For the first few moments, spent alone by her in her bedroom, Ivy
could only feel relief--sheer, sobbing relief.
Then there came over her a sensation of utter, numb despair.
She had lost everything that makes life worth the living to such as
she…
But there was no time left her, now, to remember the past, or dread
the future. She must hurry--hurry.
So it was that, in less than five minutes after Rushworth had left
her, she was standing outside the flat, clad in a small pull-on black
hat and a big fur coat.
The lift came up, and then, just as she was going to step into it, she
remembered suddenly the bolster bag Rushworth had bought for her at
Dieppe. On the morning of Jervis’s death she had shaken out of the
inner _pochette_ the two or three pinches of--of “stuff” which
remained in it, into the fire, and then, hardly knowing what she was
doing, she had put it back in the red despatch-box. It would be all
right, there, till she went out of her widow’s mourning.
She couldn’t leave _that_ behind. Why it was worth a lot of money!
Besides, she would give up wearing black as soon as she reached the
place of safety Rushworth had promised her.
“Wait a minute,” she said to the porter. “I’ve forgotten something. I
won’t be a second!”
She put her key in the lock, and rushed back to her bedroom.
Meanwhile there began an insistent ringing for the lift from the
bottom of the shaft, in the hall of the Mansion.
The porter knew pretty Mrs. Lexton’s ways. He felt sure that when she
had said: “I won’t be a second!” she meant probably five minutes,
maybe even longer than that, especially if she had forgotten
something.
The bell was ringing continuously now, and with a shock the man
remembered that the agent for Duke of Kent Mansion was coming to see a
leak in the roof this very afternoon.
Quickly he pulled the cable, and the lift slid down.
Meanwhile Ivy had run back into her bedroom, turning up the electric
light as she walked through the door. Quickly she took the three keys
she always carried about with her in her embroidered black vanité
case, and, unlocking the half of the great cupboard, she seized the
despatch-box.
The lid fell back the wrong side, queerly. Someone failing to force
the lock had prized open the hinges, and the bag with its beautiful
emerald and pearl clasp was gone--gone!
She threw a wild look round her. What could she take with her? Then
she remembered what Rushworth had said. No, she mustn’t take anything.
Nothing, apart from that little bolster bag, was of any real value.…
She turned out the light, and, running blindly through the dark hall,
opened the front door of the flat. She hadn’t been more than two or
three minutes, after all.
She was trembling now; she felt strung-up and terrified, hardly
conscious of what she was doing.
She opened wide the lift gates. They were already ajar, and then--her
little feet stepped through into the void.
The man below heard a terrible scream, followed by an awful thud,
thud, on the iron top of the lift.
And, at once, with a fearful sensation of dismay, he knew what he had
done. He had omitted to shut the gates for the first time since he had
been on this job.
For one thing, apart altogether from that little matter of the agent’s
visit, he, too, was excited--he, too, had been wondering what was
going to happen. Everyone in Duke of Kent Mansion had been thrilled by
the news of the reprieve. And, in his excitement at seeing the heroine
of the Lexton Mystery, and in his certainty that he would be up again
in less than a minute, he had left the lift gates ajar.
In one rushing moment, while on his way to the house-telephone to ring
up the engineer, he visualised with dreadful clearness the Coroner’s
court, the censure passed on him by the jury, his dismissal from this
good situation, and the consequent angry despair of his wife.
Poor, pretty, pleasant-spoken “Ivy,” as he, in the company of
thousands of other men of all ages, conditions, and kinds, had fallen
into the way of secretly calling her--she had brought bad luck on
everybody who came in touch with her. Well! Now she wouldn’t be able
to harm anybody, man or woman, any more.