Paul Dabney looked slowly around. He looked and raised a shaking hand to his eyes. He turned again towards me. Then, as though a current of life had been flashed through his veins, he sprang to my side, untied my bonds, tore off the silk handkerchief from my mouth. I was as helpless as a babe, but he lifted me tenderly, and, kneeling, supported me in his arms.
“Janice,” he said brokenly, “Janice, what does it mean?”
My double laughed. “So now, Hovey, you cat, do you understand what a fool my pretty daughter and I have made of you? You think yourself very clever, no doubt. Your reputation is made, is n't it? Now that you've nabbed the famous Madame of the red-gold strand. No, no, my friend, not quite so fast.”
She moved her head from side to side, struggling with her captors. I saw her bend her mouth to her shoulder, bite and tear at her dress. We all looked at her in a ghastly sort of silence. I could feel Paul Dabney's quivering muscles and his quick breathing. Then, for a second, I saw a white pellet on the woman's tongue. It must have been sewed into the seam of her dress there at the shoulder. She swallowed convulsively, and stood still, her head thrust forward, staring in front of her with eyes like stones.
My face must have showed itself to her through the mists of death, for she spoke once hoarsely: “The girl is quite innocent,” she said; “she wasn't trying for the jewels. Do you get that, Hovey? Keep your claws off her.”
Then she gave a great shiver, her face turned blue. Her head dropped forward, her legs gave way, and the two men held a dead body in their arms.
CHAPTER XIX—SKANE'S CLEVEREST MAN
WITH the death of Madame Trème, and the arrest of Jaffrey and of Maida, the danger to “The Pines” was over. It was a long time, however, before I was allowed to tell my story. I lay in a darkened room, waited upon by Mary, and the least sound or word would send me into a paroxysm of hysterical tears. The first person to whom I recounted my adventures was the detective Hovey, a certain gray-eyed and demure young man whom I had long known by another name. Our interview was very formal. I called him Mr. Hovey, and met his cool and unembarrassed look as rarely as I could. I was propped up in bed to make my statement. Dr. Haverstock was present, his hand often stealing to my pulse, and Mary stood near with a stimulant. She had made me as pretty as she could, the dear soul; had arranged my hair, and chosen my dainty dressing-gown, but I must have looked like a ghost; and it seemed to me that there lay a brand of shame across my face.