A Woman at Bay; Or, A Fiend in Skirts
"I want to know if Hobo Harry is going to send for them?"
"Didn't you hear her say so?" was the rejoinder; and then, when Nick
laughed softly, Handsome turned on him with fury, and would have seized
him had he not suddenly recalled the fact that his own strength was no
match for that of the man beside him.
But his anger disappeared as quickly as it came, and he joined in the
laugh.
"I gave it away that time, didn't I?" he said. "You were too cute for
me, Dago. But it is dangerous knowledge, Dago. I'll tell you that."
"You didn't give it away," replied Nick. "Any fool would have known that
the woman was Hobo Harry."
"Then there are a lot of fools in the outfit. You're wrong, Dago. Lots
of 'em don't suspect it. They think only that she is Hobo Harry's wife,
or sister, or sweetheart, or something like that. There isn't half a
dozen of us who really know for certain that Black Madge is Hobo Harry.
And there! I've let the cat out of the bag again. But you're all right.
It won't do no harm to tell you."
"Not a mite," replied Nick; but he chuckled noiselessly all the same.
That last admission made by Handsome was worth hearing.
"Black Madge, eh?" he was thinking to himself. "Now I know why it was
that there was something so strikingly familiar about the woman. Black
Madge, eh? Well, well, who would have supposed that?"
For Black Madge was a character well known in the criminal world, and to
the police, although very little was known about her really. There was a
picture in the Rogues' Gallery in New York that purported to be of her;
but Nick knew now that it was not.
Nevertheless, he remembered that once upon a time he had seen Black
Madge, who was the daughter of a Frenchwoman by an Italian father; Black
Madge, who had already made an unenviable record for herself on both
sides of the ocean.
It was a long time before that when Nick Carter saw her. She was only a
grown-up child at that time, but she was already a hardened criminal,
nevertheless; and he recalled now the circumstance of his meeting with
her.
It was in Paris. He had gone to the prefecture of police to see the
chief of the secret service, who was awaiting him, and had found the
girl in the room with the chief, who was engaged in questioning her
closely in reference to a crime that had been committed, and because it
was thought that she knew the parties concerned. But she had given no
information, and had been allowed to go; and after her departure the
chief had said to Nick:
"Monsieur Carter, some day that young woman will appear on your side of
the water. I hope you thought to take a good look at her face."
"I did," replied the detective.
"Remember it, for some day you will have cause to do so, I do not doubt.
She is a terror, and she has brains. The worst kind of a criminal. She
should have been a man, for she has a man's daring, a man's
recklessness, and a man's way of doing things. Black Madge, we call her
here."
Nick recalled all that conversation now, plunged into a reverie about it
by Handsome's use of the name. All the time he had been in the room with
her in that house in the swamp, he had felt that he ought to remember
where he had seen those eyes before. Now, he counted the years that had
passed since he saw her, and, to his astonishment, they were five.
"She was seventeen then, the chief told me," he thought, "that would
make her twenty-two by now."
And then it came back to him how strangely she had looked at him while
he was leaving her presence, and he wondered if her recollection for
faces was as good or even better than his own.
"But," he argued, "it could not be possible that she would remember me
from that one short glance she must have had of me at that time. And,
besides, I was not disguised at all, and now I look no more like myself
than--well, than she does."
"What the devil are you so silent about?" demanded Handsome. They had
reached the fence at the railroad track, and Handsome was leaning
against it.
"I was trying to figure out in my mind what sort of a lay we are on
to-night," replied Nick. "I'm not used to starting out without knowing
where I am going. I feel like a horse--with you for a driver."
"Well"--Handsome laughed--"I won't use the whip unless you get
skittish."
"What are we waiting here for?"
"We are waiting for our chauffeur with the automobile," grinned
Handsome. "Nice road for an auto, isn't it?--bumping over those ties."
"Hark!" said Nick.
"I'm harking, my gun."
"It does sound like an automobile, sure enough," said Nick.
"Didn't I tell you that we are waiting for one. Come on."
He leaped the fence, and Nick followed him over; then they climbed the
grade, and paused beside the track.
And then, while they stood there, and the droning sound peculiar to
automobiles came momentarily nearer and nearer, the detective began
thoroughly to realize for the fist time that something really serious
was afoot for the night.
But he was not long left in doubt as to the character of the approaching
vehicle, for in a moment more it swept around a curve in the railroad,
and came to a stop immediately in front of them.
And, strangely enough, it was an automobile arrangement, only that it
was equipped with car wheels instead of with rubber tires; wheels that
had flanges to fit the tracks. But it was provided with a gasoline
engine, and Nick knew from the appearance of the apparatus that it was
capable of great speed.
When it came to a stop Nick saw that it already contained two men, one
of whom was driving; but he got down from the seat under the steering
wheel, and climbed into the rear of the machine, while Handsome took his
place.
"New man; Dago for a handle," said Handsome briefly, by way of
introducing Nick to the others. What their names might be he evidently
did not deem it important to mention.
"Try-out?" asked one of the men, while Nick was climbing into the box of
the machine.
Handsome nodded curtly--and that was all that was said at the moment.
It was significant, however, to Nick, for it meant a lot. It meant that
these other men entirely comprehended the situation, and that all three
of them were prepared to shoot him in the back at any moment when his
conduct of the business in hand did not entirely satisfy them.
But Nick was resolved not to be shot in the back that night. Whatever
the business might prove to be upon which they were engaged, he was
resolved to see it through to a finish, even to the extent of helping
them burglarize a bank, if that was the lay.
"To do a great right, do a little wrong," he muttered to himself.
Whatever might be stolen or whatever damage might be done that night, he
would charge up in his expenses, and see to it that the railroad people
made it good later on, when his work should be done.
In the meantime the railroad automobile had been gathering speed, and
now it seemed to Nick to be little less than wonderful that it remained
on the tracks at all, for if he was any judge of speed, he knew that
they must be flying along at much more than a mile a minute--and he
wondered what would happen if the headlight of a locomotive should loom
suddenly before them--and then, just as the thought occurred to him,
they rounded a short curve, and came to a sudden stop.
CHAPTER VI.
NICK CARTER ROBS A BANK.
The instant the strange machine was brought to a stop--and it was done
wonderfully soon, considering the speed at which they had been
traveling--the three men leaped to the ground beside the track, and Nick
was ordered to follow them.
He did so, and then he was told to bear a hand; and, following
directions that were given him, he seized hold of the boxlike tonneau.
Almost in a twinkling of time after that the machine was lifted from the
track in sections, and finally, still in sections, was carried to a
highway near at hand, where it was put together again, minus the iron
wheels. But there were other wheels concealed in that commodious body,
and these were quickly taken out and adjusted.
Within twenty minutes of the time when they came to a stop on the track,
after rounding the curve, the machine was fitted with regular automobile
wheels, and was ready to proceed along the highway.
Nick saw in this arrangement much that had puzzled other men who had
been on the job. He had no doubt from what he knew of automobiles that
this machine was capable of sixty miles an hour, or even more than
that, on the highway; and, if that was true, it, of course, could make a
half greater speed than that on rails.
But he made no comment. That was not expected of him, and would have
been resented had he attempted to do so; but he climbed to his place
when he was told, and again they sped away toward some destination, the
nature of which he did not know.
Once he ventured to ask the man nearest him what time it was, and
received a curt "Shut up!" by way of reply; so he remained silent after
that.
And after a while--less than half an hour--they drove into a village,
and presently ran the machine around behind a church, where it was
placed in one of the stalls of a shed.
And still his three companions worked in utter silence. Beyond now and
then a curt word uttered by Handsome, who seemed to be in command of the
expedition, nothing at all was said.
Nevertheless, each man there seemed to know exactly what to do; as if
every move they made had been nicely planned out for them--and such Nick
believed to be the case.
When the machine was stored away, the men fell into line, Nick being
shoved into position directly behind Handsome, and then, in Indian file,
they moved silently forward toward a high fence that was near at hand.
They went over this one by one, Handsome waiting with patience until the
last one was over, and then the march was taken up again.
They passed now through the rear of a large yard, and before them loomed
a brick building, which Nick figured must be a courthouse; and after a
moment they made a half circuit around, and came to a stop between two
buildings of brick, one of them being that one already mentioned.
The night was dark now, for the moon had gone down, and there were no
street lamps in that village evidently; or, if there were, they were not
burned on nights when there was supposed to be a moon.
But there was light enough for Nick to discover that they were close to
the main street of the village; he could see the store windows on the
opposite side; and it suddenly came to him that the building that was
next to them--the second one--was a bank, and that they were about to
rob it.
He knew now what was expected of him; and again he determined to see the
thing through to the end.
It was not to prevent one robbery that he was engaged; but to prevent
many. It was not to apprehend the participants in a minor job like this
one promised to be, but to capture the head that directed many such
robberies, and so stop them altogether.
And still no word--not even a whisper--was spoken between the men. They
worked on in utter silence, as if their plans had been thoroughly
conned until they were learned absolutely by heart.
Nor did they pause in the yard next to the bank. There was scarcely a
halt there; but they passed to the rear of the building, and followed
one another over the high fence that was there, to the rear of the bank
building.
Keeping themselves well in the shadows, they crept forward silently to a
rear door of the building, and here Handsome paused for a moment, and
put down a canvas bag that he had been carrying all the way; and now he
whispered in Nick's ear:
"There are the tools, Dago. Let's see what kind of a cracksman you are."
Nick did not need a second bidding. Having determined upon his course,