“Yes; the exact words, as I remember, were that it would be quite a family reunion to have father and daughter under——” Then he stopped. “Cato, what he was about to say was ‘under one roof.’ Don’t you see it, man? Colonel Vedant was taken from the hut last night to the home of Otto Schilder.”
Cato looked puzzled. “Is Mr. Schilder one of the gang, too?” he demanded.
“No.” He hesitated, then added, in a lower tone: “But, as I have known from the beginning, a member of Schilder’s household has long been on terms of clandestine friendship with this man Dabney, or Rezonoff. She has, in fact, been his chief aid in all this matter.”
“She?” Cato glanced at him.
“Yes; Mrs. Schilder. There is no longer any use in trying to protect her, for I gather from the circumstances that her husband already knows all. To my mind, that is the explanation of his summoning Appleby to his office this afternoon, and of the conference of officers at the house to-night. He probably wants to arrange some plan to hush the affair up with as little scandal as possible.
“I should not be surprised, too,” he went on, “to learn that it was Miss Vedant who discovered the secret of the colonel’s presence in the house; for she is quick-witted enough to have outgeneraled even so crafty a schemer as that woman. Yes, that must be it,” he repeated; “she found it out and tried to communicate with me, but, failing in that, finally turned to Schilder.”
“Well, we’ll know for certain in a minute now,” said Cato, as the cab halted under the porte-cochère; “for here we are.”
The door swung open to them, as they climbed the steps.
“If you please, sir,” the man who admitted them said to Grail, “Miss Vedant wishes to see you at once. Will you follow me? She is in madame’s boudoir.” Then, with less ceremony, he directed Sergeant Cato to accompany another man to a room belowstairs.
Up a softly carpeted flight Grail was led by his guide, and along the hall; then the man, drawing aside heavy portières, disclosed a room suffused with a dim, rosy light.