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.” “That is more easily said than done.” “Not if it comes to that kind of a play.” “I don’t fear Weston and his second-rate detectives,” added Badger moodily; “but this man Carter is superior to that entire bunch.” “Bah!” cried Claudia. “You are needlessly alarmed. To begin with, Amos, he cannot possibly have learned anything definite about us as quickly as this.” “Possibly not.” “He could not have identified us as the couple who held him up and robbed him this morning, and he certainly must think that was only a chance job, not one planned by us the moment we heard he was coming out here in a runabout.” “No, he could not have guessed that,” admitted Badger. “Furthermore,” argued his wife, “my face was entirely covered with my dust-glasses and the false beard, and in my big auto coat it certainly could not have been suspected that I was a woman who suddenly showed up in the Peerless in which you escaped after robbing him.” “Sure it couldn’t,” put in Conley. “I’d have sworn you were a man myself.” “Oh, I don’t think he has any idea of the truth about that,” replied Badger. “There is still another thing in our favor,” continued Claudia. “What is that?” “The alleged robbery of Vic and myself, Amos, and the photograph which Vic took by which to convince Weston of the truth of our story.” “That was one of the shrewdest moves ever made,” declared Conley, laughing.