Greatly gratified by the advantage he now indisputably held over her, he picked up the hat and approached the door through which she must in another minute emerge.
She did not come.
He waited and waited, and still she did not come. At last, driven by impatience, he ventured to open the door he had previously hesitated to touch and took a quick look in. Girls, girls! nothing but girls! No Madame Duclos anywhere.
Something must have happened to interrupt her escape. Either she had been caught in the attempt by the superintendent or by some one else of equal authority. This, if bad for her, was also bad for him, as a quiet hold-up in the manner he had planned was certainly better than the public one which must now follow.
Sorry for her and sorry for himself, Mr. Gryce returned to the office just as the superintendent entered from the opposite door. He thought the latter looked a little queer, and in an instant he learned why.
"Was the woman you wanted a staid, elderly person, apparently a foreigner?"
"Yes—of French birth, I am told."
"Well, I guess you were all right in distrusting her. She's gone—took a notion that night work didn't agree with her and left without so much as a 'By your leave!' She must have smelt you out in some uncanny way. Too bad! She bade fair to be just the woman we wanted for a very nice part of the work."
"Do you mean she's really out of the building—that you didn't stop her——"
"I didn't know what she was up to, till she was gone. I——"