She sighed. “I guess you don’t trust me.”
“Trust you? Of course, I do. But the truth is, Madame Alia, that it is going to need hard work on my part to find the person to whom the papers belong. I don’t even know his name.” Secretly he condemned himself now, because he had not overcome his scruples and looked at the address on the envelope while he had the chance.
Again she sighed. “Well,” she said, “of course, it’s beyond me. Do you—do you mind my knowing your name?”
“Pardon me,” he said. “I didn’t realize that you didn’t know it already. My name is Robert Orme.”
She looked at him with a smile. “Well, Mr. Orme, I’ll get you out of this. I think I know a way. But you’ll have to do just what I tell you.”
“I depend on you,” he said.
She laid her hand on his shoulder with a friendly pressure. “You’ll have to wait in here a while longer—and you’ll have to keep mighty quiet. I’ve got a circle at three o’clock—a séance. They come once a week, and I can’t well put them off. You see, I work alone. It’s a small circle, and I never liked the idea of helpers; they’re likely to give you away sooner or later. I stretch a curtain across this corner for a cabinet, and they tie me to a chair—and then things happen.” She smiled faintly. “I know you won’t hurt my game.”
“All your secrets are safe with me.” He glanced at the dark interior of the closet.
“I didn’t know any other place to put you,” she said simply. “They’d have got you, if you had went to the hall—Sh-h!” The panel closed and she was away. A moment later he heard her talking with Arima, who apparently had again climbed up to her window.
“Thief must be here,” said Arima. “He not been in hall. My friend know. We see him come in here.”