I was not quite prepared with an answer to this. I asked him to help me with a hint. No! Benjamin would take no active part in the matter. He was resigned to be employed in the capacity of passive instrument—and there all concession ended, so far as he was concerned.
Left to my own resources, I found it no easy matter to invent a telegraphic system which should sufficiently inform Benjamin, without awakening Dexter’s quick suspicion. I looked into the glass to see if I could find the necessary suggestion in anything that I wore. My earrings supplied me with the idea of which I was in search.
“I shall take care to sit in an arm-chair,” I said. “When you see me rest my elbow on the chair, and lift my hand to my earring, as if I were playing with it—write down what he says; and go on until—well, suppose we say, until you hear me move my chair. At that sound, stop. You understand me?”
“I understand you.”
We started for Dexter’s house.
CHAPTER XL. NEMESIS AT LAST.
THE gardener opened the gate to us on this occasion. He had evidently received his orders in anticipation of my arrival.
“Mrs. Valeria?” he asked.
“Yes.”