A Woman at Bay; Or, A Fiend in Skirts
the organization which I had created, and rendered
it utterly impotent for my future uses, but you
destroyed almost at one blow every ambition that I
had through that organization and by reason of it.
"You didn't know that, and you couldn't appreciate
it; and it wouldn't matter at all to you if you had;
neither has it anything to do with the purport of
this letter.
"I know you will say that I am a fool to take the
trouble to warn you, but I would be less than a
woman, and much less than the bad woman I am, if I
did not take this opportunity of exulting over the
chance that is now promised to me to get square with
you.
"Heretofore my every effort has been centred upon
playing on my fellow men; heretofore I have had only
two thoughts in pursuing my career; one was to
create an organization of which I was the supreme
head, and the other was to secure by the operation
of that organization all the money that it was
possible to obtain.
"I have always been a thief with a system. My
robberies have all been committed after careful
planning; you know that because of the one you
helped to commit yourself. But now I have only one
ambition left--to get square with you. I haven't
decided yet how I shall do it, or when, or where it
shall be done. If I had so decided I would not tell
you, so it makes no difference.
"But I have been a hard student, Nick Carter, of
many things. I have had good instructors in the
science of mixing and using poisons; there is no
person living to-day, man or woman--yourself
included--who is a better marksman than I am with
firearms; there is no person, man or woman, who is
more adept to-day in the use of all weapons than I
am. This is not boasting; it is fact.
"Moreover, I have the power to appear in many
guises--disguises you might call them. In one or
more of them--perhaps in many of them--I shall
appear to you, and when you are least expecting it I
shall strike.
"Don't think by that that I mean to strike you dead.
That would not be making you suffer enough; but I
shall find other and better ways in which to
strike--ways that will make you suffer and realize
what you did when you made me your enemy, and made
me hate you as I do.
"And another thing; I have already set to work to
bring together, as rapidly as I can find them,
people who have criminal records and who have reason
to hate you as I do; people whom you have pursued as
you have pursued me; those whom you have sent to
prison; those whose careers you have interrupted;
those you have threatened; and those who have cause
for holding a grudge against you.
"I have sought many of those, and I have found many.
I am still seeking others, and I shall find more;
and when I have got together enough of them, and
have selected from that number those whom I deem
most available for my purpose and competent to carry
out my directions as I shall give them, I shall
organize them into a Band of Hatred, the sole object
of which shall be your undoing and, ultimately, your
death.
"You have preyed too long already upon that class
of humanity to which I belong, and from our
standpoint your position is much the same as is our
position from yours.
"You know me well enough, Nick Carter, to know that
from this moment forward you will never be safe from
danger for one moment of your life; whether you are
sleeping or waking; whether you are afloat or
ashore; whether you are quartered in the seclusion
of your own study at home, or are abroad upon the
streets of the city.
"You know that I do not threaten idly. You know that
I am a woman with a purpose. You know that I am
intelligent, educated, and determined. You know that
I am a woman to be feared.
"I have thought this matter all over, and decided
upon it during those hours when I was locked in the
cabin up there in the hills, after you had drugged
the men of my company, and succeeded in capturing us
all.
"When I was taken to prison I knew that it would be
only a short time before I would be able to make
good my escape. How I have succeeded in
accomplishing it does not matter. I have found one
key in my experience that never fails to open prison
locks, if it is properly applied; the fact that it
is made of gold is sufficient explanation, and gold
I had in plenty, for I have always been successful,
and even now I have hoards concealed in different
places which will supply me with funds more than
sufficient to carry out to the bitter end this
campaign of vengeance upon which I have determined.
"I think that is all.
"I shall leave here for New York City an hour after
this letter is put in the mail. When you will see me
first I do not know. BLACK MADGE."
The detective read this remarkable letter twice from beginning to end,
and then he passed it in silence across the table to Chick, who was
seated opposite to him.
And Chick also read it twice in silence, and as silently returned it.
Nick, realizing that Ten-Ichi and Patsy would also fall under the
sweeping hatred of Black Madge, tossed it over to them with the
direction that they read it also.
There was not one among them who felt like making any comment upon the
letter, or its contents, at least until their chief had spoken; but
presently, with a gesture to Chick, which meant that he was to follow
him as soon as he had finished his breakfast, the detective left the
table and went to his study.
It was only a few moments after that when Chick entered the room,
smiling.
"I hope, Nick," he said, dropping into a chair near the window and
lighting a cigar, "that you enjoyed the reading of that letter from
Madge?"
The detective was silent a moment before he replied, and then quite
slowly he said:
"So far as I am personally concerned, Chick, the letter or its contents
has no more effect upon me than the snapping of your fingers, but I will
confess that I am in some dread concerning what she might do to you,
and to Ten-Ichi and Patsy."
Chick leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud.
"If you will excuse me for saying so," he remarked, "that is utter
nonsense. Of course, the boys downstairs and I are quite capable of
taking care of ourselves."
"I don't doubt that," said Nick, "but that is not exactly the point."
"What is, then?"
"You have forgotten one part of her letter," said Nick.
"What part?"
"That part wherein she speaks about making me suffer, rather than
attempting to do me physical harm."
"Oh! I haven't forgotten it."
"Do you understand what she means by that, Chick?"
"Certainly."
"Let me hear if you do."
"Well, she probably means that it would be her first effort to make you
suffer by injuring those whom you love--in other words, by doing
something or other to one of us. But forewarned is forearmed, and,
anyhow, I don't think it behooves any of us to be afraid of a woman."
"This is a case," said Nick, "where a woman is much more dangerous than
a man. A man would fight out in the open; a woman will fight in the
shadow; or, at least, such a woman as that will. She is a pretty bad
one, Chick, and a grave foe."
Chick nodded.
"It is always best," continued the detective, "to give your enemy or
your adversaries credit for every advantage they possess. Black Madge is
a wonderfully smart woman, and is unprincipled and implacable as she is
smart. She will halt at nothing to carry out her design of vengeance,
and just as sure as you are sitting there, Chick, we will presently feel
the surety of that threat."
Chick flicked the ashes from his cigar, and then strode across the room
to the window, where he stood for a moment looking out.
"I don't see exactly what we are going to do to head her off before she
begins," he said presently.
"There is nothing to do," replied Nick gloomily.
"Upon my word," said Chick, laughing, "one would think that you were
more than usually affected by that letter from Madge. Do you really take
it so seriously as all that?"
"I take it seriously," replied the detective, "because I so well
understand what the woman means, and she means just what she says.
Instead of going on evenly and living the life we have been living, we
must not be for an instant off our guard from this day on, until she is
again behind the bars, and I hope the next time I arrest her it will be
within the limits of the State of New York, where I can place a watch
over her so that she will not escape."
"And I hope so, too," said Chick.
"And now, in the meantime," continued Nick, smiling, "since we have this
letter and know what she is about to do, I think we will meet her
halfway, and not wait for her to open the ball. Since she is at liberty,
we will set about capturing her at once."
CHAPTER XIX.
THE BAND OF HATRED.
Down on the East Side of New York, in Rivington Street, and some
distance east of the Bowery, on the second floor of one of the oldest
buildings in the city, a remarkable meeting was being held during the
night that followed the receipt of Madge's letter by Nick Carter.
In a room on this floor, which was brilliantly lighted by four gas jets
blazing from the chandelier, nine people were seated. They were gathered
along two sides of the room, in which was a centre table, and behind
this table was Black Madge.
Before her on the table were various sheets of letter paper, which she
had turned from a pad one after another as she made notes upon them, and
in her hand she held a pencil which ever and anon flew rapidly over the
paper while she recorded such information concerning those who were
present with her as she cared to remember.
They had been present in that room for upward of an hour, and during
that time Madge had questioned each one of the eight who faced her
concerning the statements they had made, and which she had noted.
Now she leaned back in her chair, and, holding one of the sheets of
paper in her hand, she said:
"Stand up, Scar-faced Johnny, and answer the questions I shall ask you."
One of them, a short, stocky, red-headed, brutalized being, who was
almost as broad as he was long, leaped to his feet, thrust his hands
deeply into his pockets, and with his chin stuck forward aggressively,
waited.
"You hate Nick Carter, do you, Johnny?" Madge asked.
"I hate him like poison."
"And you would kill him if you could?"
"I'd cut his throat in half a minute if I was sure of not being caught."
"Tell me again why you hate him so."
"Ain't he sent me twice to prison? Once for four years and once for
three. And the last time he done it didn't he hand me a welt alongside
of the jaw that I'll never forget? A man can't hit me like that and have
me love him afterward. You just show me the way to do it, Black Madge,
and I'll lay him out cold--so cold that he'll never get over it again.
All I want is a chance."
"All right," said Madge, "take your seat.
"Now, Slippery Al, you stand up. What's your line of graft, Slippery?"
Slippery, who was tall, and sallow, and lean, and unkempt, and who
looked consumptive and otherwise unwholesome, grinned sheepishly, as he
replied:
"I reckon my name ought to answer that question. I slips in and I slips
out where I can and when I can, and picks up anything that's lying
around."
Madge laughed scornfully.
"You don't look as if you had sense enough to hate anybody or anything,"
she said.
"Oh, I hate Nick Carter, right enough," was the unhesitating reply.
"Why do you hate him?"
"Because he sent my father and my mother and my two brothers to prison,
and they're all there now, and they weren't doing a thing that
interfered with him in any way."
"What were they doing?" asked Madge.
"Well, if you want to know it straight, Black Madge, they was running a
little counterfeit plant of their own--making dimes and quarters and a