The Lion's Mouse Part 21

"KIT!"

Somehow Clo got to the telephone, which was placed on the wall by the door, and her hand trembled on the receiver before she realized that the bell which rang was in the adjoining room. There was no communicating door between, but the wall must be almost as thin as cardboard, for the noise seemed to smite her ear-drum. For an instant Clo's relief was overwhelming; but as the shrill noise struck her nerves blow after blow, they rebelled. Her brain refused to work until, suddenly, blessed silence fell.

Once more she had a sense of being saved. The power of recollection came back. She knew that she had been going to look for the thing which had dropped out of Peterson's handkerchief, and rolled out of sight. She went down on her knees for the second time, but only to spring up, and stand quivering like a creature at bay. Again the telephone bell was ringing, and now the sound was in the room. The call was for 658. She answered at once.

"h.e.l.lo!" she saluted the unknown.

"h.e.l.lo!" came the response, in a man's voice. "This is Chuff calling.

Are you Peterson?"

"Peterson is in the room," returned Clo, after an instant's pause, in which her heart missed a beat. "But he can't come to the 'phone."

"Oh, say, is that you, Kit?" the man wanted to know.

Clo was almost incapable of thinking; but she was vaguely aware that the accent was slightly foreign. "Yes," she ventured. "It's Kit."

"Nice thing you are! I've been trying to get you the last ten minutes.

Thought your room was next door to his. Couldn't you hear your own 'phone from Petes'?"

"I've just come in," said Clo.

"You're late. Anything wrong? Your voice sounds sort of queer."

"I've got chewing gum in my mouth," said Clo "What do you want to say to Pete?"

"I want to know if he's got the papers."

Clo's blood rushed to her head. This looked like a wonderful chance to tap a secret, if she didn't lose it by giving the wrong answers.

Beverley Sands' whole future might depend upon the next few minutes.

"Hold the line a second or two," she said. She needed to think.

If she replied that Peterson had the papers, embarra.s.sing questions might be asked. If she said that he hadn't, the man at the telephone might end the conversation before she had learned enough to help Angel.

"I'll try hedging," she decided, and began again with a tentative "h.e.l.lo!" For an instant there was no response, and Clo was sick with fear lest she had been cut off. But luck was with her. The foreign-sounding voice began again: "Well, is Pete there this time?"

"No," said the girl. "Pete is--packing. He wants me to say it isn't much after ten. He's expecting to get the papers any minute now."

"He 'phoned me he'd made ten the time limit. Didn't he tell Olga that Stephen would sure be done for if she didn't hand over the real docs by ten o'clock sharp?"

"Olga!" ... "Stephen!" ... Clo felt that she was hearing things she had no right to know.

"The lady's had her hands full all the afternoon and evening," she answered carefully. "I suppose you know what's been going on?"

"Don't know a d.a.m.ned thing since Pete 'phoned some little skirt had brought around the wrong papers to the hotel. Tell him to quit his packing and show up at the 'phone."

"He's gone out this very instant," said Clo. "A boy has come to the door to say there was someone to see him downstairs. Maybe it's the right one. He won't be long anyhow. But I'm just as glad to have a chance for a word with you while he's out of the way. Seems sort of funny he didn't put you wise about the excitement, you know where."

"You mean Park Avenue?"

"Yes. I can't talk in the 'phone the way I would if the wall was thicker. Didn't Pete tell you about the present of pearls the lady got from her husband?"

"What pearls?"

"I can't give you their whole history, but maybe Pete could, if he wanted to."

"What makes you think so? Have you got on to some frame up, or are you kidding?"

"Well. Somebody relieved the lady of them. That's what's made her busy the rest of the time. Might account for doc.u.ments being late."

"Say, what are you giving me? Has Pete made a deal on his own?... Pearls instead of papers?"

"Hold the line again for a jiffy, and I'll go through his togs."

"All right. Look sharp."

Clo let the receiver hang loose, and for the third time went down on her knees before the chest of drawers. Thrusting her arm underneath, she pa.s.sed her hand over the dirty carpet. Lodged against the wall at the back, and in a corner, was something round and hard, a thing which seemed to be about the size of a small filbert. The girl brought it out between thumb and finger, freed it of dust, and saw an immense pearl.

"That settles that!" she said to herself. Peterson was the thief. But had he stolen the envelope as well as the pearls? Oh, if she could only galvanize the dead to speak! But the next best thing was to speak to the telephone. The truth might come from that direction, bit by bit, piecing the different parts of the story together.

Clo, getting to her feet again, was struck with a sudden luminous idea.

"Kit," the woman she was personating, the woman apparently set to watch Peterson, had found out about the pearls. Either she had believed him a traitor to the "gang," or she had wanted the pearls for herself. In either case she had killed him to get them; and one pearl had escaped to tell the tale of its fellows.

Yes, "Kit" had the pearls. But where were they, and where was she? The woman was not in her room, because the telephone bell had been ringing there and she hadn't answered. What if she hadn't been able to get back to her room after the murder? Kit might have locked her door when she came to have a chat with Peterson. It was likely enough there'd be things in her quarters which she wouldn't want a prying chambermaid to see! Perhaps she'd seen Peterson looking at the pearls. Perhaps, when she knocked, he had thrust the broken rope back into his pocket with the loose pearls. Perhaps Kit had put him off his guard, chatting of other things, while he packed. But no, she had caught him unawares when he sat as he was sitting now! Clo pictured her offering to help him pack. He had lolled comfortably while Kit worked. Then, she had come behind him and dealt that frightful blow with the b.u.t.t of his own pistol. A strong, determined woman, Kit!

Clo remembered how she and Beverley had walked slowly from the corridor of the lift into Peterson's corridor, looking at the numbers over the doors; and remembered how she had said to Angel, "This must be the right way to turn." Even after that, they had paused a moment for Beverley to gather up her failing courage; and if Kit had then been in the act of opening the trunk, she could easily have hidden herself inside before the owners of the voices she heard had turned the corner. It must have given her a beautiful fright when someone sat down on the trunk with a thud! No wonder she had jumped, and made the big box shake!

Kit's actions later could be plausibly accounted for, too. She must have guessed that one of the women she had heard speaking (had seen, perhaps, if she contrived to peep from the trunk when their backs were turned) had been in Peterson's room. How she must have wished that she'd taken time to lock his door on the outside! As it was, she couldn't have been sure that an alarm would not be given downstairs. Her one thought must have been haste; and Clo doubted that, if she had forgotten her key in Peterson's room, she would have ventured back to get it. No, she would have crept out of the trunk, and looked at her dress in the dim light to see whether blood stains showed. If she wore dark clothing, she might have run the risk. Clo pictured her locking the trunk, and following, as closely as she dared, the cloaked figures in gray and brown; pictured her pausing in the background to see whether the pair stopped at the desk, or went away with their secret; pictured her relief when they pa.s.sed on in silence; and the bid for freedom she must have made a minute later.

"I bet, by the time we were in our taxi, that woman was out of this, and legging it as fast as she could go. She wouldn't have taken a cab, for fear of being traced," Clo finished her reflections. She stared at the pearl in her hand.

"Awkward for me if Kit gets to the man at the other end while her double chats to him at the Westmorland!" the girl thought, and flew back to the telephone. "Are you there?" she called.

"You bet your sweet life I'm here. Did you find the beans?"

"I've found something I must bring to you. Where's the safest place?"

"What's the matter with here?"

"It won't do," she answered. "It's on account of Pete!"

"Well, then, come to Churn's. When'll you be there?"

This was a blow. Clo was angling for an address, with street and number.

But she would not be downed by one disappointment. "Same reason holds good for Churn's," she said. "Can't you think of some place Pete doesn't know? And think quick, or he'll be back."

"Think quick yourself! We'll go round to your own house, you dub! Pete ain't sure where your real pitch is--unless you've blabbed."