“Then I certainly shall, Madame Victoria, do more than you can,” Nick quietly declared, as he accepted her proffered hand.
“You think so, eh?”
“I do, madame! I have one very pronounced trait of character, which may be of some interest to you.”
“What is that?”
“I never drop a mystery, Madame Victoria, until it has—ceased to be a mystery!”
The last was said pleasantly enough, yet very emphatically, as Nick bowed and withdrew from the room, with the smiling eyes of the woman steadily meeting his till the door closed between the two.
Then there came over her one of those swift changes seen only when suppressed passions, intensified by restraint, are abruptly given free rein.
Her smile vanished like a flash, displaced by a frown that transfigured her every feature and lent to her usually attractive face the threatening and vengeful visage of a fury. With eyes gleaming, with lips drawn, with breast heaving under the sudden swell of her pent feelings, she shook both clenched hands after the departing detective, while muttering fiercely through her white teeth:
“Yon will solve the problem, will you? You will tear away the veil of mystery, will you? Not if I know it—not if I can prevent it, Mr. Nick Carter!
“Beware what you do—what you attempt! Let the cost be what it may, my prediction shall be fulfilled, and only failure shall be yours! Beware lest you fail, for the inevitable price of failure will be—death!”