“She has had one dose,” whispered Alberg. “She is dead safe to sleep till three o’clock. Give her this chloral carefully then. Get your work done as soon as you can, and at eight o’clock your expected telegram will call you away. The French woman will watch till the new nurse comes. You have seen young Vreeland?”
The Doctor’s eyes glowed like live coals.
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s all right,” and her fingers tightly closed on the vial. “I am to meet him at the ferry. The boat sails at eleven. It will be all right.”
Dr. Alberg passed out of the sick-room, and Justine Duprez followed him down the stair.
“You have left all where she can do the work?” whispered the miserly German, who already had the price of his treason in his pocket.
“Yes,” murmured Justine. “I’ll tell you all when we meet down there.”
The hoodwinked physician went out into the night, whispering: “I’ll be here at seven, on the watch.”
It was but half an hour later that a man seated in August Helms’ darkened basement room opened his arms as Justine Duprez glided in.
“She is sleeping like a log,” murmured the maid. “Here is what you want. The nurse will do her part later, and be sure that she clears out at once. I’ll keep the Doctor with me here till noon. She will get her ‘sudden telegram;’ he will be here on duty; while he is busied with the new nurse Martha will go and rob the Doctor’s office and rooms, and be soon on the sea. Then we are all covered.”
The schemer’s eyes gleamed as he pocketed the paper which made his patroness an involuntary traitor to her dangerous trust. Vreeland breathed in a happy triumph.