"Well. Somebody relieved the lady of them. That's what's made her busy the rest of the time. Might account for documents being late."
"Say, what are you giving me? Has Pete made a deal on his own?... Pearls instead of papers?"
"Hold the line again for a jiffy, and I'll go through his togs."
"All right. Look sharp."
Clo let the receiver hang loose, and for the third time went down on her knees before the chest of drawers. Thrusting her arm underneath, she passed her hand over the dirty carpet. Lodged against the wall at the back, and in a corner, was something round and hard, a thing which seemed to be about the size of a small filbert. The girl brought it out between thumb and finger, freed it of dust, and saw an immense pearl.
"That settles that!" she said to herself. Peterson was the thief. But had he stolen the envelope as well as the pearls? Oh, if she could only galvanize the dead to speak! But the next best thing was to speak to the telephone. The truth might come from that direction, bit by bit, piecing the different parts of the story together.
Clo, getting to her feet again, was struck with a sudden luminous idea.
"Kit," the woman she was personating, the woman apparently set to watch Peterson, had found out about the pearls. Either she had believed him a traitor to the "gang," or she had wanted the pearls for herself. In either case she had killed him to get them; and one pearl had escaped to tell the tale of its fellows.
Yes, "Kit" had the pearls. But where were they, and where was she? The woman was not in her room, because the telephone bell had been ringing there and she hadn't answered. What if she hadn't been able to get back to her room after the murder? Kit might have locked her door when she came to have a chat with Peterson. It was likely enough there'd be things in her quarters which she wouldn't want a prying chambermaid to see! Perhaps she'd seen Peterson looking at the pearls. Perhaps, when she knocked, he had thrust the broken rope back into his pocket with the loose pearls. Perhaps Kit had put him off his guard, chatting of other things, while he packed. But no, she had caught him unawares when he sat as he was sitting now! Clo pictured her offering to help him pack. He had lolled comfortably while Kit worked. Then, she had come behind him and dealt that frightful blow with the butt of his own pistol. A strong, determined woman, Kit!
Clo remembered how she and Beverley had walked slowly from the corridor of the lift into Peterson's corridor, looking at the numbers over the doors; and remembered how she had said to Angel, "This must be the right way to turn." Even after that, they had paused a moment for Beverley to gather up her failing courage; and if Kit had then been in the act of opening the trunk, she could easily have hidden herself inside before the owners of the voices she heard had turned the corner. It must have given her a beautiful fright when someone sat down on the trunk with a thud! No wonder she had jumped, and made the big box shake!