“Mere keys and doors don’t worry such as the Felix Markles. They are so clever with burglar tools there is no keeping them out if they want to get in. Of course, if we lock fast the door there is still the ‘dumb-elevator’ as Danny calls it. Bar that fast, or cut the cables and they will manage to come down from the floor above. The thing to do is leave nothing here they want and let them know as much. I wish you would drop in and make a short call at their apartment, Elizabeth, and tell Hortense I am taking back the lace this evening. I must say I’ll sleep better if she knows it is out of my keeping.”
“I’ll do that very thing. Now aren’t you glad you took me in your confidence?”
“I wanted to all along but was trying to follow Father’s plans in going it alone as much as possible.”
“I’d like to see the Markles’ faces when they finally decipher the notes and read ‘The Hound of Heaven,’” said Irene. “What else was in the notes?”
“Oh, long stanzas from ‘Paradise Lost,’ ‘Hamlet’s Soliloquy,’ and pages from ‘Les Misérables’ in French. I don’t speak French at all but I can read it quite well and Father wanted me to be able to take notes in it, as sometimes we have to work with French detectives and he thought it might be useful. Anyhow it was good practice. I copied a lot about the convicts and a chapter on argot. They will have a grand time reading it if they ever master the key. It is almost cruel for me to fool them so when they might spend their time to so much better advantage.”
CHAPTER XV
SIMPKINS & MARKLE
Hortense Markle had besought the friends of Mary Louise to come and call on her, but when Elizabeth Wright was ushered into the charming little drawing room bent on the mission intrusted to her by her partner, she had a feeling that she was not quite so welcome as she had been led to expect. Could it be because she interrupted a tête-a-tête between her hostess and Billy McGraw? That young man seemed to be very much at home in the little apartment, as though he had paid many visits there in the short time he had been acquainted with the charming Mrs. Markle.
Elizabeth was a little embarrassed but determined to fulfill her mission before she left. She liked Billy and hated to see him making a fool of himself over the pretty adventuress. She wished she could save him from the bitter chagrin that would be sure to be his when the sorry business would finally come to light, but her loyalty to Josie forbade her doing or saying a thing to put him on his guard. Then he had paid her just enough attention to make it possible for him to think that jealousy prompted her in anything she might do or say.
“We have been very busy at the shop to-day,” Elizabeth began, in a rather loud tone as though determined that her voice would be heard by Hortense and her husband too, if he had concealed himself somewhere behind the curtains. “Irene finished mending the lace and then Josie laundered the whole lot and I have just delivered it to its owner.”