He was pretty sure that she would keep quiet and give him no trouble. Probably, in the reaction, she would fall into the profound sleep of those who have been tortured and badly frightened. He dragged Leonard into the boudoir and shut the bedroom door. Then he went downstairs.
A glance into the drawing-room showed him Valentine, as he had expected, in exactly the same condition as he had left Leonard. He decided that she was best as she was. It left him a freer hand.
“It’s all right, miss,” he said in a reassuring voice. “I’ll loose you presently. I’m a detective; and the first thing for me to do is to catch the rest of the gang.”
He went down the passage to the front door. As he had expected, it was not latched. He opened it an inch or two and looked at the door of the court-yard. Leonard had left that unlatched also.
Ralph permitted himself a somewhat sardonic smile. Then he went upstairs, opened the window of the boudoir a little way, and blew the whistle.
One of two things would happen. Either the whistle would be a warning to the confederate that things had gone wrong; and she would decamp. Or it would be a signal that the coast was clear and that she could join Leonard in the search for the jewels and any other evidence there was to be found in Bridget Rousselin’s house.
He waited with a very somber air, his eye on the door of the court-yard. He was extraordinarily disturbed, horrified indeed. It was one thing to relieve well-to-do persons of objects of luxury, of which they had no real need, and which they hadn’t the sense to keep—quite another to be an accomplice in a cold-blooded murder. Surely the woman he adored would never go to such lengths. As the horror of it grew clearer and clearer, his pulse quickened in a feverish anguish. Who would come through the door of the court-yard?
That door opened; on the threshold stood Josephine Balsamo!
Ralph gasped; and for the moment his eyes went blind.
Then he was filled with a bitter fury.