whose sake you've done this is worthy of her
friend, why, I'll be on her side from this night on."

"Thank you," said Clo, meekly. She was very tired, but vitality flowed
through her newly at O'Reilly's words and look. "I don't deserve such a
compliment, but she deserves everything. If I've behaved badly to you,
it was for her."

"I know," said O'Reilly. "But you weren't precisely 'bad.' You were, on
the whole, rather--wonderful. How did you get out of my room with the
only door locked on the inside?"

"Oh!" the girl cried, surprised, "I thought you'd guess. I went along
the stone ledge under the window of your bedroom till I came to an open
window of a room in the next suite."

"I thought of that, when it was too late; but it seemed incredible."

"It wasn't as hard to do as I was afraid it would be," said Clo. "The
other window was open, the curtain was blowing out. I caught hold of it,
and got along somehow, through not looking down. Then in the room where
I went in, there was a man. He was at the door, and I scared him popping
in that way at the window, so he let me run past. That's all." Firmly
the girl closed the subject.

"Let's talk about the pearls," she said. "Peterson was a wicked man. I
can't pretend to be sorry he's been killed. He was acting for others
higher up. I want to find Kit, not because I think she murdered him, but
because I'm sure she's got the pearls. Who called out 'Come in!' in a
man's voice, when Peterson was dead? We haven't got time to discuss the
whole business before half-past eleven. Here comes my coffee! It's going
to give me new life!"

"You must need it. Try to nibble a few crumbs of this rusk," O'Reilly
advised. "I've been thinking hard since you told me how 'Chuff' 'phoned
to 'Pete,' and took you for Kit. As for the voice that called 'Come in',
the wall being thin, a man in the room close by might think the knock
was at his door. You're almost surely right about Kit being in the hotel
to watch Peterson. No doubt he was acting for men who have the power
to--trouble Mrs. Sands. Don't look at me like a wild cat! I shan't tell
what you don't want to hear, but there certainly are such men. Most
likely Peterson followed us into the Sands' apartment without being
noticed in the wild confusion of your fainting. He was there to get hold
of the thing he was blackmailing her for, the thing you went back to my
hotel to steal, and then repented stealing. Naturally Peterson didn't
find it,