A Woman at Bay Part 43

"Nick Carter," she exclaimed, laughing scornfully, "you are not a good liar."

"I never lie," replied Nick.

"Well," she said, "I will speak my little piece, now that you are through. You are here, and there are two locked doors between you and the street, and there are between twenty and thirty men in this room now who would rather be killed than let you escape if they knew you were here. I might as well confess to you that eight of those men belong to me. That is, they obey my orders. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

"I think," replied Nick quietly, and smiling back at her, "that, with your permission, I will order another round of drinks."

She pushed back her chair petulantly from the table, and half started to rise from it, but Nick Carter's voice, low, but sharp, halted her.

"Stop, Madge," he said; "keep your seat. This thing has gone too far for either of us to attempt to fool the other. You might as well understand that if there is to be any row precipitated, I will do the precipitating."

She blazed her eyes at him for an instant, and then parted her lips with the evident intention of shouting out his ident.i.ty. And, while he did not move to prevent her from doing so, the steady gaze of his eyes somehow overcame her, and she closed them again without making a sound.

"That is better, Madge," he said. "This is a case of diamond cut diamond, only for the moment my diamond is a little harder and sharper than your own. Take my advice, and sit where you are."

Curly and Chick had both been absorbed spectators and listeners to this little scene between the detective and Black Madge.

Chick had, of course, made himself ready at any instant to act, no matter what sort of action might be required.

But Curly was distinctly in a quandary. He knew that it was no fault of Nick's that the discovery had been made, and he also knew that if she was forced to keep silent the ident.i.ty of Nick Carter would not be discovered by the others present.

If the thing should come to a row, every instinct of Curly's life and profession would force him to take the side of the underworld as against Nick Carter, and his impulse would be that way, too. But his strongest desire at that moment was to prevent an exposure at any cost. It was for this reason that he now intervened.

"Madge," he said, "listen to me for a minute."

"h.e.l.lo, Curly," she said, turning her head lazily toward him, "it isn't necessary for you to b.u.t.t in on this affair."

"I am going to b.u.t.t in, Madge, just the same. Now, listen to me."

"Go on, then."

"You know where I stand, Madge, and there ain't no reason why I should explain how all this came about; or, if you think there is, there ain't going to be any explanation offered anyhow, but the point about it is this: It wouldn't be healthy for you, nor for any of us, if you should yell out a certain name in this present community, and I want to tell you right now that I won't stand for your doing it. It's up to you to keep still, Madge, and mind your own business, for while I should be with the boys as against Nick Carter to the bitter end, if it actually came to a fight, at the same time I'd blame you for the fight, and although you're a woman you would be the first one I'd look for out of this bunch. Now, I've spoken my piece, and you can go on with yours."

This was a development which Madge had not antic.i.p.ated, but Curly had spoken so plainly to the point, and his premises were so well taken and so logical from his standpoint, that she could offer no objection.

If she could have left the table for a moment; if she could have had time to think, or if she could have secured an opportunity to exchange half a dozen sentences with any one of the members of her Band of Hatred, it would have been different, and she might have planned for the overthrow of the detective.

As it was, the circ.u.mstances had arrived at such a condition that leaving her chair would be equivalent--so far as her companions were concerned--to the calling out of Nick Carter's name.

Madge knew Curly John, and she knew him for a man who never made idle threats. His reputation among his fellows was that he spoke very rarely, and said very little when he did speak, but that what he said was always to the point, and that he always meant what he uttered.

And so she saw the tables rather turned upon herself. Instead of Nick Carter being in her power, she was temporarily in his.

The situation had its ludicrous side. Each was in a sense the prisoner of the other, for, while Nick Carter could not hope to escape from that room unless she gave him permission to leave it, she could not rise from the chair upon which she was seated without risking death unless he permitted it.

If only she could have conveyed the shortest kind of a message to Mike Grinnel, or have signaled some word to Slippery, or to Surly Bob, or Gentleman Jim, or Fly c.u.mmings, or Cuthbert, or Maxwell, or The Parson, all of whom were in that room at the time, everything would have been so easy for her.

But she could not leave her chair; neither could she signal to any of these.

Nick Carter's eye was upon her; his arm was extended across the table, and she knew the potency of that arm, as well as something about the strength and fund of resource of the detective.

But the situation was unbearable. She felt that she could not endure it, and that in some manner it would have to be brought to a close, and at once.

And so she leaned still further back in her chair, gradually tilting it until it rested poised upon the two rear legs.

And then, with a sudden motion, and at the same instant uttering a scream, which rang shrilly through the room, she threw herself directly backward, at the same time kicking up her feet and so striking them fiercely against the under side of the table.

The weight of her body and the force with which she struck the table instantly overturned it, bottles, gla.s.ses, and all, so that it crashed to the floor in utter confusion.

And at the same instant every one in that room leaped to their feet and reached for their weapons.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FLIGHT THROUGH THE CELLAR.

The action of Black Madge was so sudden and so unlooked for that it came as an entire surprise, even to Nick Carter, and the act which overturned the table, coming as it did from a position directly opposite his own, sent the table full upon him, and spilled the contents that had rested upon it into his lap.

More than that, in spite of his effort to resist the force of the attack, his chair was overturned backward, and he found himself the next instant sprawling upon the floor.

But even if he was for an instant put out of business by the incident, there were other things connected with it which worked to his a.s.sistance.

Always in a resort of this kind, where there is ever the least likelihood of police interference, there are many arrangements prepared for instantly turning off the lights, and it is the first impulse of every person who finds himself in such a place to "dowse the glim"

instantly upon the raising of a disturbance, if it is possible to do so.

Again, when there is the sudden noise of cras.h.i.+ng gla.s.s and the appearance of confusion in such a place at such a time, it never can be determined at once what the cause of it is, and, as discretion is always the better part of valor, and certainly is counted so among the denizens of the underworld, there were at least a dozen men in that room at the time who leaped for the switch to turn off the lights the instant that Madge upset the table.

Mike Grinnel himself happened to be standing where one of the switches was within reach of his hand, and so it happened that before Nick Carter's chair could reach the floor the place was in total darkness.

Nick was not unaccustomed to experiences of this kind. It was by no means the first time that he had been present in a resort like this one when the lights had been turned off, and it is safe to say that he never in his life entered a room where such a thing was likely to occur without studying his surroundings carefully the moment he was inside, and determining then and there what course he would pursue if such an event should occur.

Consequently, although Madge's action came as an utter surprise to him, he was nevertheless prepared for it. And so was Chick.

When the detective found himself falling, and knew that his chair must topple over, the thought instantly came to him that Chick would escape the greater part of the confusion resulting from it--and he knew that he could rely upon Chick's activity and resource as thoroughly as upon his own.

Nick managed to seize the edge of the table with his hands while falling, and exerting the great strength of his arms to the utmost, he literally picked it from the floor and hurled it over his head, while he was practically lying on his back.

Then, kicking the chair from under him, and half rolling over--realizing in that instant that Madge could not possibly get upon her own feet as quickly as he could on his--he leaped to his knees, and threw himself forward across the now empty s.p.a.ce which the table had occupied, and so managed to seize the skirt of Black Madge's dress.

One jerk of his strong arms pulled her toward him, and the next instant he had seized her, and by pa.s.sing one arm around her neck clapped his hand over her mouth, thus preventing her from calling out.

Although she struggled fiercely, clawing with her hands, and kicking with her heels, and attempting vainly to scream, the confusion in the room was so great that no one was conscious of what she was doing, save Nick Carter himself, who held her.

And Nick knew that behind the bar, almost midway in its length, there was a small door, which connected with some sort of an apartment back of it. What that apartment was, he did not know, other than that he had seen Grinnel pa.s.s out and return through that small door twice since he entered the place; and he concluded that it must be sort of a retiring room, possibly a private office of the proprietor.