For a moment she sank back against a chair, half exhausted, but keeping her eyes upon Jimmy. Then Nick heard her muttering words to herself, and yet toward Jimmy. They were:
“You had the thought; fulfill it. You spoke of the Seine; go there. You talked of drowning; drown yourself.”
Suddenly she wheeled toward the detective, who managed to close his eyes again before she discovered that they had been unclosed.
“And you, Nick Carter,” she said, half fiercely, “go with him. Jump into the river with him. Seize him in your arms and hold him so that neither of you can unclasp from that embrace. Leap into the river together; drown together. Go, go, go, go! I will be well rid of both of you!”
Nick was so amazed by the turn that affairs had taken that he did not move, although Jimmy turned obediently toward the door. She cried out at him again, “Go, go, go!” and he pretended to obey.
He started to his feet and moved toward the door after Jimmy, who was already passing the threshold. Juno darted after Nick, seized him, held him for an instant, pulled his head partly around, and whispered another command into his ear.
“Jump into the river with him, but do not drown yourself,” she commanded in a whisper. “See to it that he dies beneath the water, but save yourself. Save yourself, Nick Carter, and then—return here to me. I have other work for you. Obey me.”
She thrust him through the now open doorway. She closed the door upon him. Jimmy, under her influence, was already halfway to the street. For a moment the detective hesitated. Then, realizing that she had ordered him to return there, he followed slowly after Jimmy, not doubting that he would find Juno when he did choose to return, and realizing that he must keep this other man from throwing himself into the river Seine.
The hour was late in the afternoon. Darkness was falling.
They passed up the street and Nick seized Jimmy by one arm and guided him around the first corner they came to—and there, as he had half suspected would be the case, he encountered the detective, Mouquin, who had taken Juno to the office of the chief. Mouquin had been sent after Nick to keep watch over him, for the chief of the secret police of Paris feared “The Leopard.”