Safe in her room, Justine Duprez hastened to burn the letter which now weighed upon her breast with a crushing weight. “My God! If it had been daylight and they had searched me! Then, the prison cell would have received me.” With chattering teeth she crept to a corner, and, unlocking her trunk, took a deep draught from the brandy bottle. She eyed herself in the glass. Her face was the very image of guilt. Its mien was that of a hunted woman. “There will soon be trouble for others now,” she defiantly said. “The only story that will save me from prison for this attempt is the lame one of a lover in the village. Va banc! I have lost my place anyway; my character can follow it. This cool woman below is not deceived. They have cut all our wires. I am to be dogged to death here, day by day. But they can prove absolutely nothing as to the cursed paper. And my character is just as good as before.”
She laughed a defiant laugh and hummed a bar of a song from La Perichole. “O mon cher amant, je te jure, que je t’aime de tout mon coeur. He has to shield me—to support me now,” she cheerfully concluded, as the strong cognac cheered her, “for he is in my power, and Alberg, too; and that sly boots, August Helms also. They dare not abandon poor Justine. At the last I confess, and save myself, for my money is all safe in Paris. Perhaps the Madame would pay me well; who knows?”
With profound astonishment, Justine Duprez saw the next day glide by without reproach of any kind. Her mistress had resumed her normal calm, and beyond a formal search of the whole house, the matter of the robbery was left in statu quo.
Even when Mrs. Willoughby, at night, directed her to pack all her immediate belongings for an instant return to New York City, there was no mention of that intercepted nocturnal visit to the station so skillfully planned. It looked as if the storm was blowing over. The household had regained its normal calm.
The telegraph and telephone wires were voiceless and but one ominous cloud lingered over the woman whose personal belongings had passed a most triumphant inspection. She was not able to evade the sight of the keen-eyed cripple or of her mistress, for even ten minutes.
And the cat-like nature of the woman rightly warned her of a coming storm. It was impossible for her the next day, on their departure, to reach her faithful dupe, Pierre Gervais, for even a moment at the station.
“Remember, Justine, to watch over my jewels,” said her mistress, calmly. “Miss Kelly and yourself must not separate for a moment. I hold you both responsible for them.” And Justine knew the faith of Mary Kelly but too well.
“I wonder if I am to be arrested on our arrival in New York,” gloomily mused the woman, who now felt herself entrapped. But her spirits rose as she realized that once in the “Circassia” there would probably be a visit from Harold Vreeland himself, at once. “If I can only see him, warn him, then we are safe, for he will shield me,” she exulted.
And Dr. Alberg, with August Helms, too, would be under her control. Then it would be an easy matter to thoroughly forewarn the man to whom alone she looked now for safety.
With true Gallic prevision, her secretly stolen hoard of the seven long years past, as well as Vreeland’s bribes, was now all safely deposited in her own name in Paris, and she could gaily laugh at the wolf at the door. For there were also the two nurses between her and a conviction.