THE woman who had so unmercifully used me had not taken into account the fact that the spirit is stronger than the flesh. Certainly, the next morning I wanted nothing so much as to lie still in my bed for a week. My cuts and bruises were stiff and sore; I ached from head to foot. But my resolution was strong. I had my meals sent up to me that day, however, but in the evening, after dinner, I sent for Sara.
She came and presented herself, sullen and impassive, at the foot of my bed. I fixed my eyes on her as coldly and malevolently as I could.
“Sara,” I said, “as you see, I chose to be laid up to-day.”
She grinned.
“Now, without a moment's delay I want you to leave for Pine Cone and stay there for the next twenty-four hours, or until I send for you.”
She looked surprised and reluctant, a red flush came up into her big face.
“So's you can make off with the swag,” she muttered; then shrank at the scowl I gave her, and made an awkward and unwilling apology.
“All right, then,” she said. “How about the work? What about Mrs. Brane?”
“I'll make it right with Mrs. Brane,” I said crisply. “Trust me for that. Now, before you go, step over to the desk there and write what I tell you.”
She obeyed, and I dictated slowly: “Meet me on bridge at eleven o'clock to-night. Wait for me till I come. Maida.”
She looked at me with her lids narrowed suspiciously, and my heart quailed, but the moment of inspection passed. In fact, nobody could have imagined the resemblance that undoubtedly existed between the leader of the enterprise and my wretched, daring self.
“Who's that for?” she asked, “and what's up? Ain't I to know anything? What price all this?”
“What price!” I echoed, “just our lives—that's all. Do as I say, and you'll be a wealthy woman in a fortnight. Don't do it, even a little of it, and—and perhaps you can guess where and what you will be.”
She gave me a hunted look, glanced about the room over her shoulder, and, obedient to my gesture, handed me the paper she had written.
“And no questions asked,” I added sternly. “Don't let me hear another word of it. Now, get my cloak and hat and leave them in the kitchen on the chair near the stove. Get out as soon as you can; don't wait a minute. And leave the kitchen door unlocked. Go all the way to Pine Cone and stay in the room above the drug-store. The woman is always ready to take a boarder. I'll send you word before to-morrow night. Get out, and be quick. Above all, don't be on the bridge to-night.”
She vanished like a shadow, and I sat waiting with a pounding heart. If she fell in with that red-haired double now, my game was up. Everything depended upon her leaving the house without any conflicting orders, without her suspecting my duplicity.
I sat up in bed till it seemed to me that she had had time to get my hat and cloak and to make her own preparations. Then, wincing with pain, I dragged myself up and limped over to my window. A moment later Sara came round the corner of the house and started down the road. There was just enough twilight for me to make her out. She walked slowly and doggedly, carrying a little bag in her hand. I wondered if Mary would come flying to me with the news of this departure, or if Mrs. Brane and Paul Dabney would observe it. No attempt was made to stop her, however, or to call her back. She went on stolidly, and stolidly passed out of my sight. It was in strange circumstances that I saw her big, handsome face again.
I waited till I thought she must have had time to reach the lane outside of “The Pines” gate, then I began painfully, slowly to creep into my clothes. Often I had to rest; several times I stopped to cry for pain. But I kept on, and at last I stood fully dressed before my mirror. My mouth was cut and torn; my face scratched; a raw patch on one cheek; the marks of the branch lay red across the base of my neck, and burned about my shoulders. The sight of my injuries and the pain of them, throbbing afresh with movement, inflamed my anger and my courage. I moved about the room several times, gradually limbering myself; then I went quietly out of my room and down the hall towards the kitchen stairs. It was then about ten o'clock. Mrs. Brane and Paul Dabney were probably in the drawing-room, quietly sipping their coffee; Mary would be upstairs preparing Mrs. Brane's bedroom for the night; Henry would have washed up his dishes and be gone upstairs to his room, unless he had received some further orders from the hidden mistress of the house. I had to take this risk. I stole down the kitchen stairs, and, opening the door a crack, I peeped into the kitchen. The lamp had been turned low, the fire was banked up for the night. A plate, with cup and fork and spoon, was laid out on the kitchen table, and on the back of the stove a frying-pan full of food was set to keep warm. What agourmandeSara must think her leader whom she saw eating heartily enough at Mrs. Brane's table, but who insisted, besides, on a heavy meal at night! I thought I knew who would presently appear to enjoy her supper. She would fancy the kitchen door securely locked; she would fancy that I was successfully laid by the heels. I wondered what her plans for the night might be. I set my teeth hard to keep down the rage that mounted in me at the very thought of her. Sara had obediently placed my cloak and hat on one of the kitchen chairs. I decided that there was no time to waste. I slipped quickly into the room—I was in stocking feet—locked the kitchen door, hid the key in my pocket, put the note that I had dictated to Sara under the plate on the table, and then, stealing softly to the door of a narrow closet where Sara kept her brooms, I squeezed myself in and locked the door on the inside. When the key was removed, I put my eye to the large, worn keyhole, and had a clear but limited view of the dim, empty room. I knelt as comfortably as I could, for I knew that I should have to keep my position without the motion of a finger when the room should have an occupant. My heart beat heavily and loudly, my hurts throbbed at every beat. It was a painful, a well-nigh unbearable half-hour that I spent cramped there in the closet, waiting, waiting, waiting.... At last—such a long last—there came the ghostly sound of a step.
It drew nearer; I heard a faint noise of shifting boards, the door of the low closet under the stairs opened, and out stepped the hideous image of myself. The shock of that resemblance almost sent me off into a faint. I had seen the creature only once face to face; now, in the dim light of the kitchen lamp, I studied her features. Disfigured by passion and guilt, it was nevertheless my face. This woman was older, certainly, by many years, but a touch of paint and powder, the radiance of moonlight, might easily disguise the lines and shadows. She was as slender as a girl, and a clever actress could simulate a look of innocence. I almost forgave Paul Dabney as I watched this other “Me” move about the kitchen on her noiseless feet.
She went to the stove, took up the frying-pan, and carried it over to the table. On the way she noticed my cloak and hat and stopped, evidently startled, holding the pan in her hands. She glanced nervously about the room, went over to the door that was at the foot of the stairs and tried it. I was thankful that I had taken the precaution of locking it. I hoped she would not notice that the key was gone. She returned to the table and sat down before the plate. Then she saw the note and snatched it up. She bent her fiery head, arranged so carefully in imitation of mine, over the writing. I saw her lips move. She looked up frowning, uncertain, surprised. Then she walked over to the stove, thrust Sara's note into the fire, returned, and stood in deep thought in the middle of the room. I was sick with suspense. Clouds passed over my eyes. Would she fall into my clumsy trap? Presently she walked slowly over to my cloak and hat and put them on. With the hat pressing her soft hair down about her face, she was so terribly like me that my uncanny fears returned. She must be some spirit clothed in my aura, possessing herself in some infernal fashion of my outward semblance. A cold sweat had broken out over me. I felt it run down my temples.
Another long minute she stood there, debating with herself; then she looked at the clock, made use of her ghastly smile, and stepped quietly across the kitchen and out into the night. I waited—a fortunate precaution—for she came back five minutes later and peered about. There was nothing to alarm her since she could not hear the pounding of my heart. She decided to follow the instructions, and again disappeared. I waited another fifteen minutes, then, cold with fear and excitement, I came out of my hiding-place. I glided over to the door, and looked out. It was a dark and cloudy night. I could hear the swinging and rustling of the trees. There was no other sound, nor could I see anything astir in the little garden except the gate which was ajar and creaking faintly on its hinges. She had gone.
I came back hastily into the kitchen and lighted a candle which was stuck into a tin candlestick on a shelf. I looked at the clock. It was now half-past ten. In half an hour the woman would reach the bridge. She would wait for Maida, perhaps an hour, perhaps not so long; after that, she would be suspicious and return. I had therefore not more than an hour, with any certainty, to follow the directions I had memorized; to rifle the hoard, and to make my escape from the thief's hiding-place. Then I would telephone to the Pine Cone police.
I opened the door of the low closet under the stairs.
ILIGHTED 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 thedisgrace. 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-facedbaba. 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 thecocheranother 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 abon 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.”
IHAD 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'smaîtresse, 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 yourbeaux 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!