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Van Vreck had been convalescing at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer home.
"You don't know how to speak the truth, Madalena! You said you found me through Lady Annesley-Seton hearing from Mrs. Waldo, whereas you wrote to Paul Van Vreck." "You do me injustice always! I did hear from Constance. Then I merely ventured to write and ask Mr. Van Vreck if he kept up communication with you, and "
Think what it would mean to me if it could be accepted, and I could have the handling of the money. There are three small pictures in the little octagon gallery next door, too, Van Vreck took a fancy to on a visit he paid us from Saturday to Monday last summer.
It had all added zest to the work. And Knight had been pleased with some small inventions of his own, praised by Van Vreck: a smart hiding-place in the heel of a boot, almost impossible to detect, and another equally convenient and invisible in the jet standard of Madalena de Santiago's famous crystal.
He and old Paul Van Vreck had laughed together at the patent lock on which the agent depended a lock invented by the retired member of the firm himself, and followed by a second invention, even more clever: a little instrument designed to open a door in spite of it. There had been the drug, too, which leaving no odour behind, had the same effect as chloroform, and "took" even more quickly.
"I've taken advantage of you sprung a surprise, as Don would say, and then turned on the tortures of the Inquisition. Aren't you going to sit? I can't, you know, if you don't." "I thought you might like something to eat," the girl stammered. "I could call our cook " "No, thank you," replied Van Vreck. "I'm peculiar in more ways than one. I never eat at night.
Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among those he had wanted to buy.
"Also I handed to him the Malindore diamond. His firm lost it. His firm has by this time been paid the insurance. It's up to him how to dispose of the property. "That's all I have to say about Van Vreck. I thought in fairness you ought to know that I didn't keep the diamond. And I thought I might tell you that my call at Van Vreck's didn't mean entering any new deal."
"No doubt.... And you're worried?" "No-o," she answered, looking sidewise at Van Vreck, her face half turned from him. "I don't think that I'm worried." "May I talk to you frankly till Don does come?" the old man asked. "Certainly." "I'll take you at your word!... Mrs. Donaldson, when your husband called on me a year ago last spring, in New York, he said nothing about you.
"Won't you come in into the living room? Not the room with the open door. That's mine. It's another, farther along the hall. I'm sorry my husband's out." As she talked she wondered at herself. She knew Van Vreck for a super thief. He did not steal with his own hands, but he commanded other hands to steal, and that was even worse.
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