another voice that was very smooth, and had a lisp. Clo deduced that it
was the voice of Isaacs.
"Yes, do go down!" The girl jeered him through the keyhole. "I'll call
from the window what you are, a fence; that's your nickname. You're a
receiver of stolen goods."
For a few breathless moments there was no sound. Clo wondered if Ellen
had started, and how soon the taxi might arrive. She went again to the
window and looked out. There was no taxi in sight, no vehicle of any
sort, but children playing, women chatting together. Clo wished that she
might shriek at the top of her voice "Help!" "Thieves!" "Murder!" A
policeman would surely come, and she and the pearls would be saved. But
Beverley would be lost. The story of the pearls would come out somehow.
As she gazed like Sister Anne from the tower, two things happened. In
the house, a blow from a hammer made the door quiver; in the street a
taxi came swinging into sight.
"They'll have the door down!" Clo gasped. "But if only that's Ellen
she'll be just in time."
The bag containing the pearls in their red wrapping was in the girl's
hand. She stood, prepared to throw it if Ellen appeared. The taxi was
slowing down. Yes, it was stopping in front of the house. It must be
Ellen--but no! A man stepped out, and glanced quickly in all directions.
He did not look up at the window, where Clo had shrunk back as far as
she could, not to lose sight of what went on below. He was furtively
intent upon a gray limousine car, with several men in it, which had
followed the taxi along the street. The motor passed on, however, and
its occupants (there were four or five, Clo fancied) were busily
talking. They did not look out, or interest themselves in the stopping
of the taxi. The man who had come in the latter had the air of hiding
behind it, as he paid the chauffeur and carefully counted his change;
but the instant the limousine had slid ahead, regardless of him, he ran
up the steps. Clo, at the window, could see him no more.
"What if it's Chuff?" she thought, "and he finds them breaking down his
door?"
Somehow she had the impression that Cheffinsky was even more wicked than
Churn, a man without scruples, a man who would stop at nothing for his
own advantage.
"Crack!" went one of the panels, and Clo, flying to the door, snatched
the key from the keyhole. She knew the panel could not last many
minutes, and a picture rose before her mind of a hand pushing through a
hole, to turn the key in the lock. Anyhow, that should not happen!
Back she fled to the window again, and stared anxiously out.
Another taxi appeared. The gray limousine had turned, and was coming
back, also. But Clo cared only for the taxi. It was slowing down. A
woman thrust her head out and looked up--a neat little head in a black
toque. "Miss Blackburne!" The girl cried shrilly. The taxi stopped. But
the door stuck. Oh, why didn't the silly chauffeur jump off his seat and
help?
Crash! The panel broke with a loud shriek of rending wood. The hammer
came through, and was jerked quickly out again. A man's hand seized a
jagged piece of the panel and tore it away. An eye peered through the
aperture, but Clo was at the window.
"Quick--quick!" she implored, and brandished the bag far over the sill.
The eye disappeared from the panel, and the muzzle of a revolver took
its place.
Miss Blackburne had jumped down on to the pavement.
"If you throw out that bag, I fire," a voice warned Clo--a new voice,
not Churn's.
The girl glanced round involuntarily, and saw the small black object
imbedded in the smashed door panel. Her nerves jerked, but she turned
back to the window, with a sensation of ice in her spine.
"String these and get them to _her_, if you have to take them to
Newport!" she cried.
There was a queer muffled explosion, not unlike the breaking of wood,
yet somehow different. Clo felt a blow on the shoulder, and then a
strange, heart-rending pain. She staggered, fell forward on to her
knees, hanging over the window sill. But she threw the bag. A red light
flamed in her eyes, not like the light of the summer day. Through the
redness she thought she saw a little woman in black catch the bag and
stand still, looking up. Clo tried to wave her hand, motioning "Go
on--hurry!" and her lips formed the words. She was not sure whether the
woman went, or whether she had been stopped at the taxi door by some men
getting out of that gray limousine; the cloud of red had grown so thick.
But there were noises behind her. The men in the hall had burst the door
open. She could not look round again. Her head rested upon her arm,
lying on the window sill. Then someone was dragging her away. It was all
over for her in this world! But Beverley's pearls were saved.
XXXV
THE TIME LIMIT OF HOPE
A big, blond man had hustled Mrs. Mac and Violet downstairs before the
shot was fired. It was bewildering to them that Mr. Cheffinsky should
come home after his strange absence with his beautiful golden beard and
moustache shaved off.
Cheffinsky was like an officer directing a defence. He took command
instantly he entered the house, seeming to understand the situation
without a question. "If any one rings, let Violet be a long time opening
the door," he said. "But it must be opened. Don't act as if there was
something to hide. Keep 'em talking, no matter who, or about what as
long as you can. There's been a theft from a lady boarder, and a little
excitement; you've only to tell the truth--see?"
All this in a second; but it got the two women out of the way. The spy
must be muzzled at any cost, for Cheffinsky guessed at a word from Kit
that this was the mysterious girl of the telephone.
"Pick her up," he said to Kit, when they had got the locked door open.
"If any eyes are on that window, it won't look too queer for one girl to
pull another back into the room."
As the other two women had done, Kit obeyed. She was used to obeying
Chuff in the past. She dragged Clo to the back of the room, out of sight
from the window, and awaited further commands.
"Now," Chuff said, "if we're spotted, this is a suicide--see? She stole
your pearls, and when she was caught she killed herself."
"But the shot's in her shoulder--and she ain't dead. She's opening her
eyes," Kit objected.
"She's got to be dead," Chuff decreed. "I know how to fix the bullet
business. It'll have to be done now, because if trouble comes it will
come quick. Look here; this is the thing to do, if there's questions to
answer. You caught her stealing. She ran down to this room from yours,
threw the stuff out of the window to a pal, and then grabbed my Browning
from the mantelpiece. She'd have shot you, but seeing the men, knew the
game was up, and did for herself instead. Shut the window, Kit. I'm
going to put another ball into her, in the chest, just opposite the spot
of blood on her back. Carry her into the closet, to cover the sound. I
mustn't touch her myself. There's spots on you already. Account for them
by saying you picked her up to see if she was alive."
"But if she's in the closet----"
"She ran there, and shot at you from inside the door, after we'd all
broken into the room to get at her. Is that clear to you both? We must
stick to the same story. Into the closet with her, Kit."
Clo felt a strange sensation, as if her soul had left the body that hung
limp in Kit's strong arms, and was gazing at it with impersonal pity.
"The worst will be ended for me in a minute," she thought. Then,
suddenly, she remembered Justin O'Reilly. A great desolation of
loneliness swept over her. He would be sorry. But he was far away.
* * * * *
When Clo telephoned, Ellen Blackburne did not even know that the Sands
were out of New York. The message, however, instantly awoke her sleeping
interest. She guessed that Clo had tracked the thief, and that what she
called the "weird address" given was the "lair." Miss Blackburne was no
coward, and the astonishing request that came over the telephone wires
did not frighten her. She prepared to follow instructions at once,
taking only one precaution. Before starting, she left word that if she
did not 'phone or return within an hour, inquiries were to be made at
the house and in the street whose number she wrote down.
The pearl-stringer did, therefore, precisely what she had been asked to
do. She abandoned the work laid out for the morning, and dashed off in a
taxi on a moment's notice. Clo's little face at the window of a
tenth-rate boarding-house told her nothing new. Clo was always pale.
When the girl dropped to her knees it looked to Ellen as if that
attitude were more convenient for throwing down the bag. No sound of a
pistol shot reached Ellen's ears over the noises of the street. She
heard only the "teuf-teuf" of her own taxi, and the snort of a big gray
car which had at that instant come to a stop close by. Miss Blackburne
was used to odd adventures, and prided herself on "keeping cool," but
she could not help giving an undignified jump as a man sprang out of the
gray limousine and laid a hand on her arm.
"What is in that bag and where are you taking it? I've a right to know,"
he said sharply. "I'm a friend of Miss Riley."
Ellen grabbed at the door of her taxi. The man was about thirty or
thirty-two, she thought, certainly a gentleman and rather handsome. "I'm
acting for Miss Riley," she returned as sharply. "My name's Blackburne.
Clo's in a hurry for me to do an errand. If you're really her friend,
you'd better let me get away while you look after her."
The two eyed each other for an instant. "You are Miss Ellen Blackburne,
the pearl-stringer?" the man inquired.
"The same," she answered.
"Then go on her errand!" he exclaimed. And while Ellen stared, he ran up
the steps of the house where a companion had already rung the bell.
Neither of the men looked again at her. Ellen waited for no more. To
save delay and further suspense for Mrs. Sands she drove straight to the
Park Avenue house, in order to string the pearls there: for she had
hastily collected her materials before starting. It was a blow to hear
from the hall porter that the Sands had already left New York; she
decided on going up to get further information. She even thought of
sending a long-distance message to Beverley from her own flat; but the
grim personality of Anna Schultz banished this idea at a glance. Ellen
realized that if she asked to enter the apartment she would be regarded
as a suspicious character. Important business with Mrs. Sands would take
her to Newport immediately, she told Miss Schultz. If there were any
letter or parcel to be sent she would carry it.
Anna's reply to this offer was a stiff refusal, but Miss Blackburne had
not reached the lift when the woman came after her. "I've just
remembered, there's a telegram for Mrs. Sands' French maid, you might
give her by hand, if you're going to Newport to-day," she said, with a
grudging air. "It will be quicker than posting." Anna Schultz slipped
the envelope into Ellen's hand, and turned away without waiting for an
answer.
Having telephoned to the jewellers where she was employed, Ellen decided
to string the pearls at home. She dared not dash off to Newport without
seeing her mother, and arranging with a neighbour to stop in the house
while she was gone. On second thoughts, she told herself that, for Mrs.
Sands' own sake, it might be best not to risk a reassuring message of
any sort in advance. Someone else might happen to receive it! She
determined simply to work as fast as possible, and take the first train
she could catch for Newport, with the restrung rope of pearls.
* * * * *
Beverley dreaded the night of the dance more even than she had dreaded
her mission, nearly a year ago, in Albuquerque.
It seemed very long since she had been radiantly happy in the thought of
this glorified cottage at Newport--"Gulls' Rest"--Roger's present to
her. She hated it now, and everything associated with it; the fuss of
settling into the place, in a foolish hurry, though the Newport season
had not yet begun: Roger's determination to begin with a house-party and
a dance; his civil, quiet coldness to her; the strange look she caught
in his eyes at times; the mystery of Clo's silence, which deepened day
by day; fear of reprisals for loss of the papers; these things seemed
harder to bear in Newport than at home in New York. Often Beverley
wondered how long she would be sane.
The Sands had brought with them a couple of friends: two others had
joined them the day after, and half a dozen more had come since. Roger
had engaged all the rooms in a small but delightful hotel for extra
guests who would arrive for the dance and stay the night; and, in
advance of the season as the house-warming was, word had gone out that
the entertainment would be worth a long journey. The favours for the
cotillon were said to have cost ten thousand dollars; and there was to
be a "surprise" of some sort. Perhaps this was the reason why Mrs. Heron
changed her mind, and John Heron wired to Roger that he and his wife
would be pleased to come on from Narragansett, where they were spending
a weekend for Heron's health.
The invitation had been sent to the Herons by Roger's firmly expressed
wish, but Beverley had not dreamed that it would be accepted. And, after
all, they were both coming to the dance! This seemed ominous. It gave
her one more fear for the dreaded night.
Through the morning she still wildly hoped for news from Clo. Even as
the afternoon wore on she did not utterly despair; but at six o'clock,
when Roger advised her and the other women staying in the house to rest
till dressing-time, she definitely gave up. For the first time since
that Sunday night which marked the end of happiness, Roger slipped his
hand under her arm in a friendly, familiar way.
"Come along," he said. "I'll trot you up to your room and see that you
lie down. I want you to look your best to-night; and you know dinner's
at eight. You won't have more than an hour's nap. I suppose it'll take
you at least an hour to dress?"
"Just about," Beverley answered, dully. She knew that she could not
sleep, but she was worn out with the effort of "keeping up" before her
guests. She expected Roger to leave her at the door of her room, which
he had entered only when the house was being shown to friends; but to
her surprise, almost alarm, he followed her in. She said that she would
not ring yet for Léontine. She would unfasten her own frock and find her
own dressing-gown.
"I'll draw the curtains for you," Roger suggested, in the coolly kind
manner to which she had grown accustomed during the black fortnight.
"One rests one's brain best in twilight, I think. I'm sure you need
rest. I never saw you so pale. I hope you're not worried about
to-night?"
"Worried? Why should I be worried?" she echoed. "I'm sure everything
will go well, aren't you?"
"I hope so," he said, gravely. "You haven't shown me your new dress. I
suppose it's come?"
"Oh, yes," Beverley replied, convinced that it was not about the dress
he thought or cared. "It came the day after we arrived."
"Good! Then you'll be able to do full justice to the pearls!"
Beverley had the impulse to throw herself into her husband's arms and
upon his mercy; but she would not, or could not--she hardly knew which.
It seemed to her that he was being purposely cruel, and was deliberately
testing, torturing her, to see how much she could bear and not break.
"Let him find out when the time comes," she thought, in sullen despair.
Instead of confessing her trouble she asked if he would like to see her
new gown.
"No," Roger said. "I'll wait till you're ready and I can see you in your
glory--pearls and all."
Beverley merely smiled an answer, and wondered what Roger thought of her
smile. He drew the curtain, and led her to rest, asking at the door that
she would promise to call him when she was dressed. "I want to have a
good look at you before you go downstairs," he added as he went out.
Adjoining Beverley's bedroom was a small room whose wall appeared to be
composed entirely of mirrors. It was a glorified wardrobe with mirror
doors, and light and ventilation came from above. Behind the mirror
doors were deep closets, some of which were lined with cedar, others
with sandalwood; and at the back of one was an ingeniously concealed
safe. In this safe Mrs. Roger Sands' jewels had already been placed, and
among them was the empty case which had contained the queen's pearls.
Beverley slid back the sandalwood panel, and opened the steel door
behind it, which was manipulated by a miniature time-lock.
"Suppose I wear diamonds and emeralds," she thought, "and tell Roger
they match better with my dress than the pearls--that I'll wear the
pearls another time?"
But at the best this would only postpone the evil moment.
She took off her dress of embroidered white organdie, and put on a _robe
de chambre_. Then she dropped wearily down on a great, cushiony sofa,
not to rest, but because she had nothing else to do.
It was very still in her room, save for a far-off murmur of waves below
the rocks. When she had remained thus for about three quarters of an
hour she sprang up, her brain throbbing more feverishly, her body
quivering more uncontrollably than when she had lain down. It was close
upon seven o'clock, and she rang for Léontine. Her hair had to be done,
and the whole process of dressing would need quite an hour.
"I daresay Mary Stuart took a lot of pains dressing to have her head cut
off," she thought bitterly.
Léontine came, and made ready her mistress's bath. She emptied a bottle
of eau de Cologne into the tepid water, but for once the refreshing
scent failed to revive Beverley. She was like a creature in a dream as
Léontine wound her long hair in bands round her head (a new fashion
Roger had fallen in love with a few weeks ago), fastening it here and
there with diamond pins. "Madame will be late if we are not careful,"
the Frenchwoman said. "Everything takes so long to-night." She laid on
the floor at Beverley's feet a cloud of silver gauze, supple as chiffon.
It was the new dress and Madame must step into it to avoid ruffling her
hair. Beverley obeyed, and when her arms had slid into the odd little
jewelled sleeves, she let Léontine draw her gently in front of a mirror.
"Madame is like a marvellous statue of ivory and silver," the maid
exclaimed. "But she should have some colour. If Madame--but no, it is
too late. There is a knock. It will be Monsieur. Shall I open the door?"
"Yes, open the door," Beverley echoed. Her voice sounded metallic and
unnatural in her own ears.
XXXVI
"WE DO THINGS QUICKLY OVER HERE"
"Is this heaven?" Clo wondered.
"No, you darling, it's not. It's our same poor old world; but it'll be
near heaven if you'll get well and live for me," said Justin O'Reilly.
Then it seemed to the girl that she heard a very odd, choking sound, and
on to her half-parted lips fell a drop of something hot. She tasted
this, and found it salt.
"You--you can't be crying?" she mumbled.
"I am." O'Reilly answered, "crying with joy. I don't remember doing it
before--in joy or sorrow. Here goes another tear! Sorry! I couldn't help
spilling it on you. Shan't happen again."
O'Reilly's face was close to hers. She smiled up at him. Everything
seemed strange except that he should call her darling. That, somehow,
was not strange at all. Nor was it strange that his head should be bent
over her upturned face. Yet he said it was the same poor old world!
"I thought I was dead," she explained.
"I thought so, too, for a minute, and it was the worst minute and the
worst thought I ever had. But you're alive. And you're going to live. I
tell you that on the doctor's authority. He and the nurse are having a
confab in the next room. In fact, when we saw you coming to all right,
after the anæsthetic (a bullet had to come out of your poor little
shoulder!) I asked them to leave me alone with you. I wanted to be the
first one your eyes saw. You're going to live for me, aren't you?
Because I adore you, you know!"
"I know," the girl echoed, floating on a strange, bright wave of joy.
"You know I adore you?"
"Something told me it would come out like that," she said. "In those
long days when I had to lie still in my room and listen to Kit and
Churn, another voice--so different from theirs!--seemed to say it in my
ear. Your message for me in the newspaper--I was sure it was for me--put
it into my head. I couldn't answer. But the message was the greatest
comfort! I didn't feel alone after that."
"Precious one! You're a star heroine, and a martyr and a saint, and I
don't know what not. But most of all, you are my life--my very life.
I've had a big disappointment since I parted from you--lost a thing I'd
wanted for years--lost it to Roger Sands. His revenge for--I hardly know
what! Yet finding you and holding you like this shows me that nothing
else matters. What's a house, anyhow, except this darling house not made
with hands--your little body, house of your soul? When you know me
better, could you learn to love me, do you think, if I try hard to teach
you?"
"Oh, but I do love you already," said Clo, as a matter of course. "Even
that first night--there was something about you--I hated to cheat and
rob you the way I did. And it was wonderful hearing your voice in the
telephone, in Peterson's dreadful room. It wasn't only that I hoped
you'd help, it was because it was you--because you were different for me
from anybody else, different even from Angel."
"Good Lord, I should hope so!"
"And I've wanted you dreadfully ever since. That's why I thought it must
be heaven when I woke up just now and saw you."
"You angel!"
"How funny you should call me that. Oh, I've almost forgotten my poor
Angel! I must get to her, somehow." Clo looked around hastily, and
realized that she was lying on a bed in a peculiarly unattractive room,
and that O'Reilly was kneeling on the floor by the bedside. "How wicked
of me to think more about you than her!"
"If you mean Mrs. Sands, you shall go to her when you're able. Mrs.
Sands is all right. You sent her something rather important by Miss
Blackburne, the pearl-stringer that you told me about that night in the
taxi--and in Krantz's Keller. I talked to the woman--and cursed myself
afterward for stopping to speak, when I found you and saw how every
instant had counted. I oughtn't to have waited even for a second."
"Oh, you couldn't have saved me if you'd come up without speaking to
Ellen. The shot was fired before I threw out the bag with the pearls,"
Clo broke in. "I remember now. Someone fired through the hole in the
door. It was Chuff, I'm sure. It didn't hurt much. It was like a heavy
blow, and I couldn't help dropping on my knees at the window. I felt
weak and queer, but I called to Ellen. Then somebody picked me up--Kit,
I think. I could hear them arguing what to do with me. Funny! I thought
of you then--and that's the last I remember till now."
"I must have been in the house by that time," O'Reilly soothed her. "I
had come for you! I was sure you'd be where Kit was, because of the
pearls. Denham and I had been trying to track Churn and Kit and
Chuff--all the lot you told me about--ever since you turned me down, in
Krantz's Keller."
"I didn't turn you down!"
"No, I don't mean that! You were a brave little soldier going into
battle on your own."
"A soldier? No, I was only a mouse."
"I know. 'The lion's mouse.' And to gnaw the net the lion was caught in,
you had to stick your head into another lion's den. But some memoranda
you'd picked up and left for us put Denham on the right trail. He
doesn't need much of a pointer, that chap! He fairly jumped on to the
track of a fellow named Isaacs--at least Isaacs is his 'alias'--a man
who's been suspected for a long time as a receiver of stolen goods--a
fence. When I got the tip that Kit and Churn were staying in the house
where we were to spot Chuff, I was sure I had the clue to you. I wish to
God we'd been five minutes earlier; but I thank Him we weren't five
minutes too late! If the police eventually bring the crime home to Kit
(that's improbable, Denham thinks) there's nothing to link up the story
with the name of Mrs. Sands."
"Oh, I'm not sure!" breathed Clo. "Kit knows about her. She told Churn."
"She won't tell any one else, you may depend on that. If she's accused
of the murder, she won't confess to stealing somebody's pearls as her
motive. She'll say that Peterson insulted her, and she feared him; some
sob-sister stuff of that sort."
"She did complain to Churn that Pete was horrible to her, and that if
Churn had been there to hear what he said, he'd have killed him quick,"
Clo remembered.