Part 27 (2/2)
”Yes. He came then. I hid Ivor, and I lied.”
”He suspected that someone was with you? He stood watching, outside your gate?”
”He confessed that, when I'd made him repent his jealousy. Why do you ask? You saw him?”
”I think so. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Renzie, did he lose anything of value near your house?”
”Great heavens, yes!” I cried. ”What do you know of that?”
”I know--something. Enough, maybe, to help you to find the thing for him--if you will promise to help Ivor.”
”Oh, shame,” I cried violently, sick of bargains and promises. ”You are trying to bribe me!”
”Yes, but I am not ashamed,” the girl answered, holding her head high.
”I have not the thing which was lost; but I can get it for you--this very night or to-morrow morning, if you will do what I ask.”
”I tell you I cannot,” I said. ”Not even to get back that thing whose loss was the beginning of all my misery. Ivor would not wish me to ruin myself and--another. Mr. Dundas must be saved without me. Please go. If we talked of this together all night, it could make no difference. And I'm in great trouble, great trouble of my own.”
”Has your trouble anything to do with a doc.u.ment?” Miss Forrest slowly asked.
I started, and stared at her, breathless.
”It has!” she answered for me. ”Your face tells me so.”
”Has Ivor's message--to do with that?” I almost gasped.
”Perhaps. But he had no good news of it to give you. If you want news--if you want the doc.u.ment, it must be through me.”
”Anything, anything on earth you like to ask for the doc.u.ment, if you can get it for me, I will do,” I pleaded, all my pride and anger gone.
”I ask you to tell the police that Ivor Dundas was in your house from a little after midnight until after one. Will you do that?”
”I must,” I said, ”if you have the doc.u.ment to sell, and are determined to sell it at no other price. But if I do what you ask, it will spoil my life, for it will kill my lover's love, when he knows I have lied to him. Still, it will save him from--” I stopped, and bit my lip. ”Will you give me the diamonds, too?” I asked, humbly enough now.
”The diamonds?” She looked bewildered.
”The diamonds in the brocade bag. Oh, surely they _are_ still in the bag?”
”Yes, they are--they will be in the bag,” the girl answered, her charming mouth suddenly resolute, though her eyes were troubled. ”You shall have the diamonds, and the doc.u.ment, too, for that one promise.”
”How is it possible that you can give me the doc.u.ment?” I asked, half suspicious, for that it should come to me after all I had endured because of it seemed too good to be true; that it should come through this girl seemed incredible.
”Ivor sent me to find it, and I found it,” she said simply. ”That was why I couldn't come to you before. I had to get the doc.u.ment. I didn't quite know how I was to do it at first, because I had no one to help or advise me; and Ivor said it was under some flower-pots in a box on the balcony of the room where the man was murdered. I was sure I wouldn't be allowed to get into the room itself, so it seemed difficult. But I thought it all out, and hired a room for the evening in a house next door, pretending I was a New York journalist. I had to wait until after dark, and then I climbed across from one balcony to the other. It wasn't as easy to do as it looked from the photograph I saw, because it was so high up, and the balconies were quite far apart, after all. But I couldn't fail Ivor; and I got across. The rest was nothing--except the climbing back. I don't know how the doc.u.ment came in the box, though I suppose Ivor put it there to hide it from the police. It was wrapped up in a towel; and it's quite clean.”
”I think,” I said slowly, when she had finished her story, ”that you have a right to set a high price on that doc.u.ment. You are a brave girl.”
”It's not much to be brave for a man you love, is it? And now I'm going to give the thing to you, because I trust you, Mademoiselle de Renzie. I know you'll pay. And I hope, oh, I _feel_, it won't hurt you as you think it will.”
<script>