A Woman at Bay: or, A Fiend in Skirts

She shrugged her shoulders, and again leaned back in her chair, but at the same time drawing it a little nearer to the table.

"As you please," she said. "I don't care to precipitate matters and break up the party here unless you force me to do so – at least, not just yet."

"Madge," said Nick, "you think that you have me in your power. You believe that by shouting out my name I would be killed. That is doubtless quite true, but before that killing was accomplished I should have done a little execution on my own account, and Chick, who is here beside me, is quite ready to do his part. As for Curly, he is an innocent party in this affair, so we won't consider him at all, although you must admit that he would have to take the consequences of bringing me here, which would be far from pleasant."

She nodded, and smiled at him fiercely, and then she replied:

"Go on. You were about to tell me that in the sleeve of that arm, which is extended toward me over the table, you hold a weapon with which you could kill me before I could give the alarm a second time. Very well I know it, but all the same I am not afraid of it, Nick Carter, any more than I am afraid of you, and you know that I have never been that."

"I know," said Nick.

"Go on, then," she repeated. "What do you want to talk about? Since you wish to talk things over calmly, what did, you come here for, anyhow?"

"I came," said Nick, "believing that you were in the city, and knowing that I would find you here if you were, I came because I was determined to find out where you were, and to put a stop to your career."

She started savagely, but Nick held up his hand and hushed her.

"I am not going to make any arrests in this place, Madge. I am not going to interfere with Mike Grinnel's business, or with his reputation for affording security to his patrons. If every person in this room was my friend instead of my enemy, you, Madge, would be as free to depart in peace when you get ready to do so as you would have been had I not come here."

"That all sounds very fine," she said, "if only I cared to believe it."

"Believe it or not, as you please, it is the truth."

"And what did you come here for?"

"I have told you that already. I came to find you."

"And, having found me, to let me go away in peace?"

"I have said that also, I believe."

"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 identity. 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 identity 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."

"Hello, Curly," she said, turning her head lazily toward him, "it isn't necessary for you to butt in on this affair."

"I am going to butt 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 anticipated, 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 circumstances 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 Cummings, 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, glasses, 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 assistance.

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 crashing glass 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 space 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 passing 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 pass 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.

The door was not tall enough for a man to pass through standing in an upright position, and it was considerably narrower than an ordinary door; but all the same, to Nick's idea, it offered a safe and secure retreat for the moment, if he could but succeed in reaching it.

What was beyond it, he did not know. But it was enough for him, that, if he could get past it before the lights were turned on again, he at least would be out of that crowded room, and have time to catch his breath, and determine what it was best to do.

He regarded Chick as entirely competent to take care of himself.

Therefore, the instant that he seized upon Madge, and stopped her screaming by clapping his hand over her mouth, he pulled himself to his feet, and, holding her struggling form firmly, he carried her safely across the space which intervened between him and the end of the bar – a space which he knew would be practically clear of impedimenta at the moment.

Nick figured that Grinnel, having turned off the lights, would stand silently with his hand upon the switch ready to turn them on again in an instant.

If he could only succeed in carrying Madge behind that bar and through the door already described before the lights were turned on, much would be accomplished.

The detective reached the end of the bar in safety, and, feeling the back of it with his body, glided around behind it to the spot where he knew the small door to be located, and then, releasing his left hand from the woman he carried long enough to reach for the latch of the door, he pulled it open, passed through, and closed it behind him.

With the hand that was still free he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, and, before Madge could escape him, he snapped them upon her wrists behind her back and dropped her to the floor, at the same time pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and tying it firmly – much too firmly for her comfort – around her jaws.

His next act was to produce his flash light and turn it upon the door, where, to his delight, he discovered that it was only necessary to drop a heavy iron bar into place to secure it; and this bar passed entirely across the door, and rested in iron slots at either side of it.

He also noticed in that instant that the door was an extremely heavy one, and that the partition through which it opened was a substantial one. Without doubt, the room had been prepared by Mike Grinnel himself with great care as the means of a safe and sure retreat for him in the event of a raid upon his place.

The detective discovered, also, that there was a gas jet in the room, and he turned this on, and lit the gas at once.

Madge was in the meantime using every effort in her power to pull the handkerchief from her face, so that she could cry for help, but now with light sufficient to see what he was about, the detective lost no time in securing her so firmly that she was entirely helpless.

To her baleful glances of utter hatred, he paid not the slightest attention, but he began at once to examine the room with great care, knowing well that there should be another means of entrance to and egress from it than the one he made use of. For Mike Grinnel, skilled as he was in the habits of the people he dealt with, would never have built for himself a den from which there was no escape after once he had entered it. Although there was no sign of a second door to be seen anywhere, Nick did not despair of finding one, and he began his search by first pulling out a sideboard which stood against the wall, and looking behind it.

He next had recourse to a couch, under which he searched for a trapdoor, but found none; and then his attention was attracted to an iron safe, not quite so high as his head, which stood in one corner of the room.

An iron safe is not a thing which is easily moved from its position, but Nick seized upon it, nevertheless; nor was he surprised when he found that it was so perfectly balanced on the wheels that supported it that it moved readily enough in response to his efforts.

And behind it was the door he sought. It was not over three feet high, and thirty inches in width, but there was a latch upon it, mortised into the wood, and there was a hole in the door, through which was passed a small steel chain that was attached to a rung fastened to the iron safe. This, of course, was intended to use for pulling the safe back into position after the door had been made use of, and the fugitive, whoever he might be, had made his escape.

Nick pulled open the door, thus making it ready for his use, and then quickly returned to Black Madge's side. He raised her in his arms, carried her to the little door, and, having unceremoniously thrust her headfirst through it, crawled after her, closed the door, and pulled the safe into place again with the aid of the chain.

He found himself now in a narrow corridor, faced by rough bricks on either side of him, evidently constructed between the party walls of the two buildings, and ten feet in front of him he perceived a flight of steps leading downward.

Again picking Madge up in his arms, he hurried down the narrow stairs to the bottom, and there came upon an iron door, fastened with a spring lock on the inside, which he therefore easily opened.

Passing through this, and closing it behind him, so that the lock snapped again, he found himself in the cellar beneath the building that adjoined the one in which Mike Grinnel's dive was located. Across the cellar, and at the far end of it, was a flight of wooden stairs.

Nick regretted at that moment that he did not remember what sort of a place was located next to Grinnel's, but he realized the imperative necessity of getting out of the building into the street as quickly as possible, no matter how he accomplished it, and therefore, when he carried his captive up those stairs to the top of them, and found there only an ordinary wooden door locked against him, he lost no time in kicking it open, and passing through.

When he did so, and when he came out in the room above, it happened that the battery of his own light gave out, and before he could determine his surroundings he was in utter darkness.

This lasted, however, only a moment, and he was in the act of hastening forward toward the front of the house, when, with startling suddenness, the whole place flashed into brilliant illumination, and he found himself standing at one end of what looked like a Chinese laundry, while directly in front of him, and not many feet distant, was Mike Grinnel and three of the men from his place, confronting him, with drawn revolvers in their hands.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE MAN IN THE BED

The detective knew in that instant that he could no longer hope to save his prisoner; that is, to escape with her, and that the chances were about a thousand to one against his own escape.

That Mike Grinnel was thoroughly incensed, and that he was determined that the detective should never get out of that place alive, was apparent in the cold glitter of his eyes, as he looked at Nick across the barrel of his revolver.

And Nick knew how Grinnel had succeeded in heading him off. He could see in his mind just what the surprise was in the saloon when the lights were again turned on and it was discovered that one of the strangers who had come there with Curly had disappeared, and had taken Black Madge with him.

Grinnel, knew, of course, that there was only one way out of that place, which was through the private door back of the bar into the little room which he used as an office, and thence through that other door behind the safe, through the narrow corridor, down the stairs into the cellar, and then up again into the back end of the Chinese laundry.

And Grinnel had lost no time in summoning to his aid three of his most trusted adherents, and hastening with them to the laundry, where he was ready to head off the detective's retreat.

It had not been difficult for them to get there and be ready for him before he could reach the place with his burden; for he had used up a great deal of time in searching out the secret door behind the safe, and in finding his way through the cellar.

And, moreover, Mike Grinnel was a man of expedient. Having arranged this method of escape for himself, if the necessity of it should arise, he had also prepared the laundry with lights to turn on or to extinguish as he might desire; and, therefore, having reached the laundry and prepared himself and his followers for the coming of the detective, they had only to wait silently in the darkness until they heard him approaching, when Mike switched on the lights.

It was a moment fraught with peril, and with unnumbered possibilities. At such times there is always an instant of inaction; an instant when neither party concerned knows quite what to do.

But the detective, as it happened – with the possible exception of Mike Grinnel himself – was the first to recover.

The detective was carrying Madge in his arms; and now, at the risk of injuring her, realizing that it was the only way by which any possibility of escape could be offered to himself, he raised her over his head at the very instant that the turning on of the lights revealed his enemies, and threw her with all his strength at Mike Grinnel's burly figure.

Of course, not one of the crooks dared to use his weapon, lest Black Madge herself be shot, and it was upon this idea that the detective acted as much as any other.

Nor did it occur to Mike Grinnel that this other, whom he had seemed to have now guessed must be Nick Carter, would resort to any such measure as he had, and, therefore, he was not prepared.

The body of Madge, flying the short distance across the room, struck Grinnel squarely on the chest, and thus forced him backward against two of the men who were with him; and so in that instant four people all together were huddled in a heap upon the floor, and only one of Nick's visible enemies remained standing.

And the instant that Nick threw Madge at them, he leaped forward and seized the switch, which was almost at Grinnel's shoulder, where he had been standing; and, with a twist of his wrist, he turned off the lights as suddenly as they had been turned on.

At the same instant he had taken into consideration the position of the one man of the enemy who was left erect, and no sooner had he turned the switch than he leaped forward toward the spot where he knew that man to be standing.

Nicely calculating the distance, he struck out a savage blow with his right hand, and he heard this last one of his enemies go down in a heap upon the floor.

And then the detective leaped over him toward the door which he had seen during that brief interval of illumination, passed through it, and pushed it shut behind him.

He knew now that he was in the front room of the laundry. He knew that there should be tables and benches there, and it was only the work of an instant for him to reach out and feel around until he seized upon one, and then, exerting his great strength, he pulled it over in front of and against the door he had closed.

A faint light shone into that room from the street, and Nick instantly leaped for the front door of the shop, reaching it only to find that it had been locked when the others entered.

But the door was of glass, and, hesitating not an instant, he seized a chair and hurled it into the street, thus making a hole through which he had no difficulty in passing.

The next instant he was outside, and for the moment, at least, safe. But the detective knew that he was by no means free from pursuit as yet, although he had no intention of fleeing very far; and, as he was about to turn away, he remembered that he had left Chick inside the saloon surrounded by rascals of every kind.

It was not in the nature of Nick Carter to desert any one under such circumstances, much less his favorite, Chick.

While he hesitated, he heard a noise behind him in the laundry that was made by Grinnel and his three followers, attempting to escape from the predicament into which he had thrown them.