The Crimson Patch

by Augusta Huiell Seaman

"They know everything," declared Virginie, apathetically accepting what was to her a common, every-day fact. "Yes, they know everything. Though how they find it out, I cannot imagine. They seem to have a million eyes and ears watching and listening for them, in every country. They know that your father has a very important secret mission. Whether they know just what it is, I have not been able to tell. But they know that it is vital to understand that mission, to stop his work if possible. They wish to obtain a secret paper he has, at any cost. They knew you were both to come to the hotel. We ourselves came there the day before. We changed our room once, so as to be nearer to you.

"Then I received my instructions. I was to form an acquaintance with you—somehow. It should be easy, since we were about of an age. I was to be with you frequently, constantly. I was to discover if you were in your father's confidence. I was to locate that secret paper, and I was to obtain possession of it when the time seemed ripe. It was to be my last chance. If I failed—well, you can imagine the rest.

"I liked you from the first—yes, I loved you. On that first night when you caught me spying on you from the door across the hall and were so sweet and charming to me, I loved you. And that love made all the harder what I had to do. I determined that I would not get acquainted with you; I would pretend that you did not wish or encourage it. But my delay only angered Madame Vanderpoel. She took matters in her own hands on that morning when she told you I was ill with a headache, and forced the friendship on me in spite of myself. You know that I was not ill, nor did she have to go to New York. She merely went out and stayed out all day to give us a chance to get acquainted.

"Well, you know the rest of that history—how strangely I acted at times, how—how abominable I was to you. I do not yet understand how you could have been so sweet and forgiving. But the more you were, the more I hated what I had to do and delayed about it. And the longer I delayed, the more angry Madame Vanderpoel grew with me. Of one thing I was glad. I could discover nothing about any secret paper, and they were beginning to doubt whether your father really had it with him or whether it was concealed elsewhere.

"At any rate, much to my surprise, after that last night I spent with you, Madame informed me next morning very early that we were leaving the hotel to come here. She did not offer any explanation at the time, but I know now that it was because they had obtained the secret paper at last, I know not how, and there was no need to stay longer at the hotel. I tried so hard to get some word to you in spite of her. I had just whispered part of the message to the bell-boy when she interrupted and I got no other chance.

"But though I never expected to see you again, I rejoiced that the terrible necessity for constantly deceiving you was over at last. I could at least love you always and feel that I need no longer wrong you. But it was not to be. Last night I overheard them talking below, and it seems that though they had obtained what they believed to be the secret paper, they could make nothing of it at all, and so they were as much in the dark as ever. They talked and wrangled over it much, and at length Madame herself proposed a plan. She knew that your father had missed the paper and also that he was in New York searching for it on a false clue that they themselves had arranged. But she imagined that she had so well covered her tracks that neither you nor he connected us with any share in the matter. So she planned to go in to the city, call at your hotel, and try to induce you to come out here with her in the car to visit me for a few hours, telling you a sad tale of how I had been taken ill again and wished to see you. But while you were here, she was going to threaten you suddenly with dreadful things, both to yourself and your father, if you did not tell her the secret of the paper. And after she had frightened you into telling (as she was sure she could), she was to have you driven away in the car and left in some distant and unknown locality, and by the time you had at last returned to the hotel, we would all have disappeared and could not be traced."

"But I do not know the secret of it!" cried Patricia. Virginie only shrugged her shoulders with a foreign gesture.

"So much the worse for Madame, then," she went on. "She knew she was taking that chance. But she felt almost certain you were in your father's confidence. If you did not know, then the same program would be carried out. But first, before she questioned you, she wished me to try and draw the secret from you. If I were successful, it would be so much simpler for her. She summoned me to her this morning and instructed me in the part I was to play. And that is why I shuddered so when I saw you. I thought she had been successful in her ruse to get you here. I had tried so hard to prevent it. Last night I called you on the upstairs telephone, softly, so they might not hear, for they were still wrangling down below. But I could not finish. Melanie was coming up the stairs. I had to ring off. Now you know it all."

She ceased speaking and sat staring into her lap, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white. Patricia also sat in stunned silence. Now that the whole terrible plot had been revealed to her, it all seemed so infinitely worse than anything she had imagined that she could scarcely collect her senses. Two things stood out in her mind with distinctness: the Crimson Patch was concealed somewhere in that house—she must get hold of it at all cost—it was vital to her father's, yes, even to the whole country's interests; and Virginie must be snatched somehow from the clutches of these terrible enemies who were using her against her will for their own ends. But how was it to be accomplished?

At that moment, Chet Jackson's head appeared suddenly over the bushes.