“Nick Carter is not an easy man to wipe out,” she replied.
“I know that as well as you, Belle.”
“You’d do anything to accomplish it, eh?”
“That’s what I would,” cried Godard decisively. “The play would be limited to two persons, Belle, if what you think is true. It would be him or me, and I’m cursed if I’d have it me if I could help it. Why do you think of him?”
The girl dried her lips and tossed aside her napkin.
“Because I don’t fancy the way things are going any better than you do, Nate,” she replied bitterly. “It was Carter who threw me out of my job at the bank, for which he could have had no earthly reason, barring that he suspected me of having worked Kendall for a fish and lured him where you could shove him into a corner. Carter doesn’t like me for a cent, and maybe he likes you none the less for being my uncle. Possibly he suspects you because of it.”
“But he can have no evidence——”
“Bah! No man ever knows what evidence Nick Carter possesses,” Belle curtly interrupted. “When he gets after a covey, about the first the poor devil knows of it, Nate, he is down and out for keeps, with bangles on his wrists or a hemp tie in place of a silk one. Don’t bank on what Nick Carter doesn’t know. If you are up against him, and any reason exists for his being after you, there’s but one safe course—and even that is a long chance against such a man as he is.”
“What course is that?”
“Take the bull by the horns, Nate, and either put the detective to sleep or go under yourself in the attempt. That’s the only way to deal with Nick Carter.”