder of the two, now Badger’s wife, had sung on the stage,
done turns in the concert-halls, and in earlier years had been an
accomplished equestrienne in the circus-ring, from the first of which
Badger had married her in Manchester, about five years before.

That both women were little more than adventuresses of a rather
disreputable type, Nick’s informant positively assured him, and this
further confirmed his theory and convinced him that he was on the right
track.

It was early afternoon when he arrived at police headquarters, in
Pemberton Square, and entered the general office previously described.

It so happened that Chief Weston was in this office at the time, though
all of the detectives not then assigned to outside work were either out
at lunch or in the officers’ lounging-room.

It so happened, also, since Satan sometimes serves his own, that the
only other occupant of the general office was the clerk whom Nick had
encountered there several days before—Mr. Sandy Hyde.

The brick-hued head of the latter was raised from over his books upon
hearing the detective’s name mentioned in greeting, and his catlike
eyes lighted with quickened interest.

“Ah, good morning, Nick!” was Chief Weston’s greeting. “Anything doing?”

“I wish to return these reports, chief, which I took from you a few
days ago,” replied Nick, producing them from his pocket.

“No further use for them?”

“Not at present.”

“Very well.”

“I will retain this photograph, however, which I may use to advantage a
little later.”

“You’ve not hit upon a clue from that, have you?”

“Well, I’m not prepared to say,” demurred Nick, a bit evasively.

“Come inside,” Chief Weston abruptly said, quick to notice Nick’s
hesitation. “We shall not be interrupted in my office. Bear that in
mind, Sandy.”

“All right, chief.”

“This way, Nick.”

Nick entered the enclosure, and passed through the passage leading to
the chief’s, private office.

He did not so much as glance at the clerk, however, whose head had
again dropped over his books.

Snap!

The catch-lock announced that the door of the private office had
securely closed.

Now Mr. Sandy Hyde dropped his pen, and came down from his stool.

For a moment he peered sharply through the brass lattice along the top
of the desks, toward the two open doors leading into the adjoining
corridors.

Next he darted out of the enclosure, and quickly closed both of these
doors.

No cat’s eyes aglow from a dark corner ever burned more greenishly
bright and intense than those of this watchful miscreant at that moment.

It was for him a moment of peril, and well he knew it; yet, in the
event of an intruder into the outer office, he relied upon hearing one
of the closed doors opened in time to evade detection.

With both closed, he next hurried back into the enclosure, from outside
of which the interior of the narrow passage could only partly be seen.

Into this passage Hyde quickly entered, with the stealthy quietude of
a shadow, and stood listening at the chief’s door, his ear touching
the panel, his eyes still bright with a satanic glow evincing his evil
impulse.

His several precautions had required but a very few seconds, moreover,
and he lost hardly a word of Nick Carter’s brief interview with Chief
Weston, who was about repeating his question just as the eavesdropper
arrived at the door.

“You’ve not struck a clue from that photograph, Nick, have you?”

Nick was never much inclined to reveal his discoveries before they
culminated in some decisive move, and he again evaded the question by
saying:

“Well, I’m not quite sure about that, Weston.”

“What do you suspect?”

“Nothing at all definite as yet,” laughed Nick indifferently. “I wish
to retain the photograph a while longer, however, if you have no
objection.”

“None whatever, Nick, yet you pique my curiosity.”

“I will explain later.”

“Very well.”

“I presume that Madame Victoria could easily show me the exact spot
where this hold-up occurred,” remarked Nick, who had remained standing
beside the chiefs desk.

“I imagine so, Nick.”

“I’m going to have her take me out there.”

“For what purpose?”

“I want to see what sort of a place these crooks usually select for
their rascally work.”

“I should say that you already had seen that,” laughed Weston, who had
been informed of Nick’s encounter with them.

Nick shrugged his broad shoulders, smiling meaningly, and said:

“I wish to see how the two localities correspond. As for my lost
property, Weston, I’ll make an even bet that I recover it sooner or
later.”

The last was said a bit resentfully, and with a significance that
brought a quick change over Weston’s face.

“You’ve got wise to something, Nick!” he abruptly exclaimed.

Nick laughed again.

“What is it?”

“I’d rather inform you a little later, Weston.”

“Just as you like, of course, but I’m really curious to know what you
have learned.”

“I’m not quite sure of it yet, chief, and I’d prefer making sure before
I indulge in any revelations,” said Nick, with a shake of his head.
“It’s not my way, you know, to make disclosures which later may prove
to be groundless.”

“I’m well aware of that, Nick.”

“If it will afford you any satisfaction, however, I will make one
definite statement.”

“What is that?”

“Merely this, Weston,” Nick forcibly declared. “I will land these
crooks for you, every man and woman of them, or I’ll throw up my
commission.”

The ear at the panel was strained at that moment, and the glow in the
eyes of the listener became a threatening flame.

“Well, well, that ought to be good enough for anybody,” cried Weston,
with much satisfaction. “I felt sure that you had run upon something
worth knowing.”

Nick nodded significantly, yet replied quite indifferently:

“I think that I have, Weston, and, when I am dead sure of it, I will
tell you of what it consists.”

“All right, Nick,” was the reply, with a genial laugh. “I said in the
beginning that you should not be interfered with in this case, and that
goes at any stage of it. Run it in your own way, Nick, and you’ll suit
me.”

“I’m only a bit curious to go out to the scene of this robbery,” Nick
now added, with a glance at the photograph which he was replacing in
his pocket. “If I can catch Madame Victoria at her rooms after I have
lunched, I think I can get her to ride out there with me.”

“No doubt of it, Nick. She’ll be glad enough to do anything that gives
promise of the recovery of her property.”

Nick smiled a bit oddly, and prepared to depart.

“I shall drop in to see her about two o’clock,” said Nick. “I reckon I
can bring her to my way of thinking.”

“When shall I see you again?” asked Weston, rising.

“Within a day or two.”

“I wish you luck meantime.”

Nick laughed and shook his head, saying with considerable dryness:

“I depend less upon luck, Weston, than upon labor and head-work. If I
can make nothing out of this case with my brains, I have no faith that
luck will do it for me. As I said before, Weston, I’ll see you within a
day or two.”

The listening ear had left the panel of the door.

The catlike tread had pattered quickly through the passage and out of
the enclosure, and again the corridor doors stood open.

There had been no intruder during the brief interview, and a look of
evil exultation had risen in the eyes of Mr. Sandy Hyde.

As Amos Badger had declared to his confederates one recent morning, it
was, indeed, dead lucky that they had—this anchor to the windward.

For it was this miscreant who had warned Badger of Nick Carter’s
arrival in Boston, and of his acceptance of this case.

It was this miscreant who had informed Badger of Nick’s intended visit
the same morning, and who had made possible the hold-up which to Nick
had appeared so like a coincidence.

It was this miscreant, too, whose treachery now bid fair to cost Nick
Carter his life, yet whom the latter, with all his keenness, was far
from suspecting.

For who looks for treachery in high places, or in those from whom only
loyalty is most naturally expected?

The catlike eyes had lost their greenish glow, and the brick-hued
head was again bowed above the books, when Nick and Chief Weston came
striding through the passage and out of the enclosure.

Nick did not delay his departure any longer, and without a word to the
clerk, Chief Weston returned to his private office.

It was then one o’clock.

Five minutes later the head clerk came in from lunch, and Sandy Hyde
at once laid down his pen and began putting on his street coat.

The next hour was his own—and he thought he knew how he could best use
it.




                              CHAPTER XI.

                      THE INCENTIVE TO TREACHERY.


Ten minutes after leaving police headquarters Sandy Hyde might have
been seen slinking across the Tremont Street mall of Boston Common.

Yet only a close observer would have recognized the treacherous little
rascal.

He had his coat-collar turned well up about his ears, his soft felt hat
drawn forward over his brow, and with his handkerchief held to his face
his crafty countenance was for the most part concealed.

Presently he glided across the street, then hurriedly bolted into
the corridor of one of the buildings—that in which the rooms of the
fortune-teller and long-time adventuress were located.

Quickly mounting the stairs, Hyde unceremoniously entered her rooms.

He found Vic Clayton, by which name he best knew her, seated alone in
the reception-parlor, the maid employed there having just gone out to
lunch.

“Why, hello, Sandy!” she cried, starting up from her chair when he
entered.

When he eagerly advanced to clasp both her hands, moreover, she drew
him into her arms and kissed him, as only lovers kiss.

“Break away!” he quickly protested, however.

“Well, well, what’s this?”

“As much as I like it, Vic, there’s no time for that.”

The woman’s eyes took on a startled look.

“No time!” she echoed, sharply regarding him.

“I should say not. There’s the devil to pay.”

“What do you mean?”

“Or worse than the devil—that’s Nick Carter!”

“What of him?”

“He’s coming here again.”

“For what?”

The last came with vicious asperity from the lips of the surprised
woman.

The color had left her cheeks. The light of sensuous affection, the
bestowal of which had turned this man into a knave, a traitor to his
trust at police headquarters, and made him her dupe and tool—this light
of passion had suddenly died from her eyes, displaced by the vengeful
fire with which she had last parted from the man he had just mentioned.

Darting to the door, Vic hurriedly turned the key, then swept around,
as quick and lithe as a panther in her movements, and grasped Hyde by
the shoulder.

“Not coming here now, not at once, is he?” she demanded, in rapid
whispers.

“Do you think I’m daffy, to be here, in that case?” growled Sandy.

“Yet——”

“No, no; there’s time enough, Vic,” he interrupted. “He’s not coming
till two o’clock.”

“For what?”

“To ask you to go with him to the scene of the fake hold-up.”

“That of the photograph?” gasped Vic, with hands pressed to her breast
and her white face drawn with increasing apprehension.

“That’s what he said.”

“Has he detected something queer in that picture?”

“I reckon he has, Vic.”

“Do you know what he suspects?”

“He didn’t say,” replied Hyde. “Weston asked him, but Carter only said
that he’d keep the photograph for a time.”

“Do you know for what?”

“I don’t.”

“Were there any names mentioned?”

“Only yours.”

“In the way you stated?”

“Yes.”

“Anything more?”

“One thing—and a mighty significant one!” growled Hyde, with a nod.

“What was that?”

“He added that he would land our gang, every man and woman of us, or
throw up his job.”

“He said that, did he?”

“That’s what.”

“The infernal meddler!”

“He has struck some clue, that’s dead sure!” declared the spy. “It’s a
condition that means we must get him, Vic, or he’ll get us.”

“Oh, we’ll get him, all right!” Vic Clayton now cried, with a venomous
sneer. “If he’s coming for that, for what you say, you let me alone to
get him!”

Though her flood of questions had been asked with passionate
impatience, she now appeared more calm, yet not less viciously
determined.

With a seductive smile, she now said warmly:

“You’re all right, Sandy. I’ll not forget this little service, and you
shall have your reward when——”

“I’ll get mine, all right, Vic, if the chief ever gets wise to the game
I’m playing,” interrupted Hyde, with a mingled laugh and grimace.

“He will never learn of it.”

“If he does, Vic, I can see myself put through the third degree in a
way that will leave mighty little of me.”

“Bosh!”

“I’m taking mighty long chances in doing this for you, and for——”

“Are you getting no reward for doing it, Sandy?”

The woman’s arm had stolen around his neck, while her breath fell warm
on his cheek with the interruption. She drew him closer till her lips
met his, then hurriedly released him, saying quickly:

“Go, now, Sandy, and leave the rest to me.”

“You can handle the matter?” he lingered to inquire anxiously.

“You bet I can handle it!”

“What will you do?”

“You leave that to me, I say.”

“You have no time to waste, Vic.”

“Is time not wasted in talk of this kind?” Vic impatiently rejoined.
“Go at once, I repeat, and leave the rest to me.”

Hyde started for the door, only to have the woman again dart across his
path and clasp him by the arm.

“Stop a moment!” she cried, under her breath.

“Well?”

The query came with a startled gasp, as Hyde, naturally a nervous and
cowardly cur, instinctively shrank from the expression now risen over
Vic Clayton’s face.

For there was murder in her dilated eyes, in her deathly white
features, in the vicious firmness of her drawn, gray lips.

“There is something more!” she hissed, with suppressed ferocity. “Have
you been constantly watchful at headquarters?”

“Have I? That’s a fat question for you to ask me,” said Hyde. “You
should know that I have.”

“So I do—so I do, Sandy, dear!” Vic hurriedly exclaimed, in assuasive
tones. “But there is one thing more. Is Nick Carter alone in this case?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure of it—dead sure of it?” demanded Vic, with a voice and
aspect that plainly betrayed the murderous design that inspired this
precautionary question.

“Certainly I’m sure of it.”

“It will do us no good to down him, mind you, if others at work with
him are to rise up out of his ashes and confound us with the same
evidence that he may possess.”

“There are no others,” protested Hyde confidently. “If there were, Vic,
I’d have told you.”

“Providing you knew it.”

“Oh, I’d have known it, all right,” declared Sandy. “I’m never out of
the office except to eat and sleep, and I’d have been wise to it by
this time if Carter had brought on any of his assistants from New York.”

“You have heard none mentioned?”

“Not one.”

“This shows me the way, then—the one and only way,” muttered the woman,
staring for a moment at the floor. “If it must be him or us—it shall
not be us!”

“Carter has been at the chief’s office only twice, both times alone,”
added Hyde assuringly. “You may safely gamble on it, Vic, that he’s
still alone on the case.”

Again, with her vengeful countenance lighting for a moment, she slipped
her arm about the spy’s neck and kissed him.

“Go, now, Sandy, and leave the rest to me,” she repeated. “But come out
to Badger’s place after dark to-night.”

“To-night, Vic?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I find you there?” queried Hyde, with wistful gaze.

“Yes, you’ll find me there—and another with me!”

“Not Nick Carter?”

The woman’s brows knit again and her eyes gleamed venomously.

“Nick Carter—yes!” she rejoined, with suppressed ferocity. “Nick
Carter—or what there is left of him!”




                             CHAPTER XII.

                          THE ROAD TO CANTON.


It was precisely two o’clock when Nick Carter arrived at Vic Clayton’s
rooms in Tremont Street.

Naturally, Nick did not so much as dream that she had been informed of
his designs against her. That treachery existed at police headquarters
was farthest from his thoughts.

In asking Vic Clayton to take him to the place where she and Claudia
Badger claimed to have been robbed, Nick had several motives.

To begin with, he wished to see if she would willingly consent to do so.

Nick reasoned that, in case she readily consented, it would indicate
a bare possibility that he in some way had misinterpreted the curious
features that he had detected in the photograph, and that the picture
might not be as incriminating in its significance as he had inferred.

While even this remote doubt existed, Nick felt that he could not
wisely make any very aggressive move in the case, and he took this
method to remove the doubt.

As a matter of fact, he hardly believed that Vic would consent to
comply with this request, but would evade it with some plausible excuse.

Providing that she complied and went with him, however, Nick believed
that he could so corner her with questions, while alone with her in
a carriage, that he could finally force from her a confession of the
whole business.

In any event, moreover, he felt sure that he could so artfully take
these steps that he would in no way sacrifice any of his present
advantages.

He found Vic Clayton alone in the handsomely furnished waiting-room,
engaged in writing at an open desk in one corner.

She had rearranged her hair and rouged her cheeks since Sandy Hyde’s
departure, and she looked, as a matter of fact as well as of design,
remarkably handsome and attractive.

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, quickly dropping her pen upon seeing Nick
enter. “Is it you, Detective Carter?”

“None other,” bowed Nick, smiling.

“I’m delighted!” cried Vic, rising to offer her hand. “I do
hope you bring some encouraging news, or possibly my lost gems
themselves—despite that I predicted only failure for you.”

The last was added with a fascinating laugh, in which Nick was willing
enough to join, though he found nothing inviting in her seductive eyes
and alluring airs.

“Well, hardly anything as favorable as that, Madame Victoria,” he began.

“No, no, pardon me!” she interrupted, playfully tapping him on the arm.
“You surely do not call again to consult me professionally?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then drop the Madame Victoria, my dear Mr. Carter, which is much too
strained for friendly intercourse,” she softly cried, with an arch
glance at him. “Let me be to you plain Miss Clayton—or even plain
Victoria, so be it that suits you even better.”

Nick experienced a vague feeling of distrust stealing through him
as he looked and listened, but in his ignorance of what herein has
been disclosed, he could find no definite grounds for the feeling.
Yet, instinctively, as one sometimes dreads dangers still remote and
visionary, he did not fancy this woman’s bantering remarks nor her
playful attempts to captivate him.

Nick laughed again, nevertheless, and agreeably rejoined:

“As I told you the other day, Miss Clayton, it matters little to me
what I call you, providing you consent to comply with my wishes.”

“Your wishes?”

“Yes.”

“Dear me! I really think I should enjoy making them my own, Detective
Carter,” murmured Vic, with a pretty cant of her head and a shrug of
her shoulders.

“I trust so.”

“Have a chair.”

“Thanks.”

“Now what do you want of me this time, Detective Carter?”

She had taken a seat near-by, still smiling archly at him, and Nick
more gravely answered:

“I want you to do me a little service.”

“You have only to name it.”

“I find you willing,” smiled Nick, a bit puzzled.

“The pleasure is all mine,” laughed Vic. “Yet I’m really curious to
know what you want of me.”

“I’ll tell you. On what road was it, Miss Clayton, that you and Mrs.
Badger were held up by these rascally highwaymen?”

“The road to Canton.”

“Are you familiar with it?”

“I’m familiar with that part of it,” cried Vic, with a very significant
smile and grimace. “Dear me! I shall never forget it!”

“Quite vividly impressed upon your memory, eh?”

“Decidedly so, Detective Carter?”

“I suppose you could locate the precise spot, if there was any
occasion?”

“Indeed, I could. I know exactly where it is.”

“Ah, that is very fortunate,” said Nick agreeably. “I wish to go out
there and view the spot.”

“For what?”

“I think I may discover some clue or sign, Miss Clayton, either in
the general appearance of the immediate scene or the surrounding
country, which might put me on the track of the thieves,” Nick artfully
rejoined, now feeling that even this lame explanation could be made to
serve his purpose. “Of course,” he smilingly added, “we detectives see
much more in such cases than the untrained eyes of a layman.”

“Naturally.”

“You see the point, do you not?”

“Oh, yes,” nodded Vic, with a demure stare at him.

“What do you think of it?”

“I’ll admit there might be something in it.”

“I thought you would,” Nick heartily replied. “Now the question is, to
get back to the service I require of you. Will you go out there with me
and show me the spot?”

Vic burst out laughing, as if much amused.

“Is that all you want of me?” she cried.

“That is all just now,” said Nick, a bit dryly.

“Why, of course, Detective Carter, I’ll go with you,” exclaimed Vic, as
if a refusal was the last thing to have been expected, or any occasion
for one. “How shall we go? It’s much too far to walk.”

“Oh, I should not think of asking you to walk,” laughed Nick, somehow
feeling again that he was on deucedly thin ice, for which he could not
account.

“I hope not, my dear Mr. Carter.”

“I will provide a carriage.”

“What time do you wish to go?”

“The sooner the better, Miss Clayton. At once will suit me best of all.”

Now Vic bridled a little, never other than crafty, and her smiling face
took on a look of regret.

“Dear me! That makes it a little bad,” she said, as if weighing the
situation. “I already had planned to go to——Stay! here is a note to
verify my making any excuse, Detective Carter, after offering so
volubly to serve you.”

She reached over to the desk while speaking, taking from it the note
she had been writing, which she now handed to Nick to be read.

It was merely a note to her maid, informing her that she would be
absent for a few hours, and that the girl might close the rooms and
take an outing until the morrow.

“I had already planned to go riding, and was about to leave that note
for Delia, my maid,” she explained, while Nick glanced at the craftily
prepared missive.

“Well, that does interfere, Miss Clayton, as you say,” he replied,
eying her a bit sharply, yet failing to detect any sign of duplicity,
so artful was the jade. “If you cannot go with me to-day, however,
possibly to-morrow you——”

“Stop a moment!” exclaimed Vic, as if struck with a second thought. “I
was going only with Amos and his wife, merely for a run of an hour or
two, and——Hark! that should be they!”

The toot of an automobile-horn had sounded from the street below, and
Vic sprang up while speaking, and ran to look from the window.

“Yes, they are at the curb,” she added, with manifest satisfaction.
“Amos is coming up here. Now, if he has no definite plans, Mr. Carter,
I see no reason why we cannot prevail upon you to——”

She was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Amos Badger.

He bolted into the room like a man in a hurry, his face flushed, his
eyes bright, his voice resonant when impulsively inquiring:

“All ready, Vic?”

Then he checked himself and exclaimed quickly, as if unexpectedly
beholding Nick in the room:

“Why, hello, Carter! You here? Glad to see you again.”

“The pleasure is mutual, Mr. Badger,” replied Nick, rising to accept
the other’s proffered hand.

“Thanks,” nodded Badger. “Have you got a line on those infernal crooks
yet?”

“No, not as yet.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“But I’m hoping to do so.”

“I join you in the hope, Carter,” declared Badger; then he laughingly
added: “You’ll observe that I’m out of those red flannel bandages.”

“Yes, so I see.”

“A nasty thing, a cold in the early summer.”

“So it is,” assented Nick. “I congratulate you upon being rid of it.”

He had eyed the man intently while they were speaking, and he saw what
he had not seen, heard what he had not heard, when they met at his
place in Brookline; for Badger now knew that he was suspected; knew
what desperate work must be done that afternoon, and he had dropped
those little artifices with which he had aimed to blind Nick during
their previous meeting.

In his clear and cutting voice, in every subtle, sinister inflection,
in the glowing glint of his dark eyes, in the poise of his supple,
muscular figure—in one and all of these Nick now saw or heard again the
man of the hold-up—as plainly as when he saw the knave standing with
leveled weapons in that sunlit suburban road.

Yet the face of the detective did not change by so much as a shadow,
and Vic Clayton now interposed, with a fine display of solicitude:

“We can do Mr. Carter a service, Amos, if you have no plans for the
afternoon.”

“How?” demanded Badger, turning quickly to her.

“He wishes to visit the place where Claudia and I were held up and
robbed, and he came here to ask me to go with him. Now, if you have no
particular trip you wish to make to-day——”

“None whatever!” cried Badger, quickly interrupting. “We are out for an
airing only, and I’d as soon go that way as any. The road to Canton—can
you locate the precise place, Vic?”

“Surely.”

“Then we’ll take him out there at once, if he wishes,” said Badger,
quickly reverting to Nick. “What do you say, Carter? There’s a seat in
my auto, if you care to go.”

Nick had foreseen what was coming, and had decided what course to take.

“Yes, I’ll go,” he said briefly.

“Good enough!” cried Badger. “Get into your wraps, Vic, and we’ll start
at once.”

Nick had seen, in fact, no wise alternative to accepting the offer. To
have declined it, after the request he had made Vic Clayton, might have
aroused suspicions which he had no reason to believe already existed.
He would take no chance of that before positive evidence against these
knaves had been secured.

That he had been betrayed from police headquarters, that his suspicions
and designs were already partly known, that he was now up against a
plot hurriedly arranged by telephone, that he was the victim of an
admirably played game, that his life itself was in jeopardy from that
moment—only a clairvoyant could have seen all this.

Nick Carter was not a clairvoyant, however, nor had he any reasonable
cause for suspecting the real gravity of his situation.

Yet with caution that was habitual to him when in the company of
persons known to be crooks, Nick became more wary from the moment he
took his seat in Badger’s automobile.

It was a Packard four-cylinder motor-car, and Badger was running the
machine. With Nick beside him on the front seat, and his wife and Vic
Clayton behind, the party of four were soon speeding through Brookline
toward the woodland roads of the famous Blue Hills.

Though the animated conversation that was sustained meantime is not
material here, it soon led Nick to form, in conjunction with the
polite attentions bestowed upon him, a new theory in explanation of the
seemingly natural situation.

“These crafty rascals are merely aiming to make a favorable impression
upon me with their courtesies,” he said to himself, during a lull in
the conversation.

“They are doing so in the hope of averting suspicion, with a view to
convincing me that they are as honest and fashionable as they appear.
They look and seem all right. I’ll give them credit for that, and if I
knew less about them, I’m blessed if they wouldn’t fool me with their
pretensions.”

This soliloquy ran through Nick’s mind more than an hour after they had
started, but it was given the lie most violently less than five minutes
later.

The car was then speeding along a woodland road in the Blue Hills, and
Badger was bent forward over his steering-wheel, apparently intent upon
the road ahead.

As far as the eye could reach, the road was deserted. One hundred yards
ahead it divided, a branch road turning off to the left.

The junction of the two was in the very midst of a belt of woods, with
no sign of a house or clearing in sight.

After one swift, backward glance over her shoulder, Vic Clayton
suddenly leaned forward and cried, above the noise of the machine:

“You must take that road to the east, Amos. The other leads to——”

“No, no, you’re wrong about that,” Badger quickly called back over his
shoulder.

“No, I’m not!”

“The west road leads to Canton.”

“You’re mistaken, Amos,” insisted Vic, in apparent excitement, as the
car rapidly approached the junction. “We must take the east road.
Mustn’t we, Claudia?”

Badger slowed down, as if in some uncertainty, then brought the car to
a stop just at the junction.

“Well, I am not really sure,” cried his wife, doubtfully looking
about—yet only to make sure that no other car was in sight in any
direction. “It’s all right, Amos——”

Badger was already upon his feet, interrupting her.

“Nonsense!” he exclaimed, while Nick glanced up with a feeling of
distrust. “If we take that road, Vic, it will——Oh, I beg your pardon,
Mr. Carter!”

Apparently by accident, while gesticulating about the road, he had
knocked Nick’s derby hat from his head.

Then, with a lightning like move, made as if to catch the hat before
it could fall to the ground, he threw himself across the detective’s
body, confining his arms to his sides.

At that moment Vic Clayton had risen up in the car, standing directly
behind Nick.

“Now!” yelled Badger, with terrible ferocity.

There was no need for the command.

Already the uplifted hand of the fortune-teller was descending; a hand
fiercely gripping a clubbed revolver, and thrice the butt of the heavy
weapon fell squarely upon Nick Carter’s unprotected head.

The tragic episode had been enacted in the fraction of a second, before
Nick could realize the design, much less prevent it, and a single blow
delivered as the three had been would well-nigh have felled an ox.

Without so much as a groan, with every muscle suddenly relaxing, Nick
dropped inert and senseless upon the floor of the car, his hair and
brow turned crimson by a swift gush of blood.

In an instant Badger was out upon the ground.

“Take my seat, Claudia,” he hurriedly cried to his wife. “Lend me a
hand here, Vic, and we’ll throw him in behind. I’ll bind him hand and
foot after we start again. There, there, that will do! Now around with
the car, Claudia, and drive for home as if the devil followed us!”

The transfer had been made in half a minute.

In another half the car was speeding back over the woodland road at
thirty miles an hour—heading for Badger’s place near Brookline.

Senseless, between the seats, out of view of any persons whom the
speeding car might pass along the road, lay the man for whom failure
only had been predicted by the desperate woman who had struck him down.




                             CHAPTER XIII.

                            CLOSE QUARTERS.


“It’s not for me to say what you’ll do or not do, since you now appear
to hold the ribbons. It’s up to you, Badger, and not for me to say.”

The above came from Nick Carter several hours after the tragic episode
enacted in the woodland road.

Bound hand and foot, with his head rudely bandaged, Nick sat propped
against one of four stone walls, evidently those of a small cellar, or
possibly a wine-vault, with but one heavy door through which the place
was accessible.

Only the bare earth was under him, damp and cold, while a small pool
of stagnant water in one corner of the place evinced the depressed
location of the ground.

Two empty beer-kegs stood on end near-by.

On one of them a lantern was burning, the rays from which shed only a
dismal light over the more dismal scene.

On the other keg sat Amos Badger, with his hands on his knees, his
lowering gaze fixed upon the helpless detective, and his dark features
wearing a look of mingled satisfaction and sinister scorn.

It was then well into the evening, and Nick Carter had with some
difficulty been doctored back to consciousness, and to a keen
realization of his aching head and a most unenviable situation.

The restoration had been accomplished by Conley, who was somewhat of a
veterinary physician, and it was no sooner done than Badger hastened to
interview his captive, an interview only just begun when Nick made the
remark which opens this chapter.

“Up to me, is it?” returned Badger, with stern complacency. “Up to me
to say what shall be done with you?”

“I cannot see that anything I say would be of weight,” said Nick coolly.

“That’s right—it wouldn’t!”

“Not at present.”

“No, nor later!” sneered Badger sharply. “You’ve had your last say,
Carter, now that we have you in our clutches.”

“A very rascally game you played to accomplish it!”

“When you go hunting rascals, Carter, you must expect to be turned down
by their own methods, if at all.”

“That’s right, too, and I was imprudent in not being ready for you.”

“You were up against more craft and cunning than you bargained for.”

“I don’t need to be informed of it,” retorted Nick, now wondering when,
how, and for what reason they had planned the trick.

For he knew the assault must have been planned previous to his talk
with Vic Clayton that afternoon, or it could not have been so quickly
executed, nor the trap itself so definitely arranged.

“One fact is now very obvious, however,” he presently added, hoping to
lead Badger into some inadvertent disclosure.

“What fact?” growled Badger, frowning at him.

“Some person informed you of the request I designed to make the Clayton
woman.”

“Think so?”

“Or informed her.”

“You’re getting wise fast.”

“Otherwise, Badger, you couldn’t have planned the job among you,”
continued Nick.

“Perhaps not.”

“I can come pretty near guessing who it was, too, since Chief Weston is
the only man I informed of my intention.”

“Most likely he sent a messenger out here and warned us,” sneered
Badger, with a grin.

“Not he,” retorted Nick. “But there’s a red-headed sketch and outline
of a man in his office, Badger, whom I’ll come pretty near rounding up
along with the rest of you, when I get out of this hole.”

“There will be no immediate rounding up, Carter, since it depends upon
you alone,” replied Badger, with a searching stare at Nick’s face.

“Ah, then you were also told that I’m alone on the case,” said Nick,
willing enough to have him think so.

“Aren’t you alone on it?”

“If I’m not, Badger, you’ll hear from others soon enough.”

“There are no others.”

“All right.”

“And you are now helpless.”

“Not quite.”

“As good as down and out.”

“But I’m still in the ring,” insisted Nick.

“You’re in hands from which you’ll never escape alive, I give you my
word on that,” cried Badger, with menacing austerity.

“Your word, Badger, is a poor voucher.”

“You now know far too much about us for us to let you escape and
disclose it,” added the latter decisively. “I now want to know of just
what your knowledge consists, and what action you have taken against
us.”

Nick laughed a bit derisively.

“I guess, Badger, you’ll have to take it out in wanting,” said he.

“You’ll not inform me?”

“Not by a long chalk.”

“I shall find a way to compel you.”

“Possibly,” said Nick. “But you’ll have a long hunt before you find the
way.”

“You’ll let me alone to find that,” cried Badger, with confident
asperity. “I can devise tortures so acute that even you will reveal
what you have done toward——”

His rascally threat was interrupted at that point by the sound of
approaching steps from beyond the partly closed door. In a moment
it was thrown open, and Jerry Conley, followed by Vic Clayton and
Badger’s wife, entered the dismal place.

That the two women were as low-bred and disreputable as had been
reported to Nick appeared in their utter disregard of his wretched
condition, and the malicious satisfaction with which they stared at
him, as they might have stared at a caged beast which they had had
occasion to fear.

“You’ve got him back to earth, have you?” asked Claudia, with a glance
at Badger’s grim face. “Jerry just came and told us, so we thought we’d
have a look at him.”

Vic Clayton, however, came and bent above Nick, peering down at his
stern features, now white from loss of blood; while her own evil eyes,
with the mocking smile that curled her cruel lips, plainly evinced her
despicable and malignant nature.

“Well, you’ve got as many lives as a cat, haven’t you?” she demanded,
in taunting tones.

Nick returned her evil stare with hardly a change of countenance, yet
there was in his lifted eyes an ominous, fiery gleam, from which those
who knew him best had learned to shrink with fear.

“I shall live long enough to repay with interest the blows you dealt
me, and to land you where you belong?” he sternly rejoined.

“You will, eh?” sneered Vic, with a derisive laugh.

“Without the slightest doubt.”

“Evidently you’ve forgotten what I predicted for you.”

“The predictions of a charlatan are seldom fulfilled.”

“Charlatan?”

“And crook,” added Nick.

“Don’t be saucy, Mr. Carter, not to a lady,” said the frowning jade.
“You’ll meet with just what I predicted for you—failure.”

“I’ll risk that.”

“And you’re in a very fair way to it,” added Vic, with a sinister nod,
as she terminated her malicious scrutiny and turned to Amos Badger.

The latter had drawn aside with his wife and Conley, and the three
stood talking in subdued tones, apparently with no interest in the
recent amusement of their confederate.

“Well, what do you say?” demanded Vic, as she approached them. “We’ve
got him, all right. Now, what’s to be done with him?”

“That’s what we are discussing,” growled Conley, who had much of the
ruffian in him. “I say ’twas a mistake not to have let him croak, if
he’d have been accommodating enough to do so.”

“Bah!” muttered Claudia. “Men with as hard heads as his don’t die so
easily.”

“To my way of thinking,” added Conley, “it’s safest for us to put out
his light at once, and be done with it.”

Badger, however, quickly shook his head.

“Not yet,” said he grimly. “Not before to-morrow.”

“But why the delay?” protested Conley. “I cannot see anything in that.”

“Then I’ll tell you why.”

“Well, out with it.”

Nick pricked up his ears, yet he could catch only a word now and then
louder than others.

“To begin with,” argued Badger, “I’m not going to run my neck into a
noose before I know just how we stand. We have no blood on our hands
as yet, and before I take chances of that kind, Conley, I’m going to
be dead sure that Carter has not reported his suspicions to Weston.
What good will it do to put him out of the way, only to find that we
have half a score of Boston detectives on our heels, to whom Carter’s
discoveries have been imparted.”

“But Sandy declares that Weston knows nothing about that,” whispered
Vic.

“I hope he doesn’t, but I’m going to be sure of it before I wipe out
Nick Carter,” said Badger.

“How can you make sure?” growled Conley.

“We shall know by to-morrow at this time.”

“How so?”

“Because we shall have others after us, Jerry, just as soon as the
discovery is made that Carter is missing,” reasoned Badger. “If none
show up, we may then safely assume that Sandy Hyde is right, and that
Carter has disclosed nothing definite. We shall then know that he’s the
only one we need fear, and it will then be time enough to put him down
and out.”

“Well, there’s something in that,” Conley now muttered.

“We know he cannot escape.”

“H’m! I should say not.”

“So there’s no need of haste, since we have him in our clutches,” added
Badger. “Besides, there is another thing to be considered.”

“What’s that?”

“Carter may have some of his New York assistants here, for all we
positively know to the contrary.”

“Sandy says not,” interposed Vic.

“He may not be absolutely sure,” Badger argued. “And until we are
dead certain of it, which should be by to-morrow at this time, I am
resolved to take no chance of some day being tried for murder.”

“That does have an ugly sound,” said Vic, with a dismal grimace.

“And there’s an ugly penalty,” added her sister.

“So that settles it, Jerry,” said Badger. “We’ll keep Carter right here
till we know just what we’re up against.”

“Well, that’s good enough for me if ’tis for you,” said Conley
indifferently.

“Are you sure his bonds are secure?”

“If he loosens any of those knots, Amos, I’ll eat the ropes,” was the
confident rejoinder.

“To-morrow we’ll take steps to make him open his mouth, and tell all he
knows.”

“What steps?”

“I’ll find a way, let me alone for that.”

“Meantime——” began Vic.

“No more here,” interposed Badger. “It’s too infernally damp and cold.
Go back to the house, you two women, and I’ll presently join you there.
I’ll first make sure that things here are all safe.”

“All right, Amos.”

The two women withdrew from the vault, Nick following them with his
gaze.

The two men remained, and both now proceeded to make doubly sure that
the ropes binding Nick’s arms and limbs were securely knotted.

Not a word was spoken.

The work required less than a minute, and Badger then took up the
lantern and signed for Conley to go out ahead.

At the door of the vault, however, Badger turned back for a moment, to
say, with vicious assurance:

“If it is to be one of us who must go down and out, Carter, it will be
you! Take my word for that!”

For a moment Nick gazed sternly at him across the dismal place, then
coldly retorted:

“Since I have only your word for it, Badger, I feel perfectly safe!”

Badger vented a half-smothered growl, then closed the heavy door with a
resounding bang.

Nick heard the shooting of bolts and the sound of a bar dropped into
place.

Then all was silence for a time—silence and darkness!




                             CHAPTER XIV.

                         SHADOWS AND SHADOWED.


“Thundering guns!” muttered Patsy. “He’d be an ugly cur to meet in the
dark.”

Chick Carter gazed in the direction indicated.

The two detectives were comfortably seated on a log in the midst of a
cluster of shrubbery.

The shrubbery formed a part of the scrub and bushes skirting the
woodland back of the extensive Badger estate.

Nearly a hundred yards away was the stable, a side view, with the long
carriage-house adjoining, as previously described.

Fifty yards beyond was the Badger dwelling, rear elevation, with the
back door and windows in plain sight, as well as part of one of the
side verandas.

The intervening ground was clear of trees, and nothing obstructed the
view of the two watching detectives.

They were executing Nick’s command given them that morning, that of
learning what they could about the Badger place without being seen.

They had already measured it from in front, and had arrived at their
present vantage-point about half an hour before, bent upon watching
till they were reasonably assured as to the number of servants in the
house and stable.

Matters always moved lively with the Carters after a trail was once
fairly struck, and in this case they were no exception.

That which had occasioned Patsy’s muttered exclamation was now observed
by Chick, who parted the shrubbery concealing them to view the object a
little better.

It was a huge Cuban bloodhound, a wicked-looking beast. The animal had
evidently just come out of the stable, the front of which was only
partly visible to the detectives, and he was now trotting across the
lawn toward the rear door of the house.

“I believe you are right,” rejoined Chick. “He looks as if he might
bolt a man with a single mouthful.”

“Dead easy,” nodded Patsy.

“If we have work to do here after dark,” said Chick, “we’d best keep
that fellow in mind.”

“Rather.”

“He’d put up an uglier fight than the entire bunch we’ve seen so far.”

“That’s right, Chick.”

“We’ve seen only four as yet.”

“Badger and his wife, whom we saw from the front,” counted Patsy. “The
middle-aged woman at work in the kitchen yonder, and the covey we’ve
seen about the stable. That makes four, Chick; sure as you’re a foot
high.”

“I begin to think there are no others.”

“Four are not many to be carrying on the game Nick suspects,” suggested
Patsy, a bit doubtfully.

“There is still the Clayton woman,” replied Chick; “and she and
Badger’s wife may be as bold and capable as men would be.”

“Very likely.”

“There are enough of them to have played this hold-up game
successfully, that’s plain enough; and the smaller the number, Patsy,
the less liability of betrayal.”

“That’s true, Chick.”

“I think that the paucity of servants here is a point in our favor.”

“A point that Nick is right?”

“Exactly.”

“Perhaps so.”

“I doubt if there are others,” repeated Chick, “or if we can remain
here much longer to advantage. We are to rejoin Nick at four o’clock,
you remember.”

“What time is it now?”

“Half-past one,” replied Chick, consulting his watch.

It was at that moment that Vic Clayton was receiving her very important
communication from the spy from police headquarters, half an hour
before the arrival of Nick.

At the same moment, while Chick and Patsy were crouched, gazing toward
the house, Conley came out of the rear door and sauntered toward the
stable, lighting his pipe while he walked.

“There’s that stable covey again,” murmured Patsy. “I don’t half-fancy
his looks.”

“Evidently he is just out from dinner.”

“Sure thing! See, the woman is now feeding the dog at the back steps.
That’s what the ugly cur trotted over there for.”

“He knows when meal-time comes,” laughed Chick.

“Mebbe his meal-ticket is only good at this hour,” grinned Patsy. “I
wonder if that covey is the only man in the stable. If he is, Chick, he
must have a good bit of work, or else Nick is away off on some points.”

“Why so?”

“Nick thinks they have three or four horses out here.”

“We know of one, Patsy.”

“And he thinks these hold-up crooks have several automobiles.”

“They don’t require much labor, particularly when only seldom used.”

“Well, they haven’t the autos in that stable, nor in the
carriage-house,” declared Patsy. “That’s a cinch, Chick, for we’ve had
a look into both.”

“True.”

“And there’s only one horse in the stable.”

“They may have some secret place of concealment for the whole
business,” said Chick.

“Perhaps so, yet——”

“Stop a bit!” Chick suddenly interrupted, rising to peer through the
shrubbery. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Gee!” muttered Patsy, also starting to his feet. “Something’s up!”

Though they had no way of learning the occasion for the excitement at
this time, both being out of hearing and unable to approach without
being detected, it was at just this time that Badger received from Vic
Clayton a telephone communication concerning Nick Carter’s designs, and
which had been quickly followed by the laying of the plot that later
resulted in Nick’s downfall.

Badger had come plunging out of the back door of the house, without
coat or hat, throwing away his cigar as he ran across the lawn, all
the while shouting lustily to Conley.

It was his sudden appearance and obvious excitement that had so
startled both Chick and Patsy.

Conley turned back upon hearing the shouts, and the two crooks met
about twenty feet in front of the stable, within plain view of the
detectives.

There Badger talked rapidly for several moments, with occasional fierce
gestures in the direction of the city, and all the while both men
exhibited in their faces and movements a consternation and excitement
not easily to be accounted for by one out of hearing.

“Gee! I’d give something to know what they are saying,” muttered Patsy,
staring with distended eyes.

“There is something in the wind,” nodded Chick.

At the end of about a minute, Badger turned and rushed back to the
house, entering it at the top of his speed.

Conley, meantime, bolted out of sight toward the stable door, yet not
into it, which was out of view of the detectives.

“Where the dickens did he go?” said Chick curiously.

“It looked as if he went into the stable,” said Patsy.

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“No?”

“I thought he turned to one side just before he approached the door.”

“He may have run around the farthest corner,” suggested Patsy. “We
might change our positions, Chick, so as to see that door.”

“Wait a bit,” replied Chick. “There’s a big hurry here over something,
and we shall see all there is to be seen in short order.”

“I guess that’s right.”

“Badger pointed toward town several times,” added Chick, with grave
countenance. “I’d wager a little that Nick is in some way back of this,
if not involved in some bother.”

“You don’t imagine——”

“Easy! Here comes Badger again.”

Once more the latter had bolted out of the house, and this time he was
followed by his wife.

Now both had on their outside garments, and evidently were prepared for
a ride.

At the same moment an automobile, with a furious rumble and whir, came
into view in front of the stable, and sped across the lawn to meet the
couple.

It was driven by Conley, who tumbled out of it the instant it stopped,
while Badger and his wife clambered in almost as quickly.

In another moment, with Badger running it, the car was speeding down
the long gravel driveway toward Laurel Road.

The departure was made so excitedly and hurriedly that Patsy, who had
been holding his breath all the while, now exhaled it with a sharp gasp.

“Whew; that beats the record,” he exclaimed.

“What puzzles me,” replied Chick perplexedly, “is where that auto came
from.”

“Gee! that’s just what I was thinking.”

“It did not come out of the stable, I’ll swear to that.”

“It looked to me as if it came around the farther corner.”

“It was a Packard,” said Chick. “I know the machine.”

“Perhaps——”

“Break off and follow me,” now interrupted Chick, who had been watching
Conley walk leisurely back toward the stable.

“Where now?” asked Patsy, as they drew back through the woods.

“Back to town,” said Chick decidedly. “There’s nothing more for us here
at present.”

“It’s a good bet that Badger has headed for town, since he pointed that
way so often.”

“That’s just my idea, Patsy.”

“What do you think about it?”

“I think that something has happened to alarm these rascals,” replied
Chick.

“And that nobody but Nick could have brought that about?”

“Exactly.”

“In that case, Chick, he may have made some move since we left him.”

“Sure.”

“And possibly these guys have got wise to it.”

“That appears to be about the size of it,” nodded Chick. “Furthermore,
it looks as if Badger, in making this lightning trip, had got something
up his sleeve for Nick.”

“A counter-move?”

“Precisely.”

“What shall we do about it?”

“We’ll first make sure about Nick,” replied Chick. “He was to rejoin us
at four o’clock. If he doesn’t show up at that hour, or a little later,
we must get a move on.”

“To trace him?”

“Sure.”

“And if we fail to strike his trail?”

“Back out here we’ll come, Patsy, dog or no dog, to learn what this
sudden journey really meant,” declared Chick, with grave determination.

He had reasoned shrewdly in that he had attributed Badger’s excited
departure to some unexpected cause for alarm, and also that Nick was
the person most likely to have occasioned it.

In the light of these deductions, moreover, Badger’s immediate and
decisive action plainly indicated that he had some definite project in
view, presumably one to avert the impending danger.

The conclusions alone were sufficient to point to some peril
threatening Nick, and his chief assistant was quick to arrive at them,
and act accordingly.

As a matter of fact, however, the celerity and astuteness with which
the Carters invariably cooperated in their work went far toward
insuring their success.

Chick’s talk with Patsy had occurred while they picked their way
through the belt of woods, from which they presently emerged, then
hastened to the nearest trolley line and back to the city.

It was nearly three o’clock when they arrived at the Adams House, and
went to Nick’s room.

There was no sign of Nick, however.

The magnifying-glass with which he had examined the incriminating
photograph was still lying on the table where he had left it. But there
was neither note nor token to show that he had been there since the
three departed in company that morning.

“He has not returned since he left with us, Patsy,” said Chick, after
looking about. “We’ll wait till the appointed hour.”

“Four o’clock?”

“Or a little later.”

“He may show up by that time.”

“I haven’t much hope of it,” replied Chick, a bit anxiously. “I’ve got
it on me good and hard, a genuine hunch, Patsy, that something has gone
wrong with him.”

“You’re most generally right, Chick, when you feel like that.”

Chick made no reply, but began pacing the floor.

An hour passed, and brought no sign of Nick.

At half-past four Chick could restrain his impatience no longer.

“Come on!” he abruptly exclaimed, catching up his hat. “We’ll get a
move on.”

Patsy started up from the couch, on which he was having a pull at his
pipe.

“I’m with you!” he cried, with alacrity. “Going to try to trace him?”

“Yes.”

“Where first, Chick? To State Street?”

“It’s too late to go there,” replied Chick, as they left the room and
hastened toward the elevator.

“Yet we might strike his trail there.”

“I can do so more quickly, I think.”

“Where?”

“At police headquarters—Chief Weston’s office, in Pemberton Square.”




                              CHAPTER XV.

                           ON NICK’S TRAIL.


It was five o’clock when Chick and Patsy entered Pemberton Square.

It was about half an hour before that when Nick Carter was lodged in
his place of confinement.

“You wait here, Patsy,” said Chick, at the corner on which Nick engaged
Grady’s runabout a few mornings before. “There is no need of both of us
going into the chief’s office. I’ll return inside of five minutes.”

“Go ahead.”

Chick hastened down the basement stairs and into the chief’s
office—only to encounter Sandy Hyde just entering from the opposite
corridor.

“Where’s the chief?” Chick cried bruskly.

Hyde didn’t know Chick from a side of sole leather, but, knowing at
least that he was not Nick Carter, he answered quite promptly:

“The chief is in his office.”

“I must see him.”

“What name?”

“Chick Carter. Come, come, I’m in a rush!”

Hyde’s catlike eyes at once began to dilate upon hearing the name,
taking on their greenish glow of internal excitement.

He now realized that he had given Vic Clayton a wrong tip, that one
of Nick’s assistants was in Boston and on the case with him, and the
servile little rascal at once began to figure how he could square
himself and discover Chick’s mission.

He did not dare hazard playing the eavesdropper again, and also feared
that he might not overhear all that was said by so doing, and he at
once adopted the first resort that appealed to him.

He hastened through the enclosure, and into Weston’s private office,
saying quickly:

“There’s a man out here to see you, chief.”

“What man?”

“I didn’t catch his name, sir. But he’s in an awful rush, and I reckon
something has happened.”

Just as Hyde had expected, Chief Weston started up from his chair and
strode into the general office.

Hyde was cunning enough to foresee that, if Chick was in such great
haste, their conversation would probably be carried on in the outer
office.

So it was, moreover, despite that Weston at once cried, as he shook his
visitor by the hand:

“Why, hello, Chick Carter! How are you? Come inside.”

“No, no, chief,” Chick quickly declined. “I’m going to stay but a
moment. Has Nick been here to-day?”

“Yes—about one o’clock.”

“Do you know where he has gone?”

“I know where he said he was going.”

“Where was that?”

“To Madame Victoria’s rooms, in Tremont Street,” replied Weston.

“Do you know for what?” inquired Chick, beginning to see light ahead.

Chief Weston briefly told him of what Nick’s mission at Vic Clayton’s
rooms consisted, as stated by Nick, and then he inquired curiously:

“Why are you asking about him, Chick? Is there anything wrong?”

Having learned all that he could then and there, however, Chick decided
to impart nothing at this time.

“No, nothing wrong, chief, I think,” he quickly rejoined, turning to
go. “I am merely in a hurry to locate him, that’s all. He may have
returned to the hotel by this time.”

“I think likely you’ll find him there,” nodded Weston, a bit suspicious
of Chick’s evasion.

Chick did not wait longer, but bolted out as he had bolted in.

Weston walked toward his private office.

Hyde’s greenish eyes, now glowing more brightly than ever, drifted
toward the telephone-closet.

Before he could make a move to convey the desired warning to Badger,
however, Chief Weston turned back and said curtly:

“You come in here with me, Sandy. I want you to help me on my quarterly
report for an hour or so. Look lively, too, or you’ll be tied up here
till after six o’clock.”

The sallow features of the treacherous miscreant quivered and twitched
with disappointment for a moment, but immediate obedience was
imperative—and the telephone had to wait!

Chick Carter rejoined Patsy on the corner.

“Come on!” he exclaimed.

“Where now?” inquired Patsy, as they headed for Tremont Street.

“To the fortune-teller’s rooms.”

“Has Nick been there?”

“Yes, about two o’clock.”

“Did you learn for what?”

“All that Weston could tell me,” replied Chick, hurriedly informing him
what he had learned.

Both were quick to see the possibilities which their various
observations and discoveries presented, and Patsy now forcibly
declared, as Chick concluded:

“I’ll bet that some kind of a scurvy trick has been turned.”

“I fear so, Patsy.”

“Badger wouldn’t have been on such a rush with that auto unless he had
some scheme in view.”

“That’s right,” assented Chick. “Madame Victoria may have telephoned to
him what Nick was about doing, and possibly planned with Badger to get
him into their hands.”

“That appears about the size of it. If we get no trace of him here,”
growled Patsy, “we’ll go out there again to-night and investigate.”

“That’s what we’ll do.”

“Do you know just where the fortune-teller’s rooms are located?”

“Yonder,” nodded Chick, as they hastened up Tremont Street. “In that
block on the next corner.”

“What are you going to ask her, in case she is there?”

“Oh, I can give her some kind of a plausible story to explain my
inquiries,” replied Chick confidently. “She’s not clairvoyant enough to
see through me, I’ll go my pile on that.”

“Mine goes the same way,” vouchsafed Patsy, with a grin.

“I’ll assuredly not let her know that I’m on the case with Nick,” added
Chick. “If these rascals think he is working it alone, we may derive
some advantage by keeping them in the dark.”

“Surely.”

“Nick also may not wish us to expose that we, too, are investigating
the case——Stop a bit! Wait here!”

Chick had suddenly caught Patsy by the arm and drawn him to the shelter
of a doorway, less than twenty yards from that leading into the
building occupied by Vic Clayton.

The occasion for this move was obvious.

Just turning the corner of Boylston Street, and approaching the
building mentioned, was a huge touring-car of the latest type, occupied
by two women only.

“By thunder!” muttered Patsy excitedly. “That’s Badger’s wife running
that car.”

“I see it is,” said Chick more coolly.

“With the fortune-teller?”

“No doubt of it. She answers Nick’s description of her.”

“Gee whiz!”

“Well?”

“That’s not the car that Badger and his wife used this afternoon,”
cried Patsy.

“So I see,” said Chick, still watching the couple. “There is something
back of all this.”

“You bet there is!”

“Hold your horses, however, till I see what the two women are about to
do.”

With skillful hands Claudia Badger had turned the huge car in Tremont
Street, then brought it to a stop at the curb opposite the doorway
giving ingress to Vic Clayton’s rooms.

Then both women deliberately alighted and entered the building, leaving
the automobile unattended.

Chick Carter’s eyes took on a sudden bright gleam.

They had lighted upon a large willow hamper, or covered basket,
attached to the rear of the car for the purpose of stowing away
articles to be carried on a long tour. The hamper was nearly as large
as a small trunk, and the top was secured only with two brass clasps.

“By Jove, Patsy, here’s the chance of a lifetime!” Chick hurriedly
exclaimed.

“What do you mean?” came the eager inquiry.

“Do you see that hamper?”

“Sure!”

“Do you think you can get into it?”

Patsy needed no further hint to the design in Chick’s mind, nor to the
possibility it presented. With eyes quickly glowing with eagerness and
excitement, he hurriedly replied:

“Get into it? Sure I can! The scheme is a corker! It’ll take me right
into the midst of these rascals. Come on, Chick, and——”

“Stop a moment,” cautioned Chick. “Get that policeman to help you,
explaining who you are, and have him take away any stuff that may be in
the hamper.”

“And you?”

“I’ll rush up-stairs, and keep those two women engaged till I’m sure
you are well under cover.”

“Good enough!”

“And to-night you can count on me to lend a hand,” added Chick, “in
case I am needed.”

“That’s the idea!” cried Patsy.

“Away with you, then, while I tackle the two women.”

Patsy hastened toward the deserted automobile, near which a policeman
happened to be standing, and whose aid the former quickly obtained in
the way Chick had suggested.

Chick, meantime, hastened into the building and up to the rooms of
Madame Victoria.

He found the two women in the reception-parlor, Vic Clayton engaged in
changing her automobile coat for a long cloak.

They had driven into town again, after securing Nick, only in order
that they might be seen by the occupants of the stores near-by, with a
view to subsequently obtaining the testimony of these observers, if the
need arose, in support of some plausible story to the effect that they
had brought Nick back to town and left him in some locality.

Upon hearing Chick enter the room, both women turned toward him with
looks of surprise.

“I beg pardon, ladies,” said he, bowing. “I am looking for Madame
Victoria.”

“I am she,” replied Vic, sharply regarding him.

“My name is Henderson, madame.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Henderson?”

“I am looking for a gentleman who is said to have been here this
afternoon, and with whom I have important business,” explained Chick,
with a deliberation well calculated to give Patsy what time he would
require below.

He was quick to see, however, the suspicious gleam that instantly arose
in Vic Clayton’s eyes upon learning his business, and he added, with
some suavity:

“I am unable to find the gentleman at his hotel, madame, and I thought
he might still be here.”

“Who is the gentleman?” asked Vic, with affected indifference.

“His name is Nick Carter.”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“An acquaintance only.”

“How did you learn that he had been here, Mr. Henderson?” inquired Vic,
now bestowing a gracious smile upon her questioner.

“I was so informed by the clerk at the hotel, to whom Mr. Carter had
mentioned his intention of coming here.”

“Ah. I see.”

“I inferred that Mr. Carter came here to consult you professionally,
madame, and I thought his interview might possibly have lasted till
now.”

Chick easily detected the relief which his artful explanation had
occasioned both women, and it convinced him that he was on the right
track, yet he in no way betrayed his convictions.

Neither woman had approached the window to look out, and Vic Clayton
had now buttoned her cloak and appeared anxious to depart.

Chick knew that Patsy must have accomplished his design by this time,
however, and he did not care how soon the interview terminated.

“Well, Mr. Henderson, I cannot say where Mr. Carter has gone,” Vic
carelessly rejoined. “We dropped him at the corner of Arlington Street,
however, only a short time ago.”

“From your automobile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Possibly, then, I shall now find him at the hotel.”

“I think it quite probable, sir, for he walked toward Washington Street
after he left us,” smiled Vic, edging toward the door which Claudia
Badger already had opened.

“I will return there and see,” said Chick, bowing himself from the
room. “Thank you very much for your information.”

“Don’t mention it, sir,” replied Vic, with a little laugh, as she and
her companion also stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind
them.

Chick politely stepped aside, and let them precede him down the stairs.

Without so much as a glance at him again, both women fell into a
conventional talk as they descended toward the street.

Chick reached the sidewalk close upon their heels, however.

The touring-car still stood at the curb—but there was no sign of Patsy
in any direction.

The policeman was lingering near-by, with an air of indifference and a
vacant stare across the opposite Common.

From some little distance away a few curious observers were gazing
toward the car, wondering at what they had seen, but the officer had
made sure that they were too remote to attract attention.

Neither woman noticed them as she crossed the sidewalk and quickly
entered the car.

In another moment it was under way, with Claudia Badger at the wheel,
and presently was speeding up Boylston Street.

Chick now turned to the policeman, who received him with a significant
grin.

“What do you say, officer?” demanded Chick.

“He’s in it, all right, sir,” was the reply.

“In the hamper?”

“That’s what.”

“Was it empty?”

“Not a thing in it, sir.”

“Close quarters for him, weren’t they?”

“Rather,” laughed the officer. “But he fixed the clasps so he can get
out whenever he likes, and he’ll not fare so badly. What’s the job, Mr.
Carter?”

“If all works well, officer, you may learn by reading to-morrow
morning’s newspapers,” Chick pointedly rejoined, as he turned to go. “I
cannot wait to inform you, for I now have work of my own elsewhere.”

He was thinking of Badger’s place, and of what might befall the
dauntless young detective then speeding out there in the hazardous
manner described.

Ten minutes later, however, with a revolver in each hip pocket, Chick
also was on his way to Brookline.




                             CHAPTER XVI.

                        A TERRIBLE PREDICAMENT.


Patsy held his breath.

It was a novel and, at times, a thrilling sensation, that of riding
at thirty miles an hour enclosed in a wicker hamper on the rear of an
automobile.

At times the car ran smoothly and swiftly; at others it jolted heavily
over a rougher road.

It was not dark in the basketlike receptacle into which Patsy had
fairly crammed himself, yet the wickerwork was so compact that he could
not see out unless he raised the cover, and that he did not venture to
do.

Neither could he hear anything that was said by the two women on the
front seat of the car, owing to the constant noise of the vehicle.

He knew, however, that he was on the road to Badger’s place, and
speeding to the assistance of Nick Carter, and that was good enough for
Patsy up to that time.

After half an hour’s run, as nearly as he could judge, the cramped and
twisted young detective felt the car sweep in a swift curve out of the
direct road it had been following, and speed along a much less smooth
and even way.

“We have entered Laurel Road,” he rightly conjectured. “In five more
minutes we should arrive at Badger’s house. Providing that I am not
discovered in this infernally tight box, I there may hear something to
serve my purpose. If I can learn definitely that Nick is out here, and
then discover just where he is located, the rest of the job should be
fairly easy.”

For his own peril, let it be what it might, the brave youngster had not
even a passing thought.

Presently the car turned again, and began to slow down, and a moment
later, when the noise of the motor abated, Patsy could plainly hear Vic
Clayton addressing her companion.

“There is Amos on the side veranda, Claudia,” she cried, in satisfied
tones.

“So I see, Vic,” was the reply.

“Things must still be all right out here, old girl, since he appears to
be taking it easy, and is smoking a cigar.”

“I will round that side of the house before running the car to the
stable,” said Claudia.

“You can drop me there, too.”

“We’ll both stop there, and let Amos put the car under cover. Yes, I
judge that things are all right out here, as you say.”

“They’ll soon take a turn for the worse, I’ll wager my life on that,”
thought Patsy, with grim anticipations.

It was then nearly seven o’clock, and the dusk of the early evening had
begun to fall.

As the car approached the side veranda and came to a stop, Badger rose
out of a chair in which he was seated, and strode to the steps leading
down to the driveway.

Though his dark features wore a look of evil complacency, he at once
addressed his wife in rather uneasy tones.

“Well, what’s the verdict?” he asked.

“Nothing wrong, Amos,” she cried, as both women came down from the car.

“Did you stop at your rooms, Vic?”

“Certainly,” laughed the latter. “Don’t you notice that I have changed
my coat?”

“Ah, yes, I see.”

“I did that only to indicate that we had some motive for visiting the
rooms,” she glibly added. “We had a visitor, too, while we were there.”

“Who was that?”

“A chap named Henderson.”

“Henderson?”

“That’s what he said, Amos, and whom do you think he inquired after?”

“Not Nick Carter!” cried Badger, with brows quickly knitting.

“None other.”

“The devil you say! There may be something back of that.”

“Nothing that involves us, I reckon,” declared Vic confidently.

“Why do you feel so sure of it?”

“Because he was sent to my rooms by the clerk in the hotel where Carter
was stopping, and to whom he had mentioned coming to my place. He
merely wanted to see him on business, Amos, and couldn’t locate him.”

The last was said with much significance and a loud, derisive laugh, in
which Amos Badger now joined.

“Not locate him, eh?” he cried, with a shrug. “Well, if anybody locates
him after to-morrow, Vic, I’ll take a permanent seat in the back row.”

As may be inferred, this conversation took place some little time
before the interview with Nick himself, as related in a previous
chapter.

“You’ll take a seat in that stone hotel in Charles Street, you mean,
along with all the rest of us,” Vic bluntly rejoined.

“You’ll soon be there!” thought Patsy, who was listening intently to
all that was being said.

Not so much as a glance had been bestowed upon the hamper, which
externally presented no unusual appearance, and Patsy felt tolerably
safe in his concealment.

The end was not yet, however.

“What have you done with him, Amos?” Claudia now asked, as Badger came
down the steps to run the car to cover.

“With Carter?”

“Yes, of course. We started for town, you know, the moment we had him
safely landed here.”

“Conley now has charge of him,” said Badger.

“Where?”

“In the old wine-vault.”

“Are you going to confine him there?”

“Yes, till I do worse to him.”

“Has he come to himself?”

“Not yet,” Badger promptly replied. “Those were three ugly blows that
Vic gave him.”

“I was taking no chances by falling short of my duty,” put in Vic, with
a cruel laugh.

“They’d have killed him for sure, Vic, if his head were not as tough
and hard as a darky’s.”

“He would then have been out of our way, at all events.”

“Conley will soon have him revived, I think, and then we will have a
talk with him, and force him to confess what is being done against us,”
added Badger, approaching the automobile. “I’ll stow the machine while
you two go in and eat your dinner. It’s already on the table.”

“Had yours?”

“Yes.”

“Send Jerry in here to tell us when his patient revives,” called Vic
Clayton, as she mounted the steps. “I want to go out there and have a
look at him.”

“All right,” growled Badger, as he sprang into the car.

Then the two women entered the house.

In another moment the car started again with a whir and rumble, and
Patsy mentally sized up the situation as he saw it.

“We have hit the nail on the head, all right,” he said to himself.
“These crooks are all that we have suspected, and they have Nick
imprisoned out here, after knocking him on the head. They shall be paid
with interest for the blows given him, however, as surely as the sun
sets in the west.

“Confined in the old wine-vault, eh? I wonder where that is located.
Evidently it is not connected with the cellar of the house, since that
she devil of a fortune-teller wants to go ‘out’ somewhere to see Nick.

“Conley, plainly enough, is the stableman we saw to-day, and, since he
has Nick in charge, it’s a good bet that the vault mentioned is either
in the basement of the stable or that long carriage-house which adjoins
it. I’ll wager that I speedily find it, give me half a chance.”

“Hello! what’s the meaning of this?”

Patsy had suddenly felt the car lurch heavily, and sway to one side,
then plunge forward as if it were going down a steep incline.

“We cannot be going directly into the stable,” he quickly reasoned.
“The run into that is on the level, but we’re descending some short,
steep place.”

“By Jove! I have it. Badger is taking the car into some place from
which Conley brought that one this noon, which Chick felt sure had not
come out of the stable. These crooks must have some secret hiding-place
for their several cars and horses, and Badger is about taking this one
into it. Fortunately, I shall now know all about it.”

Patsy was correct in these conjectures.

Badger had run the car around a corner of the stable, then down to a
short fence enclosing the space below the building, which stood on a
slope of the land.

In this fence was a door about wide enough to admit the car, and Badger
quickly sprang down to open it.

As the latter did so, there fell upon Patsy’s ears a sound that chilled
his blood, despite the strong nerves and invincible courage of the
young detective.

The sound was the sudden threatening barking of a dog, then confined in
this basement garage.

“By thunder! it’s that Cuban bloodhound!” was Patsy’s mental
exclamation.

He felt a thrill of dismay when he now recalled the huge beast, which
he had not once thought of since undertaking the hazardous venture in
which he was at present helplessly launched.

“If I escape detection by his ugly nostrils I shall be lucky,” he said
to himself. “If he scents me before I can make some kind of a move to
escape from this basket, I shall be a gone goose for sure.”

These thoughts passed quickly through Patsy’s mind while Badger was
opening the door mentioned.

Then out came the dog, nearly as large as a small calf, leaping about
his rascally master, and barking furiously.

“Gee whiz! that’s a pleasant sound,” murmured Patsy, with an
irrepressible shudder.

“Down, Pluto!” roared Badger angrily. “Keep down, I say! Close that
trap of yours, you brute, or I’ll break every bone in your ugly body.
Get out, you cur!”

With the last of these exclamations, the huge dog was dealt a
resounding kick in the ribs, which sent him yelping out across the
lawn, at which Patsy breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m safe for a few minutes, at least,” he decided.

Then he heard Badger shout commandingly:

“Here you, Conley! Come here with the lantern, so I can see to run in
this car. Look lively, old pal!”

Patsy wondered why he had shouted so lustily, and now he ventured to
raise the wicker lid about half an inch and peer out.

A dimly lighted basement met his gaze. It was not more than twenty feet
square, with the stone foundation walls of the stable on two sides, the
open door on a third, while the fourth and interior side appeared to be
a solid wooden bulkhead.

The floor was the bare ground, and the place was evidently designed for
stowing away an automobile.

“This is where that car came from this noon, that’s plain enough,”
thought Patsy. “Yet Nick must be wrong in thinking the rascals own so
many cars, for I’ve seen only two. There’s not room in there for more
than that number.”

The last thought had barely crossed his mind, however, when Patsy
discovered his mistake, and also why Badger had shouted so loudly.

A secret sliding door in the interior bulkhead wall suddenly flew open,
revealing a long extension of the basement, running even under the
carriage-house adjoining the stable above.

In this secret extension, which was so cleverly constructed as to defy
detection either from within or without, Patsy now caught sight of
half a score of motors lined up against one of the side walls, each of
a different make from the others, and all apparently in first-class
condition.

“By thunder! this does settle it, and Nick was right,” he mused. “Those
are the different cars these knaves have used for their night hold-ups.
This exterior basement is only a blind for concealing the other.”

The chief figure that at once claimed Patsy’s attention, however, was
that of Jerry Conley.

He had appeared in the secret doorway in response to Badger’s shout,
and he carried in one hand a lighted lantern, and in the other a flask
of brandy.

“Well, what do you say, Jerry?” demanded Badger, as the other strode
out to join him.

“He’s all right now,” growled Conley, setting down the lantern.

“Got him back to earth?”

“Pretty nearly. He’ll be himself in a few minutes.”

“Thank God!” thought Patsy fervently. “That refers to Nick.”

“Then he’ll not croak?” inquired Badger, as if somewhat disappointed.

“Not this time; though I reckon ’twould be a good thing for us if he
did,” snarled Conley.

“Help me run this car in, then I’ll go and have a talk with him.”

Patsy ducked his head and dropped the hamper lid.

Then he sensed that the two men had seized the sides of the car and
drawn it well into the exterior basement.

“Things all right in town?” queried Conley.

“Yes.”

“Did both women come out?”

“Sure.”

“I’m thinking ’twould be a good scheme to hold up some party to-night,”
Conley now declared.

“Why so?” inquired Badger.

“It would go to show the police that the unknown road robbers have not
been interfered with by any move of Nick Carter, and when he is found
to be missing, no suspicion, naturally, would fall upon us.”

“There’s something in that.”

“Sure there is.”

But Badger presently shook his head.

“Not to-night, Jerry,” said he decisively. “We already have enough on
for to-night with this infernal detective. Besides, I’m about all in,
with what I’ve had to do to-day.”

“I don’t much wonder,” grinned Conley.

“We’ll cut out the hold-up until to-morrow,” added Badger. “You go over
to the house and tell Vic that Carter has revived. She wants to come
out and see him. Meantime, I’ll take the lantern, and go and have a
talk with him.”

“What’s the matter with lighting this wall lamp?”

“No harm in it, Jerry. Light it, if you like.”

Badger took up the lantern while speaking, and strode into the interior
basement, closing the sliding door after him.

Conley struck a match and lighted an oil-lamp in a bracket on the wall,
then hastened out of doors and across the lawn.

“Now is my time!” thought Patsy. “If I can get into that inner cellar,
and down Amos Badger, the rest will be dead easy!”

He raised his head a little to lift the lid of the hamper.

Then he suddenly stopped, holding his breath.

The patter of soft feet on the ground near-by had reached his ears.

Then came a furious sniffing about the wickerwork of the hamper.

It was followed immediately by a long, low, threatening growl, enough
to have sent a chill through a brass image.

“That infernal bloodhound again!” thought Patsy, with an ugly creeping
of his every nerve. “By thunder! this is worse than being headed off by
a man—or by half a dozen men! What’s the cursed brute about to do?”




                             CHAPTER XVII.

                               A CRISIS.


The bloodhound continued to sniff and growl.

Patsy continued to lie low and hold his breath.

He knew that if he showed himself in the open there would be trouble
from that moment—and the worst kind of trouble.

He hoped that the fierce brute would presently have satisfied his
curiosity, and then take it into his ugly head to return out of doors.

But the dog did nothing of the kind.

Plainly enough, he knew that there was something wrong, and his
watch-dog instinct impelled him to hang about the suspected spot.

He fell to trotting to and fro near the back of the touring-car, over a
space of some six feet, like an irritated lion in a cage.

With every turn he made he looked up at the hamper with his rolling red
eyes, and indulged in a low, threatening growl.

It was as much as to say: “Don’t come out, or I’ll make a meal of you!”

His huge jaws hung apart and were froth-flecked, and Patsy, venturing
once to peer out at him, did not like his looks.

“He’d make mince-meat of me in less than ten seconds if I undertook to
leap out there,” he said to himself, with gruesome misgivings. “Yet if
I remain here and he there, I am as good as discovered by these crooks.
I’m blessed if this hasn’t developed into a mighty ugly situation.”

As a matter of fact, he could see no immediate way out of it.

He was so cramped and twisted in his close quarters that he could not
draw his revolver without rising up in the hamper, and he knew that the
dog would instantly attack him if he ventured doing that.

His muscles were so cramped, moreover, that he knew he could not move
to advantage for several moments after his release.

He realized, furthermore, that the report of his revolver, in case
he attempted to shoot the dog, would speedily bring Badger and his
confederates to the spot, and that the result might possibly be fatal
to himself, or, at least, to Nick’s designs, to corner and arrest the
entire gang.

So for upward of five minutes the situation hung fire, Patsy waiting
and wondering, and the bloodhound still growling and trotting to and
fro some six feet away.

It was at this time that Badger had his talk with Nick, as already
related.

Presently Patsy heard Conley returning, accompanied by the two women.

Though all three observed the dog, they paid no immediate attention to
his movements, but at once hastened into the inner basement and to the
vault in which Nick was confined.

Patsy inwardly prayed that the dog would follow them, but his prayer
proved vain.

The bloodhound knew his business.

He continued to trot and growl, occasionally snapping his huge jaws by
diversion or anticipation, and all the while with his red eyes fixed
upon the wicker hamper.

Patsy gritted his own teeth in impotent rage.

At the end of another five minutes, however, he had decided what to do.

He resolved to shoot the dog, taking chances of killing him with a
single shot, and then leap out of the hamper and attack, single-handed,
the gang in the interior basement.

Conley had left the sliding door open after entering with the women,
and Patsy thought he could see a tolerably fair prospect of bringing
to a successful issue even as desperate a move as that which he now
contemplated.

Having grimly settled upon the task, he now wormed about a bit in the
hamper, striving to free his revolver from his hip pocket.

The bloodhound instantly redoubled his growling.

“You be hanged!” muttered Patsy resentfully. “I’ll presently silence
you with a chunk of lead.”

He had succeeded in getting hold of the butt of his revolver.

Before he could free the weapon from his pocket, however, the shrill
voice of Vic Clayton sounded through the basement, as she and Claudia
Badger came hurrying from the inner extension.

“What’s the matter with Pluto?” she cried, as she approached.

“There’s something wrong out here,” declared Claudia.

The instant the dog heard his name mentioned, all the restrained
passions and fierce instincts of the brute leaped violently into play.

With a tremendous snarling and barking he bounded up at the hamper,
clawing at it with might and main, as if bent upon devouring all that
it contained.

Patsy was taking no chances of losing half of his face in one fierce
bite of the brute, and he instantly ducked his head and crouched lower.

“It’s all off!” was the thought that flashed through his mind. “I am
now obliged to put up a game of bluff.”

The screams of the two women were now mingled with the furious barking
of the bloodhound, and Vic Clayton was shouting affrightedly:

“Come out here! Come out here, Amos! There’s something the matter with
this dog. I think he has gone mad.”

Before the last was uttered, both Badger and Conley came rushing out of
the inner cellar.

The two men instantly guessed the meaning of the brute’s actions, and
both rushed toward the car.

“Gone mad be hanged!” shouted Badger. “There’s something wrong with
that hamper, not with the dog.”

“That’s right, Amos,” yelled Conley.

“Ah, I thought so! Get out, you brute, or I’ll brain you! What the
devil have we here?”

Badger had given the excited brute a second kick in the ribs, that once
more sent him yelping out of doors, much to Patsy’s relief, despite the
sudden change in the situation.

At the same time Conley had thrown open the lid of the hamper, plainly
disclosing the cramped detective to the view of all.

In an instant both ruffians had him by the throat and wrists.

“Hold on!” gasped Patsy, struggling to rise out of his cramped
position, and at once assuming to be the injured, rather than the
offender.

“Come out here!”

“Sure, I’ll come out,” whined Patsy, as he was yanked out upon the
ground, yet still in the clutches of both men. “Say, this ain’t no
way to use a fellow. Let go me throat, will you? I ain’t going to eat
nobody up. Holy smoke! but I’m glad you drove that dog off. I thought I
was a dead one, for sure.”

“You’ll be a dead one, all right, young fellow, unless you stand up and
give an account of yourself,” Badger fiercely cried. “Hang onto his
arms, there, Conley, in case he means mischief. Hand me that strip of
rope, Vic, and I’ll make him fast in a jiffy. Look lively, I say!”

While this exchange of conversation was in progress, Patsy had been
jerked rudely to his feet, only to find for several moments that he
could hardly stand erect, so strained and cramped were his muscles.

Conley, meantime, had twisted the captive’s arms back of him, and was
holding them there with the grip of a vise.

Badger had released Patsy’s throat, however, and, with the piece of
rope Vic Clayton had hurriedly brought him, he quickly secured the
detective’s arms and wrists behind him.

“Now, you give an account of yourself,” he fiercely commanded, shaking
his clenched hand under Patsy’s nose.

“Sure I will, mister, since I’m caught in my own box,” Patsy now said,
surveying with a ludicrous grin the frowning faces around him. “But I’d
have been out and away long before this, mister, if it had not been for
that infernal dog.”

“Out and away, would you?” cried Badger, catching up this one
significant remark.

“That’s what, mister.”

“What were you doing in that hamper?”

“Only stealing a ride.”

“Stealing a ride?” echoed Badger incredulously.

“That was all, mister, the whole business.”

“You’re a liar!” snarled Conley, fiercely suspicious.

“Say, you leave me to settle with the boss of this joint, will you?”
growled Patsy, now turning upon the Irishman. “I haven’t trod on any of
your corns, have I? So you leave me to do the talking with the boss.”

“I’ll not leave you a leg to stand on, if you——”

“Shut up, Jerry!” commanded Badger sharply. “How long had you been in
the hamper, youngster?”

“All the way from town, mister.”

“Nonsense!” cried Vic Clayton, now pressing nearer. “I know better than
that.”

“Sure, ma’am, I don’t like to contradict a lady like yourself, but
you’ll find I’m right,” insisted Patsy, bowing to her with a ludicrous
display of humility.

“Do you mean to say that you rode out from town in that hamper?”
demanded Vic.

“That’s what I did, ma’am.”

“What put you up to that?” cried Badger, in threatening tones.

Patsy indulged in another grin.

“Well, ’twas like this, mister, d’ye see,” he proceeded to explain,
with an air of humble frankness. “I was walking along Tremont Street
with a comrade of mine—Jones his name is, mister, and mine is Green.”

“Come to the point, you rascal,” Badger impatiently growled.

“Sure I will, mister, if you give me time.”

“If you don’t, I’ll give you something besides time.”

“’Twas like this, d’ye see?” continued Patsy coolly. “We saw this big
car alongside the curb on Tremont Street, and Nosey, the which we call
Jones because his beak is so big—Nosey bet me a five I didn’t dare get
into the hamper and steal a ride.”

“He did, eh?” sneered Badger, with an ugly gleam in his searching eyes.

“That’s what he did, sir,” nodded Patsy. “I’d seen these two ladies
go into the building near-by, so I said to myself I’d have time to
duck into the hamper before they came out. I thought it a cinch to win
a five in that easy way. So when I found it was empty, mister, in I
jumped, and here I am—the which I wouldn’t be, only for that dog, I
give you my blooming word.”

“Your blooming word doesn’t cut any ice with me,” Conley now declared,
with an angry snarl. “I’ll not swallow this story, Badger, not on your
life. It’s much more likely that he’s working with his nobs in yonder,
and mebbe there are more of the same kind about here at this moment.”

This possibility suggested by Conley was not without immediate effect
upon Badger, who turned quickly to the waiting women and cried sharply:

“Go over to the house, you two, and we’ll bring this rascal there and
question him further. You, Jerry, close that sliding door. We’ll leave
the other where we have him. He cannot get out, that’s sure, and I’ll
take no chance that there are others to see us in this place. We’ll go
over to the house and settle with this young cub.”

“That will be safest,” nodded Conley, as he hastened to obey.

“You may leave this oil-lamp burning, Jerry,” added Badger, as he
seized Patsy by the collar and marched him toward the door. “We may
have to come out here again.”

“I’ll not put it out.”

“But secure this door after you.”

“Sure! D’ye think I’m daffy enough to leave it open?”

With the last remark, Conley came out of the basement and closed the
heavy door, leaving the entire place only dimly lighted by the oil-lamp
on the wall.

Seen from outside, the whole stable appeared shrouded in darkness.

As the three started across the lawn toward the house, with Patsy in
the grip of both men, the huge bloodhound came bounding over the grass
as if to accompany them—or to make a finish of Patsy.

Badger quickly checked him, however, sternly commanding:

“Be off, Pluto! Away with you, and watch out, you brute! Watch out, I
say!”

The dog appeared to understand. He dropped his black nose to the
ground, vented one short, sharp yelp, then coursed away with the speed
of a deer, hither and thither, and finally toward the belt of woods
darkly outlined against the starry sky at the rear of the broad estate.

“He’ll notify us, Jerry!” growled Badger, with his grip unconsciously
tightening on the detective’s collar. “Let Pluto alone for that. He’ll
notify us all right, and promptly, too, if there are other strangers
prowling near here to-night.”

That Patsy was possessed of that true detective genius which
instinctively anticipates coming events, appears in the thought that
quickly arose in his mind:

“He will, eh? I can see his finish if he encounters Chick Carter this
night!”




                            CHAPTER XVIII.

                            A LAST RESORT.


“Search him!” sternly commanded Badger. “We’ll see what that will bring
forth. Search him, Conley, and see what you can find!”

The scene was the kitchen of the Badger dwelling.

Fifteen minutes had passed since Patsy was rounded up and brought
in there, and the quarter-hour had been devoted to plying him with
questions to break down the crafty story he had told, and to which he
clung with a tenacity born of conscious desperation.

He now stood with his back to one of the kitchen walls, in the full
glare of the lamplight.

His arms were still secured behind him, and his collar and cravat were
awry from the throttling he had received.

His face was composed, however, not even pale, and his eyes were keen
and bright with that inherent courage and invincible determination
which rendered him superior to any threatening situation, and eminently
worthy to have become Nick Carter’s trusted associate and assistant.

The gang by which he had been so curiously cornered were seated about
the room.

Both Badger and Conley appeared stern and ugly, evincing that state of
mind when dread and suspicion battle with uncertainty.

The two women, Mrs. Badger and Vic Clayton, appeared pale and anxious,
as if fearful that their adventurous career was likely to be seriously
interrupted.

Yet all four, including also a dark, middle-aged woman who worked in
the house, were regarding Patsy with eyes and aspects so threatening as
to have awed one less cool, collected, and defiant of personal peril.

Fifteen minutes had passed, as mentioned, and from this time matters
moved decisively and swiftly, with all the energies of these masterful
detectives instinctively strained for what each knew must be a final
move, and all operating to produce the one desirable culmination of
their joint endeavors.

In response to Badger’s command, Conley sprang up and began to search
Patsy, fiercely thrusting his hand into one pocket and then another.

“Leave the linings,” suggested Patsy, with a defiant grin.

He knew that he had on his person only one article that would point to
his vocation, which he was prepared to deny in the face even of that.

It came to light in a moment—his trusty revolver.

“Aha! what’s this?” cried Conley, as he yanked the weapon from Patsy’s
hip pocket. “So you carry a gun, do you?”

“Sure I do,” asserted Patsy coolly. “You’d carry a gun, too, if there
were as many rats in your cellar as there are in mine.”

“It’s you who are the rat,” Badger angrily growled, as his confederate
displayed the weapon.

“You’re wrong, mister,” insisted Patsy. “I’m a ratter, but no rat.”

“What d’ye mean by that?” snarled Conley fiercely.

“I mean that I’m a hunter of rats,” said Patsy, with dry significance.

“You’re a detective,” cried Badger.

“That’s what he is, Amos,” supplemented Vic Clayton, white with
increased apprehensions. “He must be one of the Boston force.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Not one of the force?”

“Nothing of the kind.”

“If you are lying, youngster, the lie will as surely cost you your
life——”

What more Badger would have uttered can only be conjectured, for, while
he was speaking, fiercely shaking his fist at Patsy’s helpless head,
there sounded from the gravel driveway outside and over the hollow
planking of the veranda the heavy fall of hurrying feet.

“Who’s this?” cried Claudia, starting affrightedly from her chair.

“The door, Conley!” hissed Badger. “Have the gun ready!”

Before Conley could reach the doorway, however, toward which he
hastened with Patsy’s revolver in his hand, it was hurriedly opened
and a sallow-featured, green-eyed rascal bounded breathlessly into the
kitchen.

“Oh, it’s Sandy Hyde!” exclaimed Vic, with a little scream of
satisfaction.

“Who the devil is he?” thought Patsy, sharply regarding the panting
scamp.

Though this advent of Hyde brought a look of relief to the face of
each, Badger kept a taut rein on the threatening business then on hand,
and he almost immediately demanded:

“What brings you out here, Sandy?”

“Wait till I get my breath, and I’ll tell you,” panted Hyde. “I’ve run
all the way from the trolley. The chief kept me at work till half an
hour ago.”

“Is there something wrong at headquarters?” snarled Badger quickly.

“What’s that?” muttered Patsy mentally. “A spy from the chief’s office,
or I’ll eat my boots! By thunder! it’s no wonder that this case has
baffled the efforts of the Boston force.”

Patsy was quick enough to see all it meant, in case he was correct in
his immediate conjecture.

Sandy Hyde, who had paused a moment to get a drink of water at the
kitchen sink, now hastened to reply to Badger’s question.

“Wrong at headquarters? I should say so!” he cried. “I have just got
wise to something, less than an hour ago. Who’s that chap?”

“Never mind him at present,” cried Badger, with terrific impatience.
“What have you learned?”

“Nick Carter has an assistant here on this case,” replied Hyde.

“Not Chick Carter!”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Sure! He was at headquarters about five o’clock.”

“For what?”

“He was trying to locate Nick.”

“We’ve got Nick, all right,” sneered Badger, with a chuckle of
derision. “But this other, this Chick Carter, of whom I have frequently
heard, I don’t know him by sight.”

“Nor do I,” put in Conley, frowning near-by.

“You’re sure this is not he?”

“Dead sure,” cried Hyde, with a glance at Patsy. “I don’t know this
chap.”

“Then he is not one of the Boston force,” declared Vic, more hopefully.
“He did not lie about that.”

Badger turned again to Patsy, lowering and dark, and Patsy gained a
point by saying quickly:

“Sure I didn’t lie about it. I wouldn’t lie to ladies and gents like
you.”

“No, this fellow is not a Boston detective, I’ll swear to that,” Hyde
now declared. “I know them all.”

“But Chick Carter——” began Badger.

“Oh, he doesn’t look like this chap,” interrupted Hyde.

“He doesn’t, eh?”

“Not a bit! Chick Carter is older, a sturdy, well-built young man, with
smooth, clean-cut features and——”

“Stop!” screamed Vic Clayton, suddenly leaping out of her chair.

“Well?”

“How was he dressed when you saw him at five o’clock?”

“Why, he said he was going to your office,” cried Hyde, now getting
back to the business that had brought him out there. “He had on a plaid
suit, a polka-dotted cravat——”

“Henderson!” screamed Vic, all of a quiver with excitement. “That man
Henderson, Amos, was Chick Carter!”

“Not a doubt of it!” gasped Claudia Badger, as white as the knot of
lace at her throat.

“And that’s why he inquired after Nick Carter,” declared Badger, now
beginning to see that a network might already be closing around him.

“That’s what, Amos.”

“Do you know where Chick Carter went after leaving your rooms, Vic?”

“Of course not. How should I?”

“He might have said.”

“He said he was going to Carter’s hotel.”

“Bosh!”

“I’ll tell you what I do know, however,” cried Vic, hit with an
afterthought.

“What’s that?”

“I know that this young devil must have got into that hamper while
Chick Carter was in my rooms, Amos, and it’s a hundred to one that the
two were at work on this case together.”

“Gee! she’s hit me good and hard this time,” thought Patsy, wishing
he might have throttled her to silence. “Now there will be something
doing, I’ll go the limit on that.”

He read aright the faces of those around him.

The significance of Vic Clayton’s declaration was utterly irresistible.

“What do you say to that?” thundered Badger, striding closer to Patsy,
with his features livid and convulsed with rage.

“I dunno what she’s talking about,” protested Patsy coolly.

“You lie!” roared Conley. “You are one of Nick Carter’s helpers, or——”

“Stop a bit!” interrupted Badger, with frightful austerity. “We’ll soon
know whether he is or not!”

“What d’ye mean?”

“I’ll get the truth out of him!” snorted Badger. “Bring him after me,
back to the garage. I’ll make him confess the truth and tell us where
we stand. We’ll string him up by the neck to one of the beams—and there
he shall hang unless he tells the whole truth! Bring him along, you
two, and look lively! I’ll go on ahead and open the doors.”

“Yes, there’s something doing!” thought Patsy, contemplating his
imminent peril. “They are going to try hanging me—but they’ll try in
vain! Yet I rather hope Chick may show up in time to save my precious
neck.”

These thoughts passed through Patsy’s mind while he was being rudely
hustled out of doors by Conley and Hyde, while Amos Badger hurried on
in advance.

Both women followed, too alarmed by the impending peril to endure the
suspense of remaining behind.

“They care nothing for me, or my neck,” thought Patsy. “Like the she
devils of ancient Rome, once having tasted blood, they thirst for more.”

As he was hurried into the basement by Conley, he saw that the sliding
door had been opened and that Badger was again lighting the lantern.

This no sooner was done than the dastardly knave, blind to all except
the impulses of his utter desperation, quickly threw a rope over a beam
near the ceiling, then knotted a slip-noose around Patsy’s neck.

Patsy stood directly under the beam, as cool as if he was only about to
be weighed.

“Get hold of that rope, you two!” cried Badger fiercely.

Conley and Hyde sprang to the lax strip of line.

The two women, bred though they were to evil, drew back with awed white
faces and dilated eyes.

“Now, youngster, what do you say?” thundered Badger, confronting Patsy
with face livid and eyes ablaze.

Patsy met him eye to eye.

“Only what I’ve said already,” he curtly replied.

“Nothing more?”

“Nothing more, mister!”

“Nor less?”

“Nor less!”

“Up with him!” roared Badger, turning fiercely to his confederates.

Patsy felt the rope draw taut around his neck.

Just then, however, from some quarter outside, there rang out upon the
still evening air the sharp, spiteful crack of a revolver.

It was mingled with a single agonized yelp—and a bloodhound lay
stretched upon the greensward, shot squarely between his eyes!




                             CHAPTER XIX.

                         NICK CARTER’S ESCAPE.


Silence and darkness.

It was in these that Nick Carter was left confined at an earlier hour
that eventful evening, bound hand and foot, and with his back propped
against the cold stone wall of the disused wine-vault.

It would be an injustice to him, however, to those inherent qualities
and rare abilities which had made him what he was, to neglect depicting
his movements during the time his captors were so pressingly engaged
with Patsy.

Of Chick and Patsy’s discoveries and designs since he parted from them
at the Adams House that morning, Nick, of course, was entirely ignorant.

That they had so quickly suspected something wrong because of
his absence, or that he could depend upon them for any immediate
assistance, he did not for a moment imagine. For it was then only a few
hours after the time they had agreed to meet, and any ordinary incident
might have detained him that long.

Yet Amos Badger had no sooner closed the door of the wine-vault than
Nick Carter began to think about making his escape.

“Whatever I accomplish,” he said to himself, “I must accomplish alone.
There is not much chance that Chick and Patsy have yet discovered
any clue to my whereabouts, even if they now suspect that I have met
with some beastly mishap, so I must figure upon playing a lone hand
in getting out of this place. I’ll make the attempt, at least, and
if——Hello! what’s the meaning of that, I wonder?”

From some quarter outside, borne faintly to his ears, had come the
furious barking of a dog, mingled with the shouts of men and the
screams of women.

For half a minute Nick listened intently, but the startling sounds
were not prolonged, and presently only silence reigned in the
wine-vault.

Stop a bit—not quite silence only!

From one corner came a faint noise which Nick’s ear was quick to detect.

It was the steady drip, drip, drip of water, from some point higher
than the floor.

Nick recalled seeing a stagnant pool in the corner from which the
dripping sounded, and he rightly inferred that there must be some
water-supply above, possibly in the stable, and that a considerable
leak existed.

“My first work must be that of getting my hands at liberty,” he
soliloquized, after a few moments.

They were tied behind him, but that mattered little to Nick Carter.

While the lantern was in the vault, during his talk with Badger, Nick
had visually examined the surrounding stone walls, and had discovered
several places where the rough corners of the stones protruded a
little, forming tolerably sharp edges.

Against one of these he backed, after rising to his feet with some
difficulty, until he could bring the rope about his wrists to bear
against the edge of the stone.

Then he began sawing it up and down, at an expense of some little
skin from his knuckles, and at the end of five minutes he felt one of
the strands give and break. Then, with a mighty effort, he succeeded
in breaking the entire rope, and the liberation of his hands at once
became easy.

“Now, if you come down here, Badger, you’ll meet with a warmer
reception than before,” he determinedly muttered, while he set to work
at the ropes around his ankles.

In three minutes his limbs also were free, and Nick coolly tossed the
ropes aside.

“Next, to find a way out of here,” was his mental comment.

He had observed that no window existed, and he had but little hope of
being able to force the heavy door, having been deprived of his knife
and revolver.

After examining the door, to which he groped through the darkness, he
decided that he could accomplish nothing there.

The constant dripping of the water could still be heard, however, and
Nick now shrewdly reasoned:

“That water must have some avenue of escape, and it may run under the
foundation wall in that corner. If it does, the soil should be soft and
muddy, and I may be able to dig my way out, or, at least, to work under
the wall and learn what lies beyond it. I’ll give it a try, at all
events.”

As he groped toward the corner, he stumbled over one of the empty
beer-kegs previously mentioned.

“Ha! here’s just the thing, providing I can smash it,” he said to
himself. “One of these oak staves will serve admirably for a spade.”

Gripping the keg by the chimes, he hurled it with all of his strength
against one of the walls.

There was a double effect.

First, the keg snapped and cracked loudly, as several of the staves
yielded under the terrific blow.

Second, an instant later, a bit of rock from the wall fell with a
splash into the pool of water.

Nick then examined the wall.

He found that the constant leakage from above had softened the old
cement and mortar, and that the stones in this locality might be
removed with almost any stout implement.

In half a minute he had the beer-keg demolished and one of the stout
staves in his hand.

With this he next attacked the stonework near the pool, and for ten
minutes he worked as vigorously and rapidly as the darkness permitted.

Then he had two of the lower stones hauled out of the wall, and a space
made large enough to crawl through.

Listening at this opening, he could now detect another sound quite
near-by. It was the occasional stamping of horses, evidently in their
stalls.

“H’m!” grunted Nick. “I’m not sure that I’m out of the place, after
all. This hole will evidently lead me into a basement under the stable,
or the carriage-house. By Jove! it may be that Badger has a place of
concealment down here for his horses, those occasionally used for a
hold-up. I’ll speedily ascertain.”

Crawling with some little difficulty through the hole in the wall, Nick
rose to his feet on the outer side, and groped carefully through the
gloom.

Suddenly his extended hands came in contact with—an automobile!

He was in the interior garage, the secret hiding-place of Badger’s
several cars.

It had taken Nick half an hour to accomplish all this, however, and
before he could fix upon anything definite as to his present location,
he heard voices outside, and a door hurriedly opened.

“H’m!” he mentally grunted. “Are my captors returning? They’ll find me
ready for them this time!”

Then he crouched quickly back of the car with which he had come in
contact.

The sliding door had suddenly opened, and the light from the wall lamp
outside shot into the extension cellar.

The instant Nick’s eyes fell upon the row of automobiles, he guessed
the whole truth concerning the place.

His interest, however, chiefly centered in two men who were hurriedly
rushing a third into the place, closely followed by two women, while
Badger was hastening to light a lantern.

“Good Heaven!” mentally exclaimed Nick. “Their captive is Patsy!”

He watched and waited, deducing more and more from the little he
heard, and all the while his stern white features, still swathed with
bandages, grew hard as flint.

Patsy felt the rope tighten about his neck.

Then sounded the revolver-shot from outside.

Next a dark form bounded out from back of the touring-car—bounded out
with the leap of an angry lion.

Two clenched hands rose and fell, and two men dragging upon a rope
cast over a beam were sent senseless to the earth, quivering in every
muscle, as an ox quivers when felled in the shambles.

Then two hands closed around Amos Badger’s throat, and in the
miscreant’s ears rang a voice and words that took all the strength and
manhood, if any of the latter was there, completely out of him.

“It will be you, Badger, not I!”

“Whoop la!” shrieked Patsy. “It’s Nick himself!”

Two women, frightened for their miserable lives, turned and ran toward
the open door—only to rush into the ready arms of Chick Carter.

Chick had arrived at the edge of the woods only a short time before,
and had seen Patsy brought out of the house and into the basement of
the garage. Hastening to cross the lawn and lend a hand, as he had
promised, Chick had encountered the bloodhound, killing him with a
single well-directed shot, and then had rushed on and into the garage,
just in time to head off Vic Clayton and Claudia Badger when they
turned to flee.

The rest may be briefly told, for a more complete and successful
round-up could hardly be imagined. In less than ten minutes the entire
gang were in irons, and thirty minutes later they were taking a ride in
the local patrol-wagon, instead of a Packard car.

The exposure of their rascally scheme also was complete when the case
came to trial, a little later, for Nick Carter found in and about the
house and stable ample evidence to prove that his deductions had from
the very first been entirely correct.

Fortunately, too, he found letters and clues enabling him to trace much
of the stolen property upon which Badger had realized thousands of
dollars, and which ultimately was restored to its rightful owners.

In Badger’s safe Nick found his own watch and chain, but the money of
which he had been robbed was missing. He had in his success with the
case, however, a reward that far more than offset his trivial loss.

Dumfounded when informed by what means the Boston detectives had been
baffled in their efforts to discover these road robbers, Chief Weston’s
gratitude to Nick was equaled only by his bitterness for Sandy Hyde,
and he made sure that the treacherous scamp should receive a sentence
as long as the others of the Badger gang—and that was one of years.

Long before the release of any of them, the Badger place near Brookline
had passed into other hands, sold under a heavy mortgage, and from that
time Tremont Street knew the notorious Madame Victoria no more.

One and all of them passed, as they deserved, out of the public mind
and out of the hearts and lives of friendly acquaintances—from the
moment that Nick Carter showed them in their true colors and closed
upon them the door of a prison cell.


                               THE END.


Order your copy now of the next brilliant story by Nicholas Carter to
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End of Project Gutenberg's The Man Without a Conscience, by Nicholas Carter