Roger Odell had begged me to look after her as well as I could in the circumstances, during his long absence. Those circumstances were difficult ones: for I was not allowed to visit her at the Sisterhood House, and she never went out unchaperoned by her "friend" the directress. Her wish was that I should give her the key of her "sanctum" at Roger Odell's shut-up house in New York. A caretaker named Winter, one of the old servants, was in charge of the place; but I had been appointed special guardian of the "shrine," as Maida called this sacred room.
"Shrine" was indeed rather an appropriate name; since it contained treasures which formed the sole link between the girl and her lost past. She had been brought, a child of four, by her dying mother to the father of Roger Odell, and her sole possessions had been a couple of miniatures, a curious Egyptian fetish, and an Egyptian mummy in a fine, painted mummy-case. The miniatures had been enlarged into life-size portraits of Maida's mother and a man in the uniform of a British officer, whom she believed to be her father. Both portraits hung on the wall of the "shrine," together with one of Roger Odell, Senior. These, with the mummy-case, were the sole contents of the room.
Roger and I had cause to think that enemies of Maida's unknown father had followed the child and her mother to America: and that the vendetta would not end until Maida—the last of the family—had paid with her happiness or even with her life for the sin of some ancestor. We had cause to think also, that the mummy in its painted case was of importance to them, and that they had tried in various ways to get hold of it. For its protection, Roger had had a clever electrical contrivance fitted up, by means of which anyone not in the secret and trying to touch the mummy-case would receive a violent shock. Before going away he had given me the plan of this mechanism, with directions for applying the current and turning it off. At the same time he had handed me the key of the shrine which Maida had left with him on departing for Long Island.
Now, she wanted this key.
"I went yesterday to my dear old home," she wrote, "to visit my treasures. But the shrine was locked; and Winter told me that Roger had given you the key. He said also that there was some kind of patent burglar alarm which had frightened a couple of thieves away, since I came to stay at Sisterhood House. Is that true? And is there danger in opening the door? I know I can depend upon you, when you send the key, to make it safe for me to go in. I'll post the key to you afterwards, if you like—and if Roger wants you still to be troubled with it. Please arrange for me to pay my visit to-morrow."
It seemed that there was only one way to answer this letter: by saying that I would arrange for the safety of the visit; and enclosing the key in my note. Nevertheless I hesitated. I was afraid to send Maida the key.
It was useless to explain to her the reasons for my seeming boorishness. She trusted the Head Sister. Nothing that had happened since she entered the Grey Sisterhood had opened the girl's eyes to the cruel falseness of the woman, as I saw it. Nothing, not even the affair of Helen Hartland, had made her believe that the friend she respected was one of the agents working for her destruction and my elimination. So I knew that if I refused the key I would seem a stupid blunderer to Maida.
"If only she'd waited a few days!" I thought. For after many unsuccessful attempts, we (I and Paul Teano) had contrived to get an employee—I may as well use the word "spy"—into Sisterhood House. She was a young but singularly intelligent girl whom Teano's wife, once known as "Three Fingered Jenny," had lately rescued from a set of pickpockets and "sneak thieves." We hoped great things from "Nippy Nance," as a protégée of the Head Sister, who did not suspect the girl's change of heart and profession. If she could get evidence that the directress of the Grey Sisterhood was the leader of a criminal gang, posing as a charitable reformer, I could not only say "I told you so!" to the incredulous police, but I could convince Maida of her own peril.
A few days more grace, and Nance might have been able to give us a satisfactory report! But I dared not delay. I had to decide, for Maida's letter must be answered. My desire to please her prevailed over prudence. I persuaded myself that I had no right to refuse such a request: that I must consent: that my vague fears were foolish. I had only to watch, and see that no harm came to Maida or to the mummy in its painted case.
I wrote that, in loyalty to the promise I had made Roger (made for her sake!) I couldn't leave the shrine without its "patent burglar protection" (as she called it) over night: but I would go to the house early in the morning and do everything necessary to ensure her safety if she wished to touch or open the mummy-case.