“Never mind! Do as well as you can. I’ll show you the room. Then I’ll come back here. When you have him ready, send Groton to tell me. You stay in the room till I come. We have to get him away.�
The first mate nodded, and, accompanied by Groton, followed the baroness to the room of Lord Vinton. There the baroness left the two men to get his lordship dressed, and returned to her sitting room.
Florine slept through it all.
“He’s all fixed,� announced Kennedy, ten minutes later, when the baroness had been called back to Lord Vinton’s room by Groton. “We’ve put him into these light-colored togs and this funny soft hat. We couldn’t find any others handy, except his evening clothes, and I didn’t think you wanted him in them.�
“That wouldn’t have made any particular difference,� she returned. “Leave him on the bed for a minute and come over here.�
She went to the two trunks and handsome traveling bags at the other side of the room, and brought forth a quantity of jewelry which would hardly have been expected in the baggage of a wealthy nobleman traveling only for pleasure.
Rings, with diamonds, bracelets, brooches, and other gewgaws for women to wear, were wrapped in tissue paper or embedded in silk-lined cases, while scarfpins, cigarette cases, jeweled watch charms, and kindred articles of masculine use were plentiful.
“Lord Vinton may turn out not to be a lord, after all,� muttered the baroness. “Even if he is, he does not mind turning a few honest dollars by importing jewelry on the side. I hope the dollars he expects to make will be honest, by the way. But it would be interesting to know how much duty he paid on all this.�
When she had piled up everything on the floor she cared to take, she coolly dropped the loot into two of Kennedy’s capacious outside pockets.
He wore a nautical pea-jacket, and his pocket room was extensive.