But Patsy? Well, it had not been necessary for Patsy to be quite so thorough, for his own particular person and features were sufficient disguise, with a few minor alterations and additions.
For instance, at the risk of not having it wear off soon enough to suit his purposes, he had gone to a professional hair dyer, and had ordered his shock of hair indelibly dyed to a dirty brick-red; and he had put spots on his face, and the back of his hands, with nitrate of silver, so that the spots burned into the skin. No soap and water could remove these. They would only disappear with time; but Patsy had never traveled on a reputation for beauty, and he did not give the matter a thought beyond the immediate necessities.
He had taken another precaution, also, just before he entered the woods to go to the place of meeting. He had stripped himself in a secluded place near the railway tracks, and he had rolled himself in the coal dust around the track, griming the dirt into his body, so that when it came to the time that Handsome stripped him—well, it can be imagined how he looked.
A little snuff rubbed thoroughly against his teeth had rendered them sufficiently discolored, and altogether he so thoroughly looked his part that Handsome, when he stripped him, had not the slightest doubt of his reality.
But the frauds connected with Chick and Ten-Ichi were easily detected.
Black Madge, while still seated at the table with the detective, had suddenly recalled the name that had long ago been mentioned in her presence by the chief of the Paris police. It had come to her in a flash that the name was Nick Carter—and that this man who was so calmly seated in her presence was Nick Carter.
Madge knew a great deal more about Nick Carter than Nick supposed she did; she knew all about his household, and about his assistants. She knew their names as well as if they were followers of her own—and when Handsome, in mentioning the names of the other men, had talked about Tenstrike and the Chicken, she had connected the names at once.
As for the other one—Pat—that had a significance also; but Pat is a very common name, and she did not do herself the honor to suppose that Nick Carter would bring all three of his assistants into the woods with him in search of her. One, she thought, would have to be left behind to look after the business, and, therefore, she was all the more ready to believe that Patsy, since he was not in disguise, was one of her own kind, who had inadvertently fallen into the company of the detectives.
Handsome and four other men accompanied Chick to the cottage, and when he stood before Madge she looked him over from head to foot with cold scorn.
"So," she said venomously, "you thought to deceive me, did you—you and your master?"