Part 7

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

This was bad luck! Clo had not expected O'Reilly to track her down so soon. But he was at the door. There was only that frail barrier of wood, and the space of a few seconds between them! He had discovered the loss of his door key, and doubtless the other loss as well. He had guessed who was the thief, and what was the thief's motive. He had hurried home. A moment more--just the little delay of fitting in a pass key--and he would catch the culprit red-handed; he would deprive her of the spoils!

Clear as a "cut in" from some moving picture, a scene rose before Clodagh's eyes. She saw herself at grips with O'Reilly. She saw him wrench the envelope from her hands as she resisted. She saw herself sobbing over her failure and Angel's lost hopes. That picture mustn't come true! The key attached to the watch-chain, she had removed from the safe door, and had laid watch and all on a buffet. Beside them she had placed the door key. Now, as the chambermaid chattered in the corridor, and O'Reilly made light of his loss, Clodagh moved faster than any figure in a moving picture. She snatched up everything on the buffet, pushed all into the safe, softly shut the steel door, concealed it with the panel which slipped readily into its groove, and fled into the adjoining bedroom.

Lights from across a court showed that the sole doors were those of a bath and a clothes-closet. There was no way out from the bedroom. Entrance and exit to the suite were to be had only through the sitting room.

"I might have known," Clo reflected. Too late she recalled that through the nearest door had appeared the couple in evening dress. She was caught like a mouse in a trap (poor mouse, who had meant to gnaw the encircling net!) caught unless--unless! Her heart gave a leap as she saw the one way out.

The night was warm, and the window had been opened wide to let in the blue dusk. Light from opposite windows giving on the court shone upon a stone coping. It was broad, as copings go, broad enough for some white roses dropped from a window above to lodge without falling farther. It was this conspicuous splash of white on the dark stone which put into Clo's mind the word "unless."