North glared at the detective.
“You fiend!” he gasped, gurgling in rage and agony.
“You’re the fiend!” Varian said; “hush your vituperation and tell us where Betty is.”
A smile of low cunning came over North’s villainous face. He used his small remaining strength to say: “That you’ll never know. You’ve spiked your own guns. Nobody knows but me,—and I won’t tell!”
Alarmed, Wise tried another tone.
“This won’t do, North,” he said; “whatever your crime, you can’t refuse that last act of expiation. Tell where she is, and die the better for it.”
“No,” gasped the dying man. “Bad I’ve lived and bad I’ll die. You’ll never find Betty Varian. There are standing orders to do away with her if anything happens to me, and,”—he tried to smile,—“something has happened!”
“It sure has,” Wise said, and looked at him with real pity, for the man was suffering tortures. “But, I command you, North, by the blood you have shed, by the two human lives you have taken, by the heart of the wife and mother that you have broken,—I charge you, give up your secret while you have strength to do so!”
For a moment, North seemed to hesitate.
A little stimulant administered by the doctor gave him a trifle more strength, but then his face changed,—he turned reminiscent.