Cutty leaned against the footrail, his expression neutral. He sighed
inaudibly. His delightful catnap was over. Stefani Gregor, Kitty's
neighbour, a valet in a fashionable hotel! Stefani Gregor, who, upon
a certain day, had placed the drums of jeopardy in the palms of a war
correspondent known to his familiars as Cutty. And who was this young
man on the bed?

"There goes the bell!" cried Kitty, jumping up.

"Wait!"

The ring was repeated vigorously and impatiently.

"Kitty, I don't quite like the sound of that bell. Harrison would have
no occasion to be impatient. Somebody in a hurry. Now, attend to me. I'm
going to steal out to the kitchen. Don't be afraid. Call if I'm needed.
Open the door just a crack, with your foot against it. If it's Harrison
he'll be in uniform. Call out his name. Slam the door if it is someone
you don't know."

Kitty opened the door as instructed, but she swung it wide because one
of the men outside was a policeman. The man behind him was a thickset,
squat individual, with puffed, discoloured eyes and a nose that reminded
Kitty of an alligator pear.

"What's going on here?" the policeman demanded to know.

CHAPTER VIII

A phrase, apparently quite irrelevant to the situation, shot into
Kitty's head. Moribund perspectives. Instantly she knew, with that
foretasting mind of hers, that the man peering over the policeman's
shoulder and Johnny Two-Hawks had met somewhere that day. She was now
able to compare the results, and she placed the victory on Two-Hawks'
brow. Yonder individual somehow justified the instinct that had prompted
her to play the good Samaritan. Whence had this gorilla come? He was
not one of the men who had issued in such dramatic haste from the Gregor
apartment.

"This man here saw you and another carrying someone across the fire
escape. What's the rumpus?" The policeman was not exactly belligerent,
but he was dutifully determined. And though he was ready to grant that
this girl with the Irish eyes was beautiful, a man never could tell.

"There's been a tragedy of some kind," began Kitty. "This man certainly
did see us carrying a man across the fire escape. He had been set upon
and robbed in the apartment across the way."

"Why didn't you call in the police?"

"Because he might have died before you got here."

"Where's the man who helped you?"

"Gone. He was an outsider. He was afraid of getting mixed up in a police
affair and ran away." Behind the kitche