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Man Without a Conscience

<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. CLOSE QUARTERS.</h2> “It’s not for me to say what you’ll do or not do, since you now appear to hold the ribbons. It’s up to you, Badger, and not for me to say.” The above came from Nick Carter several hours after the tragic episode enacted in the woodland road. Bound hand and foot, with his head rudely bandaged, Nick sat propped against one of four stone walls, evidently those of a small cellar, or possibly a wine-vault, with but one heavy door through which the place was accessible. Only the bare earth was under him, damp and cold,[148] while a small pool of stagnant water in one corner of the place evinced the depressed location of the ground. Two empty beer-kegs stood on end near-by. On one of them a lantern was burning, the rays from which shed only a dismal light over the more dismal scene. On the other keg sat Amos Badger, with his hands on his knees, his lowering gaze fixed upon the helpless detective, and his dark features wearing a look of mingled satisfaction and sinister scorn. It was then well into the evening, and Nick Carter had with some difficulty been doctored back to consciousness, and to a keen realization of his aching head and a most unenviable situation. The restoration had been accomplished by Conley, who was somewhat of a veterinary physician, and it was no sooner done than Badger hastened to interview his captive, an interview only just begun when Nick made the remark which opens this chapter. “Up to me, is it?” returned Badger, with stern complacency. “Up to me to say what shall be done with you?” “I cannot see that anything I say would be of weight,” said Nick coolly. “That’s right—it wouldn’t!” [149] “Not at present.” “No, nor later!” sneered Badger sharply. “You’ve had your last say, Carter, now that we have you in our clutches.” “A very rascally game you played to accomplish it!” “When you go hunting rascals, Carter, you must expect to be turned down by their own methods, if at all.” “That’s right, too, and I was imprudent in not being ready for you.” “You were up against more craft and cunning than you bargained for.” “I don’t need to be informed of it,” retorted Nick, now wondering when, how, and for what reason they had planned the trick. For he knew the assault must have been planned previous to his talk with Vic Clayton that afternoon, or it could not have been so quickly executed, nor the trap itself so definitely arranged. “One fact is now very obvious, however,” he presently added, hoping to lead Badger into some inadvertent disclosure. “What fact?” growled Badger, frowning at him. “Some person informed you of the request I designed to make the Clayton woman.” “Think so?” [150] “Or informed her.” “You’re getting wise fast.” “Otherwise, Badger, you couldn’t have planned the job among you,” continued Nick. “Perhaps not.” “I can come pretty near guessing who it was, too, since Chief Weston is the only man I informed of my intention.” “Most likely he sent a messenger out here and warned us,” sneered Badger, with a grin. “Not he,” retorted Nick. “But there’s a red-headed sketch and outline of a man in his office, Badger, whom I’ll come pretty near rounding up along with the rest of you, when I get out of this hole.” “There will be no immediate rounding up, Carter, since it depends upon you alone,” replied Badger, with a searching stare at Nick’s face. “Ah, then you were also told that I’m alone on the case,” said Nick, willing enough to have him think so. “Aren’t you alone on it?” “If I’m not, Badger, you’ll hear from others soon enough.” “There are no others.” “All right.” “And you are now helpless.” [151] “Not quite.” “As good as down and out.” “But I’m still in the ring,” insisted Nick. “You’re in hands from which you’ll never escape alive, I give you my word on that,” cried Badger, with menacing austerity. “Your word, Badger, is a poor voucher.” “You now know far too much about us for us to let you escape and disclose it,” added the latter decisively. “I now want to know of just what your knowledge consists, and what action you have taken against us.” Nick laughed a bit derisively. “I guess, Badger, you’ll have to take it out in wanting,” said he. “You’ll not inform me?” “Not by a long chalk.” “I shall find a way to compel you.” “Possibly,” said Nick. “But you’ll have a long hunt before you find the way.” “You’ll let me alone to find that,” cried Badger, with confident asperity. “I can devise tortures so acute that even you will reveal what you have done toward——” His rascally threat was interrupted at that point by the sound of approaching steps from beyond the partly closed door. In a moment it was thrown open, and[152] Jerry Conley, followed by Vic Clayton and Badger’s wife, entered the dismal place. That the two women were as low-bred and disreputable as had been reported to Nick appeared in their utter disregard of his wretched condition, and the malicious satisfaction with which they stared at him, as they might have stared at a caged beast which they had had occasion to fear. “You’ve got him back to earth, have you?” asked Claudia, with a glance at Badger’s grim face. “Jerry just came and told us, so we thought we’d have a look at him.” Vic Clayton, however, came and bent above Nick, peering down at his stern features, now white from loss of blood; while her own evil eyes, with the mocking smile that curled her cruel lips, plainly evinced her despicable and malignant nature. “Well, you’ve got as many lives as a cat, haven’t you?” she demanded, in taunting tones. Nick returned her evil stare with hardly a change of countenance, yet there was in his lifted eyes an ominous, fiery gleam, from which those who knew him best had learned to shrink with fear. “I shall live long enough to repay with interest the[153] blows you dealt me, and to land you where you belong?” he sternly rejoined. “You will, eh?” sneered Vic, with a derisive laugh. “Without the slightest doubt.” “Evidently you’ve forgotten what I predicted for you.” “The predictions of a charlatan are seldom fulfilled.” “Charlatan?” “And crook,” added Nick. “Don’t be saucy, Mr. Carter, not to a lady,” said the frowning jade. “You’ll meet with just what I predicted for you—failure.” “I’ll risk that.” “And you’re in a very fair way to it,” added Vic, with a sinister nod, as she terminated her malicious scrutiny and turned to Amos Badger. The latter had drawn aside with his wife and Conley, and the three stood talking in subdued tones, apparently with no interest in the recent amusement of their confederate. “Well, what do you say?” demanded Vic, as she approached them. “We’ve got him, all right. Now, what’s to be done with him?” “That’s what we are discussing,” growled Conley, who had much of the ruffian in him. “I say ’twas a mistake[154] not to have let him croak, if he’d have been accommodating enough to do so.” “Bah!” muttered Claudia. “Men with as hard heads as his don’t die so easily.” “To my way of thinking,” added Conley, “it’s safest for us to put out his light at once, and be done with it.” Badger, however, quickly shook his head. “Not yet,” said he grimly. “Not before to-morrow.” “But why the delay?” protested Conley. “I cannot see anything in that.” “Then I’ll tell you why.” “Well, out with it.” Nick pricked up his ears, yet he could catch only a word now and then louder than others. “To begin with,” argued Badger, “I’m not going to run my neck into a noose before I know just how we stand. We have no blood on our hands as yet, and before I take chances of that kind, Conley, I’m going to be dead sure that Carter has not reported his suspicions to Weston. What good will it do to put him out of the way, only to find that we have half a score of Boston detectives on our heels, to whom Carter’s discoveries have been imparted.” “But Sandy declares that Weston knows nothing about that,” whispered Vic. [155] “I hope he doesn’t, but I’m going to be sure of it before I wipe out Nick Carter,” said Badger. “How can you make sure?” growled Conley. “We shall know by to-morrow at this time.” “How so?” “Because we shall have others after us, Jerry, just as soon as the discovery is made that Carter is missing,” reasoned Badger. “If none show up, we may then safely assume that Sandy Hyde is right, and that Carter has disclosed nothing definite. We shall then know that he’s the only one we need fear, and it will then be time enough to put him down and out.” “Well, there’s something in that,” Conley now muttered. “We know he cannot escape.” “H’m! I should say not.” “So there’s no need of haste, since we have him in our clutches,” added Badger. “Besides, there is another thing to be considered.” “What’s that?” “Carter may have some of his New York assistants here, for all we positively know to the contrary.” “Sandy says not,” interposed Vic. “He may not be absolutely sure,” Badger argued. “And until we are dead certain of it, which should be[156] by to-morrow at this time, I am resolved to take no chance of some day being tried for murder.” “That does have an ugly sound,” said Vic, with a dismal grimace. “And there’s an ugly penalty,” added her sister. “So that settles it, Jerry,” said Badger. “We’ll keep Carter right here till we know just what we’re up against.” “Well, that’s good enough for me if ’tis for you,” said Conley indifferently. “Are you sure his bonds are secure?” “If he loosens any of those knots, Amos, I’ll eat the ropes,” was the confident rejoinder. “To-morrow we’ll take steps to make him open his mouth, and tell all he knows.” “What steps?” “I’ll find a way, let me alone for that.” “Meantime——” began Vic. “No more here,” interposed Badger. “It’s too infernally damp and cold. Go back to the house, you two women, and I’ll presently join you there. I’ll first make sure that things here are all safe.” “All right, Amos.” The two women withdrew from the vault, Nick following them with his gaze. [157] The two men remained, and both now proceeded to make doubly sure that the ropes binding Nick’s arms and limbs were securely knotted. Not a word was spoken. The work required less than a minute, and Badger then took up the lantern and signed for Conley to go out ahead. At the door of the vault, however, Badger turned back for a moment, to say, with vicious assurance: “If it is to be one of us who must go down and out, Carter, it will be you! Take my word for that!” For a moment Nick gazed sternly at him across the dismal place, then coldly retorted: “Since I have only your word for it, Badger, I feel perfectly safe!” Badger vented a half-smothered growl, then closed the heavy door with a resounding bang. Nick heard the shooting of bolts and the sound of a bar dropped into place. Then all was silence for a time—silence and darkness! <hr class="chap" /> [158] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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