Part 55

"I heard you!" shrieked Kit. "I can guess, too! You've stolen my pearls, and you think you'll pass 'em on to some other thief. But you won't, you devil! We'll have this door down in five minutes."

Clo went to the window, rolled up the blind, and raised the sash.

"Why won't you let me call the police?" she heard Mrs. Mac asking. "I tell you it's the only thing. I----"

"She won't let you do it because she stole the pearls herself," cried Clo, darting across the room to put her lips to the keyhole. "And that's not all she's afraid of."

"I'll kill you when I get my hands round your throat," Kit screamed her down.

"I won't be the first you've killed. Take care!" Clo retorted, and was then stung with regret for her boldness. There would be no mercy for her now from Kit or Churn when the door gave way. They would know that she'd been the woman at the telephone masquerading as Kit.

But, if only Miss Blackburne came first, before they broke in, she didn't much care. With the pearls safe, she could fight for herself.

"Hurrah, by all that's good, here's my Boy!" crowed Kit outside the door. "Churn! you've come! Mr. Isaacs, too! I was never so glad in my life to see any one as you both! There's a thief in Mr. Cheffinsky's room--the girl that's been living next door to us. She's stole my poor little string o' beads."

Men's voices spoke. Churn and Isaacs were indeed there! The girl put her ear to the keyhole once more, and listened.

"What did I tell you about dat key?" Churn caught her up. "You're ten kinds of a fool, girl. But de tief's dere all right, you say?"

"Yes, she's there all right. She must have took Chuff's key off our mantelpiece. You left it there! The little brute's been 'phonin' some pal to come in a taxi so she can drop my pearls out the window."

"Let me go down and talk things over with the pal when he comes," said another voice that was very smooth, and had a lisp. Clo deduced that it was the voice of Isaacs.

"Yes, do go down!" The girl jeered him through the keyhole. "I'll call from the window what you are, a fence; that's your nickname. You're a receiver of stolen goods."

For a few breathless moments there was no sound. Clo wondered if Ellen had started, and how soon the taxi might arrive. She went again to the window and looked out. There was no taxi in sight, no vehicle of any sort, but children playing, women chatting together. Clo wished that she might shriek at the top of her voice "Help!" "Thieves!" "Murder!" A policeman would surely come, and she and the pearls would be saved. But Beverley would be lost. The story of the pearls would come out somehow. As she gazed like Sister Anne from the tower, two things happened. In the house, a blow from a hammer made the door quiver; in the street a taxi came swinging into sight.

"They'll have the door down!" Clo gasped. "But if only that's Ellen she'll be just in time."

The bag containing the pearls in their red wrapping was in the girl's hand. She stood, prepared to throw it if Ellen appeared. The taxi was slowing down. Yes, it was stopping in front of the house. It must be Ellen--but no! A man stepped out, and glanced quickly in all directions. He did not look up at the window, where Clo had shrunk back as far as she could, not to lose sight of what went on below. He was furtively intent upon a gray limousine car, with several men in it, which had followed the taxi along the street. The motor passed on, however, and its occupants (there were four or five, Clo fancied) were busily talking. They did not look out, or interest themselves in the stopping of the taxi. The man who had come in the latter had the air of hiding behind it, as he paid the chauffeur and carefully counted his change; but the instant the limousine had slid ahead, regardless of him, he ran up the steps. Clo, at the window, could see him no more.

"What if it's Chuff?" she thought, "and he finds them breaking down his door?"

Somehow she had the impression that Cheffinsky was even more wicked than Churn, a man without scruples, a man who would stop at nothing for his own advantage.

"Crack!" went one of the panels, and Clo, flying to the door, snatched the key from the keyhole. She knew the panel could not last many minutes, and a picture rose before her mind of a hand pushing through a hole, to turn the key in the lock. Anyhow, that should not happen!

Back she fled to the window again, and stared anxiously out.

Another taxi appeared. The gray limousine had turned, and was coming back, also. But Clo cared only for the taxi. It was slowing down. A woman thrust her head out and looked up--a neat little head in a black toque. "Miss Blackburne!" The girl cried shrilly. The taxi stopped. But the door stuck. Oh, why didn't the silly chauffeur jump off his seat and help?

Crash! The panel broke with a loud shriek of rending wood. The hammer came through, and was jerked quickly out again. A man's hand seized a jagged piece of the panel and tore it away. An eye peered through the aperture, but Clo was at the window.

"Quick--quick!" she implored, and brandished the bag far over the sill.

The eye disappeared from the panel, and the muzzle of a revolver took its place.

Miss Blackburne had jumped down on to the pavement.

"If you throw out that bag, I fire," a voice warned Clo--a new voice, not Churn's.

The girl glanced round involuntarily, and saw the small black object imbedded in the smashed door panel. Her nerves jerked, but she turned back to the window, with a sensation of ice in her spine.

"String these and get them to her, if you have to take them to Newport!" she cried.