It was because of what she now was told over the wire that Madame Victoria glanced first at Nick’s left hand when he entered her rooms, and at once recognized him in the disguise of Sibley.
At the time of his second visit, moreover, when he presented his own card, the fortune-teller at once noticed that he had removed the ring, and that alone was enough to convince her that he was beginning to play a double game, and that he must have formed some suspicions regarding herself and the Badgers.
After Nick’s first departure she telephoned Badger that he had been there, and the latter then held a second consultation with his wife and Conley.
Being ignorant of Nick’s primary object in visiting Madame Victoria in disguise, which was merely to test her peculiar powers, Badger’s apprehensions naturally were increased.
“He’s wise to something, and already up to some game against us, or he wouldn’t have gone there in disguise,” he gravely reasoned. “I’m ruined, utterly ruined, unless we can continue this road work a few weeks longer. I shall be swamped completely unless I can thus raise the funds to tide me along until there’s a rise in the stock-market.”
“We’ll keep up the road-work, Amos, never you fear,” his wife curtly declared, with an evil brightness in her expressive eyes. “It was I who suggested it to you, and I have done my part to help you along with it.”
“That’s true enough.”
“And we’ll not quit it now, Amos, Carter or no Carter.”
“That we’ll not,” growled Conley, with a headshake. “There’s too much good stuff in it for us to have it queered at this stage by this man Carter. If it comes to the worst, Amos, a knife between his ribs will put him out of our way.”