The Lion's Mouse Part 32

About this hour Violet was in the habit of toiling up with beer for Kit and Churn, and water or lemonade for their neighbour. The woman was due in a few minutes and Clo spent the interval in concocting a message for Leontine Rossignol.

"Tell your mistress I've had news since I last saw her that Stephen is dead," were the words she decided on, before Violet's arrival was advertised by a tinkle of ice.

The telegram was delivered that night at the flat in Park Avenue, but Mr. and Mrs. Sands and their household had left for Newport. Only a parlour maid remained. She detested Leontine, being Bohemian by birth, while Leontine was French. Anna Schultz decided to forget indefinitely the telegram for Leontine Rossignol.

When she had sent the message, Clo's thoughts went back to the pearls.

She would be driven to leave the house soon for lack of money. If she had to go without the pearls, she would feel herself a failure. The net was proving tough for the tiny teeth of a mouse! But the mouse was ready to do anything rather than give up.

That evening Churn again announced his intention to go out at any cost.

Whither he was bound, Clo did not know, for she had missed sc.r.a.ps of talk in the next room. Kit cried, and in the midst of hysterical sobs, the door slammed. Churn had gone! Kit continued to sob.

Clo's blood took fire. She flamed with courage. Having fixed upon her plan of action she darted into the pa.s.sage and knocked on Kit's door.

"Who's that?" came the sharp answer.

"It's only me. The little girl from the next room," Clo explained in a small voice like a child's. Her hair hung over her shoulders, and she wore a cheap blue muslin dressing gown chosen by Violet.

Kit threw open the door so suddenly, and stared so keenly through the dusk that Clo shrank back a little. "What do you want?" snapped Kit.

"Oh, maybe I oughtn't to have come!" Clo apologized. "I heard you crying. And I'm so homesick and miserable myself! Don't be angry."

Kit opened the door wide. Her bleached yellow hair bristled round her face.

"I didn't know I was howling so loud. Say, can you hear us talkin', me and my husband? I hope we don't keep you awake nights."

"You haven't kept me awake once," Clo a.s.sured her with truth. "Crying's easier to hear than talking. You see, I'm in trouble and I'm awfully lonely."

"_I_ haven't got any real trouble," said Kit. "Me and my husband sometimes have a spat, like all married folks, and I'm fool enough to bawl. He's out now. Would you like me to come in and visit with you a while?"

"I'd love it!" gasped Clo. She would have preferred an invitation to her neighbour's room, but she hoped for that later. Kit locked her door carefully and slipped the key down the neck of her dress. She accepted Clo's suggestion to sit on the bed, which was more comfortable than the one broken-backed chair. Question after question she put, which cost her hostess tiresome flights of imagination to answer. Clo was far from regretting her move, however. If Churn were absent long, or if he went out again, Kit said that she would return as an escape from boredom.

It was eleven o'clock when once more Clo heard the two voices, and from their conversation Clo gathered that they did not expect Chuff back till the day after to-morrow.

"Day after to-morrow!" echoed Kit. "Then we _must_ get Isaacs here to-morrow."

"I t'ought of dat," said Churn. "I went up dere after I see Jake. Isaacs 'as started for Chicago on business, and won't be back till the same day as Chuff, day after to-morrah."

Clo drank in each word, and focussed her mind on its meaning. To-morrow, or the day after, her hour would come; then, or never.

x.x.xIII

THE PATCH ON THE PILLOW

Churn's excursion had justified itself, and the morning after his first absence he went out again. Toward noon Kit, in a "ready-to-wear" looking costume, knocked at Clo's door. "Thought you might want some candy," she said. "Shall I come in?"

Clo was cordial, and tried to be entertaining. "If I can make her like me, perhaps she'll go down to a meal with Churn, and leave me on guard,"

she reflected. Kit feared to stop long with her new friend lest Churn should arrive while she was "gadding." She dodged back and forth from room to room, and was at home to receive her husband in the afternoon.

Next morning early Clo heard Churn announce that he would meet Isaacs'

train at the Grand Central; the "old lady" had told him the time. Kit objected. "You might miss him. Best wait at his place," she advised. But Churn would not be persuaded. He had seen Jake again, who prophesied that Chuff would not arrive before the afternoon. They had the whole morning to see Isaacs and bargain with him, but it would be a waste of time to hang about at "Isaacs' place." Churn would catch Isaacs at the train, and bring him round to Kit. She must clear up the room, and have everything ship-shape in an hour. But Kit's anger grew as Churn insisted. "I know why you're mad to get to the Grand Central," she flung at him. "Didn't you s'pose I noticed the name on the candy box. Bah! I ain't a fool. You said you was sick of bein' boxed up with me. That put me wise."

Churn protested innocence, and went off jauntily, but Clo looked for developments. "Kit's mum, to put Churn off the track," she thought. "But she means to follow him. She's bought no handbag. She can't very well take the pearls."

Clo had read a paragraph concerning Mr. and Mrs. Roger Sands. It referred to the "house-warming party" they were giving at their "lately acquired cottage in Newport." Apparently the affair had been mentioned before in the column devoted to "Society" news, but Clo had missed it.

The allusion to the "house-warming," and dinner dance set Clo's brain whirling. Angel would be expected by her husband to wear the queen's pearls. If he already guessed the secret, this might be a plan to force his wife's hand. Beverley feared him. Clo had seen that. Angel must have the pearls for to-morrow night. And they must be strung, ready to wear, or they would be useless to her, arriving at the last moment. The girl would have been at her wits' end, but for that quarrel next door. If Kit did go spying on Churn...!

The door slammed after Churn. A second later Kit was knocking, calling her new friend by her new nickname: "Kid-Kid! Let me in, quick!"

Clo let her in. Kit was pinning on a wide-brimmed hat, and had her hands full with a veil, gloves, and parasol. "Tie this veil for me, there's a good kid!" she panted. "I'm mad at my husband. He's off to flirt with a beast of a girl in a candy store. They had a mash before we married.

You're goin' to be in all mornin', ain't you?"

"I thought of running out to 'phone a friend of mine," said Clo, cleverly.

"Don't! There's a 'phone in the house, the room under mine--room of a pal away till this afternoon. He left his key with Mrs. Mac, and she lent it to my husband last night so he could borrow some novels for me; our pal has lots. We've not given the key back, so when I come home I'll take you down. I want you to stay in while I'm gone. All you need do is to sit with your door open, and see if any one knocks at mine. And I've got the key. But it's the same as every old key; 'tain't a special one like Ch----like our pal's. If a stranger calls look close, so you can describe the person."

"I undertake watchd.o.g.g.i.ng in all its branches," said Clo. "Ta, ta!"

"I count on you!" were Kit's last words at the top of the steps.

"Bet your life you can!" the "kid" called after her. But as Kit ran downstairs, without stopping to look round, Clo dashed to her own open window. In a moment Kit's parasol went bobbing along the street. The coast was clear. Kit's manner made it certain that she had left the pearls behind.

Violet would not come up for the two breakfast trays for a long time yet. Kit's opinion of the key was the same as that already formed by Clo, and the girl was wild to test it. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her own key from its lock, to try it in Kit's door. It went in, but stopped at the critical turn. There were two more rooms on this floor; a small one opposite Clo's, tenanted by a young man who went to work at seven o'clock; and another still smaller, used as a storeroom--a refuge for trunks, dust-pans, and brooms. The early bird never locked his door, but his key fell short of success.

The storeroom key remained. It did not fail. It turned all the way round in the lock, and Kit's door opened.

Clo's was shut and locked, in case Violet should break her rule and come too soon.

Not only did the girl expect to find the pearls, but Chuff's key, and she hoped to telephone if necessary, before making her "bolt." Wonderful that both these chances should fall together!

Clo knew that the pearls were kept in a drawer; but Kit would not go out and leave them in so obvious a place. Nevertheless, Clo began by looking through the drawers, of which there were six.

Churn's evening clothes hung from a hook on the wall; there was nothing in the pockets; nothing in the shoes which stood underneath except a pair of socks. Other hiding-place there was none, save the bed; and it was there that Clo expected to find the pearls.

Kit had made the bed, and neatly patted the two ill-matched pillows into shape. Clo stripped off the unbleached covers of these pillows and looked for some sign that the ticking had been ripped open. There was a patch on the larger pillow. One end of this patch was unsewn and held in place with a pin. Underneath it something hard could be felt with the hand. Clo undid the pin, and thrusting in her hand pulled out a packet made of a red silk handkerchief tied round with gold string from a confectioner's. Clo squeezed the tight folds of silk. They held the pearls.

It seemed a waste of time to open the handkerchief. She longed to run out of the house with her treasure, without a second's delay. Why search for Chuff's key? As she had found the pearls she did not need to 'phone.

The girl was at the door, with her hand on the key, before she realized how mad it would be not to make certain of her find.

Yes, the pearls were really there, the darlings! She re-wrapped the parcel, and again was at the door when another thought struck her.

Better make the bed look as it had looked before. She returned, put the pillows back into their covers, stood them up in place, and during the process decided that she would spare a moment to search for Chuff's key.

It might come in handy. Kit had let drop that the key was a special key.

Clo guessed that at times there were things to hide, and then Chuff would forget to leave that key for his friends! "It might be useful to Mr. O'Reilly's Denham," she thought. "If I can find it quick----"

And flitting about the room she pounced upon a key which answered Kit's description. It was on the mantelpiece--a small, flat key, of a "special" kind, because it was made for a Yale lock.