CHAPTER XXI.

THE SIREN AT WORK.

“Madam,” said Nick Carter, “let us understand each other. I came here to trace out the career you have pursued, not because I expected to make you the victim of my researches, but because I believed that through you I would be able to prove the identity of Bare-Faced Jimmy Duryea. That is the reply to your request for me to tell you why I am in Paris. I will add this: My work here is already finished. I have found the information that I expected to find.” He looked at his watch. “In three hours from now I shall leave for London.”

They were seated opposite each other in the parlor of the suite she had taken on her arrival in the city, where he had accompanied her from the office of the chief.

Nick had placed no confidence whatever in her stated wish to reveal her life history to him, but he had thought that she might say or do something to betray herself, or to give him the cue he needed in following out his plans. So he had accepted her proposal that he should go with her.

She left her chair and crossed the door toward him. He arose as she did so and stood facing her.

He knew her to be a dangerous woman; he believed her to be a treacherous one; he had no doubt that just now she was a desperate one.

To what ends she might dare to venture in this interview with him he had no idea, but he was thoroughly on his guard. That she would dare to attempt violence of any sort was farthest from his thoughts, for they had gone there together with the full knowledge of the chief of police—and that they had been trailed from the office of the chief Nick did not for a moment doubt.

But he did expect that she would try her feminine wiles upon him.

He knew that to be her most effective weapon. He had heard enough to understand that she did not hesitate to make use of it when occasion demanded.

There are women in the world who have been gifted wondrously, and she was the personification of them all.

The word beautiful does not describe her. She was alluring. She drew men to her as a charged magnet draws particles of steel. Once amenable to her influence, they were apparently as powerless to resist her as those same bits of steel are helpless under that attraction.

She halted directly in front of him.

Her eyes, luminously bright, glowed upon him. He felt the thrill of them. He realized that there was something more than mere magnetism in that gaze, too. There was a quality about it that was hypnotic. He knew that at that moment she was exerting all the latent powers within her to bring him under the spell of her charms.

Nick Carter had anticipated something of this sort, and he was prepared for it.

He had suggested to the chief that there were occasions when it was well to play one’s cards face up on the table, and up to this point he had done that very thing. He had purposely thrust himself in this woman’s way in order that she might have all the opportunity she desired to exert her powers of fascination—for Nick Carter intended all along to appear to yield to them.

That was the game he had intended, from the moment her presence in Paris was known to him, to play. He meant to let her suppose that he was the same sort of weakling as the others had been, who were inimical to her interests.

In a word, _he meant to appear to become her willing victim_.

He realized that he had an extremely difficult part to play. He knew what her intelligence was and that she would be as shrewd as he in every move that she might make—unless her supreme confidence in her own powers, so many times successful with others, should lead her astray.

But egotism, too much self-confidence, is the rock upon which many a one has foundered. Nick Carter believed it to be the one which would be the undoing of this brilliant woman, who had so successfully defied the police departments of all of Europe, and, figuratively, snapped her fingers at them.

As she approached him across the floor he arose and faced her.

When she smiled into his eyes he compelled his own to glow with an answering fire.

When she reached out one hand toward him, in a half pathetic, half pleading gesture, he extended both his own and took it between them and held it there.

“Mr. Carter,” she said.

“Yes?” he replied.

“You will spare me, won’t you?”

“Spare you? From what?”

“From the consequences of the investigation you are making. See, I throw myself upon your mercy; I plead with you; I am pleading with you now.”

She held his eyes with her own. Her other hand reached forward and joined the first one resting upon both of his. They were standing in the middle of the room. They were very close together. Juno’s eyes were glowing strangely, and Nick, playing his part, wondered if, after all, he had not dared too much.

She was alluring. She was fascinating. She had the power of casting a spell, and already he was cognizant of the force of it.

Her eyes never left his face. He knew that she was exerting all the hypnotic power she possessed to subject him to her will.

He had no doubt that she had cultivated that power to the utmost for years, under competent teachers, until she had become a master in its use. The power of exerting hypnotic influence is an attainment which is the consequence of study and practice; it is not a gift. One may learn it just as one may learn to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a dentist.

Here, then, was the secret of what this woman had been able to accomplish in her defiance of authority and in her undoing of the men who had stood in her way in the past.

Her weapon had been hypnotism, and with it she had lured that Russian prince, that Duc de Luvois, that Austrian, and others to their death.

Slowly that free hand of hers stroked the backs of his.

Brightly, almost with a suggestion of living fire, her big eyes burned into his.

He felt a tightening at his throat. There was a sensation as if a rubber band wound tightly around his brows; but he controlled himself. He managed to fix his mind upon the object of his presence there, and he felt that he could resist her, even unto the end.

Her victims had not suspected this quality in her. They had been men who had thought that she was succumbing to them rather than they to her.

He forced his eyes to express all that she wished to show, or to give out that lack of expression which would assure her that she was succeeding.

All the while that they stood there, facing each other, with their hands clasped, she kept on murmuring to him in a low voice, but uttering words that would have been meaningless under any other circumstances.

It was the droning of her voice, the soft cadences of it, that tided in what she had undertaken to do. She was so accustomed to success, so entirely unfamiliar with failure, that she could not see that her effort was failing, and that Nick Carter was just as much the master of himself now as when he entered the parlor with her.

In the struggle that Nick had with himself when she first began to attempt the exertion of her power, beads of perspiration came out upon his brow. The effort with his own will brought to his face that strained expression which she had expected to see there as a result of her own influence.

Presently she drew him toward one of the large armchairs that were in the room. She forced him gently down upon it, standing before him, holding his eyes still, and now stroking his forehead with her velvety touch.

Nick knew then why other men had become her willing victims.

He realized the depth of the pitfall that had been spread out for them, and how entirely willing they had been to cast themselves into it.

He appeared to struggle against her power for a time, and then he permitted his eyes to close, as if he were indeed hypnotized—and then he heard a quick sigh of satisfaction escape her.

She drew away from him. He heard her cross the room, but he did not dare to peer at her between his lashes, lest she should be watching and see him do it.

He knew that she sank upon a chair, and rested there for a time, breathing heavily, as if the effort to which she had put herself had fatigued her greatly. After a time, when she seemed entirely to have recovered, she approached him again.

This time she spoke commandingly, as if she were ordering some menial to do her will.

“Nicholas Carter!” she said sharply. “Answer me!”

“Yes,” he replied dully.

“You are my slave, are you not? Answer.”

“Yes. I am your slave.”

“You will do my will, as I direct? Answer.”

“I will do your will—as you direct,” he replied.

“Hereafter, when I raise my hand—so—open your eyes that you may see me now—when I raise my hand, so, you will lose the power of resisting me. Answer.”

“Hereafter, when you raise your hand, so, I will lose the power of resisting you,” he repeated in a sing-song voice.

Again she walked away from him, crossing the room to one of the windows, and this time, as the detective’s eyes were open, he could watch her.

He saw her stand there for a time looking out upon the street, and he heard her murmur broken sentences to herself.

“To think that this man should also succumb to me! He seemed too strong, at first. I have overpowered him. When will it all end.” And more to that effect; then, with a deep sigh she turned about again and went to him.

“Nick Carter,” she said, standing in front of him.

“Yes?” he replied.

“I am about to awaken you now. You will forget that you have slept. You will remember, only, a belief that I shall give you now.”

“Yes.”

“You will believe that you have held me tightly in your arms; that my head has been pillowed upon your breast; that you have told me of your love for me; that I have confessed my love for you. You will implicitly believe all that, when you awaken.”

“Yes. I will believe all that.”

“And, when you are seemingly in your right mind, you will look your love for me; you will feel it, too, through all your being—but you will make no effort to demonstrate it. You will not so much as touch me with your hands. You will be the slave to my will. You will love me with all your strength, and you will believe that I return that love—poor fool. And now, awake! I command it! Awake, Nick Carter!”

But it was no part of Nick Carter’s policy to wake up just then. He believed there was more to be learned if Juno believed him to be in the hypnotic trance, and he realized that there would never be another opportunity like the present one for learning things that he wished to know about. So, instead of starting fully awake, as she had commanded him to do, he sprang up only half alive to things about him, seemingly; and he did the very thing which he knew would compel her to reduce him again, as she would suppose, to the hypnotic trance.

He seized her in his arms.

For just one instant of time she did not resist him. Then she jerked herself away, out of his grasp, and he made no effort to prevent her doing so. He sank backward upon his chair as if he were again fully under her influence.

He saw that for a moment she turned her back to him, and that she seemed to struggle with herself—and in that instant he recalled the brief interval of hesitation on her part when he had seized her in his arms. He thought no more of it then, although there was to come another time when he would remember it. But that is another story.

She turned toward him again, and between his eyelids he could see that she was very pale. She raised her hands and made passes over him, and he permitted himself to sink into a state which had every appearance of being a deep, hypnotic sleep.

Having reduced him, as she supposed, to that utterly unconscious and helpless state, she crossed again to the window and looked out. Nick watched her furtively, suddenly possessed with the idea that she was expecting somebody.

He saw her start, glance hurriedly toward him, then hasten from the room.

Nick remained quietly where he was, not making a move, and in a moment she was back again—but not alone. The identity of the man who accompanied her, notwithstanding the disguise he wore, was instantly apparent to the detective.

Jimmy Duryea—Bare-Faced Jimmy—stood just inside the door beside her; Jimmy, perfectly made up to represent a man long past middle age, and French, at that; but, Jimmy, nevertheless. Jimmy was looking down upon the detective with an ironical smile upon his lips, and a self-satisfied air that made the detective long to leap to his feet and seize the fellow.

“Look at him,” said Juno, indicating Nick. “I have done what you could not do; I captured Nick Carter. I have made him my slave. I could command him to start for the far North pole, and he would awake and start, nor would he turn back.”

“Then for goodness’ sake, Juno, command him to go and drown himself in the Seine,” was the quick reply. “The world will be well rid of him—and I will be able to live in peace. Could you do that, Juno?”

“I could.”

“And would he obey you?”

“He would.”

“Then do it. Do it, and we will go to Havre to-night and catch the French line steamer that steams away to-morrow. We will be in New York in six days. Do it. Do it. I have been sorry ever since I arrived that I came here at all. It is too close to old times. I’m not healthy, or healthful, here. I seem to feel a string around my neck, and to see a huge knife falling from above. I am going back, anyhow, whether you go or not, so do it, Juno; do it.”

For a moment she was silent. Then she replied:

“Go over there and stand near the window, then. Stand with your back this way. Help me, yourself, by saying over and over to yourself, ‘Obey! Obey! Obey! Obey!’ Will you do that, Jimmy?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

Jimmy crossed to the window, and Nick could see that she kept her eyes upon him as he did so. Nick dared to peep between his eyelids toward her, and he was amazed to see that she had tiptoed half the distance to the window behind Jimmy, and was making passes in the air toward the man she had married; not toward Nick Carter.

In his amazement the detective opened his eyes wider. He could see that Juno’s whole mental effort was at that moment concentrated upon Bare-Faced Jimmy, and he was utterly astounded by it.

But a greater astonishment followed when he saw Jimmy’s arms suddenly fall limply at his sides, after which the man turned slowly around on his heels and faced Juno, every vestige of expression gone from his face.

“Come nearer to me, Howard Drummond!” she commanded him; and he obeyed, drawing nearer to her, keeping his eyes riveted upon hers. Nick knew that she had accomplished this control of the man merely by having induced him to concentrate his mind upon one thing when she asked him to repeat over and over again the word, obey. But why had she done it? Nick was soon to know.

For a moment she sank back against a chair, half exhausted, but keeping her eyes upon Jimmy. Then Nick heard her muttering words to herself, and yet toward Jimmy. They were:

“You had the thought; fulfill it. You spoke of the Seine; go there. You talked of drowning; drown yourself.”

Suddenly she wheeled toward the detective, who managed to close his eyes again before she discovered that they had been unclosed.

“And you, Nick Carter,” she said, half fiercely, “go with him. Jump into the river with him. Seize him in your arms and hold him so that neither of you can unclasp from that embrace. Leap into the river together; drown together. Go, go, go, go! I will be well rid of both of you!”

Nick was so amazed by the turn that affairs had taken that he did not move, although Jimmy turned obediently toward the door. She cried out at him again, “Go, go, go!” and he pretended to obey.

He started to his feet and moved toward the door after Jimmy, who was already passing the threshold. Juno darted after Nick, seized him, held him for an instant, pulled his head partly around, and whispered another command into his ear.

“Jump into the river with him, but do not drown yourself,” she commanded in a whisper. “See to it that he dies beneath the water, but save yourself. Save yourself, Nick Carter, and then—return here to me. I have other work for you. Obey me.”

She thrust him through the now open doorway. She closed the door upon him. Jimmy, under her influence, was already halfway to the street. For a moment the detective hesitated. Then, realizing that she had ordered him to return there, he followed slowly after Jimmy, not doubting that he would find Juno when he did choose to return, and realizing that he must keep this other man from throwing himself into the river Seine.

The hour was late in the afternoon. Darkness was falling.

They passed up the street and Nick seized Jimmy by one arm and guided him around the first corner they came to—and there, as he had half suspected would be the case, he encountered the detective, Mouquin, who had taken Juno to the office of the chief. Mouquin had been sent after Nick to keep watch over him, for the chief of the secret police of Paris feared “The Leopard.”

“Mouquin,” said the detective sternly, “you know that I am temporarily in authority over you. Here is the badge of authority given to me by the chief. Here, also, is some money; sufficient for your needs. Now, listen to my orders, and obey them, literally.”

“At your service,” was the calm reply.

“This man here”—Nick had seized Jimmy by the arm and was holding him—“is under a hypnotic trance, or spell. He has been ordered to jump into the Seine, but you must lead him to the river Thames, instead; to London. All rivers will be the same to him, and that one will do as well as another. Speak soothingly to him; tell him that you are taking him to the Seine, and he will go with you quietly enough. Wait for me in London at Gray’s hotel, in Dover Street. I may be there as soon as you are.”

“Am I to put him into the river? Did you mean that?” asked Mouquin.

“No. Wait for me at Gray’s. Go, now. If you have to address the man by name, call him Jimmy. Can you pronounce it? Good. Go, now.”

Nick stood there and watched Mouquin and his charge until they were out of sight. After that—and there had been a lapse of a quarter of an hour—he hurried back again to the house and the room where he had parted with Juno.

But Juno was no longer there; instead, upon the centre table, where it instantly caught his eye, was a written message which she had left there for him. He could not repress a smile as he read it. It was——

“NICK CARTER: Immersion in the water will restore you to full consciousness. I have willed it so, only consciousness will not return soon enough for you to save the life of Howard Drummond, alias Bare-Faced Jimmy, and many other names. He will have drowned before you can save him. I have willed it so, and I am an expert pupil of the master who taught me. But I have spared your life; perhaps some day you may remember it and spare me. Possibly I have been foolish; I do not know as to that.

“I could not send you to your death. But what I could do, and did do, was to use you, and him, as a means for my own escape. This will afford me the only hour I have ever enjoyed in the city of Paris when I have been free from surveillance. I shall make use of the time to disappear, so that even the chief cannot find me. If you care to do me a favor, in return for what I have spared you, forget me, and do not seek me. You may make use of this letter wherever it will do you the most good.

“Tell that judge in New York, and others, that the real Ledger Dinwiddie died a natural death in a cottage called ‘The Willows,’ at Palmetto Peach, in Florida, and is buried in the churchyard of the village of Tyrone, under the name of John Brown; that the man who represented himself as Ledger Dinwiddie is really the James Duryea you claimed he was—Bare-Faced Jimmy, etc.; that I assisted in the plot by which Jimmy passed himself off as Dinwiddie; that sufficient proof of all this is buried in a cigar box behind the small headstone of that grave, where I placed it, secretly.

“I sign myself, for the sake of this message,

“JUNO DINWIDDIE.”

The detective caught the same boat from Calais to Dover that Mouquin had taken with his charge, and he rode up to London with them; but before leaving Paris he called again upon the chief of the secret police and showed him the letter that Juno had written.

“Let her go,” said the chief. “She will not remain in Paris, and what she does elsewhere I do not care. She was more considerate of you than she has been of others, Carter. Beware of her if you come in contact with her again.”

At Gray’s hotel, in London, Nick found Nan Nightingale awaiting him.

“You were right, Mr. Carter,” she told him, when they met. “The girl, Sarah, who was called Siren, did not die. I have proof of it here. She became a diplomatic spy, and has served many governments as such. Her reputation is not savory, but there is nothing said against her personal purity. Throughout Europe she is known by a name that was bestowed upon her by the French police—‘The Leopard.’ She is the Juno who married Jimmy; and Jimmy—you know who he is.”

“Yes. I know now,” was the reply.

Jimmy had, in fact, proven entirely practicable, and continued to do so as long as he was assured that he was being taken to the Seine. In that belief he took passage with Nick Carter for New York; arrived there in due time and was permitted to plunge head foremost into the swimming pool of a Turkish bath. He came out of it, presently, clothed in his right mind, with the spell of hypnotism gone from him, entirely.

If there was ever a madder man in the United States than Bare-Faced Jimmy, when he discovered all that had happened to him since that moment in the parlor with Juno when he was cast under the spell she imposed upon him, Nick Carter has never succeeded in finding him.

He was taken from that Turkish-bath plunge straight to the Tombs; and this time there was no difficulty in proving him to be the real Bare-Faced Jimmy, for in addition to the proof that Nick was able to produce, Chick and Patsy had found sufficient evidence that James Duryea did not die, and, therefore, was not buried, on the island in the Sound.

Nan Nightingale did not return to America at once.

Acting upon the advice of Nick Carter, she went into Hertfordshire, England, determined to make peace, if possible, with certain relatives who still lived there. And Nick Carter returned at once to New York.