To go back meant death, and the loss of Beverley's papers. Besides, she had been seen. For once, Clo's wits refused to work. Like a frozen flower, she remained motionless in the window.

The figure in the doorway was that of a man. The light coming from behind made his face a blank for her eyes, but the girl saw that he was taller than O'Reilly and of a different build. Perhaps it was the owner of the suite, he who had gone out with the beautiful woman. The man made no move. He stood in the doorway as if rooted to the floor. "My God!" Clo heard him mutter.

"The fool takes me for a ghost," she thought. "Now's my chance, before he plucks up courage!"

Down came the other white shoe on the carpet with no more noise than a rose-petal falling. Then followed a second of indecision. Should she risk pushing the man aside, and fleeing past him into the hall? No, her touch would break the spell. She must go on with the ghost-play, and vanish in the dark!

Light from outside showed her the open door of an adjoining room. Thence came the draught which had set the curtains blowing. Clo took a few floating steps toward the man, then dodged aside, and disappeared into the room beyond. Softly she closed the communicating door and slid the bolt. Almost opposite where she stood opened a cross passage leading to a wing of the hotel. With a bound she reached it, not daring to look behind, yet listening with the ear of the hunted for the hunter, as she ran. Coming to a staircase the girl plunged down it two steps at a time. On the floor below, however, she ventured to moderate her pace. This was the dinner hour; most of the guests would be in the restaurant, or out of the hotel for the evening; but there would be servants about. Clo forced herself to descend sedately, flight after flight of stairs, not daring to enter a lift. At last, when it seemed that she had come to earth from the top of Jacob's ladder, the stairway ended. Timidly following a passage that opened before her, she ventured into a wide, important hall.

There was a cloakroom in the hall. Ladies were going into it and coming out. Clo heard music in the distance and saw a marble balustrade. This balustrade was for her a landmark. She knew by it that she must have reached the story above the ground floor, and that the large corridor of the cloakroom opened on to a gallery overlooking the main hall. She had glanced up and admired that marble balustrade when she first entered the hotel. She had seen also a wide marble staircase leading up to the gallery. It must be near, she thought, but it was a way of exit to avoid. If O'Reilly were on guard below, or even if he had merely telephoned her description to the office, she and the stolen envelope would be promptly nabbed in the hall below. She had dared too much to be tamely taken now. Mirrors were let into the panels of the wall, and Clo paused before one, pretending to straighten her hat. She wanted time to make up her mind.

The ladies who left their wraps in this upstairs cloakroom must be dining in private rooms on the same floor, she thought. "Out there in the gallery their men will be waiting for them," the girl told herself. "And maybe that's where my man is waiting for me!"

One of these ladies, opening a gold chain bag to pull out her handkerchief, dropped a bit of paper with a number on it—Clo's favourite number, 17. It fluttered close to her feet; she stooped and picked it up. Common sense told her that the numbered slip was a cloakroom check. It might mean salvation. She walked leisurely into the cloakroom, though her nerves were a-jerk like the strings of a jumping-jack. "My cousin has asked me to come and fetch her wrap," she explained to a bored attendant. "There's a draught through the dining room. This is her check."

The woman accepted it without a word. She presently produced a long wrap of black chiffon, lined with blue. "Number seventeen. Here you are, miss." So speaking, she removed the duplicate check, which had been pinned to a frilled hood of the cloak. At sight of that hood a weight lifted from Clo's heart. It was more ornamental than practical, but it would be immensely useful to her. If she had been given her choice of cloaks, she couldn't have done better. Seventeen was bringing her luck.

"Oh, I believe I'd better leave my hat!" she said to the attendant, as if on a second thought. Unsuspiciously the woman took it, pinned a bit of paper to the lining, and handed the duplicate to Clo. "Nobody's got seventeen now, so I'll give it to you again." This seemed a good omen: seventeen for the second time! With the cloak over her arm she sauntered out of the room. Then back she went to the foot of the stairs, where was a quiet niche behind a big, potted palm, and close by was one of those convenient panel mirrors. Thus refuged, Clo slipped into the wrap, and arranged the floppy hood. It was far from becoming, for the frill fell almost to her eyes; but it hid the tell-tale red hair, and showed little of her face save the end of an impudent nose and the tip of a pointed chin. The cloak, made for a taller figure than Clo's, came nearly to her feet, and holding it together the white dress became invisible.

"Now for it!" she thought, like a soldier who goes "over the top" to charge the enemy. Head down, hood flapping, cloak floating, she sailed along the corridor and out into the gallery beyond. Yes, there was the marble staircase, and below was the great, bright hall; but in this disguise she could pass O'Reilly if he had assembled half the detectives in New York. So she tripped down the stairs, sedate, unhurried as the care-free girl whose cloak she had borrowed. Arrived in the hall, she knew her way out, and could hardly subdue the triumph in her voice as she said "Taxi, please," to an attendant porter.

"Where shall I tell him to go, miss?" came the question as she stepped into the cab; and for half a second she hesitated. By a clock she had seen in the hall it was just half-past eight. There would be time to go home, time for Angel to open the envelope and see if the contents were right, time to tell Angel her own adventures, and time to rest before keeping her tryst with Peterson.

She gave the number of the house in Park Avenue where Roger Sands lived. The door of the taxi shut with a reassuring "click." It was heavenly to lean back against the comfortable cushions! She ought to be entirely happy, entirely satisfied. Perhaps it was only reaction after so many hopes and fears, this weight that seemed to press upon her heart. Yet it was an obstinate weight. It grew heavier as the taxi brought her nearer home.