on would then be discovered and she, Eleanor
Searle, would fall under suspicion--at least, unless she took immediate
steps to restore the jewels.

She acted hastily, on impulse. One minute she was at the telephone,
ordering a taxicab, the next she was hurriedly dressing herself in a
tailor-made suit. The hour was late, but not too late--although (this
gave her pause) it might be too late before she could reach Staff's
rooms. She had much better telephone him she was coming. Of course he
would have a telephone--everybody has, in New York.

Consultation of the directory confirmed this assumption, giving her both
his address and his telephone number. But before she could call up, her
cab was announced. Nevertheless she delayed long enough to warn him
hastily of her coming. Then she snatched up the necklace, dropped it
into her handbag, replaced the hat in its bandbox and ran for the
elevator.

It was almost half-past one by the clock behind the desk, when she
passed through the office. She had really not thought it so late. She
was conscious of the surprised looks of the clerks and pages. The porter
at the door, too, had a stare for her so long and frank as to approach
impertinence. None the less he was quick enough to take her bandbox
from the bellboy who carried it and place it in the waiting taxi, and
handed her in after it with civil care. Having repeated to the operator
the address she gave him, the porter shut the door and went back to his
post as the vehicle darted out from the curb.

Eleanor knew little of New York geography. Her previous visits to the
city had been very few and of short duration. With the shopping district
she was tolerably familiar, and she knew something of the district
roundabout the old Fifth Avenue Hotel and the vanished Everett House.
But with these exceptions she was entirely ignorant of the lay of the
land: just as she was too inexperienced to realise that it isn't
considered wholly well-advised for a young woman alone to take, in the
middle of the night, a taxicab whose chauffeur carries a companion on
the front seat. If she had stopped to consider this circumstance at all,
she would have felt comforted by the presence of the superfluous man, on
the general principle that two protectors are better then one: but the
plain truth is that she didn't stop to consider it, her thoughts being
fully engaged with what seemed more important matters.

The cab bounced across Amsterdam Avenue, sli