The detective read it aloud to Patsy, and he added:

“If we read between the lines, and also between the words, we get this: ‘Babbington woman and Red Mike entered my room upstairs by means of the secret entrance. They chloroformed me and brought me here to this wine cellar. It is all a plot to extort money from me by some means which they consider adequate. I have listened to their talk until I am of the opinion that they are taking me to a place which they call Pleasantglades, which I understand them to say is now deserted, and will be therefore safe for hiding. Red Mike has suddenly appeared from his post on watch upstairs and brings a warning that they are pursued. A hasty departure is decided upon, and they intend to chloroform me again into unconsciousness. The time is now half-past six o’clock.’ If he could have written it all out, that is what he would have said,” the detective concluded; and he looked at his watch.

“It is five minutes to seven,” he said. “They have been gone from here twenty or twenty-five minutes. We must——”

Patsy interrupted him.

“I have been searching for a way out of here other than the one by which we entered,” he said. “I haven’t found it.”

“I have,” exclaimed Thomas. “Look!”

He pointed through the opening into the space at the foot of the spiral staircase, for the door formed of the shelves had been left ajar.

A narrow section of the wall across that narrow space had disappeared, revealing a literal hole in the wall. Darkness was beyond it, but neither of the detectives thought of that.

“The act of opening this door opened that one also,” said Nick, as he stepped quickly forward.

They passed along an underground passage which was just wide enough and high enough for one person at a time, and which led, Nick thought, in a southeasterly direction.

“It leads us toward the garage,” was all the comment he made; but after a moment, as they went onward, he added: “It was once a stable, you know, before horses gave place to the choo-choos.”

There was no difficulty of egress at the other end of the passageway; there never is, from the inside of such secret places.

They presently found themselves in what had once been a grainery, and there were doors from it, two in number, one opening upon the interior of the garage, the other upon a narrow hallway at one side of it, which in turn gave upon the street.

Nick opened the door into the garage and stepped forward; then he pointed toward the body of a man who was stretched face downward on the floor, while beside him was a monkey wrench with which he had been stricken down.

“We are just too late,” he said to Patsy. “Red Mike has struck the chauffeur on the head with the monkey wrench, they have stolen the car, and have got away.”

“We can trace them by the car,” said Patsy.

“Possibly,” replied Nick.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

A DETECTIVE’S DEDUCTIONS.

It was midnight when he got back, but nevertheless he went at once to the Creotoria apartment house, where Madge Babbington lived—and went there to find her goods and chattels had been sent to a storage warehouse that day, and that nothing was known as to where she had gone.

Well, there the chase ended for the moment.

We need not go into the details, save to say that not a further trace of Carleton Lynne or of Red Mike, or of Madge Babbington could be found after three days of painstaking and insistent search.

The abductors of the millionaire had left no trail whatever behind them.

It was evident that they had planned every move they made that afternoon and evening, many days in advance, and had prepared for every emergency.

It was certain that they had covered their tracks so expertly that even Nick Carter, aided by his two assistants, could not find them.

The evening of the third day after the related incidents, Nick, with his two assistants, was seated in the study.

All had been silent for a time, each evidently thinking upon the same problem, when Patsy broke the spell by asking suddenly:

“I wonder what Madge intends to do with him, now that she has got him?”

“Marry him,” said Chick laconically.

“Do you think she’ll have the gall to attempt that?” Patsy asked.

“Sure.”

“Why? It looks risky to me.”

“How so? She hasn’t done anything but abduct him, and if she becomes his wife—well, that would do away with that charge, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose it would, Chick,” Patsy agreed.

“Besides,” Chick continued, “that has been her game from the start. She doesn’t seem to know any other one.”

“Uh huh!”

“She tried, long ago, to marry J. Cephas Lynne—and I’m inclined to think she would have done it, too, if his cousin Thomas hadn’t murdered him.”

“I think you are right about that, Chick,” Nick Carter interposed.

“Then,” Chick went on, “she had it all fixed up to marry Thomas Lynne, the murderer of Cephas and Edythe. She’d have done that, too, if Nick hadn’t found those tracks in the snow in front of the gate at Pleasantglades.”

“Uh huh!” commented Patsy again.

“The next on the carpet is Mr. Henry Carroll.”

“There isn’t any proof that she tried to marry him.”

“I think,” Chick replied, “that the proof of it exists in the fact that Carroll learned to fear her as well as to love and hate her at the same time; that he tried to shoot her at the time he killed her two women companions at the Creotoria, and that now he is only awaiting the day of execution to pay the penalty for it all.”

“Uh huh!” said Patsy once more.

“When, by keeping still and playing on the quiet he might still be living the part of Carleton Lynne, and enjoying all the millions.”

“Not much he wouldn’t,” said Patsy, waking up. “Didn’t I find the real Carleton Lynne out there in Idaho?”

“Yes; but you’d had a fine time proving his identity, wouldn’t you, if Carroll had kept still and hung on? He had the documentary evidence and the photographs. He had possession, which is said to be nine points in the law.”

“What is the argument about, anyway?” asked the detective, with a quiet smile.

“I don’t think it amounts to much one way or another,” replied Patsy. “I guess it is more to the purpose if we bend our energies to a solution of the present problem.”

“I think so, too,” agreed Nick. “It began, didn’t it, by Chick expressing the belief that Madge has stolen Lynne away to marry him?”

“Yes.”

“Has it occurred to you, to either of you or to both of you, that that is the only thing she can do now to win that fortune, or to get hold of any considerable portion of it?” the detective asked.

Chick nodded. Patsy made no reply; but he asked:

“What’s the matter with the two of them—Mike and Madge—forcing him to disgorge a goodly portion of his wealth?”

“It wouldn’t work, Patsy.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, he isn’t the sort of a man to give up.”

“It strikes me that he’d be giving up a heap more if he married her.”

“You forget what you said three days ago about her eyes—in case Adelina wasn’t around to keep tabs on you,” smiled the detective.

“Well, if Lynne isn’t the sort of a man to give up, I don’t see where your argument is any good. He certainly wouldn’t give up to a woman like that, when he knows——”

“In the first place, Patsy, I have not advanced any argument. I have merely said that it is the only way—her only way, now.”

“Well, he doesn’t have to marry her, does he?”

“I don’t know. She is a fascinating woman. There is a witchery about her that is almost beyond belief. Lynne is a sick man; he has been a sick man for a long time.”

“His mind is strong enough.”

“I know that; but he is physically weak, just now; and physical weakness renders mental opposition in a thing of this kind less strong—more easily assailed. My fear is that she will break down his opposition in the end, if she has time enough.”

“Well, maybe so; only she won’t do it by threats, if I am any judge of character.”

“No, she will do it by her witchery; she will do it with her eyes, which are hypnotic—and please understand that in using that term I do not mean to imply that she will actually hypnotize him. She will merely influence him.”

“Against his will, do you mean?”

“Against his will at first, yes. Against his better judgment. But she will labor to overcome all that. She will succeed, too, if she has sufficient opportunity. I know men of his type. They are impressionable, especially in the presence of a lovely woman, and she can be that, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I think I partly understand a woman of her type, also, although I have never encountered another one like her.”

“Nor anybody else, I imagine.”

“She will probably begin by playing the pathetic, the wronged woman, the one who suffers and is misunderstood. She will tell him the story of her life. She will have spells of heartbreaking sorrow and weeping. She will make him try to comfort her, and she will decline to let him do so when he first offers. Perhaps—I shouldn’t be surprised—if she found herself hooked by her own bait.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Lynne is a lovable chap—a fascinating fellow in many ways.”

“Oh, you mean that, in trying to make him in love with her, she will actually fall in love with him?”

“Such a thing is quite possible, Patsy.”

“Not in her case. She is too calculating; too cold-blooded in her plots and plans.”

“But you will admit that a woman like her can be cold-blooded in nothing else that she does, won’t you?”

“Yes. What of that?”

“Madge Babbington is still young—almost a girl, although she has been twice married. I doubt if she ever has found the man who really attracted her; I think she can, and probably will, find that man in Lynne. He is every inch a man. I would have liked to have known him when he was well and strong.”

“Perhaps you will have an opportunity to do that later on, chief.”

“Perhaps,” replied Nick, shrugging his shoulders.

“All of this,” commented Chick, who had been a close listener to what had been said, “does not bring us any closer to the solution of the present problem.”

“Perhaps it does,” smiled Nick. “That was why I have been talking in that strain.”

“How so?”

“The problem is, where have they hidden Lynne away? Isn’t it?”

“Sure thing.”

“We must agree, then, that wherever that hiding place may be, it is large enough to accommodate four persons.”

“Four! How do you make that out?”

“Two men—Lynne and Red Mike, who will stick closer than a leech; you can bet on that.”

“Sure.”

“Then there is Madge—who must have the opportunity in time and place to play her best cards—and a servant. They could not get along without somebody to serve them.”

“I see.”

“Well, they must hide themselves in a place where there is little opportunity for being seen by others; by chance passers-by. If we can search our minds for the most likely sort of a place of that description, we would be pretty near to part of the solution, Chick.”

“A desert island,” said Patsy, grinning.

“Or the place where desert islands grow; on the water,” said Chick.

“Not bad ideas, either one of them,” said Nick. “And now, there is one more element that is bound to assist us before this game comes to an end. It is jealousy; and that is what I am most afraid of, just now. Red Mike cannot be very long in the society of Madge Babbington without being fascinated by her to the point of desperation. He will look on at her attempts to make Lynne in love with her with growing anger; and if the right sort of a climax should happen at the psychological moment, Red Mike would kill Lynne on the instant; and that is what I most greatly fear, just now. We must find a way to rescue him before such a thing as that can happen.”

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE SPIDER’S PARLOR.

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.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A FIGHT FOR THE GOOD.

He stood there near the door by which he had entered, his weight upon the foot that he had put forward in the act of stepping so that his attitude was that of a man about to leap upon another.

His upper lip curled beneath his mustache, showing his teeth, like the snarl of a dog when angered. His fingers twitched, then clenched together in the palms of his hands, and then one of them relaxed as it sought the pocket where he carried his automatic revolver.

But he thought better of that impulse, and dropped the hand at his side again.

“Do you like to have me do this?” he heard Madge say to Lynne; and Lynne replied:

“I have no choice.”

Perhaps it was that answer which made Mike leave the gun inside his pocket.

“Would you like to have me tell you about myself?” was her next question.

“I am here to be entertained,” Lynne answered.

“Do you know—have you been told—that I have been twice married?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know also that I was indicted and tried for complicity in the murder of your cousin Edythe?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that I could have been guilty of such a hideous thing?”

“It would seem to be unbelievable.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Then I will accept the verdict of the jury, and reply: ‘Not guilty.’”

“Even that does not tell me your impression concerning it, Mr. Lynne.”

“I would much prefer to believe you to be entirely innocent than to think that you had so much as a guilty thought in your mind, madam.”

“Thank you. Don’t call me madam.”

“How shall I address you?”

“By my given name if you will; not by name at all, if it is difficult. The difficulty will be overcome after a little.”

He did not reply. She took her hands away from his head and swung herself around beside him and seated herself upon the arm of the chair. It was a morris chair, and she could sit there comfortably. Still she did not discover the presence of Red Mike, for she did not take her eyes from the face of Lynne, although he was not looking at her.

“This is better,” she said; and she sighed.

“Is it?” he asked; and, before she could reply, he added: “Do you know, madam, I believe you are creating no end of trouble for yourself?”

She misunderstood him, and, because she did so, she laughed softly.

“Do you mean that I am falling in love with you, and that it is hopeless because of the other woman?”

“No; I did not mean that. I had no thought of such a thing. The other woman—the one to whom I referred, has been dead for many years. She was my mother.”

“Oh!”

Startled, chastened for the moment, Madge sat quite still. If he had looked up at her then he would have seen that moisture had gathered suddenly in her eyes; that all that quality of flame had departed out of them, and that they were soft, kindly, and genuine. And she remained so, quite silent and still, until he spoke again.

“She passed away, out of my sight, when I was only a little kiddie,” he said softly, “but in some ways she is just as much alive to me now as then; and sometimes it seems as if I can see her just as plainly as I used to.”

Madge was silent a moment. Then, in a voice so low that it was barely audible, she said:

“You believe me to be a bad woman; how, then, can you talk to me of your mother?”

“I do not believe you to be a bad woman,” he replied calmly.

“You do not? You do not? Oh, say that again!” she cried out to him, and her voice did not sound natural even to herself.

“I do not believe you to be a bad woman,” he repeated. “You have done wrong things; so have I; none of us does right always. That would be impossible. In some of us, the bad elements are dominant; in others it is the good that dominates. We are free agents to select between the good and the bad, and therefore whatever we are, whatever we confess ourselves to be, we have become by choice. Do you prefer the good or the bad, Mrs. Babbington?”

“Oh, the good! The good! Help me to be good, Carleton Lynne. You can, if you will. You can make me good, if you will try, and you may throw your millions away, or give them away, I do not care. I would not care. I hate them. They—not yours, but the mere longing for riches—have made me what I am, a despicable woman. I hate myself, now! I see myself now for the first time as others see me; as you see me. Oh!” She dropped her head upon his shoulder and broke into a passion of sobs, so that any one who had known her in the past would have been amazed.

But it was all real. Madge, for once, was very much in earnest. Again Nick Carter’s prophecy had come true.

Lynne took one of her hands between his own and stroked it gently. She recovered herself.

“I am silly to give way so at the first kind word,” she murmured.

“No, you are only natural. You have found yourself. You have found the true, the real woman; you have lost the pretense that has been dominating you. You are very lovely, now; very tender; very lovable. I think you could be very true if you would be so, and could live down all that hideous past that is so hateful. Will you?”

“Yes, if you ask me to do so.”

“Whether I ask you to do it for me or not? If I ask you to do it only for yourself?”

“Yes. I will leave here to-night. We will leave here together. You shall return to your home in the city, and I will go—I will go far away, anywhere, and, and——” She broke down once more, with her head upon his shoulder, weeping softly this time. And he stroked her hand as he had done before, saying nothing. Red Mike still listened, silent, watchful.

It was a long time before she spoke again. Then she asked:

“Tell me what you meant when you said that I was creating trouble for myself.”

“I would rather forget, now, what I had in mind then,” he replied.

“Why?”

“Because it seems a sacrilege even to mention it, now.”

“What was it? What did you mean?”

“I meant Red Mike.” The object of that remark started, and listened the more intently.

“Red Mike?” she exclaimed, amazed. “What of him?”

Instead of replying directly to the question, he asked another. He said:

“What do you suppose Red Mike would do now if he were to enter this room suddenly, and find you with your head upon my shoulder, and discover that I was holding one of your hands and stroking it?”

She shuddered and caught her breath.

“Don’t,” she said; and then again, “don’t. The mere reference to it makes me see myself as I was—and, oh, it seems so long ago. Red Mike is a brute; a creature whom I have made use of to further my selfish ends. I sent him to you when he demanded the two millions, and so nearly murdered you. I took him with me to aid in your capture, making him beieve that I would lead you on to make me your wife, so that I might get your millions, and—oh, there is more!—making him believe that he might—might—if you should die suddenly after that—making him believe that I would not ask questions about it, but that I would—become—his—wife. Oh, God! The horror of it! That I ever consented to such a thought, for I did not mean it, ever. Oh, you will believe me, won’t you? I never once meant such a thing. I hate, I loathe, I despise myself; but I must tell you. You must know all of it; must know that even for a moment I consented to bargain about such a hideous matter, even though I never had the remotest intention to——”

“Hush!” Lynne said to her softly. “You never could do a more courageous thing in your life than to tell me of this. I am no better than you are, Madge. I have harbored such impossible thoughts, too. I know what they are, and what they mean. Come here. Move around so that I can see you; so I can look into your wonderful eyes. I want to kiss them. I want to hear you tell me that you will be a good and true woman, a good and true wife, and that when we leave here to return to the world, you will help me to spend that fortune that has come to me so strangely, for the good of others—for the good of those who suffer. That is what I want to do, Madge; that is what I want you to help me to do, for that is what my mother would have wished.”

She had raised herself from his shoulder and from the arm of the chair upon which she had been seated, and now she moved gently around until she was almost in front of him.

Her whole soul was shining in her eyes when she chanced to raise them, impelled by an impulse she could not have named; and she saw Red Mike standing near that door, with the automatic pistol raised and leveled at her own heart.

Her eyes, which had been looking down tenderly upon Lynne, shone suddenly with horror, and she released Lynne’s hand and backed away from him.

It was an utterance of Red Mike’s that told Lynne what had happened.

“Caught you, didn’t I?” he snarled. Then he laughed brutally. “I heard you, too, my beauty. I heard it all. I have been here since it began. I saw the beginning, and I will see the end. Used me, have you? Lied to me, have you? Played with me, have you? Well, it’s my turn now to play with you—and him; and no Apache Indian ever knew better how to do it than I do.”

Madge crouched partly down. All the tiger in her was aroused now, in defense of the man she had suddenly found that she loved.

Her right hand sought her bosom where, doubtless, she carried a weapon; where Red Mike seemed to understand that she did carry one, for he cried out:

“Drop that, or I’ll kill you where you stand, if you are a woman!”

She paid no heed, and he leaped forward toward her; and then the unexpected happened.

To reach Madge, Red Mike had to pass close to the chair where Lynne was seated; and as he passed, Lynne thrust out one foot in his path. Red Mike tripped upon it. He fell to the floor at Madge’s feet, and the automatic flew from his grasp, almost into hers.

On the instant she seized upon it. She turned it butt end foremost. She raised it and struck with it before he could recover himself, and he made no attempt to rise, for he was stunned and helpless.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE MASTERS OF MILLIONS.

“You were absent from the room at the time it was told. She entertained her guests on the house boat, as well as at the house, at Pleasantglades. It is kept anchored in the bay, within a mile of the house, and is always in commission. That is where Madge and Mike have taken Lynne, I’ll bet a cooky. Come; we can get there in an hour. I’ll go alone if you do not care to go.”

“We’ll all go,” said the detective. “It sounds reasonable, and would account for the idea that Lynne received while a prisoner in the wine cellar, that Pleasantglades was the destination at that time.”

He turned to the telephone and ordered the big car to the door at once.

“It’s as sure as shooting,” said Patsy.

“Only I don’t seem to remember anything about a house boat in the testimony at the inquest,” said the detective, as he seized his hat and led the way from the room.

“Somebody called you out of the room for a moment when that testimony was given,” was Patsy’s reply. “I think it was stricken out as being irrelevant.”

“What was said about it?”

“Only that Edythe had entertained her friends part of the time on the house boat, which is always kept anchored in the bay that juts into the property up there. I suppose it has been closed now, and practically abandoned for a year; but it would be an ideal place for Madge to take her prisoner; and, of course, she knew about it, since she was one of the guests at that time.”

“Of course.”

“Lucky remark, that, about the desert island. That suggested the idea to me; that or Chick’s reply.”

“What was that?”

“He said—‘or where desert islands grow; upon the water.’ See?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet you a big red apple that we find them there, Chick.”

“You’re on. I can afford a red apple, if we do,” replied Chick.

Nick ran the car out himself, and his growing confidence in Patsy’s theory made him get all the speed out of the machine that it contained.

He slowed down, of course, whenever there was an idea of danger ahead, or when there was a possibility that they might be held up for speeding; but for all that, they made splendid time, and rolled past the big gateway at Pleasantglades in exactly fifty minutes from the time they left the house in Madison Avenue.

It was half a mile farther to the shore of the bay where the boat was anchored, and the distance was covered in about one minute, despite the roughness of the road.

They all leaped out of the machine at the same instant and each sought the shore for a small boat in which they might row out to the object of their trip.

“There isn’t a sign of a light out there,” said Chick.

“That’s nothing,” replied Patsy. “They would keep dark in the daytime, and darker at night when a light might be seen and investigated. Here we are. I have found one.”

“It’s half full of water,” said Nick.

“Help me to turn it over,” shouted Patsy; and the water was soon emptied from the boat which was found to be quite sound.

“There are no oars,” said Patsy, when that was done. “We’ll have to—wait a minute.”

He darted away toward the boathouse on the shore, a few rods distant, broke the padlock with a stone, and presently returned bearing a pair of oars.

“All aboard,” he said. “If I was as certain of future glory as I am of finding our goal out there, I’d be wearing a halo already, chief.”

“I only hope that you are right, Patsy,” was the reply. “Be silent now. There is need of caution if they are there.”

Five minutes’ cautious rowing took them the required distance, and the small boat was rounded up alongside the larger one without a sound to disturb anybody who might be on board, and perhaps watchful.

But we already know what was taking place inside that house boat.

Nick Carter, followed by his two assistants, clambered aboard of it, as it happened, just at the moment when Carleton Lynne put out one foot and tripped Red Mike so that he fell prone upon his face at the feet of Madge.

There was a perceptible jar as the result of that fall, for Red Mike was a heavy man.

The detective and Patsy, who were already on the deck of the boat, halted.

“What was that?” asked Patsy, in a whisper.

“It is the first evidence that you are correct, Patsy,” was the reply. “There is somebody here, on this boat.”

“Well, it could only be the persons we are after; eh?”

“I think so.”

The three of them stole quietly along the deck toward a door which could be dimly seen in the half light.

Reaching it, Nick turned the knob softly, but only to find that the door was securely fastened on the inside.

Nick bent down to listen; his companions did the same; then they looked at each other in amazement. What did it mean?

They could hear the faint murmur of a masculine voice, and the sobs of a woman mingled with it. What could it all mean?

“We will smash in the door,” said Nick, in a whisper. “It is a double door and will give way at the center. When I say three, we will all throw ourselves against it at once. Now; are you ready? One, two, three!”

The door gave way much more readily than had been anticipated.

Nick and Chick barely saved themselves from falling; Patsy sprawled upon the floor inside the cabin, and almost at the feet of Carleton Lynne, who was standing up, and holding Madge Babbington tightly in his arms.

Madge was sobbing, so she raised a tearful as well as a startled face toward the intruders who had come upon them so suddenly.

Lynne looked at the unexpected callers as calmly as if they had been expected, and as if their method of entrance was the customary thing. He did not relax his hold upon Madge in the slightest degree, but rather held her the tighter.

“Hello, Mr. Carter!” he exclaimed. “You’re just in time. How are you, Chick? Glad to see you, Patsy. I hope all the folks are well at home. That’s the proper thing to say, isn’t it?”

“You seem to be rather pleasantly occupied, Lynne,” Nick replied, with a smile that was somewhat grim. “You make me feel sorry that I interrupted you.”

“Well, you needn’t be. I’m mighty glad that you came. If you’ll take the trouble to move that screen, you’ll see something. We just put it there to get him out of our sight.”

Patsy moved the screen; then he burst into laughter.

Red Mike was there, of course, with some picture cords tied around his wrists and ankles and a towel tied around his face so that he could not talk.

“It’s all over but the shouting, Carter,” said Lynne. “Shall I tell you about it?”

“Please do.”

“I’m awfully obliged to you for not getting here an hour earlier. You might have been the ruin of two lives, if you had. Shall I begin with the best part first?”

“Yes.”

“Madge and I have found out that we are very much in love with each other. Madge is going to be a good girl, and I’m going to be a good fellow, and we are going to spend the fortune that J. Cephas Lynne left behind him, in bettering mankind generally, in doing good wherever we can, and in helping those who have taken the wrong path, to get back again to the right one.

“Yesterday—an hour ago, Carter—I was the master of millions; now, we two are the masters of millions which shall take the form of a great trust imposed upon us by the memory of Cephas Lynne and his daughter Edythe, to do good, to help the wrongdoer. Now, do you want the rest of the story?”

“I think I know it already. I suppose Red Mike came in upon you two while you were in each other’s arms, eh?”

“Well, we were getting there.”

The detective turned to Madge, who was blushing, and appearing very little like the Madge Babbington he had known.

“Are you sincere, Mrs. Babbington?” he asked.

“Ah, Mr. Carter, so sincere that I am the happiest woman alive; so sincere that I want you to forgive me for all the hard thoughts I have had in the past—and I want you to help me, too, by believing in me.”

“I can promise you that,” replied the detective. “This is a very happy outcome of all the past months, after all.”

“It is,” said Madge. “I thank God for this moment, and that I have the strength and the opportunity to seek forgiveness.”

THE END.

“The Midnight Message,” by Nicholas Carter, is the title of the next volume, No. 1304, of the New Magnet Library. This story has to do with one of the most desperate and resourceful criminals Nick Carter ever opposed.

POPULAR COPYRIGHTS

New Eagle Series