Chapter XXI: In the Corridor

The detective changed his mind about entering the box occupied by Carleton Lynne, for he had already heard enough to give him occupation for the ensuing day, and there was now nothing to be gained by an interview with either of the principals in the case.

Nick was desirous now of leaving the box into which he had intruded, even though the occupants of it were his friends; but he wished to leave it without attracting attention from the box adjoining.

He knew perfectly well that if either Lynne or Madge Babbington should chance to discover his presence so near to them, they would both realize that it was not chance that had taken him there.

They would be put on their guard again, particularly Madge, and there would be a longer interval than the one just passed before either of them would make another move to betray the secrets of the game they were playing.

Madge Babbington would be instantly on the alert if she were led to suspect that Nick Carter was so near to her at the very first interview--so the detective firmly believed--that she had had with Carleton Lynne.

After considering for a moment what was best to do, Nick turned, and managed to catch the eye of his friend, the owner of the box he was in, and he motioned for him to cross over, so that they could have a word alone together.

“Tom,” he said, in a whisper, “I want you to make my apologies to your wife and her guests, will you?”

“But you’ll stop and see them, and say hello, won’t you, after this act?” Stanton replied. “I know that Tillie will be greatly disappointed if you do not.”

“I’d like to, Tom, but you see I am here to-night on business. I found your box rather by accident, and took the liberty of dropping in to rest and to listen, as I told you; but now I must get busy again.”

“Well, later, then?”

“I’ll try to return, if I can; but I won’t promise. Now, be a good chap, and tell me that you’ll make my apologies, and I’ll slip out of the box without their knowing anything about it.”

Nick had drawn his friend to the rear of the box while they were whispering together, and they were standing so he could not see into the box adjoining; and so he was not aware of the fact that Mrs. Hurd-Babbington had stepped quietly out of it, and was, even at that instant, in the corridor at the rear of the tier.

With a nod and a smile at Stanton, the detective stepped quickly from the box, and--came face to face with the very woman whom he desired the least to see at that particular time and place.

She was standing there, too, precisely as if she were awaiting him; as if she had expected his coming, having known all the time that he was in the box next to her.

Well, the fat was in the fire, he argued to himself the instant he saw her, and so he governed his actions accordingly; that is, he merely inclined his head in token of recognition, and made as if to pass on without taking any further notice of her. In short, he acted precisely as he would have done had he not been watching her--had the encounter been purely an accidental one.

But Madge Babbington had no wish to permit him to pass in that manner, and whether she had been waiting for him or not could not be told from her manner. He knew that she was almost as perfect a master of her impulses and of the expression of her face as he was of his own.

She stepped directly in front of him, and so barred the way, and, with a flash of her strange eyes into his and a smile upon her lips that might have had its effect upon any man but Nick Carter, she said:

“We meet again, Mr. Carter. Quite by accident, I suppose?”

“Quite, madam.” And it was true so far as he was concerned, at least, in reference to the present encounter behind the tier of boxes.

“Are you sure that you are not here to watch me, Mr. Carter?” she asked, but without a suggestion of offense in her tone, even though she might have believed such to be the real condition.

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled back at her. He was on safe ground in what he was about to say.

“Madam,” he said, “you may assume whatever pleases you best in that regard, but the truth is that to-night is the first time in ten days that I have seen your face, or heard the sound of your voice.”

She lifted her chin, looked boldly into the detective’s eyes, and laughed softly.

“That counts for nothing,” she said. “I know you too well to take that statement for what you wished me to understand by it. You have a fashion of seeing with other eyes than your own, and of hearing with other ears than your own. The fact that you have neither seen nor heard me does not mean that you do not know of every move I have made, and have not been told of every word I have uttered during those ten days.”

“I perceive, madam, that you understand something about the detective business,” he replied, and attempted to pass on; but again she barred the way.

“I suppose you saw me in the Lynne box, from some other part of the house--no?” she said, tentatively.

“No, madam, I did not see you in the Lynne box from any other part of the house,” he replied.

“Then you were told that I was there.”

“I was not told that you were there, Mrs. Babbington. May I ask if you have occupied it all the evening?”

She looked into his eyes mockingly; then she laughed softly again, as if to herself, and about something that amused her greatly.

“No,” she said, replying directly to his question; “I have not occupied it all the evening. I am with some friends from the West who are farther along the tier. They--er--are long-time acquaintances of Mr. Lynne, and when we discovered that he was here, and alone, I induced them to send for him. He came, and we were presented. I thought, perhaps, you would be interested to hear about it.”

“So,” he said, “this marks the beginning of your campaign, does it?”

“Of my campaign?” she asked, raising her brows, as if she did not understand.

“The beginning of the effort to carry out the threat you made,” he added.

“A threat I made? To you, Mr. Carter? Surely, you are mistaken,” she smiled back at him.

“At least, you took it upon yourself on the occasion of our last interview, to give me what you were pleased to call a warning,” he said.

“Did I? A warning? Was I so foolish and childish as that? How absurd!” This time she uttered a little rippling laugh which was not unmistakable.

“How soon may we expect to receive cards, madam?” he asked her derisively.

“Cards, Mr. Carter? For the wedding that I prognosticated? Really, I couldn’t say, you know. The gentleman and I have only just met, you see. But, really, I feel that I have already made an impression. He has promised to drink tea with me at my home to-morrow at three.”

This statement, given voluntarily on her part, was a decided disappointment to the detective. He would have preferred it otherwise--that she had not told him, for he had made up his mind that he would find a way to enter her house and to be present at that interview, and now it was plainly impossible to do so.

“Does she know that I was listening in the adjoining box, and that I overheard the making of the appointment?” he thought to himself. Aloud, he asked her:

“Were you returning to that other box, alone?”

“No; I am going back into this one. My friend is there. Will you come inside?”

“Thank you, no.”

“You have other business, then, than watching me?”

“I am never without much to do, madam.”

“Mr. Lynne seems to be a charming man,” she said irrelevantly.

“Quite so.”

“And his millions--how many are there, Mr. Carter?”

“You should know better than I. You have estimated them more than once, have you not?”

“Ah, yes, many times. There are a dozen, at least. Fancy!” Then, with a slight inclination of her head, and a quickly spoken “Good night, Mr. Carter,” she turned away from him and disappeared inside the Lynne box.

For a moment the detective remained where he was, thinking over what had happened, and endeavoring to account for it as best he could, and then he walked slowly away, going directly to the street.

He looked at his watch as he passed outside, and it told him that the hour was half-past ten o’clock--and then an idea occurred to him which, because of the very boldness and strangeness of it, he determined on the impulse to carry out at once.

He glanced at his watch again, to make sure of the time, and saw that it was ten-thirty-two.

“They will not leave the opera house for another three-quarters of an hour, at least,” was the thought that went through his mind. “After that they will all go to Sherry’s, or Delmonico’s, or Louis Martin’s, for supper. Good! It will be one or two o’clock before she can return to her apartment. I’ll do it.”

The layman who reads these words will regard the thing that he so impulsively decided to do as unprecedented--and even a harsher term may be applied to it.

But, if there are those who would criticize the detective for what he had decided to do, and did do, remember that Nick Carter was certain of the real guilt of the woman in the matter of the murder of Edythe Lynne, and remember, also, that he was thoroughly convinced in his own mind that the man who was now in possession of the Lynne millions was an impostor.

Nick Carter was never one to quibble about trivial things, or to hesitate to perform an act because others might criticize it, if he regarded it as his duty.

And in this matter of the inheritance of the vast property left by J. Cephas Lynne he believed he had a bounden duty to perform.

He could never forget the moment when he had discovered the dead body of the beautiful heiress, at Pleasantglades.

She had been ruthlessly and wantonly cut off in the very prime of her young womanhood, in order that a scoundrelly cousin of her father’s, and this unsexed woman back there in the opera house, now smiling and talking and laughing, might possess themselves of the fortune.

Ever since the hour when he had followed the tracks in the snow between the great gateposts at Pleasantglades, and so had unearthed the crime that had been committed there, he had promised himself in his own silent way that those who had done that deed, and who had planned it and been instrumental in it, should never profit by reason of it.

There had been a time when he believed that he could convict Madge Babbington, as well as Thomas Lynne, who had actually done the murder; but that time was passed, and just now, if something heroic were not done to prevent, the woman would yet win all that she had desired in the beginning.

And so, Nick Carter, in that moment, decided that he would visit and search the apartment of Madge Babbington before she could return to it from the opera house.

That was what he had decided to do.