“You have done quite right, Mr. Madden. These gentlemen will, I am sure, do what I advise in this matter.”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Carter, surely,” Mellen quickly asserted. “We feel nearly as anxious as Mr. Madden concerning his daughter, and fully as indignant over this outrage. We will do whatever you suggest.”
David Mack also nodded approvingly, saying familiarly, with an expressive gleam in his dark eyes:
“It’s more than an outrage, Carter. It’s deviltry, infernal deviltry, of the most satanic kind. Hanging is too good for such scoundrels.”
“I agree with you, Mr. Mack,” Nick replied.
“As for doing what you advise, Carter, it looks to me as if I might do very much more,” Mack forcibly added. “But I’m game—I’m game for it. I’ll show these knaves what kind of wood shingles are made of, providing I can trick them in some way and turn the tables on them.”
“That must be Greek to Mr. Carter,” said Mellen, rising to go. “He must see that letter in order to understand you.”
“Yes, yes, the letter will explain,” John Madden put in. “It came in our morning mail, as promised, and it fully confirms your theory. Hand it to him, David. Let him see for himself.”
“It’s a dastardly, devilish outrage,” Mack declared again, handing Nick the communication in question. “Such miscreants ought to be tarred and feathered and then burned at a stake. Read it, Carter, for yourself.”
Nick took the sheet of paper and examined it. He saw at a glance that it had been torn from a pad of perfectly plain paper, obviously to preclude tracing the writer by means of it.