The Lion's Mouse Part 29

"Please do, madame," Leontine urged, again attacking the tiny hooks which fastened her mistress's dinner dress. "I noticed that Mademoiselle did not put the number of the house or street where she is staying. But, of course, Madame will know both."

"Of course," echoed Beverley. She guessed that Leontine must be consumed with curiosity as to Clo's disappearance and the departure of Sister Lake.

When Leontine had hooked the last hook Beverley went to the boudoir.

There she sat down with Clo's cryptic message, praying that Roger might not come till she had unravelled it.

But, after all, the meaning of one sentence after another sprang quickly to her eyes. She had realized at once that Clo wrote to Leontine because she dared not use the name of Mrs. Sands. This suggested that she was in a house where the name of Sands was not unknown. Now, concentrating upon the queer letter, Beverley understood each veiled hint. Clo wished her not to "worry." Clo was "picking up all she had lost." Clo "hoped to call before long, and show what good progress" she had made. All this could have only one meaning. And how like Clo, to have treasured in some brain-cell Leontine's queer name of "Rossignol"!

She had written nothing to waken suspicion; and as no house, no street, was mentioned, there need be no dread of discovery for guilty consciences. Beverley judged that O'Reilly's name as well as Roger's might be known to someone near to Clo. Evidently she was afraid to send a letter to Justin O'Reilly. But the end of the postscript was amazing.

O'Reilly had been kind to Clo!

"She went to see him again!" was the thought in Beverley's mind. "Then, perhaps, she didn't go back to the Westmorland. What can 'kind' mean, unless he's promised to help instead of hurt us?"

But she must find out what had happened last between O'Reilly and Clo.

How should she communicate with him? Should she send a note by district messenger to the Dietz? Or--should she telephone, before Roger came, and learn all that she wished to know without delay? Quickly she decided upon this bolder course. She called up O'Reilly's hotel, and soon heard his "h.e.l.lo!"

"I'm Mrs. Sands," she explained. "I've a letter from Clo. She sends you a message."

The voice from the Dietz had sounded indifferent. It was so no longer.

"What news?" O'Reilly asked. "Tell me everything."

She told him, and read Clo's letter to Leontine distinctly, that he might miss no word. "I understand why it might be dangerous to put an address, or to write to you or me," Beverley added. "But it's frightful not to know where she is. Explain what you can quickly, because--I'm expecting someone."

"Peterson stole your pearls," O'Reilly answered. "He 'phoned Heron and offered to sell them. He must have been hiding in your room and overheard our talk. Later, I answered him for Heron. Miss Riley was in Peterson's room then, and she and I got in touch. She asked through the 'phone if I'd help. I said 'Yes,' and she told me to come with a taxi. I picked her up outside the hotel, and took her where she wanted to go: a restaurant, Krantz's Keller. When I'd heard what she had to say I proposed to employ a private detective. Don't worry; he's absolutely loyal, and I'm on your side, after all, Mrs. Sands--I may as well confess it's for Miss Riley's sake. She repented stealing the papers from me, you know, and sent them back in the envelope just as they were----"

"Clo sent you the papers! You're mistaken. I know she didn't send them,"

Beverley cried. She had forgotten her fear of being overheard, forgotten everything, but the sound of a door closing caused her to start. It was a strange sound just then, because both doors had already been shut when she went to the telephone, the door leading into her bedroom, the door into the hall, and she had heard neither open since. Yet she could not be mistaken. Somebody had closed one of those doors and must previously have opened it.

Sick with fear, Beverley dropped the receiver and ran to look into the hall. No one was there. She flew to the door of her bedroom and peeped in. The room was empty. She rang for Johnson, who appeared at once.

"Has Mr. Sands come in?" she asked.

"I think not, Madam," the butler replied.

"Go and see. Search everywhere."

She did not move while the man was away.

"Mr. Sands is not in the house, Madam," Johnson solemnly announced.

"Thank you!" Beverley said. Yet she was not relieved. Something told her that it was Roger who had shut the door.

x.x.x

WHAT CLO DID WITH A KNIFE

When Kit and Churn left Krantz's Keller they walked fast along Fourteenth Street till they came to Sixth Avenue. There they appeared to hesitate, as if they could not decide whether to go up or down town.

Clo, as close behind them as she dared to venture, guessed instantly that, until now, they had not entirely made up their minds which of several hiding-places it would be safest for them to seek.

Judging by their linked arms, and the nearness of the two heads, their conversation was absorbing. They stopped at the corner, and Clo stopped also. Presently the pair resolved on going down toward Thirteenth Street. Clo went after them. They walked for several blocks; and the girl following always glanced at the number of each street she pa.s.sed.

There had been an accident to a taxi, however, in the neighbourhood of Eleventh Street, and a crowd had collected. In this crowd Clo nearly lost the quarry. She had a moment of despair, then saw the skirt of Kit in the distance. No longer was she wearing a pink cloak, but a white one. She must have had a chance to turn it wrong side out!

So excited was Clo that she forgot to notice the streets. Whether the couple turned off the Avenue into Tenth, or Ninth, or Eighth, she was not sure. She was certain only that she was on their track. Then followed a chase across town. In this, the girl finally lost her head a little, but when it seemed that she could drag herself no further, Kit and Churn stopped in front of a house, and rang the bell.

"Neither of them lives there, or there'd be a latch-key!" Clo thought, hovering on the other side of the street.

It was some time before the two were let in; but after a delay of four or five minutes a woman opened the door. A dim gas light shone from the hall or lobby, and Clo's impression was of a dark brown face, the face of a negress. There was a short discussion; then the woman nodded, stepping aside to let Kit and Churn pa.s.s. An instant later the door shut them in.

Clo stood gazing at the house. It was one in a row of old-fas.h.i.+oned, shabby brick buildings, four storeys in height. A light showed in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but other windows were black. Suddenly, as Clo watched, a yellow gleam flashed in a fourth-storey room but at the same moment a man stepped to the window and pulled down a dark blind. Clo thought that this man was Churn.

"They're going to stay," she argued; and crossing the street at a distance from the house, the girl looked at it with interest. There was no street lamp near, and she could not see the number; but there was a small plaque at the side of the door, and Clo tripped up the steps to read it. Joy, the place was a boarding house!

The pair having mounted to the fourth storey, Clo thought she might venture to ring. She pulled an old-fas.h.i.+oned bell, and her heart thumped in her breast as the shrill sound jingled through the house.

"I must have some tale to tell--why I'm here so late, wanting a room,"

she reflected.

The door was opened by the woman who had admitted Kit and Churn. Not only was she black, but she was fat and slovenly. Staring at the new-comer, she exclaimed with a mouth full of gum:

"Say, is you another fren' o' Mr. Cheffinsky?"

"Chuff!" was the pa.s.sword that flashed through Clo's brain. "This is where he lives!" She was triumphant.

"I don't know anything about Mr. Cheffinsky," she replied, "but I'm in a sc.r.a.pe, and a friend of mine once recommended me to this house. I saw some people come in, and a light. It's still a boarding-house, isn't it?"

"It ain't no foundlin' orphant asylum."

"I don't ask for charity. I've got money to pay my board. But I don't want an expensive room. One at the top of the house will do."

"Say, it's a real funny time o' night for a young girl like you to go lookin' foh a home to lay her haid," remarked the negress. "But you can step in the hall. I'll call Mis' MacMahon. She's the lady o' the house.

We've got a room upstahs, but I don't know whethah she'll let you have it."

She allowed Clo to enter, and left the girl standing as she descended the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs.

"'MacMahon' sounds hopeful!" Clo thought. The girl had lodged drearily in New York, but she had never been in a house as dreary as this.

Mrs. MacMahon's look was less inspiring than her name. She was of the big-jowled type; a grim woman of middle age; and her manner suggested suspicion. But Clo began to speak first, with her best brogue, which she could use, when needed, with great effect.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, for intruding on ye at this time of the night," said the girl in her creamiest voice, with a child-like smile, "but the lady I'm maid for and me had a quarrel about a young man, and rather than give him up, I just walked away from the house, without waitin' to pack my things. I've walked till I'm played out! I tould yer maid a friend o' mine had spoken o' Mrs. MacMahon's place and I didn't forget. I'll pay a week in advance if you'll take me in."

Whether Mrs. MacMahon believed these out-pourings was an open question, but her face softened slightly at sound of the brogue.

"Irish, are you!" she said.