Part 16

Clo was not on sentinel duty when the explosion came. The hole in the wall was open (she stuffed it up only when someone knocked, lest the pair should take alarm at the clearness of sounds), but it was late in the afternoon of a blazing hot day, and the girl lay on her narrow bed, disgusted with life. She had now paid for a second week in advance. There wasn't money to go on with for long, at the present rate, and she knew not how to get more, but it was too hot to trouble about the future. The quarrel next door was so sordid that Clo had ceased to listen, when suddenly the names "Olga and Stephen," spoken loudly by Kit, waked her from a half doze. With the light swiftness of a cat she sprang off the bed, and went to her post.

XXXII

"STEPHEN'S DEAD!"

"I thought you'd sure know the whole story," Kit was saying.

"I on'y knowed about Stephen. That I had to know," said Churn.

"But you knew why Pete came to New York, instead of going West, when he got out of stir in Chicago?"

"I know he come to kill Heron----"

"Hully gee! Not so loud!"

"Well, I know 'oo he came for den, if you like dat better."

"But that wasn't the whole reason."

"I knowed he was goin' to get hold o' some papers for Chuff; papers dat was mixed all up mit our business."

"H'm! That's what Chuff wanted us to think--that they concerned us. But if you know about those papers, you must know the rest, about Olga."

"I know vat Olga and Stephen vas to each other, if dat's vat you mean."

"And who Olga is?"

"Olga Beverley."

"Greenhorn! You never got further than that?"

"No. Vat for I get furder? I never see 'er. She's a name to me, dat's all. Nevaire vould I heard even dat name if I didn't take care o' Stephen, when Jake vas off on a bust or doin' a job for Chuff."

"Funny we never got on to this line o' talk before," mused Kit.

"I don't see vy 'funny.' You and me always haf something better to talk about, Katchen. And till dese nine days in dis hole, we never 'ad too much time together."

"If Pete had been found dead and I hadn't done it, I'd say it was 'Olga!' She was the woman who had to give up the papers to him. He told me he was waitin' for the papers to come. He said he wasn't sure whether she'd bring 'em herself, or this girl you've seen about in the newspapers; the one who called on him Sunday afternoon. I've told you about the women's voices in the hall, and someone sittin' plump on the trunk when I was inside. Well, if I could o' peeped, I bet I'd seen Olga. She was one of the women dressed for the automobile they're tryin' to trace an' can't."

"Would you knowed Olga if you 'ad seen her?"

"Would I? Say, did you never hear of Roger Sands?"

"He was de guy who worked for Heron las' year, and got de gang goin' after him."

"Well, it was Olga he married, but not with her own name. She'd took another so as to get away with the papers. She's had the papers from then till now. The thing that interests me, and maybe will you, is something else. It popped into my nut to-day that the pearls are hers! I bet something went wrong with the papers, and she gave Pete the pearls instead. I bet he was studyin' how to double-cross Chuff, and square himself when--when my act comes on."

"What 'old would Chuff 'ave on a woman married mit a big fellah like Sands?" Churn wanted to know. "Vy she let herself be skinned like dat, for Stephen's dead an' stiff dese tree weeks or more?"

"Yes," Kit repeated. "Stephen's been dead 'most a month. That's one reason they couldn't let things slide, so the minute Pete was free they put him on the job. He was keen, because of Heron. And John Heron blew into New York just the right time, for the plan. Pete was to get the papers first, and then--you know what."

"Yes, I know dat. But Stephen--Stephen gone, what 'old 'ad Chuff on Olga?"

"Booby, dear, Olga doesn't know Stephen's dead."

Clo's blood rushed to her brain. She felt faint. Had she been on her feet she would have fallen. This was the one thing of all for Beverley. Clo felt that she hated this cruel Cheffinsky with an almost murderous hatred. How could she let Beverley know, and make her understand that "Stephen" was dead. Ought she to go back with her news to Park Avenue, and abandon the pearls? The police could never be asked to take a hand in this business, and before she could even ask help from O'Reilly and Denham, Churn might have disappeared. With herself as sentinel off duty, nothing was sure, for a dangerous restlessness possessed the pair. Still, Beverley would sacrifice the pearls for the knowledge that her enemies had no longer any hold upon her.

"If I dared telegraph!" the girl thought. For she wanted Beverley to have both the knowledge and the pearls.

About this hour Violet was in the habit of toiling up with beer for Kit and Churn, and water or lemonade for their neighbour. The woman was due in a few minutes and Clo spent the interval in concocting a message for Léontine Rossignol.

"Tell your mistress I've had news since I last saw her that Stephen is dead," were the words she decided on, before Violet's arrival was advertised by a tinkle of ice.

The telegram was delivered that night at the flat in Park Avenue, but Mr. and Mrs. Sands and their household had left for Newport. Only a parlour maid remained. She detested Léontine, being Bohemian by birth, while Léontine was French. Anna Schultz decided to forget indefinitely the telegram for Léontine Rossignol.

When she had sent the message, Clo's thoughts went back to the pearls. She would be driven to leave the house soon for lack of money. If she had to go without the pearls, she would feel herself a failure. The net was proving tough for the tiny teeth of a mouse! But the mouse was ready to do anything rather than give up.

That evening Churn again announced his intention to go out at any cost. Whither he was bound, Clo did not know, for she had missed scraps of talk in the next room. Kit cried, and in the midst of hysterical sobs, the door slammed. Churn had gone! Kit continued to sob.

Clo's blood took fire. She flamed with courage. Having fixed upon her plan of action she darted into the passage and knocked on Kit's door.

"Who's that?" came the sharp answer.

"It's only me. The little girl from the next room," Clo explained in a small voice like a child's. Her hair hung over her shoulders, and she wore a cheap blue muslin dressing gown chosen by Violet.

Kit threw open the door so suddenly, and stared so keenly through the dusk that Clo shrank back a little. "What do you want?" snapped Kit.

"Oh, maybe I oughtn't to have come!" Clo apologized. "I heard you crying. And I'm so homesick and miserable myself! Don't be angry."

Kit opened the door wide. Her bleached yellow hair bristled round her face.

"I didn't know I was howling so loud. Say, can you hear us talkin', me and my husband? I hope we don't keep you awake nights."

"You haven't kept me awake once," Clo assured her with truth. "Crying's easier to hear than talking. You see, I'm in trouble and I'm awfully lonely."

"_I_ haven't got any real trouble," said Kit. "Me and my husband sometimes have a spat, like all married folks, and I'm fool enough to bawl. He's out now. Would you like me to come in and visit with you a while?"

"I'd love it!" gasped Clo. She would have preferred an invitation to her neighbour's room, but she hoped for that later. Kit locked her door carefully and slipped the key down the neck of her dress. She accepted Clo's suggestion to sit on the bed, which was more comfortable than the one broken-backed chair. Question after question she put, which cost her hostess tiresome flights of imagination to answer. Clo was far from regretting her move, however. If Churn were absent long, or if he went out again, Kit said that she would return as an escape from boredom.

It was eleven o'clock when once more Clo heard the two voices, and from their conversation Clo gathered that they did not expect Chuff back till the day after to-morrow.

"Day after to-morrow!" echoed Kit. "Then we _must_ get Isaacs here to-morrow."

"I t'ought of dat," said Churn. "I went up dere after I see Jake. Isaacs 'as started for Chicago on business, and won't be back till the same day as Chuff, day after to-morrah."

Clo drank in each word, and focussed her mind on its meaning. To-morrow, or the day after, her hour would come; then, or never.

XXXIII

THE PATCH ON THE PILLOW

Churn's excursion had justified itself, and the morning after his first absence he went out again. Toward noon Kit, in a "ready-to-wear" looking costume, knocked at Clo's door. "Thought you might want some candy," she said. "Shall I come in?"

Clo was cordial, and tried to be entertaining. "If I can make her like me, perhaps she'll go down to a meal with Churn, and leave me on guard," she reflected. Kit feared to stop long with her new friend lest Churn should arrive while she was "gadding." She dodged back and forth from room to room, and was at home to receive her husband in the afternoon.

Next morning early Clo heard Churn announce that he would meet Isaacs' train at the Grand Central; the "old lady" had told him the time. Kit objected. "You might miss him. Best wait at his place," she advised. But Churn would not be persuaded. He had seen Jake again, who prophesied that Chuff would not arrive before the afternoon. They had the whole morning to see Isaacs and bargain with him, but it would be a waste of time to hang about at "Isaacs' place." Churn would catch Isaacs at the train, and bring him round to Kit. She must clear up the room, and have everything ship-shape in an hour. But Kit's anger grew as Churn insisted. "I know why you're mad to get to the Grand Central," she flung at him. "Didn't you s'pose I noticed the name on the candy box. Bah! I ain't a fool. You said you was sick of bein' boxed up with me. That put me wise."

Churn protested innocence, and went off jauntily, but Clo looked for developments. "Kit's mum, to put Churn off the track," she thought. "But she means to follow him. She's bought no handbag. She can't very well take the pearls."

Clo had read a paragraph concerning Mr. and Mrs. Roger Sands. It referred to the "house-warming party" they were giving at their "lately acquired cottage in Newport." Apparently the affair had been mentioned before in the column devoted to "Society" news, but Clo had missed it. The allusion to the "house-warming," and dinner dance set Clo's brain whirling. Angel would be expected by her husband to wear the queen's pearls. If he already guessed the secret, this might be a plan to force his wife's hand. Beverley feared him. Clo had seen that. Angel must have the pearls for to-morrow night. And they must be strung, ready to wear, or they would be useless to her, arriving at the last moment. The girl would have been at her wits' end, but for that quarrel next door. If Kit did go spying on Churn...!

The door slammed after Churn. A second later Kit was knocking, calling her new friend by her new nickname: "Kid-Kid! Let me in, quick!"

Clo let her in. Kit was pinning on a wide-brimmed hat, and had her hands full with a veil, gloves, and parasol. "Tie this veil for me, there's a good kid!" she panted. "I'm mad at my husband. He's off to flirt with a beast of a girl in a candy store. They had a mash before we married. You're goin' to be in all mornin', ain't you?"

"I thought of running out to 'phone a friend of mine," said Clo, cleverly.

"Don't! There's a 'phone in the house, the room under mine--room of a pal away till this afternoon. He left his key with Mrs. Mac, and she lent it to my husband last night so he could borrow some novels for me; our pal has lots. We've not given the key back, so when I come home I'll take you down. I want you to stay in while I'm gone. All you need do is to sit with your door open, and see if any one knocks at mine. And I've got the key. But it's the same as every old key; 'tain't a special one like Ch----like our pal's. If a stranger calls look close, so you can describe the person."

"I undertake watchdogging in all its branches," said Clo. "Ta, ta!"

"I count on you!" were Kit's last words at the top of the steps.

"Bet your life you can!" the "kid" called after her. But as Kit ran downstairs, without stopping to look round, Clo dashed to her own open window. In a moment Kit's parasol went bobbing along the street. The coast was clear. Kit's manner made it certain that she had left the pearls behind.

Violet would not come up for the two breakfast trays for a long time yet. Kit's opinion of the key was the same as that already formed by Clo, and the girl was wild to test it. She snatched her own key from its lock, to try it in Kit's door. It went in, but stopped at the critical turn. There were two more rooms on this floor; a small one opposite Clo's, tenanted by a young man who went to work at seven o'clock; and another still smaller, used as a storeroom--a refuge for trunks, dust-pans, and brooms. The early bird never locked his door, but his key fell short of success.

The storeroom key remained. It did not fail. It turned all the way round in the lock, and Kit's door opened.

Clo's was shut and locked, in case Violet should break her rule and come too soon.

Not only did the girl expect to find the pearls, but Chuff's key, and she hoped to telephone if necessary, before making her "bolt." Wonderful that both these chances should fall together!

Clo knew that the pearls were kept in a drawer; but Kit would not go out and leave them in so obvious a place. Nevertheless, Clo began by looking through the drawers, of which there were six.

Churn's evening clothes hung from a hook on the wall; there was nothing in the pockets; nothing in the shoes which stood underneath except a pair of socks. Other hiding-place there was none, save the bed; and it was there that Clo expected to find the pearls.

Kit had made the bed, and neatly patted the two ill-matched pillows into shape. Clo stripped off the unbleached covers of these pillows and looked for some sign that the ticking had been ripped open. There was a patch on the larger pillow. One end of this patch was unsewn and held in place with a pin. Underneath it something hard could be felt with the hand. Clo undid the pin, and thrusting in her hand pulled out a packet made of a red silk handkerchief tied round with gold string from a confectioner's. Clo squeezed the tight folds of silk. They held the pearls.

It seemed a waste of time to open the handkerchief. She longed to run out of the house with her treasure, without a second's delay. Why search for Chuff's key? As she had found the pearls she did not need to 'phone. The girl was at the door, with her hand on the key, before she realized how mad it would be not to make certain of her find.

Yes, the pearls were really there, the darlings! She re-wrapped the parcel, and again was at the door when another thought struck her. Better make the bed look as it had looked before. She returned, put the pillows back into their covers, stood them up in place, and during the process decided that she would spare a moment to search for Chuff's key. It might come in handy. Kit had let drop that the key was a special key. Clo guessed that at times there were things to hide, and then Chuff would forget to leave that key for his friends! "It might be useful to Mr. O'Reilly's Denham," she thought. "If I can find it quick----"

And flitting about the room she pounced upon a key which answered Kit's description. It was on the mantelpiece--a small, flat key, of a "special" kind, because it was made for a Yale lock.

She shut the door softly behind her, and locked it as she went out. The borrowed key she replaced in the storeroom. Then she unlocked her own door, and tearing off the blue wrapper, put on the tan-coloured linen suit Violet had bought in a sale, for five dollars. There was a tan straw hat, too (Clo dared not appear in the brown toque and coat described by the newspapers), and a cheap handbag purchased for the pearls in case she should get them. It was a tight fit for the red silk bundle, but she squeezed it in, and added the big pearl found in Peterson's room. She would also have tucked in the Yale key, but the bag refused to shut, and she kept the key in her hand. What money she had left, she slipped inside her blouse; everything else she abandoned. Kit would rage in vain when she looked for the red handkerchief parcel.

"I can't have been half an hour," she thought, as she tripped past the breakfast trays and started downstairs. "Kit and Churn may be out a long while yet. I'd hate to come face to face with 'em in the street!"

Less than half way down, she heard Violet's voice, and her nerves jumped. "On my way up for them trays o'yourn," the woman said.

To whom was she speaking? Kit back already? Yes, Kit was answering her: "I'll run up ahead. I'm in a hurry."

The voices sounded near. Clo felt that her blood was turning to water. Should she fly back and lock herself into her room? No, for Kit would discover her loss, and would guess what had happened. A fight for the pearls would be too uncertain, and Kit would call Mrs. Mac and Vi to the rescue, or Churn might come----But could she hope to pass safely if she went on? No, she had promised to guard the door. Kit would accuse and stop her if they met.

In her anguish Clo's fingers closed upon Chuff's key. If only she could hide in Chuff's room before Kit reached his floor! She stumbled down the last few steps, and paused at the room under Kit's. Would the key fit? It went deep into the small keyhole, and turned. Kit must be close to the top of the stairs now.

XXXIV

TRAPPED

Trembling the girl locked herself into Chuff's room and went straight to the telephone. If O'Reilly were at home he would make a dash to the rescue. Her hand was on the receiver when she remembered that she was marooned. She was ignorant of the 'phone number and had never dared inquire the number of the house or street. Now, when it was too late, she wished with all her heart that she had slipped out late at night, while Kit and Churn slept, and thus found her bearings. She had not gone, because the pair always talked till after midnight, and the later the hour the more important their confidences. But surely she could not fall over this small stumbling block! The girl ran to a writing table and opened the blotting-book. It was old, thickly patterned with stains, but it contained not a single sheet of paper. She pulled out a drawer. There was writing paper in it, but unstamped. While she fumbled, hoping for an old envelope addressed to Chuff, the girl could hear the patter of feet overhead. Kit was in her own room walking about. Suddenly the boards ceased to creak. Kit had stopped. Was it at the bedside? Was she pulling the cover off the patched pillow?

Clo had turned to a shelf crowded with books and magazines when a new idea came to her. She snatched up the blotter and held it open, in front of a mirror, over the mantelpiece. "Dear Peterson," she read, "Churn will take you this, and----"

The line beneath mingled with others, and could not be disentangled, but the address of the house had been written above, and could be clearly read.

With a sigh of thanksgiving Clo ran to the telephone, called up Central, and asked for the Dietz Hotel. Her voice could no doubt be heard in the hall outside, and might even reach Kit's ears upstairs. But the door must be broken before she could be torn from the 'phone, and at this hour, when all the men boarders were out there was no strong arm for such work. Meantime, O'Reilly might come. The girl longed for him with a new and desperate longing.

The Dietz answered quickly. Mr. Justin O'Reilly was still staying in the hotel, but he had gone out. Tears started to Clo's eyes. She was trapped now, and must summon Beverley to get the pearls. She had not the Sands' 'phone number, and must ask Central to call the Park Avenue apartment. When she had done this, silence fell. But it was only for a moment. Clo stood, with her ear at the receiver still, when a loud bang on the door made her jump as though she had been shot. The door knob turned.

"You little devil!" shrilled Kit's voice. "You--thief! I know you're there. Wait till I catch you!"

"Hello!" spoke a foreign-sounding voice through the 'phone--the voice of a woman. "Hello! Yes, this is Mrs. Sands' flat. Mr. and Mrs. Sands are not at home."

"When will they be back?" asked Clo.

"I don't know that," answered the cold voice of Anna Schultz. "It may be a long time."

The girl had an instant of despair, but she was not yet beaten. As Kit pounded furiously on the door, Clo called up the jeweller where Ellen Blackburne was employed. Ellen had been in but gone out again; but, oh, she had just returned. She would step to the 'phone.

A moment later Ellen's calm "Hello" seemed to travel to her from a far-distant, peaceful world.

"This is Clo," replied the girl, conscious that voices outside the door ceased their clamour in order that ears might hear her message. "Yes, I said Clo! For God's sake get into a taxi and rush to the number and street I'm going to give you. Listen! Don't stop to ask questions. When you get here, you don't need to come in. I'll drop something out of the window. You can guess what. I'll expect you quick. Good-bye!"