Part 50 (1/2)
”I will not have it!”
”I can go elsewhere,” he replied coldly.
”You would leave me?”
”The moment you cross my will,” emphatically.
It became her turn to pace. Torn between her love of the man and the danger which stared her in the face, she was for the time being distracted. All the time he watched her with malevolent curiosity, knowing that in the end she would concur with his evil plans.
”Very well,” she said finally. ”But listen; we shall be found out.
Never doubt that. Your revenge will cost us both our lives. I feel it.”
”Bah! The law will have no hand in my end. I always carry a pellet; and that ring of yours would suffice a regiment. She will not die.
She will merely become a kind of paralytic; the kind that can move a little but not enough; always wheeled about in a chair. I'll bring in the peaches; rosy and downy. One bite, after a given time, will do the trick. If they suspect and throw them out we have lost nothing but the peaches. A trusted messenger will carry them to the Hargreave house.
And then we'll sit down and wait.”
Meantime, in the library of the Hargreave house, Florence and Jim were puzzling over the blank sheet of paper.
”I'll wager,” said Jim, ”the water washed all the writing away. The fire does not seem to do any good. We'll turn it over to Jones.
Jones'll find a way to solve it. Trust him.”
”What are you two chattering about?” asked Susan, who was arranging some flowers on the table.
”Secrets,” said Jim, smiling.
”Humph!”
Susan puttered about for a few minutes longer, then crossed to the reception room, intending to go up-stairs. At that moment the maid was admitting a messenger with a basket of fruit.
”For Miss Hargreave,” said he. He gave the basket to the maid, touched his cap awkwardly, and swung on his heel, closing the door behind him.
He was in a hurry to deliver another message.
”Oh, what lovely fruit!” cried Susan, pausing. ”I'm going to steal one,” she laughed. She selected a peach and began eating it on the way up to her room.
The maid pa.s.sed on into the library.
”What's this?” inquired Florence, as the maid held out the basket. She selected a peach and was about to set her white teeth into it when Jim interposed.
”Wait a moment, dear.” Florence lowered the peach. Jim turned to the maid. ”Who sent it?”
”I don't know, sir. A messenger brought it, saying it was for Miss Hargreave.”
”Let me see if there is a card.” But Jim searched in vain for the card of the donor. All at once his suspicions arose. ”Don't touch them.
Better let the maid throw them out. Fruit from unknown persons might not be the healthiest thing in the world.”
”What do you think?”
”That in all probability they are poisoned. But there's no need trying to prove my theory right or wrong. Ask Jones. He'll tell you to throw them away.”