A Woman at Bay Part 37

"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 few half dollars for some of us to blow in when we couldn't find the real rhino."

"Running a counterfeit plant, eh?"

"That's it, marm."

"And Nick Carter sent them all to prison, did he?"

"He did that."

"How does it happen that he didn't send you along with them?"

"Well, I managed to slip out just in time," said Slippery, with one of his sheepish grins; "but he sent a bullet after me when I was running away that singed the hair over my right ear, and taking it all in all I hate him about as much as anybody."

"Not enough to kill him if I should ask you to do it, do you?"

"Well, Madge, when it comes to killing, that ain't in my line; but if you want me to lead him on somehow where somebody else could do the job, I think I'd be about the covey that could do it."

"That'll do for you. Sit down, Slippery."

"What's your name?" she added to the man who was next him.