A WEDDING IN HIGH LIFE.
It was a week later when two alert-minded men faced each other over a
table in Senator James Garston’s private rooms at the Plaza Hotel. No
single thread of the tangle had been successfully followed up by the
restless Vreeland, save that Mr. Hugh Conyers, gravely occupied in his
usual duties, had returned to the office of the _Daily Clarion_.
And of the whereabouts of Mrs. Elaine Willoughby, Vreeland knew
absolutely nothing, save that in a stolen interview with Justine Duprez
he learned that Miss Mary Kelly, now aided by her brother and mother as
inmates, was the caretaker of the superb “Circassia” apartment. And so,
Justine had a new mistress, pro tem.
The private secretary had handed to the French maid a note from her
absent mistress, bidding her remain on duty at the “Circassia” until
her own return. “Miss Kelly represents me; she will pay you and give
you her orders, carrying out my directions to her.” And Justine dared
not break away.
There was joy now in Justine’s anxious heart, for the stolen interviews
at her old rooms in South Fifth Avenue, perhaps, could be soon renewed,
Miss Kelly generously allowing the maid all her usual outings.
And Vreeland had soon calmed the Parisienne’s growing fears.
“She must however know no more of my affairs now,” mused the young
broker. “She will be useless to me in the future game, as Fate has
dealt the cards.”
But he knew he might have some further use for her, to watch the
promoted amanuensis and to learn of Mrs. Willoughby’s movements.
“Yes, she must continue to intercept the letters. Thank Heaven, I
can always depend upon the janitor and Mulholland!” was Vreeland’s
flattering consolation to his soul.
“It is the only way to trace Mrs. Willoughby’s real movements and so be
able to post Senator Garston.”
He would have been disturbed had he marked roundsman Dan Daly, a cool
but shadowy pursuer of Justine Duprez on her every outing, and known
also that the untiring schoolboy brother was on his own trail all the
while.
The moving into the South Fifth Avenue lodging-house of a very
agreeable old French crony gave a neighbor to Justine’s resident
old hag, who speedily became a familiar visitor. And then through
the walls of that adjoining room, a carefully contrived peep-hole
enabled roundsman Daly’s all-seeing eye to witness the now infrequent
interviews of Vreeland and Justine.
“I shall not be happy until I place the jewelry on that scoundrel’s
wrists,” was Daly’s pledge to his own heart, for he had not forgotten
Vreeland—bully and coward! There was a growing score to settle—a long
one!
And so Vreeland and Justine had freely met in the fancied security of
their Fools’ Paradise.
But blissfully ignorant, over the wine, Vreeland in the crowning
interview, eyed the Western rising statesman. He was all on the alert
as he said: “Senator Garston, I am now ready to close with you.
“But first, you must plainly tell me all. Why do you wish to find this
girl?”
Garston carelessly knocked the ash off his cigar, as he coolly said:
“There is a large amount of Western property, a very large one, in
which that child has an interest, an interest moreover of which she
knows nothing. That is my real business with the girl, whose life story
I alone know—save the mother who has adroitly hidden her so long. You
see her presence would have embarrassed the social queen!”
“Who was her father?” flatly demanded Vreeland.
The Senator’s eyes hardened. “That is nobody’s business but mine. It
does not enter into our affair. And the property interests demand my
present silence.”
Vreeland shrugged his shoulders, and smiling, calmly said: “You wish
me, then, to play my part openly for you, while I am kept in the dark?”
And Garston steadily replied: “What matters it to you, if you are well
paid?” His voice was steady, but there was a wolfish anxiety in his
eyes. “My professional secrets could not aid you.”
“My price will be a high one, and cash down or secured. Either cash or
stocks. Sugar stocks will do,” meaningly replied Vreeland.
“Damn it, don’t haggle!” cried Garston. “Tell me simply what you want.”
Vreeland calmly pushed over a piece of paper on which he had written
six figures. “I want that, and then, I will marry Katharine Norreys on
your pledge of honor that you give to her an equal amount as dowry. You
are then to direct the whole future game. Of course, there must be the
usual preliminary society flurry over the engagement. I am now ready
to go over to you, body and soul. What do you say? I serve you to the
death, then.”
“And I am to own you, out and out. You are to keep near her and to work
my will,” demanded Garston. His voice was strangely eager, for his
struggling heart would have its voice.
“To the death,” answered Vreeland, “if you pay me first, and then
stand by Katharine and myself. It will be a union of heart, hands and
interest.”
“I’ll do it on one sole condition,” replied Garston.
“And that is?” eagerly said Vreeland.
“That you clearly understand that your life would be the forfeit of any
treachery. I must reach that girl. I am playing a game to the bitter
end. And you do not know what a foe that sleek woman can be.”
“All right,” said the young man, extending his hand. “The future will
show you what I am. We must take the risks together.”
“I will give you half in cash, the balance in stocks, and I’ll hand the
check for the cash over now,” said Garston, as he laid his revolver on
the table.
“Now, sir, let me see that girl’s picture. Tell me where she is, and
I’ll sign the check.”
His eyes were wolfish as Vreeland silently handed him the photograph of
the girl who had never known a father’s love. The young man began his
cool recital:
“The girl sailed from Philadelphia for Europe three weeks ago on the
steamer ‘Excelsior,’ under the assumed name of Alice Montgomery, with
Sara Conyers, the artist sister of the _Clarion’s_ sub-editor, Hugh
Conyers. She was hidden away here in New York under the name of Romaine
Garland, and old Endicott, Conyers and the sister have smuggled the
girl quietly away from Lakemere. The two women are now at the ‘Hotel
Royal Victoria’ at Lucerne, and Hugh Conyers and Endicott are watching
every move that you make.”
A ferocious gleam lit up the Senator’s eyes. He signed the check and
passed it over to Vreeland. “I can handle both of them easily,” he
growled.
“Tell me the whole story now,” he said, leaning back with an air of
exquisite delight. “My money will do the rest. I’ll get to her easy
enough.”
“You’ll have to work quickly then,” answered Vreeland, “for Elaine
Willoughby has stolen away on an ostensible trip around the world via
Japan, but really to meet the girl and her train. There was a private
guard who went with the two women. My detective recognized him, and the
bodyguard is a cool and dangerous man, too.” The Senator’s brow was
blackened with a ferocious scowl.
“Damnation, she is clever,” cried Garston. “I wanted the daughter in
this country, for I can not quickly use foreign laws, and any open
violence, of course, would be madness. Tell me the whole story. I must
be at work at once. It is a serious matter; I must think it over.”
It was midnight when the two men separated, after drinking a bottle
of “Pommery” to the “ensuing happiness.” Garston’s eyes were at last
gleaming with a triumphant joy. His quick wit suggested the way out.
“You are to stay quietly on in the enemy’s camp. I will let her think
herself unpursued. Her desire to hoodwink you is our only salvation;
and now I will prepare Katharine for your visit. Shake hands! Here’s to
your married happiness. You are getting a pearl of a woman—a woman fit
to be a queen.”
“I have made my fortune,” mused Vreeland, as he wandered back to the
“Elmleaf.” “They are both of them in my power, Garston and Elaine. He
shall never know that Elaine only found the girl by chance. I will play
them off the one against the other.”
But, in the silence of his room that night the wild words of Alida
Hathorn came back to him. Her parting curse, “I leave it to the future
to punish you!” “I don’t see where the game can break against me,” he
reflected, “I hold four aces!” And so he slept reassured.
He had read in the evening paper the announcement of the forthcoming
engagement of the “well-known club man and millionaire, Mr. James
Potter, to the charming widow of the late Frederick Hathorn.”
“Newspaper enterprise!” sneered Vreeland. “Well, marriage seals her
lips like many another sister who has wandered a few steps from the
path. I am safe now.”
So rapid was the march of Senator Garston’s executive energy that a
week later, under the caption of “Prospective Wedding in High Life,”
Vreeland read the prophetic intimation of his own union with “the
brilliant Western heiress, Miss Katharine VanDyke Norreys.”
“It is too late to recoil now,” he mused, “for this engagement will be
telegraphed by Conyers over to my ‘financial backer.’”
The barriers were down, and nightly, under the guise of the usual
preparations, Vreeland and Garston conspired against the woman whose
heart was burning with all a mother’s still unsatisfied love. The
Senator-elect was using all the mighty resources of his wit, fortune
and hardihood to trap the travelers and to circumvent the wife who had
defied him. And he wrought in a stern silence.
There was a little scene with Justine Duprez which was not down on the
bills.
And of that scene, roundsman Daly was at once made aware by the
reports of his woman spy, now the intimate friend of Justine’s old
_garde-chambre_.
A common curiosity and the confidences engendered over the absinthe
glass caused the two women to mark the comings and goings of the
handsome young broker and the lissome French lady’s maid who had
prospered so wonderfully.
For Justine’s hand was an open and a liberal one. Justine had, after a
storm of tears, gone away contented. In her heart she proposed in the
future to secretly reign over the new _ménage_ of her young tyrant and
dupe.
When Vreeland had at last quieted his rebellious dupe, he explained
to her at once that in the new household there would always be a
commanding position for herself, should Mrs. Willoughby cast her out on
her return.
“So you see, Justine, I can always protect you, and then, when you wish
to go over and settle in Paris, you will always have me near you as a
protector.”
Harold Vreeland was now perfectly happy, and a little more than usually
self-assertive.
For, on Wall Street all men now envied the man who was cementing a
union which would practically control the profitable business resulting
from Senator Garston’s vast operations in stocks and mines.
Garston was a financial battleship, and a man of mark, even on
Manhattan’s shores.
“Our policy, Harold,” genially remarked Senator Garston, “is to work
right into the enemy’s camp, and to take no notice of Mrs. Willoughby’s
little maneuvers. I shall open a large active account with your firm.
That gives us the right to be seen together at all places and times.
It will blind them all. And while I watch Alynton, you can always keep
an eye for me on that crafty young Wyman. Of course, as soon as you
are married, Katharine can note every move of the woman we fear. Let
them lull themselves to sleep. We will make a strong team, us three!
Katharine shall worm into Mrs. Willoughby’s intimacy.”
And even in the bustling office of Wyman & Vreeland a deeper respect
was soon engendered for Vreeland’s brilliant, dashing successes. “A
Senator behind him, and with the handsome young heiress as a wife, he
will have fully as much weight as Wyman backed by his uncle Alynton and
the Endicotts,” so mused the observant cashier.
In fact, Senator Garston’s handlings of Western and Southern roads,
far-away mines, added to the immense business of his bold strokes in
the leading securities.
“There is no good excuse for Alynton, Wyman nor Mrs. Willoughby pushing
you out of the firm as long as you really handle my business,” said
the acute Garston. “They would have no sufficient business warrant in
so doing, for naturally Alynton and myself are bound by both party and
personal ties, which must rise above any petty quarrel. I can easily
handle Alynton. He is, of course, the secret business counselor of
Mrs. Willoughby, and as she fears me, and with reason, she will never
strike at you, as long as our pact holds.
“And then, moreover, your marriage with Katharine Norreys removes
every possible social objection to continuing your supposed
confidential relations with the Queen of the Street. Any kind of a
wife brings you within the ‘safety line.’ Moreover, Mrs. Willoughby is
really fond of Katharine, and those blue eyes of the young lady’s are
as keen as a diamond’s flashes.”
“Will Alynton finally marry this strange woman?” was Vreeland’s
searching query.
The stony-faced Senator-elect sprang to his feet, livid with rage. And
Vreeland marveled as the angered man harshly cried:
“Never, by God! Impossible! How could he? There’s that girl—the one
whom I’ve sworn to take away from her. The mother can not explain the
presence of the child to her admirer.
“She dare not! For the Alyntons are all as proud as Spanish hidalgos,
and young Alynton is no fool. He would have to find out that she had
lied to him—that her whole past life has been a sham—and no man or
woman can ever deceive David Alynton twice. He is merciless. I’ve been
a fellow-director with him for years, and I know him. I hold them both
in the hollow of my hand.”
The Senator quickly saw that his rage had led him on too far, for the
young man’s eyes were open in amazement at the passionate outburst.
“There are these property interests,” he grumbled, “and I suppose she
has hoodwinked the girl as to her rights. It’s the old game. I am the
only living man who can set it straight, and I will do so, in my own
way. I have sworn to do it for my own reasons, and to even up with My
Lady.”
When James Garston went away to direct his secret agents, now watching
Lucerne by its dreaming lake, and following the steamer “Empress of
India,” nearing Hong Kong, Vreeland tried to pierce the mystery of
Romaine Garland’s nurture.
“Can it be,” he pondered, “that the property which Elaine enjoys really
belongs to that child? That the young girl was artfully brought up in
ignorance of her rights? Has she been robbed? The young beauty may
have broken away inopportunely, and appeared here to embarrass the
youthful-looking beauty whom Alynton seems to adore.”
He could see no possible solution of the problem. “Garston seems to be
enraged at the mere idea of Alynton’s intimate relations. Can it be
that a secret love in olden days has tied the proud Senator to this
wonderful woman? He is dead set against her drifting into Alynton’s
arms.” It was all a life puzzle.
He was ready for the meanest suspicions, but the observations of
Justine dispelled them.
“Only friends; nothing more,” had been the verdict of a woman who would
have gloried to have held her mistress in the clutches of blackmail.
“And the love of the same woman has now, as usual, made Alynton and
Garston secret foes,” decided Vreeland.
He recalled the legendary source of Mrs. Willoughby’s tangible fortune,
some Western windfall of vast richness.
“She knew him before, she fears him now, and has spirited the girl away
to keep them apart.”
It seemed clear to Vreeland that some partner, or old associate,
perhaps a client of Garston’s in the wild West, had owned both the
property and the lovely woman in her flush of girlish beauty.
“It seems to be an old passion,” mused Vreeland.
“And now repulsed by the mother, whom evidently he has pursued, Garston
would use the girl as a lever for his revenge. Once a breach effected
with Alynton, and the girl his ally, then the Queen of the Street would
either drift into his arms or have ‘to step down and out’—to abdicate
the crown she has worn so long.” Vreeland lumbered along, building up
fanciful solutions of the mystery.
In the now almost incessant “duty service” near his beautiful fiancée,
Vreeland a hundred times endeavored to trace back James Garston’s early
life. But the blue-eyed Nixie who was soon to be his wife only laughed
merrily.
“Pray remember, sir, that Senator Garston is my guardian. After my dear
father’s death, my mother went abroad, and I was educated in the ‘Sacré
Cœur’ Convent at Brussels. Her death left me alone in the world.
“‘Uncle James’ had been almost forgotten by me in the thirteen years
which we passed in Paris and Brussels, and as I left the West a mere
child, all my memories are the vanishing dreams of childhood. All his
social past is a sealed book to me.”
Vreeland was fain to be content, as the lovely ingenue concluded: “All
I know is that he has always managed my affairs, and that his personal
history is linked with the development of the whole region west of
the Rockies. Why, you should know his history from your own Western
wanderings.”
“Was he ever married?” timidly hazarded Vreeland. But, the young
society queen only laughed back.
“Ask him! And then ponder now the possibility of another marriage. You
are now, sir, to take me driving. The only marriage which concerns
you, is a joint affair.”
That afternoon, as they drove through the park under the chaperonage of
the amiable Mrs. Volney McMorris, Vreeland unsuccessfully endeavored
to allay his recent dissatisfaction at the absence of any womanly
background for the highly polished “Western diamond,” which he was soon
to win and wear for life.
The story of the young heiress was smooth enough and faultlessly
delivered. Vreeland forebore to “pump” Mrs. McMorris, for he was
well aware that she was “all things to all men,” and her voluble
explanations would carry no real conviction.
“She helped Alida Hathorn on to the very verge of ruin,” he gloomily
recalled.
“There might have been a marriage between myself and Elaine but for her
vicious intermeddling.
“She took that Isle of Wight story in commission and spread it all over
New York, while working both sides for coin—a woman Judas!”
While he returned the salutations of Messrs. Merriman, Wiltshire and
Rutherstone on the social parade, he was vaguely reflecting on the
uselessness of his crime as regarded the stealing of the hidden paper
and the tapping of the private wires, as well as the mail frauds.
It now followed him like his own shadow, and the paper was a source of
countless nightmares. If it were only safe!
“All that is useless now,” he growled. And he suddenly saw that he
was left in the power of Doctor Hugo Alberg, of Justine and of August
Helms, the janitor.
“There will be no speculation in ‘Sugar’ for months; the market is
dead, pending the reorganization and New Jersey reincorporation.
“My strange employer is away. She will not be here for months; and she
has also taken alarm at the presence of Garston.
“The whole lot of them will probably operate in a blind pool now. There
will be nothing for me to gain, and everything to lose in running any
further risks.”
He saw with concern that Alberg greatly missed his wealthy and generous
patient, and a few significant hints had proved to him that the German
physician was now “money hungry.”
“There is Justine always to be pacified, and that brute, Helms, too; he
will surely want money.
“Once married, and a fixture here, I am ‘nailed to the cross’ for
torture by these people—if they should turn against me.
“Fear will control Doctor Alberg at the last,” reflected Vreeland. “He
has been guilty of half-poisoning his patient.
“Justine I can surely rely on as long as I keep her pacified, but,
that brute Helms is steadily increasing in his money demands. Some
night, when drunk, he may blow the whole thing abroad.” And he had
caught a glimpse of Helms and Bagley diving into a saloon together. It
frightened him.
It was true that Helms had found his way down several times to the
Elmleaf to get money, in a half-fawning and half-threatening bluster.
And on several occasions when Vreeland was absent, the grave-faced
valet, Bagley, had joined the janitor, and in some hours spent over
the cups of Gambrinus had gained pointers which had given the lively
roundsman, Dan Daly, some very valuable hints.
There was in his cup of “bittersweet,” however, one great consolation
to the successful Harold Vreeland, whom all men now envied.
The impending union with Katharine Norreys would found his fortunes
on a solid basis; he would have the absolute protection of the great
speculative Senator, and the reports of his detectives told him that
Hugh Conyers was simply buried in his journalistic duties. It seemed to
be a lull in the war, even the pickets had ceased firing.
There were no conferences with Judge Hiram Endicott, and nothing to
indicate any activity among Romaine Garland’s friends.
Only one side of the whole affair remained dark to Vreeland. Even
Justine Duprez could not tell him how or why Elaine Willoughby had
openly taken her unacknowledged daughter to her house for shelter.
It was as yet a mystery as to whether fear, intrigue or accident had
brought the lovely girl into the opened arms of her still beautiful
mother.
“All I know,” said Justine, in a conference arranged for this purpose
by her now indifferent fellow-conspirator, “all I could find out was,
that this green-eyed cripple, this little sycophant Irelandaise,
who now is my tyrant, brought the tall girl late one evening to the
‘Circassia.’”
“It was a strange visit,” murmured Justine, “for she brought no
luggage, and that girl never left my mistress’ presence for a moment,
till she went away with the two Conyers.
“I am certain that Madame had never seen this girl in the seven years
of my employ. There were no pictures, no relics of childhood—nothing.
And I was always on the lookout for the mystery of Madame’s life—”
Justine demurely dropped her eyes.
“Bah!” she cried; “a woman with blood as cold as a fish! No life, no
love; she cares for nothing but money.
“Among all of them, not a lover! I thought she was fond of the dead
Mr. Hathorn once, but he was soon on a level with the others.”
Justine’s voice was duly scornful.
“And then her tears and frequent fits of sorrow! That was the record
the whole of seven years.
“The last thing I saw of her—a stolen glance—she had this girl’s
picture in her hand, and was weeping over it.
“If she is a child of hers, she is probably a child of shame. She now
fears the exposure, and has gone abroad to hide the girl away forever.
Trust to Justine’s experience! I know these women saints. They always
have nibbled at _le fruit defendu_—hypocrites!”
Mr. Harold Vreeland fancied that he saw light at last. “I believe that
I can observe Senator Garston’s game. He would use this hidden fact
to force Elaine Willoughby into his arms. By Jove! she does fear him!
Perhaps Justine is right.
“And so, when I am married to Katharine, and Garston is free of all
social claims, if he alone knows her secret, it may be buried forever
in her marriage with him.
“To bring the proper pressure to bear, he must have the girl first. And
he would not be too good to bribe the girl with a fancied inheritance.
Once that the child is under his influence, Elaine’s proud heart must
either bend or break.
“For he will win his way to her side, even across the fires of
Alynton’s hate or the social ruin of Elaine’s good name.” Vreeland
already knew the iron will of the man who was driving ahead with
recklessness in the chase.
And so, armed with the deadly secret of the enormously powerful cabal,
the stolen document, Vreeland now knew that if brought to bay, Elaine
would perhaps be sacrificed by the secret syndicate, despised by the
undeceived Alynton, and then, with the secret of her early life in
Garston’s possession, be utterly at his mercy. “Yes, she is in the
toils,” he muttered. “There is no escape for her.”
It was at the wish of Senator James Garston, now lavishly liberal in
his preparations for his ward’s wedding, that the bridal was postponed
to the first days of June.
“All is going on well, Harold,” said Garston. “We have worked into a
thorough accord with all her representatives.
“And you will not find love-making with Katharine Norreys an irksome
task. I wish only to wait till I learn that Elaine Willoughby has
landed at Brindisi.
“Somewhere on the Continent she will surely meet this girl. I shall
have instant reports from my detectives. For so far, we have found out
Elaine’s route, but, the girl is still hidden.
“I wish you to go away at once on your wedding tour, and then to keep
Mrs. Willoughby in sight—within touch. I only want to meet the mother
and daughter face to face—only once. I will have my innings then, and
finish the whole matter in short order.” His face was merciless now.
“Now, you will be no object of suspicion on your wedding tour; such
a happy voyage always explains itself,” he sardonically smiled. “The
moment that I am cabled for, I shall depart incognito. My work will
be quickly done when I find this sly woman and her child together.
The whole world is not wide enough to hide that child from me.” And
Vreeland drifted daily under Garston’s strong control; he was floating
with the tide, drunken with all his successes.
The days drifted along in all the preoccupation of daily business and
the growing bustle of the impending wedding.
Harold Vreeland was most agreeably surprised in the later days of May
by a cordial letter from Mrs. Willoughby, posted at Port Said. Her
congratulations upon his impending marriage were coupled with her carte
blanche as to leave of absence from the firm, and the significant
direction to leave Bagley in charge at the Elmleaf.
“We shall have business uses for the apartment during the winter, and
Miss Kelly will give Bagley all his orders and attend to the accounts.
I have directed Judge Endicott to present in my name to your wife a
proper reminder of the esteem which I have for her.”
The notification three days before the wedding, through Noel Endicott,
that Mrs. Willoughby had placed a year’s salary at his personal
disposal on the books of the firm, as an extra bonus, carried away the
last vestige of Vreeland’s haunting fears.
Nothing remained of the awkward episode of the inquiry as to the stolen
document, and Vreeland had already settled with Doctor Alberg, and
Helms with an affected liberality, for his absence.
Now socially entirely in the hands of Messrs. Wiltshire, Merriman
and Rutherstone, his three groomsmen, and having seen the resplendent
Mrs. Volney McMorris rally many beautiful Ishmaelites, married and
single, around his bride, Vreeland was moved forward to the altar on
the golden flood of Senator Garston’s splendidly liberal preliminary
entertaining.
The Western millionaire was touching up every cloud hanging over
Katharine VanDyke Norreys’ social haziness with a golden lining.
There remained but two things for the happy groom to do now.
The one was to have a last interview with Justine, who was now reduced
to a calm subserviency to the orders of the young “Private Secretary,”
and the other to effect a safe deposit in some satisfactory place of
the stolen document and its tell-tale copy.
He had decided to be liberal with Justine in money matters, and to
entrust her in his three months’ absence with the watching of Helms,
the janitor, and the disgruntled German doctor.
A famous plan suggested itself! Justine should feed out to these men
money, in his name, during his absence.
“And that, with the hope of more, will keep them true to me, as rascals
go, till I return.” He had once decided to dismantle the secret
connections with Mrs. Willoughby’s telegraph and telephone. It was the
subject of a long, introspective reverie.
But reflection had told him of a possible mistake. And perhaps in his
absence, Justine might glean from the detained correspondence delivered
at the “Circassia,” some facts to guide both Senator Garston and
himself. Yes, the “underground railroad” should not be disturbed. Its
existence was as yet concealed from all his enemies.
The use in the next winter of the “Elmleaf” rooms for a concealed
headquarters of speculation caused him to leave the wires in position.
“It might excite these people’s suspicions. I must appear to trust
them,” he decided, “and Garston may even make a million over the
private tips I can give him if I am up to their game.”
Suddenly it occurred to him that his own marriage might change the
situation, and yet, there were Elaine Willoughby’s recent orders.
“She means probably to hide her child, and then come back and be Queen
of the Street again,” he smiled. “The ruling passion. She has the
speculative mania still.” For it was clear to him now that the presence
of mother and daughter together in New York City was an unnecessary
risk.
And so, even on the threshold of his marriage Harold Vreeland feared to
trust his bride with the secret of the stolen document. They were to
live at the Hotel Savoy on their return, “so as to be near Uncle James,
at the Plaza.”
With a moral cowardice which he could not explain, Vreeland had as
yet declined to face the burning question of the stolen document. The
copy he had always carried secreted within the waistcoat lining of his
traveling suit. “I can easily leave that over in Europe,” he murmured.
“The original. Where shall I hide it?” He was long in the dark.
But it was by a devilish impulse, aided by accident, that he found a
place in Justine Duprez’s rooms on South Fifth Avenue to safely hide
the dangerous original.
One of the plates of a door framing had sprung partly loose. A sudden
idea seized him. Her rooms were the safest place for many reasons.
To gain time for preparation, he sent the old hag away on an errand.
Sealed in a cloth envelope, the paper was soon hidden behind the upper
framing plate, and with a hammer, covered with his kid gloves, he drove
the half-dozen old, rusted nails tightly home. And he gazed in triumph
at the neat device.
“They will of course think that she stole it, should it ever be found,”
he mused triumphantly, as he lit a Henry Clay and gloated over his
cunning.
“If the house should burn I am safe. In every way it would go up
in flames. If I should die, then it makes no difference to me what
happens. If she is caught—this would be damning evidence only against
her.
“And I would never dare to trust myself with either Garston or my wife,
and be found out in the custody of that document.
“Accidents will happen; I might fall ill, and now no matter what
befalls, it never can be traced to me.”
He grinned with joy as he contemplated depositing the copy abroad,
under an assumed name.
“It will there be safe from all American legal process, and the
original is here where I can use it if needed, and as it is, it can
never be traced to me.”
He carefully examined the exterior of the row of solid brick tenements.
They were good for a life of fifty years.
As he walked away, when he had “finished his letters,” and left a last
greeting for Justine, he stood upon the heights of an impregnable
position.
“It was a stroke of genius, that last idea of mine!” he gaily cried,
as his eye rested on an old woman who had just descended the stair. He
knew not the burden of her eager soul. She carried his fate!
Once around the corner, that old woman scuttered away to find roundsman
Dan Daly, for the peep-hole had covered a keenly-glittering eye,
even after Justine had left her sighing lover to his “last bachelor
letters.” And thus the hiding-place was known to more than one.
But Vreeland hastened away in a triumphant glow of satisfaction.
The splendors of the Grace Church wedding, the gilded festivity of the
Waldorf wedding dinner, and all the countless preoccupations of the
impending voyage busied Harold Vreeland’s excited mind for three days.
There were hundreds of valuable wedding presents to deposit in safety,
for society had showered gifts upon the successful interloper with
its hard-hearted, hollow flattery of success. It had been a “society
event,” and his face, with that of the beautiful bride, had ornamented
several “up-to-date” journals.
The flower-decked bridal staterooms of the “Campania” had received
Vreeland’s party, and Messrs. Rutherstone, Merriman and Wiltshire
were joining the bride and bridesmaids in the parting “loving cup,”
the table was covered with journals filled with the usual “glowing
accounts” and piled up high with congratulatory letters and telegrams,
when “Uncle James” drew the complacent bridegroom aside.
In a private nook, he turned a scowling face to the happy Vreeland.
A yellow telegraph envelope fluttered from his hand to the desk as he
read again these disquieting words:
“She has telegraphed for a cabin on the ‘Normandie,’ and is coming home
alone. Took a special train from Vienna to Havre. All traces of girl
lost.”
“Vreeland,” growled the maddened man, “some one has betrayed us. Wait
at the Hotel Cecil, London, for my cipher orders.
“That woman is a devil in artfulness, and it is a fight to the death
now.”
Ten minutes later, the “Campania” was plowing down the beautiful bay.