Madison’s teeth met with a snap. He lurched forward in his chair, eyes blazing, and banged his fist upon the desk.
“See here, Carter!” he cried, with a volcanic outbreak of rage. “If you have come here to insult me, or——”
“Oh, don’t get excited,” Nick interrupted, checking him with a quick, commanding gesture. “There is nothing in that, Madison, and you ought to know it. I will tell you with very few words why I have come here. Hear them like a man, not turn bull in a china shop. You know that neither bluster nor bluff have any effect upon me.”
Madison straightened up again and governed his resentment, though it still glowed in his eyes and caused a vicious twitching of his thin lips.
“Out with it, then,” he said harshly. “Why are you here, Carter? What do you want?”
“The truth,” said Nick shortly.
“About what?”
“The murder of Tilly Lancey.”
“I know nothing about it.”
“And I know, Madison, that that is a falsehood,” Nick said sternly. “I know that she was killed by persons employed by you to commit that crime, or to recover the letters you have written to her. I know who the culprits are, some of them, and within six hours I will have them behind prison bars. One is Cora Cavendish, a disreputable friend of the murdered woman. Another is Mortimer Deland, a notorious English crook. I know so much, Madison, in fact, that unless you confess the whole truth here and now, I will railroad you to the Tombs for safe-keeping until——”