All through the quiet duel of cards, Vreeland was haunted by the twin obstacles, Bagley and Miss Mary Kelly. “Bagley is a perfect servant, and I can not get any excuse to rid myself of him. My secrets are not kept where he can reach them,” mused Vreeland.
“The girl I surely dare not displace; but I can get around them both, if I have the right kind of a woman here near me. I have the excuse of my ‘outside correspondence’ and social affairs.
“Miss Kelly is sacred to the affairs of this cool-headed patroness of mine. And even Elaine can not object.
“It would ‘give away’ her veiled espionage on me. Yes, that’s the plan! I can advertise; pick one or two out of a hundred women and then try them on,” he craftily smiled, “and only begin my real operations when I have found the right one and the two young women have struck up an intimacy.” He laughed. “My pretty spy shall watch the placid young saint.”
Vreeland tossed upon his bed that night, and reflected upon the singular methods of his covert business.
A list of stocks sent to him by messenger, or personally delivered by Mrs. Willoughby, to be bought and sold, with seemingly no guiding rule; all the checks signed only by him as “Harold Vreeland, Trustee,” and all the securities daily deposited, after due receipt and tag, in Mrs. Willoughby’s steel vault compartment at the Mineralogical Bank. And she alone knew of gain or loss. He was only a gilded dummy.
But one great house guarded all these covert transactions, and the deliveries to them, in case of sales, were always made by an order on the cashier of the Mineralogical.
A dozen times the wily schemer had verified that Mrs. Willoughby knew all the details of each purchase or delivery long before his own daily report.
For when her account was actively moving, once a day the mistress and her secret agent always met.
But never had Elaine Willoughby’s foot mounted the broad steps of the Elmleaf, neither had the luxury-loving man ever dared to yield to Justine’s mad desire to visit him in his splendid new home.