|I HAD news of Brane's death from the very priest whose hands I had
mutilated in the door of the trap. The fellow had been disciplined,
unfrocked, driven from Russia, where it was no longer possible for him
to make a living, and, as my method is, I had kept in touch with him.
I had even helped him to make a sort of fresh start--oh, by no means
an honorable one--in America, and purposely I'd seen to it that his new
activities should keep him in the neighborhood of Pine Cone. One who
knows the underworld as I do, Janice, has friends everywhere, has a tool
to her hand in the remotest corners of the earth. Gast was my spy on
Theodore Brane; Gast and the Baron. That nobleman, upon whom I dare
say you thought you made such an impression, Janice, was at one time
Theodore's valet. I knew him for a thief in the old days, but I kept him
in the household and so completely in subjection that the wretch would
tremble whenever he caught my eye. He, too, came over to this country,
and, ostensibly, his business became that of a cabinet-maker, a dealer
in old furniture. He had other, less reputable, business on the side. At
various times Brane bought furniture through him--Brane was always
ready to do a kindness to his inferiors. It was through the Baron that
Theodore got possession of that bookcase, the one with the double
back, but our wily ex-valet did n't put me wise to the possible
hiding-place,--even after I let him know that Brane had something to
hide--till I had bribed him for all I was worth. That is, he never did
put me wise. He blabbed his secret to you. It was only by finding you on
your knees before the shelves, the night after that fool's visit, that
I guessed he'd given himself away to my double. Till then I did n't
realize how safe I was in depending upon our resemblance, pretty
daughter. But, after that night, I amused myself greatly at your
expense. And I admit, Janice, I am forced to admit, that you amused
yourself at mine. I had no notion till to-night that you had dared to
use Maida, to question her, to force her to write notes! And then,
to write to Gast, to meet him, to get his translation and to destroy
it--Dieu! you have some courage, some wit, my girl!”
Her tone of pride, of complete power set my heart on fire with anger, so
that for a moment, I even lost my fear.
“Who found that letter of Gast's under the arbor seat? Whoever it was--I
suppose it must have been you--put me into a rage that was like enough
to drive me to any sort of violence. It was the last force of it that
you felt in the woods that afternoon. Dieu! I suffered from that anger.
To lie closed up in the wall, gnawing my own vitals, helpless, and to
know that you had got the clue, that you would perhaps be making use of
it! It was lucky for me that Jaffrey mentioned in my hearing the trip
that you were planning to Pine Cone. I enjoyed thrashing you, Janice,
and I enjoyed my little game at your friend Dabney's expense.... But I
am going too fast, I must get back to the beginning again. What are you
shaking for now? Scared? No, I believe you're angry.”
She peered into my burning face, and met the look, which must have been
a hateful one, blazing in my eyes.
“Remember, my dear,” she said tauntingly, “that it behooves you to be in
charity with all the world.”
Indeed, it was not the least of my torments on that terrible night to
know that the last images to possess my brain should be such horrid
ones, of treachery, and cruelty, and murder. Sometimes I thought I would
close my eyes to her, shut out her presence from my mind, but the feat
was impossible. I was too greatly fascinated by her smooth, sweet voice,
by her vital presence, by the interest of her story.
“As I was telling you,” she went on, “it was through Father Gast that I
heard of Brane's sudden death. It gave me the fright of my life, for I
thought he must have told about the treasures to his wife. Gast swore
that the Englishman had n't the courage to make use of his trove any
more than he had the courage to confess its whereabouts, but I decided
that there was no time to lose. Mrs. Brane might have a bolder spirit.
“I came over to this country disguised as a meek, brown-haired young
widow, named Mrs. Gaskell, and I rented a room above the Pine Cone
drug-store. This was last fall, about two months after Theodore Brane's
death.
“Ask Mrs. Brane some time--oh, I forgot, you are not apt to see her
again--no doubt, if you did ask her, she would tell you about the dear,
sweet woman who brought her little runaway Robbie home one afternoon and
took a friendly cup of tea with her. Yes, and learned in about half
an hour--only this the silly, little chatter-box would n't admit--more
about the habits of her husband and about her own life and plans and
character than most of the detectives I've hoodwinked could have learned
in a month. If it had n't been for Mrs. Gaskell, and for Mrs. Gaskell's
popularity with Robbie's nurse, and for Mrs. Gaskell's skill in winning
Robbie's confidence, I should never have learned about that hole in the
kitchen closet.
“Mary was n't Robbie's nurse in those days. Oh, no, my task would
n't have been so easy in that case. He was being cared for by a
happy-go-lucky negro woman from whom he ran away about twice a week. She
had a passion for driving over to Pine Cone every time George went for
supplies, and she was only too willing to leave her charge with Mrs.
Gaskell, who did so adore little children. From that girl I learned all
about the habits of 'The Pines' household, and from Robbie himself I got
the clue of clues.
“I understood that child. I could play upon him as though he had been
a little instrument of strings. He was the kind of secretive, sensitive
little animal that can be opened up or shut tight at will. A harsh
look would scare him into a deaf-mute, a little kindness would set him
chattering. I asked him questions about the house: where his father
had worked and spent most of his time; where he himself played; what,
especially, were his favorite play-places. He told me there were lots of
closets in the house, but that he was 'scared of dark closets,' and he
was 'most scared of the closet under the kitchen stairs.' I asked him
why, and he told me a long story about going in there and finding
his father bent over at one end of it--one of those mixed-up, garbled
accounts that children give; but I gathered that his father had been
vexed at the child's intrusion, and had told him to keep out of the
kitchen and out of the kitchen closet. It was the faintest sort of clue,
a mere will-o'-the-wisp, but I decided to follow it up.
“One day, when I knew that all the servants at 'The Pines' were off to
a county fair, I met with Robbie and his nurse, and easily persuaded the
girl to let me take her charge back to 'The Pines' while she joined the
other holiday-seekers. Robbie and I got a lift, and we were dropped at
'The Pines' gate. I asked him to take me up to the house by a short cut,
and in through the kitchen garden. I told him to pick me a nice nosegay
of flowers, and I went in to get a 'drink of water.' The kitchen was
empty, and I lost no time in slipping into the small kitchen closet. I
saw at once that it had been purposely crowded with heavy stuff, and
I began to search it. Of course I found the hole; I even went into the
hollow wall here, and explored the whole passage. Dieu! I was excited,
pleased! I knew that I was on the track of my treasure. And I saw how
easy it would be for some one to hide in that wall, and live there
comfortably enough for an indefinite time. I had what I'd come for, and
I decided that Mrs. Gaskell's stay in Pine Cone would come to an end
that night.
“It was disconcerting to hear Robbie's voice calling, 'Mithith Gathkell,
where are you? I was still in the passageway, but I crawled through that
hole in a hurry--too late! I met Robbie face to face. He'd come to find
me, and was standing timidly in the closet doorway with his hands full
of flowers. I knew that I should have to tie up his tongue for good and
all. I fixed him with my eyes, and let my face change till it must have
looked like the face of the worst witch in the worst old fairy-tale he'd
ever heard, and then, still staring at him, I slowly lifted off my brown
wig and I drew up my own red hair till it almost touched the top of the
kitchen closet. And I said, 'Grrrrrrrrr! I'm the witch that lives under
the stairs! I'm the witch that lives under the stairs!' in the worst
voice I could get out of my throat, a sort of suckling gobble it was,
pretty bad!”
She laughed, and again my rage and hatred overwhelmed my fear. “I had to
run at him, and put my hand over his mouth or he'd have raised the roof
with his screams. I got my wig on again, and I carried him out into the
garden, and I told him that if ever he went near that closet or even
whispered to any one that he'd seen that red-haired woman, I'd tell her
to come and stand by his bed at night and stick her face down at him
till he was all smothered by her long red hair. He was all confused and
trembling. I don't know what he thought. He seemed to imagine that Mrs.
Gaskell and the witch were two distinct people, but, at any rate, he was
scared out of his little wits, and I knew when I got through with him
that wild horses would n't tear the story of that experience out of him.
Children are like that, you know.”
I did know, and I lay there and cursed her in my heart. I thought
of what agonies the poor little child had suffered in the mysterious
silence of his baby mind--that pitiful, terrible silence of childhood
that has covered so many cruelties, so much unspeakable fear, since the
childhood of the human race began. My heart, crushed as it was, ached
for little Robbie, sickened for him. I would have given so much to hold
him in my arms, and comfort him, and reassure his little shaken soul.
God willing, he was happy now, and reassured past all the powers of
earth or hell to disturb his beautiful serenity.
|THE next morning”--again I was listening to the story--“Mrs. Gaskell
left Pine Cone to the regret of all its inhabitants. I doubt if
ever there has been a more popular summer visitor. And not many days
afterwards, a gypsy woman came to 'The Pines' to peddle cheap jewelry.
Old Delia was in the kitchen, and old Delia refused to take any interest
in the wares. She told the woman to clear out, but she refused to go
until she had been properly dismissed by the lady of the house. At
last, to get rid of her, Delia went off to speak to her mistress, and
no sooner had she closed the door, than the gypsy slipped across the
kitchen, and got herself into that closet. And the odd part of it is,
that she never came out. When Delia returned with more emphatic orders
of dismissal, the peddling gypsy had gone. Nobody had seen her leave the
place, but that did not cause much distress to any one but Mrs. Brane.
I think that she was disturbed; at least I know that she ordered a
thorough search of the house and grounds, for footsteps were running all
about everywhere that day, and lights were kept burning in the house all
night. I think, perhaps, some of the negroes sat up to keep watch. But
the peddler made not so much as a squeak that night. She lay on a pile
of blankets she had carried in on her back, and she ate a crust of bread
and an apple. She was sufficiently comfortable, and very much pleased
with herself. Towards morning she went to sleep and slept far into the
next day.
“So you see, Janice, there I was in the house, and I was sure that not
far from me was Brane's treasure trove. This double wall of which he had
evidently made use--he had built up that queer flight of steps and made
a floor and an inclined plane--convinced me that I was hot on the
track of the jewels. You can guess how I worked to find them. All to no
purpose. I had to be very careful. Rats, to be sure, make a noise in the
walls of old houses, but the noise is barely noticeable, and it does not
sound like carpentry. However, I had convinced myself, by the end of the
third dreary day, that if the robe and crown were hidden in the double
wall, they were very secretly and securely hidden, and that I should
need some further directions to find them. It was annoying, especially
as my provisions had given out, and I knew that I should have to venture
down into the kitchen at night and pick up some fragments of food. I
was glad then and all the time, that Mrs. Brane's servants were such
decrepit old bodies, half-blind and half-deaf, and altogether stupid.
Many's the time I've crouched behind the junk in that closet and
listened to their silly droning! But it gave me a sad jump when I heard
the voice of Mrs. Brane's first housekeeper.
“She was young and nervous, and had a high, breathless manner of
talking, and she was bent upon efficiency. Well, so was I. I had decided
that, outside of the wall, there were two rooms in the Brane house that
must be thoroughly investigated--the bookroom where Theodore kept his
collection of Russian books, and the room upstairs in the north wing
which he had used as a sort of den, and which, after his death, Mrs.
Brane had converted into a nursery. I think she must have had a case
of nerves after her husband's death, for she was set on having a
housekeeper and a new nurse for Robbie, and she was always flitting
about that house like a ghost. Maybe, after all, he had dropped her a
hint about some money or jewels being hidden somewhere in the house!
That was Maida's notion, for she says Mrs. Brane was as keen as 'Sara'
about cleaning out the old part of the house, and never left her alone
an instant.
“To get back to the first days I spent in this accursed wall... that
housekeeper gave me a lot of misery. In the first place, she slept in
the north wing, the room you had, Janice,”--I was almost accustomed to
this horrible past tense she used towards me; I was beginning to think
of my own life as a thing that was over--“and she was a terribly light
sleeper. Twice, as I was sneaking along that passageway trying to locate
the rooms, she came out with a candle in her hand, and all but saw me.
I decided that my only chance to really search the place lay in getting
rid of the inhabitants of that northern wing. I thought, perhaps, I
could give that part of the house a bad name. Once it was empty, I could
practically live there. I had n't reckoned with that bull-dog of a Mary.
“It was easy enough to scare the housekeeper. I found out just where the
wall of her bedroom stood, and I got close behind it near her bed and
groaned. That was quite enough. Two nights, and the miserable thing
left. Mrs. Brane got another woman at once, a lazy, absent-minded woman,
and I wasted no time getting rid of her. I simply stole near to her bed
one pitch-black night, and sighed. She left almost at once.
“Then Mrs. Brane, confound her! sent to New York to Skane for a
detective, and he played house-boy for a fortnight. I had to keep as
still as a mouse. I was almost starved, for I did n't dare take enough
food to hoard, and for a while that detective prowled the house all
night. I must have come near looking like a ghost in those days. Thank
God, the entire quiet bored Skane's man, and reassured the rest of the
household. When he had gone I did n't try ghost-tricks for sometime. I
fed myself up, and did a little night-prowling, down in the bookroom,
and in some of the empty bedrooms, with no result. Then came the third
housekeeper.
“That third housekeeper, my dear daughter, all but did for me. She was
a fussy little female with the sort of energy that goes prying about
for unnecessary pieces of labor. And she lit upon the kitchen closet.
Fortunately, Delia and the other two women were so annoyed by her
methods that they did n't take up her instructions to clean out the
closet with any zeal. So, one morning, I heard her in the kitchen
scolding and carrying on, 'You lazy women, I'll just have to shame you
by doing it myself.'
“Now, while I crouched there, listening to her, it occurred to me that
I had heard her voice before. I racked my frightened brains. I had
never seen the woman, but I was certain that the voice, a peculiar one,
belonged somewhere in my memory. I decided there might be some useful
association. I risked coming into the closet, and taking a look. Then I
fled back and laughed to myself. I had known that little wax-face when
she was a very great somebody's maid, and I knew enough about her to
send her to the chair. Was n't it luck! I went back into my hole, for
all the world like a spider, and sat there waiting for my prey.
“She did a lot of clattering around in the closet; then, I knew by the
silence, that she'd lit upon the hole. I crept near, and waited for her,
crouched in the dark. She came crawling through the hole--I can see her
silly, pale, dust-streaked face now! I pounced upon her with all the
swiftness and the silence of a long-legged tarantula. I stopped her
mouth before she could squeal, and I carried her back to the end of the
passage here, and I talked to her for about five seconds. At the end of
that time every bone in her body had turned to water. She had sworn as
though to God to hold her tongue, and to get out of the house; to keep
her mouth shut forever and ever, amen. And I let her go. She scuttled
out of the closet like a rat, and I heard her tell Delia to leave the
place alone. The third housekeeper left the next day, and, as I heard by
listening to kitchen gossip, she gave no reason for her going.
“But, of course, I had had a terrible experience myself. I was n't going
to risk anything like that again. Besides, I was sick of living in
the wall. I got out that night--half the time Delia forgot to lock the
outside door, and always blamed her own carelessness when she found it
open in the morning. I had decent clothes with me, and I tramped to a
station at some distance, and went up to New York. I'd decided to take
a few of my pals in on the game. I had several old pals in New York, and
some introductions. It's a first-class city for crooks, almost as good
as London, and not half so well policed. And there, my girl, I took the
trouble of hunting you up.
“It was n't because I meant to use you at 'The Pines.' It was just out
of curiosity--motherly love”--I wish I could describe the drawling irony
of the expression on her lips. “You are one of the people I've kept
track of. I always felt you might be useful, that I might be able to
frighten you into usefulness. Many's the time I've seen you when you
were a child, and, later, when you were working in Paris. Not much more
than a child then, but such a slim, little, white-faced beauty. What
was it, the work? Oh, yes, you were a little assistant milliner, and
you turned down the chance of being Monsieur le Baron's _maîtresse_, and
lost your job for the reward of virtue--little fool! I knew you had gone
to America, but I had lost track of your whereabouts. I soon picked up
your tracks, though, and found out that you were in New York looking
for work. Your beauty has been against you, Janice; it's always against
moral and correct living. It's a great help in going to the devil and
beating him at his own game, however, as you might discover if I were
immoral enough to let you live. The instant I set eyes on you in New
York and saw what a ridiculous copy of your mother you had grown to be,
I felt that here was an opportunity of some sort if I could only make
use of it. I racked my brains, and, as usual, the inspiration came.
“I got Mrs. Brane's advertisement, so far unanswered, and I handed it
to you myself in the street. As soon as I was sure that you had got the
job, I left for 'The Pines.' I slipped in like a thief at night, one of
the nights when Delia forgot to lock the back door. I had shadowed
you pretty closely those days between the time you answered the
advertisement, and left for 'The Pines,' and it was n't a difficult
matter for me to get a copy of your wardrobe. You don't know what a
help it was to me that you chose a sort of uniform. I knew that you'd be
wearing one of those four gray dresses most of the time.
“After you were in the house, I grew pretty bold, and it was then I
decided to get Robbie out of that nursery. So I made myself up as the
witch that lives under the stairs, and waked him by bending down over
his bed with my hair hanging in his face. I was nearly caught at it,
too, by Mary, and I scared the old women out of the house--which I had
n't in the least intended to do.
“I didn't half like Mrs. Brane's plan of getting a man and wife to take
the place of the old women, and I saw at once the necessity for Jaffrey
and Maida. However, I was determined not to let them know that there
were two red-haired women in the house. I was fascinated by this plan
of using you, Janice, of getting witnesses to swear to your identity as
Madame Trème, of baiting a trap--with you for bait--into which all of
my accomplices would tumble, as they have tumbled, and, then, as a last
stroke, putting an end to you and making a clean get-away myself. If any
one swings for your murder, it will be Maida, who left 'The Pines' so
hurriedly and secretly to-night.
“There's another reason why I did n't take them into the secret of your
resemblance: I was glad to have them fancy themselves always under my
eye. The risk of their giving themselves away to you was very small, for
I had arranged a signal, without which they were positively forbidden to
show by sign, or look, or word, even when they seemed to be alone with
me, that they had any collusion with Mrs. Brane's housekeeper, that they
thought her anything in the world but Mrs. Brane's housekeeper. I have
my tools pretty well scared, Janice, and I knew they would obey my
orders to the letter.”
In this Madame was wrong. Maida and Jaffrey had both disobeyed this
order. With no signal from me, they had spoken in their own character
to me as though I had indeed been Madame Trème. Like the plans of most
generals, Madame's plans had their weak points.
“You know how it all worked,” she went on, unconscious of my mental
connotations, “and, then, _sacre nom de Dieu!_ came 'Dabney'!
“God! How the rats scuttled in the house the night after he came! I had
Maida to thank for putting me wise. That innocent-faced, slim youngster,
with his air of begging-off punishment--I admit, he'd have given me very
little uneasiness. You see--”
As she talked I had been watching her with the fixity of my despair,
but, a few moments before this last speech of hers concerning Dabney,
the flickering of the light across her face had drawn my attention to
the second candle. It had burned for more than half its length, and I
knew that morning was at hand.
Morning, and a faint hope! The story was not finished, and, though I
thought I could tell the rest myself, the woman was so absorbed in the
delightful contemplation of her triumph and her cleverness, that I knew
she would go on to the end. The wild, resurgent hope deafened me for
a few minutes to her low murmur of narration. It had come to me like
a flash that, with my legs unbound, I might be able to knock over the
candle, put it out, get to my feet in one lightning spring, and make
a dash for the hole in the closet. Would there not be a chance of my
reaching it alive? Would not the noise of my flight, in spite of my
stocking feet and the handkerchief over my mouth, be enough to attract
the attention even of a sleeping house, much more certainly, of an
awakened and suspicious one? It was, of course a desperate hope, but I
could not help but entertain it. If I could force myself to wait till
morning had surely come, till there was the stir and murmur of awakening
life, surely--oh, dear God!--surely, there might be one little hope of
life. I was young and strong and active. I must not die here in this
horrible wall. I must not bear the infamy of this woman's guilt. I must
not lie dead and unspeakably defiled in the sight of the man I loved.
Paul Dabney's face, haggard, wistful, appeared before me, and my whole
heart cried out to its gray and doubting eyes for help, for pity, for
belief.
Unluckily, the woman, sensitive as a cat, had become aware of the
changed current of my thought, of the changed direction of my look. She,
too, glanced at the candle and gave a little exclamation of dismay that
stabbed the silence like a suddenly bared knife.
“Bah!” she said, “it must be daylight, and I have n't half confessed
myself. Pests on the time! We've been here four or five hours. Are you
cramped?”
I was insufferably cramped. The pain of my arms and shoulders, the
cutting of the twine about my wrists, were torment. I was very thirsty,
too. But nothing was so cruel as the sinking of my heart which her words
caused me.
“I suppose I shall have to cut it short,” she said. “After all, you must
know it almost as well as I do, especially since you had the nerve to
play my part with Maida. The worst trick you put over on me was when you
pulled Dabney out of the mud--curse the mud, anyway; if it had been a
real quicksand he'd have been done for; but his getting back alive that
night certainly crossed me, and, as for Maida, she was in a devil's
rage. She could n't understand how he'd escaped. She cursed, and raved,
and threatened even me. It was all that Jaffrey and I could do to hold
her; she was for giving up the whole game and making a getaway before it
was too late. As a matter of fact, it was already too late for any one
but me. Hovey had you all just where he wanted you. At any instant he
could bag you all. I had known that for some time. If it had n't been
for your _beaux yeux_, Janice, and a little bit, perhaps, because of my
own pretty ways, all of you would be jailed by now. After you'd rescued
your Dabney, I had to play a bold, prompt game. I knew that the spell
could n't hold much longer. I could see by the strained look on that
boy's face that he was at the snapping point. I told Maida to search the
bookcase that night. Action of some kind was necessary to keep her in
hand. I did n't know that you had already taken away the paper. Gast had
told me about the paper when I was in New York, and the Baron had hinted
at its possible hiding-place. He came down here that day to tell me--I'd
bribed him for all I was worth. He was going to leave word with Maida.
Then, of course, he saw you and the poor fool thought I was playing
housekeeper, under 'Dabney's' very nose.
“The night after Dabney's rescue, after you'd saved his life at the risk
of your own, I whistled him into the arbor under your window and kissed
him for you. Were your maiden dreams disturbed?--No, no, my girl, don't
try to get your hands free”--for in my anger at her words I had begun
to wrench at my bonds--“you'll just cut your wrists to the bone. Eh,
did n't I tell you?” I felt the blood run down my hands, and stopped,
gasping with pain. She went on as coolly as before. “I found out that
night, when Maida came to me in the wall with her bad news, that you'd
got ahead of us. I was n't so much scared as I might have been, for
I knew that Brane had had his directions translated into the Slavonic
tongue; I suppose the poor, cracked fool did it to protect his treasure
from accidental discovery. He was crazed by having all that money in his
possession, and not being bold enough to use it. All his actions prove
that his mind was quite unbalanced. He just spun a fantastic web of
mystery about the hidden stuff because he had n't the nerve to do
anything else. I imagine he meant to tell his wife, but he died suddenly
of paralysis, and was n't able to do so. He'd hired a priest to help him
with the paper, and Gast, shadowing my former lover, and knowing that he
had the robe and crown, managed to find out what he'd been doing. Gast
did n't get the substance of the paper, but he learned from the priest
that an eccentric Englishman, writing a story of adventure, had asked
him to translate a paragraph into Old Russian. Gast handed on this
information to me, and promised to translate the paragraph when I was
lucky enough to find it.
“Janice, when I found out that I'd been fool enough to lose Gast's
letter, which he'd sent to me through Maida, and by losing it, had put
the means of getting a translation into your hands, I gnawed my fingers!
I was half mad then. When you made your first trip to Pine Cone, and
Dabney had you shadowed so closely that I could n't follow you myself--I
knew that you were sending Gast a letter. I was n't sure you'd dare
to meet him, though. I thought you might risk sending him the paper. I
risked my own life by bribing George to leave you in Pine Cone to foot
it home alone, and I risked it again by following you and laying that
trap for you in the woods. I risked it because I was certain that you
would have the translation hidden in your dress. I pushed the pine tree
over after George had passed; it needed only a push. _Nom de Dieu!_ You
cannot know what frenzy seized me when I found out that again you had
outwitted me. I wanted to kill you that day. I wanted to beat you to
death there, and leave you dead. But you were a little too valuable. I
decided to cripple you, to put you out of running for a few days while
I got hold of the fool priest myself. That was only yesterday, but it
seems an age. You must be made of iron, Janice! You came near defeating
me to-night--the insolence of it! You, a chit of a girl!
“This morning I gave Maida a letter for Gast, and I thought it was to
mail it that she went out after supper to-night. When I found her note
under my plate I had a shock. I was sure she had found out something
important. I went down to the bridge. Yes. You may have the
satisfaction. Make the most of it. I did go down to the bridge, but I
did n't wait long. Ten minutes was enough. Do you suppose Maida would be
late for an appointment with me? Not if she was living. No, my girl, I
stood there and realized that you might have worked the trick, that you
might have sent Maida out of the way, might have decoyed me, might, even
at that instant, be on the track of my jewels. God! How I ran back to
the house! When I found the kitchen door locked--_I knew_. I went
round to the front door and rang the bell. I was n't going to lose time
snooping around for unfastened windows--not with Dabney in the house! I
suppose he was sleeping sound because he, too, thought you were safely
laid by the heels. Jaffrey answered the bell, and looked surprised,
confound him! I gave him some excuse, and went like the wind up to your
room. Sure enough, it was empty. I waited till Jaffrey had got back to
his bed, and then I hurried down to the kitchen. You know the rest. You
know it all now. To the end. But you don't quite know the end.”