"Mrs. St. Ives, then?"
She made no reply.
The man stared at her uneasily. "That is unfortunate," he said after a moment, as if she had replied to his question. "However, it doesn't matter," with a smile, showing two rows of strong yellow teeth; "I'm an expert mechanic and Mr. St. Ives asked me to step round and take a look at a model he's at work on. It's a piano attachment, and there's some ticklish point about which he wanted my advice. If you'll excuse me," he added blandly, "that is the model just behind you, I think. I'll examine it and make my report to him."
He advanced but Rachel did not alter her position. The colour had fled her cheek, but in her dark eyes a spark had kindled and this grew steadily larger. Until he was within a foot of her, she looked fixedly at the dirty tie that encircled his throat; then as his hand moved to twitch the drapery from the sounding-board, she suddenly lifted a glance in which there was a menacing fury.
His arm dropped and a tremour passed over him similar to the quivering that agitates the hide of an animal unexpectedly checked in a spring. For a perceptible space, while the clock ticked monotonously through the quiet room, measuring off the silence, he stood with his chin thrust forward. Then an ugly expression crossed his face and the veins swelled in his forehead.
"I don't want to touch a lady, of course," he said in an under voice, "but I came to examine that model and I'm going to examine it. As for you," and it was as if an oath spilled with the words, "you stand out of the way. Won't eh?" he exclaimed.
He shot out a hand.
But at that moment he was seized from behind by a pair of powerful arms. Fairly growling with rage, Ding Dong dragged the intruder to his knees and the two rolled on the floor. The confusion caused by the scuffle was terrific. Lulu, scudding to the top of the organ, uttered shriek after shriek as she grasped frantically at her breast with both hands. Skirting the heaving forms, Rachel fled down to the street.
But one idea stood out in her mind. As it chanced, an officer was lounging near the doorway and she plucked his sleeve. "Go—go up there!" she cried, "St. Ives's workroom—a thief has just entered!"
Before she had finished the officer was mounting the stairs.