The Second Nick Carter MEGAPACK®, page 7
“Yes, certainly; also that we got away with his watch and money.”
“Why tell her all that?”
“So she may know just how to handle him,” declared Claudia, with knit brows. “Vic is clever, all right, but she may queer us in some way when pitted against Nick Carter’s cleverness, unless she knows just what his game is, and what has happened out here.”
“I’ll go and talk with her at once,” said Badger, now rising.
“A good idea,” said Conley approvingly. “Let Vic alone to queer any game that he may have.”
“Stop a moment, Amos,” cried his wife, with an afterthought.
“Well?”
“If Carter has formed any suspicion of us, as you appear to fear, he may start in at once with some of his underhand work.”
“What do you mean?”
“He may not tell Vic who he is.”
“Possibly not.”
“And he may lead her into some self-betrayal, in case he questions her closely while she is ignorant of his identity.”
“What the deuce can we do to prevent that?” demanded Badger, with a frown.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Claudia, who plainly possessed many of the crafty qualities of her sister.
“Well, out with it.”
“First, Amos, describe him to her so she cannot mistake him, and then—”
“Hold on a bit,” interrupted Conley, who was an interested listener. “He may take it into his head to go there in disguise, since that’s a clever trick of his.”
“That’s just what I was coming to, Jerry, if you had let me finish,” snapped Mrs. Badger. “We can easily head off any disguise he may adopt.”
“How so?”
“Merely by telling Vic that he wears a red carbuncle ring on the third finger of his left hand,” said Claudia. “He’ll not think it necessary to remove that, Amos, even if he does put on a disguise.”
“By Jove! that’s so.”
“Go, now, and tell her the whole business.”
Badger hastened into the hall, where he was presently heard imparting in cautious terms, yet which he evidently knew would be readily understood, the information concerning Nick which had so puzzled him.
It was because of what she now was told over the wire that Madame Victoria glanced first at Nick’s left hand when he entered her rooms, and at once recognized him in the disguise of Sibley.
At the time of his second visit, moreover, when he presented his own card, the fortune-teller at once noticed that he had removed the ring, and that alone was enough to convince her that he was beginning to play a double game, and that he must have formed some suspicions regarding herself and the Badgers.
After Nick’s first departure she telephoned Badger that he had been there, and the latter then held a second consultation with his wife and Conley.
Being ignorant of Nick’s primary object in visiting Madame Victoria in disguise, which was merely to test her peculiar powers, Badger’s apprehensions naturally were increased.
“He’s wise to something, and already up to some game against us, or he wouldn’t have gone there in disguise,” he gravely reasoned. “I’m ruined, utterly ruined, unless we can continue this road work a few weeks longer. I shall be swamped completely unless I can thus raise the funds to tide me along until there’s a rise in the stock-market.”
“We’ll keep up the road-work, Amos, never you fear,” his wife curtly declared, with an evil brightness in her expressive eyes. “It was I who suggested it to you, and I have done my part to help you along with it.”
“That’s true enough.”
“And we’ll not quit it now, Amos, Carter or no Carter.”
“That we’ll not,” growled Conley, with a headshake. “There’s too much good stuff in it for us to have it queered at this stage by this man Carter. If it comes to the worst, Amos, a knife between his ribs will put him out of our way.”
“That is more easily said than done.”
“Not if it comes to that kind of a play.”
“I don’t fear Weston and his second-rate detectives,” added Badger moodily; “but this man Carter is superior to that entire bunch.”
“Bah!” cried Claudia. “You are needlessly alarmed. To begin with, Amos, he cannot possibly have learned anything definite about us as quickly as this.”
“Possibly not.”
“He could not have identified us as the couple who held him up and robbed him this morning, and he certainly must think that was only a chance job, not one planned by us the moment we heard he was coming out here in a runabout.”
“No, he could not have guessed that,” admitted Badger.
“Furthermore,” argued his wife, “my face was entirely covered with my dust-glasses and the false beard, and in my big auto coat it certainly could not have been suspected that I was a woman who suddenly showed up in the Peerless in which you escaped after robbing him.”
“Sure it couldn’t,” put in Conley. “I’d have sworn you were a man myself.”
“Oh, I don’t think he has any idea of the truth about that,” replied Badger.
“There is still another thing in our favor,” continued Claudia.
“What is that?”
“The alleged robbery of Vic and myself, Amos, and the photograph which Vic took by which to convince Weston of the truth of our story.”
“That was one of the shrewdest moves ever made,” declared Conley, laughing.
“Certainly it was, Jerry, and you may let Vic alone to think of such schemes as that,” said Mrs. Badger, with an evil display of sisterly pride.
“She’s a keen one, all right,” grinned Conley.
“The picture is as good as a positive proof that we were robbed,” added Claudia; “and Weston never for a moment has doubted our story. The very fact, if it were a fact, that we were robbed, moreover, plainly shows that we cannot have been both the thieves and the victims, also. That would be absurd, you see, and as long as Carter credits the photograph, just so long we may be sure that he does not suspect us of being crooks.”
“That is an ugly word to apply to us, Claudia,” growled Badger disapprovingly.
“One might as well call things by their right names,” laughed his wife. “I told you I was an adventuress, and a woman of nerve, Amos, when you wanted to marry me, and you knew just what you bargained for.”
“I’m finding no fault on that score.”
“You’d better not,” was the pointed rejoinder. “I fancy the life I now lead, this moving in good society, for it lays away over the stage, or riding bareback in the circus-ring, to which Vic and I were bred in old England.”
“What need to refer to those days?” muttered Badger, frowning darkly.
“Only that you may keep in mind the stuff I am made of,” replied his wife, with a shrug of her shoulders. “When you told me you were in hot water financially, Amos, it was I who suggested this scheme of road robbery to tide you along. In becoming your assistant, along with Jerry, here, my old life of adventure has served me well. I can ride the most vicious horse, and no auto can go too fast for me, Amos; so you couldn’t have a better helper, whether I wear skirts or trousers, in holding up an auto-party.”
“That’s true enough.”
“As for the wickedness of it—well, most of the world is wicked in one way or another,” laughed the woman. “We must contrive to get our living, Amos, in some way; and this life of danger and adventure just suits me, to say nothing of the profits derived. Just think!—last month we cleaned up close to twenty thousand, providing those Gaylord jewels bring as much as we expect.”
“Oh, there’s money enough in it, I’ll admit that,” nodded Badger.
“And with Vic to help us, with the aid of the friend she has so completely under her thumb, we are sure to be informed of any move contemplated by Weston or by Nick Carter. So your fears are groundless, Amos, as I said in the beginning.”
“It’s dead lucky, I’ll admit, that we have that anchor to the windward,” said Badger, with features now relaxing.
“So it is, Amos, and with him to inform us of— Hark! there goes the telephone-bell again. I’ll wager that Vic has something more to report.”
Claudia Badger was right in the last.
Madame Victoria now reported the second visit of Nick Carter, and all that had passed between them; also explained Nick’s simple object in first calling upon her in disguise, and stated that he came last only to ask about the woman in the photograph.
“I have him well muddled, Amos,” was Madame Victoria’s last declaration over the wire. “There is nothing to be feared from him at present.”
Badger’s dark countenance lighted while he listened, and he hastened to report the communication to his wife and Conley.
“There! what did I tell you?” cried Claudia triumphantly. “I knew that Vic would prove more than a match even for Nick Carter. Now, there is just one thing to be done in order to avert suspicion from us.”
“What is that?”
“These road robberies must continue to occur,” declared the woman. “If they suddenly end at this time, after Carter’s visit here, he very possibly may infer that we are alarmed, providing he has any suspicion at all concerning us. Another robbery committed this very night would clinch matters in our favor.”
“That’s right, too,” said Conley, quickly seeing the point.
It was done, moreover, and one of the boldest yet committed, and the reports of it filled the morning papers, along with no end of editorials decrying the inferior work of the police in being unable to prevent such depredations.
But the end was not yet, for that very day Chief Weston removed his own men from the case, and placed it entirely in charge of Nick Carter.
CHAPTER IX.
BODY AND LIMBS.
“Chick, I’m hit with an idea!”
This exclamation came from Nick Carter about ten o’clock one morning, two days after the highway robbery last reported, and the talk that followed showed with what remarkable insight this great detective arrived at the subtle deductions which contributed largely to his success.
Chick and Patsy had arrived in Boston two days before, and both were now present with Nick in his room at the Adams House.
Both had been fully informed of the facts thus far learned by him, moreover, as well as of his interview with the Badgers, and his visits to Madame Victoria.
When he uttered the above exclamation Nick was seated at one of the windows of his room.
In one hand he held the photograph that figured so curiously in the case, and which would have convinced any ordinary detective that Madame Victoria and Mrs. Amos Badger had been robbed precisely as alleged, for the camera, at least, would not have lied.
Yet this bit of convincing evidence was so out of the ordinary, as well as the circumstances under which it had been obtained, that Nick from the very first had been inclined to distrust the picture.
In his other hand he now held a large magnifying-glass, through which he was carefully studying the photograph, holding it in the full glare of the morning sunlight.
“What’s that, Nick?” inquired Chick, starting up from his chair and dropping a morning paper reporting the last robbery. “Hit with an idea, did you say?”
“Exactly.”
“What is it, Mr. Carter?” asked Patsy, at once displaying a lively interest. “Have you discovered something lame in that picture?”
Nick laughed.
“That about hits the nail on the head, Patsy,” said he, with a glance in the lad’s direction. “I think I begin to see a ray of light in the darkness.”
“What have you discovered?” asked Chick.
And both he and Patsy came to lean over the back of Nick’s chair.
Nick held the large glass and the photograph so that all three could plainly view the magnified picture.
“I’ll explain what I find, and I wonder that I have not noticed it before,” said he quite earnestly. “It relates to this tall woman who appears in the picture.”
“Gee! but she is a tall one,” remarked Patsy, with a laugh. “She’s tall enough to fit in a dime museum.”
“That’s right, Patsy,” assented Nick, smiling.
“What’s peculiar about it, Nick?”
“As you probably know, Chick, there is a general uniformity in the proportions of the human body—a regular length of arms and limbs when compared with the trunk. In all normal subjects the proportions are nearly the same.”
“Sure,” nodded Chick. “A man’s reach, from the tips of his extended arms and fingers, is usually the same as his height.”
“Correct.”
“But what has that to do with the picture, Mr. Carter?” asked Patsy.
“It has to do with this woman,” Nick rejoined, drawing out his pencil to be used for a pointer. “I want you to notice her extended arm and hand, the one in which she held the leveled revolver.”
“That’s plain enough, sir.”
“It’s good fortune that it is, Patsy,” nodded Nick. “It also is plain, now that I study it closely, that the arm is a little out of proportion with her exceeding height.”
“By Jove! it does appear so!” exclaimed Chick, bending nearer to view the pictured figure.
“Notice the distance from her shoulder to her hand, then the distance from her shoulder to her hip, which is plainly outlined by this curve of her long auto coat. Her hip is here, Chick, where I have the point of my pencil.”
“Exactly.”
“Notice, now, that her extended hand, if it were to be dropped to her side, would reach only to this point, measuring the same distance, a point only a trifle below her hip.”
“That’s clear,” cried Chick. “Yet the camera may—”
“The camera never lies,” interposed Nick.
“Then the woman must be out of proportion,” declared Chick.
“Not necessarily.”
“But her arm should be longer than it appears there,” Chick insisted. “I’m well-proportioned, I’ll swear to that, and my hand, when lowered, reaches half-way down my thigh.”
“Which is about right, Chick.”
“Yet you say the woman is not out of proportion—”
“I said not necessarily,” interposed Nick. “If she was as tall as she appears in the picture, however, I’ll admit that her arm would be too short for her body.”
“Oho, I see!” exclaimed Patsy, starting up. “You think, Mr. Carter, that she is not as tall as the picture indicates.”
“That’s exactly it, Patsy,” nodded Nick.
“How do you make it out?” asked Chick.
“Notice this fold of her skirt, where the skirt shows below the edge of her auto coat?”
“Well, what of it?”
“Plainly enough, Chick, the fold does not hang quite naturally,” Nick went on to explain, still pointing with his pencil. “It appears drawn a little to one side and back of her, with the edge of the skirt carefully arranged to touch the ground, precisely as if to conceal something beneath it.”
“Something on which she was standing!” exclaimed Chick, quickly seeing the point.
“That’s just it,” declared Nick impressively. “No skirt ever hung quite like that, if it hung naturally.”
“Surely not.”
“Notice also the distance from her hip to the edge of the skirt, where her feet should be,” added Nick. “Her limbs would be as much above the regular proportions as her arm is below them.”
“I see what you mean.”
“In a nutshell, Chick, such an anomaly could not be,” continued Nick decisively. “A person with abnormally long legs and disproportionately short arms is out of the question.”
“And in your opinion—”
“In my opinion, Chick, the woman was standing on something, possibly a rock, with her skirts lengthened to conceal it. Obviously the whole was done to give her the appearance of being very tall.”
“And with what object?”
“With a design to thus blind the police to the real looks of the woman operating with this gang of crooks.”
“You think they aimed to send the police searching after some very tall woman?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll wager you are right.”
“Furthermore,” added Nick, “these discoveries conclusively prove that the picture was deliberately taken, with the several persons calmly posing to make it effective, and that the two women said to have been held up and robbed were not robbed at all.”
“And the design of the photograph?”
“It was taken purposely to be offered as evidence to corroborate the story told to the police.”
“With a view to averting suspicion and throwing them off the right track,” added Chick.
“Precisely.”
“By thunder, that was a crafty scheme!” declared Patsy, rather pleased with the originality of it.
“Yes, it was crafty enough,” assented Nick. “But the rascals overleaped their mount, Patsy, in not anticipating the deductions I have mentioned. All this sheds a new and very bright light upon the case,” the speaker added, as he tossed the photograph upon the table.
“I should say so,” nodded Chick, resuming his chair and lighting a cigar. “It indicates that those two women, who claim to have been robbed, may be in league with this gang of thieves.”
“Even more than that, Chick.”
“What more, Nick?”
“It suggests that Badger himself may be one of the gang, if not the chief figure in it, and that their headquarters may be at that isolated suburban place of his.”
“By Jove, that may be so!”
“Let’s look a little deeper, Chick, and see how far some of the other facts sustain this theory. I was held up when on my way out there Tuesday morning,” continued Nick. “That may have been merely a coincidence, the scamps possibly having been laying in wait for some victim, though there still remains a chance of something even more than that under the surface.”
“Decidedly so,” replied Chick. “Such things don’t often happen by chance.”
“We’ll investigate that a little later.”
“Sure.”
“After the hold-up, Chick, I hastened to Badger’s house, arriving there within ten minutes after the robbery,” Nick went on.
