From a point close by the street door rose a flight of stairs which
introduced Lanyard to a floor by every indication devoted wholly to the
most intimate uses of Folly. There were two major rooms, a bedchamber at
the back of the house and a boudoir overlooking the street, linked by a
short hall on which opened a bathroom and capacious clothes-presses, all
furnished with an extravagance that bespoke means ample to gratify the
wildest whim of even a modern young woman. Folly's wardrobe alone would
have given a dozen exacting women of fashion a choice of changes for
every hour of the day and have left the first owner still ridiculously
over-stocked. And Lanyard, taking cursory yet comprehensive note of the
endless detail of luxury that went to make up a sybaritic ensemble, told
himself it would be unreasonable to expect the tenant of this suite not
to fancy herself much more than merely a little.
His survey, however, had gained him little more than a bare grasp of the
general arrangement, when a light patter on the stairs drove him to
cover in a retreat whose selection had been his first care: a closet
stored with clothing for day-wear exclusively, therefore the least
liable to be used by night, and furthermore so situate that its door,
left--as Lanyard had found it--half an inch ajar, afforded a direct and
wide-angled vista of the boudoir, and also, indirectly, by grace of a
long mirror in the latter, a more fragmentary view of the bedchamber.
To his taste almost too cosily snuggled into a smother of garments whose
subtle fragrance was most demoralizing, he lurked for many minutes,
spying--as the mirror permitted--on the maid whom he had first seen in
the street and whose present duty, it transpired, was to turn down the
bed-clothes and otherwise make the bedchamber ready to receive its
mistress.
The quick, competent creature went about her work with a step so light
that even ears trained to abnormal acuteness found it not entirely easy
to keep track of her movements; so that, when she made an end and left
the bedchamber, the man in hiding wasted several minutes waiting to make
sure that he had the floor all to himself again.
Emerging at length, he wasted no more, but turned directly to the focal
point of his most immediate interest, that is to say to the safe which
had provided the wits of last night's thief with a test so trifling.
And, Lanyard reflected, having inspected the thing, no wonder! When, he
asked impatiently, would man learn anything from experience and cease to
put his trust and his treasures in repositories of such pregnable
construction? A pretty, dainty thing, neatly fitted into the base of a
period secretary, its door masked by a hinged frame wrought to resemble
a tier of drawers, its "combination-lock"--God save the mark!--capable
of offering about as much resistance to trained talents as that of a
child's bank . . .
Lanyard was proving all this to his own satisfaction, and indeed had
already solved the combination by bending an ear to the fall of its
tumblers, when the telephone rang.
The sharp thrill of the bell sounded in the study downstairs; the
extension instrument on the little desk in the boudoir gave only a
muffled click.
Lanyard used a silk handkerchief on the face of the safe to smudge out
fingerprints, shut the false front, and moved lightly out into the hall,
arriving at the rail round the stairway at the moment when the
vocational singsong of the butler broke upon the conversation of Folly
and her friends:
"Beg pardon, but Mr. Mallison is being wanted on the telephone."
With neither delay nor compunction Lanyard turned back to the boudoir
extension, and had its receiver at his ear when Mallison arrived in the
study and breathed a melodious "Hello?" to the waiting wire. But when a
strange voice answered him, feminine at that, the eavesdropper was taken
with a twinge of mixed chagrin and distaste, who had hoped for something
worse than this and more illuminating, who had hastily set his heart on
gaining instruction from Morphew's pompously measured rumble, and who,
finally, knew no delight whatever in the prospect of prying upon some
trivial affair of sentiment such as was promised by the cloying
affection of this strange woman's salutation: "Is that you, Mally
darling?"
Only the striking ambiguity of the reply she got helped Lanyard to
overcome an impulse to hang up forthwith.
"Yes," Mallison pronounced too clearly, too loudly, and in a manner of
cold enquiry that carried no conviction whatever--"this is Mr. Mallison
speaking. Who wants him?"
"Clever old sweetie!" the unknown applauded with a confidential laugh.
"I do hope she can hear you; but I suppose she isn't in the same room if
you have to shout like that. Better soft-pedal it a bit, dear, or the
little lady may get leary."
To this Mallison replied, again remarkably as to sense, and in accents
of unmistakably mortified amazement: "Oh, for Heaven's sake! you don't
mean to say it's tonight? I don't see how I could possibly have let
anything so important slip my mind . . ."
No less remarkably the woman pursued: "It's all right, then, dearie? I
mean, everything is all set for the big bust?"
"Why, of course!" Mallison intoned distinctly, with a dying echo of the
emotion which had coloured his last preceding response--"of course I'll
be there. But I shall have to go down on my knees and beg Mrs. McFee to
forgive me--and I really can't quite forgive myself for being so
forgetful."
"Gosh!" the other breathed in awed admiration--"got to hand it to you,
kid, you stall so pretty. Well: our friend--_you_ know--is getting
impatient, so it's up to you to shake a leg. How soon shall I say you'll
be ready?"
"Oh, but really! I'm afraid I can hardly make it under half an hour."
"Sure that'll be long enough?" Surprising solicitude seemed to shade
the strange voice. "You know, dearie, we wouldn't for worlds crash in
too soon, I mean before you get a good chance to do your very best dirty
work. 'Cause the blacker the looks of it, the better the pay--and the
surer."
"Oh quite!" Mallison cheerily agreed. "But half an hour will do me
famously."
"Good enough." A sly chuckle accompanied this commendation. "You're one
little fast worker, all right, darling: I only wanted you to take all
the time you need to turn out an artistic job. All rightie: I'll set the
alarm for thirty minutes from now--the zero hour! And mind you take good
care of yourself, dearie. Ta-ta."