The Lion's Mouse

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12021, 26 December 1924, Page 3

The Lion's Mouse

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

Mr

e.N A.M.Williamson

CHAPTER XlV.—Continued.

Uninvited, the chambermaid bad followed O’Reilly into the next room. She was talking volubly, hoping that he’d r:islaid the door hey, that it hadn’t been stolen. CUo, in making her dash for the bedroom, had quietly closed the door between, but she could hear that the two were talking. Anyhow, Clo tried to think, it was the first step that cost I Once outside the beedroom window, plastered against the wall, the danger of being caught was over. O’Reilly would search the clothes-closet, and peer into the bath. Then he would suppose that the bird was already flown. Never would he dieam that a girl would dare what she meant to dlare.

Oddl> enough, that reflection decided CBo to act. For the moment, fear left her free. She stepped briskly over the window sill with one foot and landed on the ledge. It fedt solid, almost comforting, but as she groped for it with the other foot, horror caught hei again, poured through her veins like iced waters and l made her heart feel a dead thin. She tried not to think of anything, except that kind curtain flapping in the wind. She clung to the window frame with fingers so damp that they slipped on the stone. Holding on for dear life—yes, life was dear, now it hung b> a thread!—she edged along, .her check scraping the wall as she moved'. One atep, two, three—another would take her eo far that she must let go of the window frame. Gould she reaoh the blowing curtain ? A few moments ago, it had seemed to beckon. Now she depended on it, the white folds eluded* ner hand. If the wind dropped, sho was lost. She couldn’t help thinking of all the things she wished not to think of. She thought of that immense depth .below her narrow perch. She didn’t believe the man or woman lived, strongminded enough to forget it 1 Aa she reached out with her free arm for the curtain, a light sprang bp from the room she had left. O’Reilly was there, searching for her. It had been simple to say. while aho stood on a solid floor, that he would not look out of fcho window. But he might look out: he might hear her feet shuffling along the ledge. If his head appeared now, she.wowd 1 fall.

The girl begin to shake all over like a spent leaf on a high branch. She would have to go, she thought. But the curtain was blowing very near, so near that she ventured another step. The lace brushed her fingers. With a last effort she grasped a fold. Courage came back. Now she had lqt go oL O’Reilly’s window frame. She had passed on beyond hope of return, and yet she had no firm grasp upon the curtain. Before it could give the support a rope gives a climber she muat slowly, patiently ; draw it towards her inch by inch until she had it taut. “Angel, are you praying for me?” she wondered. Because she could not pray for herself. She could only count. Dimly, she felt it odd that it should calm her nerves to count each time her fingers closed upon the curtain. But it did calm them. “Seven, eight, nine, ten!” The fold of lace began to be taut.. Drawing it towards her, she started on once more on that endless journey of a few inches. Thank heaven, the light in O’Reilly’s bedroom had been switched off! The man must have given up the chase, and gone back to the sitting-room. For the present she was safe from him. But what a queer word “safe” was, just then! “Eleven, twelve, thirteen!” .Thanks to the curtain-rope, she had almost reached her goal. “Fourteen, fifiteen!” She had got so far that she | could let the curtain go and ffing her iarms over the window-sill. She threw her body upon it, and lay still for an instant, utterly spent now the strain was over. But was it over? No, not yet. If her feet slipped from the coping, she would have no strength for the effort of climbing in at the window. She would hang for a minute and then —drop. “The papers!” she reminded herself, for a mental tonic. ”They’re so nearly safe now. Brace up, Clo! A minute move and you’ll he out of trouble.” The room beyond was, like O’Reilly’s, unlightecl. Thank goodness, there'd be no squalling lady’s maid to give an alarm I Clo allowed, herself time to breathe, resting on the window sill. Then she prepared to draw herself over. Wrapping the curtain round her right hand, and clutching the lace firmly with her left hand, she found a heavy piece of furniture just inside the window. It seemed to be a dressing-table with a mirror suspended between two spiral posts. Grasping one, Clo drew the table closer, till it refused to move. This gave a lever on which she might depend. She clung to the curtain and post, till she could plant- first one knee, then itg fellow on the window sill. It seemed an easy thing to do, and would have been easy had not her strength been nearly spent. Her qtiivering muscles responded slowly to this last call, but they did respond. Soon she was kneeling on the window sill. Then one foot was over, groping for the floor. She had just found it when a key grated in a lock, and before she could hide behind the curtains a door opened wide. A flood of light r:£re»med in from the corridor, and outlined her white figure against the blue background of the night. CHAPTER, XV.—THE NUMBER SEVENTEEN. To go back meant -- death, and the lose of Beverley’s papers. Besides, she had been seen. For onoe, Clo’s wits refused t-o work. Dike a frozen flower, she remained motionless in. the window. The figure in the doorway was that of a man. The light coming from behind made his face a blank for her eyes, but the girl saw that he was taller than O’Reilly and of a different build. Perhaps it was the owner of the suite, he who had gone out with the beautiful woman. The man made no move. He stood in the donrwav as if rooted to the floor. “My God!” Clo heard liim mutter. “The fool takes me ferr a ghost.” she thought. “Now’s mv chance, before he plucks up courage 1” Down came the other white shoe on the carpet, with no more noise than a

Author of "This Woman to this Man,- -’The Lightning The Car ot Destiny/ 9 &c. t &c *«««>««. f C OPYBIGHT.I

rose-petal falling. Then followed a second of indecision. Should she risk pushing the man aside, and fleeing past him into the hall ? No, her touch would bieak the spell. She must go on with the ghost-play, and vanish in the diark! Light from outside showed her the open door of an adjoining room. Thence came the draught which had set the curtains blowing. Clo took a few floating steps towards the man, then dodged aside, and disappeared into the room beyond. Softly'she closed the communicating door and slid the holt. Almost opposite where ©he stood, opened a cross passage leading to a wing of the hotel. With a bound she reached it, not daring to look behind, yet listening with the ear of the hunted for the hunter, as she nan, coming to a staircase the girl plunged down it two steps at a time. On the floor below, however, she ventured' to moderate her' pace. This was the dinner hour; most of the guests would be in the restaurant, or out of the hotel for the evening; but there would he servants about. do forced herself to descend sedately, flight after flight of stairs, not daring to enter a lift. At last, when it seemed that she had come to earth from the top of Jacob’s ladder, the stairway ended. Timidly following a passage that opened before her, she came into a wide, important hall. There was a cloakroom in the hall. Ladies were going into it and coming out. Olo > heard music in the distance and saw a marble balustrade. This balustrade was for hc-r a landmark. She knew by it that she must have reached the story above the ground floor., *nri that the large corridor of the cloakroom opened on to a gallery overlooking the main- hall. She had fclanced up aad admired that marble balustrade when she first entered the hotel. She had seen also a ; wide marble staircase leading up to the gallery. It must be near, she thought, out it was a way of exist to avoidIf O’Reilly were on guard below, or even if he had merely telephoned her description to the office, she and the stolen envelope would be promptly nabbed ip the hall below. She had dared too much to be tamely taken now. Mirrors were let into the panels of the wall, and Clo paused before one, pretending to straighten her hat. She wanted time to make up her mind. The ladies who left their wraps in this upstairs cloakroom must be dining in private rooms on this floor, ©he thought. “Out there in the gallery their men will be waiting for them,” the girl told herself. “And maybe that’s where my man is waiting for me I” One of these ladies, opening a goldchain bag to pull out her handkerchief. dropped a bit of paper with a number on it—Olo’s favourite number, 17* It fluttered close to her feet, she stooped and picked it up. Commonsense told her that the dropped paper was a cloakroom check. It might mean salvation. She walked leisurely into the cloakroom, though her nerves wore aierk like the etrinc© of a jump-ing-jack. “My cousin has asked me to oome and fetch her wrap,” she exclaimed to a bored attendant. “There’s a draught through the diningroom. This is her check. The woman accepted it wothout a word. She presently produced a long wrap of black chiffon, lined with blue. “Number seventeen. Here you are, miss.” So speaking, she removed tho duplicate check, which had been pinned to a frilled hood of the cloak. At sight of that hood a weight lifted from Clo’s heart. It was more ornamental than practical, but it wtfuld be immensely useful to her. If she haa been given ber choice of cloaks, she couldnTt have done -better. Seventeen was bringing her luck. “Oh, I believe I’d better leave my hat!” ehe said to the attendant, as if on second thoughts. Unsuspiciously the woman took it, pinned a bit of paper to the lining, and handed the duplicate to Clo. “Nobody’s goif seventeen now, so I’ll give it to you again.” This seemed a good omen: seventeen for the second time! With the cloak over her arm she sauntered out of the room. Then back she went to the foot of the stairs, where was a quiet niche behind a big, potted palm, and close by was on© of those convenient panel mirrors. In this refuge Clo slipped into the wrap, and arranged the floppy hood. It was far from becoming, for the frill fell almost to her eyfes; but it hid the telltale red hair, and showed little of her face save the end of an impudent nose and the tip of a pointed chin. The cloak, made for a taller figure than Clo’s. came nearly to her feet, and holding it together the white dress became invisible- “ Now for it!” she thought, like a soldier who goes “ever the top” to charge the enemy. Head down, hood flapping, cloak floating, she so.ilod along the corridor and out into the gallery beyond. Yes. there wns the marble staircase, and below was the great, bright hall: hut in this disguise she could pass O’Reiflv if he had assembled half the detectives in New York. Sc he tripped down the stairs sedate, un hurried as the care-free girl in whose cloak she had borrowed. Arrived in the ball, she knew her way out. and could hardly subdue the triumph in her voice as she said, “Taxi, please,” to an attendant porter. “Where shall I tell him to go, miss?” came tho question as she stepped into the cab: and for half a second she By a clock she had seen in the hall it was just half-past eieht. There woud be time to go home, time for Angel to open the envelope and see if the contents were right, time to tell her adventures, and time to rest before keying her tryst with Peterson. She gave the number of the house in Park avenue where Roger Sands lived. The do or of the taxi shut with a reassuring “clock.” It w"« delicious to lean • back against the comfortable euohions t She ought to he entirely happy, entirelv satisfied. Perhaps it wns only reaction after «o many hopes and fears, thi© weight that seemed to press her heart. It wan an obstinate weight. It grew heavier as the taxi brought her nearer home. (To be contbinued.)