Chapter XXXVII: The Spider’s Parlor

For a short space let us look upon another scene.

Ordinarily we stay with the detective or his assistants from the beginning to the end of the Nick Carter histories, detailing the events just as he discovered them and experienced them; but occasionally, for the best interests of a story, and in order that the one who reads may comprehend it the more clearly, we are compelled to look ahead into things which came to the detective’s knowledge later on.

This is one of the occasions.

That same evening when Nick and Chick and Patsy were together in the study engaged in the discussion we have just read--and which we bid the reader to bear in mind--Carleton Lynne reclined in an easy-chair with a pillow behind his head and a hassock beneath his feet.

He was smoking a cigar, and was gazing amusedly, half smilingly, upon the beautiful face of Madge Babbington, who was seated upon a low wicker rocker only a few feet away from him.

They very nearly faced each other; they could have touched hands easily had they reached out to do so; and there was a taboret between them which bore an ash tray, a box of cigars partly emptied, a receptacle for matches, a book that Lynne had been reading before Madge came into the room, a tiny pair of scissors, and some skeins of silk with which Madge was plying the embroidery work that she was engaged upon.

It was in reality quite a domestic scene.

The room was large; it was exquisitely appointed; there was a suggestion of voluptuousness and ease everywhere, and there was the evidence of artistic effort on every hand.

It was, in fact, a room on a house boat, and the house boat was at anchor at a place where the wind and waves seldom troubled it; where only the tides brought motion to it, at intervals.

“It is three days now since you took me away from my home in the city,” Lynne was saying. “May I venture to inquire, madam, how long a time it is your purpose to keep me a prisoner here?”

She raised her eyes from the embroidery and smiled at him; but she saw that he gazed into them quite calmly, and with no suggestion of emotion. Plainly she had affected him but little thus far.

“Have you been made uncomfortable?” she asked, in reply.

“No; quite the contrary. You have done everything for my comfort. I cannot deny that.”

“Don’t you think that the fresh air here will be beneficial to you?”

“Without doubt; but one would prefer to have it without coercion, eh?”

“You are not coerced, Mr. Lynne.”

“I am detained here against my will.”

“Would you leave here to-night if you could do so?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Does my company, my presence here with you, mean nothing to you?”

“It means much to me, madam, since I must remain here. But why must I? What is the real object of all this?”

“You have not guessed?”

“I have made only the one guess that was my first impression--that it was another form of demanding the two million dollars that Red Mike sought to get out of me not so very long ago.”

She bent toward him and smiled into his eyes again.

“No mention has been made to you of such a subject, I believe?”

“No. I have been waiting for it.”

“You believe, then, that I will make the demand?”

“Yes, Mrs. Babbington.”

She laughed softly, and resumed the plying of the needle.

“Two millions would not satisfy me, Mr. Lynne,” she murmured, as if addressing the work she held in her hands.

“No?” he said, and laughed also. “You want it all, I suppose.”

“All--or none; but even all of it would not satisfy me--now.”

“Indeed. You amaze me. How, then, do you expect to be satisfied?”

For a moment she looked upon him between half-closed lids, permitting her marvelously speaking eyes to blaze at him and to suggest the words she did not utter; then she cast them down again upon her work and replied:

“The time has not arrived yet to--to tell you that.”

He laughed again.

“I cannot even pretend to misunderstand you, Mrs. Babbington,” he said.

She made no reply. He continued:

“I am a blunt, plain-spoken man. I believe in calling things by their right names, and in fighting the devil with fire, madam. Am I to understand that you have brought me to this house boat in order that you might possess all my fortune--and me, too?”

“Do you want the truth?” she demanded, looking squarely at him this time, and with no softness and no coquetry in her glance.

“Assuredly.”

“Then--just that.”

He drew a mouthful of smoke from the cigar and expelled it in a steady stream toward the ceiling. When that was done, he smiled somewhat quizzically.

“At least we are playing now with the cards face up on the table,” he commented.

“Precisely. I assume that to be the only way to play a game with you, Mr. Lynne.”

“You are rather correct as to that, madam.”

“How does the idea impress you, Mr. Lynne?”

“Rather disagreeably, as I see it.”

“Am I so objectionable?”

“Under the circumstances, Mrs. Babbington, you are.”

“You are at least frankly spoken.”

“I told you I was a blunt man.”

“I suppose you have been told many things about me; have been warned against this precise situation, have you not?”

“Yes. Repeatedly.”

“Well?”

“I have no comment to make, madam.”

“Not even one of resentment, or disgust, or anger?”

“No.”

“Day before yesterday--your first day here, Mr. Lynne--when you were suffering from the effects of the journey and the chloroform that we were obliged to use, the pressure of my hand upon your head seemed to comfort you.”

“A cloth dipped in cool water would have comforted me also,” he replied, and a flash of anger glowed in her eyes for an instant.

“A little later,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “you fell asleep holding one of my hands, while the other one rested upon your aching head.”

“Yes, I was a bit flighty, I think. There was a time, then, when I imagined----” he stopped. She raised her head quickly.

“You imagined--what?”

“No matter.”

“But it does matter.”

“I am sorry.”

She bent toward him again, and looked steadily into his eyes.

“There is a woman--another woman--somewhere.”

“Pardon me, madam,” he replied coolly, “there is only one woman, anywhere.”

She resumed her embroidery, and began to rock her chair a little. There was a long silence after that, which she was the one to break.

“Who is she?” Madge demanded.

“I have already told you that, madam; the one woman.”

“Where is she?”

He did not reply. She abandoned the question, knowing that he would not reply to it.

“Is she beautiful?” she demanded.

“Very.”

“As beautiful as I am?”

“More beautiful.” Lynne replied without an instant of hesitation; without regard to the effect of such a reply upon her.

Evidently it had none, or very little.

“In what way?” she asked.

“In every way.”

“You are neither complimentary nor diplomatic,” she said.

“I have no use for either form of speech,” he replied.

“Is she young--younger than I am?”

“She is one of the kind that will always be young.”

“That is no answer.”

“It is the only one I care to make.”

“You love her?”

“Devotedly.”

“You--you are not--not married?” she exclaimed, for a moment startled.

“No.”

She hitched her chair forward, nearer to him.

“Put down your cigar,” she said to him. “It is nearly consumed, and you may begin another one presently.”

He obeyed her. She reached out and drew the taboret aside, and then brought her chair up close beside his, so that she could reach out and take one of his hands--which she did; and he made no effort to resist.

“You like the touch of my hands,” she said. It was not a question; it was an assertion.

“Certainly, madam. A man is less than a man who does not appreciate contact with a beautiful woman; and you are that, without question.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, I did not offer you a compliment. The fact is self-evident.”

She left her chair, putting down her embroidery, which had been in her lap, and went around behind his. Then she leaned upon the back of it, and put her hands on his head, then moved them down slowly until they covered his eyes, and closed them.

“You like that?” she asked.

“Yes, it is pleasant; very.”

She bent down nearer to him until her breath fanned the top of his head.

“Are you trying to hypnotize me?” he asked.

“No; I am trying to make you appreciate me. Do you think you will do so?”

“Perhaps. Who can say?”

She bent still nearer to him, and pressed her lips against his forehead. He made no sign that he was aware of what she had done.

She held her lips there, and at that moment a door behind her opened and Red Mike strode into the room.