CHAPTER XI.

THE INCENTIVE TO TREACHERY.

Ten minutes after leaving police headquarters Sandy Hyde might have been seen slinking across the Tremont Street mall of Boston Common.

Yet only a close observer would have recognized the treacherous little rascal.

He had his coat-collar turned well up about his ears, his soft felt hat drawn forward over his brow, and with his handkerchief held to his face his crafty countenance was for the most part concealed.

Presently he glided across the street, then hurriedly bolted into the corridor of one of the buildings—that in which the rooms of the fortune-teller and long-time adventuress were located.

Quickly mounting the stairs, Hyde unceremoniously entered her rooms.

He found Vic Clayton, by which name he best knew her, seated alone in the reception-parlor, the maid employed there having just gone out to lunch.

“Why, hello, Sandy!” she cried, starting up from her chair when he entered.

When he eagerly advanced to clasp both her hands, moreover, she drew him into her arms and kissed him, as only lovers kiss.

“Break away!” he quickly protested, however.

“Well, well, what’s this?”

“As much as I like it, Vic, there’s no time for that.”

The woman’s eyes took on a startled look.

“No time!” she echoed, sharply regarding him.

“I should say not. There’s the devil to pay.”

“What do you mean?”

“Or worse than the devil—that’s Nick Carter!”

“What of him?”

“He’s coming here again.”

“For what?”

The last came with vicious asperity from the lips of the surprised woman.

The color had left her cheeks. The light of sensuous affection, the bestowal of which had turned this man into a knave, a traitor to his trust at police headquarters, and made him her dupe and tool—this light of passion had suddenly died from her eyes, displaced by the vengeful fire with which she had last parted from the man he had just mentioned.

Darting to the door, Vic hurriedly turned the key, then swept around, as quick and lithe as a panther in her movements, and grasped Hyde by the shoulder.

“Not coming here now, not at once, is he?” she demanded, in rapid whispers.

“Do you think I’m daffy, to be here, in that case?” growled Sandy.

“Yet——”

“No, no; there’s time enough, Vic,” he interrupted. “He’s not coming till two o’clock.”

“For what?”

“To ask you to go with him to the scene of the fake hold-up.”

“That of the photograph?” gasped Vic, with hands pressed to her breast and her white face drawn with increasing apprehension.

“That’s what he said.”

“Has he detected something queer in that picture?”

“I reckon he has, Vic.”

“Do you know what he suspects?”

“He didn’t say,” replied Hyde. “Weston asked him, but Carter only said that he’d keep the photograph for a time.”

“Do you know for what?”

“I don’t.”

“Were there any names mentioned?”

“Only yours.”

“In the way you stated?”

“Yes.”

“Anything more?”

“One thing—and a mighty significant one!” growled Hyde, with a nod.

“What was that?”

“He added that he would land our gang, every man and woman of us, or throw up his job.”

“He said that, did he?”

“That’s what.”

“The infernal meddler!”

“He has struck some clue, that’s dead sure!” declared the spy. “It’s a condition that means we must get him, Vic, or he’ll get us.”

“Oh, we’ll get him, all right!” Vic Clayton now cried, with a venomous sneer. “If he’s coming for that, for what you say, you let me alone to get him!”

Though her flood of questions had been asked with passionate impatience, she now appeared more calm, yet not less viciously determined.

With a seductive smile, she now said warmly:

“You’re all right, Sandy. I’ll not forget this little service, and you shall have your reward when——”

“I’ll get mine, all right, Vic, if the chief ever gets wise to the game I’m playing,” interrupted Hyde, with a mingled laugh and grimace.

“He will never learn of it.”

“If he does, Vic, I can see myself put through the third degree in a way that will leave mighty little of me.”

“Bosh!”

“I’m taking mighty long chances in doing this for you, and for——”

“Are you getting no reward for doing it, Sandy?”

The woman’s arm had stolen around his neck, while her breath fell warm on his cheek with the interruption. She drew him closer till her lips met his, then hurriedly released him, saying quickly:

“Go, now, Sandy, and leave the rest to me.”

“You can handle the matter?” he lingered to inquire anxiously.

“You bet I can handle it!”

“What will you do?”

“You leave that to me, I say.”

“You have no time to waste, Vic.”

“Is time not wasted in talk of this kind?” Vic impatiently rejoined. “Go at once, I repeat, and leave the rest to me.”

Hyde started for the door, only to have the woman again dart across his path and clasp him by the arm.

“Stop a moment!” she cried, under her breath.

“Well?”

The query came with a startled gasp, as Hyde, naturally a nervous and cowardly cur, instinctively shrank from the expression now risen over Vic Clayton’s face.

For there was murder in her dilated eyes, in her deathly white features, in the vicious firmness of her drawn, gray lips.

“There is something more!” she hissed, with suppressed ferocity. “Have you been constantly watchful at headquarters?”

“Have I? That’s a fat question for you to ask me,” said Hyde. “You should know that I have.”

“So I do—so I do, Sandy, dear!” Vic hurriedly exclaimed, in assuasive tones. “But there is one thing more. Is Nick Carter alone in this case?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure of it—dead sure of it?” demanded Vic, with a voice and aspect that plainly betrayed the murderous design that inspired this precautionary question.

“Certainly I’m sure of it.”

“It will do us no good to down him, mind you, if others at work with him are to rise up out of his ashes and confound us with the same evidence that he may possess.”

“There are no others,” protested Hyde confidently. “If there were, Vic, I’d have told you.”

“Providing you knew it.”

“Oh, I’d have known it, all right,” declared Sandy. “I’m never out of the office except to eat and sleep, and I’d have been wise to it by this time if Carter had brought on any of his assistants from New York.”

“You have heard none mentioned?”

“Not one.”

“This shows me the way, then—the one and only way,” muttered the woman, staring for a moment at the floor. “If it must be him or us—it shall not be us!”

“Carter has been at the chief’s office only twice, both times alone,” added Hyde assuringly. “You may safely gamble on it, Vic, that he’s still alone on the case.”

Again, with her vengeful countenance lighting for a moment, she slipped her arm about the spy’s neck and kissed him.

“Go, now, Sandy, and leave the rest to me,” she repeated. “But come out to Badger’s place after dark to-night.”

“To-night, Vic?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I find you there?” queried Hyde, with wistful gaze.

“Yes, you’ll find me there—and another with me!”

“Not Nick Carter?”

The woman’s brows knit again and her eyes gleamed venomously.

“Nick Carter—yes!” she rejoined, with suppressed ferocity. “Nick Carter—or what there is left of him!”