Chapter XVII: Dangerous Eyes

Nick Carter was astounded when he arrived at his own home to find that Madge Babbington was there awaiting him.

It was Joseph who told him of the fact as he entered the house, and so, casting aside his hat he went at once to the reception room.

He paused just inside the door, and with a curt nod, recognized her.

“To what reason am I to ascribe your presence in my house, madam?” he asked coldly, and he remained near the door to indicate that the interview must be brief.

“I have come here to ask you if it is your purpose to continue to persecute me,” she replied, rising and facing him with just a trace of defiance in her expression and manner, although she did not forget to use her wonderful eyes upon the detective, with all the resourceful power within her.

Mixed with the defiance that was in them was also a wistful, pleading expression, and she permitted the suggestion of a tear to moisten the lashes of each of them while her beautiful face was pathetic as well as pleading.

But Nick Carter “was on to her curves,” as the saying is, and her attitude had no effect upon him other than to convince him more strongly than ever that he must constantly be on his guard against this siren. He replied:

“Persecute you, madam?”

“That is the expression I made use of.”

“I was not aware that I had done so. I can assure you that my utmost wish concerning you is that I may never see you or hear your name mentioned again.”

“You still believe me guilty, Mr. Carter?”

“I have never for one moment doubted your guilt,” he replied.

“And yet I am innocent; as innocent as you are, Nick Carter.”

The detective shrugged his shoulders.

“Am I to understand that you will not persecute me in the future?” she demanded.

“I have never persecuted any person in my life, Mrs. Babbington. I do not pretend to understand your persistence upon that word.”

“I mean this: If I remain in this city, and undertake to live my life out here, will I be constantly under espionage by you and your agents? Am I to be left to go my own way, without molestation, or am I to be hounded, watched, imposed upon, spied upon, and----”

“Enough, madam. It makes no sort of difference to me where you stay or what you do, so long as you remain outside the law--and, incidentally, outside this house. I think the present interview has lasted quite long enough, Mrs. Babbington.”

“Which is another form of requesting me to go, Mr. Carter?” she asked, with a smile on her lips, although her eyes flamed dangerously as she put the question.

“Yes,” he replied, without comment.

She stepped toward the door, and he drew to one side to permit her to pass him.

At the door she stopped, and with her hand upon the knob turned to face him again, although his back was half turned toward her. And she laughed softly, showing her white and beautiful teeth, and permitting the lids of her eyes to droop until the yellow-brown irises glowed through the shading lashes like two living coals of fire.

“I have been charged with murder, Mr. Carter,” she said. “I have been tried by a jury of twelve men, and they have found me guiltless. Is there anything now that you can do to me?”

“No--unless you commit, or aid in the commission of another murder, madam.”

“If I should do that,” she replied slowly, evidently weighing and measuring her words as she uttered them, “it will scarcely be you who will hunt me down for it, for you----” she stopped, still smiling, her eyes still burning.

The detective shrugged.

“You mean to suggest that if you should commit such another crime, I would be the victim of it, I suppose?” he said coolly.

“Did I say that?” she exclaimed, laughing aloud this time. “How you do persist in misunderstanding me. Really.”

“Madam, the door is behind you; your hand is upon the knob.”

“I will make use of both, presently, thank you; but I have something more to say to you before I do so.”

“Well?”

“You have advertised widely and largely--you and a lawyer named Benjamin Oaks--for information concerning a certain young man, Carleton Lynne by name. Suppose that I could supply you with the address of that person, Mr. Carter? Would the information be worth a substantial recompense?”

“Any information obtained from you would be worse than useless, madam,” he replied.

“And yet----” She paused, and when he made no remark, she continued: “Carleton Lynne is, or was a few months ago, in Hailey, Idaho. You are welcome to that much information.”

“A gentleman who announces himself as Carleton Lynne is at this moment in consultation with Mr. Oaks,” the detective replied coldly; and he caught a sudden and unmistakable gleam from the eyes of Madge Babbington as he made the announcement.

He was impressed instantly for some reason that he could not have named at the time, that this was precisely the information she had come there to obtain; but he did not regret having given it since it opened up a new train of thought, and suggested unheard-of possibilities and probabilities. But all she said was:

“Indeed? Is it so?”

“Quite so, madam.”

She left her place at the door then, and took one step nearer to the detective.

“How old a man is he?” she asked softly; and the detective, perceiving what was behind the question, shrugged his shoulders and replied, not without a trace of satirical amusement in his manner:

“The man I saw, and who claims to be the heir of J. Cephas Lynne is young--perhaps about your own age. He is also handsome, judged from the feminine standpoint. Whether he is impressionable or not, I leave to you to determine, if you ever have the opportunity.”

“Thank you,” she replied, with a quiet smile, and the flame in her eyes had disappeared. “I need not tell you that I shall seek the opportunity, I suppose?”

“No; I had anticipated that. I was quite prepared for such an attempt on your part, without the assurance of it from your lips. You have not abandoned your desire to possess yourself of the Lynne millions?”

“I never abandon a course upon which I have once embarked,” she replied. “And that brings me to the point which I came here to determine.”

The detective did not reply. She continued:

“I suppose you will consider it your duty to warn him against me, Mr. Carter?”

“If I find that he is really the man he says he is, and that you have sought him and made his acquaintance, I most certainly shall do so, madam.”

“I have not sought his acquaintance--because I have not had the opportunity,” she retorted.

“But you will lose no opportunity to make his acquaintance.”

“No; I shall not. I will even seek him--and--take warning from what I shall say to you now, Nick Carter.”

The detective inclined his head mockingly. She continued:

“And when I have sought him and found him and have made his acquaintance, I will put to the test the influence which you and Benjamin Oaks may exert over him, as against that which I shall win in spite of all that you can do, in spite of the hateful reputation you and the district attorney have given me, in spite of all the cruel things that have been printed about me.” And then she took still another step nearer to him, and added, in a low tone that was almost a whisper: “In spite of heaven and hell.”

Nick Carter was startled by the intensity of the woman, although he did not permit her to see that he was.

She was smiling again now as she withdrew once more to the door and reached for the knob as if she was to take her departure at last.

“You understand me?” she demanded, rather than asked.

“I understand your words and your motives; not your methods, Mrs. Babbington.”

“Well, I will give you a full and fair warning.”

“You need not unless it is your pleasure to do so.”

“You say that Carleton Lynne, the heir, is here; that the man I supposed to be in Idaho is even now at the office of the lawyer who represents the Lynne estate, establishing his identity. I had supposed that he was still in the West, for long ago I took pains to inform myself concerning him. I intended to tell you that much, and to induce you to bring him here. That he is here already, is pleasant news to me.”

“I don’t see where the warning comes in, madam,” said Nick, interrupting.

She bent toward the detective without moving from her position at the door.

“When I left the courtroom to-day,” she said, in a low, even tone, which nevertheless conveyed a certain menace with every word she uttered, “you and the district attorney were discussing me. I know it, although I did not hear a word that passed between you.”

“Well?”

“You were commenting upon the manner in which I had influenced every member of that jury of twelve men. And you were right; I did influence them, one by one, until I knew, before they left the box, what their verdict would be. I took them one by one; I won them over to me, one by one, until I had the entire twelve. I knew it.”

“You are wasting my time and yours, madam.”

“You and the district attorney also discussed my eyes. Doubtless you called them the eyes of a tigress. Oh, you need not be surprised that I say so; it is not the first time the comparison has been applied to them.”

“Probably not.”

“You were correct in making the simile, too, Nick Carter, but the comparison goes deeper than my eyes; it applies to my inmost soul.”

“Ah; we are coming to the warning, now.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Well?”

“All my life I have been able to make men love me--or believe that they did so. All my life I have been able to fascinate them, and that, too, without any loss of my self-respect. Even you, who hate and abhor me just now, I could, if there were the opportunity----”

“Spare me that, Mrs. Babbington.”

“But I warn you that I shall find this man who is the heir; I warn you that I shall bend every energy I possess to bring him under the spell which I can exert; I warn you that I shall marry him, become his wife, possess his millions after he has succeeded to their ownership, and that you, Nick Carter, with all the influence you can exert will be no more than a grain of dust on a steel rail before a locomotive.”

She stopped and looked at the detective, flaming her remarkable eyes upon him again, so that he partly understood what the district attorney had meant when he had said that he dodged the eyes of the caged tigers at the Zoo.

“You understand me now?” she said softly.

He did not answer her, and with a mocking smile which ended in a low but menacing laugh that was barely audible, she turned and passed quickly from the room.