oughts
wandered. They had caught at the name of John Heron; Beverley had never
mentioned it. The girl had no means of guessing how it might bear upon
the case now in her small, determined hands. She did not see how, or
where, she could have heard it before, yet it did not sound strange to
her. The feeling she had on hearing it puzzled and even thrilled her
vaguely. It was as if the name, "John Heron," had been whispered into
her ear in a dream--a dream not forgotten, but buried under other things
in her brain. The girl was suddenly alert. There was only one fact which
she grasped with straining certainty. In that buried dream there were
other sounds connected with the whispered name: sounds of sobbing, as of
someone crying in the dark.

"Anyhow," Peterson went on, "there was a frame-up, and those that was in
it has got to pay me for what I went through. That's partly why I'm here
in Noo York. If I don't have those papers by ten I'll show up at the
Sands flat and ask for the missis."

"You wouldn't find Mr. Sands at home," the girl cut in. "He's out. When
he comes back he's likely to go away again at once."

"Aw, he is, is he?" echoed Peterson. His personality waked up
secretively, like that of some weak, night animal hiding in a wood. Clo
eyed him, striving to make him out.

"Better go home, kiddy," he advised. His tone was good-natured. "Shall I
see you back to where you live, or----"

"I have another errand to do," the girl announced with dignity. She had
meant to telephone from the Westmorland to the Dietz, and learn if
Justin O'Reilly was in; but now she determined not to do so. Better
waste a little time rather than Peterson should hear her inquiring for
O'Reilly. Instead of waiting to telephone, she walked to the door and
asked a half-baked youth in hotel livery to call her a taxi.

"If ferret-face tries to follow I'll lead him a dance!" she thought. But
ferret-face seemed to read her mind, and be willing to relieve it.

"So long!" he said. "I've got a job o' work, too. It will take me till
about ten. After that I shall be lookin' for a call from you or her
ladyship."

He turned his back and sauntered to the elevator. Before the taxi had
arrived he had been shot up to regions above.

"So that's all right!" Clo muttered to herself, spinning toward the
Dietz. Yet, as she said the words, she wondered if it _was_ all right.
Why had Peterson's whole personality made a kind of "lightning change"
on hearing th