A Woman at Bay; Or, A Fiend in Skirts
"Take that chair, and remain there until you have smoked your cigar. The
men might take it into their heads to be jealous if you should go among
them with it, and they should know that you, a new arrival, had
breakfasted with me. I will return in a moment."
She left him then, entering the house; and with no thought of immediate
danger in his mind, Nick followed her suggestion, and leaned back in the
chair, tilting it against the house, determined to enjoy that smoke to
the utmost.
After that it was difficult to tell exactly what did happen.
He remembered afterward that he smoked on in enjoyment of the cigar for
some minutes, and that he thought it somewhat rank, notwithstanding the
fact that it had the appearance of being of excellent quality.
And then suddenly the cigar flashed, exactly as if there had been three
or four grains of gunpowder wrapped in it--and he was instantly
conscious of an intensely bitter taste in his mouth.
And then it seemed to him almost as if somebody had struck him, so
strange were his sensations--and from that instant memory left him
entirely.
The woman had been watching him narrowly from the doorway; she was
waiting for that flash from the end of his cigar, and when it came she
passed out through the door swiftly, and caught him as he was about to
fall from his chair to the floor of the piazza; caught him, and held
him, and then deftly raised him to his feet, and half carried him inside
the house before anybody--had a person been observant of the
scene--could have realized that anything was wrong.
She possessed great strength, this remarkable woman; for the instant she
was inside the door, heavy as he was, she raised him in her arms, and
carried him into an adjoining room, where she closed the door behind
her, and deposited him upon a couch.
And then, still working with great rapidity, she pulled aside a rug that
was on the floor, and, having lifted a trapdoor, she again took him in
her arms, and descended through the opening in the floor to the depths
beneath it.
After a little she reappeared, and this time there was a grim smile upon
her face, while she replaced the rug over the trapdoor, and otherwise
rendered the room the same as it had been before the incident happened.
She passed coolly out upon the piazza, and for a time strode up and down
it in deep thought; but at last she raised her head quickly, and called
sharply to the sentinel who was pacing up and down in front of the
cottage.
"Send Handsome to me!" she ordered; and then she continued her pacing
until Handsome appeared.
Handsome belied his name terribly in the light of day, for an
uglier-looking chap could not be imagined; and yet, withal, there was a
gleam of humor in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. She turned
to him abruptly.
"Where are the others of that bunch who were found with Dago?" she asked
sharply.
"Yonder," replied Handsome, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward
the glade beyond them.
"What do you think about them, Handsome?" she asked again.
"I haven't thought much about them," he replied. "They are about the
usual sort, I believe; no better and perhaps no worse."
"I am not so sure of that."
"No?" he asked, vaguely surprised.
"Handsome, I want you to take them, one by one, to the pool in the
woods, strip them, and scrub them with soap, and water, and sand, if
necessary. I want you to make sure that there is no suggestion of
disguise about any of the three. Do it at once--and when it is done, no
matter whether there is a question of disguise about any of them or not,
bring them to me."
Handsome departed without a word. It was plain that Black Madge was
accustomed to obedience. It was plain also that her suspicions were
thoroughly aroused; for now she paced up and down again restlessly, and
continued so to pace until almost an hour later Handsome stood before
her again.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Two of them were plainly disguised," he replied.
"And the other?" she demanded, frowning.
"The other, as plainly was not disguised."
"And the two who were disguised--what of them?"
"I cannot tell if they are known to each other. I cannot tell whether
they are spies or not, only it is quite likely that they are."
"And the third one? The one who wore no disguise?"
"I think he is all right. He is the one called Pat. When he realized
that the others who had been with him were in disguise, he flew at one
of them, thinking that he had been followed himself, and I think would
have killed the fellow if I had not been there to prevent it."
Madge listened, with a shrug of her shoulders; then she said briefly:
"Bring them here, Handsome. Bring the two who were disguised, first.
Leave the other one alone until I send for him. What are the supposed
names of these two?"
"One is called Tenstrike, and the other calls himself the Chicago
Chicken."
"The Chicago Chicken," she said slowly. "Chick, for short, is it not? I
think we are on the right track, Handsome. Bring that one here
alone--first."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DETECTIVES FACE A CRISIS.
Chick had committed the folly of not being entirely thorough in the
creation of his disguise; so also had Ten-Ichi; and the soap and
scrubbing brushes, as employed by Handsome, had done the work of
removing it.
But Patsy? Well, it had not been necessary for Patsy to be quite so
thorough, for his own particular person and features were sufficient
disguise, with a few minor alterations and additions.
For instance, at the risk of not having it wear off soon enough to suit
his purposes, he had gone to a professional hair dyer, and had ordered
his shock of hair indelibly dyed to a dirty brick-red; and he had put
spots on his face, and the back of his hands, with nitrate of silver, so
that the spots burned into the skin. No soap and water could remove
these. They would only disappear with time; but Patsy had never traveled
on a reputation for beauty, and he did not give the matter a thought
beyond the immediate necessities.
He had taken another precaution, also, just before he entered the woods
to go to the place of meeting. He had stripped himself in a secluded
place near the railway tracks, and he had rolled himself in the coal
dust around the track, griming the dirt into his body, so that when it
came to the time that Handsome stripped him--well, it can be imagined
how he looked.
A little snuff rubbed thoroughly against his teeth had rendered them
sufficiently discolored, and altogether he so thoroughly looked his part
that Handsome, when he stripped him, had not the slightest doubt of his
reality.
But the frauds connected with Chick and Ten-Ichi were easily detected.
Black Madge, while still seated at the table with the detective, had
suddenly recalled the name that had long ago been mentioned in her
presence by the chief of the Paris police. It had come to her in a flash
that the name was Nick Carter--and that this man who was so calmly
seated in her presence was Nick Carter.
Madge knew a great deal more about Nick Carter than Nick supposed she
did; she knew all about his household, and about his assistants. She
knew their names as well as if they were followers of her own--and when
Handsome, in mentioning the names of the other men, had talked about
Tenstrike and the Chicken, she had connected the names at once.
As for the other one--Pat--that had a significance also; but Pat is a
very common name, and she did not do herself the honor to suppose that
Nick Carter would bring all three of his assistants into the woods with
him in search of her. One, she thought, would have to be left behind to
look after the business, and, therefore, she was all the more ready to
believe that Patsy, since he was not in disguise, was one of her own
kind, who had inadvertently fallen into the company of the detectives.
Handsome and four other men accompanied Chick to the cottage, and when
he stood before Madge she looked him over from head to foot with cold
scorn.
"So," she said venomously, "you thought to deceive me, did you--you and
your master?"
Chick made no reply, and, after a moment, she went on:
"We have a way of ridding ourselves of such men as you are, when they
come among us. It is not pleasant for them, but it serves as a lesson to
others. Step inside the house. Take him inside, Handsome. Let the others
wait out here, and if there is the slightest sound of a row inside the
house let them enter it at once."
When the three were in the room together, she said to Chick:
"You observe that I know who you are?"
Chick nodded--and he also smiled.
She stamped her foot upon the floor under her, and continued:
"Down there, beneath us, unconscious and chained to the wall, is Nick
Carter. Even Handsome did not know that till now. He did not know that
Dago John, who went with him last night to rob the bank, was no other
than Nick Carter. But it is true, Handsome."
"Gee!" breathed Handsome, his fingers twitching.
"He is all right now, Handsome. He cannot hurt you. I have put him out
of business--and I don't think we had better let the men know that Nick
Carter has been among them. Let them wreak their vengeance upon this
fellow, and upon the other--that little Jap. As for Nick Carter himself,
I will take care of him. He will never come out of that cellar alive.
And now, Chick, I want you to answer me a question."
"You will save your breath if you do not ask it," replied Chick. "I am
not answering questions just at present."
"Not to save yourself, or your master?"
"I know very well that nothing that I can say will have the least effect
upon my fate, or upon Nick Carter's," he replied.
"Very good," she replied slowly; and then to Handsome: "Take him away,
Handsome. Take him out there to the men. Tell them who he is, and that
they may do as they please with him. I think the quicksand bog would be
as good a place as any for him; or the fire tree; but they may do as
they please--so long as they kill him. Take him away."
Chick, realizing that it was all up with him, and that he might as well
make a fight for it, leaped forward quickly, full at the woman,
intending to seize upon her, and hold her as a shield; but even as he
attempted to do so, the floor beneath him sank under him for the depth
of two feet, and before he could recover his balance, Madge had thrown a
table cover over his head, and in another moment Handsome had thrown him
to the floor, and called the others to his assistance.
And so Chick was tightly bound and borne away a captive--to what fate he
could only imagine.
"You need not bring the Jap here at all," Madge called after them. "Let
my hoboes take him with them, along with this one; but do you bring the
man Pat to me at once."
And five minutes later Handsome reappeared with Patsy in tow, only that
Patsy was not a prisoner--as yet.
"Now, my man," said Madge coldly, "you will have to give a pretty
straight account of yourself. You were found in bad company."
"Sure, ma'am, don't I know the same? I've been apologizing to meself
ever since I discovered it, an' if Handsome here had only left me alone,
faith, I'd have settled wan part of me misgivings then and there, so I
would. I had me doubts about the bunch from the beginning, ma'am, when
they came a-sneakin' up to me fire, and eatin' of me grub; and when
that other gazabo dropped from the trees, sure, I was certain of it. I
was after kapin' me eyes peeled all the time since then, your worship,
but I thought it wasn't f'r the likes of me to be after makin'
suggestions to y'r majesty, at all, at all."
"Who are you, and what are you, Pat?" she asked, smiling upon him.
"Sure, ma'am, it's nobody I am. I've never done anything worse than pick