With a moral cowardice which he could not explain, Vreeland had as yet declined to face the burning question of the stolen document. The copy he had always carried secreted within the waistcoat lining of his traveling suit. “I can easily leave that over in Europe,” he murmured. “The original. Where shall I hide it?” He was long in the dark.
But it was by a devilish impulse, aided by accident, that he found a place in Justine Duprez’s rooms on South Fifth Avenue to safely hide the dangerous original.
One of the plates of a door framing had sprung partly loose. A sudden idea seized him. Her rooms were the safest place for many reasons.
To gain time for preparation, he sent the old hag away on an errand.
Sealed in a cloth envelope, the paper was soon hidden behind the upper framing plate, and with a hammer, covered with his kid gloves, he drove the half-dozen old, rusted nails tightly home. And he gazed in triumph at the neat device.
“They will of course think that she stole it, should it ever be found,” he mused triumphantly, as he lit a Henry Clay and gloated over his cunning.
“If the house should burn I am safe. In every way it would go up in flames. If I should die, then it makes no difference to me what happens. If she is caught—this would be damning evidence only against her.
“And I would never dare to trust myself with either Garston or my wife, and be found out in the custody of that document.
“Accidents will happen; I might fall ill, and now no matter what befalls, it never can be traced to me.”
He grinned with joy as he contemplated depositing the copy abroad, under an assumed name.