Madame Veno—alias Mrs. Sam Piggott—had a key to the door of the janitor\'s flat. She, her husband, and their associates could come and go as they chose when the janitor was away or upstairs.
"You won\'t get anything out of your husband," she said to Juliet as the three went down, she leading with mingled defiance and reluctance. "He hasn\'t come back to his senses yet. It wasn\'t so much the blow—mind you, my husband was within his rights, defending his brother-in-law from assault!—it wasn\'t the blow so much as the fall. The Duke fell on the back of his head. It was concussion. We had a doctor in—a friend of ours we could trust. And we weren\'t going to let you know till we were sure he was out of danger—ready to be moved. If he has to stand his trial for killing Markoff, why——"
"How does a man with concussion of the brain commit murder?" Juliet\'s question stabbed like a stiletto. By this time they were at the door of the basement flat, and Madame Veno was fumbling with a bunch of keys, Nickson\'s eyes upon her hands.
"Naturally the killing was done before the concussion," Madame sneered. "The Duke hated Markoff because of Pavoya. Perhaps he had reason. But that won\'t help him with a jury!"
Juliet could have struck the woman and trampled her under foot. She turned upon her in the dimly lit passage so fiercely that the nervous fingers jumped and let fall the key. "You fool!" the Duchess said. "You told me I should see a dead man here. Yet according to your own story my husband was struck down the night after I saw him last. One doesn\'t keep a dead man in a flat for weeks!"
Madame Veno drew in a sharp breath, and mumbled something which Juliet could not hear. It was easy to deduce that the story of Markoff\'s death by Claremanagh\'s hand was an impromptu effort—an inspiration which didn\'t quite "come off!" The woman had suddenly caught at a desperate chance. The Duke, having lost all memory of events, could be made to believe what they chose about himself. And if the Duchess and her friends could be got to credit the tale, the Markoff affair would be simplified.
He had been known to Madame\'s husband and stepbrother for years, even before the war, when he had fed Modern Ways in London and the Inner Circle in New York with rich titbits of scandal concerning the Russian Court. He had told Piggott that Russia had a grievance against the Claremanagh family in connection with the Tsarina pearls; that this treasure ought to be returned to the Crown; and Piggott had suspected that Markoff was "out" to get it if he could. This visit of his to New York was for some reason sub rosa. His passport was made out for a merchant of skins named Halbin; but he had called upon his two old acquaintances and offered for sale the most intimate personal secrets of Trotsky and Lenin. The brothers-in-law had guessed that he wanted the Tsarina pearls for himself, if they could be got, as he had once pretended to want them for the Russian Crown. So, when by amazing luck they found themselves in possession of the famous rope, their first thought was to bargain with Markoff-Halbin. He had risen to the bait, and had made an offer. It sounded satisfactory, but the money was not forthcoming. A "friend" was to produce it. Meanwhile, when it was learned through the "leak" at the Duchess\'s that Sanders sought Markoff, shelter was given him; also the "benefit of the doubt." But little doubt remained when he tried to steal the pearls! As for the consequences of this attempt, they were upon the man\'s own head! And at worst, the doctor would certify that death had not been the direct result of a blow, but of heart failure.
The end had come the day before the Duchess was invited to Madame Veno\'s; and had it not come, Madame de Saintville might have been left in peace till her help was wanted in some other direction. With Markoff dead, and his problematic "offer" wiped from the slate, the best remaining hope was the Duchess. Claremanagh would not be able to testify against the man who had struck him down—would not even know that Sam Pigott had revenged himself at last for the caning episode in London. He and the pearls could be handed over to the Duchess; price, a million dollars; and no one would ever know where and how he had spent those weeks missing from his calendar.
The scheme had been in fine working order up to the moment when that middle door had suddenly opened! Madame Veno thought bitterly of the mistake they had all made in sending for the Duchess. The thing might surely have been managed in another way! But it was useless to cry over spilt milk—a million dollars\' worth of spilt milk! They must be grateful if the Enemy held his tongue, and they kept out of jail.
She laughed when the Duchess called aloud, "Pat! Where are you? It\'s Juliet, who loves you." She was so sure that the cry would be answered by silence, for there was a dead man in one room, an unconscious man in another. But there was no laugh left in her when Claremanagh\'s voice rang out, clear and sane, "Hullo, my darling! Here I am!"
He had been shamming, then! How much had he heard? How much could he tell? How much did he remember?
Juliet flew in the direction of the beloved voice. It was heaven to hear it after the hell she had suffered! There were two doors opposite each other. She tried the first. Locked! But the key was there. It turned, and she threw the door open only to slam it shut with a stifled gasp—for on the bed was a long shape covered with a sheet. It was the body of Markoff, of whom she had heard so much of late from Jack and Sanders, though till now—when he had ceased to live—she\'d hardly believed in his existence.
Again Pat called. She realized that he was in the room opposite, and in less than a minute she was with him—in a grey room where a pale Pat lay in a squalid bed. He sat up, a strange, unkempt figure: the immaculate Claremanagh unshaven, his smooth hair rumpled; a torn shirt open at the throat, instead of those smart silk pyjamas in "Futurist" colours which she\'d often smiled at and admired!
She rushed into his arms. He was strong enough to clasp her tight. "Oh, my Pat, my dearest one!" she sobbed. "I have you again! Say you\'re not going to die. Say you still love me!"
"I adore you. And I\'m not going to die. Perhaps I came near it. I don\'t know. But this is new life. And, Juliet—I\'ve got back the pearls far you!"
"Oh—the pearls! I\'d forgotten them."
"I hadn\'t. You see, it meant a lot to me to prove to you that it wasn\'t I who walked off with them. Darling, I suppose you wouldn\'t be here now if you didn\'t know how I got to this place?"
"I know partly. I know you went at night to the Inner Circle office to punish that Beast. And the horrible London man, Piggott—his brother-in-law—struck you from behind——"
"Was it like that? I wasn\'t sure what happened, and I don\'t know yet where I am. But since I woke up to things, I\'ve lain still, and listened when they thought I was nothing but a log. I wasn\'t strong enough to do much. I had to lie low! But there was a row about the pearls. Markoff was here—hiding, I think. How these people got the pearls I haven\'t made out. They had them, though—and Markoff tried to steal them instead of buying as he\'d promised. He fell in a fit or something, and died. I heard a doctor talking—a pal of the people here. The night Markoff died they were squabbling over the pearls, a woman and two men in the next room. I heard them say where they were kept—in the room where they\'d put Markoff\'s body till they could get rid of it. They\'d no idea I\'d come alive. At last, to-day when they were all out, and the coast clear—it can\'t have been two hours ago—I struggled up and got the pearls—beneath a loose board in the floor under the carpet. They\'re inside this mattress now. I was planning how to make my \'getaway\' when I heard your voice. Jove! This has been a bad dream. But thank God it\'s over for us both. You\'ll have to believe in me when I give you the pearls."
"Give me your love—your forgiveness," begged Juliet. "I want nothing else."
"You\'ll have to take the lot!" Pat almost laughed. "But as to forgiveness—why, darling one, there\'s nothing to forgive!"
Leon Defasquelle\'s look, when he saw Sanders instead of the Frenchwoman alone, was in itself a confession. He knew he was trapped. His dark, southern face faded to the yellow green of seasickness. Speechless, anxious-eyed as a kicked dog, he would have backed to the door, but Sanders was ready for that. He stepped between him and the hope of escape. "It\'s all up, my friend," the detective said, in his quiet voice. Then, remembering that Defasquelle had little English, he went on in half-forgotten school French, a little slang thrown in from novels he\'d read.
"Your chère amie has split on you. No good getting out the pistol from your pocket. Nothing doing in th............