He marveled long over a second dispatch which awaited him there. Its words were ominous, and yet, Elaine Willoughby was firm and steadfast in her purpose.
“She has been greatly excited. Doctor Alberg has been telegraphed for. You are to come to-morrow. Lawyer leaves to-night. Dare not communicate by letter. I have the most important news.”
And all night Harold Vreeland was tossed about in a vain unrest.
He knew that his greedy accomplice Justine would easily handle and draw out Alberg, for, not of a jealous disposition, Vreeland was perfectly willing that the doctor should be made a tool of the facile Parisienne.
“You know how to lead him on, Justine,” was Vreeland’s easy-going hint, whereat the demure maid dropped her lashes and smiled. And after all, even the artful Justine was only means to an end.
The recurring excitement of the tortured lonely rich woman was only a new phase of the old invincible mystery. “Can it be a gigantic game of blackmail, the infamous price of someone’s silence—the bribe to her quiet enjoyment of a station not her own? What hideous Frankenstein hides behind the dropped arras of her life?”
Vreeland knew how many dark shadows lurked behind the bright curtains of New York’s Belgravia and Mayfair.
“By God! I shall know soon!” he growled, as the second day of the new year brought him the dispatch confirming Justine’s watchful foresight. There was no uncertain ring to the words of the Lady of Lakemere.
“Come to me at once! Immediate action necessary!”
“It seems to be something recurrent—something, too, that even golden-massed money can not help! She would quickly brush this trouble away, if the ‘long green’ would do it. And, it must be something which that old fox, Endicott, can not help, or he would stay up there on guard and help it, instead of leaving her to Dr. Hugo Alberg’s chloral, chlorodyne, and phenacetine. There must be an ugly snarl—some olden shame, some hidden disgrace.”