Then, suddenly, far across the crowded lobby, he saw a slender, bare-headed girl in a chinchilla cloak turn hurriedly away from the room-clerk’s desk, holding a key in her white gloved hand.
Before he could take two steps in her direction she had disappeared in the crowd.
He made his way through the packed lobby as best he could amid throngs of people dressed for dinner, theatre, or other gaiety awaiting them somewhere out there in the light-smeared winter fog; but when he arrived at the room clerk’s desk he looked for a chinchilla wrap in vain.
Then he leaned over the desk and said to the clerk in a low voice: “I am a Federal agent from the Department of Justice. Here are my credentials. Now, who was that young woman in chinchilla furs to whom you gave her door key a moment ago?”
The clerk leaned over his counter and, dropping his voice, answered that the lady in question had arrived only that morning from San Francisco; had registered as Madame Aoula Baroulass; and had been given a suite on the fourth floor numbered from 408 to 414.
“Do you mean to arrest her?” added the clerk in a weird whisper.
“I don’t know. Possibly. Have you the master-key?”
The clerk handed it to him without a word; and Cleves hurried to the elevator.
On the fourth floor the matron on duty halted him, but when he murmured an explanation she nodded and laid a finger on her lips.
“Madame has gone to her apartment,” she whispered.
“Has she a servant? Or friends with her?”
“No, sir.... I did see her speak to two foreign looking gentlemen in the elevator when she arrived this morning.”
Cleves nodded; the matron pointed out the direction in silence, and he went rapidly down the carpeted corridor, until he came to a door numbered 408.
For a second only he hesitated, then swiftly fitted the master-key and opened the door.
The room—a bedroom—was brightly lighted; but there was nobody there. The other rooms—dressing closet, bath-room and parlour, all were brilliantly lighted by ceiling fixtures and wall brackets; but there was not a person to be seen in any of the rooms—nor, save for the illumination, was there any visible sign that anybody inhabited the apartment.
Swiftly he searched the apartment from end to end. There was no baggage to be seen, no garments, no toilet articles, no flowers in the vases, no magazines or books, not one article of feminine apparel or of personal bric-a-brac visible in the entire place.