"I _feel_ as if I had been broken off in the midst!" said Clo. "I may be broken past mending if somebody doesn't pick up the pieces good and quick! What I want you to do is to meet me outside the Westmorland. Will you? And if so, how soon?"

"I will," came the answer. "I'll be there in eight minutes, with a taxi.

Does that suit you?"

"Yes. Have the taxi drawn up in front of the hotel, and as it slows down, I'll jump in. Give the chauffeur an order--before he starts--not to stop, you know, but to go on the instant I'm in. A lot may depend on that."

"What mischief have you been up to?" asked the laughing voice, which to Clo, in the room of death, seemed to come from another world.

She shuddered as her eyes turned to the figure in the chair.

"Good-bye!" she said, and hung up the receiver without another word.

Eight minutes! It would take her about three to get out of the room, down the stairs, and to the front door--if all went well. What was she to do with the other five? Now that her mission was ended, she could not stay where she was. She had reached, and almost pa.s.sed, the limit of her endurance. One idle moment in that place would surely drive her mad! Yet she could not stand in the street, waiting for O'Reilly to come to the rescue. Kit and the man who had talked to Kit might be ready to pounce upon her there.

XXIII

"WHAT'S DONE CAN'T BE UNDONE"

"Don't be frightened, Mums! It's only me, back earlier than I expected,"

Ellen Blackburne announced herself at the door of her mother's bedroom.

Mrs. Blackburne was propped up in bed, reading Young's "Night Thoughts."

"Of course, I'm not frightened!" she rea.s.sured her daughter. "I'm only surprised. That's what makes my hands tremble."

"I was in hopes you'd have gone to sleep," said Ellen, "and I could slip in without giving you a start. I stopped the taxi at the corner on purpose."

"I'm delighted to have you back. But why did you bring the pearls home to string? Now you'll be sitting up the whole blessed night!"

"Don't you worry!" Ellen soothed her. "I'm not going to sit up. I'm going to bed. Shall I leave the door open between the rooms while I undress, or shall I just kiss you good-night now, and let you rest in peace?"

The little woman had sat down on the edge of the bed, but as she spoke, she stood up. It struck the older woman that, for some reason, she was in a hurry to get away.

"There's something you don't want to tell me, isn't there, dear?" her mother quietly observed.

"Well, you have the most wonderful intuition!" Ellen praised her parent.

"I believe you could see through a wall. It's only that I didn't want to wake you up and make you nervous, so you would have a bad night."

"I shall have a better night if I don't need to rack my brain thinking over what might have happened."

"Oh, all right!" sighed Ellen, and sat down again. "You're a grand safety valve, you know, Mums, because I can talk to you, and be sure that whatever I say will be locked up in your strong box. I meant to write all this down in my notebook, with initials instead of names; but the diary can't give advice. You can. Only--you're certain we hadn't best wait till to-morrow?"

"I shouldn't close my eyes!" said Mrs. Blackburne. "But I can say this to begin with: You did the right thing. You always do."

"This is different from anything that ever came into my experience,"

Ellen answered.

"I told you before I started, I thought I was in for an exciting job. It wasn't only that Mr. Sands is a sort of celebrity, and everyone has been talking of Mrs. Sands as a beauty. It was the man himself gave me a kind of thrilled feeling the minute I saw him. Mums, Roger Sands is the sort I could fall in love with, if I was the falling-in-love type. He's strong and silent. He isn't a bit a woman's man. I don't know how to describe him, exactly. He made me feel as if I longed to do something for him. I was mighty keen to see what Mrs. Sands would be like. I suppose to see what style of woman he'd worship enough to pick up from the gutter."

"Goodness me, child!" broke in Mrs. Blackburne, absorbed. "You don't mean that's where she came from? I never heard----"

"No--no! I oughtn't to have used that expression," Ellen confessed, "though they tell all sorts of stories about her origin. I daresay none of 'em are right, and not a soul knows the truth. People have given her a nickname: 'the girl from nowhere.' But you've only to see her to realize at once that whatever she was, she must have been brought up like a princess."

"Handsome?"

"A dream of beauty. She's worthy of her husband that way, but she's not in other ways. That's my excuse."

"Your excuse, lovey? For what?"

"For what I did. But you won't know why I did it, or forgive me for doing it, unless I tell you the story as I understand it."

"Go right on, dear, and take your time. I won't interrupt again." So Ellen gave her mother a succinct account of all that had befallen her, until the fateful moment when she discovered that the pearls were not in their case.

"The case empty! The pearls gone! My goodness me!" gasped the old lady.

"I never had such a scare in my life. Mrs. Sands had told me how she'd been dressing in her bedroom, with the door wide open into the boudoir, because the pearls were there, all ready for me to begin on, if I arrived before she'd got into her gown. She either believed the pearls were in the case, or else she wanted me to believe she believed it! The desperate state she was in, under her pretty manner, made me think maybe she was playing some dreadful trick, and after I'd got over the first shock of surprise I was mad with that woman. 'She doesn't care if she ruins me, so she can save herself from a sc.r.a.pe,' was what I thought about her. I made up my mind I wouldn't be catspaw, to pull her chestnuts out of the fire."

"What did you do?" breathed Mrs. Blackburne, sitting straight up in bed.

"I rang the bell for the butler. He came to the door in an instant. I told him to call Mrs. Sands at once, it was urgent. I thought that would fetch her, but it didn't. It was the man who came back. He seemed a bit embarra.s.sed: Mrs. Sands was very busy at the moment, it would be a little while before she was at liberty. It came into my head that she was leaving me alone as long as possible in the room where her wonderful pearls were supposed to be, so she could accuse me of making away with them, when the truth had to come out, that the pearls were gone. I saw just one thing to do. I told the butler to call Mr. Sands, quick. 'Mr.

Sands is just going,' he said. 'I was ready to help him on with his coat when you rang.' 'Well, beg him to step in here one instant,' said I. The man went out; and I couldn't have counted ten before Mr. Sands appeared.

I pointed to the empty case that was open on the table, and explained in about a dozen words--I wanted to finish before Madam arrived!--that Mrs.

Sands had told me to look in the case for the pearls; that she went out in a hurry; and when I looked, the pearls weren't there. 'I sent and asked her to come,' I went on, 'but she was busy.'

"Well, Mother, the face of that man just broke my heart! It was more as if some awful thing he'd half expected, had come true. I might have stuck a knife in his heart.

"'Does my wife know you asked for me when she couldn't come?' was the first thing he said after he'd stood quite still for a second or two. I told him no, I'd taken the responsibility on myself, and I hoped I hadn't done wrong.

"'Not wrong,' said he. 'You meant well, I'm sure. Still, I wish the news had come to me from my wife and no one else.'

"Then he walked over to the window, and stood looking out. If I hadn't known he was there, I shouldn't have seen him. The curtains were drawn, not all across, but partly, and it was a sort of bay window, so there was room for him to stand behind the curtains, in the shadow they made.

He hadn't been there two seconds, I give you my word, when the door flew open, and Mrs. Sands bounced in.

"'You sent for me?' she asked, and threw a look round the room, as if searching for someone. I felt I should die if her husband came out--but he didn't. I managed to stammer that the pearls weren't in their case, and so on; and it seemed as if my words turned her to a block of marble!

She just stared at me. 'Maybe you think I stole the pearls!' I said right out. She a.s.sured me quite nicely that she believed nothing so foolish, and that even if I'd wanted to steal the things, I couldn't have smuggled them away from the house. (Of course, I could, though, if there had been time.) My heart melted to her, I must confess. But I was thinking more of her husband. It was up to me to get him out of the fix.

I suggested to Mrs. Sands calling in Clo, to see what she could make of the business. The instant she was gone, out from the bay window stalked her husband! By that time I was at the door. I'd opened it for Mrs.

Sands. I hardly dared glance at him--it seemed so prying. All I know--for sure, now--is that he stopped for an instant at the table. He had to pa.s.s it, on the way from his hiding place to the door. I supposed then, when he paused there, that he would be gazing at the empty velvet case. But he may have been doing something different--I'll tell you why and what, in a minute.

"I stood without moving, and, as he came near the door he stopped again.

'Miss Blackburne,' he said, 'you've been mixed up against your will, and not by any fault of your own, in an unfortunate business. It's a family affair, and I feel certain you'll keep your own counsel. Don't think I'm trying to bribe you. I'm not. But I should like you to accept this.' My arms were hanging straight down at my sides, but he managed to stick something into one of my hands. What do you think it was?"

"Fifty dollars?" her mother guessed.

"Fifty fiddlesticks! It was five hundred!"