“Abducted nothing!” snapped Kate. “I don’t know what you are talking about. If you are out to frame me up in a job of that kind, Carter, you have bit off more than you can chew. I can prove——”
“Disprove is what you will have to do,” Nick curtly interrupted.
“What do you mean?” scowled Kate. “Come across plainly.”
“I’ll make it plain enough to you,” Nick retorted. “I happened to see the woman who pretended to faint in Central Park yesterday afternoon. I remained with the nurse after we found that the Madden girl had been stolen. I went with her to the Madden residence, and I was there when one of the abductors talked by telephone with John Madden—or thought she did.”
“Thought she did!” echoed Kate involuntarily.
“Exactly,” Nick nodded. “But she did not talk with John Madden. She talked with me—and I recognized her voice. It was your voice, Kate Crandall.”
“Rats! Nonsense! You are talking through your hat,” Kate cried, with inelegant defiance, though her cheeks were ghastly and her thin, cruel lips as gray as ashes.
“Oh, no, I am not,” Nick insisted. “I heard——”
“You heard nothing of the kind,” Kate broke forth angrily. “I was not near Central Park yesterday afternoon. I can prove an alibi. Recognized my voice, indeed! I can refute any such evidence as that, Carter, and you can bet your boots on it. You’re not going to frame me up in this way, take my word for it.”
“Your word, Kate, isn’t worth the breath that utters it,” Nick replied.