“Yes. Somebody might happen to be about and try the door, if they saw me in the corridor. I’ll give the usual signal.�
She reached into her black bag to make sure certain things were there. Then she went out and slipped along the corridor on the thick carpet, while Kennedy softly secured her sitting-room door inside.
“I wish Carter would put out that light of his,� she murmured, as she passed his room. “I don’t trust him, and I’d rather think he was asleep.�
She stood again outside Lord Vinton’s door, and as she came near the keyhole, she could distinguish the pungent odor of the narcotic she had sprayed into the bedroom.
It has practically all blown out of the window by this time,� she thought. “If I didn’t know it so well, I don’t suppose I should smell it.�
From the black bag she took out what looked like a pair of long slim scissors, with spreading claws, which could be opened and closed at will.
It was an implement for turning a key in a lock from the opposite side of the door. To police and criminals it is known as an “outsider.�
Gripping the end of the key through the keyhole with the powerful nippers, she turned the key almost as easily as if she had been inside the door.
“So much for that,� she murmured. “But there is the bolt! Well, I guess I can negotiate that.�
She had provided for the inmate of the room obeying the familiar injunction found in all hotel bedrooms nowadays: “Guests will please lock and bolt their doors before retiring for the night.�