“What time is it?” she said, dully, as if her decision depended on the flight of the hours.
The ruse succeeded. He followed the direction of her straining eyes, and looked at the little clock instead of taking out his own watch.
Like a flash, Elsie tore open the door, found that it opened into a bedroom, with a hall door, and crossing the room in the fewest possible steps, wrenched open the hall door. It was not locked, and she flew through it and down the corridor toward the elevators, of which there were two side by side.
Elsie pushed the bell so violently, that the car came up immediately and she sprang into it, just as Whiting came racing down the hall after her.
He rang, a long steady ring, and though Elsie’s prayers persuaded the girl in the car with her not to go up again, the other car shot past them flying upward.
And now Elsie achieved a master-stroke. Thinking swiftly, she knew Whiting would make the other car drop without a stop, and would await her on the ground floor.
Determined to outwit him, she ordered the girl to stop between floors and change gowns with her.
Willing enough, when Elsie offered her all the money in her bag, and also told her she would be aiding a crime if she refused, the little elevator girl slipped out of her uniform, Elsie dropped off her own gown and in two minutes they were transformed, even the cap of the girl in place of Elsie’s pretty hat, and the hat on the other’s head.
A little bewildered the girl then ran her car on down, without stop.
At the ground floor, acting at Elsie’s orders, the other girl stepped from the car in a furtive, hunted manner, and ran swiftly down a long cross hall,—Whiting, full tilt after her.