"Yes. Have the taxi drawn up in front of the hotel, and as it slows down, I'll jump in. Give the chauffeur an order—before he starts—not to stop, you know, but to go on the instant I'm in. A lot may depend on that."
"What mischief have you been up to?" asked the laughing voice, which to Clo, in the room of death, seemed to come from another world.
She shuddered as her eyes turned to the figure in the chair.
"Good-bye!" she said, and hung up the receiver without another word.
Eight minutes! It would take her about three to get out of the room, down the stairs, and to the front door—if all went well. What was she to do with the other five? Now that her mission was ended, she could not stay where she was. She had reached, and almost passed, the limit of her endurance. One idle moment in that place would surely drive her mad! Yet she could not stand in the street, waiting for O'Reilly to come to the rescue. Kit and the man who had talked to Kit might be ready to pounce upon her there.
XXIII
"WHAT'S DONE CAN'T BE UNDONE"
"Don't be frightened, Mums! It's only me, back earlier than I expected," Ellen Blackburne announced herself at the door of her mother's bedroom.
Mrs. Blackburne was propped up in bed, reading Young's "Night Thoughts."