|I LIGHTED my candle and stepped into the closet, shutting the door
behind me. The small space, no longer cluttered by old odds and ends of
gardening tools, was clear to my eyes in every corner, and presented
so commonplace an appearance that I was almost ready to believe that
nightmares had possessed me lately, and that an especially vivid one had
brought me to stand absurdly here in the sleeping house peering at an
innocent board wall. Nevertheless, I set down my candle on the floor and
attacked the boards put up by Henry with what skill and energy I could.
They moved at once as though they were on oiled hinges, and the whole
low side of the closet came forward in my hands. Before me opened the
black hole into which I had fallen the morning when Mary and I had
explored the kitchen after Delia's departure. I did not know what lay
there in the dark, but, unless I had the courage of my final adventure,
there was no use in having braved and endured so much. I slid my lighted
candle ahead of me and crept along the floor into the hole.
I had to creep only for an instant, then damp, cool space opened above
my head and I stood up. I was in a narrow passageway of enormous height;
in fact, the whole outer wall of the house stood at my right hand, and
the whole inner wall at my left, crossed here and there by the beams of
the deep window sills to which Mrs. Brane had called my attention on the
evening of my arrival at “The Pines.” It was the most curious place. A
foot or two in front of me a narrow stairs made of packing-boxes and odd
pieces of lumber nailed together, went up between the walls. Holding my
candle high, so that as far as possible I could see before and above
me, I began to mount the steps. I was weak with excitement and with the
heavy beating of my heart.
I counted sixteen steps, and saw that I had come to the top of the queer
flight. The narrow, enormously high, passage, like an alley between
towering sky-scrapers led on with an odd look, somewhere ahead of me
sloping up. I walked perhaps twenty steps, and saw that I had come to
the foot of an inclined plane. Probably Mr. Brane had found it easier of
construction than his amateur stairs. I mounted it slowly, stopping to
listen and to hold my breath. There was no sound in the house but the
faint scuttling of rats and the faint, faint pressure of my steps. I
realized that I must now be on a level with the passage in the northern
wing, and that here it was that the various housekeepers and servants
had heard a ghostly footfall or a gusty sigh. It would be easy enough to
play ghost here; in fact, I felt like an unholy spirit entombed between
the walls of the sleeping, unsuspecting house.
I reached the top of the inclined plane, and stopped with my left
hand against the wall. Here I could see a long row of parallel rafters
between which ran horizontal beams. In the spaces so enclosed lay the
rows of bricks, hardened cement curling along their edges. My hand
rested against the first parallel rafter on the left side. I began to
count: one, two, three, four, five. This was certainly the fifth rafter
on the left wall from the top of the inclined plane. I put down my
candle. If my chart was right, and not the crazy fiction of a diseased
brain as I half imagined it to be, this fifth rafter hid the iron box
in which lay a treasure thought by the writer of the directions to be
“worthy of any risk, almost of any crime.” I put my arms out at a
level with my shoulders, and grasped the beam in both hands. I pulled.
Instantly, a section about as long as myself moved forward. I pulled
again. This time the heavy beam came out suddenly, and I fell with it.
The thud seemed to me loud enough to wake the dead. I crouched, holding
my breath, where I had fallen, then, freeing myself from the beam which
had caught my skirt, I stood up. I peered into the opening behind the
beam. In the narrow darkness of the space there seemed to be a narrower,
denser darkness. I put my hand on it, and touched the edge of a long,
narrow box.
Instantly the fascination of all stories of hidden treasure, the wonder
thrill of Ali Baba's hidden cave, the spell of Monte Cristo, had me, and
I felt no fear of any kind. Wounds, and pains, and terrors dropped from
me. I pulled out the box as boldly and as eagerly as any pirate in a
tale. It was heavy, the box. I eased it to the floor and laid it flat.
It was an old, shallow box of iron, rusted and stained. There was no
mark of any kind upon it, just a keyhole in the front. I must now find
the eighteenth brick in the thirtieth row in order to possess myself of
the key to my treasure. I counted carefully, pressing each brick with an
unsteady, feverish finger. On the thirtieth row from the floor, eighteen
bricks from the fifth rafter... yes, this was certainly the thirtieth
row. I counted twice to make sure, and now, from the rafter, the
eighteenth brick. It looked quite as secure as any other, and, indeed,
I had to work hard to clear away the cement that held it in place. When
that was done, I had no difficulty in loosening it. I took it out--yes,
there behind it lay an iron key. I did not stop to replace the brick,
but, hurrying back to my box, knelt down before it. My hands were
shaking so that I had to steady my right with my left in order to fit in
the key.
It would not turn. I worked and twisted and poked. Nothing would move
the rusty lock. Sweat streamed down my face. There was nothing for it
but to go back to the kitchen, get some kerosene, pour it into the lock,
and so oil the rusty contrivance. Every minute was as precious as life
itself. I made the trip at desperate speed, returned with a small bottle
full of oil, and saturated the lock. After another five minutes of
fruitless twisting, suddenly the key turned. I grasped the lid. It
opened with a faint, protesting squeak.
It seemed to me at first that the box was full of bright and moving
life; then I saw, with a catching breath, that the flame of my candle
played across the surface of a hundred gems. There lay in the box an
ecclesiastical robe of some kind, encrusted all over with jewels. And
at one end rested a slender circlet, like a Virgin's crown, studded
with crimson, and blue, and white, and yellow stones. So did the whole
bewildering, beautiful thing gleam and glisten and shoot sparks that
it seemed indeed to be on fire. I have never till that night felt the
mysterious lure of precious stones. Kneeling there alone in the strange
hiding-place, I was possessed by an intolerable longing to escape with
these glittering things, and to live somewhere in secret, to fondle
and cherish their unearthly fires. It was a thirst, an appetite, the
explanation of all the terrible digging and delving, the sweat and the
exhaustion of the mine... it was something akin to the hypnotism that
the glittering eye of the serpent has for its victim, a desire, a peril
rooted deep in the hearts of men, one of the most mysterious things in
our mysterious spirit. I knelt there, forgetful of my danger, forgetful
of my life, forgetful of everything except the beauty of those stones.
Then, with a violent start, I remembered. I carefully drew out the
robe, laid it over my arm, and, taking the heavy circlet in my hand, I
prepared myself for flight. The load was extraordinarily heavy. I bent
under it.
I had taken perhaps six steps towards safety when I heard a sound.
It was not the sound of rats, it was not the sound of my own light
step... it was something else. I did not know what that sound was, but
some instinct told me that it was a danger signal. I put out my candle
and flattened myself against the wall. Then I did distinctly hear an
approaching step. It was not anywhere else in the house. It was between
those two walls. It was ascending the steps, it was coming up the plane.
Through the pitchy darkness it advanced, bringing with it no light, but
moving surely as though it knew every step of the way. There was hardly
room for two people between those high walls; any one passing me, where
I stood, must brush against me. I dared not move even to lay down my
treasure and put myself into an attitude of self-defense.
I thought that my only chance lay in the miracle of being passed without
notice. Near to me the footsteps stopped, and I remembered that any foot
coming along the passage would perforce strike against the box and the
fallen beam. There was no hope. Nevertheless, like some frozen image, I
stood there clasping the robe and crown, incapable of motion, incapable
of thought.
I could hear a faint breathing in the dark. It was not more than two
feet away from me. It seemed to my straining eyeballs that I could make
out the lines of a body standing there, its blank face turned in my
direction. Then--my heart leaped with the terror of it--the invisible
being laughed.
“You have n't gone,” said the low, sweet, horrible voice; “I can smell
the candle, so you must have put it out when you heard me. If I had n't
struck my foot against a board, I'd have come upon you in the midst of
your interesting work. There's no place to hide here. You've either
run back to the end of the passage and crept in under my bedclothes, or
you're flattened up against the wall. I think you're near me. I think I
hear your heart...” No doubt, she did; it was laboring like a ship in
a storm. She paused probably to listen to my pounding blood, then she
laughed again. “You're badly scared, aren't you? It's a feeling of
security, my girl, compared to the fright you'll get later. Why don't
you scream? Too scared? Or are you afraid you'll kill somebody else,
besides Robbie, of fright. A ghost screaming in the wall! Grrrrrr!”
I can give no idea of the terrible sound she made in her throat. And
the truth was I could n't scream. I was pinned there against the wall as
though there were hands around my neck.
She made a step forward--it was like a ghastly game of Blind Man's Buff;
most of those games must be based on fearful race-memories of outgrown
terrors; then she gave a sudden spring to one side, an instinctive,
beastlike movement, and her hand struck my face. Instantly she had flung
herself upon me. I let fall my booty and fought with all my strength. I
might as well have struggled with a tigress. She was made of strings
of steel. Her arms and legs twisted about me like serpents, her furious
strength was disgusting, loathsome, her breath beat upon my face. I fell
under her, and she turned up my skirt over my head, fastening it in the
darkness with such devilish quick skill that I could not move my arms.
Also she crammed fold after fold into my mouth till I was gagged, my
jaws forced open till they ached. The pain in my throat and neck was
intolerable.
Then, groping about, she found the candle and I heard her strike a
match. Afterwards she inspected the treasure, drawing deep sighs of
satisfaction and murmuring to herself. After a long time of enjoyment,
she sat down beside me, placing the candle so that it shone upon me. I
could see the light through the thinnish stuff over my face.
“Now, Janice,” she said, “I shall make you more comfortable, and then I
shall afford you some of the most excellent entertainment you can well
imagine. There are people all over the world who would give ten years
of their lives to hear what you are going to hear to-night. I have some
interesting stories to tell. There is plenty of time before us. I shall
not have to leave you till just before daybreak, and we might as well
have a pleasant time together. I was too busy the other afternoon in the
woods and too hurried to give you any real attention. This time I shall
do my duty by you. You are really rather a remarkable girl, and I am
proud of you. That beating I gave you would have laid up most young
women for a fortnight. But you are made of adventurous stuff.” She
sighed, a strange sound to come from her lips; then, skillfully, she
drew the skirt partially from my face, possessed herself of my hands
which she bound securely with a string she took from her pocket--a piece
of twine which, if I stirred a finger, cut into my wrists like a knife.
She gradually drew the gag out of my mouth, keeping a strangling hold on
my throat as she did so, and when my jaw snapped back in place--it had
been almost out of its socket--still keeping that grip on my wind-pipe,
she tied a silk handkerchief over my mouth, knotting it tightly behind
my head. Then she released me and moved a little away. I looked at her,
no doubt, with the eyes of a trapped animal, so that, bending down to
inspect me, she laughed again.
“I'm not going to kill you, you know,” she said sweetly,--“not yet.
I could have killed you the other day if it had n't been more to my
purpose to let you live. I could have killed you any time these past few
weeks. Don't you know that, you silly, reckless child? All of you here
in this absurd house lay in the hollow of my hand.” She held out one of
her very long, slender hands, so like my own, as she spoke, and slowly,
tensely, drew her fingers together as though she were crushing some
small live thing to death. “I did n't really mean to kill Robbie. But I
did mean to get him out of that room, alive or dead. He killed himself,
which saved me the trouble. I don't like killing children--it's quite
untrue what they say of me in that respect--though I've been driven to
it once or twice. It's being too squeamish about babies' lives that's
put an end to most careers of burglary. That's the God's truth, Janice.
You're shaking, are n't you? How queer it must be to have nerves
like that--young, innocent, ignorant nerves! Poor Janice! Poor little
red-haired facsimile of myself! What explanation did you find for that
resemblance? I fancied you'd frighten yourself into a superstitious
spasm over it, and stop your night-meddling for good. But you didn't.
I'll be bound, though, that the true explanation never occurred to you.”
I had been staring up into her beautiful, ghastly face, but now I closed
my eyes. A most intolerable thought had come to me. It came slowly,
gropingly, out of the remote past, and it turned my heart into a heavy
gray stone.
“Are you remembering, Janice? No, that's not possible. You were too
young.” She leaned over me again, and pushed back a lock of hair that
had been troubling my eyes. “You've grown to be a very beautiful girl.”
I groaned aloud, and writhed there. I knew the truth now. There was a
mother from whom I had been taken when I was a few months old--a mother
of whom my father would never let me speak, a mother I had been told to
forget, to blot out of my imagination as though she had never been. What
dreadful reason my father must have had for his secret, sordid manner of
living! What a shadow had lain on my childhood with its drab wanderings,
its homelessness, its disgraceful shifts and pitiful poverty! All that
far-off misery, which I had tried so hard to forget in the new land,
came back upon me now with an added, crushing weight. I lay there and
longed to die.
The woman began to talk again.
“Yes,” she said, “I am your mother. My name was Wenda Tour, and I
married Sergius Gale, who was your father. I am Polish-French, and
he was Russian-French. When I married him he was an innocent, little,
pale-faced student at the University of Moscow. I was only sixteen,
myself, training for a dancer, acting... a clever, abused, gifted young
waif, and fairly innocent, too, though I'd always been light-fingered and
skillful at all sorts of tricks. I think I was in love with Sergius; at
any rate, I was anxious to escape from the trainer, who was a brute. But
Sergius began to bore me. Oh, my God! how insufferably he bored me! And
he was so wearisomely weak, weaker than most men, and, the Lord knows,
they're mostly made of butter, or milk-and-water mixtures. And you bored
me dreadfully, too; the very thought of you before you came filled
me with a real distaste for life. By the time you made your squalling
entrance into the world, I had got myself into rather complicated
trouble, and managed to make a scapegoat of your father, the poor fool!
It was a sharp business, and it might have made us both rich, but I was
clumsier than I am now, and Sergius was a hindrance. It did n't quite go
through, and I had to make a get-away, a quick one. I've made some even
quicker since then. After he'd spent some sobering and salutary months
in a Russian prison, your father came out, reformed and completely cured
of his passion for red-haired vixens with a natural taste for crime.
I've often wondered how he treated you, little miniature of myself as
you were even in your cradle. I don't believe you had a very comfortable
childhood, Janice. The crudest thing I ever did, and the wickedest, was
to let you come into the world, or, having let you come, to allow you
to remain here. I ought to have put you out of your misery before it had
really begun. You wouldn't be lying here shaking. You would n't have to
pay the piper for me as I fear I shall be forced to make you pay before
I leave you to-night. I hate to do it. I honestly do. There must be a
soft spot left in me somewhere, but there's no use balking. It's got
to be done. It's too good a chance to miss. I can wipe out my past as
though it had been written on a slate. You can't blame me yourself,
Janice. The jewels mean wealth, and your death means my freedom. When
they find you here--and they will find you--they will think that they
have found my corpse. Don't you see? Even Maida, even the Baron, even
Jaffrey, even the priest, will swear to it--you see. If you had n't been
so clever, or a little bit cleverer, you would n't have played my game,
or you'd have taken more pains to keep your plan a secret from me. Once
I was sure you did n't think your double a ghost, I began to suspect
you; when you pulled that lover of yours”--she laughed, and even in
my misery I felt the sting of anger and of shame--“of ours, I should
say--when you pulled him out of the mud, why, I found myself able to
read you like a child's first primer. Oh, you've been a nuisance to me,
kept me on pins and needles. I knew you would n't dare to search the
house. I suppose you guessed that would mean the end of your life, but
you've certainly given me some unhappy minutes. That fool of a Baron,
blabbing out his secret to you... but I made it all work out to my
salvation. They've nabbed the Baron and the priest; I suppose they'll
get Maida to-night; Jaffrey will be caught snoring in his bed”--she
chuckled--“and there's an end to all my partners, all the fools that
thought they'd come in for a share of booty. The only thing that bothers
me is that they'll never know how neatly I bagged them all, and made a
get-away myself. They will think me dead. They'll bear witness. They'll
point at your dead body, Janice, and say, 'Yes, that's she.' Oh, it's
a rare trick I'm playing on the police, on the gang, on every
one--especially that cat of a Hovey with his eyes.” She rubbed her lips
angrily, a curious, to me inexplicable, gesture. “But it's a poor joke
for you, my girl. Playing your hand alone against a lot of hardened old
hands like us is a fool's work. That's what it is! Did you think I'd let
you run off with a fortune under my very nose? No; you'll have to pay
for that insolence. Daughter or no daughter, you'll have to pay. At
least, I'll be saving your soul alive. If I had n't got back to you
to-night, you'd be a thief flying out into the world. Perhaps your
dying to-night is the best thing that could happen to you. I don't know.
Looking back--well, it's hard to say.”
She sat there thinking, forgetful of me, and I opened my miserable eyes
and stared hopelessly at the clear, hard profile, so beautiful, so evil,
so unutterably merciless. She had been sixteen when I was born, twenty
years ago. She was now only thirty-six, and yet her face was almost old.
She turned upon me again with her ghastly smile. “You don't look pleased
to see your mother, my dear. Perhaps I was a trifle rough with you
at our first interview, but you've been spared a great many worse
thrashings by having been separated from me at such an early age. I have
a devilish temper, as you know. I'd probably have flogged you to
death before you were out of your pinafores. I'd like to hear your
history--oh, I've kept track of its outlines, I always thought you
might some day be useful--but I don't dare take that handkerchief off of
your mouth. That handkerchief belonged to my second husband, the Comte
de Trème.... Yes, I went up in the world after I'd put Sergius into
prison. I've been a great lady. It's a tremendous advantage to any
career, to learn the grand air and to get a smattering of education.
Poor Trème! He was n't quite the weakling that most of them have been. I
have a certain respect for him actually. He was a good man, and no milk
and water in his veins, either. If any one could have exorcised the
devil in me, it was he. He did his best, but I was too much for him...
and in the end, poor fool, he put a bullet into his brain because--oh,
these idiot aristocrats!--of the _disgrace_. It was after Trème, a long
while after Trème, when I was queening it in St. Petersburg,--because,
you see, I did n't fall into disgrace at all; I let Trème shoulder it;
he was dead, and it could n't hurt him, and I was glad to stab that
high-nosed family of his,--about three years after his death, I
suppose, when the ex-army captain came along. Brane, you know, Theodore
Brane----He was a handsome chap, long and lean and blue-eyed. I lost my
head over him. I was still pretty young, twenty or thereabouts. He
would n't marry me, d---- him! And I was a fool. That's where I lost my
footing. Well, this is going to put me back again and revenge me on that
cold-blooded coward. We lived together, and we lived like princes--on
Trème's fortune. You should have seen his family! It was when the Trème
estate was bled dry that I happened to remember those jewels. Yes. I'd
seen them in the cathedral at Moscow in a secret crypt, down under the
earth. I was a child at the time, a little red-haired imp of nine or
ten, and I got round a silly old sheep of a priest, and begged him so
hard to let me go down through the trapdoor with him that he consented.
He thought it could do no harm, I suppose,--a child of that age! I saw
the Beloved Virgin of the Jewels! She stood there blazing, a candlestick
made of solid gold burning on her right hand and her left--an
unforgettable sight--the robe and the circlet that are here beside us
now in Brane's double wall in North Carolina... God! it's strange--this
life!
“I often thought of that Holy Wealthy Lady in her crypt. When Brane and
I were at an end of our means, and of our wits, and he beginning to get
tired of the connection, I made up my mind to have a try at the Moscow
Virgin's wardrobe. I did n't tell Brane, though he was a thief himself,
cashiered from the British army for looting in India. I thought this
scheme would be a bit too stiff for him. I went alone to Moscow, and
I became the most pious frequenter of ikons, the most devout of
worshipers, a generous patron to all droning priests. And there was
one--one with a big, oval Christ-face--that I meant to corrupt. He was
rotten to the core, anyway, a grayish-white sepulcher if ever there
was one. I got him so that he cringed at my feet. He was a white, soft
worm--ugh! I chose him for the scapegoat. That's the real secret of my
success, Janice. I never forgot to provide a scapegoat, some one
upon whom the police were bound to tumble headlong at the very first
investigation. I am afraid you are the scapegoat this time--you and
'Dabney'--this will give his fool-heart a twist, set him to rights until
next time.
“It's a rotten trick to play on you, but you should n't have mixed up
in it. A sensible girl would n't have taken the bait--a slip of paper
handed to her in the street! For shame, Janice! It was my first idea,
and I laughed at it. I thought I'd have to think up something better.
But it worked. Folly is just as deserving of punishment as crime--more
so, I believe. It's only just that a fool should lie tied up and gagged.
That's the way the world works, and it's not such a bad world, after
all, if you make yourself its master and kick over a few conventions....
“Well, Father Gast ate out of my hand, and thought me as beautiful
as one of God's angels, only a little more merciful to the desires
of men... and one day he gave me a permit, got a young acolyte of the
cathedral to take me down to worship at the shrine of the Most Beloved
Virgin of the Jewels. It was dark in the crypt, except for the candle
that poor boy carried above his head. The Virgin stood there glistening.
I knelt down to pray. The boy knelt down. I snatched the candlestick
of gold that stood on the Virgin's right hand and cracked his skull. He
dropped without so much as a whimper. Then I stripped our Holy Lady, and
came up out of the crypt.”
She stopped to draw a long, long breath, as she must have stopped when,
in the dim Kremlin, she had come up out of the bowels of the earth
carrying her treasure, leaving the boy acolyte senseless before the
naked shrine. For all the terrible preoccupation of my mind, racing with
death, I could not help but listen to her story. My imagination seemed
to be stimulated by the terror of my plight. I might have been in
the crypt; I seemed to smell the damp, incense-laden, close smell of
candle-lighted chapels. I felt the weight of the jeweled robe, the
fearful necessity for escape.
After her long breath, she began again eagerly.
“I came up out of the crypt, and I called to my Christ-faced _baba_. He
was waiting for me near the altar at his hypocritical prayers. He came
quickly over to me, staring at the bundle in my arms, and I kept him
fascinated by the smile I wore. I can command the look in my eyes at
such moments. It's the eyes that give away a secret. You can see the
change of mood, the intention to deceive, the fear, the suspicion, the
decision to kill--but even in those days I knew how to guard my eyes.
Father Gast looked at me, and I smiled.
“'Hist!' I said to him, 'I have something amusing to show you. Kneel
down by this opening and look at the little acolyte. Lean forward.'
“The fool obeyed. He knelt, his big hands holding to the edge of the
trap, and peered into the darkness below. I let the door of the trap
fall. It was a square of solid masonry, easy enough to let fall, but too
heavy for one man to lift alone. But he was a trifle too quick for me,
drew back his head like a snake. It caught his hands. He howled like a
dog. I tore off a fastening of the Virgin's robe and hid it in his gown.
He fainted before I had gone out of the place.
“I had a hand-bag and a waiting droshky; I packed away my jewels and
left Moscow by the first train. I went to Paris, traveling at.
speed with all the art of disguise and subterfuge I could command.
Nevertheless, on my way from the Gare du Nord to the address Brane had
given me, I thought that I was being followed. Of course, I gave the
_cocher_ another number, went in at a certain house I knew, escaped by
the back, and made my way on foot to Brane's apartment, unobserved. They
made no difficulty about admitting me. I found everything in confusion.
Brane had packed his boxes. He was planning a journey.” She laughed
bitterly. “I did n't know it then, but, in the interval, he'd met this
little black-eyed American woman and he'd made up his mind to be a _bon
sujet_. He was going to give me the slip. I opened one of his boxes,
wrapped up my booty in a dress-coat of his, well at the bottom, and then
I hid myself. I wanted to spy upon my Englishman. Brane came in, locked
up his luggage, and went out again at once. He was in the apartments
barely five minutes, and I never saw him again--the handsome,
good-for-nothing devil! I waited for him to come back. Presently some
men came in and carried off the boxes. I waited in the apartment for
several hours, but my lover did not return. He had gone to America,
Janice--think of it! with that treasure in his box.”
The candle, which had been flickering for several minutes, here went
out, and she was busy for a while, taking another from her pocket and
lighting it. I wondered what time it was. Surely long past midnight. The
minutes seemed to hurry through my brain on wings of fear. If only she
would sit there, talking, talking, telling me the story of her crimes,
till daylight! Then there might be some faint hope for me. They would
discover my absence, they would hunt. I might be able to work the
handkerchief off of my mouth and risk a cry for help. All sorts of
impossible hopes kept darting painfully through my despair. They
were infinitely more agonizing than any acceptance of fate, but I was
powerless to quiet them. Surely they would search for me; surely they
would chance upon that hole in the kitchen closet; surely God would lead
them to it! Ah, if only I had told Mary! If only my vanity had not led
me to trust only in myself!
“Now, you know the history of the robe, Janice,” began the woman after
she had settled herself again at my side. “The treasure that has already
caused three deaths, the acolyte's, and Robbie's, and--_yours_.
“I can't go into all the details of my adventures after I left Brane's
apartments. I soon found that he had been married and had gone to
America, and it was not long before I had his address. But it was very
long, a lifetime, before I was free to come after my treasure. Other
adventures intervened. Other people. I wrote some threatening letters,
but Brane never answered them, and I was not foolish enough to ruin
myself by trying to ruin him. I suppose he knew that and felt safe in
ignoring my attempts at blackmail and intimidation.
“Well, I am triumphant now--to-night. How's that for a moral tale? What
does the Bible say, 'the ungodly flourish like a green bay-tree'?
“But you will be interested to hear how I came to 'The Pines,' how I
managed to hide myself here, how I rid myself of those three idiotic
housekeepers and brought you down to take their place, how I introduced
Maida and Jaffrey, how I worked the whole affair. I don't know how much
you know. But I think there are several things that may surprise you.
Now, listen; we have still several hours. You shall have the story--you
alone, Janice--the true story of the Pine Cone Mystery. You are my
father confessor, Janice. My secrets are as safe with you to-night as
though I whispered them into a grave.”