In fact, Judge Hiram Endicott, after a long examination of the newspapers and police records, had finally dismissed the frightened German physician with the remark: “I suppose that this sly adventuress of a nurse thought her patient had concealed some bank bills or stocks in that womanly hiding place, the corset, and has undoubtedly destroyed the private papers, which were of no value to any one but the owner.” The able old lawyer calmed the frightened doctor’s all too evident fear of losing his “star” patient.
Those same private papers, the original and the copy, had been already shifted by Harold Vreeland, from time to time, through a dozen different hiding places.
“Damn them!” he growled. “If I burn them, I am safe, but then I lose my hold on Elaine. If I sell them to Senator Garston, I am in his hands as a criminal, and forever in his power. I’ll make my bargain with him, and then, cover over my breach with Mrs. Willoughby by a well-devised return. If she would only give me a sign of her real purposes!” He was in a quandary, and had no counsel.
He never knew that Hugh Conyers wrote the long and even unusually friendly letter from Asheville, in which his patroness announced her intention of a long voyage “for a complete rest and change of air.”
A tour, perhaps, around the world via Japan, but he did know that he was to assist Noel Endicott and his cool partner, Wyman, in the routine business.
“Stocks appear to be standing on a dead level,” she wrote, “and so, I will lose nothing in my absence.”
The clear intimation that he would receive fifteen thousand dollars a year for his services, and that the “Elmleaf” apartment would be kept up as an extra account, satisfied him.
“It will be unnecessary for you to write to me for orders. I may go on from here,” the letter concluded; “and you will receive all my final wishes later, through Judge Endicott, by the hands of Noel. Miss Kelly, in charge at the ‘Circassia,’ will liquidate all the ‘Elmleaf’ bills as usual, through Bagley. I shall close up both my rooms at the ‘Circassia’ and Lakemere. Please acknowledge the receipt of this to my Asheville address.”
“By Jove! She is a cool hand!” cried Vreeland. “The Colorado Springs humbug and the southern trip was only devised to outwit Garston. She will go around the world and meet her child in a safe hiding-place. Now I am ready to sell out to Garston for a substantial consideration. I am safe, and, I can easily hoodwink her.”