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 time _you've_ done?"
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 it _was_ all 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.
X
THE BLUFF THAT WON
Justin O'Reilly had a modest suite in the magnificent Dietz. It adjoined
the luxurious suite of Mr. and Mrs. John Heron, and consisted of a small
sitting-room, a bedroom, and bath. He was tying his necktie when the
telephone bell rang. He grabbed the receiver as if it were a snake that
had to be throttled, and gave it a grudging "Hello!"
"A lady to see you," a voice answered.
"She wasn't told I'm in, I hope? A nice thing for a well-regulated hotel
if----"
"No, but she says it's important. She's Miss O'Reilly."
Miss O'Reilly! The man of that name was perplexed. The only Miss
O'Reilly who, as far as he knew, could possibly call on him, was the
last woman he would have expected to do so. He had come to New York
largely in the hope of seeing her. She had refused to see him.
"Tell her I'll be down in three minutes," he replied.
"She particularly doesn't want you to come down. She says she has some
private news for you, and asks if you'll see her in your own
sitting-room."
"All right," he tried to answer calmly. "Have the lady shown up."
He rushed back into his bedroom to wrestle once more with the tie. He
must be ready to receive Miss O'Reilly at the door, and his waistcoat
and coat were yet to put on. But it could be managed. The suite was on
the fifteenth floor, and a full minute's walk from the lift for an old
person like Miss O'Reilly. Bungling everything in his haste, he tried to
think what it might mean. It looked as if she must have changed her
mind, and be ready to sell him her house, the dear old house on which he
had set his heart. Perhaps she would demand a higher price than he had
offered. Well, he must pay it somehow. Heron would lend him the
money--but no, there were reasons why O'Reilly didn't wish to accept
favours from Heron, often as they had been pressed upon him. As he
slipped into his coat, he heard the expected rap at his sitting-room
door, and hurried to open it. A page-boy, acting as guide, had run ahead
of the lady, to knock.
"Miss O'Reilly to see Mr. O'Reilly," he announced, with Irish relish of
the Irish name. Then he erased himself. O'Reilly stood on the threshold,
waiting for the right lady to appear, and meanwhile dodged back from the
wrong one, a small, slim flapper in white, who for some reason had
paused before his door. She stood quite still, and stared up at him
unwinkingly, as a child stares.
"I beg your pardon," O'Reilly said, wanting to laugh. "May I pass? I
must look for a lady who----"
"I'm the lady," the creature in white intervened. "That is, I am if you
are Mr. O'Reilly."
"O'Reilly's my name," he admitted. "But I was expecting--or--perhaps my
cousin sent you?"
"Perhaps I am your cousin," suggested the girl who (Justin saw, now that
he looked her deliberately in the face) had the biggest, blackest eyes,
and the whitest skin he had ever seen. She had, also, red hair under a
fetching hat. Although the child was no beauty, she had an amusing,
elfin air.
"Delighted, I'm sure," he felt obliged to answer. "I thought I had only
one cousin in the world, Theresa O'Reilly, of Gramercy Park. But----"
"It sounds like the chorus of a song; 'Theresa O'Reilly, of Gramercy
Park,'" Clo was unable to resist remarking, with her strongest brogue.
"Will you please ask me in?" she said. "My errand's very pressing."
Mechanically the man stepped aside and let her walk into the room. He
began to suspect that he had been "spoofed." He did not invite the young
person to be seated, but looked at her expectantly. Her first move was
to shut the door. She did not speak.
"May I know your name?" he inquired, as they faced each other.
"The same as yours, but for a letter or two," said Clo, marking time.
"That's why I may be a cousin; one never knows. I didn't come to talk
about the family tree, though, Mr. O'Reilly. I came to beg--not for
money, so don't be frightened."
"I'm not conscious of fear," laughed O'Reilly. He couldn't help
laughing. He didn't believe the girl's name was the "same as his." "If
I'm not afraid, I am curious," he confessed. "What are you going to beg
for, if not money? Is this a message from my cousin----?"
Clo ceased suddenly to be impish. She had got into the enemy's fastness
by her impishness, but she could go no further on that line. This man,
being the exact opposite of the type expected, upset her plan. A big
danger was that she might like this O'Reilly instead of hating him, he
was so pleasant and gallant-looking, more a protector than a persecutor
of women. She might hesitate to cheat or trick him in whatever way came
handy, and thus fail the Angel on top of all her boasts. In her hot
little heart Clo prayed for the wisdom of the serpent, and as her elfin
face took on anxious lines, she became more interesting to O'Reilly. Her
white face looked pinched and desperate. "If I were Marat, and she
Charlotte Corday," was the thought that jumped into his head, "she would
stab me."
"It's a good thing for me you have a cousin, or maybe you wouldn't have
let me in. I know now why God gave me the name of Riley. I guess he'll
forgive me for borrowing the 'O.' I was obliged to get to you somehow.
That was the one way I could think of."
"It was a pretty smart way," O'Reilly flattered her. "But you haven't
told me----"
"I will. Only--I think I'll have to sit down. I feel rather--queer----"
"Good lord! You can't faint here!"
"I won't, unless you make me, I'll promise that!" She had her cue now.
"Sit down, for heaven's sake!" said O'Reilly, pulling up the biggest
chair in the room. Clo sank into it. Closing her eyes, she drew in a
gasping breath which made her girlish bosom heave.
The man stood by, feeling absurdly helpless.
"Shall I ring for brandy?" he suggested.
"No--please!" She opened her great eyes again. "Only listen. I've come
from Mrs. Roger Sands--to beg you for those papers of hers."
"Mrs. Roger Sands! Her papers? I know nothing of any papers belonging to
Mrs. Roger Sands," O'Reilly exclaimed. "What papers are you talking
about?"
"The ones you hired a man to steal when the train got to Chicago."
O'Reilly started. "Whose accusation is that?" he asked sharply.
"Not hers; it's mine."
"Yours! Once again, who are you? What are you in this?"
"I'm nobody! I'm only--a lion's mouse."
O'Reilly did not ask what it meant to be a lion's mouse. He understood.
His mind was not less quick than hers.
"And I'm the net you hope to gnaw! Miss Mouse, your little teeth will
find me tough. I may say I'm a patent, ungnawable net. The best thing
for you is to go home as fast as you can and tell those who sent
you----"
"I sent myself," Clo explained, with tired obstinacy. "I told you I had
to see you somehow. Oh, Mr. O'Reilly, you don't look the sort of cruel
pig I thought you would be. If you dreamed what Mrs. Sands is going
through you'd give her back the papers. Don't pretend not to know what I
mean."
"I won't pretend anything," O'Reilly said. "I do know what you mean, and
I got the documents (which were not the property of Mrs. Sands) more or
less as you think I got them. But no mouse, no mastodon could induce me
to hand them over to your friend."
Clo's eyes travelled over his person. He looked slim and soldierly in
his well-made evening clothes. There could be nothing thicker than a
watch, and that a thin one, in his pockets.
"If you would see Mrs. Sands, maybe you'd change your mind," she
pleaded, in her creamiest Irish voice. "Take me back to her, and take
the papers along. Then, if you----"
"I can't do either," was O'Reilly's ultimatum. "I'll take you downstairs
and put you in your car if you've got one, or a taxi if you haven't.
But----"
"You'll have to take me home," said Clo. "I won't try to start without
you. I've gone through enough. I'll just let myself collapse. I promised
not to faint unless you made me. Now you are making me."
"You deserve to be thrown out of the window!"
"I have been, once," the pale girl announced. "It was four storeys up,
and all my ribs were smashed. This is my first day out of bed. I thought
I could manage it, if you were kind. I'd gladly die for Mrs. Sands. And
if I do----"
"Brace up!" O'Reilly cried. "I'll take you home. I know where the house
is. I passed it this afternoon. There was a man who----But no matter.
Have you got a car below?"
Clo was almost past answering; almost, not quite. But weakness was her
"cue," as well as the line of least resistance. Having now an incentive
to let herself go rather than "brace up" as O'Reilly urged, she enjoyed
collapsing. Yet something within was on guard, and knew that O'Reilly
had to be watched.
He dashed to the telephone and ordered a taxi. Then he returned to the
girl in the chair. Her eyes were half shut, a rim of white showing
between the lashes. The man could not help believing the queer story she
had gasped out, about the fall, and the broken ribs, and this being the
first day she had left her bed. That would account for her thinness and
paleness. He touched her hand, which hung over the arm of the chair.
There was no glove on it, and the pathetically small thing was icy cold.
"She's fainted, fast enough," he growled. Clo heard the words dimly, as
though she had cotton wool in her ears. Her duty was to trick the man,
but she didn't like doing that duty.
O'Reilly gently laid down the tiny paw he had taken in his. It was limp
as the hand of a dead girl. Clo would have felt less compunction if he
had dropped it roughly. He took a few brisk steps, as though he had come
to some decision. She forced herself back from the brink of
unconsciousness to realize that he was going toward the door--not the
outer door, through which she had entered, but another. He opened this,
and Clo saw that beyond was a bedroom. Quickly he went to a table where
stood a tall glass jug filled with crushed ice and water. His back was
turned to the girl as he began pouring the jug's contents into a
tumbler, but suddenly, as if on a strong impulse, he turned. Clo did not
even quiver. Something told her that the thing she had prayed for was
about to happen.
XI
O'REILLY'S WAISTCOAT POCKET
O'Reilly's first look into the sitting room was not for the girl.
Involuntarily, it seemed, he sent a lightning glance to the left, to
that side of the room farthest from the big chair where she sat. Clo's
desperate need to know what was in his head inspired her with
clairvoyance. Consciousness lit her brain once more. She was sure that
she had read his thoughts. He feared that after all she was fooling him.
He was saying in his mind: "What if she meant me to go and fetch this
water while she looks for what she wants to find?"
Now Clo was certain at last, not only of his having the papers, but that
they were in the room, somewhere on that left side, where his glance had
flashed. It was hard to keep still, without the flicker of an eyelash;
but she believed, as O'Reilly came back to her, that she had stood the
test of his stare.
He moistened his handkerchief, and gingerly dabbed the girl's forehead.
It was a relief to "come to," to be able to start, and draw a long
breath.
"There! You're better, aren't you?" he asked.
"Yes," she breathed. "I should like to go home, but I'm afraid----"
"Don't be. I'm going with you," he said. "By this time a taxi's waiting
for us. Do you think you can walk if I give you my arm?"
"I'll try," Clo answered, gratefully.
No pretence of weakness was needed. She felt like a rag. O'Reilly took
her by the hand, and with an arm round the slim waist raised the girl to
her feet. Once up, she swayed as if she might fall, but he held her
firmly. "Lean against me," he said, in a kind voice.
She had never before been so near to a man in her life. "You're very
good to me," she whispered. "I should like you, please, to remember that
I thank you."
"I'm sorry I said you deserved to be thrown out of the window," O'Reilly
absolved himself. "Whatever else you may be, you're a good plucked one.
Now, here we are at the door. Are you sure you can walk to the elevator?
Hang on to my arm."
She hung on to it.
They reached the lift, which came to them in a few seconds, unoccupied
save for the youth who ran it. Clodagh kept up bravely until she was
seated in the taxi, and could have kept up until the end without too
great an effort, for her collapse had made her feel rested. It was not,
however, the girl's métier to "keep up." The task was but half
accomplished. The hardest part was to come.
She knew--or thought she knew--that O'Reilly had the papers, that they
were in New York; not only in New York, but in his private sitting room
at the Dietz Hotel. They were in some hiding-place there; and for an
instant he had feared her knowledge of its existence. He had expected
her to try, while his back was turned, to steal its contents. Clo's
nimble brain, deducing all this from what had happened, deduced
something else as well. The man would have had no fear if the secret
were impossible for an outsider to learn. It could not be impossible. It
couldn't even be difficult, if she might have solved the puzzle while
his back was turned. For her, O'Reilly's uneasiness was a hopeful sign.
Somewhere on the window side of his private parlour at the Dietz the
papers which Angel needed were hidden. Each second during the girl's
slow progress to the lift, her descent, and her short walk to the taxi,
was spent in sorting out these deductions.
Those big black eyes of Clodagh Riley's had not been given her in vain.
One swift glance during the cold-water treatment had shown her many
details useful to remember. On one side of the window was a desk. In the
desk was a drawer, and the key thereof was in the keyhole. It seemed
improbable that secret papers should be kept in such a place, but
circumstances might have forced O'Reilly to leave them there.
On the other side of the window was a kind of buffet, with glass doors
and shelves and a closed cupboard, but Clo had less hope of this than of
the desk. There might be a less obvious hiding hole than either, perhaps
a sliding panel in the wall. There must in any case be a key, and that
key must be on the person of O'Reilly.
She would have to use all her wits to get it while they were together in
the taxi! And there was the key of the suite to get also; but that would
be easier. She had seen O'Reilly take the big key from a table, as they
went by, slipping it into the pocket of his dinner jacket. Forced to
support his half-fainting guest, he had not put on an outer coat, so the
key was within reach of clever and determined fingers. Clodagh's were
determined, and--she hoped--clever.
With this design burning in her head and tingling in her hands, she
decided to faint again as they started for home, and keep O'Reilly
occupied every inch of the way.
"I'm afraid--I'm not so strong--after all----" she sighed, as the taxi
door shut, and proceeded to "flop" like a large rag doll. Her head fell
on the man's breast, and rolled across to his left arm, her hat askew.
"I'm very ill," she moaned. "Something hurts so! My hat-pin----" And her
voice trailed into silence.
"Poor child!" the man exclaimed, completely taken in at last. The
hat-pin was sticking in very deep! Not that she minded a little pain.
But the great thing was to keep O'Reilly's hands busy.
Clumsily, obstinately, he fumbled among the meshes of ostrich plume
wound around her hat. The head of the pin eluding him there, he tried
beneath the brim, his fingers tangling in thick waves of hair. They were
soft waves, softer and silkier than the ostrich plume. No man with blood
in his veins could have touched them without a thrill. The girl on his
breast, her face on his arm, one hand holding her up, another caught in
her hair, O'Reilly was conscious of electric shocks.
His hands and attention thus engaged, Clo got the chance she'd waited
for. Delicately, stealthily, like the "mouse" she called herself, she
extracted the door key from O'Reilly's pocket. So far, so good. But the
next deed would try her mettle. Lightly as a flitting shadow the small
fingers moved over the man's waistcoat, from the belt line to the
breast. She could feel his heart thump, and almost started, but
controlled herself.
Clo had noticed that men often wore a short chain or ribbon, attached to
a watch, and hanging from the waistcoat pocket with a seal, a society
badge or a lucky souvenir. O'Reilly wore no ornament of that sort; but
there was a watch, a thin watch which she could feel through the cloth,
and some flat object with it. If she could slip a finger into that
pocket without his knowing!