“You mean?[Pg 4]”
“That this affair may be a frame-up, a dastardly scheme designed to have just the effect you mentioned. In other words, Chick, to throw Gordon down at the last moment and so insure Jack Madison’s election.”
“But Madison would not do such a beastly trick as that, nor even connive at it.”
“Don’t be so sure of it,” Nick said dryly. “Men with political ambitions, some men, at least, are capable of infernally wicked work. Madison is very anxious to carry this election, and so is the party machine. There is much depending on it.”
“That’s very true,” Chick allowed. “But I cannot believe Madison capable of such knavery, to say nothing of murder. Who is the victim?”
“Matilda Lancey.”
“The deuce you say! Her reputation is infernally bad in circles where she is well known.”
Both detectives had seen her occasionally and were aware of her shady reputation. She was a frequenter of the theaters, the best hotels and the fast restaurants, with a capacity for wine that made her, in one respect at least, a desirable patron, though in public she never went beyond certain discreet points.
Tilly Lancey, in fact, as she was familiarly known, enjoyed friendly relations with a small legion of fast society chaps and men about town, and was equally distinguished for her striking beauty, her fine figure, her costly jewels, and beautiful gowns. That she had met her death at the hands of a man of Arthur Gordon’s type seemed utterly incredible.
“Tilly Lancey, eh?” Chick muttered audibly. “So she has come to the end of her career. It has been hinted by some of the mud-slinging stump speakers, Nick, that Madison has been quite as friendly with Miss Lancey as the law allows, in view of the fact that he has a wife and family.”