Part 40 (1/2)
”She ought to be separated from her companion. We have left them alone for a whole week, so Jones will not worry particularly. A mighty curious thing has turned up. Before Hargreave's disappearance not a dozen persons could recollect what Jones looked like. He was rarely ever in sight. What do you suppose that signifies?”
”Don't ask me,” shrugged the man of medicine. ”I shouldn't worry over Jones.”
”But we can't stir the old fool. We can't get him out of that house.
I've tried to get that maid to put a little something in his coffee, but she stands off at that. She says that she did as she agreed in regard to Florence, but her agreement ended there. We have given the jade five thousand already and she is clamoring for the balance.”
”Have you threatened her?” asked Olga.
Braine smiled a little. ”My dear woman, it is fifty-fifty. While I have a hold on her, it is not quite so good as she has on me. We are not dealing with an ordinary servant we could threaten and scare. No, indeed; a shrewd little woman who desperately wanted money. And she will be paid; no getting out of it. She will not move another step, one way or the other, after she receives the balance. Hargreave will have a pretty steep bill to pay when the time comes.”
”She has no idea where the million is?”
”If she had, she's quite capable of lugging it off all by herself,”
said Braine.
The doctor laughed.
”Olga,” went on Braine, ”you must look at it as I do; that it is still in the middle of the game, and we have neither lost nor won.”
”How do you know that Hargreave may not have at his beck and call an organization quite as capable if not as large as ours?” suggested the physician.
”That is not possible,” Braine declared without hesitation.
”Well, it begins to look that way to me. We've never made a move yet that hasn't been blocked.”
”Pure luck each time, I tell you; the devil's own luck always at the critical moment, when everything seems to be in our hands. Now, we want Florence, and we've tried a hundred ways to accomplish this fact and failed. The question is, how to get her away from her companion?”
”Simple enough,” said the doctor complacently.
”Out with it, if you have an idea.”
The doctor leaned forward and whispered a few words.
”Well, I'm hanged!” Braine laughed and slapped the doctor on the shoulder. ”The simplest thing in the world. Mad dog wouldn't be in it. I always said that you had gray matter if you cared to exert yourself.”
”Thanks,” replied the doctor dryly. ”I'll drop down there to-morrow, if you say so, ostensibly to see the other patient. It will make a deuce of a disturbance.”
”Not if you scare the hotel people.”
”That is what I propose to do. They will not want such a thing known.
It would scare every one away for the rest of the season. But of course this depends upon whether they are honest or in the hotel business to make money.”
Again Braine laughed. ”Bring her back to New York alone, Esculapius, and a fat check is yours. Nothing could be simpler than an idea like this. It's a fact; no man can think of everything, and you've just proved it to me. I've tried to do a general's work without aids.
Olga, does any one watch me come and go any more?”
”No; I've watched a dozen nights. The man has gone. Either he found out what he wanted or he gave up the job. To my mind he found out what he wanted.”
”And what's that?”
”Heaven knows!” discouragedly.