The Lion's Mouse Part 36

"John Heron!" Clo echoed. A thought had suddenly started out from the background of her mind, pus.h.i.+ng in front of her fears for Beverley.

"Yes, of course, he's a friend of yours! But he's in worse danger than his papers ever were. From things they said, I believe Pete came East on purpose to kill him. Of course, there were the papers to get as well.

But he wanted to kill John Heron. It was Chuff who ordered him to get the papers. Pete had some grudge of his own against Mr. Heron, so he made a good catspaw. When Pete was killed, Chuff had to find someone else to do the job. I don't know John Heron, and never saw him in my life, so I----"

"There you're mistaken," O'Reilly broke in. "Did you notice any one coming out of a room next to my suite when you were letting yourself in with my key which you had--er--found?"

"Yes!" cried Clo. "A beautiful woman in a black dress with gorgeous jewellery; and a tall man with reddish hair and beard and--Oh, eyes!

Great dark eyes that looked at me in a strange way. I felt them in my spine."

"That was the first time you saw John Heron, the man his enemies still call the Oil Trust King--though thanks to Roger Sands they daren't call him that out aloud. The second time must have been in Heron's own room.

But you shall judge for yourself. He'd been downstairs with his wife. He went up to his rooms again for something, and in the hall outside his own door--which he'd just unlocked--he fell down in a sort of fainting fit. Well, putting two and two together, after you told me your adventure creeping along the ledge from my window to his, it occurred to me that there'd been just cause for the seizure. I didn't think Heron was the man to keel over in a faint, even for a thing like that. All the same, seeing that ghostly vision would account for his attack."

"I understand," said Clo. "I saw he was flabbergasted. But that first time at the door, when he was with his wife, he didn't look at me as if I were a stranger. It was as if he knew me, and almost fell over himself to see me again. That was the feeling I had, but I was--a little excited."

"Most girls would have been corpses!"

"I felt like a live coal. But we mustn't let the gang make a corpse of Mr. Heron, must we? Let's warn him. Where are we, anyhow?"

"Same house you were in. Doctor said it wouldn't be safe to move you. We disinfected the best we could in a hurry, and he extracted the bullet from your poor little shoulder. Thank G.o.d, I was in time, or there might have been another bullet or two, that couldn't be extracted! You're all right now, or will be with a little rest, and we'll get you into a nursing home. As for Heron, he and his wife have gone to Narragansett.

That's close to Newport, you know, where Mrs. Sands is."

"Angel in Newport already! Then the pearls--but I told Ellen Blackburne to take them there if she had to. Do you think she will?"

"Sure! She'll catch the first train."

"No. She won't do that. She thinks of her mother before everything. But the ball's not till to-morrow. Angel won't need the pearls till then.

Oh, if I could be sure she'll get them! I can't rest till I'm sure. I must go to Newport. I must."

"When you're strong enough."

"I'm strong enough now. Is it late?"

"Getting on toward evening. You were a long time coming to yourself.

Presently the doctor will say whether you can be moved to-night to that nursing home."

"If I can be moved to a nursing home I can be moved to Newport. Tell the doctor I shall burst if I can't go."

"You may tell him yourself."

"I _must_ go. I must know if all goes right with the pearls. I must know if it's better or worse for Angel that Stephen's dead."

"Stephen's dead!"

"Yes. Did you know him?"

"I know of him. He is----"

"Don't tell me. She mightn't want me to hear. I haven't heard anything except that Kit and Churn talked about his having died, and said Angel had been cheated."

"By Jove, I begin to see light."

"Now you see why I must go to her? And you've forgotten maybe what I told you about Mr. Heron. If he's near Newport, I----"

"Look here, darling, if the doctor says you can be taken there to-morrow--oh, in time to arrive before the famous ball--let's say in a comfortable motor car, travelling slowly, banked up on cus.h.i.+ons, will you go as my wife?"

Clo stared as if O'Reilly had broken into some strange language which he expected her to understand. "Your wife?"

"Well--don't you expect to marry me? That's what happens when a girl and a man love each other."

"Oh--some day--if you're sure you really want an ignorant little girl like me, brought up in an orphan asylum, who's worked in a shop and hasn't a penny in the world--except a dollar or two left of Mrs. Sands'

money. A long time from now, when you've thought about it----"

"I've thought of nothing else since we met and parted, and I realized that you were my life and soul. If you can make up your mind to 'some day,' it might just as well be to-morrow. Don't you want to console me for the loss of the only other thing, besides you, I've ever wanted with all my heart? You do if you love me. The dear old house that was my father's! You know, when you sent up your name at the Dietz as Miss O'Reilly, I believed you were my cranky cousin Theresa, come to tell me she'd changed her mind about selling the house. Why, you owe it to me, if you care, to make up for that. Your Angel's husband has bribed Theresa to sell to him. The place has pa.s.sed away from me forever. But if you'll marry me to-night I shan't care. In the joy of being husband--and nurse--to the bravest and dearest mouse in the world I'll forget everything and be the happiest man on G.o.d's earth."

"People don't get married at a few hours' notice."

"Don't they? How long have you lived in the United States, my Irish colleen?"

"Months. Over a year. But I never discussed marriage."

"I'm jolly glad you didn't. But you'll hear of nothing else till the knot's tied. We do things quickly over here."

Then the door opened, and the doctor came in.

x.x.xVII

THE TELEGRAM

Roger Sands had hardly known himself for many days. His wife had read him aright. At times he was purposely cruel. At times he did wish to see how much she could bear and not break. Yet if she had broken, he felt that he could not have helped seizing her in his arms and forgiving her.

While he dressed that night he hoped that she would send for him, or come to him, and confess that the pearls were gone, that she had given them to O'Reilly, whom she had once loved, and whom she loved no more.

But she neither sent nor came. She was bluffing it out to the last. He might have known she would do that, although he had taken her to her room to give her one more chance to repent. At half-past seven he was ready, but he waited quietly ten minutes. Then he went to his door, meaning--as he said to himself roughly--to "get the thing over." But he paused with his hand on the k.n.o.b. He thought that he heard a woman's voice saying: "May I come in?"

His muttered comment upon one of his and Beverley's guests, whom he supposed the intruder to be, was far from flattering. Perhaps, however, it would be well not to find his wife alone. He would give Beverley a few minutes more, to be sure that her dress was on, before he went to interrupt the chorus of mutual admiration; but no woman's presence should prevent him from asking the question he meant to ask--"Where are your pearls?"

At exactly eight minutes to eight Roger ceased his restless tramp up and down the room, and stopped again at the door. Before he could open it, however, there was a light tap--a tap like Beverley's in happier days.

"Can she mean, after all, to tell me the truth?" he wondered; and he heard his voice saying mechanically, "Come in."

Beverley came in; Roger's room was full of light, and as his wife entered she faced it. She glittered from head to foot like an ice maiden under a blazing sun. She wore a wreath of diamond roses; round her waist was a girdle of diamonds with long ta.s.selled ends; on her white satin shoes were diamond buckles; and over her bare, white neck, her young gauze-enfolded bosom, hung the rope of the queen's pearls.

"I thought you were coming in to see me dressed?" she said calmly. "Did you forget?"

For answer Roger stared. He stepped back into the room, and let Beverley shut the door. She stood before him smiling, though, if he had a.n.a.lyzed her smile, he would have said that it was sad. "How do you think I look?" she asked, when he did not speak. "I hope you're not disappointed?"