But the boys were both gone. Where?
“To the city, I think,” said Margaret Graeme. “They said they had some shopping to do.”
“Shopping?” said Louella curiously. “What kind of shopping? I didn’t know servicemen ever did shopping when they got home.”
“Now, Louella. You never can bear not to find out everything, can you?” laughed Margaret. “But won’t you come in?”
“Oh, yes, just for a minute. There are some questions I want to ask you. What about the boys? Are they any better informed than they were?”
“Oh, yes,” said the boys’ mother. “They are not to leave the country for the present. They have a job here that is not far away. I wasn’t given the exact location yet. It seems hard for us to get time to ask questions. It’s so good to know they are not going back to combat, for the present anyway.”
“Well, what are they to be doing? What is their title? They surely have some designation.”
“Why, you see I didn’t think to ask that. They’ll just be Rodney and Jeremy to me, just the same as they always were.”
“Oh, Margaret, you’re simply impossible,” said Louella, and she finally took herself away, much to the relief of her relative.
But Jessica was by this time speeding away on an express train and trying to figure out just what she had to do in the near future, how soon she could hope to get that blue diamond.
The next day she was closeted with her husband and two other men in a bare little room in a dowdy boarding place, getting instructions.
One of the two strange men seemed a foreigner. He had a pompous, disagreeable air and talked with a strange accent, which she could not quite place. The other man was a sort of high-class secretary, perhaps, for he wrote everything down, including the papers she was given to guide her in the work she was to do. And strangely he seemed to be somebody who was over her husband in this work she was doing, which he said was for the government. She kept asking herself what government, and why he was telling Carver what to do. It was a new role to find her husband taking advice, or rather orders from anybody. It gave her food for thought and a sort of a frightening background for this work she had been ordered to do.
Carver, it developed from the talk between the men, was expecting to leave the country for a time, possibly soon. There seemed to be an uncertainty about it, maybe dependent upon her own success in the mission they were about to send her on. If he went, she would ask him to take her along. She was about fed up with this country, and it would be a relief to travel. Afterward, if she still was out of sorts with her husband, she could probably get a divorce over in Europe as well as in this country and could make her plans accordingly.
They suggested that the war might be over soon, and the possibility seemed fraught with peril for some of them. She tried to figure that out but couldn’t quite make it. However, if anything unpleasant developed, she would just get away somewhere. It hadn’t been hard to do so far, though she sensed that she had not been so clever as her husband had expected she would be when he married her. She really must exert herself and get this one across, for there was that blue diamond. She mustn’t miss out on that.
The tiresome session was ended at last, and the men departed one by one, by devious unexpected ways, the foreigner going by way of a window and a fire escape. He was hurrying to catch a train he said, but when she looked out of the window he was walking away toward the woods as fast as he could go, with his hat pulled down over his face. It was all very odd and bewildering, and when she asked a puzzled question, her husband reminded her that she was to ask no questions whatever, and it was best to forget all that she had seen or thought she had seen. There seemed to be something crooked somewhere, though she couldn’t quite make out what. Not that Jessica objected very seriously to crooked ways of doing things, but it didn’t seem quite to fit with her well-dressed, immaculate, severe husband, and she did like to understand things. However, this wasn’t the way to win blue diamonds.
So, reluctantly, she gave attention to the instructions that were being given her.
“This paper is the most important. You will put it in the small white bag and pin it inside your garments, right over the heart. Don’t let anyone get possession of it. Guard it with your very life. Do you understand?”
Jessica blanched. “But you said there was to be no danger,” she faltered.
“No danger if you do your work fearlessly. No possibility of being suspected if you work calmly, fearlessly. It is safer that way.”
Jessica caught her breath and kept on listening, and the stern old voice continued:
“Now, here are the papers that you will need in getting into the plant.”
“Plant? What plant?” she asked with wide eyes. “Have I got to go and work in a plant?”
“Nonsense! Give better attention or you will never be equal to this. I would have sent someone else, but the one I had chosen was killed in an accident, and this matter is urgent. Listen carefully.”
“Killed?” said Jessica in a frightened tone.
But the hard old voice went right on. “Yesterday your friends, those two officers you know so well, entered new positions in the service, and it is necessary that you make immediate contact with them and get to work. There are important papers that will be under their care, and you can better find them than someone your friends do not know. The elder of the two men, your former fiancé, will be your special object of interest. By nine o’clock tomorrow morning you should be entering his office. The office is located on the top floor of the building, and this paper contains the address. It is just outside your city and can be reached by bus or taxi. I should suggest taxi, unless you find the bus not too crowded. We don’t want too many witnesses. You will have to use your discretion in some of these moves. Don’t take any chances unless it is the only way. Remember I have told you. Don’t blame me if you get into any trouble. You’ll be all right if you just follow instructions.”
Jessica flung a bitter look at her husband but said nothing.
“And when you get to the plant,” he went on, “you will need identification papers. Here is your pass into the place, and your badge. I used an old snapshot of you to put on it. You won’t have any trouble getting in, only remember you are Commander Graeme’s private secretary, and if you should get there before he arrives in the morning so much the better. If possible, manage it so that you are alone in his office for a few minutes, even a short time might accomplish what you want. The main thing is to get this paper, the original of the one you have in the secreted bag. You will have to study it so that you will recognize it at once, even if you see only a part of it. We must have that paper before it has a chance to be sent to the government. If Mr. Graeme comes in while you are searching in the safe, as you may well have to do, you will know how to kid the gentleman along, even with endearments if necessary. Let him think you were hunting for a record you put in the safe Saturday. He won’t know. He wasn’t there then himself. Yes, I know definitely. I’ve had him watched for a week. Remember, the paper is the main thing, and it must be had!”
When Jessica came out from that meeting, she was trembling from head to foot, and greatly impressed with the importance of the errand on which she was about to embark.
She had just had a ravishing glimpse of the blue stone in the white velvet box, fed to her as a cat would tantalize a mouse. If it had not been for that stone, she would have taken the next train as far away from that frightening husband, and his kind, as it would be possible to get, but she simply must finish this engagement out and get that stone. Then she could stand anything. Just get away from Carver De Groot as fast as she could and never lay eyes on him again. She could dye her hair and change her makeup, and he might never know her, even if he hunted for her. Well, she had got to get through this somehow.
She went to sleep on the train and got a little rested, and then she began to study her papers and get into her memory what she had to do, for she had been ordered to commit
all these notes to memory and then destroy all but that one paper that was so important and must be kept until the last minute.
Jessica found the way back to Riverton most tedious and tiresome. There were three changes, with long waits between trains, and nobody about the waiting places to look at or talk to, just little sheds with a platform and a bench and open country sizzling in a hot sun. She thought of the pleasant quiet sunny home of the Sandersons where she had been for a few minutes to fling her ugly words into Rodney’s nice life, and a passing twinge of envy went through her. After all, what had she gained? She might have married Rodney if she had kept that ring and been a part of that nice respectable crowd at the Sandersons’ or at the Graeme house where she had spent so many pleasant days in her childhood. Awful bores they all were, and Rodney was the worst bore of all of course, now that he had thoroughly adopted this religious phase, to which he seemed to have become heir. What a family! But better than her present lot, full of intrigue and peril and doing hazardous jobs of which she would have to take the blame if they went wrong.
She sighed heavily as she gathered up her bags from the hard bench and stood up to take the train as it crept along the rails to the shed where it was supposed to stop. Oh, she wished this whole thing was over. There was nothing pleasant to count on. Not even the small contact with Rodney was going to have any thrill about it, and to judge by the way he acted last Sunday, there was no telling what attitude he might take toward her. She was definitely frightened and wished she might run away and hide. She had entirely forgotten the scheme she had entertained of going to New York to find and inform that rich young officer about the defection of his supposed-to-be bride. Later it would come to her, and she would wonder if there were any chance for her to charm him away when she got rid of her old husband, but now she was entirely engrossed with the thought of what she had to do, and she did not like the idea. There would be guns around, perhaps, and she detested guns, and firing. She never had wanted to learn to shoot.
So now, while the people she had wanted to harm were having a happy time selecting rings, engagement and wedding rings, and making a memorable day of it, Jessica was beginning some of her punishment already.
Chapter 21
Jessica got back to her room in the Riverton Hotel very late Tuesday night and went right to bed. It was too late to call Louella, so she did not know what had been happening during her absence, but it likely didn’t matter. She would call her in the morning, and besides she was too tired to care.
However, she awoke very early the next morning, suddenly aware of the unpleasant errand she had to do for her husband, and filled with excitement over it.
She should of course call Louella the first thing now and make sure that the Graemes really had that new job. She wondered what she should do if there had been some hitch and they were not there.
But when she called Louella, she was informed that Mrs. Chatterton had checked out early yesterday morning. She had received a telegram calling her west on important business and might or might not return later, depending on how the business came out.
This cut off Jessica from her only source of information about the Graemes, for she knew that her girlfriends were all gone to the shore for the week, and anyway they would not know much about the Graemes. Jessica suddenly felt very much alone, and quite frightened.
How she hated this town! How she wished she could get away from it at once. She dressed rapidly, resolving that as soon as this horrible business for her husband was finished she would pack up and vanish utterly from Riverton and all that could remind her of it. Just as soon as she had that blue diamond she would go away from everything. From Carver De Groot most of all. She shuddered as she thought of the look in his hard eyes when he threatened her. When he said, “Don’t blame me if you get into trouble.”
With that in mind, she began swiftly to fold up her garments and lay them in her trunk. She didn’t want to be delayed a moment in getting away when she got her work done. She was also very nervous about that approaching mysterious errand she had to do. She had not expected to be afraid, but she was. Unaccountably she was wondering what might happen to her if she should get caught. Rather frantically she was considering what she should do in case she had to get away from this vicinity quickly. She wouldn’t want to leave her clothes behind her. More and more as the moments went by she grew panic-stricken. She must prepare for any happening, and there wasn’t so much time. If she could just get everything into her trunk and lock it, then if worse came to worst she could send for her baggage afterward, say her husband had been taken sick and she had to go to him at once, or something like that. Just in case she got very much frightened.
She glanced at her watch. There wasn’t so much more time before she should start, and perhaps she should have something to eat before this trying expedition.
So she called up and ordered coffee, toast, and orange juice sent up to her room, and she continued with her packing. At least everything should be under lock and key if anybody tried to go through her belongings. She didn’t know why they would want to do that, but at least she was taking no chances now. It made her feel more safely comfortable to know that her affairs were all out of sight and ready to meet the most inquisitive eye, even if she got into some kind of trouble through this doubtful escapade of her husband’s.
She had thought out the different stages of this affair most carefully, so that no one around this part of the world would need to know where she was and what she had been doing today. She had arranged for the taxi to take her to the station for the early train to the city. Then she was planning, as soon as the taxi had gone, to walk swiftly away and get a bus going in the opposite direction, so that if afterward should there be anyone questioning her movements, there would be no link left unguarded to tell any tales. After that she would get another bus and then perhaps another taxi, whichever seemed to be most convenient, and by devious ways she would arrive at that plant in plenty of time to get in before the brothers came. Most of these movements had been planned by a sharp-sighted husband, but she had added a few of her own, instigated by fear, and some of her plans were clever indeed. That was what Carver De Groot had seen in her, that she was exceedingly clever.
So before Jessica left her room, she went carefully about, examining even the wastebasket to make sure there wasn’t a scrap of precious notes or papers that could possibly tell any tales about what she was doing.
Her baggage was locked and her door was locked when she came down the stairs, for it was too early for the elevator boy to be on duty. She gave careful directions to the office man at the desk, explaining that she was going to see a member of her family who was very ill, and she was not sure how long she would be gone. If she found she was needed she might remain a few hours and return this evening. On the other hand, she might stay for several days or even for a week or two. In which case she would telephone for some of her baggage, but for the present she was retaining her room.
Then with high head, she went briskly out the door as if for a pleasant visit and got into the taxi, feeling, perhaps, much like the fliers about to start on their first bombing mission.
Jessica had started early, following minutely the careful directions she had been given by her husband, and she arrived at the plant early, even earlier than she had hoped, and some minutes before the brothers reached there. She had made her entrance carefully, showing the badge and card and identification papers as she had been directed, and she had no trouble in getting to the office where Rodney was soon to arrive. A pretty woman seldom had difficulty in getting by, she reflected with satisfaction. She was beginning to get back her self-confidence.
The officer in charge of the rooms on that floor had given Jessica a sharp looking over, wondering a little at the style of secretary the new man had selected, but he let her in and hovered near the door to explain, once Rodney arrived, that he had let in his secretary just a minute ago. “Was that all right? She had all her papers and badge,” he sa
id.
“Secretary?” said Rodney sharply, lifting his eyebrows, “Why—I—haven’t—any—secretary.” And then he stopped short and remembered that he was still a serviceman and there was no telling what the regulations here were to be. Perhaps they picked out his secretary for him! He didn’t like that. But perhaps it was only temporary.
Then the door swung open and there was a woman, working away at the safe!
Jessica had been furnished with the safe combination and been drilled carefully on how to open the safe swiftly. Moreover, she had just found the paper she was ordered to take, and as she heard the doorknob turn, she dropped the paper inside her handbag and turned, smiling pleasantly, toward the stern face of Rodney, who at once recognized her.
“Good morning!” said Jessica sweetly.
But Rodney’s face did not relax. He took one step to the desk that stood near the door, and whose accessories he had carefully studied before when he came to look things over. He slipped his hand across the top, down to the edge next to his chair where two small unobtrusive bells were located and touched them, one and then the other, twice. And instantly the door was stopped in its progress of closing and swung open again with the orderly standing there and the sound of tramping feet coming down the hall toward the door. Two burly officers came and stood saluting. “You called?” they said.
Rodney answered their salute.
“Take this person down to Major Haverly’s office at once,” he ordered. Gravely the officers advanced impersonally to the attractive, astonished, frightened young woman who stood before the safe with her hands full of papers.
“But—but—I’m Commander Graeme’s secretary!” she said in a frightened voice.
But Rodney paid no heed to her. “See that she is thoroughly searched!” he ordered. “She has no right to be up here.”
“But her papers seemed all right,” said the alarmed orderly.