What a piece of luck it was that Olga had really married that old dotard, Perigoff! He had left her a titled widow six months after her marriage. But she had had hardly a kopeck to call her own.
"Olga, Hargreave is alive. He was there last night. But somehow he anticipated the raid and had the police in waiting. The question is, has he fooled us? Did he take that million or did he hide it? There is one thing left—to get that girl. No matter where Hargreave is hidden, the knowledge that she is in my hands will bring him out into the open."
"No more blind alleys."
"What's on your mind?"
"She has never seen her father. She confessed to me that she has not even seen a photograph of him."
There was a long pause.
"Do you understand me?" she asked.
"By the Lord Harry, I do! You've a head on you worth two of mine. The very simplicity of the idea will win out for us. Some one to pose as her father; a message handed to her in secret; dire misfortune if she whispers a word to any one; that her father's life hangs upon the secrecy; she must confide in no one, least of all Jones, the butler. It all depends upon how the letter gets to her. Bred in the country, she probably sleeps with her window open. A pebble attached to a note, tossed into the window. I'll trust this to no one; I'll do it myself. With the girl in our control the rest will be easy. If she really does not know where the money is Hargreave will tell us. Great head, little woman, great head. She does not know her father's handwriting?"
"She has never seen a scrap of it. Miss Farlow never showed her the registered letters. The original note left on the doorstep with Florence has been lost. Trust me to make all these inquiries."
"To-morrow night, then, immediately after dinner, a taxicab will await her just around the corner. Grange is the best man I can think of. He's an artist when it comes to playing the old-man parts."