The Lion's Mouse Part 18

"Nonsense! You're as bad as Miss Blackburne!" Beverley cut her short. "I thought that, for some reason, you might have hidden them. Now I know you didn't. Clo, this is the most terrible day--except one--in my life.

I must find the pearls or Roger will never forgive me. And only a few minutes ago they were nothing, compared with the papers!"

Clo's wits, drowned in horror for an instant, came to the surface again.

"What if O'Reilly took the pearls for revenge!" she blurted out. "Did he know--was he anywhere near them?"

Beverley, who had been standing by the bed, sank down upon it, and stared. "He did know," she said slowly. "And--and he was alone in the room with the pearls for some minutes if I remember rightly. You see, Sister Lake arrived. She was angry about your being out. I tried to soothe her. It was no use. She left, bag and baggage, in injured dignity. O'Reilly was in my boudoir. Oh, Clo, it must be he who took the pearls!"

The girl herself had said it: yet, when the words were repeated by other lips than hers, it gave her a shock. O'Reilly's face rose before her eyes. "I don't believe he did it!" she was surprised to hear her own voice cry out aloud.

"You suggested it yourself!" exclaimed Beverley.

"I know," the girl confessed. "The idea popped into my head. But it can't be true. He's not that sort, whatever else he may be!"

"He went off furious with you, with us both," Beverley said. "It must have been he who stole the pearls. There's a strong motive--something for him to hold over us, and force us to give the papers back."

"If we've got them!" cut in Clo.

Beverley sprang up. "I'm lost in this!" she faltered. "There are too many things against me. I can't cope with them all at once. I must go to the boudoir and get that envelope, whatever happens."

"What shall I do?" asked Clo.

Beverley was already at the door, and had opened it.

"If I don't come back to you in five minutes, it will be a sign I want you to come to me."

When the door had shut behind her Angel, the girl felt she would be thankful for the five minutes' respite. She lay flat and straight as a figure on a marble tomb, yet she could not rest for thinking of O'Reilly. His eyes seemed to be looking into hers. By shutting them, she could not shut him out. When she thought that the five minutes must have pa.s.sed, she slid wearily off the bed.

"I must go to Angel," she said half aloud. But she had not got to her feet when, without knocking, Beverley flung the door open.

Instantly Clo guessed that some new and worse misfortune had happened.

"This time it's the end. I give up!" Beverley panted. "The envelope has gone with the pearls. I hadn't even opened it. I don't know what was inside."

"Gone! The envelope gone!" gasped the girl. "Gone--from--where?"

"From the table in the boudoir," Beverley answered. "I laid it there when Miss Blackburne told me about the pearls. It was there when I came to you. Miss Blackburne hasn't left the room. She didn't even see the envelope. I've searched everywhere for it--but it's gone."

XVIII

DEFEAT

All Clo's efforts and schemings wasted! She had tricked, stolen, risked her life, in vain. The envelope was gone.

"You can't have looked everywhere," she insisted. "The thing must have got tucked out of sight--unless Miss Blackburne ... but no, she's as good as gold!"

"I'm sure you're right about her. She is good," said Beverley.

"But ... she says n.o.body came into the room while she was there.... I asked her. Otherwise I might have thought that Rog----" The sentence broke. "I wanted to see you alone," Angel began again, "so I came back. You've been so wonderful to-day, you've made me depend upon you. If there were anything to do, you'd be the one to do it. But there's nothing ... is there? I can't see any light, can you?"

"Let me help you to look for the envelope," said Clo.

"Come, then," said the other, in a toneless voice, unlike her own.

Together they went to Beverley's boudoir, where there was a little interlude of greetings between Clo and Miss Blackburne. Then, Clo was beginning her search for the lost envelope when Roger Sands slowly pa.s.sed the half-open door. Beverley had left it ajar, not because she wished to call him (that desire had fled with the news about the pearls), but in order to see that he went out. She stood with her back to the door at the moment, but on the wall directly opposite hung a long mirror. Clo guessed, by the slight start Angel gave, that she must have caught sight of his reflection. He turned and came back.

"If he asks to see the pearls!" was the thought in Clo's head. Her eyes met Beverley's and read the same terror there.

Roger spoke to Miss Blackburne, pausing on the threshold.

"What do you think of the baubles?" he asked with elaborate carelessness. "Are they above the average?"

The two girls held their breath. Would the pearl-stringer give the situation away?

But Miss Blackburne, true to herself, was discretion incarnate.

"I've not seen enough of the pearls, yet, to form an opinion," she replied, "but my impression is that they must be altogether exceptional."

"I'm glad your impression is good," said Roger. He turned to his wife.

"I may not be back till late. Don't sit up for me. Good-night."

Beverley followed him into the hall.

"Roger!" she pleaded. "You're doing me a most horrible injustice. I can't bear it!"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You can't help knowing," she said, "It's about Justin O'Reilly. You think I----"

"Have I accused you of anything?" he challenged, brows raised, eyes blank.

"No. But----"

"Your imagination seems to be even more lively than your conscience is sensitive, my dear girl. What have you done, that I should accuse you?"

"I've done nothing, Roger, that you----"

"All right, then. Why borrow trouble? I must hurry, or I'll miss my appointment. Good-night again. Sleep well!"

Roger left her without a backward glance. Beverley felt that she was caught in the folds of a vast net.

What was it Clo had said, that day? "There was once a mouse who gnawed a net----" Poor mouse, it had tried to-day to gnaw the net! It had gnawed one small hole, but even before the prisoner could struggle to get free, the hole had closed again. Still, the mouse was ready for another bout.

It was a brave, bold mouse--a subtle mouse! For some strange reason her sole hope was in Clo.

During her absence the girl had searched the boudoir from end to end.

Her sharp eyes had not missed a cranny big enough to hide a pin, to say nothing of a rope of pearls or a large envelope with five red seals.

Both the pearls and the envelope must have been stolen. Were there two thieves, or only one?