She laughed when the Duchess called aloud, "Pat! Where are you? It's Juliet, who loves you." She was so sure that the cry would be answered by silence, for there was a dead man in one room, an unconscious man in another. But there was no laugh left in her when Claremanagh's voice rang out, clear and sane, "Hullo, my darling! Here I am!"
He had been shamming, then! How much had he heard? How much could he tell? How much did he remember?
Juliet flew in the direction of the beloved voice. It was heaven to hear it after the hell she had suffered! There were two doors opposite each other. She tried the first. Locked! But the key was there. It turned, and she threw the door open only to slam it shut with a stifled gasp—for on the bed was a long shape covered with a sheet. It was the body of Markoff, of whom she had heard so much of late from Jack and Sanders, though till now—when he had ceased to live—she'd hardly believed in his existence.
Again Pat called. She realized that he was in the room opposite, and in less than a minute she was with him—in a grey room where a pale Pat lay in a squalid bed. He sat up, a strange, unkempt figure: the immaculate Claremanagh unshaven, his smooth hair rumpled; a torn shirt open at the throat, instead of those smart silk pyjamas in "Futurist" colours which she'd often smiled at and admired!
She rushed into his arms. He was strong enough to clasp her tight. "Oh, my Pat, my dearest one!" she sobbed. "I have you again! Say you're not going to die. Say you still love me!"
"I adore you. And I'm not going to die. Perhaps I came near it. I don't know. But this is new life. And, Juliet—I've got back the pearls far you!"
"Oh—the pearls! I'd forgotten them."
"I hadn't. You see, it meant a lot to me to prove to you that it wasn't I who walked off with them. Darling, I suppose you wouldn't be here now if you didn't know how I got to this place?"
"I know partly. I know you went at night to the Inner Circle office to punish that Beast. And the horrible London man, Piggott—his brother-in-law—struck you from behind——"
"Was it like that? I wasn't sure what happened, and I don't know yet where I am. But since I woke up to things, I've lain still, and listened when they thought I was nothing but a log. I wasn't strong enough to do much. I had to lie low! But there was a row about the pearls. Markoff was here—hiding, I think. How these people got the pearls I haven't made out. They had them, though—and Markoff tried to steal them instead of buying as he'd promised. He fell in a fit or something, and died. I heard a doctor talking—a pal of the people here. The night Markoff died they were squabbling over the pearls, a woman and two men in the next room. I heard them say where they were kept—in the room where they'd put Markoff's body till they could get rid of it. They'd no idea I'd come alive. At last, to-day when they were all out, and the coast clear—it can't have been two hours ago—I struggled up and got the pearls—beneath a loose board in the floor under the carpet. They're inside this mattress now. I was planning how to make my 'getaway' when I heard your voice. Jove! This has been a bad dream. But thank God it's over for us both. You'll have to believe in me when I give you the pearls."