The Lion's Mouse Part 30

"Yes, County Cork, and not over since very long," returned the girl.

"I'm from County Cork, me and me dead husband both," volunteered the woman. "I've been in New York these twelve years. Violet says you ast for a top-floor room?"

"I did that," said Clo.

"Well, a top-floor room is the only wan I've got vacant. How long would ye be wanting it for?"

"Oh, a few days, and maybe more."

"You can come and have a look. I don't boast of the room. It's last choice. I charge seven dollars with board."

"I don't mind seven dollars," said Clo, and followed her hostess up flight after flight of dimly lighted stairs. They were covered with oilcloth, and the hall smelled of escaping gas, but the girl was almost happy. The place was not attractive, but it seemed decent enough.

"It's a hall room, but a front one," explained Mrs. MacMahon, panting, as they reached the top of the house. Clo was enchanted to hear this, for it meant that the room must adjoin the one where Churn had pulled down the blind. She wondered if Churn were married to Kit. Perhaps she would find out by and by.

"There's a husband and wife come into the double room next," Mrs.

MacMahon went on, when she had shown Clo her proposed quarters. "The wall's kind of thin, for this room was part of the other once, but they're a quiet couple, I guess: and if you're quiet, too, you won't trouble each other. They're friends of a gentleman boarder we've had for some time, and they've been here to call on him, though they've never stayed before. I want 'em to be comfortable, so stir around as little as you can in the morning. I guess they're the kind that lies late in bed."

"I feel more as if I'd like to lie in bed all day!" sighed Clo.

"Well, sleep as much as you like. But don't be scared if ye hear folks movin' later on to-night. The friend of this couple is out, but he may come home and want to see 'em."

Clo paid seven dollars in advance for the room, and took pains to show that she had plenty of money. She begged also to buy or borrow a clean nightgown, and suggested that, if there were a new toothbrush in the house, she would be glad to have it. Mrs. MacMahon laughed. A nightgown she could lend, but as for a toothbrush, there wouldn't be one this side of the nearest drugstore. Miss Ryan (the name Clo gave) must wait till next day.

"Well, anyhow, maybe you've a bit you'll give me to eat!" the new boarder pleaded. "I'm that hungry I could bite off the door-k.n.o.b! I'll pay extra, of course--this time of night. And your coloured woman--Violet, isn't she?--shall have a couple of dimes for bringing up the food."

Mrs. MacMahon softened and asked what food her guest desired. Clo desired nothing so much as a knife, and made a bid to secure one by asking for meat. "Any old kind!--and some bread and milk. I'll give fifty cents--" (she watched the woman's eye)--"I mean, a dollar for my supper."

When Mrs. MacMahon had gone the girl held her breath to listen. Yes, the wall was thin! She could hear Kit and Churn talking in an ordinary tone, but she could catch few words, even when she laid her ear against the dusty paper. When the voices sank low, they reached her only in an indistinct rumble.

She guessed that the tiny room was separated from the larger one by a part.i.tion of laths and plaster, covered on each side with flimsy wall paper. She could feel as well as hear someone walking up and down, up and down, in the next room! No doubt it was Churn. Now and then he would pause. A piece of furniture would creak; then he would jump up, to begin walking again.

Presently Violet appeared, a coa.r.s.e nightgown hanging over her arm, a plate of bread and ham on a napkinless tray, and gla.s.s of bluish milk.

Clo gave the woman twenty cents, and promised the same sum if her breakfast were brought upstairs. Violet agreed to this bargain, which was well for the girl. She would have starved rather than desert her room long enough to eat while Churn and Kit remained in their quarters.

She surmised that they would not often go out.

Clo had told the truth in pleading hunger, but when she was alone and had locked her door, she took from the tray only the steel knife and fork which lay beside the plate. Having pushed the cot bed away from the wall, she sat down on the floor, Turk fas.h.i.+on. Choosing a spot which would be invisible with the bed in place, she waited till Churn was inclined to walk. Then she began delicately to dig at the plaster with her extemporized tools. Whenever Churn stopped, she stopped also, lest the rat-like noise should reach alert ears in the next room. For a long time she toiled, cautiously, slowly, gathering up bits of paper and plaster that fell, and collecting them in her lap. It was a tedious task, but not difficult. In less than an hour she had made--practically without noise--a hole the size of a silver dollar. It went through to the lathes; beyond that barrier her tools were of no avail. She needed a thin, sharp instrument like a hat-pin, to push between the slats of wood. A tiny hole would suffice. But she had no hat-pin in the close-fitting toque lent by Beverley. Her own was now a souvenir in O'Reilly's possession.

She tried hair-pins, but they bent, one after another. Then she searched for a nail, and found one at last, stuck in the wall, supporting a small mirror. Carefully she deposited this upon the bed (it wouldn't do to break a looking gla.s.s!) and set to work once more. At the end of twenty minutes' scratching, she felt resistance cease before the nail-point.

Hastily she withdrew it, lest it should pierce too far; and stretched on the floor she listened with her ear to the aperture on her side of the wall.

x.x.xI

THE NINE DAYS

"I wish Chuff would come, and get it over!" she heard Churn sigh aloud, in his sweet, foreign-sounding voice.

"I wonder why he went out?" said Kit. "He ought to have been home all evening. He was expecting Pete on business, you know."

"Can he have got onto de reason dat fellah Pete didn't come?"

"No, no," Kit answered. "I've told you a dozen times no! He wouldn't have gone to the Westmorland. Pete had to call on him. But there must have been something important to take Chuff out."

"Vat vas de plan?"

"Oh, what does it matter? To-night's changed everything for me, and you, too. You are goin' to stand by me, aren't you, Churn, through thick and thin?"

"You bettcha life! For de whole of vot I'm vorth!"

Kit's tone changed. She chuckled. "You may be worth a lot. You've married a rich heiress. See?"

"Sh, girl! If Chuff comes spyin' on us we don't vant him to hear dat word 'married.' He'd only laugh--or vorse."

"All right! But he ain't our master any more. We can do without him."

"Maybe he von't tink he can do vidout us."

"He'll _have_ to, when we get something good on the pearls. And say, I never thought you could kill any one and feel no more than I do now.

Churn, if you'd been there, you'd 'a' settled his hash long before I did. The things he said to me--and me your wife! It makes me sick to think o' them--and of him, the low beast!"

"Don't tink, den. Tink of me."

"I do. I love you, Boy! The minute I lamped the pearls--when I sensed they was real--I meant to get 'em, for you and me to set up house far away somewheres on our own. We can go to Buenos Aires or some place south, where they love a nice voice like yours, so you won't feel wasted. If Chuff knew what we've got here in this table drawer!"

"Better tie 'em up in your handkerchief again. If Chuff----"

"Oh, Chuff nothing! I feel in my bones, now he's so late, he won't come home to-night. I don't care what happens to Chuff. Let's go to bed."

"No--not yet. I vait."

"Peterson thought he could say what he liked to me, the pig!" Kit went on. "Well, he's paid. His blood's on his own head. Oh, Churn, it was on his head, every sense o' the word! I didn't like the look of it--turned me sick! Lucky my long cloak was in the room. See--on my dress, two stains! Boy, that trunk stunt was awful. You've got to let me go to bed and sleep, or I believe I'll have hysterics and yell the house down. I thought I was all right since I found you, but it's comin' on again, that tremblin'!"

"Go to bed, den, girl. I vait. Dat's easy."

"I will. Just one more look at the pearls--our pearls! But I lost one. I heard it roll. It was so close to him I--I couldn't----"

"Don't you care. Dere's a lot for us. We'll count 'em first ting to-morra', ven ve both feel like ourselves."

"They ought to fetch a king's ransom, Boy."

"Dey vill not, den. Dere'll be all de bulls in N'York after em. Joke on us, dough, if Chuff was in de deal mit Pete!"

"I'm sure he wasn't--dead sure."