house at the corner, where Mr. and Mrs. Sands lived. Clo availed herself
of a slight bump, and showed signs of sliding off the seat. O'Reilly,
who had just extracted the hat-pin and stuck it into his coat, steadied
her with an effort. Fortunately there was no need to look out and stop
the chauffeur. That afternoon O'Reilly had passed the building, informed
by Count Lovoresco who lived there, and had looked up with a certain
curiosity. He remembered the number, and in leaving the Dietz had been
able to give the address.
The taxi stopped, and O'Reilly prepared to carry the fainting girl into
the house. She would be a light load. As he got out of the taxi with Clo
in his arms a man came forward.
"Won't you let me help you, sir?" he civilly inquired.
"You may run ahead," said O'Reilly. "I can manage the young lady
myself."
The man who had offered his services disappeared into the house, and
found the porter, a substantial person in livery. Clo conveniently
revived when placed on the seat of the lift. O'Reilly sat by her side,
supporting the limp body, her hat in his hand, while the porter shot the
elevator up to the Sands' floor.
"Lord a'mighty!" the old fellow exclaimed, "if this ain't the poor child
that's been an invalid all these weeks! Mrs. Sands will be in a way!
Must be near eight weeks since this little gal was brought in on a
stretcher, lookin' like dead. She ought to be in bed."
"Somebody should have looked after her," said O'Reilly.
"That's it, sir. Her nurse is out, gaddin'."
"Brute!" Clo heard O'Reilly mutter. And leaning comfortably against his
shoulder she felt wicked, treacherous, because she had more than once
applied the same epithet to him. Whatever happened, never would she do
that again!
The elevator stopped. The porter touched the electric bell at the Sands'
door, and almost instantly a manservant appeared. His cry of surprise
brought Mrs. Sands herself out from a room at the end of the hall. The
porter tried to explain everything; failed; broke off to question
O'Reilly; O'Reilly answered; Beverley exclaimed; and among them, all was
confusion. Clo, looking through half-shut eyes over her bearer's
shoulder, saw a shadow flit between the portières. Had some one come in?
If so, who could it be? Or was it only the shadow of a blowing curtain
she had seen? The question did not strike her as important just then,
for if any one had passed it was doubtless a servant or, at worst,
Sister Lake. Besides, Clo had much to think of; how to come back to
consciousness quickly without rousing suspicion, and, when officially
alive again, how to escape for the next errand.
The rush of air and babble of excited voices gave her an excuse to gasp,
and stammer out a conventional "Where am I?"
"We'll get you to your room, dear," said Beverley; and Clo wondered if
her acting had deceived Angel. "The butler can----"
"No, thanks, I'll manage her by myself," O'Reilly broke in and carried
the white bundle along the hall.
"This is her room," Mrs. Sands explained to him. "If you will put her on
the bed...."
"No--please! Take me on into the next room, Sister Lake's room. I must
be there. I'll tell you why presently," the girl pleaded.
Beverley threw open the door between the two rooms, hurried ahead, and
turned on a light.
"Now, lay me on this bed," Clo commanded.
Having obeyed, O'Reilly stood as if awaiting further orders. Clo glanced
from him imploringly to Mrs. Sands. "I've gone through such a lot!" she
moaned. "I've suffered so! I felt I could never get home alive. Please,
Mr. O'Reilly--you've been kind--don't let it all be for nothing!"
"What do you want of me?" he stiffly inquired.
"Only for you to talk to Mrs. Sands. In that next room--my room. Nobody
will disturb you. If the nurse comes back, she'll come into her own room
first. That's why I asked you to bring me to it. I couldn't persuade you
to give me the papers. Perhaps even Mrs. Sands can't persuade you. But I
beg, I pray you, to give her the chance. Listen to what she has to say."
"Very well," he answered, grudgingly. "I'll do what you ask. But I'll do
it for your sake."
Beverley had remained on the threshold of the next room. Now she
retreated into it. O'Reilly followed; but at the door he turned.
"Good-bye," he said to Clo.
"Good-bye," she echoed. "And thank you again--for everything."
She had more to thank him for than he knew--the contents of her tightly
clutched hand.
XII
THE HORIZONTAL PANEL
Following Mrs. Sands, O'Reilly left the door between the two rooms open;
but Beverley stepped quickly back and closed it.
"She's grand, the darling!" thought Clo. "Trust her to forget nothing.
Her shutting that door proves how she counts on me."
The girl was deadly tired, and her head ached, yet she struggled up as
the door clicked. O'Reilly had brought in her hat and dropped it on a
table. There was no hat-pin, but Clo crushed the soft toque down over
her masses of red hair, and hoped she was not untidy enough to be
conspicuous. Unsteadily she tottered to another door--the door that led
into the corridor. This faced a narrower passage to the kitchen and
domestic offices of the flat. Clo would have to take that way because,
if she ventured into the lift and showed herself in the hall below, the
porter might take alarm. He might fear that Mrs. Sands' protégée was
trying to escape for some sly purpose of her own, and refuse to let her
go till he had telephoned upstairs.
In a quaint outside pocket of her new frock Clo had put the purse given
her by Beverley. Through her adventures she had remembered to make sure
occasionally that it had not dropped out. Now she opened the purse,
selecting two ten-dollar bills and two of five dollars.
"That ought to do for 'em all," she said, "even if the lot are at home."
And, money in hand, she ventured to the kitchen door. Only the chef and
a woman assistant were at work.
"I'm Clo Riley, the girl Mrs. Sands has been good to," she eagerly
explained. "I'm well again, and I have to go out. Mrs. Sands has a
visitor, and I don't like to disturb them. Will you let me down your
way?" So speaking she laid a ten-dollar bill and a five-dollar bill side
by side on a table. She made no reference to the money, nor any gesture
indicating it; nor did the others appear to see it.
The chef escorted her in silence to the servants' elevator. There was a
button to push, and down the girl went, rejoiced at passing another
stage of her journey. Five minutes more, and she was in a taxi, tearing
back to the Dietz Hotel.
This time she marched boldly to a lift in a long row of half a dozen.
"Fifteenth floor, please," she said, as if she owned the hotel; and was
taken up without question. "Thanks to my swell clothes!" she thought.
"Not far would I get in this place if I had on my old black!"
Armed with O'Reilly's key Clo threaded her way through several corridors
and arrived at the door of his suite. Her fingers shook so that she
could not find the lock, and as she fumbled for it, the door of an
adjoining suite opened. The nerve-tried girl started as if she had been
shot, and dropped the key on the carpet.
"Silly fool!" she scolded herself as she stooped to retrieve it, and to
hide her face. If only the people (she knew by the voices they were man
and woman) would pass before she had to look up! But they were in no
hurry to pass. They had paused in front of their own door, and were
talking in low tones--about her, Clo was sure!
In a big hotel, the chances were ten to one against their knowing
O'Reilly. Raising her head, she tried to eye the pair with airy
arrogance.
"I mustn't seem to care," she thought, and tried to wither them with a
look before again attacking the keyhole. The woman was beautiful, a
glorious, dark creature, gorgeously dressed and jewelled. But oddly it
was the man who riveted Clo's attention, the man whose eyes gave the
girl an electric shock. He was a tall, lanky, middle-aged individual,
with auburn hair and a close-cut red beard streaked with gray. He walked
with shoulders bent, and had no distinction, despite his well-cut
evening clothes. But from under a pair of beetling black brows there
flashed a light which took Clo's breath away. She didn't know what to
make of his look. It was as if she'd been struck by lightning.
"My goodness, after all he must be a friend of O'Reilly's!" she feared.
Even that supposition wasn't enough to account for the flash.
Frightened, she slid the key into the lock, and almost falling into the
room slammed the door behind her. She did not need to lock it, for
without a key it could not be opened from the outside.
"I can hold the fort a few minutes now, whatever happens!"
In the corridor John Heron and his wife lingered in front of their own
door.
"Well, if that's not the queerest thing I ever saw or heard of!" Heron
exclaimed.
Coming out of their suite, they had caught an impressionist glimpse of a
figure in white bent over the keyhole, then the figure had stooped for
the dropped key, and mechanically they had paused in surprise.
"I wonder if she's made a mistake in the room?" Mrs. Heron had
whispered, and Heron had returned:
"Yes, I think that must be so. She'll find it out and go somewhere else.
O'Reilly isn't----"
There he had stopped short when the girl raised her head to face them;
and when she presently vanished into his friend's room like a whirlwind,
he neither finished his sentence nor answered his wife.
"What's the matter, Jack?" Mrs. Heron asked. "How odd you look!"
("Jack" was not a nickname that suited Heron, but his wife thought it
debonair.)
"Why don't you speak?" she persisted.
"I was thinking," Heron said at last.
"Thinking what we ought to do?" his wife caught him up. "Shall we knock
and ask O'Reilly if he's ready to go down with us?"
"No. We can't do that."
"I suppose not. But weren't you going to say it isn't like O'Reilly to
have a girl calling on him in his rooms?"
"I don't remember what I was going to say," he snubbed her. "It doesn't
matter, anyhow. After all, why shouldn't he? What is it to us?"
"Well, I feel queer about it," objected Dolores Heron. "The creature may
be a hotel thief?"
"Nonsense!" fumed the man. "The girl was a child--sixteen or seventeen.
We can't mix ourselves up in such an affair. Let's mind our own
business."
"You needn't be so cross. I haven't done anything," Dolores reproached
him. They went down together, and sat side by side on a rose-coloured
brocade sofa in the immense salon generally known as the "hall." Not one
of the ladies present was handsomer than Mrs. Heron, not one had more
beautiful jewels or a more perfect dress, and all the men openly admired
her--except her own husband.
Upstairs the girl in question was making the most of every moment. The
queer little key attached to O'Reilly's watch couldn't belong to the
desk, still, there might be a box inside the desk which it would fit.
Clo searched everywhere and everything. At last, it seemed that nothing
was left to try, when suddenly she recalled a paragraph in a newspaper.
She had seen it in a Sunday Supplement. Why, yes, Miss Blackburne, the
pearl-stringer, had given her the paper that Sunday long ago at Yonkers,
to read on the journey home. The paragraph described the up-to-date
feature added to some important hotel. Small safes had been placed in
the walls of rooms for the benefit of guests, each key being different
in design from every other. Clo could not remember the name of the hotel
referred to. Perhaps it was this one. If not, the Dietz wasn't likely to
let a rival get ahead of it. The girl stared at the wall. Any one of
those panels might conceal a safe! There were lots of panels of
different sizes, painted a soft gray and edged with delicate white
mouldings. To test each would take hours (unless she had luck and hit on
the right one first) for there might be a spring hidden in the flowery
pattern of the moulding. But--it was to the left side of the room that
O'Reilly had flung his anxious glance. She would begin, and hoped to
end, her work on the left side. A few minutes spent in thinking out the
situation, however, might save many minutes by and by. About those
panels, for instance? Which were the most likely to hide a secret?
A frieze or skirting-board of gray painted wood ran round the room to a
height of three feet above the pink-carpeted floor. Above this frieze,
distributed at regular intervals, were large plaster panels, two on each
side of the room, forming backgrounds for gold-framed, coloured prints;
and between these were small, narrow panels, ornamented with
conventional flower designs. Beneath and above the latter were panels
still smaller, placed horizontally, and outlined with white curlicues
and flutings. They were about four inches in height by ten inches in
length; and on the left side of the wall there were two.
"Just the right size for nice big jewel boxes," Clo thought. "And the
lower one's just the right height to open without stretching up. If I
were putting a safe into a wall that's the place I'd choose!"
She passed her finger round the edge of one, the white-fluted edge,
rather like the decoration of a fancy cake. Nothing happened. No spring
clicked. She tried the other with the same result, then stood
disappointed, only to return to the attack with new inspiration.
"I bet it pulls out!" she told herself. And--oh, joy, oh triumph!--it
did pull out as she pressed her sharp little nails under the white
fluting. The whole thing came away from the wall like the loose side of
a box, having been kept in place by thin prongs of metal. Behind this
cover was a steel or iron door of practically the same dimensions as the
panel. It also was painted gray, and showed a tiny keyhole like a slit
made with a pair of sharp scissors.
Clo deposited the cover close by on the desk, where it would be within
reach if wanted in a hurry. Then she inserted the key attached to
O'Reilly's watch. It slipped into place. It turned. It opened the small
iron door, and Clo peered into the aperture. In the receptacle lay a
pile of greenbacks held together with a paper band. There was also an
envelope, but not the envelope the girl had pictured. It was larger,
longer, wider, and thicker. It seemed to be made of coarse linen, and
instead of the dainty gold seals with the monogram there were five
official-looking red ones. Clo's heart contracted. It seemed too bad to
be true. But there was plenty of space in this envelope to contain the
other, as well as its contents.
"I'll have to open the thing and look," Clo half decided. But if she
did, how could she make sure of what she wished to know? If the envelope
with the gold seals had been removed, she had no means of recognizing
the documents it had contained.
She took the linen envelope from the safe, and turned it over. Upon the
other side was an address, written in a strong, peculiar hand: "Justin
O'Reilly, care of The Manager, Columbian Bank, New York City," she read.
There was just one reason to believe that the envelope contained Mrs.
Sands' papers; Clo's own strong, instinctive conviction.
Tentatively she pressed one of the seals. It cracked across. Another
went the same way, and as she touched the third there came a sound of
talking outside the door. "Open it for me with your pass-key, please," a
man said. It was O'Reilly's voice.
XIII
"THERE CAN BE NO BARGAIN"
When Beverley Sands had shut the door between Clodagh's room and Sister
Lake's, she stood silent before Justin O'Reilly.
"Well, Mrs. Sands," he said, "I must congratulate you."
"On--what?" she stammered. She looked very young and humble, not at all
the proud princess who had captured Roger Sands against his will.
O'Reilly answered, still smiling his cruel smile, "It's not too late for
congratulations on your marriage, is it? By the way, perhaps one wishes
well to the bride and congratulates the bridegroom! I mean nothing
invidious."
"You mean to hurt me all you can!" Beverley cried.
"I'm on the other side, Mrs. Sands."
"Don't I know that!" she answered bitterly. "I've known since I saw you
on board the Santa Fé Limited that day last September. I expected--some
one else, not you. But I guessed in an instant why you had come."
"I accepted the obligations of friendship," O'Reilly deigned to explain.
"And that brings us to one of the subjects for congratulation: your
friend. A wonderful young person. I congratulate you highly upon her.
She informed me that she'd gladly die for you. Judging from her looks,
she isn't far from doing so. I'm sure you must want to go to her now.
Oh, by the by, one more congratulation: the pearls."
"How did you know?" Beverley forgot her humiliation in sheer amazement.
"Weren't you told that Heron was trying to buy them for his wife?"
O'Reilly waived her question with another.
"No, indeed! They were a surprise present to me this afternoon from my
husband. If I'd known that Mr. Heron...."
"You don't expect me to believe you'd have sacrificed them to Heron, or
his wife, do you, Mrs. Sands?" O'Reilly laughed.
"I almost think I would. I'll give the pearls up to Mrs. Heron if you'll
do as--as Clodagh Riley asked you to do. Oh, for pity's sake! I'd pay
more than the pearls for those papers. I'd pay with my life if that
would be of any use. I know it wouldn't. But the pearls--can't we
bargain with the pearls?"
"We can't bargain at all, Mrs. Sands," O'Reilly said gravely. "I must
go. I have an engagement to dine with the Herons. I should like to hear
how my namesake is, and then I will be off."
Beverley had expected little from an appeal to this man's pity, but the
coincidence of Heron's desire for the pearls was so strange that it
ought to mean something. It seemed terrible that such a chance should be
wasted. Could she persuade Roger to let her give up the pearls? O'Reilly
would look at the wonderful things and report upon their beauty. The
Herons might be tempted to treat with her. In any case, the scheme was
worth the trial.
Silently she went to the door that she had closed, and peeped into
Sister Lake's room. It was no surprise to her that Clodagh should have
vanished. That was part of the plan. Her exclamation was for O'Reilly's
benefit.
"The child's gone!" she cried. "That means she's feeling better. She
must be in my room--or in my boudoir. Will you come with me? We'll look
for her. It will be on your way out."
O'Reilly followed into the hall. Beverley, thinking quickly, went to the
door of her own special sitting room, which adjoined her bedroom. A
backward glance told her that the man had stopped facing the vestibule
which gave exit from the flat. "Wait one moment," she said. "I'll see
where Clodagh is." As she touched the door of the boudoir she was
surprised to find it yielding before she turned the handle. This was
odd, because she remembered shutting it the last time she came out. She
had left the room only at the moment when O'Reilly brought in the
half-fainting girl; and she had been particular to close the door
because of the pearls. She had placed them on a table in the boudoir,
ready for the pearl-stringer. Not that she feared their being stolen!
Her own maid had been sent out for the afternoon. Two of the other
servants had been given a holiday. Only the butler, the cook, and his
assistant were at home, and all three had been in Roger's employ for
years. They were above suspicion, and besides, they knew nothing of the
pearls. Not a soul knew, save herself, Roger, Clo, and now O'Reilly.
Roger had started off in his car before she brought the pearls from her
bedroom into the boudoir. Who, then, had opened the door? Perhaps, after
all, Clo had not dared attempt the second adventure. Perhaps she was
still in the flat, and for some reason to be explained later, had taken
refuge in the boudoir?
A glance, however, showed that the girl was not there. The electric
light flashed upon a room untenanted. There was the magnificent but
broken rope in its case, wound in gleaming, concentric circles, the
unstrung pearls retrieved from the floor grouped together on the purple
cushion. The door stood open between boudoir and bedroom. Beverley
thought that this had been shut also, though she was not sure. "Clo!"
she called softly. There was some slight sound, or she imagined it.
Quickly she went to the bedroom door, and peeped in, flooding the place
with light. Clo was not to be seen. Turning off the electricity again
Beverley went out to O'Reilly in the hall.
"Come with me one moment," she said. "I've something to show you."
O'Reilly hesitated.
"Is your friend there? Does she wish to speak to me?" he asked.
"Come and see," Beverley persisted. She led the way into the boudoir,
and reluctantly her companion crossed the threshold. Mrs. Sands pointed
to the pearls. "I wanted so much to show them to you. See how wonderful
they are! Mr. Heron's so proud of his wife. I could arrange some plan,
I'm sure, if--if----"
A door slammed, and Beverley's sentence broke off with a gasp.
Mechanically she shut down the cover of the velvet case. If Roger had
come back; if, after all, he had only pretended to go for the
pearl-stringer! She dared not guess what he would think at finding
O'Reilly with her in his house. Too well she remembered the day of their
one quarrel, when he had brought up this man's name in connection with
Clo's, when he had accused her of crying it out in her sleep.
"Mr. O'Reilly," she said, very quietly, "that may be my husband coming
home. If it is, you will have to meet him. It can't be avoided. But I
should like to speak to him first, if you will wait in this room for a
moment."
Without giving him time to answer she ran out. Minutes passed. Justin
heard voices, women's voices. One, it seemed to him, was raised in
anger. After all, it couldn't be Sands who had come! O'Reilly grew
impatient, and fumbling for his watch he found it gone. Great Scott!
Stolen! He remembered a certain small key attached to the chain. In a
flash of enlightenment the whole plot mapped itself out before his eyes.
Furious, his impulse was to dash from the room and denounce the chief
culprit. But Beverley Sands' appeal to his chivalry stopped him like a
chain round his feet.
Now she called his name, and he opened the door.
"It was my friend's nurse who came in," she said. "She threatens to
leave at once. I must talk with her, try to soothe her down before my
husband comes. He hasn't arrived, after all--and may not for a long
time. But the way I felt when I thought he was here, shows me I oughtn't
to keep you. Tell me once and for all before you go, now you've seen the
pearls; is there any hope?"
"None whatever," O'Reilly cut her short. "I'm going, Mrs. Sands. You
need have no fear of me where your husband's concerned, though I
understand now exactly why I was brought here, why I was kept till you
were afraid to keep me longer. Your little friend is as smart at picking
pockets as she is at acting. Again, I congratulate you upon her. But the
effort's going to be wasted. Good-night."
Beverley stood still, and let him go. She had no answer to make.
Precisely what he meant by his accusation she did not understand, but
she knew that, while she detained him, Clo had indeed dared the great
adventure. For a moment Beverley thought of the pearls almost with
distaste. That they should come to her to-day, when she cared for
nothing in the world but the lost papers, was an irony of fate. She did
not return to the boudoir. She forgot the mystery of the open door, and
neglected to close it. She was nervously anxious to excuse herself to
Sister Lake. Above all, it was her duty to defend Clo. She must confess
that it was upon her errand the girl had defied authority.
"Please don't blame the child," she pleaded. "She knew I needed
something done for me--a thing I couldn't do myself. So she made this
sacrifice. You must forgive us both."
But Sister Lake was not to be placated. If Miss Riley were well enough
to do Mrs. Sands' errands by day and night, a nurse's services were no
longer needed. Sister Lake considered herself well paid, and would
accept no present in addition. The butler was summoned to call a taxi
and attend to sending down the small luggage. Meantime the Queen's
pearls were forgotten.
XIV
THE STONE COPING