The Lion's Mouse
Page 9
IX
THE BLUFF THAT FAILED
"You must tell me!" Beverley insisted. "Tell me at once!"
"While Mr. O'Reilly is here with you, Miss Riley without the 'O', willbe at his hotel, in his room, helping herself to his--I meanyour--papers."
"My child, you're mad!" Beverley gasped.
"Not so mad as _he_'ll be when he finds out," crowed the girl. "Hurray!The whole business is settling itself in my head. The one trouble is Mr.Sands. The rest will be all right. Think what to do about him, Angel;think hard!"
Beverley thought until her brain whirled.
"I might suggest Roger's dining at his club," she said. "But how Ishould hate to do that! He's vexed already. He has a right to be! Thisafternoon he gave me a wonderful present, a rope of pearls that belongedto a Queen. It must have cost a quarter of a million! I hardly stoppedto thank him, I was in such frantic haste to get the envelope to you.The rope caught in the key of a drawer; the string broke, and a lot ofpearls ran all over the carpet. I didn't wait to pick them up. I randown to you, and I was gone so long Roger went to my room to look forme. I came back and found him picking up pearls. I felt my excuses didmore harm than good. Roger pretended that he had an engagement. I saw byhis face he wanted to walk off his anger in the fresh air. If he doeswalk it off--if he comes back ready to make up, and I send him awayagain, perhaps that will finish it! Things may never be the same betweenus any more!"
"He was angry because you didn't seem to care enough for his present,"said Clo. "But if you can get him out of the house for an hour or so,and at the same time prove that you adore the pearls; how does that planstrike you?"
"How could I do both?"
"Beg him to go fetch a pearl-stringer, and bring her back here himself,to-night. Say you can't rest or sleep till the pearls are restrung."
"You forget it's Sunday, and----"
"I don't forget. But I know a pearl-stringer. She isn't just any oldpearl-stringer, who might thread on a wax bead here and there, and keepa pearl or two up her sleeve. She's the best pearl-stringer in New York.The big jewellers and lots of swell society women have her. It's queerthe way I came to know her, but it makes it good for us. We werecrossing a street, she and I. I didn't know the woman from Adam--Eve, Imean. But it was slippery, and she missed her footing. I dragged herback, just in time, and held her up. She's a little woman, no biggerthan me, or I couldn't have done it. But I got her on the sidewalkagain, and she was grateful. She's Irish, too, and she invited me to goand see her the next Sunday. It's out at Yonkers, where she lives, in anice little house she's bought. I went there once. She said if she coulddo some favour for me, she'd love to. But it's no favour I'll be asking,except for her to come out on a Sunday evening. So the only thing is tofetch her. Do you think Mr. Sands will go?"
"It depends upon how he feels when he comes in," said Beverley. "ButSister Lake would never let you out again."
"I shan't ask her. I'll get up and dress while you see if Mr. Sands isback. If I hear from you that all's well, I'll slip out before Sistercomes."
"Clo, you're wonderful!" Beverley exclaimed. "How can I thank youenough?"
"Thanks from you to me! That's good! Just wait, Angel, anyhow, till I'vedone something. Oh, I forgot to give you the pearl-stringer's address.It's Miss Blackburne, 27 Elm Street, Yonkers. And tell Mr. Sands tomention my name. It might make a difference. She doesn't like leavingher mother in the evenings, but she'd do it for me."
Beverley was gone for fifteen minutes. When she flew in again she wassurprised to see Clo in bed as before. But hardly was the door closedwhen the girl threw back the coverlet, to show that she was fullydressed.
"I was afraid Sister might pop in--by an evil chance," she explained."I've only to put on my hat. Well, is it all right?"
"Roger will go," said Beverley. "He's 'phoning now for his car. I'mputting off dinner till half-past eight so he can have plenty of time toget home and change. He didn't make any difficulty when I told him aboutthe pearl-stringer and wanting her at once. He agreed with me that itwould be best to do such an errand himself, if it were to be done. Andhe was very kind. But his manner was different. I'm frightened."
"Don't be," said Clo. She was up now, had pinned on the pretty whitehat, and was fastening her smart little cape. "I'll go first to theWestmorland and see our man; he said he'd be in, waiting till ten. I'lltell him things are in train, but he must give you till midnight, ifnecessary. From there perhaps I can 'phone the Dietz Hotel. It wouldn'tbe safe here. By that time O'Reilly ought to be in his room dressing fordinner. He'll see me, I'm sure, and the rest will arrange itself. Now,I'm off before Mr. Sands' automobile comes, or Sister Lake. If she findsthe door shut and all quiet she'll think I'm asleep. Go back to yourhusband, Angel, and I'll slip away on my little jaunt."
"I've brought money for you," said Beverley. "Take this purse. There'schange for taxis and lots of bills besides--fifty or sixty dollars."
Two minutes later Clo was in the street. The first thing that happenedto her was a small piece of luck. She had been dreading the walk to ataxi-stand, when she saw a car about to drive away from a house near by.It was a public vehicle. Clo hailed the chauffeur and gave theWestmorland as her destination.
"Mr. Peterson" was in, according to promise.
"You again, is it? I looked for Mrs. Sands," he grumbled.
"I'm her messenger for the second time," said Clo, "and probably I shallbe for the third, when it comes to settling up. If you get what youwant, it doesn't matter who brings it, I suppose?"
"Then you suppose wrong. My business is with a woman, not a kid! All thesame, if you've got anything for me----"
"I haven't--yet!" Clo snapped him up. "It isn't time. But I'm on towhere the thing is, and how to get it. Only it may take till after teno'clock. That's what I came to say."
"Save your breath! Ten o'clock's the time. If she doesn't want me to goback on my bargain she'd better not go back on hers."
He looked more than ever like a ferret, the girl thought.
"Mrs. Sands made no bargain as to time," she said. "And talking of time,what about the time _you've_ done?"
Peterson gave a cackling laugh. "What's the female for 'Smart Aleck'?"he sneered. "Guessed by my complexion, did yuh? Well, I don't need tomake no secret of it. My gardeens wished me good-bye and Lord bless mewhen the nine months they run me in for was up."
Clo thought she could come close to guessing what the charge had been,and it would have needed more than the word of a ferret to assure her ofhis "innocence." The man was a born sneak-thief or pickpocket. His handswere slim and small as a girl's. Perhaps if temptation had been put inhis way while he "waited at the newsstand" for Beverley, all thosemonths ago, he had been unable to resist and thus had missed hisappointment. Not that the girl much cared as to this detail; it was nother affair. But it was odd, almost "creepy," how the links were beingjoined together in the chain of evidence against O'Reilly, the man whohad followed Angel into the Limited--the man against whom Clo hadpresently to try her wits. What concerned her most was that her firstattempt at bluff had failed. Something in Peterson's manner forced herto believe that he had indeed served out his full sentence, and for themoment had nothing to fear from the police. Clodagh hid herdisappointment with a little swagger.
"It suits us just as well as you, to finish up at ten o'clock and get itover," she said. "If we can, we will. If we can't, you'll have to wait.The way things are, you have to be in with us, you see, not against us."
"Oh, do I? I ain't so sure!" he flung back. "I ain't sure my finemadam's not in the game t'other way round--and her husband, too. I knownow that she and Roger Sands travelled in the same train from where shestarted. Blowed if I see why she'd do it, but it might be they fixed aframe-up between them. I can see why it would suit Sands, if it wouldn'ther, and a man's stronger than a woman. Sands was working for John Heronat the time. That means a lot."
"It doesn't mean that Mrs. Sands would be disloyal to her word. I knowshe's true as ste
el," Clo insisted. She spoke crisply, but her thoughtswandered. They had caught at the name of John Heron; Beverley had nevermentioned it. The girl had no means of guessing how it might bear uponthe case now in her small, determined hands. She did not see how, orwhere, she could have heard it before, yet it did not sound strange toher. The feeling she had on hearing it puzzled and even thrilled hervaguely. It was as if the name, "John Heron," had been whispered intoher ear in a dream--a dream not forgotten, but buried under other thingsin her brain. The girl was suddenly alert. There was only one fact whichshe grasped with straining certainty. In that buried dream there wereother sounds connected with the whispered name: sounds of sobbing, as ofsomeone crying in the dark.
"Anyhow," Peterson went on, "there was a frame-up, and those that was init has got to pay me for what I went through. That's partly why I'm herein Noo York. If I don't have those papers by ten I'll show up at theSands flat and ask for the missis."
"You wouldn't find Mr. Sands at home," the girl cut in. "He's out. Whenhe comes back he's likely to go away again at once."
"Aw, he is, is he?" echoed Peterson. His personality waked upsecretively, like that of some weak, night animal hiding in a wood. Cloeyed him, striving to make him out.
"Better go home, kiddy," he advised. His tone was good-natured. "Shall Isee you back to where you live, or----"
"I have another errand to do," the girl announced with dignity. She hadmeant to telephone from the Westmorland to the Dietz, and learn ifJustin O'Reilly was in; but now she determined not to do so. Betterwaste a little time rather than Peterson should hear her inquiring forO'Reilly. Instead of waiting to telephone, she walked to the door andasked a half-baked youth in hotel livery to call her a taxi.
"If ferret-face tries to follow I'll lead him a dance!" she thought. Butferret-face seemed to read her mind, and be willing to relieve it.
"So long!" he said. "I've got a job o' work, too. It will take me tillabout ten. After that I shall be lookin' for a call from you or herladyship."
He turned his back and sauntered to the elevator. Before the taxi hadarrived he had been shot up to regions above.
"So that's all right!" Clo muttered to herself, spinning toward theDietz. Yet, as she said the words, she wondered if it _was_ all right.Why had Peterson's whole personality made a kind of "lightning change"on hearing that Sands (whom he expressed a wish to see) would not be athome that night? Ought she to 'phone to Beverley and put her on guard?Yes, she would telephone from the Dietz, while waiting to see O'Reilly.It would be safe, because Roger by this time should be far away.