Dear Mr. Sands:My wife and I are obliged to you for your kind invitation, but owing to the fact that we have already made a great number of engagements I fear we shall be unable to give ourselves the pleasure of accepting.Yours truly,John Heron.
Dear Mr. Sands:
My wife and I are obliged to you for your kind invitation, but owing to the fact that we have already made a great number of engagements I fear we shall be unable to give ourselves the pleasure of accepting.
Yours truly,
John Heron.
The blood rushed to Roger's forehead. He realized that this was a deliberate insult.
The last letter had begun "Dear Sands," and had been signed "Yours gratefully ever." Roger was even more furious than mystified. "Next time he wants me to pull him out of a death trap, he can whistle for his pains!"
At that instant Beverley tapped at the door, and half opened it to peep in.
This irritated Roger. He had told her from the first that she need not knock at his study door.
"How often have I begged you not to knock?" he broke out at her. "Come in if you want to."
It was the first time he had ever spoken crossly. Beverley started, and the look on her face, instead of overwhelming Roger with remorse, hardened him.
Beverley's colour had been bright, but she turned pale as Roger flung at her his scolding words. Seeing the letter in her husband's hand the blood streamed back to her cheeks. If she could possibly have known and recognized Heron's writing, it might have seemed that the sight of it had struck her with fear. But no such far-fetched thought occurred to her husband.
"I—I'm sorry!" she said hastily. "I heard your voice—I supposed someone was with you——"
Roger forgot that he had spoken aloud. In silence he let the girl cross the floor and sit down in the easy chair she called "hers." She dropped into it as if her knees had given way, and looked at Roger. When he did not speak, she could bear the suspense no longer.
"You—you're reading a letter—I interrupted you?"
"The letter's of no importance," said Roger, throwing it upon the desk. "It's only from John Heron to tell me that he and his wife won't be able to come and see us at Newport. One would suppose by his tone that he was offended. Probably Mrs. Heron expected you to gush over the wedding present, and has put him up to snubbing me because you didn't."
"You asked the Herons to visit us? I—didn't know——"
"I did ask them," Roger cut her short. "I heard they were coming East."
"Oh, Roger, I couldn't have met them! If they'd accepted I should have had to be ill, or—or go away!" Beverley exclaimed on one of her impulses, which instantly she appeared to regret. "I'm glad you don't like Mr. Heron's letter, because—you'll never ask them again! I haven't done anything to annoy you, have I?"
"You know best whether you have or not."
"What do you mean?"
"Is it necessary to ask? I came home intending not to question you. But I must make one comment: you're surprised that I invite a friend to visit us without consulting you. That seems inconsistent with what you've done. I've read the evening paper, and——"
"Oh, Roger! It's in the paper ... about that poor child and me?"
"Naturally! You and I aren't nonentities."
"You don't think I did wrong?"
"Wrong's a big word. You've done something foolish, and inconsiderate to me."
"What harm can the child do to you?"
"That depends upon what sort of 'child' she is! Perhaps you can give me a better account of her than theEvening Stargives!"
"I can't give you any," said Beverley, in a trembling voice, "except that she was the most pitiful thing I ever saw ... so young and desperate, lying in pools of blood."
"Which pools of blood you transferred to your new motor car, my present, that I thought you valued."
"Roger! What did the motor matter, compared with saving a life?"
"Saving a life wasn't in question. An ambulance would have been on the spot in a minute to take the girl to a hospital."
"She wouldn't have had love in a hospital. I felt it was for lack of love she'd tried to kill herself...."
"A girl who steals her companions' money can't expect to have their love...."
"Oh! So that's what the newspaper says? I don't believe she stole. Wait till you see the poor little thing, Roger."
"I don't want to see her. Now she's here, she'll have to stay till she dies, or can be safely moved. I've no wish to be cruel. But when she can go, I want her to do so. I don't mind giving...."
"You do mind giving faith and sympathy!" Beverley burst out. "Why should you take me on faith, and refuse it to another? You knew nothing about me ... I know nothing about this child...."
"Ah, you're sure you know nothing about her!" His tone was bitter.
"What could I know?" she echoed. "I brought her straight home, and she hasn't been able to talk ... except a few words."
"It occurred to me as rather odd you should do so much for a complete stranger."
"Oh, I see! You think I knew her ... before?"
"I thought it possible. Her name put the idea into my head. I heard you say it once ... in your ... sleep ... Riley ... or something like that."
For the third time Beverley blushed, one of her fatal, agonized blushes. The rush of blood forced tears to her eyes; and a certain strained look in them, a quivering of the lips, brought back to Roger's mind a picture of her in the train. That was the first time he had seen her blush. She had said—he remembered well—"You are the only man I'm interested in," and had blushed furiously. He had been sure then that she was no adventuress. She had looked like a frightened child, and she looked like one now. With that picture of the girl in the train came back another recollection. She had asked if any man had inquired for her, or if any "noticeable" person had sought his acquaintance. He had replied that he'd not spoken with a soul except a man he knew slightly, a Congressman from California named O'Reilly. He supposed that O'Reilly didn't interest her? Upon this, with a desperate blush, she had made her startlingly frank reply.
As this came back, Roger's heart was no longer soft. What a fool he had been, that day in the train, not to connect the girl's change of colour with his mention of O'Reilly! She might have blurted out her compliment to excuse the blush, instead of the blush having followed the compliment. Good heavens! could Justin O'Reilly have been the man from whom she wished to hide?
"Perhaps the name you spoke in your sleep was O'Reilly!" he flung at his wife.
Beverley gathered herself together.
"So all this time," she said, "you have been suspicious of me! And I was so happy. I thought you were happy, too, but it's just as I was afraid it would be, if I married you. You can't endure the strain!"
"I have endured the strain," Roger defended himself; "because I loved you as few men have ever loved, but the question is, have you deserved it all?"
"This is the moment I felt must come!" she said. "If I had only myself to think of, don't you know I'd have told you everything? I warned you how it would be ... how I should have to keep the secret not for a little while, but for always! If you don't believe, if you think I lied when I said no man had ever been anything to me ... if you think I lie now, when I say I never saw or heard of this girl till I found her in the street.... I can go out of your life.... I can go to-day!"
As she spoke slowly, sentence by sentence, with a sobbing breath between, Beverley looked straight into her husband's eyes. Hers did not falter though they swam in tears. With her last words, she rose and stood facing him as he sat at his desk.
Roger gave her back gaze for gaze, as if he would read her secret written in cypher on her soul. He saw that she meant what she said. A word from him, and their experiment was at an end. She would go. It seemed to him that never had her beauty been so gentle, so womanly.
"You shan't go!" he cried, springing to his feet. "I can't give you up!"
But she held him off.
"No!" she panted. "I won't stay if you want me only in that way—because you have a kind of love for me, whether you believe in me or not. I love you too much to be shamed by you! Either you trust me, or you don't. Say which it is, and I'll stay, or go."
"I've got to trust you! I do!" The words seemed to burst from him. "You know I love you more than all the world. It would kill me to lose you."
"I'd rather die from the shock of losing you, Roger, than from such a hateful pain, going on and on——"
"It shan't go on," he said. "I've been happy, too. I'm a changed man since the hour I saw you and loved you. It's only to-day I've been wretched. Forgive me, Bev—and God forgive you if——"
"There's an 'if' for you?"
"No—no, there's no 'if' any more. You're to forgive me——that's all!"
"Oh, I do! The hard thing would be not to forgive. But—can we go on being happy again, just as if nothing had happened?"
"Of course we can, silly child. Nothing has happened." Roger had her in his arms now. He kissed her over and over again, till she gasped for breath. "This has only cleared the air. As for that beastly child, I don't care if she's a murderess. Keep her forever, if you choose. Train her as your maid——"
"But she's not 'beastly!' And she's not the kind to have for a maid. I think she's a lady. She seems——"
"Well, do whatever you like with her. Can I go further, to show you I want to atone?"
"No, you can't, Roger——" Beverley nestled her face into his neck. "I adore you!"
She closed her eyes, but opening them she happened, looking over Roger's shoulder, to see John Heron's letter on her husband's desk. A faint shiver ran through her body, and Roger felt it.
"What's the matter, my darling?" he asked.
"Nothing!" she answered. "A mouse ran over my grave."
Beverley found that she could "be happy again, as if nothing had happened" between her and Roger. For one thing, it was wonderful to feel that she had the power to "save" a fellow-being, and wonderful to be worshipped as Clo worshipped her. Of course, Roger "worshipped" her, too, but it was Beverley who looked up to him. Clo looked up to her. When Beverley went into the room presided over by Sister Lake, the child's great black eyes dwelt upon her as the eyes of a devotee upon the form of a goddess "come alive." Roger Sands' wife felt simply that she was repaying God for saving her, by what she was able to do for this Irish girl.
As soon as Clo was allowed to talk she insisted upon telling Beverley about herself. There was, apparently, no romance or mystery in the story of her eighteen years of life. Her mother had died when she was less than three, but Clo could "remember her perfectly." It wasn't only the photograph she had (a badly taken one of a young woman with a baby in her arms), but she could see her mother's colouring. Oh, such lovely colouring! Not dark red hair, like her own, but gold, and eyes more brown than gray. And mother had been only twenty-four when she died. Clo had to admit that most of what she knew of mother was from the Sisters who looked after the orphans. Yes, it was in an orphan asylum that the child had been brought up. About father she knew nothing, except that mother had "lost" him before her baby was born, and that he "came from America." Evidently his name had been Riley, because mother was Mrs. Riley, and Clo was Clodagh because "that was a name in mother's family."
The Sisters had been particularly kind. Mother had given Clo into their care, because she lodged, and had fallen ill, in the street of the orphan asylum. There had been a little money, which was placed in a bank for the child. The Sisters had known that mother was a lady; but the orphan girls, when they grew up, were supposed to be put into service. Neither Clo nor the Sisters had wanted her to be a servant, and when she was sixteen a situation was found for her as "companion" to an old lady. Clo "stuck it out" for nearly two years. Then she ran away and sailed for the United States, her unknown father's land, with the sixty pounds which was her fortune. This money was all spent, and she was nearly starving when she snatched at what she could get with Moreton and Payntor.
"But I just couldn't eat and dress on my wages," Clo explained, in her soft, rich voice, rather deep for so young and small a girl, and made creamy by a touch of Irish brogue. "One has to do both in New York. I was so hungry all the time, if the girls left a crust on their plates I used to hide it. I expect the way I'd look to see if there'd be anything left gave them the idea I was a sly piece. They thought I put on airs, too. Me! P'raps it was my not knowing their kind of slang. And it's true I did steal once, or almost the same thing as steal. There was a dollar bill on the floor under a table one afternoon. 'Stead of trying to find who was the owner, I slipped it inside my dress. I must have been nearly off my head, or I'd never have done it, darling Mrs. Sands! When the time came to go home to my room that night, I didn't go. I went to a restaurant, and I ate. I ate a whole dollar's worth of dinner, just so I couldn't give any money back if I changed my mind next day. Well, next day was the day you know of. And what with knowing I was a thief, and the girls knowing it, too—though there was no proof—I thought the best thing for a lost child was to die!"
Beverley had by this time "made everything right" for Clo at Moreton and Payntor's. Indeed, Mrs. Roger Sands having taken her up, she had become quite a classic figure of romance among her late enemies. When Beverley told the girl that when she got well she wouldn't have to go, but could stop and be "a sort of secretary," Clo Riley almost had a relapse from the shock of joy.
By the end of May Clo's broken ribs had mended. The first day when she was up and dressed, able to go downstairs, and out for a spin in the renovated blue car, she was a very different looking girl from the battered wisp of humanity whose blood had stained the "robin's-egg" cloth and silk.
It was Sunday, and Clo was burning with excitement. She was to meet her Angel's husband for the first time. She had pictured him a dragon. The Angel loved him, but the Angel was such a saint, and would love any old husband. Clo imagined that Beverley had been poor (she must have known poverty to be so sympathetic!) and that she'd married an elderly man because—well, not entirely because he was rich (that wouldn't be like an Angel) but because she needed protection. Clo expected to see a grumpy graybeard.
Roger expected to see a washed-out invalid of indefinite type, a young woman of the shabbiest shop-girl order.
What Clodagh saw, when she followed Mrs. Sands into the study, was a strong, dark man, not old at all, apparently, and almost interesting enough in looks to be worthy of the Angel. Still, she was not sure she was going to like him.
What Roger saw was a small, slender girl, too childish, too impish, to think of as a "young woman." She had a little oval face with a pointed chin. It was pale, but not washed-out, and her lips were red. An obstinate, impudent mouth, Roger thought. As for her eyes—he had never seen such great eyes in a human face. They were like holes in a blanket, so big, so black, as they stared up at him. She had curly auburn hair, that looked even redder than it was, in contrast with her eyes. But though the face was impish, not pretty precisely, with its high cheek bones and impertinent chin, he had to admit that it was noticeable, and, in some odd way, attractive. The girl was charmingly dressed. He might have known that Bev would see to that. Clo was a surprise to him, as he was to her. Each saw that the other was a distinct and interesting personality; and Roger realized that Beverley was right; the girl had the air of being a lady. There was something else about her, too, which piqued him. He could not make out what it was. Did she look like someone he knew?
He was polite, as he had promised to be, and called Clo "Miss Riley." When Beverley said that they were going out for the invalid's first drive, Roger replied that he was glad; but Clo, catching his eye, fancied she saw a sarcastic gleam.
"He's thinking of the time I came here in that same car," she told herself. "I know I must have spoilt it—got it all messed up with blood. Probably he had to give a lot for doing it over. And my goodness, the dollars of his that Angel has been pouring out for me every day since! No wonder he looks sick! But some day I shall pay. I don't know how, only I shall—I shall!"
Beverley and Clo went down in the gorgeously decorated elevator.
"If Angel lived in a garret, it would be a palace to me," she reflected.
A hall porter opened the door of carved bronze over glass. Without seeming to look, he took in every detail of the slim figure in white cloth; the small white hat tilted over the dark red hair, the tiny white shoes, the dainty ankles in silk stockings. Clo could have laughed aloud. Of course, the giant in livery knew the whole story. He was contrasting the way she came out with the way she had come in.
Drawn up at the pavement was the glittering blue automobile, with the statuesque Robbins at the wheel. Clo remembered both, with a queer, sick pang. She had not been wholly unconscious when the stretcher was pushed into the car. "What I owe this darling woman!" was the thought she breathed like a prayer.
As the two crossed the pavement—tall, beautiful Beverley and quaint little Clo—a man who must have been loitering close by started toward them with a limping step, and took off his hat.
"Is this Mrs. Roger Sands?" he asked.
Beverley stopped short, within a yard of her car. For such a graceful, softly moving person, her movement seemed jerky. Clo glanced from the man to Mrs. Sands in surprise. One would say the Angel looked frightened, only that would be absurd! Besides, the man wasn't a creature worth being afraid of. He was short, and very thin, as if he had been ill. He hadn't a nice face. Sallow and sickly it was, like a prison bird, with hollows under the red-rimmed eyes. He was badly lame, too, if he wasn't pretending; and altogether, in spite of her newly mended ribs, Clo felt that she herself would be equal to knocking him down.
"Yes, I am Mrs. Sands," Beverley answered, as if against her will. "I don't—but perhaps someone has sent you with a message?"
"In a way, yes, that's it," said the man. "I had a message for you. I'm the man sent to meet you in Chicago, September 21st of last year."
There was a second of suspense for Clo, and then Beverley spoke quietly:
"Oh, I see! That's very interesting," she said. "I hope—the news is good?"
"It's a long message," the man answered. "I was told to let you have it in person. I thought you'd be goin' out sooner or later. If your husban' 'ad bin along, I'd have left a line, but——"
"Never mind what you would have done, please," Beverley cut him short. "The best thing I can think of now, is this" (she hurried on in a low tone, and Clo who had stepped aside, nearer to the car, did not catch the words), "Take a taxi, and follow my automobile. We're going into the Park. When you see us stop, you must stop too, at a distance.
"I shall get out and let the motor, with my friend in it, go on without me for a while. Then we can talk. Do you understand?"
"I'll be there," said the man.
He touched his hat and moved away, as if his errand were done.
"Drive slowly through the Park," Beverley instructed Robbins, and gently made Clo get into the car before her. "I'm so sorry to have kept you standing, dear," she said. "I hope you don't feel weak or 'tottery'?"
Clo did feel very weak, not from fatigue, but from excitement. She replied that she felt "grand." And Mrs. Sands forgot to say that she was glad.
The girl glanced at the older woman, and saw that she was staring straight ahead, with a withdrawn look in her eyes, which told that she saw nothing. Clo's heart beat fast. This drive was to have been a glorious experience. She had seen Central Park more than once, and had walked there, miserable in her loneliness. Now, though she looked out of the window, it was to let Beverley feel that she was not being stared at. The girl saw only a blur of colour, as if a kaleidoscope turned before her eyes.
At last Beverley spoke.
"Dear child," she said, "I'm sure you understand that the man who was waiting for me brought a message I'm anxious to hear. And—I'm sure of another thing—that I can trust you!"
"I'd die any minute for you, sure I would!" she cried.
"I believe you would! But I don't want you to die. All I want is for you to listen while I explain——"
"As if you needed to explain to me!" the girl broke out.
"I don't need to, perhaps, yet I wish to say just this: I love Roger dearly. I've told you so often enough! I'd give anything on earth not to have a secret from him. But to save a life—not my own—there is a secret I must keep. This man and his message are part of it. Now, that's all I'm going to explain, except that—that nothing must be said."
"I'd bite my tongue out sooner!" Clo protested.
"Thank you, dear! Now we've had this talk, it's a comfort, not a worry, having you with me. You won't mind if I send you on while I get down and walk in the Park?"
"I'd love it!" said Clo.
At once Beverley took the speaking tube and ordered the chauffeur to stop. He drew up at the side of the road. They were in the midst of the Park now, an exquisite green and gold world of peace and beauty.
"I feel like taking a little exercise," Beverley said to Robbins, as she stepped out of the car. "Miss Riley isn't strong enough to walk. Go as far along Riverside Drive as Grant's Tomb, and then come back, but slowly, so she can see everything. You'll find me waiting here."
It seemed that Robbins carried out his instructions too laboriously. Clo didn't like the ferret-man, and she didn't believe that Beverley liked meeting him.
When at last Robbins brought the car back to the rendezvous there was the tall graceful figure in gray, standing alone.
"Oh, have we kept you?" the girl cried, throwing open the door before the automobile stopped.
Beverley did not answer, or seem to hear. She did not even look at Clo.
"Home!" she said to Robbins. "As fast as you can!"
Clo was shocked into silence, and hardly breathed when Beverley had sunk on to the seat, covering her face with her hands. The car had nearly reached the Sands' corner of Park Avenue before the elder girl spoke. Then she said abruptly, as if waking from a dream:
"Forgive me! I couldn't talk! I'm in dreadful trouble! I must ask you to help me. Are you strong enough to take a longer drive, and to walk a few steps alone?"
"Rather!" said Clo.
"Well, when we stop in front of our house, sit still in the car. I don't want Sister Lake or Roger to know we're back. I'll run in, get a parcel which must be taken to a certain place, and give it to you. Then Robbins will drive (I'll tell him) to a hotel on Broadway, called the Westmorland. I never heard of it before, but it seems that it's near 33d Street, and quiet and respectable. Go into the restaurant and order tea. While you're there, that man you saw will come into the room, and you'll hand him the packet. That's all."
"It sounds too easy," Clo said.
"I hope it will be easy. I'll bring you a latch-key when I come down with the parcel. Let yourself in when you get home, and go straight to your room. I don't want you to fib, but try to make it seem to Sister as if we'd just come back. She'll think it strange if she knows I've sent you out on an errand by yourself."
"She shan't know," the girl promised.
"Youarea comfort! You see, I told Roger I'd be at home by four, and I couldn't be, till long after if I took the parcel myself. I shall only just be in time as it is. Here we are at the door! Now I'll rush. In five minutes I hope to be with you again. Oh, if only Sister Lake isn't at the window!"
The five minutes passed, and Beverley didn't return. Clo watched the silver-gilt clock under the vase of violets. Ten minutes; fifteen minutes; no Mrs. Sands! The girl was wondering whether she ought to wait indefinitely, or seek her friend to see what had happened when Beverley appeared. She was breathless with haste.
"Here, take this, and do just as I told you to do," she said, thrusting into Clo's hands a bag, not a parcel. "Inside you'll find what I spoke of, and money to pay for your tea. I had to hide the parcel. I can't stop to explain more now." She turned to the chauffeur, and hastily ordered him to drive to the Westmorland Hotel. Miss Riley had to meet a friend there; Robbins must wait till she was ready to come home.
Only as the car slowed down in front of the third-rate hotel did Clo touch the hasp of the gray suede bag. It was not locked, and save for a crumpled dollar bill, its sole contents was a large, unaddressed envelope fastened with three gold seals. On each of these seals was the same elaborate monogram, which Clo did not try to make out; but it was not composed of Beverley Sands' initials. Evidently the parcel had been crammed into the first handy receptacle, for it was all but too big to go in, and Clo found it difficult to extract without damaging the seals. Leaving the bag on the seat, she hid the envelope under the smart, white cloth cape which went with her new frock.
The restaurant of the hotel opened off the hall. At that hour, a little after four o'clock, there was no one in the room but a waiter. Afternoon tea was evidently not a daily custom of the Westmorland's guests, but when it was brought at length, the ferret-man had not yet arrived.
"Oh, dear, what shall I do if he doesn't come?" Clodagh asked herself, thinking fearfully about the chauffeur—and about Sister Lake.
Just then the face of the ferret man appeared at the door. He glanced about, fixed the girl with his red-rimmed eyes, slouched into the room, and limped briskly to the table.
"Hello!" he exclaimed, with a familiar grin, and pulled out a chair to sit opposite Clo. He kept on his hat. His breath reeked spirits, and the girl was disgusted, but she was the faithful servant of Mrs. Sands, and the waiter was staring.
"Here's the parcel Mrs. Sands sent. She particularly wanted me to get back as soon as possible."
The long envelope, with the gold seals uppermost, was lying on the table. Clo removed a napkin she had laid over it, and pushed the parcel across the table. As she did this she rose.
"Looks right enough!" remarked the ferret man, sitting still. "This is what she told me to expect: long white envelope, three gold seals——" He picked the parcel up, holding it to his sharp nose and near-sighted eyes. "Yeh, munergram, or what yuh call it, right, too."
"Then that's all," said Clo, Beverley's dollar bill in her hand. "I'll call the waiter——"
"Don't be too previous, cutie,ifyou please!" and a not immaculate hand helped itself to a fold of her dress. "Yuh an' me ain't workin' this show on our own. You're for Mrs. Sands, I'm fur—well, I'm fur someone I guess is even more particular than her. It's as much as my job's worth to let yuh make your get-away till I've had a squint inside this yere envelup."
"Mrs. Sands didn't tell me there was anything to wait for after I'd put it in your hands," Clo objected. "I don't see——"
"It's me that's got to see. Now yuh keep yer hair on, gurlie, while I lamp this thing. No good tryin' the sneak game, because I'd be on to yuh like a thousand o' brick before yuh'd took a step——"
"I've no intention of running away," Clo assured him, with a dignity copied from her idol. "Mrs. Sands has nothing to hide."
The man chuckled, as with a knife taken from the table he opened the envelope without breaking the seals. He did this slowly. Clo sat down again.
The ugly hands drew out from the envelope another smaller envelope. There were no seals on it, but the flap was stuck with gum. The man swore under his breath as he used the knife again. Clo was deeply interested. Her idea was that the fellow would pull out a quantity of greenbacks; but in an instant she saw that she had guessed wrong. There were many sheets of paper folded together, at least a dozen, and this seemed to astound the man. With a jerk he opened out the sheaf of papers, and having stared an instant, slammed them on to the table. "Curse her, she thought she'd do us, did she?" The words tumbled out between his brown, broken teeth, as he dashed his fist on to the papers. "So this is why she sent you—you catspaw!"
Clo was far from being a coward. Her hot, defiant temper rose at the least alarm, but she was so amazed at the result of her errand that she was struck dumb. Mechanically her eyes had turned to the papers. She saw that the upper sheets consisted of blank stationery taken from a train, the Santa Fé Limited.
"If you're trying to scare me, you can't," she said. "You're acting like a fool. If something's gone wrong in your business, it isn't my fault, and I'm sure it isn't Mrs. Sands. If there's a trick, she's tricked, too. Try to have common sense."
The girl's fearless gaze and quickly spoken words calmed the man.
"It's darned rot to say my lady who stayed at home ain't in the trick. Why, dumbhead, this paper shows! She was on board the Limited. Gee! Don't I have cause to know that? It's easy as slidin' off a log to see what she done. She helped herself to what was in this yere envelope, an' filled it with train stationery. Then she sealed it up with the same kind o' seals. Stole the stamp and wax on purpose. Thought she could get away with it. I take off my hat to her."
"I know nothing except that I agreed to bring the parcel," said Clo.
"You go back to her ladyship as fast as you can scamper, and tell her I wasn't soft enough to bow myself off the stage without peepin' at what Santa Claus had put in my stockin'. Tell her 'twould only o' bin a matter o' time if I hadn't peeped. As it is, it's a matter o' less time. Tell her a life will pay for this, and she jolly well knows whose!"
The man had ceased to bluster, and now that he had got himself in hand again his fierce eyes and his low, hissing voice thrilled the girl as his threats had not thrilled her. This time he allowed her to rise, which she did, tottering slightly. She had forgotten about paying for her tea, but the dollar bill lay in a crumpled wad on the table. The man placed one of his oddly repulsive hands over it.
"I'll see to the waiter," he said. "I'm stayin' in this hotel. You cut along and tell your lady friend she's got till ten o'clock to-night to explain herself, not a minute more. Good day to you, Miss Baby Doll!"
Without answering, Clo walked out of the room, ashamed that her knees were weak, and hoping that she could get safely to the car without making a fool of herself. Physically, it was a great relief to lie back against the soft cushions of robin's egg blue, and shut her eyes. What would Angel do when she heard how dreadfully the errand had failed?
Clo had forgotten the difficulty of making Sister Lake believe, without a fib, that she and Mrs. Sands had only just come in from their drive together. But she remembered as she went up in the elevator. It was very late now—long after five. Sister was sure to be cross; but if she were cross only with Clo, and not Mrs. Sands, that wouldn't matter.
Few things work out according to expectations. Sister Lake had been at the window, it seemed, when the car brought back Mrs. Sands and Clo before four o'clock, and had been alarmed when the former descended to hurry alone into the house.
"I was afraid you'd fainted," she said when Clo arrived at last. "I flew out of this room to go down in the elevator, and bumped into Mr. Sands in the hall, and while I was apologizing and making him understand she appeared on the scene."
"My goodness, the fatisin the fire!" Clo thought desperately. Aloud she said: "Well?"
"She said you wanted to go to tea with someone, and she was hurrying to her room to get money for you, so that you could stand treat. I objected, as I had a right to do," went on Sister Lake. "You're still my patient, if my time is up to-morrow. And if you have a relapse I shall be in a nice fix, as I'm due at Mrs. Jardine's Tuesday morning! Mrs. Sands really acted very queer, she was so determined you should go. Even when her husband backed me up, she was as obstinate as—as—if she wasn't such a sweet woman, I should say a pig!"
"It was my fault," pleaded Clo. "I'm not tired a bit." Yet as she argued, a voice was saying inside her head: "No wonder the poor darling was a long time coming down with the parcel!"
But this, though exciting enough, was as naught beside the great question: "What would Beverley say, what would she feel, when Clo had to confess all that had happened at the Hotel Westmorland?"
Roger also had a secret that Sunday. He waited for Beverley and Clo to be gone (reminding his wife that she had promised to be back by four) and then called up the Belmont Hotel by telephone.
"Give me Count Lovoresco's room," he said, and presently a foreign conception of the word "Hello!" rumbled through the receiver.
"Hello, Count," Roger replied, recognizing the voice. "My wife's safely off. I'll send my own car round at once. Now you've got the letter of confirmation we can settle our business. What? You're ready? Thank you. My man'll be at the hotel as soon as you can get down. Good-bye."
Fifteen minutes later a dark, dapper, elderly man with magnificent eyes was ushered into Roger's study.
"You've brought the pearls, of course?" Roger asked.
"Yes, Mistaire Sand, I bring ze pearls," announced Count Lovoresco.
"And the letter from the Queen?"
"From 'er Majesty's secretaire," Count Lovoresco corrected. "'Ere it is." He drew from a breast pocket a square envelope with a crown and a monogram on the flap. This he handed to Sands, and as the latter opened it, he took from another pocket a purple velvet box, oval in shape, about eight inches long by two in height. On the cover appeared a gold crown, and the same monogram as that of the envelope. Roger had seen this box and its contents; so, instead of watching a tiny gold key fitted into a miniature padlock, he read the letter authorizing Count Lovoresco, in the name of his Queen, to sell in America a rope of pearls, for the benefit of the soldiers' orphans of her country.
"This clears the deck," remarked Roger. The cover of the oval box was raised, and lying in a series of concentric grooves he saw the pearls which he intended to buy for Beverley. They were two hundred and fifty in number, as he knew, and were graduated in size, the largest being as big as a giant pea. All were exquisitely matched in shape and colour, and the one fault—if fault existed—was a blue whiteness disliked by some connoisseurs. Roger was aware, however, that Beverley loved snow-white pearls.
"Any minute Simon Lecourt may be here," he said to Lovoresco. "When he's looked at the things, I'll sign and hand you my cheque for two hundred and sixty thousand dollars."
Lovoresco smiled under his dyed moustache, but the wonderful eyes, for which men of his race are famous, lit angrily.
"You are ze most prudent of gentlemen!" he exclaimed. "Your great Franco-American pearl expert, 'e 'as valued ze pearls one time already at 'is own place, under your eye, Mistaire Sand. Now 'e 'as to come to your 'ouse! Mazette! But you must tink me a smart one, saire, if I could change false tings for real in ze last minute!"
"I think some other smart men might have changed them without you or me being smart enough to know the difference," Roger explained. "I believe in making a ship watertight before she goes to sea."
"You are right," Lovoresco said, shrugging his shoulders. "I am pleased once more to meet ze expert."
"Mr. Simon Lecourt," announced the butler.
At a quarter to four—the cheque having been signed—Roger was shaking hands with the jewel expert he had summoned, and bowing to Count Lovoresco. The pearls were his, and he was impatient for Beverley. In five or six minutes she ought to arrive.
Beverley stepped into the lift as Count Lovoresco and Simon Lecourt stepped out. As they passed she heard Roger's name, and her heart jumped. These were strangers to her, but they had perhaps been calling on Roger. What if they were connected with the past terror which had begun lately to seem as dim as a dreadful dream? What if they had been telling Roger?
Such a thought would not have come, save for the scene she had gone through. With her nerves keyed to breaking point she went up to her own floor with somewhat the sensation she might have had in stepping from the tumbril to the guillotine. It was all she could do not to scream at Sister Lake in the hall; and when Roger appeared also it seemed to Beverley that she would faint.
Roger did not share the nurse's interest in Clo's outing; but he wanted Beverley.
"Good girl!" he exclaimed, trying to be gay. "You're back ahead of time. Send one of the servants down with money for Miss Riley. Come into the study; I've got something to show you. When you've seen it you'll know why I asked you to be home by four."
"I'll be there in a minute!" Beverley answered. "Let me take off my hat first. I've rather a headache!"
She turned toward her room, hoping that Roger would wait in the study, thus giving her a chance to find what she had to find, and take it to Clo in the waiting auto. But Roger, remorseful already for his disloyal thought connecting her with O'Reilly, followed.
"If you'd a prophetic soul," he said, "your headache would go. Are you good at guessing, Bev?"
The girl was at her wits' end. Already she had almost fibbed, in explaining Clo's errand. If only, now, she could have five minutes' grace!
"You ought to know I never guess anything right!" she laughed. "It's not quite four. Show me the wonderful thing just as the clock strikes!"
Roger pulled out his watch. "All right, baby!" he teased her. "You've got just three minutes and a half. Perhaps you think a woman needs that time to take off her hat; I'll show you you're wrong!"
He neatly extracted a hat pin which Beverley had twisted into her veil. Then off came the hat. Roger led his wife by the hand to the door of his study. Beverley was in despair. Her one cause for thankfulness lay in the fact that he had forgotten Clo. If he'd remembered to send down money, the girl would have been bewildered, and perhaps have come in to ask for instructions. There was room in Beverley's brain for no other thought than "How am I to get that parcel and give it to Clo?"
"Shut your eyes," said Roger. "The clock's going to strike four now; don't open your eyes till it stops."
Beverley obeyed, as in that mood she would have obeyed an order to stand still and be shot through the heart. "One—two," slowly struck the grandfather clock in the corner; and she felt something cool and heavy dropped over her neck. "Three—four!" the clock finished. "Open your eyes," Roger gave the signal.
"Oh!" cried Beverley, almost aghast. On her delicate gray dress the double line of pearls glistened like huge drops of dew on a spider-web. The rope hung down below her waist, and each pearl had a light in its heart as if it held the ghost of a rainbow. "It can't be true! It's a dream!" the girl stammered. She loved pearls, and knew that these were marvels beyond common knowledge. But oh, if they could have come to her at another time!
She managed, however, to put a world of emotion into one kiss and clasp of her arms. Her silent anguish was disguised as awe. By this time she had an inspiration. She felt like the Queen of New York, she said. She must run to her room for a look in the glass, as there was only a weird old convex mirror in the study. In just a minute—or maybe two minutes—she would come back. She could have sobbed out "Thank God!" when Roger, laughing at her vanity, let her go. This time he did not follow. He stood examining the purple velvet case with the Queen's crown and monogram. He had not told Beverley the price he had given for the pearls. He wondered if she guessed that they had cost a fortune. Why didn't she come back?
Beverley had not even thrown a glance at the mirror. In her own room she tore open the drawer where her handkerchiefs were kept in rose-scented sachet cases. The largest of these cases she snatched, throwing the contents back into the drawer. With fingers that shook, she ripped the top of the padded silk cushion, and extracted a long envelope sealed with three gold seals. She would hardly have remembered the Queen's pearls had the rope not caught in the key of the drawer as she turned hastily to go. Before she could save it, the string broke, and pearls big as peas began falling like hailstones.
With a cry, she caught the broken ends of the rope together, dragged it over her head and bundled it into the drawer among scattered handkerchiefs. She did not even stop to close the drawer. As for the fallen pearls—a dozen at least—there was no time to think of them, or of what Roger would say when he heard of the accident.
Crushing on her hat, which still lay on the bed where Roger had thrown it, she ran from the room, stuffing the envelope into her handbag. Luck favoured her. She got out of the flat and into the lift without being seen.
When five minutes had passed and Beverley was still away, Roger decided to join her. He opened the bedroom door, and looked in. Something rolled away from Roger's foot on the threshold. He stooped and picked the thing up: it was an enormous pearl.
A shock of fear thrilled through him. He thought that news of his purchase might already have reached the underworld. In these few minutes, while he calmly waited for Beverley, she might have been murdered. Things like that did happen. He stepped on a second pearl, and saw that others lay on the pale rose carpet. He stood staring. At the foot of the bed a tall screen had been placed to keep the light from Beverley's eyes in the morning. What if behind it he should find her lying?
As he braced himself to go and look, Beverley herself came into the room. It seemed that she shrank at sight of him.
"I thought you'd been kidnapped or killed!" he gasped. "What's happened?"
"N-n-nothing," she stammered. "It was only—we forgot about Clo—I had to take her that money. I——" She broke off, seeing the pearl in Roger's hand. "Oh, wasn't it dreadful that the rope snapped?" she hurried on. "I wanted to get back to you quickly. I knew the pearls were safe here. I just shut the door, and ran down."
"So I see," Roger said drily. All the joy he had felt in his splendid gift was gone.
"What are a few pearls more or less compared to Miss Riley's convenience?"
"Oh, Roger!" Beverley burst into tears. "Don't look at me like that! Don't speak to me like that! You think I don't value the pearls? I do!—for themselves, and for your love! I acted on impulse——"
"Quite so. You've done that before. Don't apologize, my dear girl. It's not worth it. I care less for the things than you do. Ring for your maid and let her sweep them up. I dare say she'll find them all to-day or to-morrow!"
"No," said Beverley, fighting back the hysterical sobs that choked her. "No, I won't have anyone look for the pearls but myself. Unless you, Roger, would show your forgiveness by helping me?"
"I have an appointment," he answered. "I'm late for it now. I shall have to go at once."
It was not true. He had no appointment. But he felt that he must be alone, and out of doors, in the fresh air.
Clo Riley, returning from her errand at the Hotel Westmorland, did not see him as she tripped from car to door, but Roger on his way home saw the girl hurry in as if each second were important. Hardly had she vanished when a man strolled round the corner. He was walking slowly, and looking up at the façade as if interested. Roger, at the farther end of the block, recognized Justin O'Reilly.
Clo remembered Beverley's instructions, and went straight to her own room, but the threat of the ferret-man rang in her ears. "Tell your lady friend a life will pay for this. She's got till ten o'clock to-night, and not a minute more."
It was now after five, and Sister Lake was firmly bent upon undressing her charge. Clo had to let herself be tucked into bed. Meekly also she received the order to lie quite still and rest till dinner time.
Rest! As though she could rest, not knowing what ought to be done next to help the Angel! A passive plan occurred to Clo, which could do no harm, and her quick wit suggested how best to carry it out.
"I'll be as good as gold," she promised, "if you'll forgive me, Sister, and do me a favour. I feel sick because I spoilt your afternoon! You stayed in, waiting for me to come back, instead of taking your walk. Will you go out now, instead? I'll rest better if you will. Do, please!"
All Clo's Irish powers of persuasion were needed to coax Sister into consenting. Eventually she relented. Clo could have sung for joy as Sister Lake bade her "good-bye for an hour." As the door of the room closed, the girl began counting the seconds which must pass before the outer door shut.
"Sixty-two—sixty-three—she ought to be gone!" Clo was whispering, when her heart sank. The room door opened. She feared that Sister Lake had changed her mind; but it was the Angel who came in.
"I was racking my brain how to get rid of Sister when I saw her go out," Beverley said. "I'm sure you managed it. I've been desperate. You can't think what things have happened! Tell me, did all go well?"
The blow must be struck. In a few words Clo described the scene at the Westmorland; told how the ferret-man had kept her waiting; how he had said that the envelope looked all right, but had insisted upon opening it; how he had flown into a rage at finding only folded sheets of blank paper.
"Blank paper!" Beverley gasped. "But that's impossible! I know what was in the envelope. There were letters. The man must have tricked you."
Clo shook her head.
"I was watching him. He had no time, or chance, to play a trick. The blank paper was there, and nothing else. It was writing paper, quite a lot of sheets that seemed to have been taken from some train, 'Santa Fé Limited,' or a name like that."
Beverley gave a cry, as if she had been struck over the heart.
"Let me think," she groaned. "How can that have been? Writing paper taken from the train?"
Suddenly she turned, and came back to the bed, putting out her hands in a groping way to Clo. The girl caught and held them tightly. They were very cold.
"Angel! is there nothing I can do?" she whispered.
Beverley sank on the bed once more.
"My head feels as if I'd been given ether," she said. "I can't think things out clearly. That isn't like me! A terrible day! One shock after another. If I talk to you, will you swear by all that's sacred never to give away one word?"
"I swear by my love for you. That's the most sacred thing I have, except my locket with mother's picture," the girl answered.
"You see," Beverley went on, "I've no one else but you, Clo. If I told my husband anything, I should have to tell all. I daren't do that. Not because I couldn't trust him. But I've taken an oath ten times more solemn than the one you took just now, to keep a secret that isn't only mine. Another's life depends on the secret being kept. To save that life I was forced to do what I hate to think of. And it's no concern of yours, but it would be Roger's if he had the faintest inkling! Now, I'm going to tell you one or two things, and you must use your brains to explain the mystery. You're clever, and true as steel. You've proved that! Suppose a case; suppose you'd undertaken a dangerous mission. You have in your charge some documents which could make or break a man. You know you'll be followed. You nearly miss your train, but you jump on board at the last minute. You see a man—not the one you expect, but another just as much to be feared—more, perhaps, because he's a great deal cleverer, if not so violent. You think you're lost, but you find a friend, a man who helps you. You give him the envelope that has the papers in it—a sealed envelope. You've seen it, Clo! He keeps it through the journey. At a stopping place on the way he offers to hand it back to you, but you refuse. You feel that the thing is safer with him. Later, in New York, he returns the envelope intact, the seals unbroken. This friend who comes to the rescue is the soul of honour. Never since that moment has the envelope been out of your own keeping. Yet it is opened to-day for the first time, and the papers that were in it are gone, changed for stationery of that train, the 'Santa Fé Limited.' How can this have been done? Who did it?"
"The other man must have done it, the one who followed you on to the train."
"But he was never near Rog ... never near the man who ... oh, I might as well tell you right out that it was Roger who kept the envelope for me. I'll tell you the name of the other man, too. It's sure to slip out! His name is Justin O'Reilly."
"O'Reilly?" Clo echoed. "How dare the brute have a name like mine?"
"Why, so it is like," said Beverley. "But there's an 'O,' and he spells it differently."
"Beast! He'd better, or I'd have to change," snapped Clo. "Well, whatever his name is, I believe he must have stolen your papers. Can you go back, and live over again every step of the way?"
Beverley shut her eyes, and began to think aloud. "The morning after we started Roger mentioned meeting an acquaintance ... a man named O'Reilly. He didn't dream the name meant anything to me. They exchanged only a few words when Roger passed O'Reilly's table at breakfast time. Nothing could have happened then, I know. Afterward, I never heard of their meeting again through the whole journey. I should have heard, if they had, I think. Roger was with me a good deal. At Chicago.—Let me see!...
"I'm calling it back to my mind. Roger helped me out of the train. O'Reilly was out already. He stood on the platform, looking for someone—or so it seemed. We went quite close to him, but not close enough for even the smartest pickpocket in America to steal the envelope from Roger."
"Where was the envelope then?" the girl wanted to know.
"In an inside breast pocket of Roger's coat; not an overcoat. It was September. The weather was hot."
"Wouldn't it be easy for any one looking for the envelope to see that Mr. Sands had something thick and long in an inside breast pocket, and suspect what it was?"
"Any one might suspect. No one could be sure. It would have shown more plainly if Roger had worn his coat buttoned. He didn't, on purpose."
"Still, his coat not being buttoned would make it easier to steal the envelope, if somebody very clever got a chance to try."
"Perhaps. But O'Reilly could never have done such a thing. It would take a trained thief."
"Can people send off telegrams from those Limited trains?" Clo took up her catechism again.
"Yes, of course they can."
"Would there have been time for this O'Reilly chap to wire Chicago, after he followed you on board the train, and have a man meet him?"
"Yes, plenty of time."
"Well, what if he wired to some detective people, and told them to send him the 'smartest pickpocket in America'?"
"But ... the police couldn't ... wouldn't ... do such a thing!"
"I don't mean the real police," Clo explained. "Haven't you often read books about private detectives? I have. They might get reformed thieves to work for them. Can you remember what O'Reilly did next, after you both passed him on the platform?"
"No. I didn't look back."
"You don't know, then, whether the person he seemed to expect ever turned up?"
Beverley shook her head. "Roger and I went straight ahead to a newsstand whereIexpected to meet a person. Two or three minutes after we passed O'Reilly we were mixed up in a big crowd, almost fighting our way through...."
"Oh, a big crowd!" Clo broke in. "A chance for that pickpocket. Suppose he came the minute you had turned your backs on O'Reilly, and he sent his trained thief after you, hot foot, to get that envelope?"
"Ah, but you've forgotten something!" cried Beverley. "A thief might get the envelope: I'll admit that. But how could he have another one exactly like it, with the same seals, the same monogram, to put into Roger's pocket, when he took the original?"
"He could only have it if O'Reilly could have given it to him. Could he have done that?"
Suddenly Beverley began to see. A vivid idea sprang into her head, and was imaged in her eyes.
"You've thought of something!" Clo exclaimed. "You see how O'Reilly might have got the seal with the monogram, and the gold wax, and an envelope like the one you had?"
"Oh, yes. I do see!" Beverley groaned. "He could have brought the things from—from.... But never mind. That part's nothing to you."
"I want only to know the part you want me to know," said Clo.
"It isn't a question of what I want. It's a question of my sacred oath," Beverley answered. "There was a house where I had been, to get the envelope. O'Reilly was there, too. Someone ... no matter who! ... could have given him all the things, so he could change envelopes if he got the chance. Oh, child, I keep stumbling on to a path where I dare not step."
"We'll go back to the train," said Clo. "If O'Reilly had the gold wax and the seal, and the right kind of envelope, he could have made his plan, and sent his telegram, and had everything ready for the right minute ... in the Chicago station."
"Ye—es, he could. But it's almost impossible!"
"It's more possible than Mr. Sands' changing the envelopes, isn't it?"
"That is the one impossible thing. The worst remains. I have lost the papers! Whether O'Reilly has them or someone else, I can't get them back. Without them, I'm ruined!"
"You shan't be!" Clo cried, twining her thin arms round her idol's waist. "You must be saved somehow. We've got till ten o'clock to think."
"If I were the only one, it wouldn't matter so much," Beverley said. "But there's somebody who can be tortured as well as killed, if I have no bribe to offer. Those papers gave me all the power I had."
"Wouldn't money...." Clo began, but Beverley cut her short.
"No money I could get would be of any use," she said. "A million might be!"
"See O'Reilly and make him give up the papers!" cried Clo. "Oh, but is he in New York?"
"He doesn't live in New York, but he's here now. I know, because that man you saw, Peterson, told me. It was part of a threat he held over my head that O'Reilly and some people connected with him should be in town just now. I know the hotel he's staying in, the Dietz. But even if O'Reilly would come, how could I see him without Roger knowing? It wouldn't be possible!"
"I'll somehow make O'Reilly come," the girl promised. "I don't know how, yet, but I know I will, if you can get Mr. Sands out of the house."
Beverley shuddered. "How horrid that sounds ... as if I were plotting against him, the way women do who deceive their husbands."
"Well, anyhow, if O'Reilly took the papers, would he still have them, do you think?" asked Clo, with the sudden eagerness of one who catches in desperation at a new idea.
"It's just possible. I can see a reason why he might have been asked to keep them," Beverley answered.
"If that's so, would he put them in a bank, or a safe somewhere, or would he bring them to New York?"
"There might be a special motive for him to bring them to New York ... I think there would be a motive."
"Well, it seems to me, the sort of man I imagined he is, would be too smart to have such things on him if he came to your house, and didn't mean to give 'em back to you. It would be tempting Providence, so to speak!"
"If I were the kind of woman he thinks I am, he'd not expect me to stop short of murder to get those papers," and Beverley laughed a bitter little laugh.
"Good! If he comes to you and leaves the papers at his hotel, a certain thing will happen, but it's safer for you not to know—till afterward."
"You must tell me!" Beverley insisted. "Tell me at once!"
"While Mr. O'Reilly is here with you, Miss Riley without the 'O', will be at his hotel, in his room, helping herself to his—I mean your—papers."
"My child, you're mad!" Beverley gasped.
"Not so mad ashe'll be when he finds out," crowed the girl. "Hurray! The whole business is settling itself in my head. The one trouble is Mr. Sands. The rest will be all right. Think what to do about him, Angel; think hard!"
Beverley thought until her brain whirled.
"I might suggest Roger's dining at his club," she said. "But how I should hate to do that! He's vexed already. He has a right to be! This afternoon he gave me a wonderful present, a rope of pearls that belonged to a Queen. It must have cost a quarter of a million! I hardly stopped to thank him, I was in such frantic haste to get the envelope to you. The rope caught in the key of a drawer; the string broke, and a lot of pearls ran all over the carpet. I didn't wait to pick them up. I ran down to you, and I was gone so long Roger went to my room to look for me. I came back and found him picking up pearls. I felt my excuses did more harm than good. Roger pretended that he had an engagement. I saw by his face he wanted to walk off his anger in the fresh air. If he does walk it off—if he comes back ready to make up, and I send him away again, perhaps that will finish it! Things may never be the same between us any more!"
"He was angry because you didn't seem to care enough for his present," said Clo. "But if you can get him out of the house for an hour or so, and at the same time prove that you adore the pearls; how does that plan strike you?"
"How could I do both?"
"Beg him to go fetch a pearl-stringer, and bring her back here himself, to-night. Say you can't rest or sleep till the pearls are restrung."
"You forget it's Sunday, and——"
"I don't forget. But I know a pearl-stringer. She isn't just any old pearl-stringer, who might thread on a wax bead here and there, and keep a pearl or two up her sleeve. She's the best pearl-stringer in New York. The big jewellers and lots of swell society women have her. It's queer the way I came to know her, but it makes it good for us. We were crossing a street, she and I. I didn't know the woman from Adam—Eve, I mean. But it was slippery, and she missed her footing. I dragged her back, just in time, and held her up. She's a little woman, no bigger than me, or I couldn't have done it. But I got her on the sidewalk again, and she was grateful. She's Irish, too, and she invited me to go and see her the next Sunday. It's out at Yonkers, where she lives, in a nice little house she's bought. I went there once. She said if she could do some favour for me, she'd love to. But it's no favour I'll be asking, except for her to come out on a Sunday evening. So the only thing is to fetch her. Do you think Mr. Sands will go?"
"It depends upon how he feels when he comes in," said Beverley. "But Sister Lake would never let you out again."
"I shan't ask her. I'll get up and dress while you see if Mr. Sands is back. If I hear from you that all's well, I'll slip out before Sister comes."
"Clo, you're wonderful!" Beverley exclaimed. "How can I thank you enough?"
"Thanks from you to me! That's good! Just wait, Angel, anyhow, till I've done something. Oh, I forgot to give you the pearl-stringer's address. It's Miss Blackburne, 27 Elm Street, Yonkers. And tell Mr. Sands to mention my name. It might make a difference. She doesn't like leaving her mother in the evenings, but she'd do it for me."
Beverley was gone for fifteen minutes. When she flew in again she was surprised to see Clo in bed as before. But hardly was the door closed when the girl threw back the coverlet, to show that she was fully dressed.
"I was afraid Sister might pop in—by an evil chance," she explained. "I've only to put on my hat. Well, is it all right?"
"Roger will go," said Beverley. "He's 'phoning now for his car. I'm putting off dinner till half-past eight so he can have plenty of time to get home and change. He didn't make any difficulty when I told him about the pearl-stringer and wanting her at once. He agreed with me that it would be best to do such an errand himself, if it were to be done. And he was very kind. But his manner was different. I'm frightened."
"Don't be," said Clo. She was up now, had pinned on the pretty white hat, and was fastening her smart little cape. "I'll go first to the Westmorland and see our man; he said he'd be in, waiting till ten. I'll tell him things are in train, but he must give you till midnight, if necessary. From there perhaps I can 'phone the Dietz Hotel. It wouldn't be safe here. By that time O'Reilly ought to be in his room dressing for dinner. He'll see me, I'm sure, and the rest will arrange itself. Now, I'm off before Mr. Sands' automobile comes, or Sister Lake. If she finds the door shut and all quiet she'll think I'm asleep. Go back to your husband, Angel, and I'll slip away on my little jaunt."
"I've brought money for you," said Beverley. "Take this purse. There's change for taxis and lots of bills besides—fifty or sixty dollars."
Two minutes later Clo was in the street. The first thing that happened to her was a small piece of luck. She had been dreading the walk to a taxi-stand, when she saw a car about to drive away from a house near by. It was a public vehicle. Clo hailed the chauffeur and gave the Westmorland as her destination.
"Mr. Peterson" was in, according to promise.
"You again, is it? I looked for Mrs. Sands," he grumbled.
"I'm her messenger for the second time," said Clo, "and probably I shall be for the third, when it comes to settling up. If you get what you want, it doesn't matter who brings it, I suppose?"
"Then you suppose wrong. My business is with a woman, not a kid! All the same, if you've got anything for me——"
"I haven't—yet!" Clo snapped him up. "It isn't time. But I'm on to where the thing is, and how to get it. Only it may take till after ten o'clock. That's what I came to say."
"Save your breath! Ten o'clock's the time. If she doesn't want me to go back on my bargain she'd better not go back on hers."
He looked more than ever like a ferret, the girl thought.
"Mrs. Sands made no bargain as to time," she said. "And talking of time, what about the timeyou'vedone?"
Peterson gave a cackling laugh. "What's the female for 'Smart Aleck'?" he sneered. "Guessed by my complexion, did yuh? Well, I don't need to make no secret of it. My gardeens wished me good-bye and Lord bless me when the nine months they run me in for was up."
Clo thought she could come close to guessing what the charge had been, and it would have needed more than the word of a ferret to assure her of his "innocence." The man was a born sneak-thief or pickpocket. His hands were slim and small as a girl's. Perhaps if temptation had been put in his way while he "waited at the newsstand" for Beverley, all those months ago, he had been unable to resist and thus had missed his appointment. Not that the girl much cared as to this detail; it was not her affair. But it was odd, almost "creepy," how the links were being joined together in the chain of evidence against O'Reilly, the man who had followed Angel into the Limited—the man against whom Clo had presently to try her wits. What concerned her most was that her first attempt at bluff had failed. Something in Peterson's manner forced her to believe that he had indeed served out his full sentence, and for the moment had nothing to fear from the police. Clodagh hid her disappointment with a little swagger.
"It suits us just as well as you, to finish up at ten o'clock and get it over," she said. "If we can, we will. If we can't, you'll have to wait. The way things are, you have to be in with us, you see, not against us."
"Oh, do I? I ain't so sure!" he flung back. "I ain't sure my fine madam's not in the game t'other way round—and her husband, too. I know now that she and Roger Sands travelled in the same train from where she started. Blowed if I see why she'd do it, but it might be they fixed a frame-up between them. I can see why it would suit Sands, if it wouldn't her, and a man's stronger than a woman. Sands was working for John Heron at the time. That means a lot."
"It doesn't mean that Mrs. Sands would be disloyal to her word. I know she's true as steel," Clo insisted. She spoke crisply, but her thoughts wandered. They had caught at the name of John Heron; Beverley had never mentioned it. The girl had no means of guessing how it might bear upon the case now in her small, determined hands. She did not see how, or where, she could have heard it before, yet it did not sound strange to her. The feeling she had on hearing it puzzled and even thrilled her vaguely. It was as if the name, "John Heron," had been whispered into her ear in a dream—a dream not forgotten, but buried under other things in her brain. The girl was suddenly alert. There was only one fact which she grasped with straining certainty. In that buried dream there were other sounds connected with the whispered name: sounds of sobbing, as of someone crying in the dark.
"Anyhow," Peterson went on, "there was a frame-up, and those that was in it has got to pay me for what I went through. That's partly why I'm here in Noo York. If I don't have those papers by ten I'll show up at the Sands flat and ask for the missis."
"You wouldn't find Mr. Sands at home," the girl cut in. "He's out. When he comes back he's likely to go away again at once."
"Aw, he is, is he?" echoed Peterson. His personality waked up secretively, like that of some weak, night animal hiding in a wood. Clo eyed him, striving to make him out.
"Better go home, kiddy," he advised. His tone was good-natured. "Shall I see you back to where you live, or——"
"I have another errand to do," the girl announced with dignity. She had meant to telephone from the Westmorland to the Dietz, and learn if Justin O'Reilly was in; but now she determined not to do so. Better waste a little time rather than Peterson should hear her inquiring for O'Reilly. Instead of waiting to telephone, she walked to the door and asked a half-baked youth in hotel livery to call her a taxi.
"If ferret-face tries to follow I'll lead him a dance!" she thought. But ferret-face seemed to read her mind, and be willing to relieve it.
"So long!" he said. "I've got a job o' work, too. It will take me till about ten. After that I shall be lookin' for a call from you or her ladyship."
He turned his back and sauntered to the elevator. Before the taxi had arrived he had been shot up to regions above.
"So that's all right!" Clo muttered to herself, spinning toward the Dietz. Yet, as she said the words, she wondered if itwasall right. Why had Peterson's whole personality made a kind of "lightning change" on hearing that Sands (whom he expressed a wish to see) would not be at home that night? Ought she to 'phone to Beverley and put her on guard? Yes, she would telephone from the Dietz, while waiting to see O'Reilly. It would be safe, because Roger by this time should be far away.