"Again?" replied Nick, laughing. "I was always Nick Carter. I was so interested in that last interview I had with you, Madge, that I couldn't stay away; and now, when you condemned my assistant to death, you hastened the reckoning. That is all."
"I'll condemn you to death yet—and watch you die, too!" was her retort.
CHAPTER XVI.
NICK MAKES BAD MEDICINE.
Handsome had also recovered from his paroxysm of rage by this time, for he was one who had the gift of knowing when he was beaten, and the logic to accept a situation when he knew that it could not be avoided.
"I reckon you've got the drop on us, Carter," he said. "You've played the game mighty well, too. There is one thing about it that I would like to know, though, if you will tell me. Will you?"
"What is it?" asked the detective.
"I want to know if you have been old Bill Turner from the beginning. I want to know if it was you whose acquaintance I made in the first place, the time I was pulled out of the hole in the rocks, or if it was old Bill himself."
"That was the old man himself," replied Nick, smiling.