She shook her head. “Carl mustn’t come here,” she said. “The old places and friends might tempt him. He has a kind of itching at the end of his fingers. I have thought I’d like a trip to Siberia, and see how the land lies. I have money, you know.”
She spoke with the air of a millionaire, and I think her thousand rubles made her feel like one.
“That is better,” I said; and, as I saw her making a move to go, I detained her, and, speaking very low, said: “Zaidee, you know everything. Have you ever heard of the Scholaskies since Ivan was sent to Siberia?”
Zaidee’s face grew pale for a moment, and her eyes were unnaturally bright, as she looked at me and then at the door opening into the hall. It was shut, but under it was a wide crack, where it had shrunk, admitting light from the hall, and across that bar of light it seemed to me a shadow fell. Zaidee saw it, and, to my surprise, asked if I spoke French.
“I picked up quite a little in Monte Carlo. It came easy. I speak it some, and understand it better. If madame is willing, we will try that language. Mrs. Browne does not understand it, and can listen all night. It is like her, I know.”
She nodded toward the door, where the shadow had moved. Some one was there, and I said: “I understand you. Go on.”
She spoke very low, and in very bad French, but I comprehended, and my blood curdled as I listened.
“Madame Scholaskie had died within a few months after reaching Siberia,” she said. “Sophie—the real Sophie—was with her when she died, and then went back to Paris, leaving Ivan alone, and after a while he escaped, and he is in the city, and has been over a year, and has cheated the police every time, so they didn’t dream he was here till lately, when they learned it somehow, and I believe that is why they have sent for M. Seguin to come home. They have faith that he can find anybody. But he’ll not find Ivan! No, ma’am!”
She spoke in a low whisper, with her head bent toward me, and a strange light in her black eyes.
“Zaidee,” I said, “do you know where Ivan is?”