“A certain number of women friends are a sine qua non, however, to a ‘professed beauty,’” mused Vreeland.
“Their absence is as remarkable as a bedizened general riding out all alone into the enemy’s land with no following. I presume that ‘prominent Westerners’ will in due time furnish her with a golden woman bodyguard. Garston being a widower, too, is another awkward thing.”
In the whole embarrassing situation, all that Vreeland could do to move on his plans was to make a stolen visit to the rooms of the janitor of the Circassia.
There Justine Duprez, in a few moments of stolen time, breathlessly told him of the nightly conferences. “I think that she is soon going abroad. They have maps and papers out every evening. So far she has not examined her hidden paper. When she does, there will be a wild storm.
“And then only at my room in South Fifth Avenue dare we meet. We must be watchful. For the little green-eyed typewriter, Mary Kelly, spies on me, and I find her blue-coated friend, too, that big policeman, Daly the Roundsman, following me around. Look out for yourself. You and I must stand or fall together. She may give us both the slip. If she went over to Paris, and took me with her, you dare not follow her; but I could write to you always, and give you a safe address to write to me.”
Vreeland was vaguely disturbed at heart.
“Can we trust to August Helms?” muttered Vreeland, with a sudden shiver of underlying cowardice.
“Yes,” grimly said Justine, “as long as you pay him, and, besides, he faces state’s prison in—you know—his own part of the business. We must stand together firmly, and you lead us on.”
As Vreeland regained his deserted rooms in the Elmleaf he strangely recalled the last bitter denunciation of the Lady of the Red Rose: “I leave it to the future to punish you.”
But on his table, two letters awaited him which brought a glow of secret delight to his heart.