Here she was safe. None suspected her adventure or her discovery. She quieted from her excitement, and for a long time paced slowly to and fro, pondering ways and means.
The fire ebbed from the heart of the western sky; twilight merged imperceptibly into a night extraordinarily clear and luminous with the gentle radiance of a wonderful pageant of stars. The calm held unbroken. The barking of a dog on the mainland carried, thin but sharp, across the waters. On the Sound, lights moved sedately east and west: red lights and green and white lancing the waters with long quivering blades. At times the girl heard voices of men talking at a great distance. Once a passenger steamer crept out of the west, seeming to quicken its pace as it drew abreast the island, then swept on and away like a floating palace of fairy lamps. As it passed, the strains of its string orchestra sounded softly clear through the night. Other steamers followed – half a dozen in a widely spaced procession. But no boat came near Wreck Island. If one had, Eleanor could almost have found courage to call for help…
In due time Mrs. Clover hunted her up, bringing a lantern to guide her heavy footsteps.
“Lands sakes!” she cried, catching sight of the girl. “Wherever have you been all this time?”
“Just walking up and down,” said Eleanor quietly.
“Thank goodness I found you,” the woman panted. “Give me quite a turn, you did. I didn’t know but what you might be trying some foolish idea about leaving us, like your pa said you might. One never knows when to trust you nervous prostrationists, or what you’ll be up to next.”
Eleanor glanced at her sharply, wondering if by any chance the woman’s mind could be as guileless as her words or the bland and childish simplicity of her eyes in the lantern-light.
“Wish you’d come up on the stoop and keep me company,” continued Mrs. Clover; “I’m plumb tired of sitting round all alone. Moon’ll be up before long; it’s a purty sight, shining on the water.”
“Thank you,” said Eleanor; “I’m afraid I’m too tired. It must be later than I thought. If you don’t mind I’ll go to my room.”
“Oh, please yourself,” said the woman, disappointment lending her tone an unpleasant edge. “You’ll find it hot and stuffy up there, though. If you can’t get comfortable, come down-stairs; I’ll be up till the boss gets home.”
“Very well,” said Eleanor.
She said good night to Mrs. Clover on the kitchen porch and going to her room, threw herself upon the bed, dressed as she was.
For some time the woman down-stairs rocked slowly on the porch, humming sonorously. The sound was infinitely soothing. Eleanor had some difficulty in keeping awake, and only managed to do so by dint of continually exciting her imagination with thoughts of the Cadogan collar in the safe, the key in the newel-post, the dory swinging at its moorings in water little more than waist deep…
In spite of all this, she did as the slow hours lagged drift into a half-waking nap. How long it lasted she couldn’t guess when she wakened; but it had not been too long; a glance at the dial of her wrist-watch in a slant of moonlight through the window reassured her as to the flight of time. It was nearly midnight; she had three hours left, three hours leeway before the return of her persecutor.
She lay without moving, listening attentively. The house was anything but still; ghosts of forgotten footsteps haunted all its stairs and corridors; but the girl could hear no sound ascribable to human agency. Mrs. Clover no longer sang, her rocking-chair no longer creaked.
With infinite precautions she got up and slipped out of the room. Once in the hallway she did hear a noise of which she easily guessed the source; and the choiring of angels could have been no more sweet in her hearing: Mrs. Clover was snoring.
Kneeling at the head of the staircase and bending over, with an arm round the banister for support, she could see a portion of the kitchen. And what she saw only confirmed the testimony of the snores. The woman had moved indoors to read; an oil lamp stood by her shoulder, on the table; her chair was well tilted, her head resting against its back; an old magazine lay open on her lap; her chin had fallen; from her mouth issued dissonant chords of contentment.
Eleanor drew back, rose and felt her way to the long corridor. Down this she stole as silently as any ghost, wholly indifferent to the eerie influences of the desolate place, spectrally illuminated as it was with faded chequers of moonlight falling through dingy windows, alive as it was with the groans and complaints of uneasy planks and timbers and the frou-frou, like that of silken skirts, of rats and mice scuttling between its flimsy walls. These counted for nothing to her; but all her soul hung on the continuance of that noise of snoring in the kitchen; and time and again she paused and listened, breathless, until sure it was holding on without interruption.
Gaining at length the head of the stairs, she picked her way down very gently, her heart thumping madly as the burden of her weight wrung from each individual step its personal protest, loud enough (she felt) to wake the dead in their graves; but not loud enough, it seemed, to disturb the slumbers of the excellent, if untrustworthy, Mrs. Clover.
At length she had gained the newel-post and abstracted the key. The foretaste of success was sweet. Pausing only long enough to unlatch the front door, for escape in emergency, she darted through the hall, behind the counter, into the little room.
And still Mrs. Clover slept aloud.
Kneeling, Eleanor fitted the key to the lock. Happily, it was well oiled and in excellent working order. The tumblers gave to the insistence of the wards with the softest of dull clicks. She grasped the handle, and the heavy door swung wide without a murmur.
And then she paused, at a loss. It was densely dark in the little room, and she required to be able to see what she was about, if she were to pick out the Cadogan collar.
It was risky, a hazardous chance, but she determined to run it. The lamp that Mrs. Clover had left for her employer was too convenient to be rejected. Eleanor brought it into the room, carefully shut the door to prevent the light being visible from the hall, should Mrs. Clover wake and miss her, placed the lamp on the floor before the safe and lighted it.
As its soft illumination disclosed the interior of the antiquated strong-box, the girl uttered a low cry of dismay. To pick out what she sought from that accumulation (even if it were really there) would be the work of hours – barring a most happy and unlikely stroke of fortune.
The interior of the safe was divided into some twelve pigeon-holes, all closely packed with parcels of various sizes – brown-paper parcels, neatly wrapped and tied with cord, each as neatly labelled in ink with an indecipherable hieroglyphic: presumably a means of identification to one intimate with the code.
But Eleanor possessed no means of telling one package from another; they were all so similar to one another in everything save size, in which they differed only slightly, hardly materially.
None the less, having dared so much, she wasn’t of the stuff to give up the attempt without at least a little effort to find what she sought. And impulsively she selected the first package that fell under her hand, with nervous fingers unwrapped it and – found herself admiring an extremely handsome diamond brooch.
As if it had been a handful of pebbles, she cast it from her to blaze despised upon the mean plank flooring, and selected another package.
It contained rings – three gold rings set with solitaire diamonds. They shared the fate of the brooch.
The next packet held a watch. This, too, she dropped contemptuously, hurrying on.
She had no method, other than to take the uppermost packets from each pigeonhole, on the theory that the necklace had been one of the last articles entrusted to the safe. And that there was some sense in this method was demonstrated when she opened the ninth package – or possibly the twelfth: she was too busy and excited to keep any sort of count.
This last packet, however, revealed the Cadogan collar.
With a little, thankful sigh the girl secreted the thing in the bosom of her dress and prepared to rise.
Behind her a board creaked and the doorlatch clicked. Still sitting – heart in her mouth, breath at a standstill, blood chilling with fright – she turned in time to see the door open and the face and figure of her father as he stood looking down at her, his eyes blinking in the glare of light that painted a gleam along the polished barrel of the weapon in his hand.
XV
THE ENEMY’S HAND
In spite of the somewhat abrupt and cavalier fashion in which Staff had parted from Alison at the St. Simon, he was obliged to meet her again that afternoon at the offices of Jules Max, to discuss and select the cast for A Single Woman. The memory which each retained of their earlier meeting naturally rankled, and the amenities suffered proportionately. In justice to Staff it must be set down that he wasn’t the aggressor; his contract with Max stipulated that he should have the deciding word in the selection of the cast – aside from the leading rôle, of course – and when Alison chose, as she invariably did, to try to usurp that function, the author merely stood calmly and with imperturbable courtesy upon his rights. In consequence, it was Alison who made the conference so stormy a one that Max more than once threatened to tear his hair, and as a matter of fact did make futile grabs at the meagre fringe surrounding his bald spot. So the meeting inevitably ended in an armed truce, with no business accomplished: Staff offering to release Max from his contract to produce, the manager frantically begging him to do nothing of the sort, and Alison making vague but disquieting remarks about her inclination to “rest.” …
Staff dined alone, with disgust of his trade for a sauce to his food. And, being a man – which is as much as to say, a creature without much real understanding of his own private emotional existence – he wagged his head in solemn amazement because he had once thought he could love a woman like that.
Now Eleanor Searle was a different sort of a girl altogether…
Not that he had any right to think of her in that light; only, Alison had chosen to seem jealous of the girl. Heaven alone (he called it honestly to witness) knew why…
Not that he cared whether Alison were jealous or not…
But he was surprised at his solicitude for Miss Searle – now that Alison had made him think of her. He was really more anxious about her than he had suspected. She had seemed to like him, the few times they’d met; and he had liked her very well indeed; it’s refreshing to meet a woman in whom beauty and sensibility are combined; the combination’s piquant, when you come to consider how uncommon it is…
He didn’t believe for an instant that she had meant to run away with the Cadogan collar; and he hoped fervently that she hadn’t been involved in any serious trouble by the qualified thing. Furthermore, he candidly wished he might be permitted to help extricate her, if she were really tangled up in any unpleasantness.
Such, at all events, was the general tone of his meditations throughout dinner and his homeward stroll down Fifth Avenue from Forty-fourth Street, a stroll in which he cast himself for the part of the misprized hero; and made himself look it to the life by sticking his hands in his pockets, carrying his cane at a despondent angle beneath one arm, resting his chin on his chest – or as nearly there as was practicable, if he cared to escape being strangled by his collar – and permitting a cigarette to dangle dejectedly from his lips…
He arrived in front of his lodgings at nine o’clock or something later. And as he started up the brownstone stoop he became aware of a disconsolate little figure hunched up on the topmost step; which was Mr. Iff.
The little man had his chin in his hands and his hat pulled down over his eyes. He rose as Staff came up the steps and gave him good evening in a spiritless tone which he promptly remedied by the acid observation:
“It’s a pity you wouldn’t try to be home when I call. Here you’ve kept me waiting the best part of an hour.”
“Sorry,” said Staff gravely; “but why stand on ceremony at this late day? My bedroom windows are still open; I left ’em so, fancying you might prefer to come in that way.”
“It’s a pity,” commented Iff, following him upstairs, “you can’t do something for that oratorical weakness of yours. Ever try choking it down? Or would that make you ill?”
With which he seemed content to abandon persiflage, satisfied that his average for acerbity was still high. “Besides,” he said peaceably, “I’m all dressed up pretty now, and it doesn’t look right for a respectable member of society to be pulling off second-story man stunts.”
Staff led him into the study, turned on the lights, then looked his guest over.
So far as his person was involved, it was evident that Iff had employed Staff’s American money to advantage. He wore, with the look of one fresh from thorough grooming at a Turkish bath, a new suit of dark clothes. But when he had thrown aside his soft felt hat, his face showed drawn, pinched and haggard, the face of a man whose sufferings are of the spirit rather than of the body. Loss of sleep might have accounted in part for that expression, but not for all of it.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Staff, deeply concerned.
“You ask me that!” said Iff impatiently. He threw himself at length upon the divan. “Haven’t you been to the St. Simon? Don’t you know what has happened? Well, so have I, and so do I.”
“Well …?”
Iff raised himself on his elbow to stare at Staff as if questioning his sanity.
“You know she’s gone – that she’s in his hands – and you have the face to stand there and say ‘Wel-l?’ to me!” he snapped.
“But – good Lord, man! – what is Miss Searle to you that you should get so excited about her disappearance, even assuming what we’re not sure of – that she decamped with Ismay?”
“She’s only everything to me,” said Iff quietly: “she’s my daughter.”
Staff slumped suddenly into a chair.
“You’re serious about that?” he gasped.
“It’s not a matter I care to joke about,” said the little man gloomily.
“But why didn’t you tell a fellow …!”
“Why should I – until now? You mustn’t forget that you sat in this room not twenty-four hours ago and listened to me retail what I admit sounded like the damnedest farrago of lies that was ever invented since the world began; and because you were a good fellow and a gentleman, you stood for it – gave me the benefit of the doubt. And at that I hadn’t told you half. Why? Why, because I felt I had put sufficient strain upon your credulity for one session at least.”
“Yes – I know,” Staff agreed, bewildered; “but – but Miss Searle – your daughter – !”
“That’s a hard one for you to swallow – what? I don’t blame you. But it’s true. And that’s why I’m all worked up – half crazed by my knowledge that that infamous blackguard has managed to deceive her and make her believe he is me – myself – her father.”
“But what makes you think that?”
“Oh, I’ve his word for it. Read!”
Iff whipped an envelope from his pocket and flipped it over to Staff. “He knew, of course, where I get my letters when in town, and took a chance of that catching me there and poisoning the sunlight for me.”
Staff turned the envelope over in his hands, remarking the name, address, postmark and special delivery stamp. “Mailed at Hartford, Connecticut, at nine this morning,” he commented.
“Read it,” insisted Iff irritably.
Staff withdrew the enclosure: a single sheet of note-paper with a few words scrawled on one side.
“‘I’ve got her,’” he read aloud. “‘She thinks I’m you. Is this sufficient warning to you to keep out of this game? If not – you know what to expect.’”
He looked from the note back to Iff. “What does he mean by that?”
“How can I tell? It’s a threat, and that’s enough for me; he’s capable of anything fiendish enough to amuse him.” He shook his clenched fists impotently above his head. “Oh, if ever again I get within arm’s length of the hound …!”
“Look here,” said Staff; “I’m a good deal in the dark about this business. You’ve got to calm yourself and help me out. Now you say Miss Searle’s your daughter; yet you were on the ship together and didn’t recognise one another – at least, so far as I could see.”
“You don’t see everything,” said Iff; “but at that, you’re right – she didn’t recognise me. She hasn’t for years – seven years, to be exact. It was seven years ago that she ran away from me and changed her name. And it was all his doing! I’ve told you that Ismay has, in his jocular way, made a practice of casting suspicion on me. Well, the thing got so bad that he made her believe I was the criminal in the family. So, being the right sort of a girl, she couldn’t live with me any longer and she just naturally shook me – went to Paris to study singing and fit herself to earn a living. I followed her, pleaded with her, but she couldn’t be made to understand; so I had to give it up. And that was when I registered my oath to follow this cur to the four corners of the earth, if need be, and wait my chance to trip him up, expose him and clear myself. And now he’s finding the going a bit rough, thanks to my public-spirited endeavours, and he takes this means of tying my hands!”
“I should think,” said Staff, “you’d have shot him long before this.”
“Precisely,” agreed Iff mockingly. “That’s just where the bone-headedness comes in that so endears you to your friends. If I killed him, where would be my chance to prove I hadn’t been guilty of the crimes he’s laid at my door? He’s realised that, all along… I passed him on deck one night, coming over; it was midnight and we were alone; the temptation to lay hands on him and drop him overboard was almost irresistible – and he knew it and laughed in my face!.. And that’s the true reason why I didn’t accuse him when I was charged with the theft of the necklace – because I couldn’t prove anything and a trumped-up accusation that fell through would only make my case the worse in Nelly’s sight… But I’ll get him yet!”
“Have you thought of going to Hartford?”
“I’m no such fool. If that letter was posted in Hartford this morning, it means that Ismay’s in Philadelphia.”
“But isn’t he wise enough to know you’d think just that?”
Iff sat up with a flush of excitement. “By George!” he cried – “there’s something in that!”
“It’s a chance,” said Staff thoughtfully.
The little man jumped up and began to pace the floor. To and fro, from the hall-door to the windows, he strode. At perhaps the seventh turn at the windows he paused, looking out, then moved quickly back to Staff’s side.
“Taxicab stopping outside,” he said in a low voice: “woman getting out – Miss Landis, I think. If you don’t mind, I’ll dodge into your bedroom.”
“By all means,” assented his host, rising.
Iff swung out of sight into the back room as Staff went to and opened the hall-door.
Alison had just gained the head of the stairs. She came to the study door, moving with her indolent grace, acknowledging his greeting with an insolent, cool nod.
“Not too late, I trust?” she said enigmatically.
“For what?” asked Staff, puzzled.
“For this appointment,” she said, extending a folded bit of paper.
“Appointment?” he repeated with the rising inflection, taking the paper.
“It was delivered at my hotel half an hour ago,” she told him. “I presumed you …”
“No,” said Staff. “Half a minute…”
He shut the door and unfolded the note. The paper and the chirography, he noticed, were identical with those of the note received by Iff from Hartford. With this settled to his satisfaction, he read the contents aloud, raising his voice a trifle for the benefit of the listener in the back room.
“‘If Miss Landis wishes to arrange for the return of the Cadogan collar, will she be kind enough to call at Mr. Staff’s rooms in Thirtieth Street at a quarter to ten tonight.
“‘N. B. – Any attempt to bring the police or private detectives or other outsiders into the negotiations will be instantly known to the writer and – there won’t be any party.’”
“Unsigned,” said Staff reflectively.
“Well?” demanded Alison, seating herself.
“Curious,” remarked Staff, still thinking.
“Well?” she iterated less patiently. “Is it a practical joke?”
“No,” he said, smiling; “to me it looks like business.”
“You mean that the thief intends to come here – to bargain with me?”
“I should fancy so, from what he says… And,” Staff added, crossing to his desk, “forewarned is forearmed.”
He bent over and pulled out the drawer containing his revolver. At the same moment he heard Alison catch her breath sharply, and a man’s voice replied to his platitude.
“Not always,” it said crisply. “Be good enough to leave that gun lay – just hold up your hands, where I can see them, and come away from that desk.”
Staff laughed shortly and swung smartly round, exposing empty hands. In the brief instant in which his back had been turned a man had let himself into the study from the hall. He stood now with his back to the door, covering Staff with an automatic pistol.
“Come away,” he said in a peremptory tone, emphasising his meaning with a flourish of the weapon. “Over here – by Miss Landis, if you please.”
Quietly Staff obeyed. He had knocked about the world long enough to recognise the tone of a man talking business with a gun. He placed himself beside Alison’s chair and waited, wondering.
Indeed, he was very much perplexed and disturbed. For the first time since Iff had won his confidence against his better judgment, his faith in the little man was being shaken. This high-handed intruder was so close a counterpart of Mr. Iff that one had to look twice to distinguish the difference, and then found the points of variance negligible – so much so that the fellow might well be Iff in different clothing and another manner. And Iff could easily have slipped out of the bedroom by its hall door. Only, to shift his clothes so quickly he would have to be a lightning-change artist of exceptional ability.
On the whole, Staff decided, this couldn’t be Iff. And yet … and yet …
“You may put up that pistol,” he said coolly. “I’m not going to jump you, so it’s unnecessary. Besides, it’s bad form with a lady present. And finally, if you should happen to let it off the racket would bring the police down on you more quickly than you’d like, I fancy.”
The man grinned and shoved the weapon into a pocket from which its grip projected handily.
“Something in what you say,” he assented. “Besides, I’m quick, surprisingly quick with my hands.”
“Part of your professional equipment, no doubt,” commented Staff indifferently.
“Admit it,” said the other easily. He turned his attention to Alison. “Well, Miss Landis …?”
“Well, Mr. Iff?” she returned in the same tone.
“No,” he corrected; “not Iff – Ismay.”
“So you’ve changed identities again!”
“Surely you don’t mind?” he said, grinning over the evasion.
“But you denied being Ismay aboard the Autocratic.”
“My dear lady, you couldn’t reasonably expect me to plead guilty to a crime which I had not yet committed.”
“Oh, get down to business!” Staff interrupted impatiently. “You’re wasting time – yours as well as ours.”
“Peevish person, your young friend,” Ismay commented confidentially to Alison. “Still, there’s something in what he says. Shall we – ah – begin to negotiate?”
“I think you may as well,” she agreed coldly.
“Very well, then. The case is simple enough. I’m here to offer to secure the return of the Cadogan collar for an appropriate reward.”
“Ten thousand dollars has been offered,” she began.
“Not half enough, my dear lady,” he interposed. “You insult the necklace by naming such a meagre sum – to say nothing of undervaluing my intelligence.”
“So that’s it!” she said reflectively.
“That is it, precisely. I am in communication with the person who stole your necklace; she’s willing to return it for a reward of reasonable size.”
“She? You mean Miss Searle?”
The man made a deprecating gesture. “Please don’t ask me to name the lady…”
“I knew it!” Alison cried triumphantly.
“You puppy!” Staff exclaimed. “Haven’t you the common manhood to shoulder the responsibility for your crimes yourself?”
“Tush,” said the man gently – “tush! Not a pretty way to talk at all – calling names! I’m surprised. Besides, I ought to know better than you, acting as I do as agent for the lady in question.”
“That’s a flat lie,” said Staff. “If you repeat it – I warn you – I’ll jump you as sure ’s my name’s Staff, pistol or no pistol!”
“Aren’t you rather excited in your defence of this woman?” Alison turned on him with a curling lip.
“I’ve a right to my emotions,” he retorted – “to betray them as I see fit.”
“And I,” Ismay put it, “to my freedom of speech – ”
“Not in my rooms,” Staff interrupted hotly. “I’ve warned you. Drop this nonsense about Miss Searle if you want to stop here another minute without a fight. Drop it! Say what you want to say to Miss Landis – and get out!”
He was thoroughly enraged, and his manner of expressing himself seemed to convince the thief. With a slight shrug of his shoulders he again addressed himself directly to Alison.
“In the matter of the reward,” he said, “we’re of the opinion that you’ve offered too little by half. Twenty thousand at the least – ”
“You forget I have the duty to pay.”
“My dear lady, if you had not been anxious to evade payment of the duty you would be enjoying the ownership of your necklace today.”
As he spoke the telephone-bell rang. Staff turned away to his desk, Ismay’s voice pursuing him with the caution.
“Don’t forget about that open drawer – keep your hands away from it.”
“Oh, be quiet,” returned Staff contemptuously. Standing with his back to them, he took up the instrument and lifted off the receiver.
“Hello?” he said irritably.
He was glad that his face was not visible to his guests; he could restrain a start of surprise, but was afraid his expression would have betrayed him when he recognised the voice at the other end of the line as Iff’s.
“Don’t repeat my name,” it said quickly in a tone low but clear. “That is Iff. Ismay still there?”
“Yes,” said Staff instantly: “it’s I, Harry. How are you?”
“Get rid of him as quick ’s you can,” Iff continued, “and join me here at the Park Avenue. I dodged down the fire-escape and caught his motor-car; his chauffeur thinks I’m him. I’ll wait in the street – Thirty-third Street side, with the car. Now talk.”
“All right,” said Staff heartily; “glad to. I’ll be there.”
“Chauffeur knows where Nelly is, I think; but he’s too big for me to handle alone, in case my foot slips and he gets suspicious. That’s why I need you. Bring your gun.”
“Right,” Staff agreed promptly. “The club in half an hour. Yes, I’ll come. Good-bye.”
He turned back toward Ismay and Alison, his doubts resolved, all his vague misgivings as to this case of double identity settled finally and forever.
“Alison,” he said, breaking in roughly upon something Ismay was saying to the girl, “you’ve a cab waiting outside, haven’t you?”
Alison stared in surprise. “Yes,” she said in a tone of wonder.
Staff paused beside the divan, one hand resting upon the topmost of a little heap of silken cushions. “Mind if I borrow it?” he asked, ignoring the man.
“No, but – ”
“It’s business – important,” said Staff. “I’ll have to leave you here at once. Only” – he watched Ismay closely out of the corners of his eyes – “if I were you I wouldn’t waste any more time on this fellow. He’s bluffing – can’t carry out anything he promises.”
Ismay turned toward him, expostulant.
“What d’ you mean by that?” he demanded.
“Miss Searle has escaped,” said Staff deliberately.
“No!” cried Ismay, startled and thrown off his guard by the fear it might be so. “Impossible!”
“Think so?” As he spoke Staff dextrously snatched up the uppermost pillow and with a twist of his hand sent it whirling into the thief’s face.
It took him utterly unawares. His arms flew up too late to ward it off, and he staggered back a pace.
“Lots of impossible things keep happening all the time,” chuckled Staff as he closed in.
There was hardly a struggle. Staff’s left arm clipped the man about the waist at the same time that his right hand deftly abstracted the pistol from its convenient pocket. Then, dropping the weapon into his own pocket, he transferred his hold to Ismay’s collar and spun him round with a snap that fairly jarred his teeth.
“There, confound you!” he said, exploring his pockets for other lethal weapons and finding nothing but three loaded clips ready to be inserted in the hollow butt of the pistol already confiscated. “Now what ’m I going to do with you, you blame’ little pest?”
The question was more to himself than to Ismay, but the latter, recovering with astonishing quickness, answered Staff by suddenly squirming out of his coat and leaving it in his assailant’s hands as he ducked to the door and flung himself out.
Staff broke into a laugh as the patter of the little man’s feet was heard on the stairs.
“Resourceful beggar,” he commented, going to the window and rolling up the coat as he went. He reached it just in time to see the thief dodge out.
The coat, opening as it descended, fell like a blanket round Ismay’s head. He stumbled, tripped and fell headlong down the steps, sprawling and cursing.
“Thought you might need it,” Staff apologised as the man picked himself up and darted away.
He turned to confront an infuriated edition of Alison.
“Why did you do that?” she demanded with a stamp of her foot. “What right had you to interfere? I was beating him down; in another minute we’d have come to terms – ”
“Oh, don’t be silly, my dear,” said Staff, taking his revolver from the desk-drawer and placing it in the hip-pocket of tradition. “To begin with, I don’t mind telling you I don’t give much of a whoop whether you ever get that necklace back or not.” He grabbed his hat and started for the door. “What I’m interested in is the rescue of Miss Searle, if you must know; and that’s going to happen before long, or I miss my guess.” He paused at the open door. “If we get her, we get the necklace, of course – and the Lord knows you’ll be welcome to that. Would you mind turning out the lights before you go?”