Part 24

Beverley had remained on the threshold of the next room. Now she retreated into it. O'Reilly followed; but at the door he turned. "Good-bye," he said to Clo.

"Good-bye," she echoed. "And thank you again--for everything."

She had more to thank him for than he knew--the contents of her tightly clutched hand.

XII

THE HORIZONTAL PANEL

Following Mrs. Sands, O'Reilly left the door between the two rooms open; but Beverley stepped quickly back and closed it.

"She's grand, the darling!" thought Clo. "Trust her to forget nothing. Her shutting that door proves how she counts on me."

The girl was deadly tired, and her head ached, yet she struggled up as the door clicked. O'Reilly had brought in her hat and dropped it on a table. There was no hat-pin, but Clo crushed the soft toque down over her masses of red hair, and hoped she was not untidy enough to be conspicuous. Unsteadily she tottered to another door--the door that led into the corridor. This faced a narrower passage to the kitchen and domestic offices of the flat. Clo would have to take that way because, if she ventured into the lift and showed herself in the hall below, the porter might take alarm. He might fear that Mrs. Sands' protegee was trying to escape for some sly purpose of her own, and refuse to let her go till he had telephoned upstairs.

In a quaint outside pocket of her new frock Clo had put the purse given her by Beverley. Through her adventures she had remembered to make sure occasionally that it had not dropped out. Now she opened the purse, selecting two ten-dollar bills and two of five dollars.

"That ought to do for 'em all," she said, "even if the lot are at home." And, money in hand, she ventured to the kitchen door. Only the chef and a woman assistant were at work.

"I'm Clo Riley, the girl Mrs. Sands has been good to," she eagerly explained. "I'm well again, and I have to go out. Mrs. Sands has a visitor, and I don't like to disturb them. Will you let me down your way?" So speaking she laid a ten-dollar bill and a five-dollar bill side by side on a table. She made no reference to the money, nor any gesture indicating it; nor did the others appear to see it.

The chef escorted her in silence to the servants' elevator. There was a button to push, and down the girl went, rejoiced at passing another stage of her journey. Five minutes more, and she was in a taxi, tearing back to the Dietz Hotel.

This time she marched boldly to a lift in a long row of half a dozen. "Fifteenth floor, please," she said, as if she owned the hotel; and was taken up without question. "Thanks to my swell clothes!" she thought. "Not far would I get in this place if I had on my old black!"

Armed with O'Reilly's key Clo threaded her way through several corridors and arrived at the door of his suite. Her fingers shook so that she could not find the lock, and as she fumbled for it, the door of an adjoining suite opened. The nerve-tried girl started as if she had been shot, and dropped the key on the carpet.

"Silly fool!" she scolded herself as she stooped to retrieve it, and to hide her face. If only the people (she knew by the voices they were man and woman) would pass before she had to look up! But they were in no hurry to pass. They had paused in front of their own door, and were talking in low tones--about her, Clo was sure!

In a big hotel, the chances were ten to one against their knowing O'Reilly. Raising her head, she tried to eye the pair with airy arrogance.

"I mustn't seem to care," she thought, and tried to wither them with a look before again attacking the keyhole. The woman was beautiful, a glorious, dark creature, gorgeously dressed and jewelled. But oddly it was the man who riveted Clo's attention, the man whose eyes gave the girl an electric shock. He was a tall, lanky, middle-aged individual, with auburn hair and a close-cut red beard streaked with gray. He walked with shoulders bent, and had no distinction, despite his well-cut evening clothes. But from under a pair of beetling black brows there flashed a light which took Clo's breath away. She didn't know what to make of his look. It was as if she'd been struck by lightning.

"My goodness, after all he must be a friend of O'Reilly's!" she feared. Even that supposition wasn't enough to account for the flash. Frightened, she slid the key into the lock, and almost falling into the room slammed the door behind her. She did not need to lock it, for without a key it could not be opened from the outside.

"I can hold the fort a few minutes now, whatever happens!"

In the corridor John Heron and his wife lingered in front of their own door.

"Well, if that's not the queerest thing I ever saw or heard of!" Heron exclaimed.

Coming out of their suite, they had caught an impressionist glimpse of a figure in white bent over the keyhole, then the figure had stooped for the dropped key, and mechanically they had paused in surprise.

"I wonder if she's made a mistake in the room?" Mrs. Heron had whispered, and Heron had returned:

"Yes, I think that must be so. She'll find it out and go somewhere else. O'Reilly isn't----"

There he had stopped short when the girl raised her head to face them; and when she presently vanished into his friend's room like a whirlwind, he neither finished his sentence nor answered his wife.

"What's the matter, Jack?" Mrs. Heron asked. "How odd you look!"

("Jack" was not a nickname that suited Heron, but his wife thought it debonair.)

"Why don't you speak?" she persisted.