Out of the Air

  VI

  "How did they find me, Glorious Lutie?" Susannah asked next morning."How _did_ they find me? If I could only teach myself to listen to thewarning of those little hammers. Something told me when I saw Warnerwalking along the corridor of the Carman Building that he was not thereby accident. Something told me when I ran into O'Hearn at the Attic theother night that _he_ was not _there_ by accident. They have beenfollowing me all the time. They've known what I've been doing everymoment. Just as Byan knows where I am now. How did they do it? I'venever suspected it for a moment. I've never seen anybody. I'mfrightened, Glorious Lutie; I'm dreadfully frightened. I don't knowwhere to turn. If I only had a real friend-- But perhaps that wouldn'thelp as much as I think. For I'm afraid--I'm too afraid to tell_anybody_--"

  All this, she said as usual, wordlessly. But she said it from her bed,her eyes fixed in a lackluster stare on the little oval gleam of theminiature.

  "I don't know what I'd do without you, Glorious Lutie, to tell mytroubles to. You're a great deal more than a picture to me. You're areal presence-- Oh, if you could only see for me now. I wonder if Byanis still in his room? I wonder what he's going to do. I mean--what isthe next move? Oh, of course he's there! He wants to talk with me. But Iwon't let him talk with me. I'll stay in this room until I starve! Andhe can't telephone. How can he put over what he wants to say?"

  That question answered itself automatically when she dragged herself upfrom bed. A white square glimmered beside her door. She pounced upon it.

  "Dear Miss Ayer:

  "Of course we have known where you were and what you were doing every instant since you left the office. We did not interfere with your quitting your boarding-house because we preferred to give you a few days to think things over. I hope you've been enjoying your little excursions to the Museum and the Aquarium. We knew you'd come to your senses after a while and be ready to talk business. That is why you've had those little, accidental meetings from time to time. That advertisement for a job in the Carman Building was a decoy ad. It is useless for you to try to get away from us.

  "And in the meantime the situation is getting more and more desperate. You know why. Now listen. We can clean up on that little business deal in three days. Do you know what that means? Maybe a hundred thousand dollars. We'll let you in. Your share would be twelve thousand five hundred. Don't that sound pretty good to you? You can avoid any trouble by going away with us. Or you can go alone and nobody will bother you. We'll give you the dope on that; for believe me, we know how. And you wouldn't have to do a thing you don't want to do. We've got grandpa tamed now in regard to you. We've told him that you're a lady, and won't stand for that rough stuff. He's wild about you, and crazy to see you, and make it all right again. Now why not use a little sense? Slip a note under my door across the way and tell me that you'll doll yourself up and be ready to go to dinner with him tonight at seven."

  A postscript added: "This is unsigned and typewritten on your own typewriter and so couldn't be used by anyone who didn't like our way of doing business. For your own safety though, I advise you to burn it."

  This last was the one bit of advice in the letter which Susannahfollowed. She lighted a match and burned it over her water basin. Thenshe forced her protesting throat to swallow a glass of milk. She atesome crackers. After that she went to bed.

  What to do and where to go! Over and over again, she turned the meagerpossibilities of her situation. Nothing offered escape. A hackneyedphrase floated into her mind--"woman's wit." From time immemorial it hadbeen a bromidiom that any woman, however stupid, could outwit any man,however clever. Was it true? Perhaps not all the time, and perhapssometimes. That was the only way though--she must pit her nimble,inexperienced woman's wit against their heavier but trained man's wit.Her problem was to get out of this house, unseen. But how? All kinds offantastic schemes floated through her tired mind. If she could onlydisguise herself-- But she would have to go out first to get thedisguise. And Byan was across the hall, waiting for just that move. Ifthere were only a convenient fire-escape! But of course he wouldanticipate that. If she could only summon a taxi, leap into it and drivefor an hour! But she would have to telephone for the taxi in the outsidehall, where Byan could hear her. On and on, she drove her tired mind;inventing schemes more and more impracticable. For a long time, thatwoman's wit spawned nothing--

  Then suddenly a curious idea came to her. It was so ridiculous that sherejected it instantly. Ridiculous--and it stood ninety-nine per centchance of failure; offered but one per cent chance of success.Nevertheless it recurred. It offered more and more suggestion, more andmore temptation. True, it was a thing barely possible; true also, thatit was the only thing possible. But could she put it through? Had shethe nerve? Had she the strength?

  She must find both the nerve and the strength.

  She bathed and dressed quickly and with a growing steadiness. She packedher belongings into her suitcase, put Glorious Lutie's miniature in herhandbag.

  She sat down at her bureau and wrote a note:

  "If you will come to my room, after you have had your breakfast, I willtalk the matter over with you. I will not leave the building before youreturn. I will be ready to see you at ten o'clock."

  She opened her door, walked across the corridor; slipped the note underthe door of Byan's room. Then she hurried back; locked her door; satdown and waited, her hands clasped. Her hands grew colder and colderuntil they seemed like marble, but all the time her mind seemed tosteady and clarify.

  After a long while she heard Byan's door open. She heard his stepsretreating down the hall and over the stairs.

  Ten minutes later, Susannah appeared, suitcase in hand, at the janitor'soffice on the first floor. "I'm Miss Ayer in No. 9, second floor," shesaid. "May I leave this suitcase here? I've just thought that I wantedto go to a friend's room on the fifth floor and I don't want to lug itup all those stairs."

  The janitor considered her for a puzzled second. Of course he was inByan's pay, Susannah reflected.

  "Sure," he answered uncertainly after a while.

  "I'm expecting a gentleman to call on me," Susannah went on steadily."Tell him I'll be on the fifth floor at No. 9. My friend is out," sheended in glib explanation, "but she's left her key with me. There's alittle work that I wanted to do on her typewriter." The janitor--she hadworked this out in advance--must know that Room 9, fifth floor--wasoccupied by a woman who owned a typewriter. Susannah established thatwhen, a few days before, she had restored to its owner a letter shovedby mistake under her own door.

  Susannah deposited her bag on the floor in the janitor's office. Shewalked steadily up the stairs to the second floor. She felt thejanitor's gaze on the first flight of her progress. She stopped justbefore she reached her own room, glanced back. She was alone there. Thejanitor had not followed her. Perhaps Byan's instructions to him wereonly to watch the door. With a swift pounce, she ran to Byan's door,turned the knob.

  It opened.

  She ran to the closet; opened that. As she suspected, it was empty.Indeed, her swift glance had discovered no signs of occupancy in theroom. Even the bed was undisturbed. Byan had hired it, of course, justfor the purpose of being there that one night. Susannah closed thecloset door after her, so that the merest crack let in the air sheshould demand--and waited. In that desperate hour when she lay thinking,the idea had suddenly flashed into her mind that there was only oneplace in the house where Byan would not look for her. That place was hisown room. But it would not have occurred to her to take refuge there ifshe had not noted, even in her taut terror of the night before, thatwhen Byan entered his own room he had omitted to lock the door afterhim. As indeed, why should he? There was nothing to steal in it butByan. Moreover, of course Byan had sat up all night--his doorunlocked--ready to forestall any effort of hers to escape.

  * * * * *

  An hour later Susannah hear
d a padded, rather brisk step ascending thestairs, coming along the hall. It was Byan, of course--no one couldmistake his pace. He knocked on the door of her room; at first gently,then insistently. A pause. Then he tried the knob, again at firstgently, then insistently. His steps retreated down the hall and thestairs. He must have got a pass-key from the janitor, for when, a longminute later, she heard his steps return, the scraping of a lock soundedfrom across the hall. She heard her somewhat rusty door-hinges creak.There followed a low whistle as of surprise, then an irregularsuccession of steps and creaks proving that he was looking under thebed, was inspecting the closet. She heard him retreat again down thestairs, and braced herself to endure a longer wait. At last, two pairsof feet sounded on the stairs. Had her ruse fully succeeded--would theymount at once to Room 9, fifth floor? No--they were coming again alongthe second-floor corridor. With a tingle of nerves in her temples andcheeks, she realized that she had reached the supreme moment of peril.They began knocking at every door on the second-floor corridors. Onceshe heard a muffled colloquy--the impatient tones of some strange man,the apologetic voice of the janitor. At other doors she heard, shortlyafter the knock, the scraping of the pass-key. Now they were in the roomjust beyond the wall of the closet where she was crouching. She heardthem enter and emerge--the moment had come! But their footsteps passedher door; an instant later, she heard the pass-key grate in the door ofthe room on the other side. Then--one hand shaking convulsively on theknob of Byan's closet door--she heard them go flying up the stairs tothe third story--the fourth--

  * * * * *

  Before noon of that haunted, hunted morning, Susannah found a room in acurious way. When she escaped from the house in the West Twenties, shehad walked westward almost to the river. In a little den of a restaurantjust off the docks, she ordered breakfast and the morning newspapers.But when she tried to look over the advertising columns with a view tofinding a room, she had a violent fit of trembling. The members of theCarbonado Mining Company, she recalled to herself, were studying thoseadvertisements just as closely as she; and perhaps at that very moment.

  Hiding in a great city! Why, she thought to herself, it's the only placewhere you can't hide!

  Susannah dawdled over breakfast as long as she dared. She found herselfwincing as she emerged onto the busy dingy street of docks. She stoppedunder the shade of an awning and controlled the abnormal fluttering ofher heart while she thought out her situation. She dared no longer walkthe streets. She dared not go to a real-estate agent. How, then, mightshe find a room and a hiding-place?

  Then a Salvation Army girl came picking her way across the crowded,cluttered dock-pavement toward her awning. And Susannah had a suddenimpulse which she afterwards described to Glorious Lutie as a stroke ofgenius. She came out to the edge of the pavement and accosted the BlueBonnet.

  "Do you know of any place where a girl who's a stranger in New York mayfind a cheap and respectable lodging?" she asked.

  The Salvation Army girl gave her a long, steady scrutiny from under thescoop of her bonnet.

  "My sister keeps a rooming-house up on Eighth Avenue," she said finally."She always has an extra room, and she will take you in, I guess. Haveyou a bit of paper? I'll write her a note."

  Susannah flew, swift as a homing dove, to the address. The landlady, ashapeless, featureless, middle-aged blonde, read the note; herself gavea long glance of scrutiny, and showed the room. Susannah's examinationwas merely perfunctory. In fact, she looked with eyes which saw not.Probably never before did a shabby, battered bedchamber, stained as toceiling, peeling as to wallpaper, carelessly patched as to carpet,indescribably broken-down and nondescript as to furniture, seem a veryparadise to the eyes of twenty-five.

  The bed was humpy, but it was a double bed; and clean. Susannah sank onto it. She did not rise for a long time. Then, true to her acceptedetiquette on occasions of this kind, she drew the miniature from herhandbag and pinned it on to the wall beside her bureau.

  "Glorious Lutie," her thoughts ran, "I'm as weak as a sick cat. If therewas ever a girl more terrified, more friendless, more worn-out than Ifeel at this moment, I'd like to know how she got that way. I want tocrawl into that bed and stay there for a week just reveling in thethought that I'm safe. Safe, Glorious Lutie. Safe! Alone with you. Andnobody to be afraid of. Our funds are running low of course. I'venothing to pawn except you. But don't be afraid--I'll never pawn you. Ifwe have to go down, we'll go down together and with all sails set. I'vegot an awful hate and fear on this job-hunting business now. Heavenknows I don't want much money; only enough to live on. I guess I won'ttry to be a high-class queen of secretaries any longer--or at least forthe present. My lay is to lie low for a month or two. I'll rest for afew days. Then I'll go into--what? What, Glorious Lutie, tell me what?I've got it! Domestic service. That's my escape. I've certainly gotbrains enough to be a second girl and they never could find me tuckedaway in somebody's house, especially if I never take my afternoons out.Which, believe me, Glorious Lutie, I won't. I'll spend them all withyou. Oh, what an idea that is! I'll wait around here for about a weekand then I'll tackle one of the domestic service agencies. If I knowanything about after-the-war conditions, I'll be snapped up like hotcakes."

  Keeping her promise to herself, Susannah stayed as much as possibleindoors. The landlady consented to give her breakfast, but she would dono more--even that was an accommodation. In gratitude, Susannah tookcare of her own room. She kept it in spotless order; she even potteredwith repairs. With breakfast at home, she had no need to leave the houseof mornings. She went without luncheon; and late in the afternoon,before the home-going flood from the offices, she had dinner in aChild's restaurant round the corner. For the rest of the time, she readthe landlady's books--few, and mostly cheap. But they included a set ofDickens; and she renewed acquaintance with a novelist whom she loved forhimself and who called up memories of her happiest times. But her moodwith Dickens was curiously capricious. His deaths and persecutions andpoignant tragedies she could no longer endure--they swept her into agulf of black melancholy. On the second day of her voluntaryimprisonment, she glanced through _Bleak House_; stumbled into thewanderings of Little Jo through the streets of London. Suddenly shesurprised herself by a fit of hysterical, trembling tears. Thisexplosion cleared her mental airs; but afterward she skipped throughDickens, picking and choosing his humors, his love-passages, hisgargantuan feasts in wayside inns.

  When her eyes grew weary with reading, or when she ran into one of thosepassages which brought the black cloud, Susannah gazed vacantly out ofthe window.

  Her lodging-house stood on a corner; she had a back, corner room on thethird floor. The house next door, on the side street, finished to therear in a two-story shed. Its roof lay almost under her window. Thelandlady, upon showing the room, had called her attention to this shed."We've got no regular fire escapes, dearie," she said, "but in case oftrouble, you're all right. You just step out here and if the skylightain't open, somebody'll get you down with a ladder. A person can't betoo careful about fires!" Across the skylight lay a few scantybackyards--treeless, grassless, uninteresting. This city area of yardsand sheds seemed to be the club, the Rialto for all the stray cats ofEighth Avenue. Susannah named them, endowed them with personalities.Their squabbles, their amours, their melodramatic stalking, gave her akind of apathetic interest.

  The interest lessened as three days went by, and the apathy deepened."It's my state of mind, Glorious Lutie," she apprised the miniature."It's this weight that's on my spirit. It's fear. Just as soon as I canget my mind off--I mean just as soon as I become convinced that I'mnever going to be bothered again, it will go, I'm sure. Of course Ican't help feeling as I do. But I ought not to. I'm perfectly safe now.In a few days those crooks won't trouble about me any more. It will betoo late. And I know it."

  She reiterated those last two sentences as though Glorious Lutie were adifficult person to convince. The next morning, however, came diversion.Work--roofing--began on the
shed just under her window. Susannah watchedthe workmen with an interest that held, at first, an element ofdetermined concentration. The roofers, an elderly man and a younger one,incredibly dirty in their blackened overalls, which were soon matched byface and hands, were very conscious at first of the brilliant tawny headjust above. Once, muffled by the window, she caught an allusion to whitehorses. But Susannah ignored this; continued to watch them disappearingand emerging through the open skylight, setting up their melting-pot,arranging their sheets of tin.

  Before she was out of bed next morning they were making a metallicclatter with their hammers. In her normal state, Susannah was a creaturealmost without nerves. She even retained a little of the child'senjoyment of a racket for its own sake. But now--the din annoyed her,annoyed her unspeakably. She crept languidly out of bed, peeped throughthe edge of the curtain. They were just beginning work. It would keep upall day.

  "I can't stand this!" said Susannah aloud; and then began one of herwordless addresses to the miniature.

  "I guess the time has come, anyhow, to strike into pastures new. Behold,Glorious Lutie, your Glorious Susie descending from the high and mightyposition of pampered secretary to that of driven slave. Tomorrow morn Iapply for a job as second girl. If it weren't for this headache, I'd doit today."

  However, the hammering only intensified her headache; she must getoutside. So when the landlady arrived with her breakfast, Susannahinquired for the address of the nearest employment office. She dressed,and descended to the street. As always, of late, she had a shrinking asshe stepped out into the open world of men and women. When she hadcontrolled this, she moved with a curious apathy to the old, batteredground-floor office with yellow signs over its front windows, wheregirls found work at domestic service. Presently, she was registered, wassitting on a long bench with a row of women ranging from slatternly tocheaply smart. She scarcely observed them. That apathy was settlingdeeper about her spirits; her only sensation was her dull headache.Somehow, when she sat still it was not wholly an unpleasant headache.Then the voice of the sharp-faced woman at the desk in the corner calledher name. It tore the veil, woke her as though from sleep. She rose, toface her first chance--a thin, severe woman with a mouth like a steeltrap.

  This first chance furnished no opening, however; neither, as the morningwore away, did several other chances. The process of getting a secondmaid's job was at the same time more difficult and less difficult thanshe had thought. Susannah had forgotten that people always ask servantsfor references. She had supposed her carefully worked out explanationwould cover that situation--that she had been a stenographer inProvidence; that she had come to New York soon after the Armistice wassigned, hoping for a bigger outlook; that the returning soldiers weresnapping up all the jobs; that she had tried again and again for aposition; that her money was fast going; that she had been advised toenter domestic service. Housekeepers from rich establishments and themistresses of small ones interviewed her; but the lack of referenceslaid an impassable barrier. In the afternoon, however, luck changed. Asuburbanite from Jamaica, a round, grizzled, middle-aged woman,desperately in need of a second girl, cut through all the red-tape thathad held the others up. "You're perfectly honest," she saidmeditatively, "about admitting you've had no experience, and you _look_trustworthy."

  "I assure you, madam,"--Susannah was eager, but wary; not too eager. Sheeven laughed a little--"I am honest--so honest that it hurts."

  "The only thing is," her interlocutor went on hesitatingly; "you mustpardon me for putting it so bluntly; but we might as well be open witheach other. I'm afraid you'll feel a little above your position."

  "Well," Susannah responded honestly, "to be straightforward with _you_,I suppose I shall. But I give you my word, I'll never _show_ it. Andthat's the only thing that counts, isn't it?"

  The woman smiled.

  "I must confess I like you," she burst out impulsively. "But how am Igoing to know that you're--all right?"

  Susannah sighed. "I understand your situation perfectly. I don't knowhow you're to know I'm all right--morally or just in the matter of merehonesty. For there's nobody but me to tell you that I'm moral andhonest. And of course I'm prejudiced."

  "Well, anyway I'm going to risk it. I'm engaging you now. It isunderstood--ten dollars a week; and alternate Thursdays and Sundays out.I don't want you until tomorrow because I want my former maid out of thehouse before you come. Now will you promise me that you'll take the ninetrain tomorrow?"

  "I promise," Susannah agreed.

  "But that reminds me," the woman came on another difficulty, "what's toguarantee that you'll stay with me?"

  "I guarantee," Susannah said steadily, "that if you keep to your end ofthe agreement, I'll stay with you at least three months."

  The woman sparkled. "All right, I'll expect you tomorrow on the ninetrain. I'll be there with the Ford to meet you. Here are thedirections." She scribbled busily on a card.

  Susannah walked home as one who treads on air. The veil of apathy hadbroken. And in spite of her headache, which caught her by fits andstarts, her mood broke into a joy so wild that it sent her pirouettingabout the room. "Glorious Lutie, I never felt so happy in my life. Sogayly, grandly, gorgeously, gor-gloriously happy! All my troubles areover. I'm safe." And on the strength of that security, she washed andironed her lavender linen suit. Her headache was better again. Perhapsif she went out now to an early dinner, it might disappear altogether.But how languorous she felt, how indisposed to effort. She would sit andread a while. She opened _Pickwick Papers_ on its last pages. She hadalmost finished the book.

  "I suppose it will be a long time before I have a chance to do any morereading," she meditated. "So I think I'll finish this. You've helped methrough a hard passage in my life, Charles Dickens, and I thank you withall my heart."

  But she could not read. As soon as she sat down by the window andsettled her eyes on the book, the headache returned. The men were stillat work on the roof, hammering away at one corner. Every blow seemed tostrike her skull. Midway of the roof, the skylight yawned open; theirextra tools were laid out beside it. At five o'clock they would quit forthe day. Usually she disliked to have them go. In spite of their noise,she felt that still. They gave her a kind of warm, human sense ofcompanionship. And they had become accustomed to her appearances at thewindow. Their flirtatious first glances had ceased for want ofencouragement. They scarcely seemed to see her when they looked up. Butnow--that hammering at her skull! Susannah suddenly rose and closed thewindow, hot though the day was, against this torrent of sound. As thoughits futile shield would give added protection, she drew the curtain. Inthe dimmed light she sat rocking, her head in her hands. Her face wasfire-hot--why, she wondered-- The hammering stopped. They were solderingnow. They were always doing that; beating the tin sheets into place andstopping to solder them. There would be silence for a time. In a moment,she would open the window for a breath of air on her burning face....

  She started at a knock on her door, low, quick, but abrupt. Before shecould answer, it opened. His face shadowed in the three-quarters light,but his form perfectly outlined, instantly recognizable--stood Warner.Behind Warner was Byan, and behind Byan, O'Hearn.

  All the blood of her heart seemed to strike in one wave on Susannah'saching head, and then to recede. She knew both the tingling of terrorand the numbness of horror. Prickling, stinging darts volleyed her face,her hands, her feet; and yet she seemed to be freezing to stone.

  They came into the room before anyone spoke--Warner first. Byan lolledto a place in the corner; the three-quarters light, filtering throughthe thin fabric of the flimsy, yellow curtain, revealed his cleanprofile, his mysterious half-smile. O'Hearn stood just at the entrance.He did not continue to look at her. His eyes sought the floor.

  Warner was speaking now:

  "Good-evening, Miss Ayer. We have come to finish up that little piece ofbusiness with you. It has been delayed as long as it can be. Pardon usfor breaking in upon you like this. Your landlady tried to preven
t us,but we assured her that you would want to see us. As I think you willwhen you come to your senses and hear what I have to say."

  He stopped, as though awaiting her reply. But Susannah made no answer.She had dropped her eyes now; her hands lay limp in her lap. And in thispause, a curious piece of byplay passed between Warner and O'Hearn. Themaster of this trio caught the glance of his assistant and, with a swiftmotion of three fingers toward the lapel of his coat, gave him that"office" in the underworld sign manual--which means "look things over."O'Hearn, moving so lightly that Susannah scarcely noted his passage,stepped to the window, lifted the edge of the curtain. He took a swift,intent look outside and returned to Warner. His back to Susannah, hespoke with his lips, scarcely vocalizing the words.

  "No getaway there, Boss--straight drop--" he said.

  Warner was speaking again.

  "Your landlady says we may have her parlor for our conference. Wouldn'tyou prefer to make yourself presentable for the street and then join usthere--in about ten minutes, say?"

  Ten minutes--this gave her a chance to play for time--the only chanceshe had. She looked up. Nothing on the clean-cut, pearl-white exteriorof her face gave a clue to the anarchy within; nothing, even, in herblack-fringed, blue gaze the tautly-held scarlet lips. Her fire-brighthead lifted a little higher and she gazed steadily into Warner's eyes,as she spoke in a voice which seemed to her to belong to someone else:

  "I can give you a few minutes, but I have not changed my determination."

  "But I think you will," said Warner. "I really think you will. Before wego, I might remind you that we have been extremely gentle and patientwith you, Miss Ayer. I might also remind you that you have neversucceeded in giving us the slip. You were very clever when you escapedfrom your last lodging. We don't know yet exactly how you did it.Perhaps you will tell us in the course of our little talk thisafternoon. But you were not quite clever enough. You did not figure thatwith such important matters pending, we would have the outside of thehouse watched as well as the inside. So that you may not think ourmeeting this afternoon is accidental, let me remind you that you have anengagement for tomorrow afternoon in Jamaica--to take a job as secondmaid. What we have to offer you this afternoon will probably be soattractive that you will overlook that engagement."

  He paused.

  "I will be with you in ten minutes," said Susannah. She was conscious ofno emotion now--only that her head ached, and that the faded roses inthe old carpet were entwined with forget-me-nots--a thing she had nevernoticed before.

  "Thank you." Warner made her a gallant little bow. "Mr. Byan and I willwait in the parlor. Until we come to an understanding, we shall have tocontinue the old arrangement. It will therefore be necessary for Mr.O'Hearn to watch in the hall. If you do not arrive in ten minutes--thisroom will probably do as well as the parlor. Until then, Miss Ayer!"

  He opened the door, passed out. Byan retreated after him, flashing oneof his pathetically sweet, floating smiles. Susannah looked up now,followed their movements as the felon must follow the movements of theman with the rope. O'Hearn had been standing close to Susannah, hisveiling lashes down. He fell in behind the other two. But before hejoined the file, those lashes came up in a quick glance which stabbedSusannah. His hand came up too. He was pointing to the window. And thenhe spoke two words in a whisper so low that they carried only to theears of Susannah, scarce three feet away--so low that she could not havemade them out but for the exaggerated, expressive movement of his lips.

  "Skylight--quick--" he said. He made for the door in the wake of theother two.

  For the fraction of an instant Susannah did not comprehend. And thensuddenly one of those little intuitive blows which she was alwaysreceiving and ignoring gave, on the hard surface of her mind, a fainttap. This time, she was conscious of it. This time, she trusted itinstantly. This time, it told her what to do.

  "I'll be with you as soon as I get dolled up," she called.

  "That's right," came the suave voice of Warner from the hall.

  She closed the door. She listened while two sets of footsteps descendedthe stairs. She heard a third set, which must be O'Hearn's, retreat fora few paces and then stop. She fell swiftly to work. She put on her hatand cape. She took the miniature, thumbtack and all, from the wall, andput it in her wrist bag. "Help me, Glorious Lutie," she called from thedepths of her soul. "Help me! Help me! Help me! I'm lost if you don'thelp me! I can't do it any more alone."