"I was mad, crazy," said Slack penitently. His manner since his fight with the great detective had undergone a complete change. He was no longer aggressive, vindictive. The good in his disposition was coming uppermost. Nick saw that he was in condition for full confession, but to obtain it he took the least offensive way.
"See here, Slack," said he, in a friendly tone, "you will have reason to congratulate yourself over this affair of to-day. And it is due to your good luck that you did not meet Madame Ree on your arrival. She wrote to you to come, not because she loves you, but for the reason that she wanted help in an unlawful undertaking. Money is her passion. You ought to know that."
Slack winced slightly. Nick went on: "She may have revealed to you what her plans were, and she may have held out a bait which you swallowed. Now, without having seen her, without having interfered with her in the slightest degree, I know what her plans were, and my knowledge has come through events associated with the disappearance of John Dashwood and the suicide of Luke Filbon. If you have read the newspapers, you know something concerning these matters."
"I have read the papers, and I know what the public knows."
"Very well. Now I'll tell you something which the public does not know." Then Nick proceeded to lay bare the blackmailing scheme which Cora Reesey, alias Madame Ree, had concocted with Gabriel Leonard as the victim.
"If she got fifteen thousand dollars from Leonard," said Slack, with a black frown, "she has skipped the country."
"She got it, all right. I am entirely satisfied on that point."
"Then I'm sure in the soup," was Slack's desponding utterance. "She wanted me to come and help her out, but she has corralled the money without my assistance, and now she has no use for me."
"It looks that way, doesn't it? If she really meant to deal squarely with you, she would have written a letter after she had closed the deal with Leonard."
"That's right. I see it all now. I'm a double-distilled jackass." Then his face hardened and his eyes gleamed cruelly. "I may meet her some day," he said, "and if I do, I'll"—he clenched his hands—"I'll make her wish she had never been born."